Deanna became aware of Josh’s body odor crawling through the subtle aroma of oily overalls. Bile kicked in her stomach and she made for the door, but Josh stopped her.
“You know, Alex has a new girlfriend now.”
“Really.” Something stirred in her. She wasn’t sure she sounded as disinterested as she’d hoped.
“Cathy her name is, very smart, well off.”
“Why should I give a shit Josh? It’s not like he means anything to me anymore, nothing in fact, so why the hell do I care?” Exasperation left her in a heavy sigh. Why the hell do I care? The words churned for a moment in her head. Do I care?
She hoped not.
“I’m just bringing you up to date with all the local news, is all. I’m sure after five years you’d like to know how the old town’s doing?”
“Not really. If it weren’t for my parents I wouldn’t be back here at all. Sands is my past and nothing more.”
She wished it were true.
Josh’s expression never flinched. He stared at her breasts no doubt wishing his stare alone could push the open zipper of her jacket wide.
“How are your parents? I’ve not seen them in a while.”
“They’re fine; I spoke to Mom two nights ago. Why?”
Deanna watched him struggle to build up a level of courage with a question in mind, and she hoped to God he’d fail to lay the foundations.
“He’s running for mayor, isn’t he? Your dad?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason, just he’ll have a hard time getting into office. The current mayor seems to have this town pretty much in his pocket.”
“Simon Cain? My Dad is twice the man that wanker could ever hope to be. It’s just a shame I won’t be in town to see him win the election and wipe the smile off Cain’s face.”
Heat flushed in Deanna’s cheeks. The guy was obviously preparing himself for the big ‘date’ question, probably tripping over his own thoughts as he struggled with his nervousness.
“Listen Deanna, if you want to catch up on the latest news—”
“No, I don’t,” she said and scooped up her suitcase. He had continued to stare at her chest as he’d tried to deliver the line. She pushed through the door. “I think you’ll get further with that magazine than you ever will with me.”
She didn’t look back when she exited into cooling air. Whatever type of expression distorted Josh’s face she had no desire to see it. She didn’t want to look at Wayne’s Gas Station again for as long as she lived. The increasing wind cooled her cheeks and dried sweat on her brow. She didn’t realize Josh had gotten to her that badly.
The long flight had fatigued her, and she hadn’t gotten any sleep on the six hour bus journey either. She couldn’t wait to arrive at Mom and Dad’s place, get out of her travel clothes and maybe slip into a hot bath before getting into bed. She looked up and down the road for Dad’s car but saw nothing. She didn’t even consider the cab.
“Fuck it,” she whispered and began the walk to her parent’s house.
Shadows dodged illumination as lightning traced more lines across the sky. Thunder bellowed, sooner and louder than before. The storm dragged itself closer.
Deanna turned a corner and her back didn’t feel so taut now she knew Josh’s eyes could no longer trace thoughts over her form. A sickening image crawled into her mind of him on the phone, his gaunt face twisted into a laugh as he shared a joke with Alex Rice. She wondered how much of their love-life her ex-boyfriend had relayed to Josh Ikin.
Ten minutes later, as she turned into the secluded street where her parents lived, the first drops of rain slammed into the asphalt.
* * *
Dread crawled inside her.
Mom and Dad’s house stood in a cloak of darkness. They knew she’d be home tonight, why would they go to bed so early? The small porch light cast a soft glow onto the front steps, but as she peered through the windows only shadows settled within like dense liquid.
Her finger brushed over the doorbell but didn’t press it. Setting the suitcase on the wooden porch she fished inside the handbag for her keys and slid one in the lock. She hesitated for a moment, her hearing filled with the clatter of pounding rain. It didn’t sound so comforting outside the house. It may have been five years but Mom would never change the locks. The bolt slid silently in its housing and she pushed the door open.
Deanna stepped inside and set her suitcase near the small table inside the entrance. She pushed the door closed and stood in darkness, trying to decipher noises above the drum of rain. She reached out and flipped the switch, its light revealing a wide hallway. The smell of food clouded the hall; the aroma of Mom’s cooking touching her with childhood memories. The hallway looked clean and free of dust, overhead lighting reflected in smooth laminate flooring. At the end of the passage, the kitchen door stood ajar but no light filtered from within. Deanna walked to the first door to her left and pushed it open. The expansive living room always looked bigger when nobody occupied the space. She could imagine her father on the sofa, feet stretched on the recliner watching one of his favorite sitcoms. The TV revealed a blank screen. Two glasses of wine sat on the coffee table, a dash of red liquid settled in each. A ‘welcome home’ banner spanned the opposite wall above the fireplace, its red lettering shouting warm wishes to Deanna. Her stomach knotted as anxiety molded her insides in an effort to squeeze bile up her gullet.
“Mom? Dad?”
She hadn’t spoken loud, afraid to utter the words in case breaking the silence would reveal the problem—if there was a problem, of course. Maybe Dad had got Deanna’s message and driven to the bus stop to pick her up; Mom—most probably—didn’t want to sit in the house waiting for her daughter to come home and had decided to go with him. Deanna had missed them because she had stopped at that stupid gas station talking to Josh Ikin, of all people. It had ruined the home coming and as she only had plans to stay a couple of weeks, Mom would be very upset. Once they realized they’d missed the Greyhound—and her—they’d drive back immediately. Deanna would be waiting for them and not the other way around.
She dropped her keys back into her handbag and slipped the jacket off her shoulders. She walked to the banister, draped her coat over the neatly sculptured rail and heard a noise from upstairs: a thump, heavy, as if something had fallen off a low-set table. The jacket had made a noise as it knocked against wood but she hadn’t imagined the sound. She looked up the staircase into darkness clouding the landing.
“Mom?”
She got no reply.
Anxiety tightened its grip.
“Dad?”
Darkness deepened at the head of the stairs. Rain skipped over the wooden porch and tapped a comforting rhythm on the windows. Maybe they’d gotten a cat since she had moved out, something to fill the void left by their departed child. No, Mom would have told me. She dismissed the sound. Maybe the building had shifted a little in the cooling air, or swelled slightly as rain seeped under slats and into the timber.
She convinced herself and turned from the staircase.
When she heard another noise, she knew the movement came from upstairs.
Deanna wondered if she’d missed something as she had approached the house: a windowpane broken, a frame forced open, slivers of glass strewn about the lawn. Sure, the house lights were out, but the scene had not warranted a search of the property. She watched her knuckles turn white as she gripped the wooden banister. A horrifying scenario surfaced in her head: Mom and Dad hadn’t gone out, a burglar had come in. Dad was a politician, running for mayor of Sands, and people knew he had wealth. He kept antiques in the house and with the southern district of town full of junkies and pimps, Dad’s possessions would look pretty appealing. Deanna pulled her handbag higher on her shoulder and reached inside the main compartment. She took her first step onto the staircase as her fingers curled around the cylinder of mace.
Darkness seemed to crawl down the stairway, swallowing her in the same way the cavernou
s mouth of the whale consumed little Jonah. Living in England, she’d never purchased a handgun—there hadn’t been any need—but as she stepped onto the landing with a sensation of vulnerability clutching at her throat, Deanna wished she had a weapon in her bag. She’d never used the mace before; she wondered how effective it would be against a desperate drug-addict. Her mind pictured the intruder: a greasy, undernourished individual with skin blemishes and needle marks coating his tattooed arms.
Her mouth dried and threatened to secure her tongue to her palate. Deanna pulled the canister from her handbag and reached for the light switch in front of her. She wouldn’t call out to her parents; it could alert a prowler to her presence and push the intruder towards murder.
Her fingers touched the plastic light switch as the noise came from halfway along the hall. She froze and closed her mouth, fearing her breath would wheeze upon its release. The only noise she heard was the thud of her heartbeat’s agitation. The sound had come from her parent’s room. Maybe they were hurt. A vision of her mother disabled from her wounds—whatever they were—dragging herself past the motionless body of her husband as she tried to reach the hallway and rescue, drifted somberly into her mind.
Deanna hurried to the room, hoping they were both still alive. She reached the open doorway and on her next inhale of breath a fetid aroma scratched at her senses. She could taste it in the room as she stopped by the door, thick on her tongue.
She entered in the room and slapped at the light switch before rationality could stop her.
There wasn’t much left of Mom: her bones had already taken on a faded, aged look. Her form was held together by ragged muscle and strained tendons, but most of the flesh and entrails were missing. Her lacerated face gazed at the ceiling through bars of hair that had probably been recently cut and styled to await the compliments of her daughter. Dad’s cadaver contained more tissue, but his body looked decayed and taut through blood loss. They lay side by side on a bed dressed with sheets swollen by blood.
Deanna screamed with such force vomit lurched up her throat. She backed away, an instinctive movement halted by the bedroom wall. Her hand came to her lips and caught some of the sick propelled from her mouth. Her legs kicked and stomped at the floor involuntarily. Tears came quickly, along with an intense nausea. The wall seemed to push her towards the corner of the room. She gasped through her nostrils, despair pulling putrid air coated with the metallic tang of congealed blood into her lungs.
She tried to force her gaze from her parents but failed, as if their torn forms held a morbid fascination for her. Another scream built in her lungs but as she went to release it vomit coated her hand in a torrent. Deanna leaned forward and heaved onto the carpet, the stench clouding the odor of decomposing bodies. The mace slipped from her grip and through waterlogged eyes she saw the canister settle onto a carpet that seemed to suck eagerly at her brown vomit.
Deanna dropped to her knees.
My god, what happened? What happened to Mom and Dad?
Her mind spun, images of their corpses imprinted on her closed eyelids with the clarity of digital photographs. She had to call the police; how could this happen in two days? Why hadn’t the neighbors alerted the authorities? Her father was known throughout Sands; surely someone would have . . . the questions collapsed from her mind as she retched again, her abdomen cramping as it tried to propel something substantial from her emptied stomach. She stood, palming the wall for support.
“Deanna? My, my, this is a pleasant surprise.”
The voice seemed to catch her and push her back against the wall. She looked at her father, expecting to see him sitting in bed with a smile on his pallid face and an arm in his lap holding protruding intestines in place. Dad lay on the bed staring blankly at the storm-lashed window as if thinking of his precious daughter. His naked body remained torn, his open mouth looking like the hole through which his life had escaped. She noticed movement to her right and a naked man stepped from the en-suite bathroom. She’d only seen a few pictures of him in the newspaper cuttings Dad sent her, but Deanna recognized Mayor Cain immediately.
Shock dragged her down and sweat bubbled across her forehead. What is Mayor Cain doing? Her eyes danced from the cadavers on the bed to the divested man as he edged closer to the foot of the bed. He seemed unconcerned about his nakedness, standing with hands on hips and pushing his pelvis out.
Deanna found the corner of the room and wished the two walls would slide apart and let her escape.
“I would like to offer you my condolences,” Cain said. “Such a terrible waste of a good political brain. And his wife—your mother—she was so charming.”
Her hand crawled to her mouth, and Deanna couldn’t tear her gaze from the man as he eyed her dead parents with little remorse. She searched for words, but her throat’s torridness kept her silent.
“Of course, your father had no chance of defeating me and winning my seat, but I just couldn’t take that risk. It’s nothing personal, sweet child, and if I’d had my way you wouldn’t have seen this tonight, but it had to happen. His disappearance had to occur sooner rather than later.”
My god, he killed them.
Deanna’s legs buckled at the knee but her position—wedged into the join of two walls—prevented her from sliding to the thick carpet. What has he done to Mom and Dad? Why?
“You should never have known,” Simon Cain said, looking from the torn bodies to her agonized face. “Just two more statistics on the missing persons list. Sure, your mom’s body will surface eventually; I’ll make sure it will, but your dad? No trace. Big news, especially as your beloved father had a strong following and plenty of support. There won’t be any clues. He’ll never be found.”
Tears spilled over her cheeks. Her throat felt constricted, blocked by a heavy ball of grief settled at the back of her mouth. She braced her body, determined not to fall to the floor. If she did, she feared she’d never be able to get back to her feet; sure her legs would disperse all their energy. Deanna swallowed painfully and managed to force words through a mouth cracked with dryness.
“What have you done to my parents?”
“I’m merely protecting my political interests, my dear. You know what a superb politician your father was. He had a chance to win the election but I simply could not afford to let that happen.”
She looked to her parents, her sweet Mom and Dad who had raised her with love and forgiveness and longed to have her back even for such a short visit, butchered like slaughterhouse meat on their bed. Anger swarmed inside; coated by fear and a grief so profound she feared her heart would shatter.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her voice harsh with rage. Her breath burnt as it flowed in and out of her mouth, bile stinging her digestive tract. “Just who the fuck are you?”
“You know who I am, child. Really, you should be asking what the fuck I am.” Simon took a step around the bed, moving to where Deanna cowered in the corner. “You have no idea what I am at all. Do you?”
A putrid fragrance coated the man’s breath as he leaned in. He didn’t blink as his eyes locked hers and she sensed something within the orbs, an unearthly spark. Anxiety and grief slid away, forced to retreat under a turbulent rise of fear tugging at her pounding heart and pinching her guts. Deanna swallowed, unsure if she saw the flutter behind his irises in her imagination.
She hoped she didn’t sound intimidated. “You’re a wanker, that’s what you are.”
He smiled. “I do masturbate from time to time, but I find sex with my wife much more gratifying.”
Deanna closed her eyes, the man’s breath wrapping her like a toxic cloud that threatened to drag whatever acrid contents remained in her guts painfully up her gullet. Against her closed eyelids she saw Mom and Dad lying in bed with Mayor Cain pulling their bodies apart. Deanna forced her eyes wide, her gaze intercepted by the heavy eyes of Simon Cain. Something shifted across his face—a flutter, movement such as a fetus would make when it pressed against the womb—and she be
gan to wonder what he was.
“I can see the question,” Simon breathed, his voice soft and methodical against the tempo of rain on the bedroom window. “It’s in you but you have not the courage to ask.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but fear locked her vocal chords down. Deanna knew he would tell her anyway, whether she asked or not.
His smile widened. He straightened and Deanna wriggled up the wall, pressing her shoulders into the plaster as she tried to stand, determined her parents’ murderer would not leer over her.
“I am of human descent,” Simon said. “That is first and foremost, but I am so much more—we are so much more—than you will ever know. I will tell you child, I will expose you to the secret and then—” he looked briefly to the bodies on the bed “—then you can be with Mommy.”
Deanna fought a rising surge of unconsciousness and her knees buckled. She held herself, breathed deep, and stood taller. Deanna tried to control her breath, keeping her eyes from her family; she could grieve for them later, now she simply had to stay alive. She would let Simon Cain talk and hopefully when he finished, her strength would have returned. She needed time and if she ignored him now, if she didn’t let him speak, she knew she’d be dead.
“Talk,” she said. Her voice wavered, but she hoped she sounded interested in what he had to say. “I want to know your secret.”
Simon folded his arms and took a step forward, a sharp grin distorting his face.
“Do you believe in monsters? Vampires? Werewolves?”
She shook her head. What is he talking about?
“You should. My ancestors have been alive for centuries. They live amongst us, Deanna, in our cities, in our towns and villages. They’re on our streets. Not just here, they’re everywhere: Europe, Asia, Africa, across all the continents. While you sleep each tries to sever the bloodline of the other, they try to recruit new followers.” He paused and leaned forward. “There’s a war on, Deanna, and it’s been raging for hundreds of years. It’s savage and brutal, they show no mercy. Can you imagine it, my child, covens of vampires in battle with packs of werewolves—can you see it?”
BLOODLINES -- Blood War Trilogy: Book I Page 11
