by Alison Fish
Chapter 18
Deep inside the dark stillness of the church cellar, Amy and Ruthie woke to the musty chill of the autumn evening. Although silence pervaded the air as they prepared to go out, church members would soon gather above for one of the regular evening meetings and events that occurred in the church during the week.
"Let's pass by the mill where all the killings occurred last night to see if the survivors returned to work," Amy suggested as they pulled up their hoods and exited the church into the cool air and entered the shadowy rear churchyard.
"I'm sure the families of those poor trampled people came for the bodies by now," Ruthie assumed Amy was thinking of feeding.
"I don't want to look for blood there," Amy explained, "I want to find out if they returned to work."
"How will you know that by walking by?"
"The mill will be up and running," Amy answered as they passed out of the churchyard and into the adjoining yard.
"That man last night said the mill would be running with or without those people," Ruthie reminded her.
"Do you think they could have found replacements so quickly?"
"That man seemed to think so."
Amy walked without speaking as she considered the situation and spoke up excitedly, "Since chances are nothing exciting will be going on at the same mill, we can explore other mills in town. There must be unhappy employees at the other mills as well. What do you think, Ruthie?"
"Last night was one of the most horrible experiences of my life, Amy. Do you really want to be a witness to more of that?"
"We had an easy feed last night and another opportunity like that one would be wonderful."
"I'd rather feed off rats on the docks than see all that senseless murdering again."
Sighing, Amy relented, "All right, Ruthie we can go to the docks to feed. Maybe I'll find a good victim there, but if not, we'll visit another mill in the area."
"You can always find yourself a victim on the docks, Amy."
"I wholeheartedly agree with you, Ruthie," Amy smiled, "I can find a victim anywhere."
A thin fog shrouded the waterfront as they stepped across the railroad tracks toward the crowded docks. Men still worked unloading cargo on several ships that had come in earlier in the evening. Some ships would reload and deliver goods elsewhere and some would return to their homeport to reload there. The remaining men on the ships were still aboard preparing to take on a new load or to perform maintenance for the return trip. Amy and Ruthie kept hidden from those men as Ruthie considered these hard working sober men to be unworthy of becoming victims. There were plenty of other men more deserving of having their blood drained.
Wharves, shipyards and warehouses stretched along a mile or so of the waterfront, making the hunting ground varied and wide. Therefore, the vampires never needed to hunt the same area two nights in a row. Sometimes when they found one area to contain many potential victims, like the train station or the filthy destitute neighborhood on the east side they would frequent the area regularly, but not much time was spent where victims were few, like near the warehouses.
Rats, being more plentiful than men who fulfilled the required qualities of a potential victim at this time of the evening, allowed Ruthie more opportunities to find and drain her victims before Amy hers. Bloodless rat corpses plopped into the river as Ruthie tossed them from the dock while Amy glanced around the area looking for a victim beyond the warehouse that protected them from observation within its looming shadow.
"Let's go to the railroad station," Amy suggested as she gazed in that direction, "perhaps a new arrival will serve as my dinner tonight."
Ruthie shook her head in sadness for the innocent man who would become Amy's victim of the evening. However, when the train arrived, no one disembarked to Amy's disappointment. Still, Ruthie found no relief for her sadness, knowing Amy would find a victim someplace else.
"Apparently my desire to visit some of the other mills in town will be fulfilled," Amy announced as the train pulled away from the station filling the brisk autumn sky with clouds of black smoke and the slow chug of the engine as it picked up speed on its way north to the next town.
"Apparently," Ruthie reluctantly agreed as they moved from the darkness alongside the railroad station toward the city streets.
A few blocks away from their former lair at Amy's parents' house a large brick factory was just letting out for the evening. Unlike the cotton gin factory the vampires visited the previous night, this coffee mill factory didn't have the need to run around the clock. When orders were at a maximum, they would temporarily operate through the night, but this was not one of those times.
As Amy and Ruthie stood in the darkness beside the tall dark building, they watched the workers streaming past them on the sidewalk only a few feet away. Exhausted and hungry, the workers moved along like zombies, oblivious of the two living dead stalkers who not only watched them, but also savored the alluring aroma of their warm blood as they passed.
Couples walked together speaking in tired subdued voices, women walked with children while older children, although tired, felt the relief of temporary freedom and roughhoused and teased one another as they passed. Older men and women scolded these youngsters for misbehaving in public, but the scolding which quickly diminished with fatigue had little effect on the kids who had been forced to work from dawn to after dark standing in one place amidst the smoke and dust in the air and the noise and heat from the machinery as a strict demanding supervisor critically watched their every move and rudely shoved them back into place as he worked them hard for maximum production.
"Look how these people walk," Ruthie remarked as she slowly shook her head, "some of them look deader than us."
"Yes," Amy salivated at all the blood passing by, "it would be so easy to reach out and pluck one or two from the sidewalk."
"But we won't," Ruthie raised her voice, "don't forget the agreement we made about leaving hard working people who aren't bothering anyone alone."
"Yes, Ruthie," Amy sighed, "I remember and I'll remind you that Robert and I kept that same rule before I ever met you. That's why we never hunted for blood near the mills before tonight."
"I was just reminding you," Ruthie relaxed, "you were looking awful hungry."
"I am, I am," Any smiled and ran her tongue across her sharp teeth, "but I'm under control."
Soon after, the crowd dwindled down to only a few stragglers who, for one reason or another, weren't able to leave work with the rest of the employees. Just when Amy and Ruthie were stepping out of their dark hideaway assuming there were no opportunities for feeding at this mill, they quickly stepped back when they heard voices of two more stragglers who had stopped to talk before heading home.
"Why was production down in your department today, Harris?" the vampires assumed the interrogator was in a position of authority. They peeked around the corner of the building and saw two men, one with his back to the building and the other with his back to the street. The man with his back to the building was the questioner and he was dressed slightly better than the other man and his posture and mannerisms showed him to be superior to the other.
"Well," the Harris answered, "you know how I just got those new hires this week-most of them boys and a couple of women." He shifted his weight nervously, "what I need is some men to get the work done. Little boys are good for reaching inside the machines and behind them, but that's about all they're good for. They keep wandering off when my back is turned and production stops when someone has to go looking for them. Women are good for less than that. Always needing to attend to their female problems that can't seem to wait until dinner break. They can't lift as much as the men and some of them start to cry if you whip or prod them."
Amy and Ruthie looked at each other, insulted by the man's remarks.
"You know there's been a shortage of good men for these jobs," the boss replied, "we have to hire whoever we can and to be honest, the man upstairs prefers hiring women and c
hildren because he only has to pay them a fraction of what he has to pay a man, especially the kind of men you want."
"Yeah," the other man agreed, "white men who can speak English," both men chuckled, "I'll just have to get these new people up to speed is all."
"That's your job, Harris," the boss began walking away in the opposite direction from the rest of the workers, "See that production is up tomorrow."
"I'll tighten up the whip for the boys and oil up the prod for the women if I have to, sir," Harris laughed and turned to follow in the direction of the other workers. Amy and Ruthie quickly ducked back into their hiding place as he approached.
"He won't be using a whip or a prod on anyone ever again," Ruthie muttered and as the man reached the corner of the building, she thrust out an arm, snatched him toward her and sunk her teeth into his neck before he could no more than gasp.
"Ruthie!" Amy was pleasantly surprised at Ruthie's aggression as she took possession of the man when Ruthie pushed his limp body toward her.
"I didn't drink much," Ruthie explained, "since I already ate. I saved most of it for you."
Amy's eyes showed her gratitude as she looked at Ruthie while she hungrily sucked the life out of the sadistic supervisor.
"No wonder those people looked deader than us," Ruthie said, "having to spend all day and half the night with that demon pushing them like a horse to work harder."
"Or like a slave," Amy finished and tossed the corpse aside.
"No," Ruthie corrected Amy, "these people get paid money for their work and they have the freedom to walk away at any time."
"Then why do they stay and allow themselves to be abused?" Amy asked.
"So they can eat and pay for a place to live," Ruthie answered, "those things cost money."
"I still find it so difficult to comprehend how little working people are paid and what horrible conditions they live in."
"That's because the owner of the factory wants as much money for hisself as he can. That's why the owners live in the big mansions while his workers live in those filthy neighborhoods by the river. That's how your daddy got so rich, by not paying his workers very much."
Amy didn't want to hear anymore talk about business and poor people. "Where should we dump this body?"
Ruthie knew Amy didn't want to hear anymore about how her father got rich by exploiting honest working people. Amy wanted to keep the memory of her father as a prominent man in town and a successful businessman who everyone respected and admired. Learning about business would destroy the happy image she had of her rich childhood. She didn't want to know about how others suffered hardship so she could live like a princess.
"I think we should leave it here for the workers to celebrate over tomorrow."
"That seems terribly risky," Amy hesitated, "This isn't an ignored neighborhood of poverty and drunkenness or the waterfront and he is a supervisor. They may investigate into his death. What will happen when they see the bite marks? I don't want to risk bringing attention to ourselves."
"We can leave a dead animal with him and the authorities will think he was killed by the animal like we've done before," Ruthie suggested.
Amy agreed to this because it was easier than carrying the body to the river to dispose of it and she wanted to give his workers the opportunity to revel over his death. Most of the remainder of the night was spent hunting down a stray animal to take the blame for their murder. A dog was chosen as the victim because his teeth more closely resembled those of a vampire. He was looking for food in an alley when Ruthie came upon him and killed him with barely a struggle by strangling him from behind with the dead man's suspenders. With the murder weapon still draped over the dog, Ruthie and Amy arranged the dog and man into a position that portrayed a dog attack and a struggle.
After returning to the lair, Amy congratulated Ruthie on her vicious and impulsive attack on the supervisor, "I'm so pleased with your behavior tonight, Ruthie. Your skill and strength are very impressive."
"I'm not proud of myself," Ruthie answered sullenly as she sat down with her Bible to pray for the man's soul," these last two nights have shown me how evil men can be. So many people don't appreciate the sacrifice Jesus made to save our souls. They take pleasure, and even pride, in being cruel to others."
"You think far too much, Ruthie," Amy began her nightly routine of primping and preparing for Robert's return, "just enjoy yourself and think of how your actions tonight saved a lot of people considerable amounts of sorrow and pain tomorrow."
"If you say so," Ruthie began her nightly reading.
"Well, of course," Amy continued, "in fact, your heroism tonight was just as honorable as killing those slave hunters."
Ruthie chilled at Amy's works, "Do you realize that what you're calling heroism and honorable is cold-blooded murder?"
"Well, I had to feed from someone anyway," Amy continued her nightly ritual as she spoke, "So you not only helped all those poor workers by ridding them of their oppressor, you fed me as well."
"How do you know I didn't just kill the father of small children who will now have to go hungry and cold without him?"
"You can't think of things like that. Maybe you did, but maybe you didn't. Thinking about it will make you miserable. Pray for the man's evil soul if you'd like, but then forget about him."
"Forget?" Ruthie said in despair, "every human I kill is burned into my memory, weighing down my soul and holding the gates of heaven closed to me forever."