“I hate that you’re right.”
“What are you thinking about?” Madison asked. She could read the frustration on Hailey’s face. “That loser?”
“No, I haven’t given him a second’s thought. But those guys from yesterday. Have you seen them today?”
“No,” Madison answered. “It’s like they just come and go as they please. Sightings of them are seldom.”
“Why’s that?” Hailey asked.
“Who knows?”
Without much more conversation, they went their separate ways to attend class. The first of many high school bells was to ring in mere minutes.
***
Meanwhile, on the East Wing, Mason and Alex chained their bicycles to the bike rack near the side of the school. They were headed toward one of the side entrance doors.
“Where you two going?” a voice called out.
Mason and Alex turned around right before they reached the doors. Two greasy haired older boys, both taller than Mason and Alex, quickly approached them.
“Not you two,” Alex sighed. And before he knew it, his tormentor Jason Richly had pinned him against a brick wall.
Mason swung at the bully. His punch connected but the guy didn’t flinch. Immediately the other bully, Harry Fletch, grabbed Mason by his shirt and shoved him against the same wall as Alex.
“Where you two pussies headed?” Harry spat, squinting his already too small beady black eyes.
“Get the hell off me,” Alex spat after Jason pressed his large forearm against the boy’s neck.
“You look like a mutt, boy,” Harry said as he held Mason. “You got a white parent that likes breeding with dark folk or something?”
“Screw you,” Mason coughed. “Get off me!”
“And where’s that Mexican boy at?” Harry gruffed. “I swear as soon as I find him I’ll fuck him up just for being in this country.”
Jason tossed Alex threw to the ground. Then he stumbled back, clutching his head after being hit. He turned around and caught sight of Matthew. The bully retreated. Matthew turned to Harry and clocked him just the same, forcing him to let go of Mason. The two ninth grade boys scurried like rats.
“We’re not fuckin’ done with y’all!” Harry yelled to them.
“Go to hell, jackasses!” Matthew said before turning his attention to Mason and helping Alex off the ground.
“Assholes!” Mason yelled back, as soon as he was sure they were gone.
“I remember them in middle school,” Matthew told them and coughed. “Those two idiots are all talk. But I’m not feeling too well today.”
“You think they’ll come around again?” Alex asked. “I kinda don’t like being pinned against the wall. I don’t even want to talk about what his breathe smelled like. Dog crap.”
Matthew and Mason howled.
“They’re a nuisance, for sure,” Matthew said. He coughed again.
“You need to get that cough checked on,” Alex told him.
“Yeah but never mind that. They’ll move targets soon enough,” Matthew tried to assure them. “At least I hope so.”
Chapter 3
Tuesday passed without much fanfare. Things proved to be especially quiet for the Sheriff’s Department. There were very few emergency calls. And no more leads on the incident that occurred Sunday night.
Truth be told, it was far from the open and shut case that Sheriff Zeddman made it seem during his appearance on the local radio show.
“But, sir,” Deputy Coleman spoke when they were alone in Zeddman’s office. “We both know the body drainin’ was more than just a rumor. I frankly don’t know why you’d go on a local radio show just to spread disinformation.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Zeddman asked him angrily. “Last time I checked, only my name with Sheriff. I’m the one who has to answer for solving every crime that occurs in a town that only half accepts me. It’s a job that never ends so don’t you dare antagonize me. I am the Sheriff of Corpus, Georgia. Besieged with immeasurable authority. And just as much heartache. I give them as much information as they needed to know.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir. I know the pushback is hard. But we owe truth to our citizens. Justice.”
“Justice?” Zeddman scoffed. “Justice is owed to the families who are missing their loved ones. Not rubberneckers who latch from one tragedy to another. But mostly, do we need the entire town worried about a freak accident, Coleman?”
“A freak accident? Sir, blood don’t get methodically drained from a body by accident. And the puncture wounds on their neck.”
“The wounds were from animal bites. That further proves our theory that this was the work of a pack of wild animals. As for the blood being drained, it’s an open investigation.”
“God help us, Sheriff.”
“The truth, Deputy, is that I don’t have any earthly idea what went on or how it happened.”
“They’re already using this as a hit piece against you, sir.”
“They’re worse than the animals who’s committed this crime,” the sheriff hawed. “Wolves, eh?”
“Well, sir. To be frank… I ain’t ever seen any wolves ’round here.”
Before Sheriff Zeddman could respond, his attention was diverted to a knock at the door.
“Come in!” he shouted to the person on the other side.
It was another deputy.
“Sir, we’re heading down to Oglethorpe Street. A business called about a break in.”
“Another one? First the diner now this! What’s gotten into the water in Corpus.” The Sheriff shook his head. “I’m sure the papers will be blaming me for this one too.”
“You are Corpus’s Obama, after all,” Deputy Coleman laughed. The Sheriff’s daggered eyes immediately wiped the smirk from his face.
Fifteen minutes later he was exiting his cruiser on Oglethorpe Street. He now stood in front of a large black bus. ‘Bloodmobile’ painted upon the side.
“Right here, sir,” said a deputy who directed Sheriff Zeddman to a woman dressed in scrubs. She stood near the bus and greeted the sheriff.
“Hello, Sheriff,” said the medical worker.
“Howdy, Antwan Zeddman,” he said, shaking her hand.
“I’m Christine Gunner, Registered Nurse and manager of this Red Cross Bloodmobile.”
“How can I help you, Nurse Gunner?”
“Well, we had a break-in last night.”
“A break-in,” repeated Deputy Coleman, almost tripping over his feet.
Zeddman looked over his shoulder and noticed his boneheaded deputy had just arrived.
“I’m afraid I’m just as dismayed as my deputy,” Sheriff Zeddman told the nurse.
“I’ve been doing this for twenty years, Sheriff,” she replied. “And I can promise you this is the first time I’ve ever had someone break into a bloodmobile.”
“Seems like there’s a first for everything these days,” Zeddman told her.
“They broke the lock on the door clean off. Ripped it off it’s hinges,” she said.
“Start from the beginning,” the sheriff suggested.
“We had a solid day yesterday,” the nurse began. “Yesterday was our third day. We were going to do one more day today then leave for a neighboring town. We had about sixty sealed pints of blood, all stored on ice.”
Coleman whipped out his notepad. He licked his thumb and used it to swipe to a fresh page – then jotted furiously.
“Sixty pints, you say,” the sheriff repeated.
“Yes, sir,” the Nurse nodded. “Well. We closed up shop yesterday around six in the evening. Left the bus here. I got here this morning along with a co-worker and we discovered the handle had been ripped right off the door.”
“Handle… ripped… right… off… door,” Coleman repeated in a whisper as he wrote.
“We looked around and everything looked normal at first,” the nurse told them.
“I’m assuming there’s no cash registers or
anything. This is all voluntary,” Zeddman said.
“That’s correct,” the nurse nodded. “No register. No exchange of money whatsoever.”
“No… exchange… of… money,” Deputy Coleman continued to repeat under his breath as he jotted in his notepad.
“So at first I assumed it must have been some bored vandals. When I walked onto the bus, nothing was out of place. Everything was where it normally is. But well, then I opened the freezer, and wham.”
The nurse led the sheriff and his deputies into the bloodmobile. It was a tight squeeze for all of them. There were several seats. Various medical instruments placed along racks. Toward the back of the bus was a freezer.
“Right over here,” the nurse said.
They approached the freezer and the nurse pulled it open. It contained only a few sealed pints of blood.
“There’s four pints left behind,” Sheriff Zeddman said, assessing the freezer.
“Yes, sir. They took fifty-six pints of frozen blood,” the nurse nodded. “We test all our blood before it goes out to hospitals. So we’ll still be testing these remaining four pints. What a waste I tell you. Stealing from a blood bank on wheels. What kind of a nuisance would do that?”
“But why?” Sheriff Zeddman asked himself, not realizing he’d said it aloud.
“Perhaps for some sort of do-it-yourself at home operation,” the nurse suggested. “It’s not unheard of.”
“Or,” Deputy Coleman gulped. “Sum kinda ritual cult usage. The kind of stuff I prefer not to think about as I lay down at night.”
“Surely not in Corpus,” Sheriff Zeddman said disconcertedly. “But something very strange has been going on around here. And well – it doesn’t need to continue.”
An hour later, Zeddman and Coleman were seated in the Grits ’n’ Gravy Diner for lunch, mulling over the mystery of the stolen blood.
“Just don’t make no sense,” Coleman shook his head.
“What if these things are connected, Deputy?” the Sheriff asked him as an elderly waitress sat a mug full of coffee in front of each of them.
“I’ll be right back, gentlemen,” the words landed with a rasp from the waitress’s voice.
“If what’s connected, Sheriff?” the deputy asked, returning to their conversation.
“The theft at the mobile blood bank,” the sheriff told him, “and the theft right here at the diner. Neither theft involved money. That’s the connection. Or lack thereof.”
“If they were connected and that was the case… if it were true, and I’m not saying it is… but if it were…,” the deputy said as he took a gulp of coffee. “Then we got someone going ’round Corpus stealing steaks ’n’ blood.”
“For what reason?” the sheriff asked, not expecting an answer. “Food?”
“I ain’t ‘ever heard of no one cooking with human blood,” Deputy Coleman shook his head.
“No, not cooking. People don’t cook with blood. It’s not exactly a seasoning.”
“So, yer saying Sheriff, if it was blood they were interested in, they wouldn’t be cooking.”
“Some other usage, perhaps. Other than human consumption,” Zeddman suggested.
The deputy tried to follow along. “If you’re cooking the steaks because it’s the blood you’re interested in, then you’d prepare it rare.”
“Yes, but that’s if you’ve prepared it at all. Forget the cooking. Nobody cooks using human blood unless your name is Hannibal the Cannibal. And I don’t think that’s in the cards. Think about the sequence of events.”
“I’m all ears,” the Deputy said. “And I’m just as interested in knowing where that waitress went.”
“First they broke in the diner and stole the steaks,” Sheriff Zeddman began to elaborate. “They used the steaks to feed their pack of rabid coyotes or wolves or whatever the hell they are. But frozen steaks don’t have enough blood in ‘em. Not to satisfy whatever kill beasts they’re feeding.”
“So they break into the bloodmobile,” said the deputy. “In order to feed human blood to whatever savage animals they got with ’em.”
“A very possible scenario,” the Sheriff said.
“Oh my sweet Davey Crocket in a pocket!” Deputy Coleman exclaimed, as if he’d just discovered the lightbulb. “I just realized something!”
“What!?” the Sheriff said curiously, wondering if Coleman was experiencing another more common-than-not dunce moment.
“You said sequence of events, Sheriff.”
“I did.”
“What if this here diner break-in wasn’t the first set of events in this here story.”
“I’m listening.”
“The couple on Old… Mill’s… Road…” Deputy Coleman said and slammed his palm on the diner table.
“They were drained of their…” the sheriff started.
“Blood, Sheriff!” Deputy Coleman yelled in a whisper.
“You actually said something sensible, Deputy,” the sheriff told him. “We said these people in question might be using animals. That was our theory at the time. It made the most sense. What animal has black fur and can slaughter and impale human beings?”
“Bears?” Coleman asked.
“I’ve never seen or heard of a bear sinking their teeth into someone’s neck.”
“To be fair, Sheriff. I ain’t ever heard of a wolf impaling nobody.”
“Well, let’s just find out.”
The Sheriff pulled out a phone from his jacket pocket and dialed a contact. “Sheriff speaking. Transformer me to forensics.”
“How may I help you, officers?” the old waitress asked as she approached their table.
“Give us one more moment,” Deputy Coleman said, pointing to the sheriff on his phone.
“I’ll have my waitress-in-training come over in a moment then,” she smiled, showing a mouth missing far too many teeth.
“Thank you,” Coleman said to the waitress as she walked away.
The Sheriff nodded with a series of mhm’s before thanking the person on the other end of the line and ending the call.
“What’d they say, Sheriff?” Coleman asked him.
“They asked me to drop by the morgue Saturday morning. Dr Price is taking the next several days off. He won’t have a report until then. But the animal fur is still likely from a wolf.”
Coleman spoke. “So we got some maniac with a pack of wolves runnin’ ‘round Corpus feedin’ blood to his blood hounds.”
“I’m not sure it’s that simple,” Sheriff told him. “Theft is one thing. Breaking and entering is one thing. If animals were ordered to attack a couple abandoned on the road – well… not we’re looking at a good ol’ fashioned double homicide.
Before their conversation could continue any further, the sheriff lost every thought of nabbing a murderer he’d ever had – when he laid eyes on the new waitress. She was gorgeous, she graceful – she was Mel Lane – and she’d just damn near dropped a hot pot of coffee before catching herself.
“Sorry! I’m just getting the hang of this,” she said while balancing the coffee pot on a tray. “What can I do for you two Sheriffs?”
“Well, I’m the Sheriff,” Zeddman said coolly, “and this is here one of my deputies.”
“Of course,” Coleman rolled his eyes.
“I’m Melanie, or you can just call me Mel for short. I remember seeing you here, Sheriff, when Mr Ford interviewed me.”
“So it was. Well, we’re just here for a little lunch now. It’s nice to see you again, Mel,” Zeddman smiled.
The sheriff and deputy ordered their break-for-lunch meals and went about their break. The eggs and grits and bacon and sweet buttermilk biscuits were as good as ever. On the other hand, the theft, and now, possible homicide weighed in the back of the sheriff’s mind – but toward the front was the thought of Mel. Now that is a pretty lady.
***
Mason was upset when he arrived home. Bullies were cruel. Racist ones were worse. Dissatisfaction was etched deep in his
face when he tossed his backpack onto the floor and made his way up the stairs.
“Mason, what’s wrong?” Mel asked him as she peaked into the hallway. “Why are you looking like that?”
“Like what?” he stopped in the hallway and groaned.
“Like you’re really upset,” she answered.
“It’s just… as soon as something seems to be going okay here,” he began.
“Yes?” she asked. “What happened?”
“It’s like everything gets worse instead of getting better. The crap I have to hear. Like being called a mutt. I hate that word. And asking me if I have a white parent that likes to breed with black people.”
For the first time since his arrival, he was not only upset but furious. Mel hugged him as tight as she could.
“You can’t let those words get to you, Mason,” she said as she embraced him. “This is a small town and there’s a lot of people, young and old, who have a hard time letting go of the past and the way they think things should be.”
“I hate ’em,” Mason told her.
“And I’m not mad at you for feeling that way. This town may not be used to who we are, but imagine if we just backed down and left. We’d let them win. They’d never change. The only way to make any kind of real difference is to be in their face, let ’em know you exist. They can’t hate you or ignore you forever. And know you are so beautiful just the way you are.”
Finally she let go of him and continued talking. “Just take a look at the first black Sheriff in Corpus. Can you imagine the type of hell he gets? Just turn on the radio. Now he could back down and retreat. But would that make anyone accept him? I like to think of you like that.”
“Never back down,” Mason said, wiping his eyes.
“Exactly, baby,” Mel winked. “Never back down.”
Friday fast approached with a quietness that was indicative of an average week in Corpus, Georgia.
Mel got into the groove of her new job. The Sheriff had no more stranger-than-usual 911 calls. Mason didn’t encounter either of the bullies, only occasionally catching a glimpse of them as they’d cross the cafeteria. All the way down to the West Wing.
Hailey went the next few days noticing Charlie Ray doing his hardest to look away from her in class. She was so over this guy. By Friday morning he was nothing more than an awkward fleeting thought.
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