The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream

by T. C. Elofson

  At the entrance of an intersection, I slowed the truck to a stop. The unmistakable flashing lights of a police car had lit up the night sky ahead of us with its unambiguous red and blue glows bouncing off nearby trees and the homes around us. The scene could not be missed below the empty sky of barren acres where the moon sat low overhead. And thousands upon thousands of crickets seemed to give a warning to the night that we had arrived.

  I pulled the truck to the side of the road and we got out. I adjusted my weapon on my hip and wished I had some kind of identification that could get me anywhere with the local law enforcement. I assumed from experience that these officers would not be very accommodating to strangers in their town. So I had to rely on my partner for that. As we approached the scene of an abandoned car, I could hear their voices easily in the night air.

  “No sign of struggle,” an officer was saying to his partner. “No footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless. It’s almost too clean.”

  I was already intrigued as we approached.

  “So this kid Troy—he’s dating your daughter, isn’t he?” another officer was asking as we approached the car.

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Amy doing?”

  “She’s putting up missing posters in town and at the school,” the first officer said.

  I walked up and announced our presence to the police officers by clearing my throat. One was a tall and skinny fellow who looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over. His friend was short and stocky with dark sunglasses hanging from the collar of his shirt, and I guessed he must have wrestled in high school. He had that look.

  “You fellas had another one just like this last month, didn’t you?” I asked, and I knew it was so. I kept tabs on the growing list of missing persons and all cases around Washington that have—how should I put it?—have an unnatural twist to them. And I could feel Kenny’s eyes on me now. He didn’t have to read my mind. He could always read my face just as well.

  “And who are you?” one of the officers asked as he sized Kenny and me up, his eyes lingering on Kenny a bit longer than on me.

  “Seattle PD,” Kenny said flashing his badge.

  “You two are a little ways from Seattle, aren’t you?”

  “Just passing through, Officer. You did have another one just like this, correct?” I asked.

  “Yeah, about a mile up the road,” he said. “And a few others before that.”

  “So this victim,” Kenny began. “You knew him?”

  “Town like Toledo, everybody knows everybody.”

  “Any connection between the victims? Besides the fact they were all men?” I asked.

  “Yeah, like I said. Everybody knows everybody around here.”

  I could tell that my knowledge of their case was putting them off us slightly. I had to be careful or there might be questions that I wasn’t ready to answer.

  “So what’s the theory?” Kenny asked.

  “Honestly, we don’t know. Serial murders, kidnapping ring…”

  “Well, I hope you figure it out soon. Thank you for your time, Officers. We’ll let you get back to your work. Good luck,” Kenny told them as we walked back to my truck.

  “What’s this about, Tim?” Kenny pushed me. “Goddamnit, you already knew about this before we came down here, didn’t you?”

  “I did my reading before we came down,” I told him. “Look, Kenny. We both agree that we’re looking for vampires, or used-to-be vampires, right?”

  “Right,” he answered suspiciously, waiting for me to go on.

  “And the evidence has already led us here. That receipt is from a gas station just down that hill.” I pointed past the police cars and down a darkened road. “I think all three of the victims were from this area. In fact, I would bet that there was a group of vampires that hunted out here and always had. Now, Fabiana told me that many vampires have had difficulty with the transformation, just like she has. She has all but lost her mind because of the guilt. But what if there are vampires out here who are still taking victims because it’s what they’ve always done? But now they’re human and they don’t know any other way. It doesn’t matter what they used to be. They’re kidnapping people. If we find the victims, we find the ex-vampires.”

  “Wait a minute, Tim. I know you, man. You’re fuckin’ involved in this, aren’t you?” Kenny asked. “You’ve been investigating these disappearances… Right?”

  I gave him no answer; just a slight nod was all that he got.

  “Goddamnit, man! You’re not a cop anymore! You know how much trouble you could be in? Leave this up to the Toledo police. We have our own shit to do.” Anger flashed in his eyes. But he knew. He knew neither one of us could leave it alone now. Not with innocent lives at stake out there.

  “Come on! They don’t really know what’s going on. There are a total of two cops in this town. They’re not ready for something like this. But we are! Help me do this, Kenny. We’re all alone in this. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves,” I said.

  For a moment he would not look at me. He just took a long look at the empty car on the side of the road and let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Fine, Tim. But you help me first. Then I’ll help you. Now, let’s get the fuck out of here. I’m really tired. Let’s deal with all of this in the morning.”

  That night Kenny and I stayed in a piece of shit place called Easy Z’s Motel just outside of town. It was a flat-roofed building of curved white concrete and glass that interacted with nature and reflected the water in a small pond out front that sported a broken fountain. A brightly lit up sign told us about vacancies and their cable television.

  I dropped my keys on a small table beneath a coat rack by the door. Moonlight seeped through the blinds over a dining table just next to one of the two beds and illuminated the darkly paneled foyer. Gloomy wallpaper with a horrid design that must have been at least twenty years old looked back at us. White specks of dust moved in the light as I took my coat off and hung it on a peg.

  “Well, we’ve slept in worse places,” Kenny said as I sat on the end of the small bed by the door.

  “Not many. But remember that hole in Georgia we stayed in on that stakeout?”

  “Oh shit, don’t remind me!” he laughed, and then we were quiet again. My exhaustion was getting the better of me. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t quite know how to start. We had always been close friends, but now we were apart for months at a time and I had been keeping secrets from him. I felt guilty about that. Really guilty. I wanted to say that I was sorry, but it didn’t quite seem like enough, so I chose to say nothing.

  I rearranged a small, lumpy pillow behind my back, propped myself up in the bed, and set my gun on the lamp table that sat between my bed and Kenny’s. I thought that maybe I should call Merric, but I knew it was far too late for anything like that unless I was determined to piss off Sara—which did seem like a good idea—but I soon put it all out of my mind.

  It was only a moment before Kenny and I had the television on and the discomfort between us soon was gone, drowned out by late-night talk show voices. We watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and I had my first real laugh with Kenny in a long time. It felt good. I did miss so much about him. I missed watching our horrid baseball games together and both yelling at the television in his house. I missed staying up late laughing and having fun with him, but most of all, I missed working with him. The stakeouts and the late-night investigations. It had always been just the two of us and I liked it that way.

  Chapter 9

  1:30 a.m., May 6

  Kenny came fully awake after only an hour of sleep and he wondered what he was afraid of. What the hell was happening here? His first conscious fear was that he was having a heart attack in his bed. He looked over only to find Tim fast asleep and unmoved by Kenny’s heavy breathing.

  Kenny was spacey and woozy, still flying high from his nightmare. He thought that he heard a deep, low pounding noise from somewhere inside the m
otel room. The noise was close. It sounded as if a heavy weight—maybe a metal baseball bat—had struck the floor. He was frightened and couldn’t remember where he left his Glock.

  What could have possibly made that sound?

  Shock and fear coursed through Kenny like a cold breeze blowing over his skin, giving him an unwanted chill. But this hurt. This was painful. His eyes darted from one corner of the room to the other in a panic that could only be described as sheer and utter terror. He was sweating now and his heart was pulsing so hard under his chest that he was sure it would fail him. His chest was rising and falling like the crashing tides of an ocean and his mind was running sprints as images played inside his head. He just wanted it all to stop. He would have done anything if it would only stop.

  Kenny’s reflection in the mirror of the small hotel bathroom was one of a stranger looking back at him. Nothing he was seeing even looked remotely like the man he had always known. His eyes were now quivering rapidly from side to side and the nerves in his face jerked and twitched nervously. As he stared into the mirror, his vision suddenly caught sight of something. He jerked his head around so fast he thought his neck would break. But there was nothing there. He was alone now but he knew he had seen it. He had definitely seen a figure in the room. A demon, tall and massive, hulking over him. And for some reason, a sense of familiarity had come with the sensation as Kenny had stood alone, quaking in that small, cramped bathroom with its green painted walls and flowery shower curtain. Kenny could still see the blue leathery flesh and eyes of blood as he clung to the edge of the sink.

  Had he seen it somewhere before? Had it emerged from some long, tucked-away dream that had suddenly climbed to the surface of his subconscious? Kenny had heard tales of such things happening to people under great stress. Stories of horrors and emotional pain rushing to the surface of their mind, making things and places feel unreal, unnatural.

  Maybe that’s what was happening?

  Kenny wiped his face with a cool, damp rag and it felt good to him. He closed his eyes and got a little pleasure from the cold water washing over his eyelids. He could hear the calm, rhythmic breathing of Tim asleep in his bed. And Kenny felt grateful that he wouldn’t get any questions about this in the morning. Tim had no idea and that was good.

  Kenny crawled back into his uncomfortable bed and tried to relax. Soon after, insomnia proved to be the only enemy of the night. It robbed him of the few hours left before dawn and ripped his brain into fragmented dreams of anxiety and horror. Kenny dreamed Tim had been shot and was bleeding out, dying in Kenny’s arms. His cell phone had no signal and there was no way to call for aid. In this twilight state, Kenny could not find answers in his life anymore and felt as if it was all over for him. Suddenly the dream shifted and he drove up to a crime scene with no knowledge of how or what to do. His mind no longer was of any use to him.

  Kenny flipped this way and that way, rearranging the pillows over and over again. Soon the stars blinked out with the coming morning. Kenny got up and made coffee.

  Chapter 10

  8:30 a.m., May 6

  The morning dawned harsh and almost icy and was remarkably dry for that time of the year. My truck roared to life easily and I wished I could wake up as effortlessly. As Kenny and I pulled out of the parking lot of the horrid motel, I hoped to never spend another uncomfortable night there in that lumpy bed. I was happy to see the place disappear from my rearview mirror as we pulled onto the 505 and headed down into Toledo. Kenny and I were driving into town to find the gas station in hopes that someone would know the man that had turned up dead in Seattle.

  The long drive cut across nearly ten miles of open fields, then through a swath of forest. The woods were made up of mostly pine and oak, and were soaked in puddles of water. Then it occurred to me. This part of the state was flood country. A few years back, a stretch of I-5 from mile marker 68 to mile marker 100 had been completely under water for several weeks. It was their own little Katrina. But nothing seemed to have been done to keep it from happening again. In fact, the area was flooded again a year later. What at one time had been called “The Seven Year Flood” now seemed to come every year to this part of Washington. I missed my congested, polluted city already.

  We passed several more soaked fields of drowning blades of grass before coming out in view of our destination.

  Dr. Colleens had been kind enough to email a photo of the John Doe this morning to my cell phone. I only hoped that showing off the photo of a dead man would not stir up too much trouble for us in such a small town. I had not gotten a good feeling from the local law enforcement so far and didn’t want to push our luck any farther than was needed to find out the truth.

  Kenny sat silently next to me and I got the feeling he had had a hard time sleeping. I remember him getting up at some point in the night and I hoped he got a little rest because of the way things usually worked with us—we sometimes don’t even see a bed for some time during these kinds of investigations.

  As I drove over the steep hill that led into town, I was distressed to see the speed limit drop from 40 mph to 25 mph. I crept along slowly until I came to a rundown gas station that had seen better days. Most of the tanks looked like they had been new in the ‘80s. Many of the pumps were out of service and displayed cardboard signs taped to them that read just that.

  The few vehicles that were at the pumps were ramshackle and rusted, the paint of their years long gone from their frames of American steel. My Ford F150 seemed to gleam as I pulled it to a stop in front of the dirty, double glass doors of the station. Only one of the doors was open; another cardboard sign was pasted on it for all to see, telling me to use the other door. As I made my way into the store, I noticed a billboard of missing persons with a paper taped to the front.

  It was Troy—the boy that had been taken from his car the other night—and I could imagine his distraught girlfriend taping his photo up there. I wondered how difficult it might be to find her. She could very well have valuable information that could help us.

  I shot Kenny a look and pointed to the flyer as we entered the gas station. A long beep announced our arrival to an older man standing at a beat-up countertop on the far right of the dark, gloomy store. His eyes scanned our faces and then fixed onto Kenny. My partner’s dark skin was sending off alerts in the man’s mind, reflecting his redneck sensibilities. I suddenly realized I had yet to see a black man in this town. Actually, I had yet to see any man or woman in this town that wasn’t white. I had been told that there were Native Americans living in Toledo but I had yet to see any myself.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?” the old man said to us, and I let Kenny do the talking as we walked over to his counter. Kenny flashed his badge to the man.

  “Cops, huh? I thought I had seen every cop in town but I don’t know you guys.”

  “Seattle PD,” I told him, making him believe I was a policeman too. I pulled out my phone and brought up the picture I had been emailed by the doctor. Kenny took my lead.

  “Have you seen this man before?” Kenny asked, and the man’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked into the wide screen of my phone. But when he spoke again, it was me he was addressing, not my friend. I suddenly felt anger flash over my face and I tried my hardest not to show it. In this day and age, it boggled my mind that a county just a few hours’ drive from Seattle—a very free and accepting city—could be so different culturally. Kenny and I are both very Democratic but we were now in the reddest county in Washington.

  “What’s wrong with his face? He looks dead.”

  “He is dead. That’s why we’re here. Now, have you seen him before?” Kenny asked. The man looked at him for a moment then turned back to me and spoke again. This old fart still refused to give Kenny the respect he deserved and it was starting to piss me off. Then I heard Kenny in my head.

  “Just let it go, Tim. He’s a fucking moron.”

  “I’ve seen him around before, once or twice. Been a few days though…”

&n
bsp; “Two,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Two days. He was in here two days ago. Now, I need to find out who this man was and who might know him.”

  “He was kinda new in town, only a few months I think… I’m pretty sure someone from church said he stayed at a place over by the airport, just off of Buckley Road.”

  “Thank you, sir. You’ve been very helpful,” Kenny told him, with just a little bit of East Coast attitude behind those words. After a quick scan of the gas station’s interior, we were gone, striding out the door with a professional sense of purpose, but we didn’t get into my truck. Instead, we walked silently down the main road of the town—the only road that had a stop sign.

  Kenny was following my lead; he knew to trust my instincts and something in my subconscious was calling out for our attention. I was listening to the conversation carried on the wind around us. Only Kenny and I could detect the words that were spoken almost at the bottom of the hill. As we walked, the words just resonated in our minds. Then I heard her say it. His name struck a chord in me. Troy. The voice of the woman was asking about the boy that had been taken. She was asking about Troy.

  The sun was weak in the pale sky and the light was struggling thin and cold as Kenny and I walked down a lonely sidewalk. Suddenly Kenny seemed to be stricken by something. He froze in his tracks. His eyes were locked on something. He even looked scared and I couldn’t, for the life of me, see what it was. Only a ragged dog stood in the road about a block down, but I was sure that couldn’t have been it.

  “What is it?” I asked. Kenny then wiped his eyes with his thick fingers and gave a big, breathy sigh, before telling me that it was nothing. We moved on, but my concern was apparent to him.

  “Really, Tim. It’s nothing.”

  Before long, we came upon the young girl I could hear in my head. She was about high school age and was taping up flyers to a telephone pole. She was small and thin and her face was puffy, as if she hadn’t eaten in a while and had been crying a lot. On a better day, she might have even been attractive, in a bleached blond, country girl sort of way. She was thin with a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and wore a Lewis County Threshing Bee t-shirt.