Charlie (Bloodletting Book 1)

by Joe Humphrey

  The fact that she wasn't even particularly sad about the idea of losing Caroline only solidified in her mind that it was time to leave. Yes, she was hurt and angry, and that was likely coloring her thinking, but there was something to it regardless. She also recognized that it was much easier to contemplate leaving when she was in the house alone while Caroline was out running around with some dude that showed up out of nowhere and blew everything up.

  She immediately became angry when she thought of Derek and Caroline out doing whatever it was they were doing. 'Fuck THEM' she thought as she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. They obviously needed special time together without her and that was just fine. They could do that and Charlie would stay home, alone, figuring out how she was going to leave.

  It was becoming clear to her that she was just a little angrier than she thought she was. She stepped out of the shower and stood on the bathmat, drying herself with a towel. For a moment, she actually considered getting her things together and leaving right then. She closed her eyes and pictured stuffing clothes and a few of her favorite books into a backpack and walking out the door. She could do it. It wouldn't even be that difficult. The hardest part would be taking that first step. She wondered if Caroline would even come after her?

  Charlie thought that she would, but only so far. After all, her understanding was that Caroline wasn't allowed to cross the Nevada/California border. Charlie had no idea how long of a drive it was from Flagstaff to California, but she knew that Caroline made the trip to Las Vegas in one night, so it couldn't have been more than five or six hours she guessed.

  Once she was dressed, Charlie went to the bookshelf in the living room and found the Rand McNally Road Atlas and flipped through it. She found the map for Arizona and followed the I-40 Highway all the way from Flagstaff to the California border in Needles. It was around 200 miles. Doing the math in her head, she figured out that at 60 MPH it was around three hours to Needles. That wasn't so bad. She could meet up with a truck driver headed west and ride all the way there. They came through Flagstaff all the time. She could make it to Los Angeles in one night if she left early enough.

  It was then that she realized that she had no idea when she'd get another opportunity for a clean break. The only reason she was able to consider leaving at that moment was that she was home alone, which very rarely happened. Suddenly her anxiety spun up again and she started sweating. She would have to wait until Caroline left the house again, and who knew when that would be?

  That also brought up the image in her head of Caroline realizing that she was gone, and just how upset and hurt she would be. Charlie couldn't help but picture Caroline driving around town, looking for her, hoping that she hadn't gone far. Charlie was suddenly crying again. She didn't want to hurt Caroline, but she knew that she would have to leave at some point. She remembered that night when Caroline pulled her hair in the bed. The night she came back from Las Vegas, and she'd made Charlie promise that she wouldn't leave her. Charlie had done it too. She'd promised. Caroline would hate her if she left, and that made Charlie's heart collapse.

  That wasn't what she wanted at all. Charlie wiped the tears from her face and walked across the kitchen to the door that led to the garage. She was surprised to find that the Cadillac was still parked in the garage. Had they taken the motorcycle?

  Charlie turned off the light to the garage and walked to the front door and opened it. The motorcycle was gone. She imagined Caroline riding on the back in one of her dresses, her hair wrapped in a scarf and her sunglasses on. She sighed and looked out at the road that led out of the suburbs and ultimately to the highway. She tried to picture herself walking down that sidewalk, alone, in the dark, hoofing it to the truck stop. It would have to be a night she was alone, that was all there was to it. She realized that she could never talk her way into Caroline simply letting her leave. That would never happen. And that, in and of itself, was fucked up, and she knew it. She was an adult. She'd had her twenty-second birthday that January. Caroline had taken her to the movies and bought the new boots that she'd been pining for and a first edition of The Bell Jar, one of Charlie's favorite novels.

  "Shit," Charlie said to herself as she stared out at the empty road. This wasn't going to be simple at all. It was going to suck.

  - 6 -

  Like the previous night, she heard the motorcycle approach well before it arrived at the house. Charlie quickly surveyed the room for anything incriminating, then saw the Road Atlas sitting on the coffee table. She quickly hopped up and returned it to the bookshelf where she'd taken it from. She plopped back onto the sofa and tried to look as casual as she could. She held a Mad Magazine and pretended to read it. The sound of the garage door opening surprised Charlie and she heard the motorcycle enter the garage and the engine shut off. Charlie heard the sound of boots clomping on the concrete of the garage, and then the door to the kitchen opened. Charlie was suddenly scared. She only heard one set of footsteps and no talking. Whoever just parked the bike in the garage was alone.

  Caroline walked from the kitchen to the living room, holding the motorcycle helmet under her arm. She opened the hall closet door and set the helmet on the floor inside and closed the door. As Charlie guessed, she was wearing her hair in a scarf and wearing her short red leather jacket and of course the white gloves. Charlie was utterly confused.

  "Did you drive Derek's motorcycle home?"

  "Yes," she said, taking off her jacket and boots.

  "You know how to ride a motorcycle?"

  Caroline stopped what she was doing for a moment and nodded, as though it were a silly question.

  "Where's Derek?" Charlie asked. Caroline put her boots on the shoe rack next to the front door and folded her red jacket over her arm before answering.

  "He's gone."

  "What do you mean he's gone? Why do you have his motorcycle."

  Charlie already knew the answer but couldn't quite believe it. She needed to hear Caroline say it.

  "Because he's gone gone. He had to go. It's unfortunate and I wish it could have been different, but he was a threat to our lives, and I couldn't let that stand. So I got rid of him."

  She was so matter-of-fact about killing someone she so clearly had affection for. It sent a chill up Charlie's back.

  "You just... killed him?" Charlie said, trying to make it make sense in her head.

  "Yes. Do I have to keep saying it? I killed him. I took him out to the desert and shot him in the fucking head and set fire to his body. That's what I did. Now if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it anymore."

  Charlie just sat there as Caroline walked down the hall and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Charlie didn't know what to do. She was completely stunned. The comforter Derek had used was still on the sofa. Charlie unfolded it and pulled it up over herself and tried to block out the light of the lamp next to her. She had no idea what she was going to do.

  - 7 -

  The steering wheel of the Cadillac felt giant in Charlie's hands. She was scared, not just of what they were doing, but of the responsibility of driving Caroline's car by herself. It was a huge responsibility and one that Caroline didn't divvy out lightly. They didn't have much choice though.

  She tried hard to keep the tail light of the motorcycle in view, but it was hard. Taking the Caddy up to more than fifty miles per hour was scary, but Caroline was going faster than she was, and it wasn't long before she was alone on the road, headed down the highway. She knew where they were going, so it's not as though she was in danger of getting lost, but if she crashed or the car stopped working, Caroline wouldn't know.

  They were meant to meet up at a bar about fifteen miles out of town called The Silver Hammer. It wasn't exactly a biker bar, but there were always bikes parked out front. Charlie didn't feel like going to a bar that night, she hadn't in some time, but they needed to eat and Caroline was eager to get rid of the bike.

  Charlie remembered clearly the last time they were in a bar together and ho
w it had gone. It ended in a massacre. One that Charlie had participated in. She wished that she could say that she felt guilty about it, but she didn't. The reality was that she barely thought about what they'd done. The people they killed. It was a situation where they'd been pushed to the limit of their tolerance and reacted in kind. The strangest thing about it, to Charlie, was how little Caroline seemed to care about getting caught. That was new.

  While Charlie had avoided killing because of the last vestiges of her human morality, Caroline was far more concerned with leaving evidence. But that night in the bar, she had no issue with leaving a pile of murdered corpses. They'd done nothing to cover their tracks. They'd simply killed all the witnesses and walked away like it was no big thing.

  She supposed this was a plan, sort of, to stay hidden, but Charlie couldn't help but imagine the police investigation that was surely happening during the day while they slept. They couldn't keep doing things like that and not get caught eventually. Charlie tried to remember how many people they'd killed over the course of Charlie's life as a vampire and couldn't recall. She remembered the old man whose name she couldn't remember. She thought there was a guy in a movie theater they'd chased down and killed because he'd been rude to them. They killed him because he was rude.

  Charlie shook her head, trying to clear her head. It was all so much. In times like this when she really thought about what her life was, she struggled to make sense of it. It was too much. She tried to imagine what her mother would think about where she was in her life and she laughed out loud to herself in the car. She thought that, more than the murder and blood-drinking, her mother would be most horrified by the fact that she was basically in a homosexual relationship.

  That was another thing they were struggling with. She'd made the leap and kissed Caroline in the bar, and they'd tried to make a romantic relationship work, but ever since Derek had arrived, Charlie no longer felt particularly romantic toward Caroline, which seemed to be fine with Caroline. She suspected that Caroline was simply going through the motions of a romantic relationship with her to keep her happy, and was indifferent about whether they continued to go down that road or not. All Caroline really seemed to care about was that she stay living with her, and that made Charlie want to leave all the more.

  The fact that Charlie was finding herself relatively indifferent about it herself told her a lot about the prospects of a long-term future with Caroline. The fact was that, once she recognized that Caroline scared her more than she inspired love, Charlie struggled to find reasons to stay.

  She decided that when the next opportunity presented itself, she would pack a bag and go. While it hurt her to think about Caroline being alone in the world, she also felt a desperate need to be free of her. She didn't have much of a plan beyond what she'd decided the night Caroline killed Derek, but she at least did have a plan. That was something.

  As she pulled into the parking lot of The Silver Hammer, Charlie looked for the bike. It was parked at the end of a row of other fat cruisers. Caroline was standing next to the door of the bar, smoking and looking weirdly at home. She wore a black skirt and white blouse, black tights, and her red leather jacket. Her white sunglasses sat propped up on top of her head. Seeing her standing outside smoking like some kind of supporting character in an early 60s motorcycle movie made the bar seem out of time. When Caroline noticed the Cadillac pulling into a parking spot at the other side of the lot, she smiled and tossed her cigarette on the ground.

  - 8 -

  The woman was clearly very drunk. She'd told Charlie her name, but Charlie had already forgotten what it was. It wasn't important.

  "Do you guys have any coke?" the woman asked, stumbling and nearly falling. Caroline caught her by the arm and hoisted her back onto her feet. She was almost as short as Charlie, but was curvier and had big teased up blonde hair.

  "We have whatever you want, sweetie," Caroline said, looking at Charlie and smiling.

  "I want some coke," the woman said. Charlie opened the back door of the Cadillac and motioned for the woman to get in. She did. Charlie climbed in after her, and Caroline got into the driver's seat and started the car.

  "Where are we going?"

  "We're going to get you that coke," Charlie said, taking her knife out of her pocket.

  "Where's Brian?" she asked. Charlie had no idea who Brian was.

  "He's at the bar but we're going to come back and get him soon. Just relax for now, we'll be there soon."

  The woman was lost in Charlie's scent, but when Charlie went to cut her wrist, Caroline looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  "Wait for me, hon," she said as she pulled into the parking lot of a closed lumber yard and killed the engine. Charlie stopped what she was doing.

  "Where are we?" the woman asked.

  "We're just taking a little pitstop," Charlie said. Caroline opened the back door on the other side of the woman and climbed in. She was holding her straight razor. She smiled and nodded at Charlie. The woman didn't seem to notice when Charlie and Caroline made duel incisions on her wrists.

  The woman's blood was warm and tasted to Charlie like strawberries and rum, which, for some reason, raised alarms in the back of her mind. Something about the flavor of the daiquiris seemed strangely familiar in an old memory kind of way. She was contemplating this when she felt something touch her consciousness.

  It wasn't unusual for Charlie and Caroline to feel each other in the memories of their meals, but rarely did she feel such a deliberate prodding from Caroline. But that's very much what it was. Caroline was looking at her memories. Charlie didn't know that they could do that, yet it was clear that that's what was happening. When she tried to break free of the woman's wrist, she found that she was paralyzed. Caroline was doing something to her. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She could only sit there, dumbly, with the woman's wrist against her mouth, while Caroline flitted around in her head.

  That's when she realized exactly what was happening and her eyes went wide. Caroline centered in on one memory and stopped. Charlie was sitting at the coffee table, looking at the map book, tracking the course from Flagstaff to Needles. She was following the interstate with her finger. Caroline dropped the woman's wrist and the hold over Charlie released. Charlie shook her head and tried to gain her bearings as Caroline got out of the car.

  "FUCK!" Caroline yelled into the night. The woman looked at Charlie and then at Caroline, who was standing in the parking lot.

  "Hey, are you okay? Is she okay?" the woman asked first Caroline and then Charlie. Charlie cringed back when Caroline suddenly reached into the back seat of the car and grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her out of the car. The woman screamed and Caroline slapped her and shoved her to the ground.

  "Get the fuck out of my car!" she shouted and kicked the woman in the stomach.

  "Stop it!" Charlie shouted, getting out of the car.

  "Get back in the car Charlie!" Caroline shouted at her. Charlie stood there for a moment, not sure if she should try and stop Caroline from hurting the woman further. She got into the passenger side and put her hands to her forehead, terrified of what was going to happen next. Caroline got into the driver's side and started the car. She immediately peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the woman crying on the ground

  - 9 -

  Caroline was driving erratically and Charlie was verging on hysterical.

  "Please slow down!" Charlie said, trying not to yell. Caroline looked at her for an uncomfortably long time, which scared Charlie even more because her eyes weren't on the road.

  "Why were you looking at the map book, Charlie?" Caroline spat. Charlie stammered, trying to come up with a reason that wouldn't get her killed.

  "I was just looking! I was curious that's all! It didn't mean anything!"

  "I will drive this fucking car into a wall if you lie to me again."

  "I promise! I... I wanted to see how long Derek had been on his motorcycle and I was curious if he made it in one shot from
L.A.! That's it! I promise, Caroline! I promise! Please stop the car! Please!"

  Caroline let out a low, guttural moan and the Caddy sped up even more. She shot through a red light, nearly smashing into another car.

  "You understand you can't leave me, right? You can't. I won't let you. I will kill us both before that happens."

  "Jesus Christ, you're really freaking me out!" Charlie yelled, gripping the dashboard. Caroline slammed on the breaks and the Cadillac fishtailed on the road. She cranked the wheel and the car nearly rolled, but eventually ended up facing the opposite direction towards oncoming traffic. Caroline hit the gas and jerked the car into the right lane and then pulled over on the side of the road.

  "Thank you... thank you..." Charlie gasped, crying.

  "You understand what I'm saying right? I need to know that you understand how things are."

  "I understand," Charlie said, wiping the tears from her face, sniffing snot back up her nose, and nodding emphatically. Caroline looked at her for a long moment, then nodded herself.

  "Good!" Caroline said, back to her usual peppy self, though her eyes were still wide and almost shaking in their sockets. "That's really good."

  - 10 -

  Charlie curled up against the wall, pulling the covers up over her shoulders. She could hear Caroline getting ready for bed in her bedroom on the other side of the wardrobe. When she heard the door open and Caroline stepped into the room, she did her best to hide the fact that she was terrified.

  "Are you awake?" Caroline asked as she crawled into the bed and invited herself under the covers. Her body was cold against Charlie's back and when she wrapped her arm around Charlie's middle, it took everything in Charlie's power to keep from gasping. She felt Caroline's hand work its way up under her shirt and found her breast and held it. To Charlie, it felt like a spider had crawled under her shirt and was crouched on her chest.