Blood Harvest (Book 1): Blood Fruit

by Goodman, D. J.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The back of the van was windowless, and a thick dark curtain separated it from the front. Peg was prepared to spend their journey to—well, wherever they might be going—in total darkness, but soon after the two creatures went into the front the van rumbled to life and the back compartment flooded with light. For a moment Peg shielded her eyes and wondered if something had ripped off the top of the van, but when she forced herself to look up she realized the light was coming from multiple lamps wired to the ceiling. The quality of the light seemed odd until Peg realized why the lamps had to be there. They were UV lights. They were meant to simulate the sun. Even if sunlight didn’t kill a vampire like in the stories, it at least appeared Zoey didn’t like it. Zoey hid her eyes and started scratching at her skin like she was covered in fleas. Peg wished she would stop. Just looking at her gave Peg sympathy itches.

  As the van started to lurch (whichever one of the creatures was driving didn’t seem to be very good at it) the enormity and the horror of her situation finally started to dawn on Peg. To the rest of the world she had just vanished as quickly and quietly as Zoey eleven years ago. V knew what had happened, or at least part of it depending on how much she could remember after snapping out of her trance, but there wasn’t much for V to do. She would have enough trouble explaining to the authorities how she came to be in possession of Brendan while Peg was now gone and Tony was dead. If she managed to get out of being the prime suspect then she still only had the vaguest notion of where to start looking for Peg. Or V could always go with the last remaining option and try to convince everyone that a vampire-thing had done this. Peg could guess how that would go.

  The enormity of everything was almost too much. Peg could feel the way her mind wanted to shut down, to give in to the fear and despair, to just lie down in her cage and let everything else from this point on just happen.

  Oh hell no. Like I’m going to let you do that, bitch, the voice in her head said. Just stay with me for a second and look over there. Tell me exactly what you see.

  Peg turned as best as she could—t wasn’t easy in the closed confines of the cage—and looked at Zoey. Pretty, forever nineteen Zoey, curled up on the floor of her cage. Peg would say that this was the posture of someone that had given up long ago, but it occurred to Peg that this was untrue. Zoey’s mind and sanity was obviously swiss-cheesed beyond any normal kind of repair. Whatever she had seen in eleven years, the exact same thing they were likely going to right now, it had damaged her deeply. And yet she had escaped. She had found a way. Zoey might not have been in the condition to repeat the feat, but that only meant that it was Peg’s turn. Peg owed her that.

  “Zoey,” Peg whispered, mindful not to attract too much attention from the two in the front. They could probably hear her anyway, but she hoped they didn’t actually expect much from either Peg or Zoey and ignored them both. “Psst. Hey, Zoey.”

  Zoey’s only movement was to curl up into a tighter ball.

  “Zoey, please. Don’t shut down on me now. I’m going to need you to stay with me.”

  Zoey said nothing.

  That’s okay, the voice said. Maybe she’ll be more responsive later. For now you know what you need to do, right? You’ve talked about this with your therapist. That hyperawareness thing.

  Yes. Peg took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing thoughts. The night of Zoey’s disappearance was permanently burned into her head, every detail no matter how inconsequential recorded against her will. It was supposedly a side effect of the trauma, or some other psychobabble like that. The point was that she had done it subconsciously at the time but that her mind was still capable of it. She needed that now. She needed to record every single detail, on purpose this time. There was no telling what element of the situation might be the one she would need to survive this.

  The first order of business, she guessed, was to make sure she wasn’t going to bleed to death. Her bare ruined foot had left a long bloody streak on the van’s floor and it glistened in the van’s harsh light, but it was difficult in her current position to get a good look at the foot itself. She’d crawled into the cage on her hands and knees, a position she was still in, and shifting enough to view the foot was a tricky proposition in such a small space. It took nearly a minute of shifting and grunting before she had managed to turn around and sit in a way that would allow her to inspect herself. She put the foot up against the side of the cage to get a better look but then immediately put it down with a hiss. Besides the garlic and silver for vampires the creatures must have coated the bars with something else for normal people, because she felt a burning pain where her skin touched the metal. If the entire cage was like that this would be a very uncomfortable journey.

  Being sure to stay away from the bars this time Peg held up her foot to look at it. At this point she didn’t feel any particular feelings one way or the other at the loss of her toe. She supposed that was probably a sign that she was in shock, but on the list of world-flipping things that had happened to her over the last two days a pinkie toe getting eaten was somehow rather low on the list. The good news was that it didn’t appear to be bleeding. Drying blood coated her foot and it still hurt something fierce, but it looked like it might already be clotting. Good. She had more important things to worry about for now.

  She did her best to pay attention to the way the van moved and the sounds outside, hoping it might give her some clues to their location as they went. There’d been a lot of turning around and stopping and starting as she’d checked her foot, which she had to assume was them trying to get out of the parking lot. The ride was smoother now, which implied to Peg that they were out on the road, but there was no way she could guess which direction they might be going. If her earlier theories were right they would be heading north soon. The smart thing for these creatures to do if they didn’t want to attract attention would be to take the lesser used county roads once they got out of town, although she supposed they didn’t have to be smart. If a cop pulled them over for something suspicious they could just use their brain whammy on him or her and convince the cop to let them go. For that same reason Peg had to assume that no one else would be able to help, even if the van pulled over somewhere within someone’s earshot and she tried to yell for help. It also occurred to her that she still had her cell phone in her pants pocket, but after some awkward wiggling to get it out she found that it wasn’t getting a signal. That made sense. Peg expected them to take the phone from her shortly, but even before that they had probably modified the van by lining it with something that would block service.

  “Zoey,” Peg tried again as she again repositioned herself, this time to get a better look at the lock on the outside of the cage. Trying not to touch the bars Peg reached her fingers through to touch the lock, just making sure that their captors hadn’t left it open by mistake. As soon as she touched it she got the same unpleasant pain as when she’d touched the bars. She had no clue what was causing that, but she had an idea that figuring it out could be a key clue in how to get out of here.

  Zoey stirred in her cage. Peg noticed that she was just as careful not to touch the bars. She’d probably already learned her lesson about that a long time ago.

  “I’m sorry,” Zoey said.

  “Don’t be sorry. We can get out of this.”

  “No.”

  “Yes we can. You did it before, didn’t you? How did you do it?”

  “Someone else was screaming. Trying to resist a combination of things. The minion who was feeding me went to help. Left my door open.”

  Peg frowned. That sounded like the kind of mistake their captors would be careful not to make a second time. “Where was this? It wasn’t in this van, was it?”

  “Underground.”

  “But underground where? Zoey, you need to give me every detail you possibly can. It’s the only way we can possibly find a way out.”

  “There’s no way. I’m ripe. They’ll plant a seed and eventually you’ll be ripe too.�
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  “Zoey, damn it, please. You have to concentrate and tell me. We don’t have any more time for riddles. What exactly is going to happen to us?”

  Zoey sighed. “I already said.”

  “Said what?”

  “Animals eat plants. Humans eat animals. Vampires eat humans.”

  “Which means what?”

  Zoey finally looked her in the eye. “Peg, don’t you wonder?”

  “Wonder what?”

  “What eats vampires?”

  Peg held her breath, waiting for an answer that Zoey didn’t seem to want to give. “What does eat vampires, Zoey?”

  Zoey looked away. “A combination of things.”

  Zoey carefully reached a hand out through her bars. Peg did the same and they touched. Zoey’s grip no longer seemed so strong under the UV lights. Now it was Peg’s turn to hold her as hard as she could, and they held hands tightly, in silence, for most of the ride.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The van first came to a stop after about fifteen minutes. Peg sat up as much as she could without her head touching the top of the cage, which she had already learned had the same unpleasant effect as touching the sides. Her back ached from the uncomfortable position, most of her limbs had already fallen asleep, and she had the worst headache of her life from the unrelenting light above them. They still had something like an hour to go, if Peg’s guesses were correct, so she had no idea why they might be stopping. It wasn’t like they were pulling over someplace paved, either. She’d felt the going get rougher beneath them, which she could only assume meant they were on gravel. They were either on the shoulder of the highway or had pulled over onto some forgotten road or driveway.

  The lights went off overhead, causing Peg to breathe a sigh of relief against her will. She may not have been a vampire like Zoey but the harsh lamps were still a strain on her eyes anyway. After several moments the back doors opened and one of the creatures climbed in, pulling the doors most of the way shut behind it.

  “Now what?” Peg asked it, but Zoey said nothing. She let go of Peg’s hand and awkwardly started to pull off her shirt.

  “Zoey, what are you doing?” Peg asked.

  “She’s done this before. She only partly remembers, but she knows,” the creature said, then pointed at Peg. “You too. All your clothes. Off.”

  “Why?” Peg asked.

  “Clothes off or I hurt her.”

  Peg watched for a second as her sister pulled off her top, shrinking back several times when she accidentally touched the side of her cage. There was no way either of them could do this gracefully in their positions. That was probably part of the point, Peg thought. She’d already been thinking long and hard about what Zoey had said, with it slowly dawning on her what she really meant. Whoever or whatever was behind all this apparently didn’t think of them as anything more than cattle. And cattle weren’t supposed to have any personality. Wherever they were going, clothes would not be needed.

  Zoey finally managed to get her shirt off and carefully pushed it through the bars. Peg had never found a bra for her, leaving Zoey naked from the waist up. Peg noticed a scar on her upper back where she’d fallen from a tree onto a chain link fence when she was seven. Peg had completely forgotten all about that. She’d been at a Girl Scout meeting at the time and had been forced to leave early when her father had come to get her on the way to meeting Zoey and their mother at the hospital. She remembered now feeling annoyed that Zoey had pulled her out of something fun, but also a little guilty, as though Peg might have been somehow able to prevent it if she’d been there.

  I can’t save her all the time, Peg thought. Please dear God, don’t let this be another one of those times.

  The creature saw her hesitation and started toward Zoey’s cage, but Peg started pulling off her own shirt and it stopped. Trying to remove her clothes in such a cramped space proved even more difficult than it looked. The creature waited, not saying or doing anything other than gathering up each piece of clothing as they deposited it outside the cage. A deep, icy fear struck Peg as she was down to just her bra and underwear. Even though it didn’t seem likely in this situation, her first thoughts went to all the things that a stranger might try to do to her as she sat naked and helpless in the back of a non-descript van.

  Finally, reminding herself of what might be done to Zoey if she didn’t, she removed the last pieces of her clothing. The creature gathered everything, including Peg’s phone, up in its arms then went out the back, slamming the doors behind it. Peg expected the van to start back up right away, but nothing more happened for several minutes. She didn’t have to think too hard to realize what was going on. All she had to do was remember Zoey’s missing items washing up on the side of the river. Wherever they’d pulled over, it would be some place far from the beaten path, somewhere the last clues as to their whereabouts could be unceremoniously dumped, removing the last chances of anyone else finding them.

  The UV lamps came back on soon after, and the van once again lumbered on its way. Peg and Zoey grasped hands again and for a long time rode along in silence. Although it wasn’t true that this was the first time since this had all begun that she was truly scared, Peg’s new nakedness somehow made this far more frightening. She supposed she had an idea what would happen. At some point she would be turned into a vampire, and then… well, she supposed they would wait until she was ripe, although she still had no idea what the hell that meant. It would take a long time, Peg guessed, judging by Zoey’s cryptic words. Zoey, on the other hand, wouldn’t have to wait so long. She was already there, as far as Peg could tell. They would do… whatever… to Zoey very soon. Despite her determination earlier, Peg felt nothing but lost and powerless now.

  “Peg?” Zoey said softly. “Are you awake?”

  Peg looked over at her. “Yeah, I am. What’s up?”

  “Something I want to ask you. I… I might not get to do it later. Can I?”

  Peg squeezed her hand tighter. “Sure hon. Ask anything.” She mentally prepared herself for some kind of deep and hard-hitting question.

  “Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer still on?”

  Peg paused for a moment, making sure she had heard that right, gave a long snort of repressed laughter. Zoey frowned as though she didn’t understand the joke, then smiled tentatively. “No, seriously.”

  “No, Zoey. It only lasted for about another year after you disappeared.”

  “But she ended up with Spike, right? Or did Angel come back?”

  “This is what you want to talk about, Zoey? We’re on our way to wherever and you want to know about Buffy’s sex life?”

  “Not like I had one. So yeah.”

  So that was how they spent the rest of their ride, Peg summing up the final season of Buffy and even getting started on season five of Angel, although she figured she’d be merciful to her sister and pretend like season four never existed. For a couple minutes here or there Peg even forgot that they were doing their sisterly bonding through the bars of cages. If she closed her eyes as she talked she could even imagine them having this conversation in pajamas, staying up later than they should during their teen years. The illusion of happiness was almost there if she concentrated hard enough.

  That all vanished when the van came to a halt and the momentum brushed Peg up against the bars, causing her to hiss once again. No more pajamas, no more girl talk. When the back doors opened she realized this was it. They were here, and there was a good chance they wouldn’t be leaving.

  Both the creatures stood outside the doors, although neither of them bothered to wear their hoods up. Just like the one earlier they were both missing all but their faces held together with the same pulsing, fleshy mass. One of them jumped into the van and went right to Zoey’s cage. It grabbed the cage by the silver bars on the top and pulled it to the door. Peg held on to Zoey’s hand for as long as she could, but that wasn’t more than half a second. The creature moved fast and probably would have been able to lift the cage by itself,
but it was too bulky and awkward and the second had to grab it as well. Peg could see what looked like thin tendrils of smoke curling up from where their hands touched the metal, and they balked at the sunlight in much the same way as Zoey. That might be information Peg could use. Whatever the hell they were now, they still had similar weaknesses as normal vampires.

  As they removed the cage from Peg’s view she got one last look at Zoey’s face. Sad. Petrified. Resigned. It hurt Peg deep within her soul to see that. She honestly didn’t believe Peg could get either of them out of this.

  And now that Peg was being honest with herself, she realized that she didn’t believe it either.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Peg could hear the clanking of the cage getting farther away, then something that might have been a door opening. Through the open back door of the van she had a view of an open field and few trees in the distance. The road underneath the van was another dirt and gravel drive with weeds growing down the center. She thought she might be able to hear water, probably waves against the shore, although she couldn’t guess how close. Lake Winnebago, most likely.

  Judging from the light outside she guessed that it had to be sometime in the afternoon. On a clear day like today, at this time, there should have been people around. Lake Winnebago might be large, but it wasn’t so large that she shouldn’t be within screaming distance of someone. Just on the off chance, Peg waited until she couldn’t hear the creatures with Zoey’s cage and then, with more lung power than she had ever used at once before, screamed for help. After the first time she listened for several seconds, hoping for any chance that someone might have heard, and then she tried again. She tried that for what was probably a whole minute before she stopped. All that accomplished was wasting her voice.