Blood Kin

by Ronald Kelly

  “Cold,” she said softly.

  “How is she, Tammy?” called Boyd. “Is she…?”

  Tammy came close enough to see the five-year-old. Her face was pale and there was an ugly blue wound in the side of her throat. Her heart sank. “Yes,” she told him. “She is.”

  Penny’s eyes were full of fear and confusion. “He told me it would be like Heaven, Miss Tammy.”

  Tammy felt her heart clench. “He lied, sweetheart.” She reached out to the girl. “Here. Take my hand.”

  The girl did as she was told. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I’m taking you to your mother and father,” she told her.

  Boyd watched Tammy while Caleb kept a cautious eye on Wendell. The woman took the child by the hand and led her toward the back of the church. As they headed down the center aisle into the darkness beyond, Boyd noticed that Tammy had let the crossbow hang to her side by its shoulder strap. Her right hand hung next to the tool belt, close to the Navy revolver that rested in one of the leather sleeves.

  A long minute passed. They heard nothing. Then a single shot rang out.

  Boyd watched the darkness but saw nothing. Then a form emerged from out of the gloom. The form of a thin, bespectacled woman with mousy brown hair. When she passed through a ray of sunlight that shone from a hole in the ceiling, he saw that her eyes were full of tears… angry tears.

  Tammy walked slowly up the aisle. By the time she had reached the front of the church, she had returned the smoking gun to its holder. Then she lifted the crossbow and directed it toward Wendell.

  “You bastard!” she cried. Then she pulled the trigger. There was a dull thwump and a gray blur as the bolt was propelled forward. It struck Wendell in the stomach, driving him backward. He slammed into the front of the pulpit and was nailed there by the point of the bolt, which had emerged from the small of his back.

  Wendell looked down at the end of the arrow that protruded from his belly. Incredulously he looked up at his wife and began to laugh. “You missed, Tammy!” he wailed hysterically. “You came all this way and you missed!”

  Tammy looked over at Caleb. “Could you get me one?” she asked. “Out of the bag?”

  The mountain man nodded in understanding. He let go of his cross, and reaching around his back, unslung the canvas bag. Opening the drawstrings, he handed her one of the objects from inside.

  Wendell began to laugh even harder. “What are you doing?” he asked, as Tammy took the whiskey bottle filled with amber fluid. At first, he was sure that she was about to take a drink of liquor, which seemed ludicrous, since Tammy had always been a devout teetotaler. Then he watched as she reached into the hip pocket of her jeans and withdrew something. A long, plastic object with a hint of chrome at the top.

  It was a butane lighter. Wendell’s laughter died. It was at that moment that he noticed the strip of cloth that dangled from the mouth of the bottle.

  “No!” he screamed.

  Tammy smiled grimly. She lit the fuse, let the flame travel the length of the cloth, and then heaved the bottle straight at her husband.

  The glass shattered on impact, drenching Wendell in gasoline and igniting him in an instant. The flames spread swiftly, engulfing him, turning him into a shrieking, writhing bundle of fire. Tammy watched through her tears as flames quickly swallowed both him and the pulpit. The blaze quickly rose toward the ceiling and set the dry rafters on fire.

  “Come on!” said Boyd, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the door “The whole place will go up before we know it.”

  Boyd was right. By the time they made it outside, half the church was on fire. The building went up like a tinderbox, the flames hungrily licking along the rafters to the roof, and then on to the four walls. They retreated to the woods, the heat becoming too intense to stand close to.

  When they were out of harm’s way, Boyd turned and looked at Tammy. She stared at the flaming church house. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but the fear was no longer in her eyes. The threat she had gone there to destroy was gone now.

  “I’m sorry, Tammy,” he said, “about what you had to do to Wendell.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” she told him. “After Penny, it was easy.”

  They watched until the entire building was engulfed. Then they gathered up their gear and prepared to move on. The sun cast long shadows ahead of them. Looking back, they could see it hanging low above the valley, inching its way toward the horizon.

  They knew then that they must make the most of what little time they had left. Heading west, they continued on up the mountainside, toward the very top.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “What time is it?” asked Bessie for the umpteenth time.

  Paul checked the glowing hands of his watch. “It’s five past six,” he told her. He could barely see his sister’s face in the deepening gloom of the upstairs bedroom.

  “But I thought—”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Dud was supposed to be here to get us at six o’clock.”

  The girl looked near tears. “Did he forget us?”

  Paul was about to answer her when he heard the rattle of a key in the outer lock. They turned just as the door opened. Dud Craven stood there, his face anxious.

  “Okay, come on,” he instructed. “But be quiet. The sun’s almost down and they should be up and about in a little while.”

  Paul wondered why he hadn’t let them go earlier, when the sun was still high. But he thought he already knew.

  First, Dud had to complete his work, whatever it might be. Paul had heard the periodic strike of the hammer up until about fifteen minutes ago. The second reason Dud might have had was his distrust of the children. If they had been able to reach the foot of the mountain and summon help before sunset, Dud’s plans might have been thwarted by the Green Hollow police.

  Silently, they followed the man down the shadowy hallway to the staircase. Once downstairs, they paused in the foyer for a moment while Dud went to a narrow door beneath the stairs and peered into the cellar below. Paul looked around, trying to find evidence of Dud’s work. A moment later he saw it. A long length of green-and-yellow wire ran along the uppermost edge of the foyer wall, held in place by steel U-tacks. The wire traveled completely around the room, disappearing into the deep shadows of the rafters in several places. Then it ran past the staircase, toward the family room.

  Dud seemed to be satisfied with what he had seen in the basement. He walked to the front door and opened it, then motioned for them to accompany him outside. They obeyed him. Soon they were standing on the front porch with the door dosed behind them.

  The farmer took a flashlight from the pocket of his overalls. “Here,” he said, handing it to Paul. “This’ll help you find your way down the mountain. Take the road yonder. It’ll take you straight down to the highway.”

  “Thanks,” said the boy. He took his sister’s hand and led her down the porch steps to the weedy yard below. He turned and looked at Dud. The man looked nervous, like he wanted them away from the old house.

  “Well, git going,” he said, waving them on. “And remember what I told ya’ll earlier. Don’t come back up here, no matter what.”

  “Come on, Bessie,” said Paul. The boy and girl headed through the weeds toward the dirt track of the mountain road.

  A moment later they reached it. Paul looked back at the house one last time. Dud had already gone back inside and closed the door behind him.

  “What’s he going to do?” Bessie asked him. She clutched his hand tightly, afraid to let go.

  Paul said nothing. He thought of the wires and was sure that he knew what Dud had in mind. If he was right, it would be in their best interests to get as far away from the old house as possible.

  He looked into the sky and saw the last brilliant colors of the sunset slowly bleeding into twilight. It wouldn’t be long before darkness came. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Soon they were heading down the shadowy mountain road through the
three miles of wilderness that lay between them and the highway below.

  Boyd, Tammy, and Caleb made their way cautiously through the woods that stretched behind the old Craven farm. The last muted glow of daylight shone through the thick foliage of the trees as they stepped through high patches of kudzu.

  “Y’all be careful,” whispered Caleb. “There could be sinkholes beneath this thicket. Be kind of a kick in the pants, breaking your freaking leg up here, wouldn’t it?”

  Neither Boyd nor Tammy answered him. Arriving there so close to nightfall was enough of a kick in the pants for them. Now they had more than Dud Craven to worry about. By the time they reached the house, Grandpappy, Joan, and no telling how many others might be there to confront them.

  The thought of turning back and returning the following day had crossed their minds, but none of them had suggested it out loud. They all knew what sort of evil could take place during a night’s time. Grandpappy and his newly damned kin might return to Green Hollow and increase their number. And that would only complicate their mission even more. The more vampires there were to destroy and dispose of, the more difficult their work would be.

  They saw the weathered barn and outbuildings at the far edge of the woods and started toward them. They were halfway there when Boyd stopped. He peered into the shadows to his left.

  “What is it?” Tammy asked softly.

  Boyd turned on his flashlight and directed the beam toward the darkness that stretched amid the trees. The light glanced off chrome and glass. “Let’s check it out,” he suggested.

  The three walked to the grove of sugar maples. Parked in a semicircle were three vehicles. One was Joan’s Tempo, another was Boyd’s red pickup truck. The third was Stan Watts’s silver Lincoln. “Damn,” said Boyd. “I had a feeling he would come up here.”

  They checked the vehicles. They lucked out when they reached Watts’s big Lincoln. The keys still dangled from the ignition.

  Caleb spotted a twelve-gauge shotgun locked in a rack beneath the dashboard of the passenger side. He removed the key ring from the ignition and tried several keys before the rack came unlocked. The mountain man took the riot gun in his hands. “This might work a little better against Dudley than that old cap-and-ball revolver of mine.” He pumped the slide and jacked a shell into the breech. A shiver ran down his spine. The sound reminded him of Conners and that underground cavern back in the Highlands of Vietnam.

  “Give me those keys, Caleb,” said Boyd. When he had them in his hand, he turned to Tammy. “I want you to do something for me,” he told her. “I know you’re not going to like it, but I want you to stay here with the Lincoln for a while, then drive it out of the woods and up to the road next to the house.”

  “While you two storm into the house and take care of business, I suppose,” said Tammy, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “No way!” she told him flatly. “We came up here with the agreement that we would all tackle this together. Now you want me to turn into some sort of errand girl while you and Caleb pull your macho raid on their lair. Well, I’m not buying it!”

  “If you think I’m doing this just because you’re a woman, you’re nuts,” Boyd said, trying to keep his voice down. “We’re going to need a way out of here, and I need someone to have the car ready for us when we’ve finished. Or we might have to make a quick escape if things grow hairier than we first expected. I’m not cutting you out of this, Tammy. I just need you to do this for me… and my children.”

  Tammy looked extremely unhappy. “But I’d rather be in there with you guys.”

  “I know you would,” Boyd told her. “You handled Wendell and the Hughs girl. Let us handle this. Just drive the car up to the house. After you get there, come in and give us hand.”

  The woman thought about it. “Okay,” she finally said. “But I don’t like it.”

  He tossed her the keys. “Thanks.”

  “How long do you want me to wait?” she asked.

  “Give us ten minutes.”

  Tammy handed Boyd the crossbow. “Here. You’d better take this with you.”

  Boyd accepted the crossbow and the belt quiver of bolts. He left the Mississippi rifle with Tammy, along with the .36 Navy revolver she already carried.

  “You guys be careful,” she told them.

  Caleb smiled at her. “Don’t worry your pretty head over us. We’ll be okay.”

  Tammy watched as the two men stepped through the heavy blanket of kudzu and headed toward the graywood barn. Soon she had lost track of them in the shadows.

  “Have fun, boys,” she grumbled, then sat on the hood of the Lincoln until it was time to make her move.

  Boyd and Caleb reached the old barn and crept along its far side to the front corner. They peered around the end and surveyed what lay ahead of them. Past the barn were several outbuildings—a chicken coop, a smokehouse, and an outhouse. Sixty feet of weedy ground stretched between them and the house. The old structure looked completely deserted. No hint of light filtered from its shuttered windows or from the cracks around the front door. The only indication that anyone was there was Dud Craven’s primer-gray Dodge parked beneath the oak tree in the front yard.

  “Come on,” said Boyd. He took the lead, moving across the front of the barn with his back to the wall. Caleb followed him closely, toting the bag of Molotov cocktails and the Hawken rifle across his broad back. He clutched the twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands, holding the barrel pointed up.

  The last sliver of sun abruptly disappeared over the western horizon, plunging the mountain into twilight. Boyd and Caleb looked at one another. That source of protection was gone now. They would have to rely on their wits and their bravery from now on.

  Boyd paused halfway across the front of the barn. He cocked his head and listened. “Did you hear anything?” he whispered.

  Caleb listened hard, then shrugged. “Can’t say that I did.”

  They continued on. They were almost to the opposite corner of the barn wall when a shrill noise echoed from behind them. They recognized the sound at once. It was the rusty squeal of unoiled door hinges.

  “What are you doing here?” asked the voice of a woman.

  Caleb whirled. No more than a few feet away stood a heavyset woman with dark brown hair. She was dressed in a flannel nightgown, as if she had just been roused from bed. Her face stood out starkly in the gloom, the eyes strangely luminescent. Her bare arms and feet seemed as colorless as the rest of her.

  It didn’t take Caleb long to figure out that it was Sarah Milford. Apparently, she had slept the day away in the darkness of the old barn and had just awakened.

  “Answer me!” she rasped, grabbing hold of Caleb by the front of his buckskin shirt. She jerked him off his feet and slammed him forcefully against the barn wall.

  Caleb grimaced painfully. The steel-and-wood length of the Hawken pressed uncomfortably against the length of his spine. The bag of firebombs had slipped off his shoulder during her attack. It had fallen to the ground with a clinking of glass against glass, but fortunately, no sound of breakage. The weeds were so high and thick that they had cushioned its fall.

  “You came to kill us, didn’t you?” she demanded with a toothy snarl. “You came to kill Grandpappy and put an end to the clan of Craven!”

  She reached up with her free hand and grabbed Caleb by the throat. He felt her fingers tighten around his gullet with a crushing strength. Soon, she seemed to have squeezed all the air from his lungs. He strangled and struggled, unable to breathe.

  Pinpricks of white light began to dance before Caleb’s eyes and he knew he was on the verge of passing out. That was when he remembered the object that hung around his neck. He reached down and found the rawhide thong, then the wooden cross just beneath it. He grabbed the base of the crucifix, and lifting it upward, pressed it firmly against the woman’s face.

  Sarah Milford cried out as the cross made contact with her flesh. A sizzling like that o
f frying bacon accompanied curls of bluish smoke as the crucifix burnt deeply into her face. She stumbled backward and flung him away.

  Caleb fell to the ground, landing on his back. As he struggled for breath, he stared up at the woman as she wrenched the cross from her face. It came away with a nasty sucking sound, drawing ugly blisters across the palms of her hands as she threw it away. The cross had damaged her face severely. It had left its configuration from forehead to chin and from one cheek to the other, like deep furrows pressed into soft clay.

  Sarah raised a hand to her mutilated face. Her eyes burned with rage. “You’ll die for that!” she growled at Caleb.

  The mountain man was about to crawl away from her when he sensed Boyd standing behind him. “Stay down,” he told him. Then there was a dull report and a swoosh of air several feet over Caleb’s head.

  He looked up to see one of the wooden bolts protruding from the center of Sarah’s chest. She stared down at it dumbly, then fell back against the weathered wall of the barn. She shuddered violently for a moment, her eyes wide with shock and agony. Then her trembling stopped and she slid down the wall to the ground. She sat there for a long moment, her mouth open as if she were gasping for air. Then the glow of her eyes winked out and she fell to her side in the tall grass.

  “That was close,” croaked Caleb hoarsely. He rubbed at his throat, still feeling her icy fingerprints against his flesh. “Too damned close!”

  Boyd helped the mountain man to his feet. He looked toward the house. “Hope no one heard us,” he said. The structure remained dark and undisturbed. There was no indication that their confrontation with Sarah had even reached those inside the house. “Are you all right?”

  Caleb nodded. “She almost wrung my neck like a chicken, but other than that, I’m fine,” he said. He retrieved the canvas bag and carefully slung it over his shoulder. The smell of gasoline was minimal. Apparently, none of the bottles had broken or begun to leak.

  “Remember, I’ll take the upstairs and get the children,” he said. “You stay downstairs and try to take out Dud before he can raise a ruckus.” He thought to himself for a moment. “If you come across Joan, try to hold off, if you possibly can. I’d like to take care of her myself.”