It didn’t explain the door with the mirror, though. Draven decided he would arise early, before dark fell completely. He’d go to the clearing and watch, see who lived there, what they did so far from the comforts of Superior society. When things quieted as they had the night before, he could befriend the dogs, perhaps feed them some of the freeze-dried food he had purchased for Cali. Then he’d use the back door. He didn’t care if nothing he wanted waited inside. He only wanted to know he could do it, that it wouldn’t be mysteriously blocked to him like the front door. He would find out what was in that house, one way or another.
6
“What’s gotten into them dogs this time?” Sally asked when her father returned.
“Nothing, so far as I can tell,” he said, stamping off his boots.
“They’re the stupidest blasted dogs I ever seen,” Larry said. “Darn things’d bark at a pinecone, I swear. I’ll go check it out later, see if I can’t see some sort of tracks.”
“Probably just a deer,” Sally said.
“Probably just the wind,” Larry muttered, then went back to his breakfast.
“So why you wanna check it out? What, you tired of fiddling around with your empty cage?”
“Shut up, sister. ‘Sides, there ain’t nothing better to do. Maybe I’ll shoot something for supper.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen. ‘Bout same day I turn into a bloodsucker and come suck all y’all’s blood.” Sally made a growling sound, and her brother kicked her shin under the table.
“That ain’t funny, Sally. You know Mama hears you, she’ll drop dead in her tracks.”
“I hate to break up y’all’s little bonding ritual,” Pappy broke in. “But we got some work to do getting the roof cleared off so as we can get a little bit of electric up in this damn house. Now, soon as breakfast is over, we’re all getting on our work clothes and heading up. I’ll go round up some tools. Y’all two hurry it up.”
After breakfast, Sally and Larry headed out after their Pappy. “Either of you seen the lightest shovel?” Pappy asked. “I can’t find it nowheres.”
“I mighta been using it yesterday,” Sally said.
“Dammit, girl, how many times I got to tell you to put the tools back where you got them? You leave that shovel lying out in the snow to rot?”
“No, Pappy, I didn’t. I know exactly where it is. I’ll grab it right now,” Sally said, heading around the shed. She’d been using the shovel right near the wood stack to clear a path to the driest rick. She’d brought in an armload of wood and meant to go back out and put the shovel away, but she’d started playing with one of the puppies and forgotten all about the blasted shovel.
But now it wasn’t there.
She looked around in case she’d forgotten exactly where she’d left it leaning, and then she looked around the area in case it had fallen down and sunk into the snow. But the dang thing had just up and disappeared. She went back around to her father. “I can’t find it. I swear to you I left it right by the wood stack. I swear it.”
“Then what you think happened to it? It grew some legs and up and walked away?”
“I don’t know. I reckon I carried it in the house or put it somewhere else without paying no mind.”
“Dammit, Sally. How many times have I got to tell you…”
“I know. I’ll find it, I swear I will. Let’s just get the roof done, and I’ll spend all day looking if I have to. I know we can’t afford to lose nothing.”
“You’re damn right. Now you’ll spend every day looking for that shovel until it’s hanging back in the shed where it belongs. I don’t care if it walks back there its own self, neither, long as it’s there.”
They started up the ladder to the roof. “Larry, I swear I will dismember you if you had something to do with this,” Sally said. It would be just like him, too. He’d probably seen the shovel out by the woodpile and known she left it out. He was just mean enough to take it to teach her a lesson. Who knew how long he’d let her sweat thinking she’d lost it. Could be hours, could be weeks. He’d sit in the house laughing while she worked circles through the yard looking for it. Maybe he’d even buried it in the snow somewheres, and she’d have to keep digging around the yard ‘til she found it.
“I ain’t seen no shovel,” Larry said, stepping off the ladder onto the roof. “But maybe if you didn’t leave stuff lying around all the time, it wouldn’t keep getting lost.”
“Gol-darn it, Larry. I find that shovel and find out you moved it on me, I’m gonna hit you upside the head with it so hard you can’t walk straight for a week.”
It took the three of them near all day to clear the solar panels. The sun shone bright, though, which made the work more enjoyable. Sally liked working outside, and she did good. She had a muscular build, and years of hard work had hardened her body into something she was proud of. Maybe she weren’t the best looking girl around, but she was capable of doing the job of any woman—or man—she knew.
In the afternoon, Sally and the two men came down from the roof and ate some leftover stew for supper. When they’d finished, Larry said, “I think I’ll take off with the dogs and see if there’s anything to shoot out in the woods around here.”
“I think I’ll go with you,” Sally said. “Case you’re up to something with that shovel.”
“You ain’t coming. You gotta stay here and look for it. Right, Pappy?”
Pappy looked back and forth between the two of them. “Larry, you take that shovel and do something with it? Because if you did, you’re in as much trouble as your sister. We needed that today.”
“I didn’t do nothing with it, I swears,” Larry said. “I just wanna see if them were deers the dogs was barking at last night. I might track them for a while, see which way they’s coming from. Maybe I’ll stay up tonight and see if I can’t shoot one when it comes in our yard.”
“A deer would be nice to have around for cooking,” Mama said.
“All right, y’all get on out,” Pappy said. “I’m tired of looking at the both of you. If that shovel don’t show up in the next few days, Sally…”
“I’m sure we’ll find it, Pappy.”
“You better hope so.”
“Really, Pap?” Larry said. “You gonna send me out with this clumsy big-foot? She’ll scare all the animals into next week.”
“Shut your trap, Larry,” Sally said. “I know what you’re up to, and I’m coming with you. ‘Sides, if you shoot a deer, I’ll help you carry it back.”
“Fine, but I’ll never get nothing with you tagging along.”
After bundling up, the pair headed out into the snow. Larry called the dogs out, and Sally petted and scratched the puppies behind their ears. ‘Course they weren’t really puppies—they were near six months old. But they were still puppies in Sally’s eyes. She loved dogs as much as any other animal, and pretty soon she started rolling around in the snow with them. Larry ignored her and stalked off into the woods so she had to run to catch up.
“Walk careful,” Larry snapped. “You’re fixing to mess up any tracks out here.”
“I don’t see no tracks,” Sally said.
“Then open your eyes and help me look.”
They criss-crossed the area at the edge of the tree line and found no sign of fresh animal tracks. “What we gonna do now?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know,” Larry said, sighing. He put the butt of his rifle on the ground and leaned on it. The walk around the property seemed to have cooled him off a smidge. “I was really hoping there’d be deer tracks. Even bear.”
“Yeah, me too, Lar. I was thinking about some deer bacon.”
“Deer stew.”
“Deer jerky.”
“Fried deer with onions and taters.”
They walked back along the tree line towards the house. “What you reckon the dogs were barking at?” Sally asked.
“Probably that pine cone I told you about earlier.”
“Hey, look. They’re sniffing around someth
ing up there.”
The two of them caught up with the dogs. The dogs were circling and sniffing at some footprints in the snow. “Yeah, it’s nothing,” Larry said. “Those are just people tracks. I swear we got the dumbest pair of mongrels I ever seen.”
“Yeah, but…who walked off into the woods?”
Larry and Sally looked at each other. Sally had an uneasy sort of feeling, but Larry just shrugged. “I dunno. Probably Uncle Tom going off to his meeting last night.”
“But he’d follow the old road. That’s on the east side of the house. Ain’t nothing west of us.”
“Then somebody probably went off to take a leak.”
Sally scoffed. “Like you ever took the trouble to even go behind a tree. You can think the dogs are stupid all you like, but I’m following them. Come on, pups.”
The dogs bounded through the snow, wagging their tails in the happy way they did when they got permission to follow a scent. They weren’t tracking dogs, but Sally reckoned they’d do as good as any dogs. She looked back to see Larry standing at the tree line watching them, but pretty soon he caught up with her.
“Thought you weren’t coming,” she said.
“I thought you only came out to follow me around hoping I’d find your shovel.”
Neither spoke for a while as they waded through the snow after the dogs. They’d gone maybe half a mile when Sally stopped. “I don’t know, Larry. This don’t feel right to me. I mean, who in tarnation comes walking out this far in the snow? You paying attention to the tracks?”
“I think the dogs done messed them up by now.”
“Well I am. Back by the house? They’s regular old footprints. ‘Bout half way to here, they switched to snowshoes it looks like. I think somebody’s been staking out the house, that’s what I think.”
“You got that paranoia, sister. Been reading them crime books again, ain’t you? Ain’t nobody been staking out the house or we’d know it. Even our worthless dogs would have barked more’n that if someone was hanging around.”
“Maybe someone’s been giving them treats and petting them until they don’t bark at ‘em no more.”
“I still think you’re crazier than a henhouse when a fox walks in, but I got another question. How comes there’s only one set of footprints?”
“They sent in a scout, I reckon. You think it’s them bloodsuckers from Princeton?”
“No, I mean, how come there’s only a set of tracks going this way? Ain’t one going towards the house.”
“Well…I guess they had to circle around. Probably come in the other side, hoping to confuse us if we tried to find them.”
“You read too many of them detective novels.”
“Least I read something. You probably don’t even remember how.”
“You reckon we’re walking into a trap?” Larry asked after a pause. They’d lost sight of the dogs.
“I don’t rightly know. Could be a runaway found their way here, but then why would they leave and go all this way instead of stopping at the house?”
“Maybe they came by and didn’t see no lights or smoke and thought the house was deserted, and they kept going.”
Sally was about to answer when she was cut off by the barking of dogs. She wanted to take Larry’s hand like she’d done when they was little, but weren’t no way she was going to admit to being scared now. She’d never hear the end of it.
“Holy smokes,” Larry said, and whistled softly. The dogs stood barking at a disturbance in the surface of the snow. “Come off, dogs,” Larry said, and they stepped back, whining and dancing around, eager to go in again.
“Reckon someone fell through into this drift?” Sally asked in a small voice.
“I reckon you best get back home fast as you can and come back with some snowshoes and some stakes. Ain’t nobody gonna be staking out our house tonight, but I may be doing some staking of my own.”
“Now Larry, why would a bloodsucker come by our house and…hey, ain’t that my shovel?”
“Sis, you best get home fast as your feet’ll carry you.”
“Me? Why me?”
“’Cause I got the rifle.”
“They can heal from a bullet.”
“Yeah, but it’ll take a while if I get the leech in the face. Now go on, and bring back what I asked. And a tarp and the steel chains. They’re in the shed, in the cage. And leave the cage open, and bring the key with you. And Sally? You better hurry. I don’t wanna be out here when the sun goes down.” Larry shivered and looked at Sally, and she shivered too, like it was contagious.
She looked at the sun. “Shoot, Larry. Come on back with me. It’ll still be here when we get back. What if something happens to you while I’m gone?”
“Ain’t nothing gonna happen if you hurry. I’ll be right here. Now go.”
“How do you even know it’s one of them?”
“You see any tracks going anywhere else? Me, neither. Whatever it is, it’s in the ground. A rifle’ll take care of anything but a bloodsucker, and a stake’ll take care of that. Now go get one, ‘fore I take the rifle to you.”
“Want me to bring back Pappy and Tom?”
“No. Just the stuff I asked for.”
“How come?” Sally asked. She wanted as many people out there as she could find if a bloodsucker really had holed up in the ground. One of them could take down a whole handful of people without breaking a sweat.
“’Cause Pappy and Tom’ll kill it. You and me can drag it back on the tarp once it’s bound.”
“But after Angela…I mean, don’t you wanna kill it?”
“Yeah, but not yet. First I’m gonna make it suffer.”
Part Two
CAPTIVITY
7
Upon waking, Draven immediately knew something was amiss. He shouldn’t have woken yet. Something had touched him, or he’d heard a noise. Something had awakened him. When he heard their voices, he sat bolt upright, still wrapped like a mummy in his layers of blankets and the light-proof sleep sack. And then he was trapped.
Something circled him and pinned his arms, and he couldn’t pull the covering from his face to see. He attempted to throw off the chains that bound him, but he could not break them. He tried again. He could break nearly anything. But not this.
“Stop.” Layers of fabric muffled his voice. “Let me go. I have done you no wrong.”
“It’s talking,” a male voice said. “If you move, we’ll drive a stake through your heart. Now, you just sit there nice and still-like.”
Draven sat still, but his mind raced. He could have run if his legs weren’t bound by the sleeping sack. He could kick out and tear it quickly enough. But if they had stakes… He didn’t doubt it. They began rolling him, and he lost whatever chance he had at escape. Now steel chains as well as blankets wound about him. Steel—the only material strong enough to hold him as these chains did.
“Please, uncover my face,” he said, not sure what to say but wanting to extend his time. If they meant to kill him, why did they not simply kill him? And if they didn’t want that, perhaps he could talk his way out of it. He’d talked his way through a trial once. If he could convince a panel of Enforcers, certainly he could convince two…humans.
“Don’t think so, buddy,” one of them said. “Then you’ll see our faces, and just in case you try and escape, we don’t want you knowing us.”
“I will know you.”
“You don’t know squat. You surely made it easy for us, wrapping up like a feedsack all ready to go. A feedsack. Get it? ‘Cause that’s all we are to you anyway, ain’t it?”
A bloodbag. That’s what some Superiors called them.
“I know you are a male of mature age, physically fit. Your companion is female, your sister, of similar age and condition. And you have two dogs with you.”
“Dang, girl. I knowed they could smell real good, but how’s he know what age we are?”
“I told you he’d been staking out the house.”
“No,” Drav
en said quickly. “I have not. I stumbled upon it last night, and I left in peace. I mean you no harm. I only wish to go on my way. Please let me go.”
“Nice try there. But again, I don’t think so. You’ll go running on back to Princeton and lead them bloodsuckers out here to kill us all.”
“I have never heard of this place, and I will never mention you or your home and family if you let me go.”
“Maybe we ought’a uncover his face. I mean, what if it can’t breathe?” the female asked.
“You’re a blasted fool sometimes. Course he can’t breathe—they don’t never breathe.”
Draven wondered what they meant to do with him, why they took him. Did they want something from him? He’d come so far, gone through so much, and now he’d never get his girl. He’d get staked by a human instead of getting to buy his human. If he had to die in such an undignified way, at least no one would know. But if he’d chosen a way to end, well, he wouldn’t have chosen this. And if he had no choice in the manner of death, at least he’d want to know the sapien who staked him. He’d never harmed these saps. He’d never even seen them. If a sap were to stake him to death, it ought to be Cali. She had reason enough to despise him.
The saps pulled the plastic tarp across the snow with Draven lying bound upon it. A few times times, he bounced and rolled off the tarp, and the humans rolled him back on and continued. He tried to think of a way to free himself, something to say that would convince them. But he could think of nothing except that they must have drawn near the house by now, and that would likely bring an end to his thinking. Though he tried to talk himself out his mounting fear, when they stopped, it rose to cover every thought like the snow blanketing the world around them.
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