Bloodbreeders: Seeking Others

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “We could leave the boat once we have made our way closer to our home. Hide for the day, and then return after the sun has set,” Jacob surmised.

  “Well, I sure don’t want to be cramped in, and I sure as hell don’t want someone to come along and open the door, cooking us to a crisp,” I said squatting in front of the closest. “Come on out, it’s okay.”

  Shyanna poked her head out then pulled it right back in. I saw a glimpse of red on her head and was worried that she might have been wounded in the struggle. I had Tammy give me an orange, and I started taking the outer skin off, while making ‘umm’s’ and ‘awe’ sounds, until she slowly hopped out. “Good.” I nodded and she took it.

  “Very good,” I replied as I started looking her over.

  She was covered in bits and pieces of human flesh, not to mention the amount of blood that covered her as well as the room. Tammy and Derek helped Sydney clean the mess with the fresh water from the creek. I took Shyanna up on the deck and started washing her down the best that I could with her hopping around yelling, “No…cold.” I wanted badly to talk to her about what had happened, but every time I asked her about the men she hurt, she just started hopping around with more excitement than I needed at the moment.

  “Her wing looks hurt,” Derek said pouring a bucket of dirty water over the side.

  “Shya, come, sit,” I told her taking her by the hand.

  “Hurt!” she screamed.

  I turned her hand over and found that it had a long slice on the palm, and one of her talons were missing, the one on her pinky finger. I turned her around and saw the tear that Derek was talking about. “They fought her.” I began to wonder if she fought in self-defense, or if the two she killed did. It was something I would never know. The thought of her being able to take care of herself was a comforting thought if she should ever get lost. Knowing that I couldn’t leave her alone with normals was not. Her wing looked a bit torn, but nothing that seemed to bother her when she jumped into the air, batting her wings to their full extension.

  Tammy, Sydney, and Garvin placed all the files in the storage compartment under the seats in the kitchen area, while the rest of us sat on the deck. Jacob had the wheel and was making our way back to the open ocean. We had two hours left to make up our minds. We would either take a chance at floating out in the open water with no one at the wheel, or do as Jacob suggested and tie the boat up and find a place to wait the day out. I for one thought it would be safer to get off the boat, but Sydney was having a fit not wanting to leave it unprotected.

  “Can’t we just make another normal watch it for us?” Sydney asked, after we were on the deck.

  “It is not that simple. Yes, we could mark a normal, but if he knows nothing of the water then we could be in a greater amount of trouble than if we just took our own chances at sea,” Cates explained.

  “The boat already looks like its apart of the shore line, Sydney. We could just add some more tree branches and really hide it,” Brandon added.

  “He has a good point,” Jacob concurred.

  “Then let’s do it soon, because we’re running out of time,” Sydney replied with full anxiety.

  We took the boat into a rocky portion of the shore and dropped everyone off except Sydney and Garvin, who were going to take the boat further down and find a better place to tie it up. We were to make our way deep inland, looking for shelter as we made our way in the direction of the boat. This time Shyanna stayed at my side. There was one old abandon colonel style home that looked like it hadn’t been lived in, in over a hundred years. Moss and vines covered the front porch, giving it an eerie haunted feel, as soon as you laid eyes on it.

  “Derek and Brandon can go with me to help the others with the boat, while the rest of you find us a safe place in the manner,” Jacob said taking a broken branch, wrapping a piece of cloth he tore from his shirt around it. “This will help light your way for a time. We will return as soon as we can.”

  “Cates, you can go in first,” I quickly added handing him the torch.

  “I did not think that I would see fear on your face…not when it came to a place such as this.”

  “Who said I was afraid?”

  “Just an observation,” he replied striking a flint, bringing the torch to life.

  “Kindly keep your observations to yourself.” Then I walked right up to the front door, knocking the moss away as it touched my body.

  Jacob took off running into the darkness with my boy’s right behind him, while I waited for Cates and Tammy to join me on the porch of what had to be the creepiest place on earth. The shutters were hanging halfway off, with paint desperately trying to keep its grip. Boards covered the windows on the lower half along with vines from different plants. The light showed intricate carvings on the wooden door that had no knob. I watched as Tammy bent down and came back up rubbing her fingers together, showing us some sort of red powder that had been spread across the entrance.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked.

  “Witchcraft, maybe voodoo,” Cates replied, while he pushed on the door.

  “Don’t tell me you believe in that sort of stuff too,” I laughed and kicked the door, then cursed out loud, because it didn’t budge. “I mean yeah I’ve heard of witchcraft before you say anything, but actual real witches in this day and age. It’s no more than something like a trick that the doctor used. With all you have seen Cates, you truly believe in real witches, or whatever you said…voodoo?”

  “No more than I believe in the walking dead, or the likes of a bloodbreeder,” he calmly replied as he leaned on the dirt covered wall.

  “So how do we get in?”

  “With a little more strength then you have.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cates pushed himself off the wall and took two steps back away from the door. He turned, popping his head to the side, and then closed his eyes. He was as still as a statue. He very slowly brought his hand out in front of him, while pulling the other to his waist, balled into a fist. He then moved his left foot back one step. In one lightning speed kick the door shattered, and a tornado of a wind shot out. Tammy was struck in the side of the head with a flying board and knocked clear off the porch. I moved to keep from taking a slither of wood in my chest, taking one in my thigh instead. It was the better of the two, if I had to be hit. Cates reached up and grabbed a wide piece of wood that was coming right at him, catching it mere inches from his right shoulder and upper chest. Shyanna had taken to the sky. It was a trap, and one that had to be set by some unnatural force.

  “Like I said, I’ve heard of witchcraft, it even speaks about it in the Bible,” I repeated, reaching back and yanking out the wood that was well planted in my leg. “Damn! That hurts. I sure ain’t never read about anything like this.”

  “The two worlds that you have lived in Renee, are two completely different universes. You have seen little in the ways of this one.”

  “I was raised to stay clear of a witch and if you’re saying this is the real deal…I’m not going in there,” I pointed and then walked off the porch.

  “You fear such things?”

  “In a huge way, and my fear of these sorta things rose considerably when I saw those walking damnations.”

  “Dawn will be at hand, Renee. There is no time to seek out other means of shelter,” Cates said walking to the end of the porch.

  “I’ll go back to the boat.”

  “You have stained hands. You have laid the dead to rest, but you will not stay one days rest in the house of a being that studied the craft?”

  “Did you just miss the whole wind storm thing, Cates? I’m not going in there and that’s final.”

  Movement caught my attention, and in two steps I was back on the porch by Cates and Tammy. Cates put his finger to his lips and moved us closer to the door. “No,” I whispered. He glared down at me and nodded sharply. Tammy stepped through backwards, first. She was watching for the movement, the same shadow that had caught my eye. Ther
e were sounds coming right at us through the forest. Cates pushed me and I fell in on Tammy, both of us going down. I was on my feet in seconds, looking around as Cates brought the torch in and stomped it out. The glimpse I saw before that was of a completely furnished home. I was in the home of one that used witchcraft, and every hair on my body was standing on end. Running, I heard running.

  “Everyone in,” Jacob yelled, and when he did my heart dropped.

  I was about to get out of this wicked house when all five boys rushed through the door. “We must secure the door,” Jacob yelled then took off into the house. All hell was breaking loose and I didn’t have a clue as to why or what. The first thing that came to my mind was more of the walking dead.

  “Rogues,” Jacob called out knocking over the china hutch. “Garvin?”

  Garvin and Brandon ran over and picked up one end while Jacob carried the other. They placed it against the hole where the door used to be, and then started stacking things against it. When I asked what happened, I was told that after they were finished with the boat they were coming back straight through the tree line by the shore, but as they were cutting back inland they come across a shack, filled with the smells of our kind. That’s when Cates explained how their types, rogues, would dig deep holes under old fallen down places to hide the day away, and then move on to keep their whereabouts unknown.

  “They take any that they can get their hands on. Blood is blood to them,” Garvin added.

  “You know about these rogues?” I asked with the full shock of it showing in my voice.

  “Yvette told many stories about them. She once said that she would find great pleasure in hiring a few to take care of her dirty deeds, but they would more than likely eat her stock before she got it.”

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Crazed breeders, those who have earned their freedom by the breaking of their minds,” Cates finished explaining while he placed a long couch in front of the door, bracing the china hutch into place.

  “So they’re not just breeders, they’re crazy ones?” I asked still not moving far from where I started from.

  “The dawn will call them back to their domain, but they will be back at its first setting,” Jacob said right at the time one of the rogues slammed into the china hutch.

  All of us watched as Cates put his whole body up against it and demanded that we secure the basement. My stomach contents came up into my mouth. I could barely move my feet and now he wanted me to go down into the basement. I left it up to the others and stood there watching the strain on Cates’s face as he held pressure to the hutch. I walked over and stood up on the couch and leaned my weight on the small portion of hutch that was left and waited for the others.

  “You must get past this fear.”

  “It’s not that kind of fear, Cates. I think I would rather take on these rogues than stay in this house.”

  “You are as safe here as you would have been on the boat.”

  “And that’s not a very good assessment is it?”

  “I suppose you are correct in that form of thinking. Listen, they leave,” he said getting quiet.

  “It’s clear,” Derek called out, running back up the long dark hall. “Lots of weird things down there, but not one window.”

  “What do you mean weird?” I asked getting nervous all over again.

  “Nothing that you will not rest through,” Cates replied, smiling down at me as he lowered the hutch.

  “Gone?”

  “For now. I will secure this, you go with Derek. I will be there when I’m done.”

  I started walking behind Derek who was practically sprinting. He left me alone in the hall, long before I made it to the basement door. The staircase went up right next to the hall, with a railing that continued to go around showing several rooms to the open hall and foyer. I looked up and almost jumped out of my skin. I could have sworn I just saw an older woman looking down at me, but when I looked back up she was gone. “Let’s move,” Cates said pushing my back, causing me to scream. He burst out laughing and walked around me.

  “You really are in disagreement of this place, are you not?”

  “It gives me the chills. How could all this furniture be in such good condition? And the way it feels, all clammy and well, just strange.”

  “Had I not mentioned the word ‘witchcraft’, would it have still bothered you?”

  “Yeah, I would have said it myself as soon as the wind came out like that. That crazy doctor’s place sure didn’t fill like this.”

  “Come, let us go see where we will be laying our heads,” he said motioning his hand toward the door.

  “No, really, after you.”

  “What is there to fear? The others are already down there.”

  “I don’t hear a thing,” I replied taking Shyanna by the hand.

  Cates got a strange look on his face and stepped closer to the door. He agreed and took off down the steps leaving me to stand there contemplating. I know more than stepped through the door with Shyanna, when the thing slammed shut. “Cates!” I screamed and ran down the stairs. I ran tripping over a stone that sat up to high and took me and Shyanna both down. “No, ouch.” Was the complaint that Shyanna gave out, and ‘son-of-a-bitch’ was mine. I looked up and saw Jacob standing over me, smiling from ear to ear.

  “The others have felt the pull of the sun.”

  “Should have thought about that,” I said reaching out my hand.

  Jacob pulled me to my feet as I started taking in the sights of the basement. It was just one large room with two doors at the back. Jacob said that one room held old supplies and that the other was tightly secured from the other side. I was going to ask what he thought about it, then changed my mind, knowing he would counter it with one of his, ‘why do you ask me things I cannot answer’. In the far right corner Garvin, Sydney, and Tammy were leaning on each other’s shoulders passed out to the calling. A few feet from them were Derek and Brandon, lying over on their sides. Cates stretched his arms above his head and ran his fingers on the overhead ceiling that had to be eight feet high.

  “Think I will make myself more comfortable,” he said as he went to the far left side of the room.

  The walls were made of wooden slats just like the outer walls of the house, only the white wash color held firm even in the damp air of the basement. The smell of a musty scent filled the stale air, mixed with an odor of our kind. With so many of us and those who were outside such a short time ago, it was very hard to tell if there had been others here before us, or if my senses were just working on overload. Jacob walked back over to the locked door and leaned his ear close, standing there in perfect silence. I waited for him to turn around, watching for any sign of concern on his face. This place made my skin crawl and right now I was wishing we were anywhere, but here. Jacob came back over and sat down on the floor next to me. I had taken a seat not far from my little ones, where every time I looked up I saw Cates, looking back at me, until his eyes finally closed.

  “Can you read things the way he does?” I asked Jacob the moment Cates went under.

  “His reading comes with years of experience.”

  “So, he’s not like, Sydney?”

  “In a way, one could say, yes. But his life before the darkness was one where if you did not see your attackers move, than you might as well just take your own life and save the trouble for all.”

  “He doesn’t seem worried about this place.”

  “Maybe because he has been through far too much to be concerned over such things,” Jacob replied, pushing his back up against the wall uncomfortably.

  “I’m telling you right now that this place isn’t right and I really don’t like being here,” I said grabbing my knees and pulling them to my chest.

  “I too feel it.”

  “You what!”

  “I fear we will wake and find more than we bargained for,” he replied rolling his head to look at me.

  “Why didn’t you say something when yo
u first came in?”

  “Because there was no time to find shelter. They would not have made it ten more minutes,” he said pointing at my little ones.

  “Then it’s up to us. We wake up earlier than everyone else.”

  “Indeed we do.” Then he closed his eyes.

  I fought the pull with everything I had. I feared going into the darkness of my mind more now than ever, where we were all at our most vulnerable. My eyes shut, but opened quickly, as I re-adjusted myself. I laid my head on my knee, looking back at the stairway we had come down, and right as my mind was taken from me, I saw her again…then I was out.

  ***

  I woke to the sounds of chains rattling and banging, making me think for just an instant that I was back in the dungeons of Cuba. With that one thought my eyes flew open to find that I, just like everyone else, was heavily chained and not going anywhere anytime soon. I called out Jacob’s name, but didn’t see him anywhere and that’s when the panic set in. I began trying to crawl across the room to the still sleeping Cates, who had three times the amount of chains on him, only to find that I couldn’t move more than a few feet.

  “Cates,” I whispered.

  “They have Jacob. Still yourself or you will be next,” he whispered back.

  The door that Jacob said was securely locked started to open. I dropped my head like a rock and did as Cates had told me to. Two skinny men drug Jacob, chains and all and dropped him next to me and then started checking to see if any of the rest of us had woken.

  “Not yet,” one of them said.

  “We will check back after the sun sets,” the other replied, then both went up and out of the basement.

  “Jacob?” I whispered as soon as the door closed. “You’re hurt!”

  “They thought us to be the rogues. I’m afraid I didn’t have much luck in convincing them otherwise.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am. But, these are a strange group of breeders.”