The thing in the hooded sweatshirt was on her again, this time straddling her chest. She threw punches to its stomach but they did no good. She saw its face, hellish and unfathomable. It was contorted and its eyes were solid black. Its nose looked almost bat-like and was slightly sunken.
It was the exact face from Jason’s grainy video footage.
Nikki screamed. Then, almost as if on cue, the creature opened its mouth and revealed twin rows of yellowed teeth, sharp and crooked. It let out something that sounded like a mixture of a roar and a chuckle before plunging its head down towards her exposed neck.
Nikki closed her eyes and waited for the pain—waited for her neck to be torn open by this ghoul that was perched on her chest. But the pain never came. Instead, less than a second before the creature’s teeth would have ripped into her flesh, the parking lot of the Red Creek B&B was filled with the sound of gunshots.
Nikki heard three shots ring out; the thing on top of her shuddered and jerked at each one. It tumbled backwards but stood up right away. Its head was concealed by the overhang of the hood it wore but Nikki still saw its horrid face. It leered at her, let out a screech, and then went running for the cover of the forest.
Another gunshot rang out from behind Nikki. If it hit the creature, it did no good. Nikki sat up and wheeled around toward the sounds where the gunshots had come from.
Kara Humphrey stood in front of her patrol car at the very end of the driveway. Behind her, the main road was mostly hidden behind the trees that encompassed the B&B grounds. Seeing that Nikki was getting up, Kara started walking towards her. Kara was visibly shaking as she closed the distance between them.
I wonder if she was shaking like that when she fired off those shots, Nikki thought. My God, how close were those bullets?
That thought was chased off by the fact that Kara Humphrey had just saved her life.
“Are you okay?” Kara asked, her eyes darting from Nikki, to the woods, and then back.
“Just some scratches,” Nikki said, realizing that she was still catching her breath from colliding against the side of her car.
“Who was that?” Kara asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. She hesitated before adding: “I didn’t see his face clearly.” She had no idea why she lied. Given the fact that some indescribable monster from Hell had just attacked her, she didn’t see how she could possibly tell the truth.
“I hit him with at least two of those shots,” Kara said, dumbfounded. Now she stared blankly into the forests, as if looking for the body of the thing along the edge of the trees. “Didn’t I?”
“I think you hit him all three times,” Nikki said.
“One of them was right above the heart,” Kara said. “No one could get up and run away after something like that.”
Nikki said nothing. She kept seeing that demonic face and had no problem assuming that it could shrug off three gunshots as if they were nothing.
Kara slowly returned her pistol to the holster on her belt. Nikki felt bad for her; she looked like a little girl playing dress-up. She knew the deal with the Sheriff being ill and how Kara had basically been forced into taking the role. Her reluctance for the position showed in that moment.
Regardless, Nikki was just happy as hell that Kara had showed up when she had. Nikki watched as Kara hunched down and studied the ground.
“No blood,” she said. “None at all. How in the hell is that possible?”
Nikki played dumb as well as she could and simply shrugged. But when she pictured that ghoulish face, its mouth of razor teeth aimed for her neck, she wondered just how well she’d be able to keep it to herself.
Suddenly, she very badly wanted to be back at Saul’s cabin. It seemed too coincidental: this evil-looking thing attacking her after she had bedded someone of Saul’s peculiar lineage. Surely he’d know what was going on and why that thing had attacked her.
“You sure you’re okay?” Kara asked.
“Yes. Just shaken-up.”
“Come on,” Kara said, that blank look still on her face. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”
Nikki saw the shattered glass of her driver’s side window and nodded. “Sure.”
They walked towards Kara’s patrol car, both taking quick glances back towards the rear of the B&B property where the thing had retreated into the forest.
4
Nikki was not at all surprised to find that, although the timing of it all had been greatly in her favor, Kara had been coming to the B&B to ask her a few questions. She had learned through Jason’s mother that Nikki and Jason had been friends. And since Jason really hadn’t had all that many friends, Nikki was the obvious place to start asking questions.
“I almost came out early this morning,” Kara said as she drove the car back into Red Creek. “But I put it off. I was surprised you had showed up to work at all. I called later in the day to ask Lily if you had come in and she said yes.”
“I’m glad you waited,” Nikki said sourly. “Otherwise, I’d be dead right now.”
“I hope you understand that I have to ask this,” Kara said, “but do you think the man that attacked you had something to do with Jason’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know,” Nikki said. “Like I said, I didn’t really see his face.”
Kara thought this over for a moment. She frowned and tapped the steering wheel nervously as she drove. “I should really take you to the station for questioning,” she said. “But I know how the gossip mill works and I’m not going to put you through that.”
“Questioning for what?”
“Well, according to Jason’s mother, you’re basically the only friend he had.”
Shit, Nikki thought. Apparently, some people do know that I was Jason’s friend.
“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” she said.
“No one else has any idea who might want to hurt him,” Kara said.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I have no ideas, either.”
“Well, let’s say this man is somehow connected to what happened to Jason. Do you know for any reason anyone might want to harm Jason in any way?”
Nikki instantly thought of the trap cam footage. But she now knew without a doubt that Saul had not gone for Jason. She wondered if Saul might have any insights into it. While he had shared most of his history with her, she was still very much in the dark on the way the separate clans lived and how The Guard regulated things.
“None that I know if,” she said. “But Jason was a quiet kind of guy, you know? We usually just hung out and watched movies. That’s about it. He really never talked about his personal life a lot.”
This was true and, Nikki hoped, enough bait to get Kara uninterested in asking her questions about Jason’s fate.
“Do you know any of his interests?” Kara asked. “Did he owe anyone money? Anything like that?”
“I don’t think so. And in terms of interests, he was obsessed with UFOs and ghosts and things of that nature. So unless he was abducted by a UFO, I can’t think of where he could have gone.”
“Nikki…there was a lot of blood. I’m afraid we might not be talking about a simple disappearance here.”
“I know.”
They had come into Red Creek, the sun setting to pull in the night. Nikki instructed Kara as to where to turn as they neared her apartment. When they arrived, Kara pulled up to the sidewalk and parked the car.
“Anything else?” Nikki asked. She didn’t want to be hounded, but she also wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to Jason.
Kara thought about it for one moment and then gave Nikki a look that she didn’t particularly care for.
“Yes. Could you tell me about your associations with Saul Benton?”
Nikki felt like she had been punched in the gut. The dirty little secret she had been daydreaming about all day was already no longer a secret. She felt her face flush red and allowed some of her anger ooze out.
“Why?”
Kara looked away for a m
oment, as if she briefly regretted taking this route. But she returned to the accusatory stare again and went on. “The other night, Mr. Benton was in an altercation with Lester Dobbs. I questioned him but wasn’t quite satisfied with his answers. So I did some investigating and, in the course of that investigating, saw your car leaving his driveway late one afternoon.”
Nikki was relieved at first. Kara apparently had no idea that she had spent the night there the previous night and had no knowledge of what had taken place. Still, Nikki got the strong sense that Kara was lying about something. Not only that, but she also didn’t appreciate her accusatory tone.
“Does your questioning me about Saul Benton have anything to do with finding out what happened to Jason?”
Kara hesitated and then said, “No.”
“Then we’re done here,” Nikki said.
She opened her door and closed it forcefully behind her. She didn’t look back to see Kara’s reaction. She was breaking no laws and had been insulted. So as far as she was concerned, she was done helping Kara and the police.
Still, as she went inside the small complex and unlocked her apartment door, she couldn’t help but think that Kara had already formulated some weird sort of chain of events in her mind. Did she think that she, Nikki, and Saul had something to do with Jason’s disappearance?
She then thought of Jason’s computer…the computer with the trap cam footage. Nikki felt certain that the computer was now in the hands of the police. If that were the case, it would only be a matter of time before the footage was discovered. Nikki’s one hope is that no one would make the connection that she had—that the face she had seen on the screen had been that of Saul Benton.
With a cold feeling in her stomach, she crashed on her couch and stared at the ceiling, thinking. It didn’t take long before she decided to go to Saul’s cabin, but she thought it best to wait in the event that Kara Humphrey was still on the lookout.
5
The vampire known as Leibald stormed through the forest in a rage. It pulled a body behind it, a man in a denim coat. Leibald pulled the man by the coat collar, dragging him deeper into the woods. This particular man had nothing to do with Leibald’s mission in Red Creek, but Leibald’s anger had gotten the best of him and he’d had no choice but to kill something. Leibald had found this man fishing on the river that traced the outskirts of Red Creek and, without thinking, had attacked based on primal instinct and fury. He ripped into him without mercy, taking him completely off-guard. The poor guy had come out to and in the space of a few quick moments, had his throat ripped out and his blood pouring down the riverbank and into the water.
Leibald’s failure to kill the girl who had left Saul’s house that morning had hit him hard. Failure was not something he was accustomed to. He would have been successful had it not been for that meddlesome police woman. In the end, he’d have her dead by his hand as well.
Waiting things out had been part of his plan. There were other bits and pieces to his plan that had not yet fallen into place. But now Leibald didn’t know if he would be able to wait things out much longer. Now that he had been seen by the girl and the policewoman, he’d have to alter his plans.
And they weren’t just his plans. No, these plans went far beyond him. These were plans that had been set into place by forces that overwhelmed him in strength. Still, he thought he had no choice but to act—and to act soon. He had slaughtered the cows and killed these pathetic humans so that it would all be pinned on Saul Benton later. Be it by The Guard or the terrified residents of Red Creek, Saul would be destroyed soon.
Saul Benton had to die. And anyone that was part of his life in any way would join him in death.
Jason Eastman had been claimed because of the footage he had. More than that, his death would mean the weakening of the girl. And once she went to Saul for comfort, the sentimental idiot would no doubt feel a need to protect her. With Saul’s mind preoccupied with the girl, he would be in no position to interfere in Leibald’s plans before it was too late.
And so far, things seemed to be falling into place perfectly.
Leibald reached the thin entrance to his secret cave. He stripped off the sweatshirt and sweat pants. He was naked as he crawled through the entrance, pulling the body of the fisherman behind him. He pulled the body down, soon to join those of Jason Eastman and Lester Dobbs.
There, in the dark, Leibald sank his teeth into the fisherman’s neck and fed as if he were starving. As he fed, he imagined that the body beneath him was that of the girl and that each slurp of her blood was accompanied by her screams and wails for mercy that would never come.
6
Nikki waited two hours before leaving her apartment. She used that time to take a shower, eat a dinner that consisted of reheated pizza and a Coke, and clean the place for the first time in months. By the time the two hours were up, she was bursting to get out the door and see Saul again.
Nikki tried to convince herself that she wanted to see him to get answers and some sort of explanation as to her attack and what may have happened to Jason. And at first, this was exactly why she wanted to see him so badly. But by the time she was out of the door and on the street, her body began to reveal the real reasons.
“Stupid school girl,” she chided herself.
It was almost eight-thirty when Nikki stepped outside. Although it was rather reckless, she had no choice but to walk the mile and a half between her front door and the Red Creek B&B. As she walked, Nikki wondered if it might not be just a little stupid to be visiting a vampire at night. Night was when they usually fed, right? They stayed in during the day, in crypts or hanging upside down in caves. Right?
Of course, Saul had put those myths to rest. She laughed softly to herself as she thought about how very normal Saul had made it all seem. But then her mind flashed to the sight of the face in those green hues of the night vision footage and Nikki was reminded of what he was and what he was capable of.
Nikki reached the B&B and walked down the driveway towards her car. There were no visitors tonight –or any night for the last five weeks, for that matter. The lot was empty. As she neared her car, she looked to the place where she had been attacked. The scratches on the back of her hands and along her lower back had all been minor; only one had required a Band-Aid. The others, she had simply cleaned with peroxide and a cotton swab.
She was slightly hesitant as she opened the car door and began to clean out the glass. She did so very carefully, using a CD case to brush the smaller fragments out into the B&B lot.
When the seat was glass-free, she took one last look around the lot. She remembered just how fast the monster or whatever it had been had come out of the forest. It had come out of nowhere with impossible speed. If it was still out there, then it could take her when it wanted without regard to where she was.
Nikki was incredibly nervous, her arms shaking slightly as she cranked the engine to life. She pulled out of the B&B lot a little quicker than usual and headed down the secondary road to Saul’s cabin with a speed quite over the road limit.
When she reached his driveway, she paused for a moment before turning. Nikki looked for the shapes of cars anywhere nearby, wondering if Kara was out there anywhere, spying. Satisfied that no one was parked alongside the road, Nikki turned down Saul’s driveway. She parked in the same place as her other two visits and quickly got out of the car. She practically marched up the porch stairs and knocked on the door.
When Saul answered, he made no attempts to hide the smile on his face.
“I knew it was you,” he said slyly.
She was almost knocked over by the intense need to pounce on him the moment she saw his face. The tight tee shirt he was wearing only made matters worse.
“Yeah? How?”
“Well, after last night, your scent has sort of attached itself to me. It’s a scent my body knows to look for now. I knew you were here the moment you turned onto my driveway.”
She nodded. “Are you going to invite me i
n?”
He stepped aside and extended an arm. “Please.”
“So,” she said as nonchalantly as she could manage. “I was attacked today.”
Saul paused, the smile dropping from his face. “Attacked by whom?”
“Not who. What is more like it.”
“What do you mean?” Saul demanded.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” she said. “There’s something more important we need to talk about first.”
She stepped up to him, their eyes locked. As she made her way to him, she removed her shirt and threw it to the floor, revealing the black bra beneath. She didn’t do it to be sexy. With the way she was feeling at that moment, that was the least of her concerns.
“I’m going to have a hard time talking with you standing in front of me like this,” he said. To emphasize this, he placed a hand on her shoulder and traced the inside of her arm, trailing his hand down until it found her breast. He caressed it gently through the bra, their eyes never leaving one another.
“I didn’t mean talk, really,” she said. Her hands reached down and found the button of his pants. She stepped closer, her small breasts almost pressed against his massive form now.
“But you are okay?” he asked, breathing in her hair.
“I am,” she said, slowly bringing his zipper down. “Now.”
Their bodies pressed against one another and they kissed with an almost violent force. She was easily eight inches shorter than Saul and when he lifted her off of the ground to kiss her better, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her hands clawed at his shirt and eventually succeeded in tearing it over his head.
He carried her into the bedroom, both of them shedding clothes as they went. As they fumbled around on the bed in a chorus of sighs and moans, their bodies were chaotic for a moment. She simply tasted him, her eyes closed, wanting every part of him. He was doing the same and when his tongue briefly brushed against the softness of her inner thigh, she thought she might scream.
VEILED Complete Boxed Set Page 10
