Vampire Blood

Author’s Revised Edition

By
Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Damnation Books, LLC.
P.O. Box 3931
Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998

www.damnationbooks.com

Vampire Blood

(Author’s Revised Edition)

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Originally published by Zebra Books in 1991

Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-425-3

Print ISBN: 978-1-61572-426-0

Cover art by: Dawné Dominique
Edited by: April Duncan

Copyright 2011 Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Printed in the United States of America
Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights
1st North American, Australian and UK Print Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my beloved husband, Russell, who is sometimes my plot consultant and for Terry and Ann (the theater owners) who first presented me with the seed that grew into this book. Terry, we miss you!

Again thank you, Kim Richards of Damnation Books…for believing in my novels and me.

Chapter One

July 20

Excerpt from a newspaper article on the front page of the Evansville Globe-Democrat:

Mysterious Cult-like Murders Continue to Baffle Authorities as Terror Reigns in Evansville and the Surrounding Areas

Another mutilated victim, a male identified as a car salesman from nearby Breton, was found early this morning on the outskirts of Evansville in a heavily wooded area near Ivers Creek. The victim, Dennis Shavers of Calcutta Drive, was found at approximately 7:10 A.M., nude with slashes across his chest and throat. The city coroner so far has not officially released the actual cause of death, but there is speculation about the unusual amount of blood loss—the same as the previous five victims.

A growing sense of panic has gripped the town and a nightly curfew of 8:00 P.M. has been instigated.

When questioned, the Evansville Police Department had no comment on the sudden rash of vicious murders other than to say that the investigation is going well, and that they expect to make arrests in the near future.

* * * *

In the dead of a sultry summer’s night the man slammed the truck door, and the sound reverberated painfully over the neighborhood like the closing of a coffin’s lid. There was no moon, just the strange clinging white mist that laced the dark streets, making it perfect for their escape.

They were running again, and he was sick to death of it.

His vacant eyes stared back at the brick house that he’d labored on to make comfortable for all of them. The house with the windowless cellar.

He could easily make out every detail of the structure. Even in pitch blackness, his keen eyes were sharper than a human’s in broad daylight.

He regretted having to leave the house just when he’d decided to open that night restaurant in the upper floors. He’d begun to make plans. It could have meant living a normal life for a while. It could have meant some release from the boredom.

It could have.

With a resigned sigh, he turned and walked towards the waiting truck and the figure silhouetted in the gloom next to it. A girl. Her long hair was pale in the murkiness.

“Get your ass in the truck, Irene. I won’t tell you again,” he lashed out, fighting visibly to retain control of his anger. She didn’t move.

“Running like scared rabbits again, are we?” she baited him in a calm voice.

“No. We’re just getting out of here before the police come and drag you—all of us—away in chains. I’m not taking any chances this time,” the man growled at the girl, who still faced him defiantly on the edge of the street.

His hold on her was tenuous at best. She was stronger than he, only she didn’t know that yet; so she played his game. Obeyed him—for now. He didn’t want to think about the day she would discover that, in truth, he couldn’t really control her at all.

She laughed contemptuously. “I’d like to see them try. Humans are so puny. I’d rip all their throats out.”

“I’m telling you for the last time,” he gestured at the truck door, sighing again in exasperation. “We don’t have all night, remember?”

“What if I don’t want to go?” she announced in a cold voice.

“We’ll go without you,” he stated flatly. He could see by the jerk of her head that had touched her. Loneliness for them was real.

“After all, you’re to blame for this.”

“Is it my fault the old married guy had the hots for me?” Again, her laugh wasn’t quite human. “I only gave him what he desired, and then I took what I desired.”

“He was rather old for you, wasn’t he?” Sarcasm dripped through the man’s deep husky voice.

“Was he?” There was sardonic humor in hers.

“He had a wife and three kids, a pillar of the goddamn community for pity’s sake.” The man had sworn he would not get angry, but his reserve was slipping away. How many times had they gone over this? Endlessly.

“I thought we’d agreed to kill only animals—cattle, horses—or, if the urge gets too damn strong, drain a little blood from transients, throwaways or old people...not a lot, just enough to satisfy you, because losing a little blood never hurts them. Remember? You promised not to kill. Since that fiasco last winter in Haleston?”

“You mean, you had agreed. I never had. No one tells me what to do. No one ever has. I’m not afraid of them ... are you?”

There was a threat hidden in her childish, silken voice that was not lost on the man. Still he didn’t back down. He couldn’t afford to. Showing weakness to her would be foolish.

“Damn it, Irene! Did you have to kill so many, so close to home?” the man exploded finally in a scornful whisper; grabbing her firmly by the arm, he shoved her towards the open truck door and pushed her in. She let him.

He leaned over her. “Last night, did you have to compound the problem by killing such a vital one; one that would be as missed as this one has been?” he snarled into her face. “And kill him so heinously!” Suspecting what she’d been up to the night before, he had followed her and found her over the body, but he’d been too late to save the poor bastard. “Did you have to maul him, tear his throat to ribbons and leave him naked out there in the open? You drank every last drop of his blood.”

The girl smiled, her lips a smug arc. She didn’t care how vicious her kills were, she never did.

“Do you want them to catch you?”

She didn’t answer.

“The newspapers love that kind of gore. They eat it up,” he breathed. “They’ll be looking for his murderer now with a vengeance, and they won’t quit until they find out who killed him and why, especially since the victim’s brother turns out to be a police officer. We have no choice but to run.” There was disgust in the man’s voice.

“So what?” She turned her head away, and skittered her fingers lightly over the vehicle’s upholstery.

He got into the driver’s seat, beside an older woman with flowing silvery hair who’d remained silent throughout the whole conversation; her eyes were closed in the darkness, her body tense.

She finally spoke. “Can you two just quit it for now?” She smiled wanly and waved her hand. “The harm’s done. Let’s just leave it behind us, okay? We’ve got to get moving.”

She was right, and they all knew it.

The girl grunted in the back seat. The man said nothing.

The older woman turned to him and flashed her very long, sharp teeth. Two fangs peeked out from her bloodless lips. Then she reached out and clasped his right hand. Her touch seemed to calm him.

“Do you know where we’re going now, Terrence?”

“I think,” the man replied softly, rubbing the side of his face. “It’s time to reclaim an old inheritance.”

Then louder, “It’s a long drive. A small town on the coast of Florida called Summer Haven. There’s something waiting there for us.”

“Ah, so we’re finally going back?” the woman said thoughtfully, her tone showing that she knew exactly what he was referring to.

“Yes. It’s been long enough. They’ve forgotten by now.”

“I hope so,” the woman whispered.

“We could fly, you know?” The young girl’s voice from the rear seat was disdainful.

“Yes, and are you going to fly the trailer on your back there as well? We need it, or would you prefer to find a wormy, old cemetery somewhere, as in the old days? Perhaps you’d want to sleep over in a filthy mausoleum on the way, or in someone else’s slightly used coffin?”

The girl shivered behind him, but merely shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. Just as long as we go someplace warmer this time. I’m sick of snow and cold. You have to wear too many clothes.” Then she muttered something else under her breath that he couldn’t hear, as acute as his hearing was. More complaints, probably. She was spoiled.

The man ignored her grumbling and started the truck, checking to make sure the Silver Stream, where the others were, was following solidly behind them as it should. The others hadn’t wanted to listen to his and Irene’s bickering. He didn’t blame them.

They were afraid of her tantrums. They were afraid of her.

Ever since Irene had joined them, she’d been nothing but trouble, but they’d quickly found that they needed her, maybe even more than she needed them, and they knew it. She was powerful, amusing when she wanted to be. Gifted. Crafty. She had brought new blood and excitement to their mix, just when they’d truly needed it.

The young blond girl scowled out the window into the night as the truck and trailer picked up speed, her pretty face petulant and sly. “You’re just no fun anymore,” she hissed. “Rules, rules, rules, ever since we started this charade. Why don’t we—”

“I’ve told you a million times,” the man cut her off with such steel in his voice that the girl immediately shut up, “there’s safety in numbers, in normalcy, or you, my little flirtatious bloodsucker, would have been caught long ago. Have you learned so little in all your years? Don’t forget how we met.”

Boston. Yes, that had been a close one, too. They’d found her lair, and had planned to burn it with her trapped inside during the daylight hours ... but he, Michelson, had found her first and warned her; perhaps, he’d even saved her. Perhaps. Who knew? She’d confessed she’d gotten out of worse predicaments, but she owed him something, didn’t she?

So she had joined his family.

“How could I forget? You never let me, do you, Father dear?”

There was a new touch of belligerence in her voice and something more, something ancient and far deadlier.

He frowned as a car’s headlights slashed across his face.

He almost ended up in a ditch, trailer and all. He still cringed before bright light. Old habits died hard. A second later, as the sound of vengeful laughter pricked him, he muttered an obscenity under his breath. He got the shiny red truck back on the highway, turning off a short while later onto a deserted smaller road to avoid further headlights.

They drove through the night, not stopping to feed along the way. They’d park at dawn in a lush part of the woods, he decided, where the sun was dim, and rest during the day in the trailer with the black shades pulled down over the windows.

In a few nights, when they were far enough away to risk it, they’d seek food. When it was safer.

The others wouldn’t like it, but he was determined not to leave behind a trail of bread crumbs this time.

They’d just have to damn well wait, he told himself, as the vehicle and its shadow flew down the misty highways towards the new town, far away from the bloody mess they’d left behind and the bloodhound police.

Far away. Someplace inconspicuous, out-of-the-way, and warm. Fresh territory. Maybe they would start that business he’d been dreaming of. He wasn’t sure of the condition of what awaited them there, but he was hopeful that it was good, and that everything would work out.

This time, he fretted they would just have to be more careful. He’d have to watch Irene closer; that was all.

What he needed to do was put her on a leash.

There’d been too damn many close calls lately.

They weren’t as stupid as they used to be in the old days, and why was he the only one to see it? Never the others. Well, he’d have to make them understand somehow. He had to.

Someday their very survival, he was sure, would depend on it.

Chapter Two

August 15

Summer Haven

Jenny Lacey spied her father’s antiquated Chevy station wagon bouncing up her gravel driveway long before she heard the honking outside her trailer.

She neatly refolded the newspaper she’d been reading and slid it towards the middle of the kitchen table as she stood up.

Awful about those grisly animal mutilations outside Stanton, she thought, and all that suspected satanic cult activity lately, so many crazies in the world. Awful.

Making sure she had everything, she scooted out the door. She locked it behind her and ran towards her father’s tired smile.

He waved a hand at her through the dusty, cracked windshield. Get in, get in. He looked wearier than usual, somehow, his face drained of color.

She slid in next to him, grinning like a child, and slumped back up against the seat. She stuck immediately to the hot plastic, like a magnet to the outside of a refrigerator. The station wagon didn’t have air-conditioning, and it always stalled in either really hot or cold weather. What did she expect? It was old.

“Gonna be a real hot one today, Jenny. The weatherman said gonna hit a hundred, maybe more. Whew!” Her father chuckled, as he nodded at her. “You ready to paint a house in it?”

She smiled. “Ready as I’ll ever be, Dad.” She was a tall thin woman in her late thirties with straight brown hair and melancholy brown eyes. She pitched her purse, some bags and her sack lunch into the back seat. The lunch toppled off and onto the floor. Jenny didn’t bother to retrieve it.

“Dad, what are those scratches on your neck?” she asked.

“What scratches?”

Jenny leaned closer to him and gently ran her fingers over the two small blood-encrusted slits at the base of his throat, no longer than the length of her thumbnail. “These scratches.”

He winced, covering them with his right hand.

“They hurt, don’t they?” She shoved his hand away and peered closer. “Looks like small...bites. Where’d you get them?”

“Don’t know,” he muttered. “They’re nothing.” He looked at her a second. “Don’t hurt none.”

“You feeling okay?” Jenny pressed, close enough now to notice how awful he looked.

“Sure, sure,” he brushed her worrying off. “Just a little tired, that’s all. Been having bad dreams. It’s the darn heat.” He grinned weakly. “Stop fussing over me like an old mother hen.”

“Well, if you start feeling funny, Dad, get those bites looked at, will you? Some bites, spiders’ especially, can make a person pretty sick. That Brown Recluse spider, they say, can bite you and then a whole chunk of your skin will just rot away. Yeck.”

He glared at her for a moment. “Thanks a lot, that’s a heck of a thing to tell me.” Then he grunted and pushed down on the brake pedal as they came to the highway.

Jenny gave up.

“I brought those extra paint brushes along like you asked me to,” she offered brightly, sorry for scaring him.

“Thanks, honey. You always remember everything, don’t ya?”

“Of course. Got a memory like an elephant. You’ve always told me that.” Jenny tossed a smile over at her father as they rattled out onto the highway with a screech of tires. He still drove like a crazed teenager, even though he’d be sixty-five on his next birthday.

She noticed the paint-splattered coveralls that he’d worn a week straight, and she shook her head. “Don’t you ever wash those things, Dad? They look like they need it. Don’t you remember where the washing machine is anymore?”

“Yep, sure I do,” he answered curtly, as he shoved his jury-rigged glasses up higher on his nose with his left hand, leaving one hand free for the wheel. He’d fixed them with white medicinal tape again, because he’d dropped them a few days ago and had accidently stepped on them. Said he hadn’t the money to get them fixed properly.

Things never changed.

“Just haven’t got around to it. Been too busy.” There was a touch of peevishness in his usually gentle voice.

Too busy, my eye, she thought. Ever since Mom had walked out on him last winter and moved into a rat-infested apartment in town (to find herself or some such nonsense) he kept refusing to face that she wasn’t coming back. His clothes piled up, the house got dirtier and dirtier and things continued to crumble under his feet while he waited and waited for his alcoholic wife to stop drinking.

Might as well wait for it to snow in July, you stubborn old man, she told herself as they sped towards town for breakfast.

She knew her father was too old to be fixing and painting other peoples’ houses, climbing ladders and stumbling around on high roofs, but he was too stubborn to admit it, like with a lot of things in his life. Even if he was small, wiry and had never been sick a day in his life, he wasn’t getting any younger.

Lately he’d started fumbling and dropping things, and he’d forget things like where he’d laid the tape measure or what he was just about to do. Absentminded as all get out. It was beginning to worry her, along with his mysterious exhaustion. A lot.

He’d give someone the shirt off his back for he was a good, loving man. Her father had always been there for her.

He should be retired and sipping lemonade on his front porch as other people did at his age. It was the constant lack of money that forced him to keep working.

Her parents’ little ten-acre farm, where her trailer sat, hadn’t been profitable for years. They’d once had cattle, chickens and horses when she and her two brothers had been children. They’d had crops, wheat and sometimes corn.

Now all the cattle and chickens were long gone, sold away one by one over the last drought years. As for the horses, well, there were only old Lightning and his mate, Black Beauty, left. Two bags of bones. She couldn’t even run them hard any more.

Thus, her father had become somewhat of a house handyman around Summer Haven. Which was a joke in itself, seeing as how Jenny could still hear Mom nagging at him because he’d never fixed a thing around their house and still didn’t.

Jenny tagged along and helped on his painting jobs, not only because she had to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t work himself to death and that he got paid, but because since she’d moved back to Summer Haven after her second divorce, she would be flat broke if she didn’t.

Besides, painting houses and helping her dad with light carpentry at eight dollars an hour was sure a lot better than slinging hash at her brother’s greasy-spoon restaurant. At least she was outside more.

Jenny pursed her lips in thought, sensitive as always over the whole work thing. Her father, like everyone else, couldn’t understand why she was doing any of it in the first place when ... no, don’t start on it again, she warned herself. Drop it.

Jenny returned to daydreaming out the window, and, as usual, purposely wiped out all thoughts of her past.

The heat waves were already shimmering across the asphalt road as it coiled into the horizon before them, like a piece of that black licorice she’d always liked as a child.

It was going to be a scorcher, all right.

“I was going to suggest we skip breakfast this morning to get an early start on painting the Albers’ House, as big as it is, but I sure am famished,” her father said. His face was sweaty as he ran his stubby hand over his very short, gray hair. It looked like a bristle brush, he kept it so short. “Joey’s probably expecting us anyway.”

No doubt. “I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to skip breakfast,” she replied. “Besides, I could use a cup of that stuff he calls coffee. It’ll shock me awake.” She grimaced and yawned.

“Ah, it’s not that bad. Great biscuits and gravy.” He swerved the car into the shopping center’s entrance and pulled up before the hole-in-the-wall called Joey’s Place.

Her younger brother, Joey, owned and ran the tiny restaurant beside the old boarded-up Rebel Theater. Joey’s Place, as Joey had dubbed it, was not only the best place to get homemade biscuits and gravy, it was the gossip hub and social spot where everyone hung out in the small town. Joey had put everything he had into it, and though he’d barely broken even over the two years he’d run it, it was the first thing that had truly made him happy.

He’d tried a lot of other things before he’d stumbled onto the empty restaurant. The previous owner hadn’t done as well with it and had gone broke. Joey had gotten it for a song. It was Joey, an amicable, charismatic character, who’d made the place a success—and his fantastic cooking.

Joey was thirty-six and divorced (like everyone else in the world). Jenny and Joey were so much alike, both storytellers, but his gift was verbal while hers had always been the written word.

They got out of the car. Jenny’s blue jeans felt damp with the heat, and her T-shirt was already splotched with her sweat.

She gazed up at the closed theater as they walked by with a yearning wistfulness.

“Had some great times in that theater, Dad. Some of the best memories of my childhood. I hate it looking abandoned like that.” She nodded at the Rebel, patting the crossed, aged wooden boards over the elaborate doors as they passed it.

The theater was a two-story rambling anachronism that had originally been built in the nineteen twenties. In its day, it had been the height of fashion in movie palaces with its crystal chandeliers, etched mirrors, velvet staircase and ornate upper balconies, a fairyland decorated in what Jenny had always fancifully thought of as a sort of Spanish Renaissance.

The theater was one of the oldest buildings in Summer Haven, and somewhere around the nineteen seventies the rest of the shopping center seemed to spring up around it. Some years after that, the old white elephant of a movie palace closed its doors for good and died. The owner had decreed it was too expensive to run when he’d declared bankruptcy. And now, who wanted to go to the movies when there were big screen television sets?

It’d never died in her memories.

She could still smell the buttery popcorn, feel the plush velvet carpeting beneath her tennis shoes and feel the prickliness of the chairs on her bare legs below her shorts just like it was yesterday. She could still see Joey, Thomas, Jeff and herself laughing as they came tumbling out of those same doors on a long-ago summer’s night. Their faces reflected like mirrors what they’d just seen: horror, delight and pathos. The theater liked to show the real moldy oldies late Saturday nights.

She’d been swept off her feet by spectacles like The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur . Ah, and how she’d loved those old monster movies: Godzilla, The Blob, Count Dracula and The Mummy.

Jenny took a deep breath, glancing down.

“What’s this?” she wondered aloud, kneeling to touch a large red stain on the sidewalk in front of the theater’s door. When she lifted her fingers and turned them over in the sunlight, they were sticky and wet. She sniffed them. Blood?

Her stomach churned, and she hastily wiped her fingers off on the old boards. Rising to her feet, staring up at the theater with puzzled eyes, she whispered to no one, “Wonder where that came from.”

Her father had already reached the restaurant, though, and hadn’t heard her.

“Coming?” He turned around at the door and was giving her an impatient, hurry-up look.

“Yeah,” she answered drily. No sense in mentioning the blood to her father, he wouldn’t care anyway. Mind your own business, he’d say. Like always.

Inside Joey’s restaurant, they found two empty stools at the counter.

Joey’s Place had been a donut shop once, and it still reminded Jenny of a donut shop. The walls were brilliant white, and a counter with attached white and red stools lined the whole back of the smallish room. The floor had a nondescript red carpet. Joey had repainted everything a cleaner white and had hung lots of campy, framed pictures of old movie posters (he was, like her, an obsessed movie buff) and travel posters along the white walls to give the place some color.

It gave a person something pretty to look at while they ate, Joey had explained. The mix created an eccentric, but unique atmosphere that Jenny found had unexpectedly grown on her.

It was different.

The place this morning was crowded as usual though it was barely seven o’clock. In this heat, her father liked getting an early start.

“Morning, Dad, Sis. Up early, huh?” Joey was placing cups of steaming coffee in front of them before they even asked. He seemed glad to see them.

“The early bird gets the worm, remember?” Jenny winked at her brother, a tall, ruggedly handsome guy with long dark hair he wore tied back in a ponytail. He had light green eyes the color of her peridot birthstone.

“Besides, we had to get up early. We have the Albers’ monstrosity to paint. We figure it’ll take about two years, at least,” she said with feigned dislike, throwing her hand up against her forehead dramatically. “We thought we’d better get a punctual start.”

Joey chuckled. “Whew! The Albers place. You gonna paint all of it?” He had turned to gaze at his father, who was sipping his coffee and sighing with pleasure. “All twenty floors, huh, Dad?” Joey played along.

“Nope,” the old man retorted with a perfectly straight face, but with a twinkle in his eyes. “Just the first fifteen.”

“Ha, ha. Still a joker, huh?” Joey slipped away and served coffee to someone who’d requested it then he came back. “Well, you guys must want something, or you wouldn’t be in a dump like this,” he teased. “I just finished a fresh batch of biscuits, hot from the oven. You two want the usual?”

“Why not?” Jenny shot back. “Biscuits and gravy it is.” Their dad bobbed his head in agreement and disappeared towards the restrooms in the back.

Joey leaned over the counter. “How’s he doing?”

“Oh, he’s doing okay, I guess. This job has really lifted his spirits. We need the money. I just hope he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew. He’s been pretty tired lately.” Jenny shook her head.

Joey’s head cocked to one side, his eyebrows raised.

“I mean the Albers’ house is a big house, and you know how Dad is on the high places?” A frown shadowed her face.

“Yeah, I know, Sis. You’ve told me, but he’s a grown man, and he never listens to us anyway. He’ll do what he wants.”

“Always,” Jenny sighed, knowing he was right.

“How about that breakfast? I’m hungry, Brother.”

“In a sec.” He hesitated, unsure, and threw in, “How about yourself, Jenny Penny, how are you doing these days?”

The childhood nickname made her smile; her face transformed, and she was pretty. “Fine as frog hair. No complaints.” Her fingers brushed her bangs away from her eyes.

Jenny was the kind of woman who didn’t need makeup; she had a natural beauty that glowed from deep inside her. She always wore the same tiny diamond pierced earrings, a long-ago gift from her first husband and today they reflected the red of her sleeveless T-shirt.

“You working on anything?” he probed.

Jenny’s smile faded, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up. When would they stop asking? Stop making her feel guilty? “Yes, a two-story Victorian house, starting today.”

Joey’s green eyes grew serious. “You know what I mean.”

Yes, she knew what he meant. “Drop it. Just leave me alone, Joey. I will someday. When I’m ready,” she snapped at him, and he drew back like she’d burned him.

“Sorry. Excuse me for living. Just asked. You know it has been a couple of years since your last book. You can’t run away from it forever.”

Jenny glared back at him and clanged her spoon against her cup’s saucer. He shut up.

A couple of years?

More like ten.

It seemed like a hundred. At times, Jenny couldn’t believe that she’d ever written those three novels sitting on her dusty bookcase back at the trailer, or that she had ever been that stupid nitwit who’d wasted hours, days, months, hunched over that typewriter creating all those pages and pages of ... meaningless words. That nonsensical distraction that had deprived her of what had later turned out to have been the short, but precious, time she could have had with her first husband, Jeff, and their child.

She’d been such a fool, seeking fame and fortune when she should have been content with what she had had.

Now those happy days were long gone, and it was too late. She’d missed most of them. Too busy writing. Her fault. Her foolishness. Her punishment.

“I’m only worried about ya, that’s all,” he defended himself. “You’ve been free of that last creep-husband of yours now for a while, nothing to tie you down, and you’ve been back here for months. Doing what, may I ask? Painting houses and bumming around with Dad?”

Jenny’s eyes flashed in hurt and sullen resentment. “I’m trying to make a living, damn it. I have to pay bills and put bread on my table, too, like you and everyone else in this world.” She controlled her tone. “I’m no different than anyone else.”

“Aren’t you?” he asked pointedly. “Let it go, Jenny,” his voice placating, muffled, so the other customers at the counter wouldn’t hear.

“Jeff didn’t walk out on you all those years ago just because of your writing, your success. No matter what he told you. He left you for another woman. ” He captured her hand then, muttering over his shoulder for someone who was trying to get his attention to hold their horses, he’d be right with them.

“Denying your gift won’t bring him back, you know. It wasn’t you. I’ve told you so many times. You’ve only been punishing yourself.”

Jenny turned away from him. It was clear that she didn’t want to hear anymore.

“Okay. I’ll get your breakfast.” He retreated, tossing his head, his ponytail brushing across his shoulders. He hustled into the kitchen, gesturing as he went towards Laurie, his waitress and current girlfriend, to cover the counter.

Her dad had drifted back as Joey had departed, and she looked around in time to catch him exchanging questioning glances with Laurie behind her back.

The petite blond with sharp blue eyes was perceptive for a small-town girl who had never finished high school. She wore a hairdo, lacquered with just under two tons of hairspray, that had gone out of style in the sixties. Though they were about the same age, Jenny, once the straight A college-bound student, hadn’t known her very well. They’d traveled in different circles.

Since Laurie had started dating Joey, Jenny had seen more of her and had gotten to know her. She was a sweet person generally, but nosey as all get out about everyone else’s business but her own.

Joey was infatuated with her. This month, anyway. Then again, Joey changed women like some men changed socks.

Jenny was hoping Laurie would prove the exception and stick around for a while; she liked her, and Laurie seemed to be a good influence on her brother.

“Morning, Jenny. Mister Lacey,” Laurie said cheerfully.

“Morning,” Jenny responded and turned to stare out the window.

Laurie got the message and left her alone. After she’d refilled their cups energetically, she scurried off to take someone else’s order.

“You and Joey had another tiff about somethin’?” her dad snorted as he gulped the fresh coffee. “I recognize that famous sulking face of yours, child.”

“No. He just irks me sometimes, Dad. You know how he can be,” Jenny complained. “Always trying to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.”

Her dad’s face was blank. He’d never understood her touchiness on certain matters. He had never really understood her at all, a dreamy-eyed, reclusive child, but he’d always been proud of her, even now. He’d always been uncannily attuned to her quicksilver, shifting moods, even if he never knew what had brought them on.

“Never mind, Dad. Let’s just eat and get over to the Albers’ house,” Jenny suggested softly. She hung her head, fiddling absentmindedly with a loose thread on the side of her jeans.

Her father whispered, “See that man over there?” His eyes rolled to the right, and he raised his eyebrows in a bad imitation of Groucho Marx, trying to cheer her up.

Jenny glanced up, a brief smile beginning to form on her lips.

He’d played this game with her since she was a child. People-watching. He’d pick unknown people around them and make up outrageous stories about them just to get her to smile. It was probably what had first started her making up stories in her own head, she had often thought.

“Yes?” She fell into it, a grin finally breaking out fully on her face. She swiveled around on the stool so she could get a sneaky look.

“Not him, the other man.” He canted his head towards the heavyset guy in dirty jeans at the end of the counter, a baseball cap tugged low on his head. He was gobbling down a powdered-sugar donut like it was his last meal. Her father continued, “He is a long-distance truck driver out of Oregon or some such cold place ... and he’s got seven angry wives waiting, all in different states, for him to get his wandering butt home—and sixteen kids.”

Jenny tilted her face, a disbelieving glitter in her eyes, but a giggle bubbling on her lips.

“Yep. When they finally catch him, though, he’ll say he was spirited off once to one of those alien spaceships and has been confused ever since.” He rattled off the last six words in a high singsong voice, his eyes opening wide.

The guy caught them looking at him, and he presented Jenny with a dazzling smile and a mistaken, knowing wink.

Jenny broke up, laughing softly into her hand.

“Dad! Don’t make me laugh. I’m not in the mood,” she chided him good-naturedly. He could have been a stand-up comedian, her dad, he was so funny sometimes. He was wasting his life, too, she thought, feeding chickens and fixing other peoples’ houses.

Was there anyone who ever did what they were truly supposed to do with their lives?

“It’s true. I swear.” He raised his hand like he was in court and smiled lopsidedly while she chuckled silently, trying not to call attention to herself.

He could always make her laugh as no one else ever had. Then one of the local teenagers, a young boy with long unruly purple-edged hair, an earring in his ear and skintight leather pants wandered in. Her father made a rueful face. The teenager gawked around, as if he wasn’t sure where he was, and was finally joined by a girl with a ratty looking hairdo, too much eyeliner and a miniskirt that looked like she had forgotten to pull it all the way down.

The kids retreated to a corner booth and started whispering secrets.

“Didn’t think teenagers nowadays got up this early,” her father snickered. Then aside, low, “Why do they have to dress like that, look like that?” He was rocking his head slightly, perturbed.

“I’d be afraid to sit down in that outfit if I was that girl.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not.”

He looked directly at Jenny. “You never had to act like that, dress like that to get attention, Jenny. You were a good girl. A smart girl,” he suddenly blurted out.

I was neat, too, and followed the rules, she thought bitterly. I couldn’t help that either. Look where it’s gotten me. Nowhere.

Jenny shrugged noncommittally. “That’s how they dress today, Dad,” was all she said.

The teenage girl, who was preening into a tiny hand-held mirror, had long blond hair and a pretty face under the makeup. She reminded Jenny a little of her daughter, Samantha. The daughter who’d left home at sixteen to get married. She’d hated her stepfather, Benjamin, so much she’d taken the first chance offered to get out of the house.

Benjamin had only wanted Jenny, it turned out later, because as a novelist she’d been like a prize trophy he could display and boast about. At first, he barely tolerated her young daughter, and then, over the years of their dreadful marriage, had gradually become downright cruel to the child when Jenny didn’t behave just so.

Jenny had let him. She should never have married him, but after her first husband, Jeff, had left her (was it really over ten years ago now?), she had been so ... vulnerable. Foolish.

She still felt guilt over her daughter. She should have seen how unhappy Samantha had been and done something. Anything. She hadn’t.

Later, after Samantha had left, Jenny’s eyes had been opened, and she’d finally seen through that sadistic lawyer-creep Benjamin’s act. By then it was too late.

Now Samantha was married, almost nineteen, and already had a child of her own. Sometimes Jenny felt cheated. Though she was again on good terms with her daughter, Samantha and her husband had moved far away for his job a year ago. They now lived in Washington near Seattle, and Jenny rarely got to see her or her new grandson. Samantha’s birthday was next week, and Jenny didn’t have the money to visit. A card and a cheap blouse was all she could afford to send.

Jenny really missed her.

She turned on the stool and forced herself to drink her coffee and not think about it anymore. What good did it do?

Their food arrived. Laurie placed it down in front of them with a flourish. “No charge, Joey says.”

His contribution to their tattered finances. “Thanks, Laurie,” Jenny told her with a weak smile.

“You’re welcome.” The waitress picked up a plate of pancakes from the counter and headed for one of the rear tables.

Jenny picked up her fork, began eating, and Joey reappeared.

“Escaped from the kitchen, again, huh?” she grinned at him between bites, her old self.

“Whenever I can.” His eyes told her he’d already forgotten her earlier irritation at him.

Jenny couldn’t stay mad, or sad, for long anymore; especially with Joey. She’d had enough tears in the last ten years. After all, hadn’t she made a New Year’s resolution that she’d put the past behind her and move forward, smiling?

Joey propped his elbows on the counter beside her and watched her eat. A cup of coffee swayed in one hand. The crowd had thinned out, and he was stealing a quick rest. “Good?” he asked.

“Always,” she affirmed.

Their father was still studying the people around them, probably making up stories about them in his head.

Joey automatically refilled their cups from a coffee pot sitting behind him. “Best coffee in the county, Joey,” their dad seconded. “Never could figure out where you got your cooking abilities, though. Your mother can’t boil an egg. Neither can I for that matter.” Their dad surveyed what was left of the crowd around them. “Been doing good business?”

“Pretty good, Dad. When the mortgage on the place is paid off in full, it’ll be a nice little money-maker.” His excitement brightened his eyes. Jenny realized in that instant that he was proud of his success, proud of his restaurant.

“In fact, I was thinking of expanding next year, after it’s paid for. Looks like the glass figurine shop next door will be closing. They’re not doing so well. I could knock down the wall between.”

“Sounds pretty ambitious to me,” their dad drawled.

“Sounds smart to me,” Jenny piped in.

“Especially now.” Joey smiled like he always did when he knew something they didn’t. “Jenny,” he said excitedly, “you’ll never guess what I found out last night.”

“I’ll bite. What?” She was wiping her hands on her napkin. With a full stomach, another cup of great coffee before her on the counter, the sun shining outside and the day stretching out comfortably busy in front of her; she was content.

Joey’s eyes lit up, he beamed like a kid. “The Rebel’s reopening.”

“You’re kidding me?” Jenny experienced a shiver of unexpected pleasure. “After all these years? Are you sure?”

“Positive. I met this guy the other night.” Joey’s hands were busy gesturing. “He came in here and asked about the theater next door. I told him all about it and its jaded history; how gorgeous and grand it used to be inside; how long it’s been closed.

“Remember that as kids we always thought it was haunted?”

“Yes, I remember,” Jenny answered.

“He seemed real interested. Then we talked about the town, just talked; he didn’t want anything to eat. Talked my arm off. He’s an outsider, never been here before, he said. A queer sort of guy, dressed real strange.” A funny look settled on her brother’s face, and though he smiled quickly to cover it, Jenny caught it. It made her uneasy for some reason she couldn’t name.

“Two nights later, why, he came in again and announced he owned it. Was I surprised. You could have knocked me over with a feather.” Joey seemed as pleased as Jenny about it.

“Did he say when he was going to reopen it?” Jenny observed her father playing with his spoon in his coffee.

“Naw. Soon, I’d guess. When it does reopen, it’ll bring in a lot more business for me here, I bet.”

“You’re probably right, Joey,” Jenny agreed. “Won’t it be wonderful to have the old place open again? Imagine it has to be at least twenty-two years since old man Trump shut its doors. God, all the movies we saw there as kids, you remember?” Jenny gushed, spinning herself lazily and happily around and around on the stool.

Joey nodded, as he wiped off the counter.

“Remember those marble drinking fountains,” she mused aloud, “those magnificent drapes and that plush red carpeting? It was so rich-looking.” Richness nothing like their simple linoleum-floored farmhouse and curtains from K-Mart.

“Remember how I used to hide in the balcony and scare the hell out of you during the scariest parts of the movies?” Joey sniggered.

“How could I forget? Thanks to you, I’m still afraid of the damn dark.”

Both Joey and her father laughed at that.

It was the truth. To this day, Jenny always had to have a night-light shining in her kitchen at night. She was petrified of complete darkness, like an irrational child. Evil shapes lingered in lightless closets and in shadowy corners. Things hid waiting to attack her in black rooms. Slithering beasties—fat and spider-like with venom dripping from their razor-sharp slimy fangs—lurked just around a murky corner ...

Jenny inwardly shuddered and recoiled just thinking about it.

It was a paranoia of hers that embarrassed her to no end.

“Yeah,” Joey then said dreamily, “but what I recall the best is smooching in the back seats with Melissa, and Janey, and Sylvia, and then—”

“Enough already, Cassanova.” Jenny put her hands up to stop him. “Men!” she huffed, but her brown eyes were smiling.

“Joey, I think you’ve got customers to attend to, don’t you?” she inquired sweetly. “Better get back to your grill and pancakes.” A group had meandered in and was perusing the menus at a booth table, giving Laurie their orders.

Her brother chuckled, knowing he’d gotten a rise of some kind out of her. “Well, anyway, Jenny, when the Rebel reopens, all of us should go. It’ll be like old times.”

“No,” Jenny’s face closed up for a second. “Not exactly like old times.” Jeff had always gone with them. He’d adored the monster movies. “But,” her face brightened up, “I’ll take you up on that offer when it does reopen. Laurie and Dad can come, too.”

“Ha, not on your life,” her father snorted, taking a last sip of his coffee. “I like my color TV at home, just fine. Won’t catch me paying eight dollars to see a movie I can see for free in a couple of years. Just smaller, that’s all.”

“Suit yourself, Dad. Joey, Laurie and me will go by ourselves and you, you old-stick-in-the-mud, can just stay at home—alone.”

Her dad rolled his eyes at her brother, behind her back, and made a face.

Joey ignored him and winked at her. “Well, I have to make a living, so back to work. See ya later, then.” With that, he was gone.

“Well, no more reason to lollygag, girl.” Her father stood up, ready to leave, placing a generous tip for Laurie on the counter.

“We’ve got a house to paint. It’s not getting any earlier.”

“Or cooler.” Jenny peered out the large picture window behind them into the hazy summer morning. The layers of heat were shifting and glowing. She could have sworn she saw the pavement melting before her eyes.

“Off to work,” her dad announced, heading for the door, sounding and acting so much like one of the seven dwarfs in Snow White it made her laugh again. What a cutup.

“Bye Joey! See ya later,” she yelled out at the last second. As they went through the door into the morning, the warmth hit her like a hard slap.

When she strode by the boarded-up Rebel, she knocked lightly on the boards. “Be seeing ya in the movies,” she promised it fancifully.

Her dad stared at her as if she wasn’t in her right mind. “Just glad it’s reopening,” she explained self-consciously. Craning her neck, she gazed up the height of it.

“Kids,” he grumbled, good-naturedly, as they got into the station wagon.

“Dad, I’m thirty-eight, for God’s sake,” she replied.

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, child,” he responded curtly. Jenny saw the humor underneath and breathed in deeply as she lounged against the hot seat. “Ouch, ouch.” She squirmed around trying to ease the burning through her clothes on her sensitive skin.

“I thought it only got this hot on the sun,” she grunted as they drove off and stole one quick last glance back at the old Rebel. Imagine.

The Albers’ house was a few miles out of town. Jenny let the breeze fan her flushed face through the open window, her mind daydreaming far away.

Outside, the glowering August sun’s rays splashed everything into golden shades. The car bumped along the road. The same road Jenny had traveled so many, many times in her life.

Summer Haven. A pretty little town with hilly, narrow streets and stately rambling houses, where everyone knew you. Old-fashioned. Home. She hadn’t minded coming back; in fact, she’d found she’d missed it in the ten years she’d been gone. She’d missed the woods and the sea, missed her family.

Ten years.

It was a long time to be away from home.

She only wished that Samantha lived closer and that her parents weren’t estranged.

She only wished that she weren’t so damn broke that she couldn’t even afford a plane ticket to Seattle.

Jenny frowned into the wind.

How had she gotten here? Thirty-eight and alone. No husband. No kid. Going nowhere. Lost. Joey was right, damn it. He was right.

This morning, as she’d been getting ready to go to work, she’d stared into her bathroom mirror and had seen her mother and grandmother reflecting back, not the Jenny she had always known.

A lone tear trickled down her wind-burned face. She wiped it away with a trembling finger.

Jenny, the good daughter. Jenny, the laughing young woman who’d been so in love with her first husband, Jeff, the love of her life. Jenny, the novelist, the devoted mother, so sure of herself and content ... where was that Jenny?

Where had she gone? Her dreams had shattered as the years had flown by faster than anyone had ever told her they could. Life had a way of dealing the cards—and they were never the cards you wanted.

When she and her brothers had been kids, Joey had wanted to be a millionaire; Tom, President; and she’d wanted to be a writer. Not just any writer, but a great writer—rich, famous, adored, married to a loving husband and mother to five perfect children.

Now look at the three of them.

Joey ran a tiny, grease pit of an excuse for a restaurant and had never loved anyone longer than a second; Tom was a mediocre salesman for a farm supply store in St. Augustine’s, had a brood of kids he couldn’t afford and a wife who lived at the bingo hall ... and Jenny?

All those wasted years. Going nowhere. When she, of all of them, had once had such great expectations. How naive you are when you’re young.

Jenny looked over at her father. At least she understood now how her parents had ended up like they had. How some people couldn’t help ending up the way they did. Her mother lost in a clouded booze bottle, her dad penniless and alone in a dilapidated old farmhouse. Both of them getting older and sicker by the day, and their situations steadily growing more hopeless.

She knew her father didn’t see any Jenny but the Jenny he’d always seen. Let him , she thought, keep his illusions that she was the perfect child, the perfect woman that he still believed in. Let him believe that she’d taken all the right roads, and had only ended up here at this dead end by mistake.

She knew better.

“Have you seen Mom lately?” It’d just slipped out. As soon as the words hit the air, Jenny wanted suddenly, desperately, to snatch them back, but it was too late. Discussing Mom nowadays hurt them all far too much.

Her dad’s face closed up, his eyes grew wary. He was aware that she didn’t understand his cavalier attitude to his wife’s temporary insanity.

“Ain’t gonna lie, Jenny. I have.” Then, when she didn’t say anything derogatory, he went on. “I go to visit. Make sure she’s all right.”

Jenny almost demanded why, the old anger boiling up inside her, but then peeked over at him and caught the loneliness in his face and said nothing.

She knew about loneliness now, too.

It was her father’s forlorn face that answered what she’d really wanted to know.

“She’s still drinking, Jenny,” he said, his voice sad and his mouth grim.

Probably drunk out of her mind, Jenny brooded. Nothing’s changed.

Mom had always been a drinker.

Even when she was a little girl, Jenny could recall her mother having a glass in her hand. It would make her laugh in those early days. For some reason, her drinking had gotten out of hand the last few years, like her growing dissatisfaction, her sense that she’d missed out on her life. That Dad and her children had stolen it somehow.

She had always been a homemaker, a good mother. Suddenly, it hadn’t been enough. The older she got, the worse it’d gotten. Dad had tried so hard to make her happy, any way he could, but it never seemed to help. Some sickness was eating at her.

Her mom was drunk now more than sober, and she was an ugly, spiteful drunk. She threw things. She ranted and raved. She hurt people.

Dad had always covered for her and he was still doing it.

He was driving faster down the highway, playing with the rearview mirror like a new driver. They hit some ruts, and she thudded against the door, hating herself for even opening the subject. It had only upset him.

“Dad—” She was going to say she was sorry, that she understood, but before she did, he cut in.

“It’s none of your business. You don’t know nothing about it, as smart as you are. Your mom and me’s been married for nigh on forty-three years. We were high school sweethearts. We’ve been through a heck of a lot, you just don’t know. Hard times, bad times. I won’t desert her just because she’s—”

“Unstable,” Jenny supplied.

“Unhappy,” her father corrected.

“Unhappy?” Jenny shook her head in amazement. “Is that why she got the ridiculous delusion one day last winter that she had to live alone and packed her clothes and belongings in different sized paper bags, in the middle of a snow storm, and moved into a dinky, cockroachy apartment in town? Where she sits in the dark, talking to herself, and drinking until she passes out?” She’d been there ever since. A recluse. A mouse cowering in her hole.

Her father didn’t look at her.

“She doesn’t even know who I am, Dad, when I call. She didn’t even care when I cried on the phone last time and told her that I missed her, that I was worried about her; would she just please let me see her? She hung up on me like I was a stranger.” Jenny cringed at the memory.

Her father shifted in his seat.

“That’s it. I give up.” Her hand cut the warm air like a knife. “If she wants to talk to or see me, she’ll have to make the next move. I can’t stand what she’s become. I won’t accept it.” The bitterness crept into her voice, and she couldn’t stop it. Then she couldn’t talk at all for a few moments.

The silence was unbearable.

“I love her.” Looking away from him, she choked it out. “How can she treat me like that? I’ve never done anything to hurt her.”

“In a way, you did.” The words startled Jenny, as her father turned to her, his eyes hooded. “She thinks, in a way, you’re following the same path she did ... giving up all your dreams. Giving up. You could have been somebody, Jenny. You were somebody. You’ve thrown it all away. For what?”

Jenny’s face was hard now. She knew he didn’t really want an answer from her, merely a reaction, and he’d gotten that all right.

“Your mom avoids you because—”

Jenny covered her ears, not wanting to hear, but her father reached over with one hand as he was driving and pulled her hands away. “She sees a mirror image of herself when she looks at you, so don’t blame her that she can’t stand the sight of you.”

Jenny felt sick. Having her usually obtuse father point out the obvious (what she had tried so hard to escape all these years) was like having a sparrow metamorphose into a viper in her hands as she petted it.

Her father pulled up in front of the Albers’ house and shut off the car. It shuddered and shook like a sick puppy for a couple of seconds, before it settled itself into quiet.

“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he mumbled, unable to meet her eyes again. “I should never have talked to you like that. I had no right.”

He lowered his head. “It’s easier, at times, to try to blame other people for your mother’s destructive behavior, than it is to accept the truth.” He sighed heavily.

“It’s your life. Just like it’s her life. What there is of it.” He pressed his lips into a tight slash, and squinted into the sun.

“Your mother’s not in her right mind now, but she was a darn good mother to you and the boys, wasn’t she?” he reminisced. “A good wife to me for so many years.” He turned eyes to her so full of yearning that it nearly made her want to cry.

“One of these days, if we don’t abandon her and keep loving her, she’ll come to her senses. I know she will.”

Jenny wondered if he were speaking only of her mother.

“So I go over there and make sure she has enough to eat and that her bills are paid? Big deal. I’ve always looked after her, you see, and that’s a habit hard to break.” His voice was full of the old optimism she’d come to rely on so completely and had never fully understood she did until now. It was a tiny revelation.

“I’ll always love her, Jenny. Like I love you, Tommy and Joey. Can’t ever turn that off.”

Like I’ll always love you, Dad, she thought, no matter what.

“Ah, Dad.” Jenny squeezed his hand. “It’s okay.” She couldn’t stand to hurt him. There was enough hurt in his life.

She gave him a brief but sincere hug, her previous annoyance humbled.

“We’d better get going on that house.” She grinned at him, gathering bags and paintbrushes from the back seat.

She jumped out of the car and hiked towards the large, rambling house in front of them, checking over her shoulder to be sure he was behind her.

As always, he was.

Chapter Three

August 15

They didn’t disturb Maude and George Albers, old friends of her parents since their high school days, because it was so early. The day before they’d brought out their supplies, ladders, scaffolding, walk boards, paint, scrapers and drop cloths, so they simply started on the side where the bedrooms weren’t located.

Also, yesterday George had given her dad instructions on what he’d wanted done: paint the whole house, trim included, and the elaborate gazebo in the back. Because of George’s heart attack seven years ago, the house hadn’t been painted in at least that long, and the couple couldn’t afford siding for it.

They started scraping the old paint off the dingy white two-story Victorian house. Repainting it would be a real challenge. Dormers laced its top story, and lattice work surrounded a long rambling wraparound porch on the bottom level, complete with an old-fashioned porch swing.

It was a beautiful house with a spacious lawn dotted with cookie-cut shrubs, fragrant lilac bushes and towering shady oaks.

Jenny had always thought the gazebo lovely. When she’d been a child, it’d been fun to scamper across the field that separated the Albers’ house from the farmhouse through the dark night and sneak into the gazebo to be alone and think. Her own private little house.

Jenny gazed around her at the lovely, well-kept grounds. Maude tended it well. When Jenny was little, she used to walk by their house with her two brothers on the way to and from school and dream it belonged to her family, not the Albers. That she and her brothers lived there instead of in their run-down farmhouse across the field. That she’d really been their daughter, not Ernest and Estelle’s.

She hadn’t been jealous of Maude and George, because they had always treated her and her brothers like the children they’d never had.

She recalled wistfully the summer afternoons spent helping Maude weed her garden, or her flower beds, or spent eating homemade ice cream on their front porch on a warm summer’s evening or discussing the newspaper business and the glittering world of writers.

In fact, listening to Maude talk about her job at the town’s newspaper was what had inspired Jenny, as a teenager, to begin writing in the first place.

She’d soaked up the stories raptly from Maude and then George, who had been a detective for a local insurance company and had filed all the snippets of their escapades away for future use.

They’d been the perfect couple. Everyone had adored them, so in love, so gentle with each other, so generous with everyone. They had never fought. Jenny couldn’t recall one single incident where they had even raised voices at each other—unlike her parents who had fought all the time, or so it’d seemed to a sensitive Jenny.

Now Maude and George were comfortably retired on fat pensions and interest-earning CDs. Another accomplishment that her mother and father would never achieve.

Jenny scrutinized her father (at his age) sweating and groaning in the heat up above her and felt again that old guilt. For some reason, she blamed herself for this, too.

If she would have made a better success of her muddled life, had more money, he wouldn’t be up there in the heat working so hard on someone else’s house, or living in a dilapidated old farmhouse.

Life could be so unfair at times. She shook her head and wiped the beaded moisture off her cheeks and brow.

Things are the way they are, and no one can change what is. Mom used to say that to her when she was a child. She’d been right. Wishing didn’t get you anything. Things are what they are, so accept them or change them. Just shut up about it. It’ll drive you crazy if you don’t.

She sensed her father wanted her to move back home with him, even though she lived only a few acres away on the edge of his land. She knew he’d love it if she packed up and came home.

She couldn’t do it. All her life she’d lived with either parents or a husband. She’d never lived alone, totally on her own, and right now at this point of her life she felt as if she needed it. Desperately. To experience only having to be responsible for herself, only have to care for herself. She had to know what it was like, see if she could do it.

Once she would have killed to be alone. She finally had it and didn’t know what the hell to do with it.

The truth? She was lonely, too. Lonely, yet stubborn. She ached to be stronger than the sniveling Jenny that had been walked out on by her first husband; stronger than the childish woman who’d stayed ten years too long with someone she hadn’t loved.

It was time, wasn’t it?

Walking out on Benjamin had been the bravest thing she’d ever done. Now she was determined to find out who Jenny Lacey really was.

It was past time.

After a while, Jenny tied her hair off her neck with a rubber band, making a mental note to wear shorts on Monday. Whatever had possessed her to wear blue jeans on a day like this was beyond her.

The hours passed, the heat sizzling around them as they worked. Jenny felt like a steak on a grill.

The good thing about manual labor was that it gave her time to think, and she’d done a lot of that since coming to work with her father a few months ago. She could see why people liked this kind of labor. Remembering those times when you were happy, sorting out the bad times, was like therapy.

Her dad moved the scaffolding and walk board up next to the house and began painting higher on the wall.

Jenny hated it when he climbed the ladders or worked up high on the walkways. The last couple days there were times—she’d catch them out of the corners of her eyes— when he’d strain to climb the rungs, huffing and puffing, sloppy on the walk boards, unsteady on his feet. If the wind was cruising faster than usual around the corners, he’d flutter in the breeze like a flag.

It was getting worse.

Last week he’d fallen to his knees on the walk board after he’d been slammed against the house they were putting gutters on. His hands had waved around him like he’d been trying to fly, searching desperately for a handhold, a niche, so he wouldn’t fall. He’d been balancing like a man on the high wire.

It had scared the living daylights out of her.

That was half the reason she’d decided to keep working with him. To keep him from killing himself.

How could she tell Joey that?

The worst crime she could commit was undercutting her dad’s abilities to his son; he’d never forgive her, so she had to remain silent and protect her dad the best, the only way she knew how.

It didn’t make it any easier that most of the houses they worked on recently were two or three story jobs. Her dad always insisted on doing the most dangerous work himself because he was so afraid she’d fall or hurt herself if he allowed her to do it. As if she were made of spun glass or something.

It was ironic really, because working like this had strengthened her flabby muscles and put her in better shape than she’d been in years. She’d dropped that extra weight she’d added over the years and was feeling better than she ever had.

It was he who was an accident waiting to happen, not she, but she couldn’t tell him that.

She stole a sidelong glance at him, and he was standing there looking befuddled, bone-weary, and the day had only begun.

What was the matter with him?

Maybe he was thinking about his dilemma with mom, or worrying about unpaid bills? Or maybe he was just plain sick.

Jenny went back to her work with a vengeance, her mind on trying to figure out what she could do about the situation.

A little past noon, Maude poked her head out the rear door close to where they were working.

“You two come on in and rest a spell from the heat and have some lunch. You’ve been working like slaves out here all morning, and I don’t want you getting sick on me before the house is done,” she joked.

“Besides, Jenny, I want to talk to you about something.”

“Be right in, Maude,” she yelled over her shoulder, putting the scraper down, and wiping her sweaty face with the rag she had hanging from her waist.

“You coming in, Dad?” Jenny asked as she paused below the walkway, staring up, her hand shading her eyes from the glaring sun. “You look like you need a rest.”

He looked dreadful to Jenny, and she was worried. He was weaving on the walk board, breathing like a hard-run horse.

“In just a minute, honey,” he promised, not taking his eyes off the section he was scraping. “I want to get this part done, and then I’ll be in. Go ahead, I’ll be right behind ya.”

“Dad? Please take a break. Come in. Now.”

“Jenny, I’ll come in when I’m ready,” he huffed. “I’m a grown man, don’t nag me. You’re not your mother.”

That stung so much she let it drop, and against her better judgment, she went into the house.

It was cool inside, as it always was, even on such a scorching day. Quiet. Maude was at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. The sun shone cheerily through lace curtains, throwing delicate, golden-filigreed patterns over the kitchen walls.

The kitchen was the beautiful old-fashioned kind with high ceilings and wood trim everywhere. Oak cabinets, polished to a high shine and smelling of lemon furniture polish, lined two walls. Soft carpeting in shades of brown sponged under her feet. Fresh flowers had been placed in the center of the large lace-covered table. Two large trailing ivy plants hung from macramé hangers in the corners.

On the cherry wood table sat three plates with fat sandwiches on them and next to them tall glasses of lemonade. Jenny plopped down gratefully across from Maude.

Unlike Jenny’s own mother, Maude was still an attractive woman for her age, with sharp blue eyes and short wavy white hair she had permed regularly. Today she wore a soft flowered summer dress, and the blue in the pattern matched her eyes. She never wore makeup; she didn’t need to, she had lovely skin.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Maude,” Jenny exclaimed, touched by the woman’s thoughtfulness. “I brought a lunch.”

Maude’s white eyebrows shot up. “Anything left in your father’s old rattletrap of a car on a day like this is probably a melted lump of debris by now.”

She pointed to the meat on the sandwiches. “While this is sliced from a whole ham I baked last night, cool from the ice box, and much better than those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches your dad and you probably brought along.”

“Cheese sandwiches.” Jenny laughed then and nodded her head in full agreement as she started gulping down the sandwich. The lemonade was frosty and felt good going down her parched throat.

“Thanks, Maude. This is scrumptious.”

“Glad you like it.” Maude smiled graciously and paused. “Where’s that father of yours?”

Jenny raised her shoulders, a resigned expression on her face, and took another sip of lemonade. “Said he would be right behind me. You know him, a real workhorse when he gets going.”

“Yeah, an old workhorse.” Maude chortled lightly and then as swiftly her eyes grew troubled.

“I hope he’s along pretty soon. Being out too long in this killer sun is no place for a man his age to be. It’s ninety-nine degrees out there and climbing. Your dad’s not looking well, either.” She hesitated uncomfortably, catching Jenny’s eyes. “I wasn’t sure about giving him the job.” There was doubt in her soft voice. “The way he’s been acting lately.”

“Tell me about it,” Jenny moaned. “I’d do anything to get him to quit. Take it easier. I worry about him, but,” Jenny gazed thoughtfully out the kitchen window, “he can’t.”

“Needs the money too much, I know. The story of his life.” Maude’s compassion was evident on her face. “That’s why I went along with it when George proposed him for it. We know he’s having hard times right now with Estelle gone and all; we’ve been friends for a long time. We wanted to help, but we don’t want him to kill himself. You two take your time. There’s no rush.”

She perceptively read the frightened look in Jenny’s eyes.

“Don’t worry. I can give you the money up front if you need it. We trust you.”

“Thanks, Maude.” Jenny lowered her eyes, feeling like a beggar anyway. She went back to her sandwich.

Maude continued reading the paper.

“By the way, where is George?” Jenny inquired as she was mopping up crumbs with a wet fingertip.

“Downstairs in the basement fixing the washing machine, I hope. It broke down yesterday, and I wasn’t half done with the washing. I hope George finds the problem.”

“Hmm. Me, too,” Jenny mumbled, distracted, still thinking about her father.

“I wish Dad would get in here and eat.” Jenny’s eyes searched out the window. What was keeping him so long? Maybe she should go check on him.

She was mulling that thought over when she noticed the same article on the front page of Maude’s newspaper that she’d been reading earlier that morning.

“Have you read that yet?” Jenny leaned over and tapped the story with her finger.

Maude’s eyes sharpened. “Yes, and I don’t like it one bit. Something’s not right. My old newspaperwoman’s intuition is screaming bloody murder. Too many mutilated animals lately for me. Says here that in Thorpsville they’ve found three horses and two cows completely drained of their blood in the last couple days. Hideous.” She shivered visibly. “The authorities suspect it’s some satanic cult or something.”

“You don’t?” Jenny smiled sweetly, Maude’s seriousness tipping her off.

“No, I don’t. There were no footprints or tracks left. Nothing. It doesn’t sound like any cult I’ve ever heard of. No trophies taken, either. No hearts or eyes gouged out. Cults go in for that sort of gruesome stuff, usually.” Maude touched Jenny’s hand. “You should know what it sounds like, Jenny. As I recall you’re the expert.”

Jenny frowned. She’d written three horror novels about vampires, and she was considered an expert? Ha.

“Let me take a wild stab at it. Vampires?” Jenny’s face shadowed with amusement when Maude simply nodded. “Oh, Maude, you know I merely wrote about those things. I don’t believe in them.”

Maude stared at her with pity in her eyes. “No, Jenny, my girl, never make fun of such things. I’ve lived longer, seen more, and believe me; there are things on this earth that are unexplainable and dangerous. Never doubt it. Some of the mysterious incidents I had to investigate as a newspaperwoman were spooky, to say the least.” There was an apprehensive nervousness in her manner, a strange glint in her eyes.

“Yeah. Well, whoever or whatever is doing the killing, I hope they catch them. Soon,” Jenny remarked and quickly changed the subject before anything else could be said.

“Maude, Joey told me this morning that someone’s bought the old Rebel theater after all these years. Isn’t that something?”

“You’re not serious? Someone’s bought the Rebel?” Maude’s face was incredulous.

“I’m serious. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Maude paused before she answered, “Oh, nothing, Jenny.”

“It must be a mess inside.”

“It’s been closed for so long. I’m sure it is. It’ll take a great deal of work before they can open it again to the public,” Maude mused.

“I guess the guy, an eccentric older man according to Joey, is going to renovate it.” Jenny stretched, her body sore from the climbing, bending and scraping.

“He’ll have to,” Maude‘s response was thoughtful. “I’d love to get a peek inside now. I did a series of stories on the Rebel for the newspaper, right before it went bankrupt and closed the last time. It wasn’t always called the Rebel. Did you know that?”

Jenny shook her head.

“When it was first built, it was called the Grand, because it was fancy and rich inside. Then sometime later, a new owner tacked on the word Rebel. The Grand Rebel. Eventually the Grand was dropped, and over time it just became known as the Rebel.” Then she fell silent.

“Maude?” Jenny pressed, waiting. She knew Maude too well and she’d seen that look before. “What is it?”

“Did you know that George and I used to go there every Friday night when we were courting? Nearly forty years ago now.”

Jenny could tell by her expression she was revisiting those long-ago days, wandering in the past.

“That place holds a lot of memories for us, but for others it has always held ... questions.” Uneasiness tainted her voice.

“About what?”

“It frightened some people, that’s all. Some people thought they ... saw things.”

“Saw things?” Jenny chuckled. “My brothers and I used to go there all the time when we were children; it never scared us, and we never saw things .” She started to dismiss the subject with a lazy gesture, but then asked, “What sort of things?”

Maude sighed. “Things that go bump in the night. Ghosts, you might say. Some remembered that in the early days, there’d been disappearances.” Maude had tilted her head and was rubbing her chin lightly with her fingers.

“Like as in ... people?” Jenny pressed her.

“Yes. People. Quite a lot of them actually.”

“I never knew that. Did they ever find out what happened to them?”

“No. Not a trace.”

Jenny was staring out the window.

“That was years ago,” Maude said. “It’s been closed for a long time. Nearly twenty years, at least. This time.”

“This time?” Jenny’s eyes reflected interest.

“A fire burnt the place to the ground a few years after it’d been built. There were people trapped in the auditorium who couldn’t get out and many lost their lives or were horribly disfigured. The place was rumored after that to be not only haunted, but jinxed, evil, and that the fire had been purposely set.”

Maude evaded Jenny’s gaze in a most peculiar way, as if she’d already said more than she wanted. She had the unsettling feeling that there was something else Maude wasn’t telling her.

“Why did they think that?” Jenny was growing intrigued by the story now in spite of herself.

“I never found that out. People, when I was a girl, didn’t want to talk about it,” Maude finished, staring down at the article about the butchered animals.

“It seems kind of strange to me—I don’t know exactly why but it does—that all these mutilations and killings have begun, and suddenly the theater is opening again.”

“What would one have to do with the other?”

Maude refused to answer, only shrugging. She shoved the paper aside, finished with it.

“Anyway,” Jenny talked on, not noticing how concerned Maude was over the situation, “it’ll be great to have the theater back. Haunted or not. Great to have any theater in this town again.”

“I second that,” Maude agreed, lightening up. “I’ll have to keep an eye peeled for the grand reopening and pry George away from the television long enough to take me. We haven’t been to an indoor theater in ages.”

Maude got up and went to the refrigerator; opening the freezer door, she offered, “George made homemade peach ice cream for dessert. Made it this morning, in honor of the house being started.”

“He always made the best peach ice cream I’ve ever eaten,” Jenny reminisced aloud.

“If that father of yours doesn’t get in here soon, he just won’t get any,” Maude threatened. “We’ll devour it all ourselves.” She was already digging Jenny and herself out generous scoops and slamming them into large bowls.

“Maude,” Jenny sighed. “You’re too good to a lowly house-painter.”

Maude set the dish down with a clatter in front of Jenny and threw her a piercing look. “Jenny, Jenny, my girl. You are no lowly housepainter—not by a long shot. You’re simply drifting for a while. Trying other things, like most writers. Pretending to be something you’re not. Right?”

The questions in Maude’s eyes made Jenny nervous. They said, One writer to another, I know you well.

Jenny ate her ice cream, ignoring the obvious challenge. “I believe this truly is the best batch of ice cream George has ever made.”

Maude patted Jenny motheringly on the arm. “You dickens, you. Always was stubborn as a mule, like your daddy, even as a child. Talented too.

“When’s the next book coming out, Jenny?”

“I told you I don’t write anymore. I don’t want to.” Jenny wouldn’t meet her eyes. She could feel her face turning red, probably even brighter than her sunburn. Of all the people in her life, she couldn’t be angry at Maude. Maude had been her mentor, her teacher, her friend and her most devoted admirer. They understood each other.

“That’s what you say. When are you going to stop acting like a little nitwit and go back to what you’re really good at?”

“Never.” Jenny’s answer, so full of finality, stunned the older woman for a moment.

Maude exclaimed, “That’s nonsense. You were once a best-selling novelist, Jenny. A Summer’s Night was excellent, for horror.” Maude’s tone was cajoling.

“If I could write like you—” Maude let out the breath she’d been holding, exasperated at the distant look on Jenny’s face. “You have a great gift, child, and you can sit there and tell me with a straight face that you’re never going to use it again? That’s almost a sin.”

“In your eyes, Maude, not mine. So I wrote a bestseller once. So what?” Her voice held a tired note. “Whatever I had once is gone, and you know what? I don’t care. I don’t want to waste anymore chunks of my life at the damn typewriter or the computer. Doesn’t anyone understand that? I don’t owe anyone anything. It’s my life, and I don’t want to write anymore, that’s all,” Jenny said through gritted teeth, turning her head away, wanting to be left alone about it.

For Maude, it finally soaked in. “Sorry, Jenny. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that A Summer’s Night,” her face filled with awe, “to this day, I’m still haunted by certain passages of it. It was so beautifully written, so believable. Your characters touched something in me.” She shook her head. “I guess it’s only selfishness that makes me want you to write another story,” her voice was apologetic.

Jenny rubbed her eyes and strained neck, sorry she’d snapped at Maude the way she had. The woman meant well. She just didn’t get it.

From downstairs, George’s gruff voice could be heard swearing good-naturedly at the washing machine. Something clanked to the floor, a tool perhaps, and the metallic sound echoed throughout the house.

Jenny’s eyes returned to the door. How much time had passed since she’d come in? Twenty minutes? Her dad should have been in by now. His lemonade was warm. Was she going to have to go out and drag him inside to eat and take a rest? Her eyes were gazing through the windows again.

It was then the scream echoed in the still afternoon, and Jenny, her heart plunging to her feet, bolted from the kitchen and flew out the door towards it.

Her father wasn’t on the walk board. She found him lying, panting and groaning, in a heap behind a bush under the scaffolding.

“Dad!” Jenny wailed and ran to kneel down beside his body, afraid to touch him.

“Are you all right?” she cried. “Is there anything broken?” There was blood coming from somewhere, but she couldn’t tell where at first. There were ugly scratches on his face from the bushes.

Maude stood gaping at him from behind her, her face white.

“Naw, don’t think so, Jenny,” he moaned, looking up at her, dazed, pain and disbelief racing across his weathered face. “I got so dizzy. I fell,” he muttered as if he couldn’t believe it. He clutched his right arm closer to his side. “My arm hurts.” He winced as she barely touched it.

“Oh, Dad! I knew this would happen. You fell. You actually fell!”

“No joke,” he snapped back at her, annoyed. He was visibly trying to pull himself together, make light of it. “I’m fine, Jenny. Just a sore arm, that’s all, a couple of scratches. I’ll be okay. Heck, I’ve fallen countless times in my life. No big deal. Your mom always said I had bones like rubber. I bounce and never break a thing.” He attempted to smile, but instead, pain suffused his face.

“Sure, you’re just a rubber band man. Look at you. ” Jenny’s face was streaming with tears, and her eyes registered horror as she discovered every new injury: bruises and cuts down both his arms and a growing lump on the front of his head.

“You’re bleeding. You’re hurt!”

“Stop that caterwauling, girl.” He shoved her helping hands away.

He got halfway to his feet, and with a screech of pain crumpled to the ground once more like a deflated balloon.

“Darn. Must have bruised something,” he muttered, his eyes slightly glassy.

“Ernest P. Lacey!” Maude fussed as she settled down next to Jenny and looked accusingly at her old friend. “What have you gone and done now?”

“Well, Maude, what does it look like? I tried to fly and didn’t make it.” He pouted. “I slipped off the damn walk board.”

“You think you’re some kind of monkey or something, climbing around like a teenager? When are you gonna learn that our old bones are brittle, easy to break. You should be more careful, you old fart.”

“Nothing’s broken, I told you, both of you,” he reiterated through clenched teeth. “Women! Always making mountains out of molehills.”

“Jenny, we better take him to the hospital. I think he’s broken something, no matter what he says.”

“Don’t need no damn hospital, I tell ya. I’m not hurt that bad.” He yanked away from Maude and Jenny, glaring at them.

“Fibber,” Maude mumbled, tsk-tsking.

“Jenny,” His gaze swung towards his daughter, “can just take me home, where I can clean up some. Then it’ll be fine. Fallen before, like I said; never hurt bad once. Never had to go to no hospital, and I’m not starting now.”

“Yeah,” Jenny replied sarcastically, getting irritated at his obstinate attitude. “And we don’t want to break the record now, do we?”

Her dad continued to sulk, huddled on the ground, broken and bleeding.

“Stubborn as a damn mule,” Maude interjected flatly under her breath to Jenny, shaking her head.

“A weekend coming up to rest, and I’ll be good as new Monday. Take my word for it, Maude. Jenny, take me home.”

“Go ahead, Jenny, take the old codger home, if that’s what he wants. Can’t talk no sense into old fools.”

Jenny stood up and helped her dad to his feet. He moaned, and she felt his full weight shift onto her. He was in pain, and they both knew it, but she’d begun to suspect something else.

“You two have done enough work for today.” Maude took his other arm. She helped walk the invalid to the car. “Looks like we might be getting some rain here soon anyway.”

Thick, angry looking clouds were scudding in, and the wind had the taste of water in it. It had come in so sudden.

“I’ll clean up things for you; put your scrapers, paint, and brushes on the porch when I’m through...ready for Monday.”

Jenny slid grateful eyes to her old friend. “We’d appreciate that a lot, Maude. Thanks.”

She helped her dad into the passenger’s seat, and she got into the driver’s side. Through the open window, she promised Maude, “We’ll be here extra early Monday morning. We’ll make up the lost time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maude said. “Take this.” She slipped a piece of folded paper out of her pocket into Jenny’s hand, whispering so her father wouldn’t hear.

“In case he decides to go to the hospital anyway, or if you two need it.” She winked.

By the feel of it, it was a check. “Thanks,” Jenny whispered back, warmly squeezing Maude’s wrinkled hand. It was all she could think of to say.

Jenny started the car and pulled out onto the road before she popped the obvious question. “You don’t have medical coverage, do you?” It wasn’t accusatory, merely a statement of fact.

A few moments of heavy silence. Jenny looked over at her father. He was leaning against the seat, his eyes clenched shut in pain. His face drained.

“Nope.”

The scratches, bites, whatever they were on his neck, were vivid red, puffy.

“You’re going to say now that you can’t afford it, right?”

“Yep,” he said testily. “Rates kept going up and up. Couldn’t see paying that much a month on a gamble.”

He wouldn’t be eligible for Medicare, either, until next year. Jenny shook her head sadly as she maneuvered the station wagon down the road. She hated driving his car. It reminded her of a tank. A rusty, noisy tank.

Thank goodness, the farmhouse was only about a mile away.

“Dad, at your age you need it.”

No answer.

“Well, at least, next year there’ll be Medicare. You’ll have coverage, then.”

“Charity,” he snarled from the corner as they bumped down the road. “Never have taken charity, never will. I got my pride, Jenny.”

His pride. Forever his damn pride.

“Dad, Medicare isn’t charity. You paid taxes all your life. It’s your due.”

“Still charity,” he grumbled again. “Don’t need it.”

Jenny sighed aloud, tired and sick of worrying about her wayward, persnickety parents. She wasn’t allowed to tell them how to live their lives; all she could do was worry to death about the both of them, while they drove her slowly, completely insane.

“Sure, Dad. Is pride going to stop the pain you’re feeling right now?” she threw at him. “You need to go to the hospital. We have money. Maude paid us in advance, so we can afford it.”

“She didn’t have to do that, just because she felt sorry for us.” Resentment tinged his voice. “Won’t stand for peoples’ pity, neither.”

Jenny finally lost her temper. “She didn’t—,” but her father cut her off.

“I don’t want to go to the dern hospital! You hear me! Just take me home. This is your father, Jenny, telling you this. Just obey your father like a good child.” His eyes closed, his mouth puckered in anger. Jenny had rarely seen him so agitated.

It shook her.

Jenny’s face hardened, and she simply nodded.

She didn’t utter another word until she’d deposited him inside his front door and helped him into the house. After she’d aided him in cleaning his cuts and scrapes with a warm soapy washrag, and they’d fought over whether his arm was broken or not, she helped him to bed.

Making him as comfortable as she could, she prepared him something to eat. He refused to touch it. He was asleep by the time she’d covered the food and stashed it away in the refrigerator.

Outside, the storm clouds had accumulated swiftly, hiding the sun. Distant peals of thunder echoed miles away, growing louder, coming closer.

Before she left, she squeezed his car into the rickety garage behind the farmhouse and made sure his doors and windows were closed and locked. He always left them wide open. Then she strolled home across the field to her trailer.

The walk helped her. It cleared her head.

The wet scent of rain wafted achingly on the warm air. Black-edged clouds were coming in now like a stampeding crowd of wild stallions. Jenny could smell the salty ocean mingled in with the tang of the dying grass. It was amazing how quickly the bright summer’s day had changed into a hazy, darkening late afternoon.

She was so infuriated at her father she could have screamed.

Instead, she stopped to caress and murmur loving words to Black Beauty and Lightning, her dad’s two swaybacked bony horses.

They’d come up eagerly to her the minute she climbed the pasture fence. Jenny gently mounted Lightning’s broad back and let him take her home at a slow walk. Black Beauty happily cantered behind as the clouds grew more menacing above them.

She peered into the gathering white mist. It was strange, the mist. She’d never seen anything quite like it. Thick as split-pea soup, treacherous as it swirled around the horses hooves.

She kept Lightning to a sedate trot, even though he wanted to frisk, and wouldn’t let him jump anything. Poor old beast, she thought, as she pushed Black Beauty’s velvety nose away from his flank playfully. The two horses never went anywhere without the other. Jenny’s thoughts turned melancholy as she watched them together.

Why couldn’t her parents be that faithful to each other in their old age?

Jenny slowed her horse down, turned and rode the long way across the field, her thoughts full of her early childhood. How her and her brothers used to ride every day in this very field when they were young.

They’d had a lot of horses once. Eventually they were all sold over the years for debts. The family could never get ahead.

Thus had their secure childhood slipped away in fragments, more each year.

Remembering her teenage years with still painful embarrassment—her mother’s clever evasions when the bill collectors had started coming out to the farm angrily demanding their money or never having enough for the final bill when she was sent to the grocery store—Jenny prodded Lightning into trotting a little faster. As if she could outrun the memories.

That was when her mother had really begun drinking.

The wind had picked up, and the mist attacked them like something hungry and alive. Lightning began to snort and prance nervously, his eyes rolling as if he were afraid of its curling fingers, and Jenny finally jumped down. With a light slap, she sent him towards the barn before the storm hit. She watched the horses gallop off together and then she headed home. The ground crunched beneath her feet, and the rising wind whipped at her loose hair.

It was getting cooler. It felt good on her sunburned skin.

She scrambled over the fence that ran along behind her trailer and slid in the back door as the first sheets of rain hit.

Once inside, she slumped at the kitchen table. She felt too weary and disgusted to do more than sit and stare at the darkening windows. The rain drummed against the outside of her trailer like mad tapping feet, making her feel as if she were in a giant, black belly of some primitive sleeping carnivore.

The shadows were beginning to claim the day. Inside it was dark.

She got up and groped her way by touch through the living room, until she found the lamp and switched it on.

Soft light flooded the gloomy corners and scared the monsters away.

The trailer was a cramped, no-frills twelve-by-thirty footer she’d bought in St. Augustine’s with the last of her savings after her divorce. She’d pulled it all the way down here behind her brother Joey’s old truck that she’d borrowed three months ago and parked it. It wasn’t much: a cramped kitchen, a long, narrow living room, one bedroom and a bath—but it was all hers. She’d fixed it up real pretty. It was home.

Better than having to go live with her dad.

She’d refused to take any money from Benjamin when she’d divorced him, wanting nothing from him but her freedom.

Not feeling like going into town, she opened the refrigerator’s freezer and yanked out a frozen dinner. Turkey and mashed potatoes. Her favorite. She popped it into her tiny microwave oven and pressed the correct buttons. She left it humming behind her as she moved into the next room and collapsed on the flowered sofa.

She’d been doing a lot of deep thinking all day.

God, she pleaded, as she hung her head in her hands and the drops of rain tap-tap-tapped, dancing on her tin roof, don’t let me end up like my parents. Old, broke and alone. Not like them, she begged the emptiness. Please.

She wiped the tears away. I don’t have to end up like that if I don’t want to, she told herself firmly. I still have time. I can still change life.

By God, she thought fiercely, I’m going to find a way to do it, too.

I have to.

She let her eyes rest on the cloth-covered lump on the bottom shelf of her bookcase. Her laptop. The one she hadn’t touched in years. For some reason she hadn’t gotten rid of it. It was out-of-date. Might not even run if she plugged it in.

She pushed herself off the sofa, walked over, and uncovered it. Dusty. She opened it and ran her fingers across the top of its familiar keys then gazed up at the books lined up neatly on her small bookcase.

It was the simple wooden bookcase that Jeff had made for her with his own hands all those years ago, when she’d first begun writing. She smiled softly, thinking about the pleasure that’d glowed on his handsome face when he’d proudly presented it to her. He’d done an amazing job, adding unique touches to the glowing wood. Carving designs along the edges. The shelf was beautiful.

They hadn’t had much money, but, God, how she’d loved that man. Still loved. Would always love, she realized now, after all these years. Even after what he’d done to her.

She put her hand out and let it linger on the cover of A Summer’s Night . Maude’s words of praise floated back to her and the look on Joey’s face that morning.

Something long dead stirred.

She lifted the laptop off the shelf, took it into the kitchen and set it down carefully on the round kitchen table.

Picking up the damp washrag she kept hanging over the kitchen sink’s faucet, she scrubbed her computer clean as the pearly mist crowded in at her trailer windows, and the rain pirouetted on her roof.

Every once and a while, a loud startling thud against the outside of the trailer would disturb her concentration enough so that she’d glance up, her eyes searching the dark windows.

There was never anything there, only the rainy night.

Chapter Four

August 18

“Dad, maybe you ought to see a doctor? I mean it. You still look peaked to me,” Jenny coaxed him Monday morning, as she stood by the side of his bed, sunlight streaming around. It brightened up the gloomy room, but it made him look worse. The bruises and scratches on his face and his arm were healing, but he wasn’t. He’d hardly left his bed all weekend. She knew because she’d checked in on him a couple of times.

He’d refused over and over to go to the hospital, or to see a doctor.

“A few days’ rest is all I need, Jenny. Sprained something. That’s all,” he had told her. “Be good as rain by Monday.”

She’d believed him, yet, when she got to his house early Monday morning to pick him up for work, he was in bed, pretending that the onset of a summer’s cold had him still feeling under the weather. Not the accident on Friday.

“Just a little stuffed-up head, that’s all. Nothing more, so don’t go into a fit. Sleep is what I need.”

“Sick enough to stay in bed and skip another day of work?” she chided. “I’ve never known you to stay in bed for a case of the sniffles or a couple of bruises.” She shut up because she recognized the set of his jaw.

She meandered to the open window, pulled the curtains back. Dust sifted down around her. A layer of grime an inch thick on the window’s glass made her sneeze.

“I’m just gonna take one more day off, Jenny. That’s what I’m gonna do. It’s no crime. You take one, too. Maude’ll understand.”

“No, I’m going to go work anyway, Dad. I should be able to get some more of the scraping done. Get a jump on it.”

“If you want,” he replied lethargically as he played with the edge of the thin blanket on his bed. He looked more like a lost child than her father.

“Anything I can do for you, Dad, before I go?”

From his pillow, he smiled. “Yeah, make me a pot of coffee.”

“Sure.”

Jenny went into the kitchen. Her childhood home hadn’t changed a bit. Same painted metal cabinets, faded wallpaper; same worn and scuffed, holey, diamond-patterned linoleum on the floor; same Formica table and chair set she and her brothers had sat at thirty years ago to eat their meals and throw their food across at each other. Oatmeal for breakfast and pancakes for supper, or her mother’s tasty homemade potato soup, if money was tight.

She opened the far right cabinet where her dad usually kept the coffee canister. It wasn’t there. For the first time in weeks, she opened the other cabinets, her eyes sweeping through them, as her hands rummaged behind. They were pitifully bare.

A mouse couldn’t live on what’s in these cabinets, she fretted.

He’s probably waiting for Mom to come back and shop ... or to starve, whichever comes first, Jenny thought sourly.

“What do you eat around here, anyway? Air?” Jenny yelped over her shoulder. Her dad grumbled something unintelligible from the other room.

“When are you going to go to the grocery store, Dad?”

“Hate those new-fangled supermarkets,” her dad’s voice finally replied, weakly; she had to strain to hear him. He spoke louder, “All that frozen stuff. Whole suppers and even desserts. Stacks of frozen peas, meat pies and tatertots. Miles of glass cases so covered in ice you can barely see into ‘em. Open them up and all this cold vapor hits you right in the face. Brrrrr. Nothing’s sacred, anymore, Jenny,” he lamented. “Food looks like colored cardboard.”

“Tastes like cardboard, too.” Jenny chuckled, and shouted, “You know you got eight cans of corn in here?”

“I like corn,” her father’s retort came.

“I give up. Where is the coffee?”

“Bottom left shelf by the blender.”

As Jenny made the coffee in the old percolator, she found herself staring dreamily out the window above the kitchen sink. The white frilly curtains fluttered in the early morning breeze.

Woolgathering again; then she caught herself.

How many times when she was a child had she watched her mother do just the same thing? In this house. At this very window. A prisoner yearning for all the world outside had to offer and all she couldn’t have.

In this house, Jenny kept expecting her mom to come sauntering in any minute, humming in that absentminded way she had. She heard floors squeaking above her somewhere, she could have sworn a door closed upstairs in one of the other rooms, but no one else was here. A dripping faucet somewhere stopped as if a human hand had turned it off suddenly. Water.

For some strange reason, it reminded Jenny of her mother’s crystal bottle of holy water.

Mom, why do you have that bottle of holy water? Jenny, the child, had asked a long time ago, staring up at the beautiful crystal bottle on her mother’s dresser.

Never know when you’re gonna need it, that’s why, child, she’d responded patiently. There’s so much evil in the world, and only God has the power to defeat it.

Her mother had always been a good Catholic. She’d believed in God. She’d gone to church every week and everything. Jenny wondered if she still went to church these days.

It was as if there was a ghost roaming the house, but her mother was alive, somewhere in town. Not dead. It felt strange with Mom gone. Even the smell of liquor had faded away.

Jenny stared out the window, her hands frozen over the coffee pot, haunted with memories: the heady summer morning breezes and the lilt of long-ago voices.

Outside the window, children frolicked. Two taller boys in patched jeans and a short girl with braids.

“Jenny Penny, can’t catch me!” one of the boys hollered.

“You wanna bet?” she cried back and took chase. The girl was laughing as she disappeared around the corner of the house and into the sunlight behind the boys.

A young pretty woman with a kerchief over her red hair stood by her wash line observing them go with a half-smile on her lips, wooden clothespins in one of her work-roughened hands. The soft breezes tugged at stray wisps of her hair. She looked tired to Jenny. Her face was sad, and her printed cotton housedress frayed. She shaded her eyes with her other hand, watching for a short while. Finally, she went back to her wash, shaking her head. Mom.

From a distant recess of her mind, Jenny recalled something her mother had said when Jenny had been a child.

When I was a girl, I dreamed of being a nurse one day in a big city hospital. Helping people and living in a fancy house with bay windows and one of those four season sun porches in the back, a hesitant, melancholy nod and hopeless eyes, I should have been. I really should have been. Now it’s too late.

That had been mom’s dream.

A pity, she would have made a damn good nurse. Blood never bothered her, and she was always watching those doctor shows on TV.

Jenny finished making the coffee and collected the newspaper from the front yard. As she walked into her dad’s bedroom to say good-bye, she could hear the coffee perking cheerfully.

“Okay. Coffee’s making, Dad. Here’s the paper.” She laid the tightly rolled bundle on his bed. “Still have those bites on your neck,” she observed, surprised.

He gingerly touched them, as if they hurt, but all he said was, “Been having the darndest nightmares lately. Pain, too.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yeah.” Her father looked embarrassed mentioning it. “Awful nightmares. About this huge, ferocious panther. It jumps on me and,” he hesitated, “bites me over and over. The worse thing about it is that, I swear, it hurts.”

Jenny frowned, feeling helpless. She’d never heard her father talk about dreams before. Only that he never dreamed. Never.

“They’re just dreams, that’s all, Dad.”

He looked up at her with a haunted glaze to his eyes.

“You rest then,” she said soothingly, touching his arm. “I’ll call you tonight to see if you need anything.”

“Sure, honey, if you want.” There was a feeble rustling as he rubbed his eyes. His face was so sunburned, it made hers ache just to look at it.

Maybe that was part of the reason he was feeling so poorly. A bad burn could drain a person. Give them fever. Uneasy sleep, maybe?

“Need some lotion on that face,” she told him. “Got a real bad burn there.” Darn, if she’d go and get the lotion for him, too, and put it on his face as if he were a child. Like Mom would have done.

“Got some around here someplace. In the medicine cabinet or maybe in the bathroom pantry,” her dad said, hinting, “but I don’t feel up to tearing the house apart to find it.”

Jenny ignored him. He had to start learning to take care of himself sooner or later.

“Ah, I’ll remember where I put it eventually.”

“I’m sure you will.” She flashed him an encouraging grin.

“Don’t push yourself too hard today, Jenny. Supposed to be another scorcher. Say hi to that no-account brother of yours with the ponytail, okay?”

“I will. See ya later.” Jenny left quietly, locking the door behind her like a good girl.

Outside, the sun was shining, and though it was hotter than when she’d arrived, it was a lovely day.

Except for her father’s mysterious lethargy, she found she was happier than she’d been in a long time. It was amazing. She took a deep breath, studying the grounds and the old farmhouse that she’d grown up in, and smiled wide. The smell of lush flowers perfumed the air. Mom’s roses.

Ah, no matter what, it was good to be home. She headed towards her car.

She drove into town, feeling strange without her dad chattering away beside her.

She wanted to keep busy, so she wouldn’t think about Samantha so far away, and how much she missed her and wanted to see her and the baby, but couldn’t.

In town, she ran her five-year-old silver and black Escort through the car wash first. Her car was a mud ball, and she couldn’t stand looking at it any longer. She shoved in the coins and sprayed the car down with soapy water. After the machine gobbled up more of her coins, she rinsed her car, and drove away content.

Sometimes little things could make a person happy.

She discovered she wasn’t really hungry, and went on to the Albers’ house to continue the paint scraping. Today she wore shorts and was glad of it.

She tore into her work and let her mind float free. As a gentle breeze cooled her face, she thought that maybe today, or tomorrow, something wonderful could happen. Would happen.

She found herself softly humming an old Beatles song.

She’d just finished the section in the back when Maude tapped her on the shoulder, a steaming mug of coffee clasped in her hands.

“Thought you might like some coffee before the sun gets too hot. Just made a fresh pot.” Maude handed Jenny a ceramic mug with cats all over it.

Maude’s eyes swept the mottled wall before them. “Your father hurt himself Friday more than he wanted to admit, huh?”

After shrugging noncommittally, Jenny took another long sip of her coffee. “You’ve known him longer than me, Maude. You should know how mule-headed he can be.”

“Don’t I, Jenny dear,” Maude sympathized. “How is he?”

“Who knows? He won’t see a doctor, and he looks awful. It isn’t just the fall. He’d been under the weather for days before that. All he wants to do is sleep. I’m worried about him, but he promises he’ll be back on the job tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Tell him not to dare come back over here until he’s as fit as a fiddle, you hear? A day or two won’t make any difference to George and me. Don’t want him having a stroke painting our house.”

“Talking about us men, again, huh?” Her husband George, a neat but rotund man with a circled wisp of white hair on a nearly bald head, stood behind them. He had a newspaper in his left hand and a cup of coffee in his right as he beamed at them.

He leveled blue eyes almost the exact shade as his wife’s at Jenny and winked. “Jenny, you sure are looking pretty these days. Even with that sunburn. Don’t look any older than you did when you were a teenager. What’s the secret? How about letting me in on it?”

“Lots of chocolate and fresh air.” Jenny laughed, and gently motioned with her full hands around her. “George, you never change, either—always the flatterer.”

“I wouldn’t want him to.” Maude hugged her husband, and he took her hand.

“How’s Ernest doing?” George inquired.

“Still kicking, you know him. Sore from that fall, so he’s sleeping in today. Be back tomorrow.”

“Glad to hear he’s okay.” George seemed relieved. He turned to study the house.

He started pointing out some things to Maude patiently as she asked questions. Would one coat be enough? Did they really want it white again? Was that hole caused by termites? Weren’t Jenny and her dad doing a fine job?

Jenny watched them with a half-smile as they talked about their home.

“Maude?” George unfolded the newspaper and handed it to his wife, as if he’d just remembered it. “Did you read where they’ve found more slaughtered animals right outside Summer Haven? It’s getting worse.”

“Uh, huh. I read it while you were still snoozing, dear.” Maude’s face was somber. “Though I suspect there’s much more to it than that. Look on the back page. Twenty C. There’s a short story on a bag lady they found dead inside a trash dumpster outside a Denny’s. She died in the same way as the animals you’re talking about, and they’re blaming all of it on some mysterious malicious cult.” Maude was looking at Jenny now, her eyes frightened.

“You still don’t think it is a cult, do you?” Jenny asked, intrigued.

Maude shook her head. “Nope. Something terrible is plaguing us. Call it a premonition, but I don’t think it’s over. There’s something horrific going on.” She seemed to grow thoughtful. “I’d love to talk to those farmers and to the person who found that dead woman.”

The older woman swallowed nervously and shivered as a cloud passed over the blazing sun and shadowed their faces.

George’s eyes held a mute appeal.

“I know. It’s none of my business. I’m retired. Well, no matter. I won’t get involved.” She patted George’s hand indulgently with a wan smile. She seemed to know he hated such talk. He was selfish with their time together since his last heart attack.

“Honey,” George dropped a kiss on her white head, “I’m glad to hear that.

“Are you about ready then to go into town? You said something about needing some groceries earlier. Came out in the first place to corral you and get us on the road before we got sidetracked with that spooky talk about dead bag ladies and cults.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and they all laughed.

“Thought maybe, after shopping, we might eat supper out in town somewhere, too,” George suggested.

“It’s a shame that movie house isn’t open yet,” he said. “A movie afterwards might have been nice.”

Maude shot a dark look at Jenny, but said nothing.

The older couple ambled towards the house, but Jenny couldn’t stop thinking about the butchered animals and the dead woman.

What was going on in Summer Haven?

The day turned out to be long and sweltering, and Jenny pushed herself more than usual, only stopping for the cheese sandwich that she’d brought along and no supper at all.

Yet she experienced a sense of accomplishment as twilight fell, and she appraised what she’d done. She’d been so busy that the time had slipped away and only the fading of the light had forced her to stop.

Maude and George hadn’t returned the rest of the day. Maybe they’d decided to eat supper out after all. Good for them.

Jenny’s stomach growled.

She put everything neatly away and drove into town. The dark was settling in like an old friend, and she was hungry, but she first had to get a couple of necessities, milk, Hersey bars and Hostess cupcakes, from the supermarket.

Afterwards she’d treat herself to a healthy meal at Joey’s: a big fat cheeseburger, malt and onion rings. She deserved it. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone.

Jenny was in the third aisle, mentally scanning the shelves, trying to fill her basket, when she spotted her. She was half-turned towards Jenny.

A stumbling gray-haired woman in a dirty looking sweater with missing buttons and hatred narrowing her red-rimmed eyes clasped a bottle of whiskey to her breast. She hissed at another woman and was making a scene in the middle of the supermarket. The store employee had her by the arm, as if she were a truant child.

The old woman was behaving like someone homeless off the street, an animal, or a person not quite right in the head, as she snarled at the younger woman in a checker’s uniform. Then, totally unprovoked, she stomped maliciously on the younger woman’s foot.

The store’s employee shrieked and released her.

Jenny had unconsciously moved closer. Drawn. She could hear them arguing now.

“I told you to get your damn hands off me!” the old woman spat, gloating. “You got no right, no damn right to talk to me like that, missy! Told you, I’m not stealing it. I got money to pay for it. I do,” the old woman protested vehemently as she started sidling away, trying to escape. “Get away from me, or I’ll poke your eyes out next.”

The crazy woman spun around like a whirling dervish, and Jenny’s worse fear was realized.

She knew her.

Mom.

As her demented mother sprinted from the store, still clutching the bottle, she passed Jenny, nearly knocking her down. With her mouth open and her eyes wide in shock, Jenny fell against the shelves of cold cereal, knocking a mess of them to the floor, and gaped at the fleeing woman.

Their eyes had met for a split second, and her mother’s had filled instantly with guilty hatred. She hadn’t spoken to her daughter, but had escaped out the electric doors. The checker dogged her trail, railing at her to stop until she lost her outside in the dark beyond the market’s lighted doorway.

Shocked, Jenny froze in the middle of the aisle. The words: Mom, wait for me! Mom! Come back! echoed in her numb mind, but her tongue had swollen in her mouth, and they’d never gotten any further.

She couldn’t have been more devastated if her mother had physically slammed her to the ground and spat on her. Her heart was battered by the fresh memory of her mother’s spite. Her mother’s crime. Stealing from the store like a common criminal.

Why is she acting like this? she thought tearfully. Why does she loathe me so? What have I ever done to her that’s so unforgivable? Jenny anguished.

She hates me.

She reviewed what her father had said a few days ago. No, Jenny furiously refused to buy it. She wouldn’t take all the blame.

It’s your mother who is the sick one, Jenny, so very, very sick, a tiny voice whispered in her ear, trying to console her. She’s using you, everything wrong in her life, as just an excuse.

Jenny refused to let the tears materialize. Not yet. Not until she took care of something first. She stepped up to the angry woman checker, who was limping.

“I know that woman.” Jenny, her face blushing in shame, laid a hand gently on the woman’s arm. “I’ll pay for what she stole, if you don’t call the police on her,” she pleaded.

The store clerk had hard eyes, but she snorted and replied snootily, “It’s all right by me, lady. I don’t want the trouble. Calling in the cops, answering loads of questions for their reports and everything. We’re short-handed today as it is, and I really haven’t the time to waste over an old crazy street lush like her.”

“How much?” Jenny gulped, refusing to let the woman’s cruel words affect her as she pulled some crumpled bills out of her purse. It was a good thing she’d gotten paid Friday, or she wouldn’t have been able to bail her mother out of this mess.

“With tax,” the woman figured silently, “it comes to eight dollars and sixty-three cents.”

Jenny counted out the money and slapped it into the woman’s grasping hands. Then she turned and raced out of the store in search of her mother. The clerk yelled behind her, “I don’t want to see that drunken slut in here again, ya hear? Or I will call the police!”

Jenny searched the murky dimness of the parking lot. Her delinquent, kleptomaniac mother was nowhere to be found. Like a jinni in a bottle. Poof! She’s here. Poof! She’s gone.

Jenny could track her to her lair. She knew where it was. Close by. She’d driven past it many times, but her mother wouldn’t answer the door. She never did.

Instead, Jenny huddled in her hot car, sweating, with the dark all around her. Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t reconcile that vile old transient with the woman who’d once loved and taken care of her. The woman who had made delicious meals for her and her brothers and kept a clean house. Who’d loved them. They weren’t the same. They couldn’t possibly be.

That pitiful woman back there in the store wasn’t her mother.

With a sinking heart, Jenny knew she had to accept the truth.

That witch was her mother, and Jenny wasn’t a child any longer.

She pounded helplessly on the steering wheel, tears finally gushing. Why, Mom. Why?

After a while, she pulled herself together and strode nonchalantly back into the store. She needed those groceries, and her cart was right where she’d left it. Half-empty. Damn if she was going to leave what she’d come for. She finished her shopping in a daze, purposely avoided the injured store clerk, paid for it and carted it out to her car.

With the warm darkness all around her, she drove unsteadily over to Joey’s restaurant. She pulled up before it, her hands shaking on the wheel, and the tears stinging.

Grow up, Jenny.

She wiped her face dry with the back of her hand and slid out of the car. The moon was beginning to climb to its lofty perch, a huge orb wreathed in pale fog. Jenny stared up at it, her thoughts heavy.

She trudged into the restaurant without looking left or right, eager to be with a normal, sane person who loved her and who hadn’t changed. Much.

Joey must have been able to tell by her face as she staggered in that she was in a foul mood. She threw herself on a stool and lowered her head onto her arms.

“Got a problem?” Joey gently brushed her slouched shoulder.

Jenny peered up at him with tired eyes. “Yeah. Two of them. Our mother and father.” Her words were acid, her expression hopeless.

“Okay, what happened now?” Joey tossed the towel he was carrying over his shoulder and slipped around the counter to sit on the empty stool next to her. It was late, and the supper crowd had thinned.

“You sure you really want to know?” she asked.

Joey nodded. He smelled like hamburgers.

She told him about their father’s failing health, his fall, no medical insurance and the humiliating episode in the grocery store with their mother.

As she spoke, her brother inspected the night world outside the dark window.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Some mother we have, huh?

“I wondered why Dad, neither one of you, hadn’t come in the last few days. You’re usually here for breakfast, but you weren’t this weekend. Now I know why.” He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing, and rubbed his eyelids.

“I don’t know what to do about Mom, but we’re going to have to talk to Dad about getting some insurance, Jenny.”

Jenny gazed sadly back at him. “And tell him what?”

For a moment Joey looked as baffled as she felt.

“He’s broke. You know mom and he never saved anything—never had anything to save. They don’t have anything. He’s got to work to pay the bills and feed himself and Mom day to day.

“Mom? She’s in another world. I can’t even catch her, much less talk to her.”

Joey had nothing to say. He leaned his head in his hand and stared at her mournfully, like an unhappy puppy dog.

“She was acting like a crazy woman, Joey. I mean it. Afterwards she just disappeared. Poof! Like some whiskey jinni.”

Joey had the bad manners to laugh, and Jenny threw him a scathing look.

“If you think it’s so damn funny, then the next time I catch her making a fool of herself, I’ll come fetch you. You can bail her out.”

“Oh, Jenny,” he spoke sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I know it was hard on you. Ah, Sis, what are we gonna do?”

Underneath it all, she knew he was as upset as she was about it, yet Joey had always had a funny way of taking and showing things. Responsibility scared him. It was easier to laugh it off. She wished she could do that.

“What can we do? Like you told me the other day, we can’t live their lives for them.”

Joey grimaced, reminded of his earlier lecture. “I’m sorry, Jenny, for jumping on you about Dad. I had no idea how bad things really were. Now I know why you’re working with him. You need to keep an eye on him. What can I do to help?”

“See a little more of him if you can. He’s pretty lost without Mom. Try talking to him. Maybe you can get through to him. I can’t.”

Joey surveyed his domain, and Jenny knew exactly what he was thinking.

He didn’t want to end up like their parents either.

“I’ll go see him tomorrow, promise. I’ve got some money set aside and perhaps he’ll let me help him a little. For once.”

Jenny acknowledged her brother’s words, and slid off the stool. “Talking about Dad, I need to call him.” This was when she could have used a cell phone, but, like a lot of other things she would have loved to have, it wasn’t in her budget. Truth was, her budget didn’t allow for much above the necessities. Oh, well. She’d been poor before, and it hadn’t killed her. She’d adapt. From her purse on the counter, she collected a handful of coins. She walked over to the corner pay phone and dropped them into the appropriate slots.

Joey waited until she reclaimed her stool. “He all right?”

“Seems so. I woke him up, he claimed.” Jenny truly smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. “He was a real grouch. Told me to hang up and leave him alone, so I did. Said me he’d see me in the morning.”

Joey snickered. “Sounds like his normal cranky self. You didn’t tell him about Mom, did ya?”

Jenny shook her head. “No, and I won’t, either. It’d hurt him, and there’s nothing he can do about it, anyway.”

“I suppose.” He paused.

“How are you doing? You look like hell. What else is wrong?”

“It’s August the eighteenth.” Jenny’s face crumpled.

“Oh. Sammy’s birthday.” Joey sucked in his breath, using his old nickname for his niece. He didn’t do any of the things Jenny had expected. He only laid a large warm hand over hers and squeezed.

“I know you wish you could see her today,” Joey sympathized. “Why don’t you call her?” He rummaged around in one of the pockets of his apron, and prying her hand open, dumped a pile of silver coins into it. “My treat.”

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “Thanks, Joey, I will.” She got up and headed for the phones again.

When she came back, grinning, she told him what Samantha had said, and how glad she’d been to hear from her. Caught him up on what her daughter had been up to lately. Thinking of going to a nearby community college for art classes soon as the baby was a little older. How happy she seemed to be.

“You had supper yet?” Joey asked a few minutes later.

“No.” Jenny was fiddling absentmindedly with a strand of her hair, still thinking about her daughter and their conversation.

“What do you want? I’ll make you anything your heart desires. Free, too. On the house.”

“How about a cool million, all in big bills?” she teased him.

“Sure. If you give me half. I’ve always wanted to take a world cruise. See Europe, Africa, or go on safari and bag myself a tiger or two,” he played along.

Jenny laughed.

“How about a double cheeseburger with everything on it, onion rings and a large chocolate malt?”

“You got it. It’ll be ready in a jiff,” Joey promised and headed for the kitchen. His limp, from an old childhood bike accident, was more pronounced than usual. It always flared up worse when he was tired or worried.

Seeing her haggard sunburned face reflected in the mirror behind the counter, she slipped into the restroom and slapped cool water over it, combed her hair and retied it into a neat ponytail.

When she returned to her stool, her food was waiting for her. She was hungry and had gulped down most of it before Joey reappeared.

She remained for a while longer, talking with him about how the Albers’ house was coming, about other trivial things and then said good night.

“Hot date, huh?” he kidded.

“Sure,” she yawned. “I’m heading home for a hot date with a cool tub of water and a soft bed. I’m bushed. See you tomorrow morning for breakfast. Bye.”

“Bye.” He waved as she headed out the door into the warm night.

The full moon was hovering above the distant trees; she inhaled deeply of the tangy salt air coming from the Atlantic Ocean a few miles away. The smell of fish, seaweed and salt were strong tonight.

When her daughter, Samantha, had been a small child, she’d loved to walk the beach barefoot at night, chasing outgoing waves. Samantha’s childish laughter wafted on the night air, elusive and taunting, making Jenny lonelier than ever.

As Jenny passed the theater, she noted tiny slivers of escaping light shining through the cracks of the doors. Someone had already dismantled the nailed-up boards that had sealed off the entrance. She hadn’t noticed that before. Vandals? Her heart sped up for an instant.

Oh, that’s right, she remembered, the theater’s been bought.

The new owner must be inside looking over his acquisition.

Gosh, she’d love to see the old place again.

Voices were coming from inside somewhere.

Stealthily, peeking between the cracks, she shifted her weight and accidently bumped into the door; it seemed to glide open by itself. Startled, she jerked back, but not before she’d been seen.

“Spying on us, eh?” a man’s husky voice bellowed, shattering the night’s peace.

Jenny stood very still. To be caught eavesdropping at her age was embarrassing. Perhaps she should keep going, ignore the voice? She wanted to just slink away to her car when the woman appeared at the half-open door not more than two feet away and gestured at her to come in.

The woman looked to be about forty-five or fifty; it was difficult to tell because her appearance was so classically striking.

A muted light from somewhere behind framed her, haloing her delicate figure and waist length flowing silvery white hair. Her eyes glinted coal black in a breathtaking, but extremely pale face. Jenny got the impression of an apparition, a dream. Someone not real.

Until she smiled and spoke.

“Well, a visitor,” the woman’s voice slithered like silk, with a strange but appealing accent. German or Hungarian possibly.

“Child, you don’t have to stand out there in the dark and ogle us. Come on in. It’s time we started meeting our future patrons. Our neighbors.”

“Sorry,” Jenny stammered like a jittery, caught thief. “I was passing by. I saw a light.” She paused, unsure. “This place has been closed for so long.”

“Ah, you thought, perhaps, that we were burglars, right?” A stocky man had come up silently behind the woman. He laid his hands featherlike on her shoulders, protectively, possessively. He wasn’t much taller than she, with a full head of dark, curly black hair and a charming smile. It was the same husky voice she’d heard before behind the door.

“You’re the new owners?” was all Jenny could think of mumbling.

“Yes. We are.”

“Sorry, then. I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll just be going on my way.” Jenny turned and was leaving when the man opened the door wider.

“No, wait,” he exclaimed. “It’s really all right, you know. Nice to see how cautious our new neighbors are. You don’t have to run off. We were looking over the place. Making notes of what we have to do to make it habitable again. I’m Terry Michelson, and this is my wife, Annie.” He smiled and his teeth shone like pearls.

“The rest of the family is ... out. There are five of us. My wife, me and three ... children,” he drawled. “Buying this theater, it’s sort of a family operation, you might say.”

There was a strange, musty smell about them. Must be the unaired, dusty theater behind them, Jenny thought.

Their eyes gleamed like faraway stars and made her slightly light-headed. Feral eyes.

She couldn’t fathom why, but she was suddenly uncomfortable, but it passed as quickly as it had come.

“I’m Jenny Lacey. My brother’s Joey Lacey.” She motioned her head to her right. “He owns Joey’s Place— next door?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve met him. Nice young man. You’re his sister?” the man, Terry, declared, openly pleased. Jenny had the distinct feeling that they were hungry for friends. It dripped in their voices and their overly pleasing manner. She could feel their eyes almost devouring her.

A blurry figure appeared behind the couple in the open doorway. At first Jenny could barely make out her features in the shadows.

“Well, one of the locals come to check us out, hey?” As the person turned her head just so in the faint light, Jenny got a good look at her and her patronizing smile. A young, frail girl with long blond hair, a heart-shaped face, a crooked smile ... just like Samantha’s. Even the same velvety voice. It was uncanny.

The jolt of seeing the girl, who reminded her so much of her own daughter, put Jenny off balance.

“This is our daughter, Irene. Irene, this is Jenny Lacey, sister to Joey Lacey who runs the restaurant next door, whom I told you about.”

“Hello there, Jenny Lacey.” She had a mature voice tinged with sarcastic amusement; definitely not a girl’s voice, though the face was a petulant child’s.

“We shouldn’t be talking like this through a half-open door, Jenny.” The man laughed. “I can’t even see you. Why don’t you come on in and meet us properly? Come on in; we won’t bite.” He held a hand out, took hers, and started to pull her in.

A ghostly giggle floated up from somewhere inside the theater, and for a fleeting second, Jenny experienced a prickle of fear.

She shook it off, mad at herself for acting like such a ninny.

What was the matter with her anyway? They only wanted to meet her. New in town, they just wanted to make friends.

After all, they did own the town’s only theater. It wouldn’t hurt her to make their acquaintance, now would it? They weren’t going to attack her, for heaven’s sake. A family?

She could use a few friends herself.

Still, there was something peculiar about them.

Jenny’s curiosity got the better of her, though, and she stepped inside the old theater.

“You’re right. This is better.” Jenny smiled winningly at them as her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside.

Annie was even more beautiful up close, but dressed a little funny, perhaps. A floor-length evening dress in ninety-degree weather? Though, Jenny had to admit, it was cooler in the theater than outside.

Up close, the man, Terry, had intelligent laughter in his mesmerizing blue eyes, a square jaw, and a gold earring in his right ear. He was also dressed strangely.

The young girl hung back, away from her, as if unsure, and Jenny was amazed at how much the girl really looked like her daughter. Even her gestures were similar. Jenny had to tear her amazed eyes away, or she would have made a fool of herself.

She knew it wasn’t her daughter once she’d gotten a good look at her, but for a moment, it had thrown her.

Jenny gawked around her at the lobby. “It’s candlelight,” she gasped, discovering that the source of the weak light was several tall candles illuminating the lobby. It gave the room an eerie softness with its plush red velvet carpeting, fairyland like plaster nymphs and gleaming dolphin statues.

The marble drinking fountains, standing guard at the bottom of the ornate staircase leading to the top floor balconies, were as she remembered. All of it was just as she remembered. Lovely.

“Haven’t got the electricity working yet. That’s why there are candles.”

She gazed up, awed by the unreal beauty of the candlelight sparkling off the elaborate chandeliers and the etched mirrors lining the lobby, her eyes wide. A dozen blurry, shadowy Jennys stared back at her, weaving, like pasty ghosts.

She walked over and rubbed her hand along the staircase’s ornamental hand railings laced with plasterwork, and the rose, turquoise, silvery green, gold and silver paint glinted back at her their faded dusty hues in a breathtakingly wild tapestry.

Jenny wandered about, sliding her hand reverently along the edge of a statue and then on the banister up to the balcony; she coughed, covering her mouth. Dust cloaked everything like a blanket.

“Magnificent still, though, isn’t it?” the man who’d called himself Terry asked. He gazed affectionately around them.

“Time hasn’t changed the Grand’s beauty, just aged it. The old place has held up quite well, don’t you think? Is it as you remember it, Jenny?”

Jenny turned to face him and smiled dreamily. “Yes, it is.” There was a magic here that seemed to lull all her senses. She loved this beautiful place, never wanted to leave it. It had her under its spell again, and she could see by their eyes that the ones who’d purchased the theater were under the same spell.

“It needs a good scrubbing. Every inch of it,” Jenny announced thoughtfully. “Definitely a fresh coat of paint here and there. Replace some of the tiles over there around the counters.” She checked, moving close to the walls, probing at the cracks with her fingers.

“Needs some plasterwork up in that far right corner.” She pointed. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.” She wanted so badly to go in and see what the auditorium looked like and how the velvet-backed chairs had fared over the years. The balcony. The large screen. She didn’t have the nerve to ask.

When she looked back, her eyes met the young girl’s, and Jenny frowned slightly.

The girl was glaring at her from a lounging position across the lobby. Jenny could have sworn her eyes were narrowed with arrogance and something else ... something darker. She was scrutinizing Jenny like a frog would a bug before it devoured it. It sent shivers rippling up Jenny’s spine.

“A lot of work,” Terry concurred with her, shaking his head.

“It’d be safer,” she told him, “if you had an electrician check all the wiring out before the electricity is turned back on. A plumber should look at the plumbing first, too. Might save you some heartache.”

He faced her, then, excited. “Jenny, you sound like you know about such things—plaster, plumbing, paint and all. Do you?”

“Yes, my father and I do small home improvements around town: paint houses, fix things, a little carpentry work. You know,” Jenny waved her hand around them languidly, “if you need help cleaning this place up, we’ll be free to hire in about a week or so. We’re painting the house of some friends out on the edge of town right now.”

Irene was listening attentively, actually motionless for the first time.

Jenny shook off her feeling of inner disquiet. She had always been fairly perceptive about people, but there was something odd, she couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, about these ... owls. For that’s what they reminded her of suddenly. Owls. A family of owls. With their hungry, staring, wide eyes.

They also seemed to have an aversion to mirrors. Jenny had caught them, at different times, purposely avoiding coming near any of the mirrored walls. They held back.

No wonder.

They were strange. Looked and dressed strange. The more Jenny studied them, the more aware of it she became.

The teenage girl, Irene, had on so little it was almost indecent.

Not only did the woman, Annie, have on a long evening dress, but the man, Terry, had on a dark velvet lounging jacket and matching pants. In August?

Well, so what? Nowadays, people seemed to wear whatever they wished.

Jenny’s misgivings vanished as she gazed lovingly at the muted beauty of the old theater and knew that to be able to help restore it to its original magnificence excited her far more than anything else had in years, even if what it needed the most was probably basically a ton of elbow grease.

“That’s a splendid idea, Jenny.” Terry beamed, seeking approval from his wife, which he received in the form of a hopeful smile.

“We, er, work during the day, so we wouldn’t be able to do a lot around here. Only at night. We’d like to reopen the theater by fall and,” he explained, “it would help us immensely if you and your father lent us a hand. We’d pay you well.”

There was a sardonic, but muffled cackle from the young girl in the corner. Jenny stole a glance towards her, slightly peeved by the rude way the girl had behaved since she’d come in. What was her problem anyway?

“Splendid idea is right. I’m not cleaning up this flea bag; not dirtying my hands on this mess,” the girl said disdainfully. “This wasn’t my idea.”

Terry ignored the snide remarks and continued, holding Jenny’s attention. “Don’t mind her, she resented leaving the last place. You know how teenagers are? They can be so difficult.” His face was friendly in the candlelight.

When he looked at her like that, she felt dizzy. She cleared her head willfully and replied. “Yes, how well I do.” Jenny remembered Samantha’s rages and her moodiness all too well before she’d run away. This girl couldn’t be much older than sixteen or so, by the look of her.

The girl laughed spitefully and began pacing around them like a child throwing a tantrum or a cat stalking its prey. As if there were someplace else she wanted to be and was being kept from it against her will.

Jenny’s eyes followed her fluid movements, puzzled.

“Stop that!” Terry ordered his daughter as they exchanged dark glances. Then the girl plopped down angrily on the bottom step of the velvet-covered staircase, slapping her foot restlessly against the banister. The flickering, elusive shadows created by the candlelight hid her. She leaned back into them and disappeared. Only a melodic humming, something Jenny had never heard before, remained.

If she was my child, Jenny fumed to herself, she’d have her behind spanked for that little display.

“Like hell, I’d kill you first,” the girl spat into the still air, as if she’d heard Jenny’s words.

Jenny jumped. A crawling dread curled up tightly in her stomach, but, reasonable creature that she was, she pushed it away.

“Never mind her, Jenny.” Annie laughed, speaking for the first time since she’d invited her in. “It’s been a hard week for us. Moving and all. We’ve come a long way.” Her black eyes smoldered at the young girl humming in the gloom. Irene promptly shut up. “You know how stressful moving can be, especially for the children?”

“Yes, I know,” Jenny agreed. She met Annie’s eyes, swayed in her strong gaze like a slender tree in the wind. It’s as if she sees right through me, as if she knows what I’m thinking. Ridiculous, Jenny scolded herself, tearing her eyes from Annie’s.

She’s very strong, Annie thought at her husband, and he nodded silently in reply. She can almost hear us.

The thoughts breathed on the dimness around her, and Jenny cocked her head, listening, her heart pounding in her own ears. She kept hearing something. Like tiny whispers.

What’s wrong with me? Now I’m hearing things, she thought numbly. I must be really exhausted.

She dragged herself back to the present. “I just got back here myself, in Summer Haven that is, after having lived somewhere else the last ten years, but this is my hometown,” Jenny found herself telling them.

Annie nodded as if she already knew that.

Jenny blinked. The air rippled in front of her.

It must be smoky in here or something. It’s irritating my eyes.

It was unsettling the way they acted towards her, like they knew her and everything about her.

The theater was suddenly unbearably hot, dusty.

When Jenny glanced up again, the young girl was behind her, blocking her exit. A look of pure hatred ... of hunger ... quivered malevolently over her beautiful face. Her eyes were haunting as they glittered at Jenny, pulling her in.

Again Jenny jumped, startled, held stiff by the girl’s contemptuous scrutiny.

More whispers on the murky air.

Surprise mingled with the contempt in the girl’s sly eyes, and Jenny backed up a step.

“Well, you must all be tired,” Jenny hastily inserted, tearing her gaze away from the girl’s. “Since I’ve had a hard day myself,” she laughed nervously, “I’ll say good night. It’s been nice meeting all of you.”

It happened so swiftly, Jenny wasn’t sure later what actually occurred, only that in a span of a heartbeat, Terry was between her and his daughter, Irene, and some sort of silent battle of wills had passed between them.

Out of the corner of her blurry eyes, Jenny thought she saw him grab the girl’s wrist menacingly and hiss something into her ear. The girl’s face went blank.

Then, no more than a second later, when Jenny looked again, the girl was gone.

Completely gone.

There was only Terry Michelson smiling at her, as if nothing had happened at all.

Jenny felt that falling away of reality she’d encountered earlier, but only far, far stronger.

She leaned against the wall, breathless, glanced at the bottom of the stairs, and the girl, now on the steps, sent her a smug grin.

Jenny rubbed her eyes, her heart slowing down to normal speed. “It must have been all the sun today,” she murmured, confused, shaking her head. She found Terry’s somber eyes, and smiled absentmindedly.

“I better get home.”

Before I hallucinate anything else.

“It was nice to meet you, Jenny.” Terry had taken her hand and he stood close, peering down at her. His hand was like ice.

“We’ll talk about your pay and when you can start tomorrow night. After you talk it over with your father. We’ll be here. Since we work out of town, for a while, you won’t be able to reach us during the day. I can’t wait until I can open her again.” His eyes adoringly scanned around them. “I’ve dreamed of it for so long.”

Annie had come up to the door. Terry put an arm around her.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Jenny. I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon. Say hello to your brother for me,” Terry said.

Annie was staring intently at Jenny, and Jenny shivered again.

What the hell was wrong with her tonight?

“Good night Terry, Annie. Nice meeting all of you. Good night, Irene,” she called out to the morose girl sulking in the corner. No reply.

Jenny slid out the door and groped her way towards her waiting car in the moonlight. The murky shadows behind her seemed to pulsate with a secret life of their own.

With a sigh of relief, she closed and locked the car door, and drove off.

Boy, was she beat. Stressed out.

Between her mother’s little escapade this evening and that queer scene in the theater, she was glad to pull up into her own driveway and lock herself safely in her own snug little trailer.

She switched on the air-conditioning as she walked in the door and headed for the bathroom.

After her bath, she scrubbed her long hair and toweled it dry in her bedroom, peeking out the window facing her father’s farmhouse. She could see no lights from across the field, so she guessed that he was asleep. Like she should be.

Somewhere a horse whinnied in fear.

The bath had helped her aching body, but had done little to untangle her busy thoughts. She’d been so sure that after her bath she would collapse into bed and plummet into a deep sleep. She was so bone-weary.

No such luck.

More whinnying pierced the night’s silence. Along with her disturbed emotions, it made her too jumpy to sleep.

“Ah, the hell with it,” she grunted, got out of bed, and started rummaging through the top drawer of her dresser.

She wiggled into clean shorts, a tank top, and a pair of tennis shoes and wandered out into the warm night. She switched off all but the kitchen’s small under-the-counter light before she went.

The moon had risen to the top of its arc and shone down on her from a velvet black sky. The stars twinkled icily above as she strode purposely towards the pasture where the horses usually slept on temperate nights.

She didn’t have to find them to know something was wrong. Their whinnying had already told her that.

Carefully, she made her way through the moonlit pasture. She knew every inch of it by heart, but it somehow looked different tonight.

Mingling with the moon glow, the mist was back. The wispy whiteness slithered along the grassy ground, clinging and filling the hollows and swathing the trees. It was unnatural how it covered everything.

She squinted to peer through it. Distorted, elongated faces hidden in its swirlings seemed to peer back at her, hungrily watching. Nervously, she shook off the eerie fancy.

Damn her overactive imagination.

She called the horses, but they seemed to have merged into the haze somewhere.

Climbing the fence that ran parallel to the road, she made her way carefully along it. Wouldn’t do to walk through a pile of something, even with old shoes on, she thought, hoping to lighten her mood.

She came to the towering tree next to the road where as children she and her brothers had dropped rocks and mud balls down on unsuspecting cars.

Jenny halted under the huge oak in the moonlight and leaned up against it to rest. She laid her cheek against the tree’s rough bark.

She kept seeing their hungry eyes—the family who’d bought the theater—in the candlelight. She couldn’t seem to shake them. She was uneasy, but of what she didn’t know.

The clinging mist made her anxious. It seemed so alive. She pushed away from the tree, forcing herself to stay calm, and continued her search for the horses.

She discovered Black Beauty and Lightning huddled together behind some thorn bushes, trembling and swaying in the moonlight. Shiny sweat flecked their hides.

“Whoa, whoa there, you two.” She tried to soothe them, patting their quivering flanks as they skittered past her and rushed back again, nickering with relief that she was there.

They were terrified. Of what?

Black Beauty kept falling to her knees. Lightning would smell the night air and whinny in fright over and over, rolling his eyes, rearing in panic. His hooves flashed in the smoky air, attacking emptiness, as if he were trying to defend himself from something.

“What is it, my old friends?” she asked, disturbed at their condition as she soothingly stroked first one and then the other.

“What has you so spooked?” She stared into the mist, waiting.

Something scuttled past her feet, and Jenny moved closer to Black Beauty, who had come to stand beside her, shivering like a newborn filly in a winter wind.

“Are you sick, girl?” she leaned her cheek up against the horse’s quivering neck, feeling the silkiness of it. The warm flesh.

Jenny listened. The mist was whispering again. Ghostly, fleeting figures seemed to be there one moment and then the next, not.

Fear shimmied along Jenny’s bones.

“Is there someone out there?” she shouted, her heart pounding.

More rustlings, like faraway laughter.

I must be going crazy, she told herself. No one’s out there. Just the moonlight and that spooky mist.

There wasn’t much she could do for the horses so late, but she’d discuss it with her father first thing tomorrow morning. Something was scaring them. Could be coyotes slinking around or snakes. Her father and she would have to look for snake holes when it got light enough.

“For tonight,” she told them, “you both stay close to my trailer. You understand?” She liked to imagine that they did. They were uncannily smart old horses.

With soft words and tender pats Jenny coaxed the animals to follow her to her trailer. When they were outside, the light from the kitchen shining out around them, they calmed a little.

“Stay here, understand? I’ll be right inside. Don’t be afraid,” she murmured. They nickered and kept brushing up against her when she tried to leave, as if they didn’t want her to go.

She could have gotten some rope and tied them to the fence, but she hated doing that to any animal. She stayed with them for a while, stroking and singing to them as if they were her children (they’d always liked that) until she was so tired she could hardly stand. Then she went in to bed.

Her dreams were full of scary faceless things that kept chasing her through the fog, leering into her windows, so real. What did they want?

In the middle of the night, violently awakened by the trailer bucking about underneath her like an angry horse, she bolted up in bed, screaming. In an absolute panic, she clung to the headboard, so fuzzy-headed at first, she thought she was still asleep, and this was a continuation of one of her spectacular nightmares.

She was thrown out of bed, landing on the floor with a painful thud.

Quivering, she crawled to the front of the trailer.

Get out. Get out!

She threw the door open and tumbled onto the porch and into the night, yelping with pain at every step she bounced down.

She sat, frightened and relieved, on the safe ground.

The world, covered in mist, was still.

Then, as if a huge hand came and shoved it away, the haze dissipated, and in seconds, was gone. The night was clear and quiet.

Nothing looked any different. Nothing looked smashed, destroyed or changed. It was as if she’d dreamed the disturbance.

Had she?

After moments more of confusion, Jenny returned to the trailer and crawled into bed, shaking. Soon she’d plunged into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Chapter Five

August 19

The next morning, when Jenny went out to check on the horses, she found them both sprawled out in the grass, stone dead. She knelt over them sobbing, heartbroken.

Later, her dad stood behind her, his hand poised on her shoulder sympathetically, as they watched the truck drive away with the carcasses inside. Her eyes were dry by then, but red and puffy from grief.

The vet, Rick Chalmers, had come out to examine the dead animals earlier and had been as mystified as the police as to the exact cause of their deaths.

“I’ve seen wounds like these before. It looks like bat bites. Now I’ve known bats to attack other animals in numbers and kill them like that, but it’s rare—and not around these parts. In this case, it’s not only the bites that are unusual, it’s something else. It looks like a lot of their blood is gone. I guess,” he’d scratched his head, his sharp eyes perusing the two large lumps of flesh, “I’ll know more after I get them to the lab and do some investigating. Make some phone calls. I hear there’s been other cases similar to this across the area lately. It’s got all the farmers—everyone—spooked.”

“I bet. I’ve never seen anything like it, either, Rick. It’s strange all right,” Jenny said to the vet.

He’d been up all night, he’d informed her when he’d first arrived, helping someone with a sick cow.

Rick Chalmers was another familiar face from Jenny’s childhood. That morning was the first time she’d seen him, face to face again, in over thirteen years. He’d looked the same, a short, stocky man with intelligent gray eyes and short blond hair in blue jeans and a plaid shirt.

He’d always had a way with animals, had always wanted to be a veterinarian. He’d always had a crush on Jenny, but Jenny only had had eyes for Jeff.

Heavy loss of blood? Jenny had turned to her dad, her eyes swollen from crying. “I can’t believe they’re dead. I saw them last night. They were behaving strangely even then, terrified, probably because they sensed that earthquake coming,” she stated thoughtfully.

“What earthquake?” her dad demanded.

“You didn’t feel it? It shook my trailer so violently, I had to get out. I was scared.”

“Didn’t feel a thing, honey.” Her dad was gawking at her, and so was Rick Chalmers. Apparently he hadn’t felt it, either.

“Anything damaged?”

“No.”

Puzzled, Jenny remembered the calmness outside her trailer afterwards and stopped talking.

“You said something about the horses behaving strangely last night. How?”

“Scared. Sick.”

“Scared of what?”

“Don’t know, Dad. I didn’t see anything. It was late and I was going to tell you about it this morning.” She observed her father’s strained, white face. He looked worse than he had the day before, and he seemed distracted.

Though he never rode the horses, he’d been attached to them. The last of his animals. He’d known how much Jenny loved them. He had been the one who’d called the police and the vet.

Jenny shook her head sadly in the sunlight. “I guess there’s nothing else to be done here now.”

“We need to get over to the Albers’ house and get to work,” her dad announced as he stared empty-eyed at nothing. The way he was acting was beginning to alarm her.

“Dad,” she touched his arm, “are you really okay?”

“Sure. Nothing wrong with me, girl.” He flashed her one of his brave smiles before he moved away from her towards the house.

But not before she saw the fatigue drain his face.

“Come on, slowpoke,” he barked good-naturedly over his shoulder when he walked away. “We promised the Albers we’d both be there today. I mean to keep my promise.”

As much as she hated the thought of going to work after what had happened, they had no choice. They’d already been paid for the job. They had to get it done.

They were on their way to Joey’s when she told her dad about the job offer from the Michelsons. She said nothing about her reservations about them.

It was an easy job, and the way her dad was behaving, they’d need an easy job after painting the Albers’ place.

“Sounds real interestin’. How bad is it inside?”

“It was hard to tell by candlelight.” Jenny grinned as she sat beside him in the station wagon. “I think it’ll be mostly heavy-duty cleaning, lots of painting and some minor plaster work. The grime’s three inches thick. In fact, it’s amazing that the place has held up as well as it has. We’re supposed to talk price with them tonight, when they’re there again. Something about how they work out of town during the day and can’t be reached.”

“No telephone number we can call?”

“No. Just be there tonight, they said. After dark.” Jenny’s face was closed.

“You sound unsure about doing it, though. Why?” It was uncanny, at times, how perceptive her dad could be.

“It’s just that,” Jenny hesitated then stared out through the window into the golden brown fields. “Ah, never mind. It’s nothing.” She followed a sea gull’s graceful flight back out to the ocean with red eyes.

“Jenny?” More insistent. He tilted his head at her as he braked at a stop sign.

“It’s just that,” she finally gave in, “those people acted weird, talked weird and made me feel funny. I mean, I don’t have anything against them ...” her voice disappeared as she wondered why she was even protesting at all.

“Did they do anything wrong?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then, since we need the work, I say we do the job.” For her father it was always so black and white.

Jenny said, “You got it.”

“It should be a lot of fun.” Her dad chuckled. “After all, you’re forever going on and on about that silly place. How much you loved it as a child, and how happy you and Joey are that it’s reopening. I can’t believe you wouldn’t be thrilled at the very idea of having a hand in getting it back to the way it once was—in all its beauty.”

He knew her pretty well.

“Yeah, once I would have killed for the chance to work on that place, but, Dad, it isn’t that. It’s them. They’re different, that’s all.” She thought seriously of relating the queer scene that had occurred the night before, but ended up telling herself she was being a child. She did her best to sluff it off. Had it really happened, or had it all been in her over active imagination?

“Not all people are arrow straight and stuffy. Could be they’re a little eccentric; a lot are. I’ve met some mighty strange characters in my day. All nice, underneath, just different on the outside. It’s what makes the world so darn interesting. You’d hate it if everyone was all the same now, wouldn’t ya?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” In the bright daylight, as they strolled into Joey’s, half her doubts of the night before did seem ridiculous.

They had breakfast, and she broke the news to Joey about Black Beauty and Lightning.

“Vampires did it,” Laurie, who’d been eavesdropping, threw in. A pen lodged behind her ear, she chomped noisily on her chewing gum. “Yep. Vampires. I’ve been following the news close enough. All those dead animals. That’s a real tip off.”

“Get out of here, Laurie. You really expect us to believe that stuff?” Joey laughed out loud and made pushing motions at her with his hands.

She stomped off. She took that stuff seriously.

“The girl’s got a screw loose,” he said, twirling a finger to the right of his head, but good-naturedly. “She believes in monsters and ghosts, too. She’s read all your books, Jenny,” Joey snorted.

Jenny threw him a mock icy glare. “Very funny.”

“I thought so,” he glared back in the same way, imitating her with her irritated face, and made her laugh.

“Dad and I are going to help clean up and paint the Rebel next door,” she said casually then.

Joey whistled, his eyes wide. “Big place. You think you and Dad can handle it?”

“Sure,” she replied. “I was in it last night. It only needs minor work. We can handle that. No sweat.”

“Wish you luck. You’ll need it,” Joey said.

“Thanks.”

Jenny and her dad finished their breakfast.

* * * *

Later, at the Albers’ house, she nagged him because he was pushing himself too hard in the heat; she finally made him sit in the shade for the last part of the day, where he instantly fell asleep.

In silence, Jenny worked on alone. Sleep was the best thing for him, so she didn’t disturb him.

Muted colors of twilight were seeping in like pale watercolors when she finally woke him.

“Why’d you let me sleep so long?” he asked, guilty-faced.

“You needed it.” The curt tone of her voice silenced him.

He could hardly stand without swaying, but swore he was fine and not to fuss.

At least it’d cooled down. Jenny was grateful for that.

As they packed up to leave, she kept sneaking peeks at the Albers’ windows. She drifted towards the garage and then retraced her steps.

“What ya gawkin’ at, girl?” Her dad startled her, coming up from behind. The nap had revived him.

“Oh, I only wondered where the Albers were, that’s all. I haven’t seen either of them all day. Maude knew we were working, and she usually brings out coffee or lemonade, you know?” Jenny’s eyes surveyed the house.

“Well, they might have spent the day in town or visiting someone, Jenny. Maude and George don’t have to stay around here to cater to our whims.”

“I know that, Dad. It’s just that, well, we got here pretty darn early, and they didn’t leave after we got here, or I would have seen them. Now I noticed that their car is in the garage.” Her brow wrinkled, her long hair blowing in the cool breeze. A growing uneasiness rippled underneath her concern.

“Humph! Could be aliens got ‘em!” He teased her.

“It’s not a joking matter,” she quipped, examining the house. “I’m beginning to get worried.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be. They’re adults and can take care of themselves, ya know.”

Jenny looked at him. Maybe he was right. She peeked into one more window.

“Come on, Jenny, time to go, I’m hungry,” her dad proclaimed and headed for the station wagon.

“Let’s go to Joey’s and get something to eat before we talk to those people at the theater,” he suggested over his moving shoulder.

“You’re not too tired?” she inquired, but was relieved her dad was more his old self.

“Nah. A good meal and a rest on a hard stool will get me through a couple more hours.” He smiled halfheartedly at her.

“If you say so, but I want to get cleaned up first and then go to town. I’m tired of looking like a dirty bag lady every time we go into Joey’s.”

He grunted, but took one look at her grease-smeared, sunburned face, sweat-laced hair and grimy clothes, then nodded his head yes.

They got into the car, and he started it up. “I’ll drop you off, sweetie, and come back for you on the way to town.” He headed for her trailer. “I don’t need a shower, myself. Slept all day,” he reminded her sarcastically, “but I’ll tidy up some anyway.”

Jenny turned and watched the empty house dwindling behind them above the dust clouds.

So the Albers hadn’t been home all day? So what? People weren’t home every minute of every day, now, were they?

She was being overly suspicious, she scolded herself. Still, the anxiety of their absence hung on her back like a monkey and wouldn’t be brushed off.

Perhaps she’d call Maude later tonight. To ease her mind.

Jenny slipped into the trailer, opening the windows as she went. It was cool enough so that she didn’t need to turn on the air conditioner for the first time in weeks.

She’d brought in the bundle from her mailbox and was about to toss the usual junk mail aside and go take her shower, when a small white envelope with familiar handwriting scrawled across the front caught her eye.

She let the other stuff drop to the kitchen table and collapsed onto one of the chairs. The hand holding the letter trembled as she turned it over gently. No return address, but she knew who it was from. A small sigh escaped her lips. A letter from Jeff after all these years?

The Jeff she’d loved even when she was a child. The Jeff she’d married at eighteen, fresh out of high school. They’d been so young. Jenny hadn’t heard from him for nearly ten years. He’d abandoned her and Samantha without a look back, breaking her heart. After a few years, the child support checks had stopped coming, and she’d lost track of him, but hadn’t cared. He’d never cared what had happened to her and Samantha before. Why was he writing to her now? How had he gotten her address?

She tore open the letter. A folded piece of paper fluttered to the table, and when Jenny picked it up, she realized it was a twenty dollar bill. She unfolded the paper still in her hand.

Dear Jenny,

Hi, it’s me.

It took me a long time to get up the nerve to write you. I’ve written so many letters and tore them up before I could send them, dialed your telephone number and then at the last second, hung up.

Maybe you won’t appreciate this letter, but I’m taking a chance that you’ll read it. I talked to your friend Maude a while back, and she gave me your new address. She told me about your divorce. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you and that fancy lawyer. I purposely stayed away from you because I’d hoped you were happily married. When I found out differently, that’s when I finally wrote and sent this letter.

I never meant to lose touch with you and Samantha. Call it guilt, stupidity, insanity. Whatever. I’m looking back over the years. Long ago I realized that I made the worst mistake of my life by leaving you.

I just had to tell you this.

I had to beg your forgiveness, as there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of you and Samantha.

I’ve been divorced from Colleen for almost five years now. It’s a long story. Someday, if you let me, I’ll tell you about it.

I think I might be heading in your direction. If I get near Summer Haven, will you let me come see you? Please. Just to talk? That’s all. See my daughter.

If you say no, I’ll only keep writing until you say yes. Please, Jenny. Say yes.

I can’t stop thinking about you and my daughter. I miss both of you so much; I always have. How is she doing? She must be quite a young lady now. Her birthday is in a few days, and I’ve enclosed some money so she can buy herself something pretty. It’s not much, I’m sorry, but times have been hard lately for me. Tell her I love her.

Jenny, I’m sorry.

Jeff

Jenny’s face was wet with tears as she laid the letter down. She swayed as she got up and went into the bathroom. The woman staring at her in the mirror looked like a ghost. She didn’t know her.

She shed her clothes and took a long, hot shower, soaping up her hair and rinsing it until it was squeaky clean. Then she got dressed in blue jeans and a flowered blouse, put on some makeup and went into the living room to wait for her father.

The letter was on the table where she’d left it. She didn’t look at it again, but tossed it in the trash. She was afraid of it. What it meant.

It meant pain; it meant remembering. She didn’t want that. Their marriage had been over a long time ago. What the hell did he want from her?

When her father’s station wagon drove up, and he beeped the horn, she was out the door before the third beep.

“You look nice,” her dad said.

Which was more than Jenny could say about him. He still looked tired.

“Thanks,” Jenny responded, her thoughts turning inward again as soon as she had spoken, her eyes welling with tears against her will. She wiped them away angrily with the back of her hand, so her dad wouldn’t see.

“Jenny, I hope Joey’s got some of that roast beef that I’m so partial to. With that gravy, ya know?”

“I know,” Jenny said, staring out the window. Outside the night had taken over. She could hear the crickets singing. Fireflies blinked on and off in the dark twilight. Jeff and she used to stroll through the fields behind the farmhouse on long ago summer nights like this one. She’d run, trying not to giggle, and he’d chase her, always catching her. Then he’d steal a kiss before he’d let her go.

What had they been ... about sixteen or so? The memory made her sad.

That damned letter.

The fields were quiet tonight.

She experienced another moment of sadness as she remembered that Black Beauty and Lightning were dead. She’d never hear them neighing and galloping around through the bushes either. She’d never ride their bony old backs, or feel the softness of their warm hides. It made her want to cry again.

Joey’s place was crowded with older people sitting around, smiling, gossiping and eating.

They had dinner, chatted with Laurie and Joey for a while, and then Jenny took her dad over to meet the people who had bought the Rebel.

The night had turned cooler, full now of rising stars, mysterious nocturnal noises and the lonely sound of cars driving by in the night to other places.

The Rebel stood forlorn above the sidewalk with a soft light escaping from under its door. She knocked. Knocked again. No answer and no sign of life. Just the light.

“Strange. They said they would be here.” After a few more knocks, unsure, she opened the theater’s door. It’d been unlocked. Had it been left unlocked for her and her dad?

“Mister and Mrs. Michelson are you here?” she called into the murky theater. One lone candle flickered on the old dusty glass candy case; its wax, in sculpted globs, melted at its base. “Someone’s here.” The shadows echoed her words, and the air shifted like restless smoke somewhere in the back of the theater. She kept hearing voices, like someone whispering in another room.

“Anyone here?” she bellowed out louder. “Hello? Hello!” Her voice bounced back, creating an eerie echo. She peered over her shoulder at her dad, who was still standing silently behind her. “I wonder where they are? They expected us.”

“Dunno,” her dad muttered, rubbing his head and blinking at her in the semidarkness. “Maybe they stayed in town.”

Something skittered in the gloom. A sound like ... wings, lightly brushing against each other, hovered in the distance. She stepped into the entrance, listening. A musty smell permeated everything. Dampness. A cobweb tickled across her face.

“I could have sworn,” Jenny shook her head, slightly disturbed, “I just saw something.”

“Naw. Just dust bunnies blowing around. Looks like there’s nobody home. We best come by some other time.”

“We could leave a note for them with our telephone number. I should have given it to them last night,” she thought out loud.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. Forms took elusive shape around her and then dissolved back into the blackness. She’d always had excellent night vision. Her eyes gleaned the darkness, sure she had seen something.

Suddenly, Jenny heard violin music wafting from somewhere, hauntingly beautiful. Gypsy songs. For a few seconds, in the doorway, she stood transfixed, entranced. She tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, but couldn’t really tell. Someone playing a stereo somewhere?

She’d reluctantly pivoted around to follow her dad, who was heading towards the car, when she saw the flickering point of light appear at the center of the darkness. It grew.

Someone carrying a candle down the balcony towards her.

“Coming, Jenny. I’m coming,” a velvety voice, breathless, came. A lady in white.

“Dad!” Jenny hissed out the door. “Dad come back! They’re here after all.”

Jenny stepped back into the theater.

The figure with the candle floated closer.

“Annie,” Jenny exhaled, relieved, as the fringe of the candle’s light touched her face. Annie was dressed in a long white silken gown with white slippers, her long hair loose and shimmering in waves down to her waist. Her eyes were large and black behind the candle. A single diamond hung glittering from her neck on a silver chain and diamond sprinkles shone in her hair.

Her delicate movements touched Jenny. Jenny wasn’t sure how, but she suspected that Annie had once been a dancer. Her outfit, like the night before, was unconventional. In it she reminded Jenny of something out of a horror movie, yet lovely in an unearthly way.

“Jenny, welcome.” Annie’s eyes searched the space behind her as if expecting someone to be there. “I was merely exploring. I so love this place already. That balcony.” Her face waxed mystical. I love all the ghosts. They talk to me, you know.” There was a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes, and she smiled down at Jenny, as if they shared a secret.

Jenny heard her father sarcastically clear his throat behind her, and he pinched her gently on the arm.

It was all she could do to keep from laughing. She knew what her father thought of ghosts and such, and what he thought of people foolish enough to believe in them, as well.

“This is my father, Ernest Lacey, Annie. Dad, this is Annie Michelson.”

Annie gave her father the strangest look.

“You’re Jenny’s father? Oh, my.” She was visibly startled and seemed to catch herself, but she walked up to him and took his hand, smiling warmly into his embarrassed face, her soft hair floating about her like a silver shawl.

Her father’s expression was priceless, if she only had a camera, Jenny thought. It was plain as the nose on his face that her father was totally bewitched by the ethereal creature before him.

“Nice to meet ya,” he offered shyly, staring at Annie like she was a spirit herself. “Jenny’s told me about you and your family. The theater. Hear you need some work done?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged the question with a slight lift of her delicate hand and tilted her lovely head downwards, “and I hope we can work something out with you, Mister Lacey. There’s a lot of work to do here, and we’re not very good at such things. We would be deeply appreciative if you would accept our offer. We’d pay any price you ask. We’re quite wealthy, you know.”

Jenny’s father couldn’t take his eyes off her. His one hand moved up to rest gingerly on his bitten neck.

“The rest of the family is below in the basement.” She glanced at Jenny as she said it.

“You’d never believe it, Jenny, but we discovered apartments down there. At one time someone must have lived in them. There’s room enough for our whole family.” Her expressive eyes widened. “We’re cleaning them up now and eventually we’ll move into them. Isn’t that wonderful? We can live right here.”

“Clever idea,” Jenny said. “The way rent is these days.”

“Oh, it’s not the money, child,” she explained, “it’s so we can be close to our investment and protect it.” A smugness settled on her face in the light’s glow.

“Still smart,” her dad said.

“Why, thank you.” Annie smiled again.

The woman lifted the candle up higher. “The electricity should be on by tomorrow, Jenny. Then the candles can go.”

“Oh, I like them,” Jenny piped up. “They create a romantic ambience.”

“Fire hazard,” her dad croaked.

Annie’s laugh was musically spontaneous. “Just like a man,” she crooned. She had pulled another candle, it seemed, from thin air and handed it to Jenny after she had lit it with hers.

“Well, I’ll go get the rest of the family so everyone can meet. Just wait right there, you two. I’ll be right back.” Annie disappeared down the narrow steps at the other end of the lobby.

Jenny and her father slumped down on the bottom step going up to the balcony. He looked half dead, and Jenny felt a fresh surge of guilt for insisting that he meet the Michelsons that night after he’d been so sick.

“Now I see what ya meant by them being a little eccentric, Jenny,” her dad chortled mischievously in a low voice. “Can’t wait to meet the rest of the Addams family. Especially if they’re as great looking as that there Annie.”

“She is, isn’t she? Beautiful, I mean. In fact, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, so graceful. Like a dancer.”

“Yep.” He leaned against the banister, and his eyes scanned the shadowy lobby around them.

The candle fluttered, as if someone had walked past it. The violin music teased at her own weariness, lulling her almost into sleep on the carpeted stairway, it was so hypnotic. It reminded her of gypsies dancing in moonlight, swirling colorful skirts, bare feet and golden earrings.

Lost love. She squirmed uncomfortably.

“This place is still as amazing as ever,” her dad commented after his weary, bloodshot eyes had poked around for a while. “All things considered, it’s not in too bad a condition. After all these years. Need to see it in real light though.” He yawned, stretching. “Gonna be a heck of a job, though, getting her shipshape.” He rubbed his stubbly chin.

“Yeah, but imagine how fun it’ll be uncovering all the hidden treasures beneath the grime,” Jenny said, letting her hand slide along the carved wood of the banister.

The violin music wove its spell around them. Jenny could have sat there and listened forever.

Feeling the hair on the back of her neck tingle, she turned and peered into the darkness at the top of the stairs. She could have sworn she saw someone up there. She shivered. Two sparks like a cat’s eyes. Hiding. Watching. After a while she pulled her gaze away. There wasn’t anything up there. What was the matter with her lately?

Minutes passed.

Her dad grunted. She thought he’d fallen asleep on the steps and gently nudged him.

“I’m awake,” he grumbled.

Jenny wished the Michelsons would hurry. It’d been a hell of a long day. Her father needed to go home and get some sleep.

“Are you sure you want to tackle this mausoleum, girl?”

“Like you said, it’s a job, Dad. We haven’t got anything else lined up after the Albers’ house, do we?”

“Nope.”

“What kind of bid are you going to give them on it?”

Her dad scratched his chin and yawned again. “They said they wanted us to clean it up and patch a little? Paint?”

“Yes.”

“Humph.” Her father took the candle and began working his way around the lobby in a tired sort of shuffle, rubbing his hands over the dirt-encrusted surfaces, checking the walls and moldings and inspecting the carpeting. “Wish we had some real light.”

Jenny’s eyes followed him.

A voice came from somewhere behind them, “I’ll pay you both by the hour. Don’t you think that would be the fairest way, Mister Lacey?” Terry Michelson appeared on the steps behind them in the gloom, without a candle, surprising Jenny.

She’d assumed he’d been downstairs with the rest of the family.

In one hand, Mister Michelson lovingly held an exquisite violin and bow, the deeply polished and layered wood glinting like brown gold.

“How about twenty dollars an hour, apiece?” Mister Michelson jauntily stepped down to shake her father’s hand as Jenny jumped up from the steps. “Terry Michelson,” he introduced himself to her father. “You must be Ernest Lacey, Jenny’s dad?”

Her father nodded.

“I’m honored to meet the father of such a talented and lovely woman as Jenny Lacey, who’s a distinguished author.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” her dad replied with a smug grin directed towards Jenny. He loved it when someone recognized her. Those jacket cover photos the publisher had wanted on the last book had leaked her face out all over the country, but that was ten years ago.

Mister Michelson gazed at her and bowed slightly. His hair was mussed, almost windblown. His eyes were openly admiring as he regarded her. Somehow he looked younger than he had the first time she’d met him, even his movements were that of a younger man.

Her father was grinning at her. “I keep telling her that she has her fans, but she don’t want to hear it. She’s always been modest about her writing.”

She ignored the reference to her past hobby, and inquired of Mister Michelson, “You’re the one who was playing the violin? I could have sworn it was a record, it was so perfect. You’re the one with the talent.”

“Thank you, but it is nothing, and we were talking about your books, Jenny. You are that Jenny Lacey, aren’t you?”

“You found me out,” she sighed. “Unsuccessful amateur that I was.”

“No amateur,” he tsked, tsked her affectionately. “Last night, I knew I’d seen your face somewhere before, Jenny. Somewhere. Then it came to me. I have all your books. I’ve read them over and over. What stories!” His eyes were glittering. “You’ll have to autograph them for me, when I unpack them.”

Usually people would ask her how she came up with such strange stories, or why she felt she had to write such scary things, but he didn’t.

He laid the violin and bow down on the top step and took Jenny’s hand in his. “I never thought I’d ever meet you though.” He pressed her hand between his, refusing to let it go even as she pulled away. He was embarrassing her, and his hands were like ice, even in this heat.

“I loved A Summer’s Night.” His voice lowered, “You wrote as if you truly believed that vampires existed, and that they had feelings, too.”

He actually seemed serious. “No, Mister Michelson, of course, I don’t believe in vampires. It was just a story. Fiction. I made it all up.” She smiled. He didn’t. “Don’t tell me that you believe in such things?”

His eyes were almost melancholy at her confession. “What would you say if I told you yes?”

Jenny stared at him, waiting for the inevitable denial or the punch line to come, but it didn’t.

Instead, he changed the subject and crooned, “Ah, Jenny, either way, you shouldn’t have stopped writing.”

Then, Jenny, her gaze caught in his, had the strangest feeling that he knew why she’d stopped, that he knew everything about her.

“Jenny, I know you’ll write another book someday,” he bent down and whispered in her ear, sending shivers up her neck. “When the right story comes along. We’ll talk about this again.”

It was as if he’d read her mind. She nodded, not knowing what else to say. Her father was giving her funny looks.

“How long have you been playing the violin?” Jenny finally drew her thoughts away from the man’s strange pull.

“A long time, but I’m just an amateur.” He smiled knowingly at her, his head so close that she could see the gray hairs interspersed in the brown.

She found herself smiling back at him, unable not to.

“Now it’s time to introduce the rest of the family,” he announced, and Jenny wondered if it was only her imagination that he seemed suddenly apprehensive.

She hadn’t been aware of the people hiding behind him.

“This is Candice.”

A short woman of about twenty or so, with short red spiked hair and catty green eyes, came forward. She stared at Jenny openly, but didn’t say a word and reminded Jenny of a huge, untamed cat. The girl was dressed, as bizarrely as the rest of them, in a long skintight dress. Very seductive.

She flopped down on the steps, still saying nothing, yet she observed Jenny with glittering curious eyes.

“This is Terry Junior, T. J., our son.” Mister Michelson introduced a young man with long brown hair.

He was tall, she thought, to be Terry’s son and extremely handsome in a feminine way. Another peculiar character.

When he looked at Jenny, she experienced a chilling ripple of unease. His eyes were a dark slate gray, like wet rock, and so unusual, so ... old. He, too, remained silent, but stepped up to her and kissed her hand in a gallant gesture that only served to make her feel more uncomfortable. His lips, his hands, were as cold as slate as well.

All the members of this family were fish.

He smiled at her. Was that contempt she saw shimmering deep in his smile, or was it the bad light?

T. J. was also dressed in an archaic fashion: a long coat that reminded her of something worn at the turn of the century but in brilliant colors, like a peacock. There was an air of decadence about him. A predatory watchfulness.

“Well, nice to meet you all,” Jenny nearly stumbled over her tongue. For some reason these children created the same disquiet in her as the adults did. Trancelike.

They were all beautiful. Too beautiful. Unreal, like statues.

“Of course, you’ve met Irene, our youngest.” A breath of fear marred his voice. Jenny caught it.

“Hi there, Irene. Nice to see you again.” Jenny tried to be polite to her as the blond-headed girl ambled past, but it wasn’t easy.

Irene glared at her, but said nothing, and went to stand next to her brother in the shadows. The girl gave off vibrations of hostility. Jenny hadn’t imagined it the night before. She also wondered why Irene, of all of them, seemed to be different. She even dressed differently. Her clothes were seductive and contemporary.

Suddenly Jenny only wanted to get away from them. She forced her eyes to look somewhere else.

“Children, this is Jenny’s dad, Ernest Lacey. Between the two of them, and our meager, unskilled, help, for what little it’ll be worth, we’re going to get the Grand looking as elegant as it did when it was first opened.”

“Not quite,” Jenny’s dad chimed in realistically, “but close. We’ll do our best. And Mister Michelson?”

“Yes?”

“About price. Fifteen an hour, apiece, should do it just fine. Twenty’s too high.”

Terry Michelson, after seeing the resolute look on her father’s face, nodded and shook her father’s hand to seal the bargain.

Jenny found herself studying Mister Michelson, wondering if she’d heard him right. The Grand. She was sure he’d called the theater the Grand. This time and the last time she’d talked to him. Wasn’t that the original name?

“When can you start?” Mister Michelson was asking.

“Sometime next week. We’re painting the Albers’ house outside of town. Should be done in another four or five days, I reckon. I’ve been a little under the weather, or it would have been done sooner.”

At that remark, an uncomfortable look passed between Terry and his wife.

“Is that okay?”

“Splendid.” Terry Michelson grinned. “What supplies will you be needing, Mister Lacey?”

“Lots of rags, buckets, cleaning fluids, plaster for the patchin’. Paint, whatever color you decide you want the walls.” He scratched his head, thinking. “That’ll do it.”

“I want the same colors for the walls, the same everything. I want it to look exactly the same as it did when it first opened.”

“Well, then, Mister Michelson, I can buy everything we’ll need and bring it on out here next week. I’ll give you the supply bills as I get them.”

“That would be most kind of you.”

“I also know a pretty good electrician and a plumber. Reasonable, too. Your wife mentioned that the electricity was being turned on tomorrow. I think everything should be checked out thoroughly first. This place has been boarded up for a long time. Better to be safe than sorry,” her dad warned. “I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry.”

“You think of everything.” Mister Michelson beamed at them. “I can see we’re in capable hands.”

“Got a phone here or a number we can reach you folks at when we’re ready to start?” her father questioned.

Annie threw her husband a furtive glance.

It was Mister Michelson who answered. “Not really. We’re on the move a lot. We’re terribly behind the times, I’m afraid, and none of us have those cell phones everyone seems to have these days. I’m sorry.” No explanation why. No excuses.

“That’s okay. My daughter and I don’t have cell phones right now, either.” Her father shrugged. “Pesky things. Who needs them? Makes it too easy for people to bother you, is how I see it.”

More like they couldn’t afford them, is how Jenny saw it.

“Exactly.” Michelson nodded. “Here’s an extra key to the front door.” He handed her dad something shiny and flat. “I’ll make arrangements for a line of credit for you at the town’s hardware store ... and that would be?”

“Schuler’s on Fifth Street,” her dad responded.

“For Schuler’s. You get the supplies you need, start next week any morning and don’t spare the expense.”

Michelson pulled a slim piece of leather and a pen from his vest pocket. He tore out a check then filled it out hurriedly and handed it to her father.

“That should be appropriate compensation to initiate the project.”

Her father’s eyebrows shot up as he looked at the amount. “Should do just fine, Mister Michelson.” He rummaged in his overall’s pocket and found one of the simple, one-color business cards he’d had printed at Quicky Print on Second Street. It read: Lacey & Lacey, House Painters & small repairs .

Her father had thought all lower case letters in small repairs clever.

“Our telephone numbers, home phones, are there at the bottom, in case you need to get a hold of us. Anytime. Mine is the first one. And I have one of those message machines.”

“Thank you, Mister Lacey, but we won’t need to, I assure you. We trust you explicitly.”

“Well, then, we’ll just say good night,” her dad concluded, his face wrinkled with exhaustion. “It was nice meeting all of you.”

“Then good-bye, Mister Lacey. Jenny. We’ll drop in one day after you’ve started to see how things are going.” Mister Michelson smiled directly at Jenny.

Her mind seemed to tingle and it spread through her whole body and came out her fingertips. In the candlelight, Mister Michelson’s eyes seemed almost luminous. They drew her in, like sparkling jewels scattered at her feet in beach sand.

“Then, Jenny dear, we’ll have that discussion about your lovely books. For now, I can tell your father is extremely tired, so take him home. We can talk another time.”

Jenny was touched by his consideration.

“I will. Perhaps you would play the violin for me?” Jenny coaxed as Annie smiled at her from behind her husband’s broad shoulders, and the candles licked at the emptiness around them.

A dog barked somewhere far away.

Mister Michelson laughed softly.

The rest of the family had simply evaporated.

“Good night,” Jenny murmured. Her exhaustion finally caught up with her. Her legs felt like Jell-O suddenly, her body a heavy weight.

Outside in the moonlight, she felt as if she were coming out of a trance. All the way home, as she sat quietly beside her dad, she kept hearing that laugh, kept seeing their eyes. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right about those people. Something.

Chapter Six

August 20

“Dad, I tell you, no one’s home.” Jenny repeated, as she stood in front of him, hands postured stubbornly on her hips. “I’ve looked in every window, tried every door. Everything’s locked, but their car is still in the garage. I called until late last night. No answer. They haven’t been around in two days. It’s not like them!”

“Well,” her father retorted, the paintbrush poised halfway to the wall in front of him. “What do you expect me to do about it?” His face was sweaty, but had more color in it, Jenny thought, than it’d had in weeks. This morning when she had picked him up, he’d almost been his old self. He hadn’t fallen asleep once.

At least she didn’t have to worry about him up and dying on her any longer. Now all she had to worry about was where in the hell the Albers had gotten to.

“Help me pick the lock on their back door so we can get in.”

“Jenny!”

“Dad! I know something’s wrong. I need to get inside and see if anything looks unusual.”

“What would be unusual?”

“You know what I mean.”

“That’s breaking and entering.”

“Dad!” her voice rose hysterically. “Aren’t you worried about where your friends are? Maybe they’re inside that house, sick, or mugged, beaten up and lying in a pool of their own blood in the living room!” She was getting angry.

“You writers with your vivid imaginations.” He shook his head.

She glared at him.

“All right,” he conceded, throwing his hands up in capitulation. Apparently her worrying had finally gotten through to him. “Let me fetch some tools from the trunk, and we’ll break into their house.” He stalked away towards his car.

She was impatiently waiting at the Albers’ back door when he returned.

“I was a thief in my last life, did I ever tell you that, Jenny?”

“Forget the jokes, Dad, just get us in.”

“There.” A few clicks later and the door swung open. Jenny charged into the kitchen.

There were half filled teacups on the table and a plate of homemade cookies with crumbs on the tablecloth. All the lights were on. It was bright daylight. Dirty dishes were in the sink. It was as if they’d merely stepped out a moment ago, but when Jenny picked up one of the cookies, it was as hard as a rock.

She roamed through the kitchen and through the other rooms, baffled.

In the living room, the television was playing.

In the bedroom, a nightgown was laid out, ready to be put on and the bedcovers were turned back on the bed.

Jenny methodically searched every room, even the bathrooms.

“Where are they?” she asked when she rejoined her father, now with a look of shock on his face, in the living room.

“It’s a mystery, for sure, Jenny. Maybe, you’re right. This don’t make no sense at all.”

“I think we should call Sheriff Samuels, Dad. Now. Report them missing.”

“Maybe, him bein’ a friend of theirs, he’s seen ‘em, or knows where they might be at?”

She studied her dad’s anxious face. “Maybe he has.” That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

She let her father make the necessary phone call, and they waited in heavy silence for the sheriff to arrive.

Jenny let the sheriff in and told him what she knew. She felt terrible about picking the lock, but since Sheriff Samuels had known Jenny since she was a baby and her dad even longer, he knew they wouldn’t have done it without good cause.

It seemed that Sheriff Samuels hadn’t seen the Albers in a few days either; he’d run into a few other people who’d been wondering about them as well. They hadn’t shown up for an old friend’s birthday dinner party the night before.

He poked around the house and grounds for a bit and took notes for the report he’d have to fill out later at the station.

“You say you saw them last on Monday afternoon, the eighteenth, Jenny?” Sheriff Samuels questioned her.

“Yes.”

“Seems peculiar no one’s heard from or seen either of them since.” He eyed the kitchen table. He was a tall man, over six-four, with short cropped gray hair, and steel colored eyes. A smart man. He’d been sheriff for over twenty years in Summer Haven and a darn good one. “That they’d go off and leave things like this is an enigma in itself. Maude was a neat housekeeper. Why’d they leave the car? Since George’s last heart attack, he wasn’t one for much walking.”

Her father sat slumped in a chair, listening. Bewildered looking.

“What are you going to do?” Jenny asked the sheriff. The same thing she’d asked him Tuesday morning when he’d come out to investigate the horses’ deaths.

“For starters, I’m going to ask around and see if anybody’s seen them then run by a couple of their other friends. Make some telephone calls. The usual things.” He leaned up against the kitchen sink. His light brown sheriff’s uniform was wrinkled from the heat, his badge dull and smudged. A cigarette hung loosely in the fingers of his left hand. He’d light one and let it burn down to a stub without hardly smoking it.

He seemed disturbed.

“They have any relatives out of town that you know of?”

“None.”

You couldn’t tell by his poker face what he was thinking. “You suspect foul play?” Ernest Lacey breathed, a helpless note in his voice.

“Too early to tell.” The sheriff put his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. There was something he wasn’t telling them. Jenny could feel it.

When Samuels walked out to his squad car, she discreetly followed. Her dad had gone back to painting the back of the house, as if nothing had happened. His way of working out his frustration and concern.

“What aren’t you telling us, Sheriff Samuels?” She cornered him before he’d closed the car door.

The cool respite they’d had in the weather for a day or two was only a sweet memory. The sun was burning, and heat waves radiated off of the metal of the dark blue and white car, the kind of vehicle that really looked like a police car.

He seemed to be weighing something in his mind, tilting his head so she couldn’t see his strained face as he stroked his gray mustache nervously. “What makes you think I’m hiding anything, Jenny Lacey?”

“I can read people, especially people I’ve known all my life, pretty well.”

“Yeah. I guess you can. Being a writer and all,” his voice was respectful.

Jenny’s fingers drummed on the car door. She gave him a cynical frown, capturing his evasive eyes. “What is going on in Summer Haven? First those animal mutilations around town, then our horses found dead and now the Albers have disappeared. What next?”

“I wish I knew.” He seemed reluctant to discuss it, and a terrible thought occurred to her.

“Are the Albers the only ones missing?”

The question must have caught him off guard. His mouth opened, and he gulped air as if he were about to choke. For a moment or two she believed he wouldn’t answer her.

In the end, he admitted, “It’s police business, Jenny; the investigations are ongoing. Right now, we can’t prove anything. No bodies, except for the animals. No, the Albers aren’t the only ones missing.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Do you have any leads?”

“No. Not a one. That’s the worst thing about the whole mess.” He started the car up and gave her a somber nod good-bye.

Jenny watched as the squad car pulled away and into the street. Then she walked around to where her father was quietly painting.

“Dad, how can you go on painting as if nothing were wrong?” her voice was quivering. She was frightened for the Albers, frightened for herself and those she loved.

“Because, Jenny, dear, we have a job to do, we were paid well for it and do it I will. When they come home,” he said in a low voice, “I want them to return to a beautiful, freshly painted house. Because they will come back , Jenny. Safe. I know it. Let the police do their job, child. There’s nothing else we can do, but pray.”

It was only then that Jenny saw the tears on her father’s cheeks.

She shook her head. “We can go looking for them. If they aren’t back by the time we finish today, that’s what I’m going to do. All night, every night, until I find them or the police do.”

To that her father remained silent.

She sighed, her eyes searching off into the distance as if she were looking for something or someone, and then she, too, picked up a brush, dipped it into the paint can and went on painting in broad, forceful strokes.

* * * *

That night when she got home, after looking for the Albers until she was too tired to drive and talk, Rick Chalmers telephoned her with the results from the lab on their dead horses.

“They were drained of every last drop of their blood, Jenny, just like I’d suspected,” his voice full of astonishment. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She was stunned. “What would do that and why?”

“Nothing natural. I just don’t know,” he replied softly. “Somebody better find out what and why pretty soon, cause it’s an epidemic from what I’ve seen. I’ve had to cart away more dead animals in the last week than I have all year to date. It’s crazy. I’ll do my part. I’ll talk it over with the police and keep my eyes and ears open.”

Jenny was silent for a while, her mind troubled over what Rick had said. She was sitting at the kitchen table in a short green flowered robe, nothing underneath, a belt drawn tight at her slender waist. Her long brown hair was still damp from the shower she’d just stepped out of and brushed away from her pale, strained face. She had no idea how young she looked, almost a girl.

“Rick, do me a favor, would you?” she finally asked, her eyes were staring at the ceiling when she wasn’t rubbing them. She was exhausted, still sick over the horses’ brutal deaths. Tired of worrying about the Albers and what might have happened to them and how her poor father was taking it.

“Sure. What?”

“Don’t tell Dad about this, would you?”

Silence.

“For you, Jenny, I won’t tell him.”

“Thanks, Rick.”

She hung up and dragged herself to bed, not bothering to take off the robe and put her lightweight teddy on. Too distracted, too weary.

She prayed that tomorrow morning the Albers would have come home, and she’d not have that to agonize over. She was suddenly angry. She wanted to be happy again. She wanted to be able to smile and laugh again. Go on with her life. It was time.

She sighed and hit the pillow to flatten it, how could she be happy as long as her friends were missing? As long as these terrible things kept happening to her and those she loved?

Again, she had no answers. Sleep was her escape.

Chapter Seven

August 23

“Why are we doing this?” Jenny questioned hotly for the tenth time. “We should still be out looking for them!”

She’d finished painting the last of the rear wall of the Albers’ house. The work was finished. Every last piece of trim, windowsill, even the gazebo. It looked lovely. The best job they’d ever done, and Jenny had completed it through her tears.

“Because it’s the sheriff and his deputies’ job, and they’re doing the best they know how, Jenny. We can’t do any better. You tried, and what good did it do except to wear you out? We’re finishing the job we started, because it’s all we can do right now.” Her father’s face was lined with worry and dogged persistence.

It was Saturday, and the Albers had been missing five days. Still not a trace, not a clue to what might have happened to them.

Sheriff Samuels continued his investigation, growing more desperate every day, but as yet hadn’t discovered a single solid lead.

The Albers seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

Jenny was a wreck. At night, at home in her trailer, she still tried to call the Albers. No one ever answered. Some mornings she woke up from frightful nightmares, her pillow wet. Every day as they worked on the house, she’d stare in the windows, as if she expected to see their faces at any moment.

She hadn’t asked her father to break in again. When the sheriff had left that day, he’d locked the door behind them, and it was still locked. Jenny couldn’t bring herself to go in there.

She couldn’t believe they were gone. It was incomprehensible. What had happened to them? Had they been eaten by a black hole or abducted by aliens? Where were they?

“If they never come back?” Jenny asked of her father.

“We go on, girl, we go on. They wouldn’t want us to make ourselves sick, would they?”

“No, I suppose not.” Jenny walked over to the back porch steps and settled herself on the bottom one. She fought to hold her tears back as she looked at the beautiful house and at the overgrown weeds around them. No one had cut the grass in over a week, and the yard looked as sad as she felt.

Her father cleaned up the paint equipment with the garden hose and came to sit next to her. He slid his arm around her shoulder gently.

“I hate to see such a long face on you, girl. It’s God’s will, whatever’s happened, Jenny. What will be, will be.”

Jenny lowered her head and cried. “I just have this awful feeling,” she moaned. “They’re ... dead. I’ll never see them again.”

He let her cry, comforting her as best he could. He could have lied to her and said he didn’t believe they were dead, but he didn’t.

Afterwards they packed their stuff up, and he drove her home.

As he let her off at the trailer, he reminded her, “We’ll start the theater on Monday. I’ve been by there, and the electricity is on. Talked to the electrician and the plumber, and they said it’s a green light. The plumbing and wiring were in amazingly good condition in spite of the theater’s age. They gave me the bills. I promised I’d deliver them to Mister Michelson when I see him next.”

Jenny nodded, her face tear-streaked. It’d been difficult working on the Albers’ place under the circumstances, but far worse knowing that it was finished, and they wouldn’t be going back. Maybe never.

In front of her trailer, she waved at him as the station wagon rattled away.

Grabbing the mail out of her mailbox next to the front door, she went inside.

Another letter from Jeff. The postmark closer though. Unlike the first one, she didn’t open it, or read it, but like the first letter, she tore it into tiny bits and dumped it into the trash can underneath the kitchen sink.

She wanted nothing to do with the man who hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her and Samantha all those years ago. He was dead to her, and dead was the way he was going to stay. That way he could never break her heart again.

She had enough grief in her life right now.

It rained all day Sunday. Jenny holed up, moping in her trailer. She called the Albers’ house twice. No answer. She telephoned Sheriff Samuels. Still no leads.

Since their disappearance, she’d driven aimlessly night after night around town, asking if anyone had seen her missing friends. She’d driven into the country outside of town and searched everywhere, not sure if she were searching for them or their bodies.

She knew it was useless, ridiculous, as she was doing it, but couldn’t stop herself. She was now too discouraged and exhausted, to do it any longer. She didn’t even feel like talking to Joey or hanging out with him at the diner.

Monday morning she was ready when her father honked out front. She wouldn’t admit it, even to herself, but she was excited about working on the Rebel. In her heart, she hoped it would help keep her mind off her missing friends and the growing unease she’d begun to feel deep inside. Something wasn’t right, yet she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

It was drizzling, but their work would be inside so it wouldn’t affect them.

“We’ll stop at the hardware store first and pick up the supplies. They’ll be waiting for us. I took care of it on Friday after work,” her father stated.

“Everything we’ll need?”

“Most everything.”

After the hardware store, they had breakfast at Joey’s. Jenny could hardly eat. She left two thirds of the food on the plate. Joey wasn’t happy.

When they walked into the theater, and her dad switched on the electricity, she gasped, “It looks like it did when I was a kid! It’s hardly changed at all.”

“Kinda dim bulbs, though,” her dad remarked, checking one of them. “Forty-watt?”

Jenny wasn’t listening because she was poking around the place. She wandered into the vast auditorium and looked around before she met up with her father again.

“The screen is in pretty good shape, considering. The curtains are tatters, though. Whew! And the dust!” She sneezed.

“Gonna need some more light,” he said flatly.

“You think so?”

A snort. “Yep. I’ll run back to the hardware store for brighter bulbs, and you can start cleaning.” He handed her a broom.

“Okay, Dad.”

“When we have the place cleaned up, we can begin repairing and repainting.”

Jenny smiled at him as he slipped out the door into the rainy day.

When she was alone, she cocked her head and listened. The eerie silence was almost nerve racking after all she’d gone through the last week.

Exhaling deeply, she unpacked the cleaning supplies and the huge plastic bags she’d collect the trash in and went to one of the bathrooms to get a bucket of water for the sponges and mops.

She began to sweep, humming aloud, to help chase away the tomblike stillness.

Her dad returned, and they spent the day working. No one disturbed them except Joey, who sweetly brought them a sort of picnic lunch from his restaurant: fried chicken, potato salad and large paper cups of cold lemonade.

The next two days were the same. They worked diligently on the theater, marveling at how beautiful it was becoming as each layer of grunge was scrubbed away.

Sheriff Samuels kept her informed, as if he thought she could help him solve the mystery. It always amazed her that people thought she was someone with all the answers, someone smarter than a normal person simply because she’d written books at one time. Ha, they had no idea how wrong they were.

There’d been more people disappearing, more animal deaths and strange sightings. One old woman swore she’d seen these ghostlike things peering in her windows at her, trying to get in. According to the woman, she waved a blessed crucifix in their faces and—poof—they’d flown off! Preposterous.

Jenny tried to work and not think about the Albers or any of the other stuff. It just drove her crazy.

“I wonder where the Michelsons are?” she asked their third day at the theater. “Have you seen or heard anything from them, Dad?”

“No, not really.” He was painting the lobby walls. “Must trust us.”

“I hope they haven’t done a disappearing act, too,” Jenny muttered under her breath, with sudden trepidation, as she stared back at her dad.

“Naw. They’re fine, Jenny,” he reassured her, throwing her a nervous glance.

Probably thinks I’m cracking up, she sighed inwardly.

“There was a message left for us at the hardware store this morning from them when I went to get more light bulbs, along with our pay for the last two days. I don’t know how they know how many hours we put in, but the money is exactly what they owe us.” He made a bemused face over his shoulder at her.

“It’s a good thing, too,” she told him. “I can use the money. Got an electric bill that’s due next week.”

Her dad bringing up the light bulbs jogged her memory.

Every morning when they came in, they’d had to replace the light bulbs they’d put in the day before. The hundred and fifty watters they were putting in to be able to see by were usually replaced with forty or twenty-five watters.

“Maybe the Michelsons come by to see how the work’s progressing, and they don’t like the bright lights?” she’d offered as explanation. “Sensitive to light or something. Some people are, you know.”

“Now that’s just plain silly,” her father had replied. “Their potential customers aren’t going to want to stumble around in the half dark, now are they?”

“I guess not.”

Then he’d joked that beginning the next day, when they left, he was going to take the bright bulbs out each night and hide them and screw the dimmer bulbs back in until the next day. She’d laughed at his idea then, but they’d started doing just that.

Her dad patted his pocket. “Message also said they’d see us soon, and that they were extremely busy out of town. They were sorry they haven’t been more help to us.”

Busy at what? Jenny pondered.

The place was beginning to shape up, though, even without them helping. The lights shone brightly off the Windexed mirrors. The shampooed carpets and the fresh paint made the lobby look virtually new.

They usually worked each day until around six. One night the first week they got carried away, and when Jenny finally stole a glance at her watch, she was surprised to see that it was after eight o’clock.

“It must be nearly dark outside.” Jenny swiped her hand across her grimy cheek.

“Yep,” her father responded tiredly. “Let’s pack it up and call it a day, Jenny. Tomorrow we’ll finish the lobby and start on the auditorium.”

“You got it, Dad.” Jenny stood up, stretching her aching body. She looked around approvingly for a moment or two and then started putting things away. For a little while, she’d almost forgotten the Albers.

She was about ready to go when she heard the crying. It was instantly muffled, but she was sure she’d heard it. Someone was sobbing somewhere as if they were in anguish. Jenny listened, it didn’t come again.

“Dad, did you hear that ... crying... just now?”

Her dad raked the back of his hand against the stubble on his face and looked around. “Nope, I didn’t—I don’t—hear a thing.” He was tired. He wanted to go home.

A violin began to sing softly. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

“I hear that, though,” her father said. “Mighty pretty, too. I imagine our employer is around somewhere.” He’d begun to take out the stronger light bulbs and was replacing them with the dimmer ones.

“I imagine, too.” Jenny gathered up the bucket and the sponges. The music climbed and ebbed hauntingly in the background as she carried them into the women’s restroom to rinse out. When she reentered the faintly lighted lobby, her father was gone, and she practically bumped into Terry Michelson.

“Excuse me!” Jenny blurted out, flustered. “It’s so dark in here, I didn’t see you.”

“Jenny. Good, you’re still here. I had an appointment, so I came in early.”

“We should have been gone, but we lost track of the time. Dad’s somewhere around here. An appointment?” she queried.

“I had a projection specialist, a Mister Maxwell, come in this evening and give me an estimate on updating the old projection booth upstairs.” His manner was friendly. “That ancient reel-to-reel setup has to be replaced with something more modern. It’s been here since the theater opened, I’m sure.” He laughed. “There’s so much new technology these days.” He was staring at her again in that intense way he had. “I have so much to relearn if I’m going to be able to run the films myself, which I plan to do.”

“New equipment will be expensive.”

“It will, but it’s worth it. I want the best.”

She eyed him curiously. “Mister Michelson, where did you come from just now?” She hadn’t seen him come in, or the mysterious Mister Maxwell.

“Upstairs. I’ve been here for a while. I used the back entrance.” His hair was mussed, his face white as he stood poised at the bottom of the staircase not more than three feet from her. He was dressed as usual in an antiquated suit. The material much too heavy for August. In his right hand he held books and in his left, his violin and bow.

“I heard your violin. Your playing really is lovely.”

“Thank you, Jenny.”

She put the clean sponges in the empty bucket, and aware of how ragged she must look in her filthy blue jeans and T-shirt, pushed the hair back from her dirty forehead. She tilted her head away from him and cleaned a little of the dirt off her face with licked fingers.

“It’s been hot?” His gaze rested on her embarrassed face.

“Yes, but it hasn’t been bad in here. Until you get the air conditioners checked out and updated, we’ve brought some fans in.” She gestured at them as they circulated air from the corners of the lobby. “They help, as do the high ceilings.”

He looked at the fans and nodded approvingly then inspected the work they’d already done on the theater.

“You and your father are doing an excellent job. It’s beginning to look like it did before.” The poignancy in his deep voice caught her attention.

“Before when?”

He smiled coyly, not replying, and ceremoniously offered her the books he had clutched in his right hand.

“They’re your books, Jenny. I told you I had all three of them. Would you sign them for me?” Obsession gleamed in his eyes.

Jenny couldn’t say no. She took the dog-eared paperbacks and the pen he handed her and scribbled her name in each of them. It’d been a long time since she’d been asked to do that. She couldn’t deny that it was flattering.

“Thank you, Jenny.” He cradled the books tenderly against his chest. “I’ll treasure them always.”

Jenny smiled self-consciously and continued picking things up.

“My dad will be back in a minute, and we’ll call it a day,” she explained. “I’ll finish cleaning up here. Where’s the rest of the family?” Jenny made conversation, wishing her father would hurry up and get back. The way Michelson was watching her made her nervous.

“The others are out somewhere, and Annie had some things to pick up in town, I believe.”

Jenny had cleaned and gathered up everything she could. Exhausted, she settled down with a groan on the bottom velvety step. “Mister Michelson, out of curiosity, was your wife ever a dancer?”

“Yes, a ballerina.” He seemed delighted that she would ask. “How did you know?”

“The way she moves.” She glanced up at him from the steps.

“Are all writers that observant?” He complimented her thoughtfully.

“Some, I guess. Truth is, I don’t know many other writers,” she admitted.

Mister Michelson sat down gracefully a few steps above her, laying her books to one side. He smiled at her and lifted his violin up to rest under his chin.

He began to play so softly, so sweetly, it made Jenny’s heart ache. She listened raptly, and almost against her will reality began to slip away as the music and his dark eyes held hers.

His voice, a low and secretive whisper, blended with the music hypnotically. “Annie was a prima ballerina in Hungary when I first met her over seventy years ago. She was so lovely. I watched her on the stage in her lace and silk. I watched her dance ... a beam of sunshine I could never have. I, a creature of the night and the dark, of the grave.”

Jenny’s eyelids felt heavy. Her head light.

“I had lived such a long time. Too long, I think. I had grown weary of living, but I found her. I loved her as I had never loved another ... so I took her. Made her one of us, Jenny. I was wrong. She had a pure heart, a sparkling soul.” He sighed, and the music soared.

Jenny heard it, but as in a dream; she was unable to respond.

“Ah, we are only as strong afterwards as the original corruption of our souls ... my poor beloved, fragile Annie. Jenny,” he rasped mournfully, “you were right in your books. Some of us have hearts that bleed, and some of us hunger for what we will never possess again. The light. Goodness. Some of us aren’t evil. Some are. Jenny, do not condemn us unjustly for we cannot help what we are.” He must have seen the dawning comprehension, the fear in her eyes and nodded sadly, knowing what he must do. He’d gone too far. As he played, he willed it, the forgetting, and she closed her eyes.

When the music changed, and she opened her eyes again, she believed but a few moments had passed and she’d forgotten all he’d said.

The music, so sad, her only thought. It made her think of her missing friends. Maude would have loved Mister Michelson’s playing. Without realizing it, as she leaned against the banister, tears silently slid down her cheeks.

After the song, his slender fingers reached down the few feet between them and brushed her cheek, collecting her tears. “Jenny, what is the matter? You seem so melancholy tonight. You look so weary. If this job is doing that to you, then you must take a few days off, I insist.” His eyes were compassionate. “I don’t want you to suffer in any way.”

Jenny was taken aback at the affection in the older man’s manner, yet it made her uneasy. He hardly knew her, except for her books that he’d read.

Why did some people believe they knew the very secrets of her soul, just because they’d read her books? She wasn’t her books. No one could really know her like that.

“No, it’s not the work, Mister Michelson. Some friends of ours have been,” she hesitated then went on, “missing for some time now. I’ve been so worried about them.”

“What friends?” There was a sudden coldness in his tone.

“Remember that other job, the house we were painting when I first met you?”

“Yes, I recall.”

“Maude and George Albers, very old, close friends of the family. Maude was more a mother to me when I was growing up than ...” she halted her words abruptly. Why was she telling him all this anyway?

“Go on, Jenny.”

When she met his eyes, she had no choice but to comply. “Than my own mother. They’ve been missing for nine days now. I’ve been sick about it. Dad has been, too. They disappeared one night from their house, during the time we were still working on it, and no one’s seen them since.” Jenny wiped the fresh tears from her face. “Along with the other awful things that have been occurring—”

“What other things?” he interrupted, his voice controlled, yet a growing anger flickering in his eyes.

“The last two of my dad’s horses were butchered, ” Jenny spat out the last word, shuddering. “There have been other mutilated and dead animals found in the area recently. Other people are disappearing. You must have read about it in the paper?”

“I don’t read the newspapers,” he muttered tersely. The violin was under his chin again. He brought the bow up and resumed playing softly.

The music soothed her.

She thought he whispered between the bittersweet notes, “I’m so sorry, Jenny.”

Her father hobbled back in at that moment, so she didn’t have a chance to continue their conversation.

“The old station wagon didn’t want to start. I had to coax her some.” Seeing the dried tears staining her dusty face, he threw her a questioning look. “You ready to go, honey?”

“Just about.” She stood up and finished what she’d been doing before Michelson had walked in, while her dad launched into a series of questions with their employer.

He’d mapped the work out earlier to Jenny and figured out it would take two more weeks, if they worked nine and ten hour days. He told Michelson that.

Jenny said good-bye to Michelson, while her father was chatting with him, and slipped out to the car, still unnerved.

It was black outside and raining. As she sat out in the rumbling car, she began to shiver.

She couldn’t seem to remember half of her conversation with Michelson. She remembered he’d played the violin for her and they’d talked, but about what, exactly, for the life of her, she couldn’t recollect. It bothered her. It bothered her more than she could say.

There was something truly strange about it all—about Mister Michelson, too. In that moment, she was sure he was hiding something... but what?

Propping her head against the car window, she watched the rain dribble down the glass on the other side. She was so tired. When her father finally came out, she was glad. Glad when they headed for home.

* * * *

“You told her too much.” Irene warned, mockingly. “You, who is always telling us to beware of them.”

She’d been glaring out the window in the front of the theater as the car drove away into the rain.

“She won’t remember a thing I told her. Consciously, anyway. I made sure of that.” His eyes were mere slits, as if to hide his true feelings. “She’s special, Irene. One of the special ones,” he said more to himself than to her.

“None of them are special,” Irene breathed. “They’re cattle. We drink their blood.” She waited a moment then laughed scornfully. “Do you think she will write that story of yours? Do you really believe you could tell her the truth about us, and then not fear what she would do with the knowledge? Now who’s the fool?” A hostile glimmer stole into her eyes, and she smiled slyly, showing her fangs. “She should die now before she guesses the truth,” came her heartless whisper.

He turned on her, his eyes unreadable in the inky theater. “Stay away from Jenny,” he hissed the words out between clenched teeth, “and her family and friends! I’m warning you. ”

Irene scowled at him, and he could feel her trying to probe into his mind. Moments later she lowered her eyes and laughed disdainfully. “You win. This time.”

This time.

It was getting harder to resist her control. One day he wouldn’t walk away. He wouldn’t be able to best her. He had to think of Annie. Annie depended on him to protect her from the others. She wasn’t like them, and they hated her for it. They’d destroy her if they could, if not for him.

He looked up to see Irene studying him from a distance, a taunting look on her beautiful ageless face.

Without a sound, she began to disintegrate, becoming a spectral reflection in the mist that eddied around the carpeted floor and then ... nothing.

We’re safe as long as she doesn’t start displaying her kills again, he mulled silently.

He didn’t trust her. Her soul, evil enough in her own brief lifetime millennia ago, had been totally corrupted with the long centuries, and he had no doubt it was unredeemable now. He didn’t know how ancient she was; perhaps even she’d forgotten. One lost count after the first couple of thousand years.

The others, he’d begun to suspect, he couldn’t trust, either. They belonged body and soul to Irene now.

T. J., or Tomas, he’d discovered wasting away in Egypt, curled up in the shadow of a pyramid, dying, with his blood poisoned by a bad kill. He’d nursed the fledgling vampire back to health. Tomas’s gratefulness, like sands in an hourglass, though, had just about run out. Vampires weren’t known for their loyalty.

Candice, he’d found cringing in a musty mausoleum in a Paris cemetery and suffering from the loneliness fever. Nearly twenty years ago now? He wasn’t sure. Time didn’t matter when you had so much of it to live. He’d pitied her, bedraggled and nearly insane from the heavy toll of the years, as he, himself, had often suffered. As all vampires eventually suffered, if they lived long enough.

No, he couldn’t count on either of them. They were weak, while Irene was strong.

He turned, retrieving his violin and his books from the steps, and slowly started up the stairs. He was gone before his feet touched the top landing. The theater was empty again. Until morning.

Chapter Eight

Predawn August 29

Ernest Lacey slept soundly and had for about the last week or so. The nightmares had ceased. He no longer woke up every morning drained of energy and muddleheaded.

He’d toppled into bed early that Thursday night after working hard all week with his daughter on that fancy theater. He was dreaming about when he and Estelle had been young, and so in love, before the kids had come along. They were laughing together in bed, snuggling and confessing silly secrets to each other. Her skin, fragrant and soft to his hot touch, was so white it looked like the milk they used to have delivered to their door every morning when their marriage was new.

In his dream, Estelle was still a pretty young thing. Shining eyes the color of milk chocolate. Delicate heart-shaped face framed in a soft reddish halo of curly hair. She had been a beauty in her time, and all the other boys had envied him so. He smiled in his sleep and rolled over hugging his pillow, pretending it was his absent wife.

He missed her so damn much.

Then the Albers intruded into his lovely dream and shattered his happiness.

You’re missing, you two. Did you know that? he asked them, sitting up in bed next to Estelle, angered, but for what reason precisely, he couldn’t say. They were old in his dream, and their faces were beaten and bruised, bloody; their pathetic eyes begged him to help them. They looked like those zombies in that awful movie he’d watched the other night: white with scabs all over, tattered clothes and stringy hair.

Suddenly he looked at Estelle, and she was old, too, old and wrinkled, and drunk, climbing out of their warm, cozy bed, and leaving him. She bumped into the slightly ajar door, and after she’d disappeared out onto the landing, he heard her tumble down the stairs in her drunken stupor.

Then he was alone in his drafty farmhouse.

He raised his hands and realized, with a shock, that the years had found him again as well.

No!

He turned on the Albers, “Go away! You ruined it. You scared her away. You don’t belong here.” His tears leaked slowly out of the corners of his eyes.

They were his friends. They were begging him for his help. They were lost.

How could he be so cruel as to send them away?

I’m sorry, he moaned in his sleep. Sorry. I’ll help you. I’ll look harder for you. Just don’t leave. Don’t die. What can I do? he begged them to tell him, but it was too late, they’d already vanished.

It was dark outside, that inky blackness that comes after two o’clock, but before dawn, when the scratching at the window yanked him from his dream. Perhaps he imagined it as he was awakening. That was what they say happens. You dream dreams in those split seconds before you truly awake, in that twilight time between deep sleep and consciousness.

Drowsy and heavy-lidded, he was aware of the muted faces swirling in the ivory mist at the window before he actually saw them. They were leering at him with feral grins and sharp teeth.

Beckoning to him.

Startled, he sprung up in bed, an animated dummy on strings. When his eyes finally focused, whatever he thought he’d seen at the window was gone. He lay back down, releasing a long sigh. It must have been part of his crazy dream.

Almost asleep again, the rocks that came noisily hurtling through the windowpane brought him out of bed like an angry jack-in-the-box. Glass exploded everywhere.

He snatched up his glasses from the dresser and shoved them on.

“Heaven help us! A man can’t even be left in peace with his own dreams, in his own bed,” he whined peevishly, prancing around in his long johns. He was halfway to the closet where he kept his old buckshot rifle when the next volley of rocks came through the other bedroom window.

“What a mess,” he groaned, as he sidestepped the broken glass.

“Get away! Get away, you lousy kids, before I call the cops on ya!” he shrieked at the glassless window.

Outside, he could hear footfalls and muffled laughter. He had the premonition then that they weren’t children. Not by a long shot.

He dragged the rifle from the closet, slammed the door and hightailed it out of the room towards the back of the house. Snapping on the outside lights, he cursed when they burned out amidst loud popping noises; then, as another rock sailed through the back door’s windowpane, he lit out the door into the backyard.

Barefooted, he ran as quickly as the stubby grass, his age and darkness would let him. Of course, he had no intention of really hurting any of them. He just wanted to give ‘em a good scare and send them on their way. He’d broken his share of windows in his younger days, too.

At the end of the yard, by the tall weeds, he made out lighter shapes bouncing around, taunting him. One moment the luminous fleeing forms were ahead of him, and the next, they were behind and around him. Unnatural. Grabbing at him and letting go, so that he almost tripped.

They seemed to float, hidden in the mist that clung to the bushes and the grass. Playing a sort of ghostly tag with him.

Ernest rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He stood there, shaking. His self-righteous anger was slowly beginning to evolve into something else— a cold sweaty dread.

They weren’t human.

Something crashed into him, and he was tossed into the air. When he hit the ground, with a grunt of pain, there was no one, nothing, near him. Only sarcastic laughter. Ernest knew that what was stalking him wasn’t merely playing with him. It was deadly serious.

He scrambled up from the ground and raised his rifle. “I’m warning ya. I’ve got a gun. I’ll shoot! Get out of here and leave me alone. Ya hear? Or I’ll use it!” His voice trembled no matter how hard he tried not to let it.

His left leg was hurting like hell. His side pained him something awful, and he could feel something warm and sticky trickling down the side of his neck. Blood.

No answer, but they were still out there, he could smell ‘em.

He limped back towards the safety of the house, one hand gripping the gun. He was panting with fear, afraid to look behind him.

He never made it.

“I’ll shoot, I will!” he cried out as the shapes converged on him again. He shot the gun into what he thought was a body. He shot again and again, until the weapon was empty, his horror growing. The gun dropped into the grass.

He screamed for help again and again. His pitiful cries echoed on the still night across the fields and the trees. He’d hit some of them, he was sure of it.

Still, they were coming at him.

Something lifted him from the ground, and for a few horrifying moments, he was pitched from one set of strong ghostly arms to another like a human ball, squealing like a trapped pig.

When they dropped him this time, he lay in a heap groaning as if he couldn’t move any longer, faking it, fearing most of his poor old bones were broken. His eyes peeked into the darkness.

The shapes were somehow human figures in the mist—but not human. The scent of blood was strong on the night air, and so was his terror. Ernest Lacey had never been frightened a day in his long life, but he was terrified now.

They were going to kill him. He knew it. Whatever the hell they were.

Damn. He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not like this. They evaporated before his astonished eyes. Their disdain snarls on the wind.

Whimpering, he crawled for the back door, slid into the kitchen, and with trembling hands, swatted it shut, locking it. He dragged himself to the bedroom, locking every door on the way, praying.

He hid under his bed, shaking like a cold puppy and muttering to himself like a crazy man. He must have dozed off, for when he came to, he had the feeling that time had passed.

“Maybe I dreamed it,” he told himself, desperately wanting to believe it.

Nightmared it, is more like it.

Except the blood, the pain, was real.

Sore, filthy, he crept out from under the bed and staggered to the window, every sense screaming for him not to, but something stronger drawing him to it. He gaped out at the lightening sky, his heart galloping. His mouth like sandpaper.

His face went white as he tried to tear his gaze away, but couldn’t. His eyes grew large, his mouth fell open, and with a yell of sheer panic and a sickening whooshing sound, he was sucked through the broken window like one of those astronauts in outer space, who’ve had a hole blown out of their capsule.

Just like that. The room was empty. The night still again.

Outside, the mist laughed and then grew quiet.

A red-stained window curtain fluttered gently against the broken glass in the gentle morning breeze.

Chapter Nine

August 29

Friday morning Jenny waited until nine-thirty before she jumped in her car and drove over to her dad’s.

He was supposed to have picked her up at seven. With his recent accident and unexplained lethargy still fresh in her mind, she wasn’t taking any chances. He might have had a relapse. All the stress over the Albers being missing hadn’t helped any, either.

His station wagon was parked as usual in the rickety garage.

She knocked on the kitchen door. No answer. Then she noticed that the window pane was broken. With a shove, the door opened. It hadn’t been locked.

“That’s not like him,” she mumbled, as she tiptoed into the kitchen, her nerves tingling.

As her eyes examined the room, unsettling images of the Albers’ house as they’d found it eleven days ago nagged at her.

She crouched down on the floor by the door, balancing on the balls of her feet, and skimmed her fingers carefully over the faded linoleum. There were dried dirt, grass and straw bits among the glass. Blood skids trailed from the door to the middle of the kitchen, as if some wounded thing had scooted inside and dragged itself across the floor.

Jenny stood up slowly, her heart pounding.

“Dad,” she sobbed deep in her throat, her body shaking as if she’d taken a chill. She wasn’t sure how, but she made it through the rest of the house, ending up in the bedroom.

The windows were broken, glass fragments all over. The unmade bed.

Jenny’s muscles clenched, her stomach cramped with an escalating dread. She stumbled towards the window nearest the bed. There was blood dribbled over the spiked slivers, as if some unfortunate creature had been impaled on them.

She bent over and picked up her father’s glasses. The white tape was torn, and the glasses were smashed. Wherever her father was, he didn’t have them and he was as blind as a mole in sunlight without them.

She was shaking uncontrollably and crumpled down upon the bed, folded her arms around herself, and rocked, keening beneath her sobs.

Daddy, I should have moved in with you. I should have been here. I should have protected you.

Her father was gone, too, now. She was sure of it. Whatever had happened to the Albers had happened to him. She felt it.

What was happening here? Was it really what the authorities suspected: some hellish, brutal satanic cult of some kind taking random victims, mutilating, abducting and maybe killing them?

Maude hadn’t believed a cult was behind any of it, though, and Jenny somehow didn’t either.

It wasn’t something as simple as a cult. What cult would so openly defy the authorities? What cult would risk being hunted down because they had taken too many visible victims, too quickly?

Who or what was doing this and why?

Jenny gritted her teeth to stop their chattering and forced herself to get up.

Pull yourself together.

Her father wasn’t anywhere in or around the house, she’d made sure of it. She took one last look anyway before she left and drove to Joey’s.

* * * *

“Joey?” Jenny reached over the counter to touch her brother on the sleeve from behind. He’d been talking to someone in the kitchen, giving orders or something. There were gravy stains on his white apron.

The place was basically empty. Only a few people. The early breakfast crowd had already eaten and departed; the late breakfast crowd hadn’t arrived yet. It smelled like fresh brewed coffee and bacon. Jenny’s stomach growled and her mouth watered.

“Jenny. Kind of late for breakfast, aren’t you?” He peered around her. “Where’s Dad?”

Her face must have shown her distress, and the tears escaped her swollen eyes, tracking down her cheeks.

“Jenny!” Alarmed, Joey grabbed her arms across the counter. “What’s wrong?”

“He isn’t here, is he?” The hope was washing from her eyes with the tears. She brushed his grip away and lowered her head into her trembling hands. Her shoulders shook.

“No, he isn’t,” Joey stammered, coming around the counter. He corralled her and sat her down forcibly on a stool.

“What the hell is wrong now? Did he have another accident?” Joey’s face was tense. His eyes wary.

Jenny’s face reflected her shock. “No. Worse,” she sniffled. “He’s missing! Just like the Albers. Gone.” She spread her hands and made a futile gesture. “Not there, not here, not anywhere.”

“What are you babbling about?” Joey demanded, shaking her, probably afraid she was losing it.

There were people staring at them now.

“Oh God .” Jenny maneuvered off the stool. “I have to go look for him! I thought he might be here, having breakfast. Maybe he forgot me, you know he hasn’t been himself lately? He’s been so forgetful? I had hoped,” her eyes were that of a cornered animal as she scanned the restaurant, “he would—” She couldn’t go on and realized she was acting crazy. Her legs suddenly felt like jelly.

Joey still had his hands on her shoulders, and he turned her to face him. Something seemed to be warring inside him. It showed on his face. “Calm down, Sis. You’re not going anywhere. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Joey’s eyes said something different. He was scared, too. “Sit down.” He plunked her back on the stool. “I’ll get you some coffee, it’ll calm you, and you can tell me what happened. Then we can decide what to do next. I only wish I had a shot of good Irish whiskey to give you, but I don’t serve booze here.”

“I look that bad?” Jenny asked, between sniffles.

“Yep.”

The cup of coffee trembled at her lips a moment later, as Joey waited patiently for the recounting of her story. She couldn’t stop shaking as she told it.

“There was blood all over his bedroom window,” she finished.

“Good Lord,” her brother swore. “Did you look everywhere, Jenny?” Despair in his voice.

“Yes. Everywhere. Joey, he isn’t there.”

“Have you looked anywhere else besides here?”

“No.” Jenny gulped down the rest of the coffee. Joey got her another cup. “I had better go. Look some more.” She stood up, and this time the determination in her stance told her brother that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.

“Not without me, you don’t,” Joey sighed. “Just let me tell Laurie I’m leaving; she can keep the place going until we return.”

A minute later, as Jenny trudged out the door, her brother, without the apron, was beside her.

“Have you tried Mom’s place, yet?” Joey asked as they got into his old red pickup truck with the bald tires. I’m not letting you drive in your agitated state, he’d informed her.

“It was the next place I was going to look, Joey.”

* * * *

Estelle Lacey lived in a one-room apartment on the other side of town. The complex was dilapidated. The grass outside the front door hadn’t been cut in weeks, and the paint was peeling. There was an oily rag stuffed into a broken windowpane.

Their mother didn’t answer the door and Jenny pounded at it in vain. Joey shoved gently in front of her.

“Mom, it’s Joey, let me in. We’re looking for Dad. Have you seen him?” he shouted through the closed door.

Something was moving on the other side.

“We know you’re in there, Mom,” Joey persisted.

“Mom, open up! We have to talk to you! Dad’s missing.”

“What did you say?” a hoarse voice from inside.

The door creaked open and a gaunt face stared out at them, squinting at the sunlight. “Ernest... something’s happened to my Ernest?” it rasped.

The cloying smell of alcohol could have knocked Jenny down. “She’s drunk, she doesn’t know what’s going on,” Jenny hissed, her desperation making her short tempered, ready to give up. “Let’s just go.”

“He’s not here, neither?” The woman on the other side coughed into her hand, turning her head away from the light. “Hot in here, not feeling too good. Who’d you say you were?”

“Joey, Mom. Remember?” his voice was unexpectedly tender. He sounded like a little boy. “Your son.”

“Oh, yeah, now I recall.” She started to rattle on about things completely off the wall. Bugs that were red and then turned green. How she had to hide from people from Mars who wouldn’t leave her alone. She must have remembered who they were because her mistrust had evaporated. She’d opened the door wider.

“Ah, forget her, Joey. She’s in la-la land.” Disgusted, Jenny spun around, anxious to leave. Worried sick about her father, she couldn’t stand to look or listen to her drunken mother. There wasn’t time. Something terrible had happened to her dad, and time was one luxury she didn’t have. She had to go. The world she knew was falling apart in front of her eyes, and she had to find him and to hell with her mother!

“Wait a minute,” Joey pleaded, catching her arm. He glanced back at the drunk in the doorway.

“Mom, have you seen dad today?”

The woman’s face had been changing even as they spoke, her eyes clearing and filling with fear. Confusion. “No, Joey ... haven’t.” The words were slurred, but, at last, something had gotten through the fog to her.

Then she blurted out, “Ernest is missing? My God!”

Jenny turned and strode away.

When Jenny was at the car, tugging open the door, waiting for Joey to catch up, she looked behind her. Her mother’s worried, white face hovering in that dark doorway seemed a bad omen. A truly bad omen.

For the first time in months, Estelle was showing signs of life, even if it was only fear. It was just a shame, Jenny fretted, that it took something like this to jar the woman out of her self-induced stupor. Also a shame, that at that moment, Jenny didn’t give a damn.

“Where do we go now?’“Joey inquired, once they were in the truck. It was getting hot. The day moving on. Joey’s face was drenched in sweat.

“Oh, God. I don’t know. I don’t know,” Jenny whispered, rocking in place beside him.

“I think we should notify the police,” Joey offered after a minute. “Sheriff Samuels. What do you think?”

“Yes,” Jenny replied, halfheartedly, right before they started off towards the police station.

“Then, after we talk to him, we’ll drive to the farmhouse and see if Dad came back. Check the worksite, that theater, maybe he forgot you and went on to work alone. We should have checked there first.” He went on and on.

Jenny said nothing.

“Then, if he’s not there, Jenny, we’ll look all over town if we have to. Ask everybody he knows if they’ve seen him. All right?”

Still she didn’t say a word.

Yeah, sure. Look. Tell. Ask. Pray. What difference did it make? For she suspected that whatever they did, whatever they tried, or wherever they searched, they wouldn’t find him.

Just like the Albers.

He was gone.

Chapter Ten

August 31

“What are you doing here?” Jenny demanded as she walked in the door of the farmhouse and saw her.

Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, slurping coffee as pretty as you please, as if she’d never run away and left her husband to fend for himself; never pretended she hadn’t known her own children and had never gone on an eight-month booze binge.

“Waiting for Ernest to come back, Jenny.”

“He’s not here. We couldn’t find him.” Jenny choked on the words.

“I know, but I’m still gonna wait for him.” Her mother’s voice was tired. Her gray hair was neatly combed and tied at her neck in a bright blue ribbon. Her eyes were bloodshot, but aware. The old intelligence had been restored to them as well. She even had a clean lounging dress on. Purple with tiny white flowers. Jenny remembered it. It’d been a birthday present to her mother from Jenny’s father a few years past.

With a start, Jenny realized her mother wasn’t drunk. For the first time in years, the woman was practically sober, or as close to sober as she’d been in a long time.

How had she done it alone?

“I’ve come home,” her mother spoke in a guilty whisper.

“For how long this time?” Jenny scoffed, searching for something, anything to hurt her mother as she’d been hurt.

“I’ve come home to stay.”

Jenny looked at her mother’s wrinkled face, saw the truthfulness in it, the regret, and ended up giving her a wan smile. The loving face was as she remembered it.

Jenny stood there rigid, her tall body drained from the heat. She wiped her hand on her dirty white shorts and tugged down her striped terrycloth top. Her hair was falling out of the long braid she’d tied it into early that morning, and a streak of grime along with the sweat shining on her face made her look frazzled.

In the last few days, she’d lost even more weight.

Perhaps the old woman really meant it. God, Jenny needed someone. She needed the mother she’d once had. It felt good to see that woman again, if only for a moment or two, but Jenny was damned if she’d hand her heart back on a silver platter to her that easily. Her mother would have to do a heck of a lot more to earn it.

It was late Sunday afternoon. The dying sunlight seeped in through the farmhouse’s windows, sparkling amidst the dust. It was a warm summer day like so many others before. Outside soon the fireflies would be chasing each other over the lawns.

The two women stared at each other cautiously.

“Sit down, child, and have a cup of coffee.” Her mother finally waved a hand at the chair across from her. “You look like something the cat dragged in.” A faint, warm smile glimmered a second and then faded when it wasn’t returned.

“Thanks,” Jenny mumbled, taken aback by her mother’s cordial tone and the caring in her face. She sat down, too much in shock to protest, too exhausted.

She stared around the kitchen in amazement. It was as clean as a whistle. The floors mopped and shiny, and the dishes washed and put away. The curtains looked freshly laundered. The tantalizing aroma of brewed coffee and freshly baked apple pie hung in the air. Jenny couldn’t believe it. This had to be a dream. Yeah, and the last three days a nightmare. Fat chance.

“I’ll get you a cup, child.” The voice was the same voice that had calmed Jenny when she’d been a child. “And a piece of apple pie. I remembered it was your favorite.”

“Sounds good, Mom.”

Jenny hadn’t slept for the last two nights. She could barely keep her eyes open. She and Joey had searched everywhere for their father. He’d been missing three days now. Jenny’s grief was ripping her to shreds.

She could no longer keep the feud going with her mother.

She laid her arms on the table and rested her head on them. Listening to her mother move around the kitchen, she tried not to cry, but the tears slipped out anyway.

Jenny felt a soft hand on the top of her head, stroking her. “It’ll be all right, honey. Go ahead and let it all out. Go ahead, cry.” Just like when she’d been a child.

Jenny gazed up at her mother through blurred eyes, and suddenly they were in each other’s arms, both crying.

Her mother pulled gently away first and sat down next to her, still holding Jenny’s hand.

“Jenny, I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me. When you and Joey came by the other day looking for your dad, when you said he was missing...” she hesitated and looked away, somewhere out the window, maybe into the past. “Something snapped in me. I realized how much I still loved your dad. It was like someone took hold of my heart and squeezed so hard it took my breath away. It hurt. As long as I knew he was here; that he’d always be here, it was different. You never know what you have, Jenny, until you think you’re gonna lose it.”

She looked at Jenny, her eyes full of love and sorrow.

“With Ernest missing, I couldn’t hide in a bottle anymore, Jenny. I can’t lie no more to myself. I love Ernest. I do. Now I know it. This has made me see just how much. I love you and Joey, too. I did a stupid thing by leaving all of you. I was a fool. My life was a mess because I thought I’d missed out on what I should have been, should have had, but in truth, Jenny, I always did have something special.” Her face quivered, her eyes swimming with tears. I had the love of a good man, the love of my children and friends. That was so much more than I deserved.”

Jenny knew she was also referring to the poor Albers. Somehow she’d found out about them.

“All that really matters in this life, I was too blind to see. Now I do.” She paused, watching Jenny mechanically put apple pie in her mouth and chew.

“I’m sorry, Jenny, if I caused you pain or embarrassment these last months. I was so mixed up. So selfish. Forgive me?”

“Oh, Mom, you’re forgiven. You’re all I have left.”

“Jenny.” Her mother shook her head. “He’ll be home. I know I’ll be with him soon. I feel it here.” She touched where her heart was.

Jenny bit her lip, her face tortured. “Mom, we can’t find him. We’ve searched everywhere. He’s gone.”

“No, he’s not. He’ll be found. He’ll be back,” her mother stated stubbornly.

The two women stared dismally at each other, the words they wanted to say but were afraid to say in the end, unspoken between them. There would be time later.

Jenny stayed for another cup of coffee and another piece of apple pie that her mother urged on her. They talked about the past, the present and what was being done to find Ernest and the Albers. Then she went home.

She was so bushed she fell asleep on the couch, completely dressed. That way, if a phone call came in the night, her dad wanting a ride home from wherever in hell he’d gotten himself to, she’d be ready.

She awoke sometime in the middle of the night, disoriented. Someone was standing in front of her in the weak radiance from the kitchen night light. Jenny glanced over to the door, a lighter slice of night than the rest. The door was open. It slowly swung shut by itself.

Jenny came awake so fast, leaping off the couch, she nearly tripped over herself.

“Whoa!” a familiar voice came out of the darkness. “It’s me, Jenny, Terry Michelson.”

Jenny scrambled to find the lamp and snap it on. Still shaking, she faced her uninvited visitor.

“Mister Michelson? How did you get in?”

“The door was unlocked. You should always lock your doors, especially now.”

“What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” She flopped back down on the couch, rubbing her eyes. She felt strange, as if she were drugged.

“Oh, Jenny,” his voice hypnotic. “It’s not the middle of the night.” He gazed down at her and their eyes met. Jenny felt a deep falling sensation; a cloud settled on her mind.

Something about his eyes, so piercing, so all knowing, took her will away .

He reached out and touched her cheek, his gaze full of sympathy. “I heard about your father. I’m so sorry, Jenny, so sorry. I truly liked him. I had to come by and see if there was anything I could do.”

Jenny wanted to look away because her eyes were filling with fresh tears, but she found she couldn’t. “No, there’s nothing you can do,” she said softly. “We’re doing everything we can.”

“Any word yet from him?” His hands were tightly clenched at his sides, and his jaw was tight in the faint light. Who was he angry with?

“No,” Jenny responded apathetically. “Nothing.” She could finally look away. She yawned, and hung her head. “I’ll be back to work tomorrow, Mister Michelson, I promise. I’ll finish what my dad and I started. I left you a note,” she added at the last second.

“Oh, no, Jenny! I’m not here to drag you back to work. I was worried about you, that’s all.”

“Well, I want to come back. I need to do something. This waiting is driving me crazy.”

Remorse flickered across Mister Michelson’s countenance. “If you insist. If it will help, but take your time, Jenny. Don’t come in until you’re ready.” He was backing towards the door.

Outside the windows, Jenny glimpsed the faint tint of approaching dawn.

“I’ll go now. I only wanted to be sure you were all right,” he mouthed so low that she could barely make out the words. “Jenny?”

“Yes?”

“Lock this door behind me this time, you hear?”

Jenny got up, dizzy, and stumbled to the door, ready to lock it after he’d left. She felt that strange vertigo again.

“And Jenny?”

“Yes.”

“Be very careful,” an ominous whisper. “Stay in at night. Remember. Stay in at night. You are in danger. I cannot stand watch outside forever. Be vigilant.”

She nodded, puppet like.

Then he was going through the door. Gone. Through the closed door.

Jenny shook her head. This must be another one of her crazy dreams. She locked it. Then she turned off the light and sank back onto the couch. In seconds she was as deep asleep as if no one had disturbed her.

The next thing she was aware of was someone pounding at the front door, and it was bright morning. As she went, groggily, to answer it, she wondered about that weird dream she’d had.

Imagine, Mister Michelson coming by in the middle of the night. To warn her. About what? Locking her doors or something like that. She couldn’t remember all of it, but even what she could recall filled her with unexplainable dread.

It must be the strain she’d been under lately. She was dreaming disturbing stuff and imagining things that weren’t there.

Seeing the clock in the kitchen, she cursed under her breath as she unlocked the door. It was only seven-thirty, and she felt like she’d been run over by a Mack truck. Could be it was Joey or the sheriff with news about her dad and her fingers trembled as she cracked the door an inch.

Chapter Eleven

September 1

“Jeff?”

“Yes, it’s me, Jenny.”

Speechless, she had to cling to the door to keep from fainting dead away. In the first few heartbeats after she’d laid eyes on him, her heart had frozen, as the last ten years rushed past her like speeding cars on a crowded track.

Ten years.

He had the same blue eyes, long lean face, shaggy hair curling around his collar. His tall, lanky frame was clad in a cotton shirt and faded blue jeans.

Then she looked harder. There were slivers of gray in his coal black hair, and his eyes were no longer laughing. A large knapsack hung from one shoulder, a smaller raggedy bag clutched in his other hand. He looked weary, road-filthy. Half a cigarette hung from his lips.

At first all she could think about was how dreadful she must look: uncombed hair, wrinkly clothes and no makeup. At first. Then she let her face go hard.

“What the hell are you doing here, and what do you want?” she asked coldly. How dare he just show up one morning on her doorstep, like a starving kitten. How dare he look at her like that. How dare he intrude into her present life.

His face noticeably fell an inch at her open hostility, but his eyes lingered on her and grew warm.

“I wanted to see you, Jenny. Please. Don’t close the door!” he pleaded urgently as she tried to do just that. “Didn’t you get my letters?” That old little-boy-lost look tore up her heart as it always had when they were eighteen.

“Yes, I got your letters,” she snapped, trying to shut the door again. He wouldn’t let her. “I tore them up. I don’t want to see you, Jeff, much less talk to you, you bastard . You disappeared on us over ten long years ago. You left me for another damn woman. For years, not a word. Zippo. Now she’s dumped you and you come crawling back?”

“She didn’t dump me, Jenny. I dumped her.” He frowned. “Years ago.”

“Well, if you wanted to see me, you sure took your time about it.”

“I needed to sort things out ... and I was afraid—”

“Of what?”

He evaded her eyes. “That you wouldn’t see me,” was all he’d say.

She laughed cynically. “After what you did to me, would you blame me?”

“No.” Now his eyes were smoldering. “I only kept away from you this long because I thought you were happily married to that rich lawyer in St. Augustine. I came as soon as I found out you’d divorced him. I couldn’t stay away from you any longer.”

“So? I don’t care. Go away! I only want to be left alone. Do you understand?” her voice was rising. Her ex-husband showing up after all these years and the anguish of the last few weeks collided, and everything blew up in her head.

It was too much. Too much.

“I don’t need you anymore. Go away .”

“Jenny, just listen to me, please! I’m sorry! I made mistakes. Haven’t you ever made a mistake in your life?” His face turned pathetic, his expression desperate. He still knew how to touch her, after all these years. Jenny experienced the old guilt.

Haven’t you ever made a mistake? Of course, she had. Too damn many to count. It made her hesitate, enough for him to get his foot in the door. Literally.

“Just let me talk to you; that’s all I ask. Besides, I don’t have any other place to go, Jenny.” He looked up, but there was mischief in his eyes. “I’m broke.” He dropped his luggage, flicked the butt of the smoked cigarette into the gravel driveway in a well-remembered gesture, and with a clownishly pathetic smile, pulled out his pockets for her to see there was nothing in them.

“What happened to your job?” Jenny feigned exasperation. She had to pretend or she would have fallen apart. This was the stuff of her sweetest dreams. Jeff coming back and begging for her to take notice of him. After all these years. Jenny’s head was spinning.

“I quit it and left. I wanted to see you. Had to see you.”

“ God! Okay. Come in, you bastard,” she surrendered, throwing the door open and padding back into the trailer. Jeff followed, slump-shouldered.

Jenny went into the kitchen. At the sink, she turned and peered over her shoulder as he settled with a grunt of exhausted relief on one of the chairs.

She still couldn’t believe he was there. In the flesh. Real. Oh, boy.

Outside, the sun was blazing and she could smell the heady summer through the open window. Inside, her heart was aching for her dad so badly, she could barely stand it. Where was he now? Was he hurt? Frightened? Alone? Dead? Oh, God.

“You want coffee?”

“Please, Jenny.” His voice saying her name sent shivers through her heart. “Could I talk you into fixing some bacon and eggs if you have any? I’m starving. Please?”

She turned and stared at him, her eyes finally seeing him as he really was. Thin. His face was thin and his eyes fevered. A three-day beard shadow on his face. He looked like a man obsessed. Unhappy. He looked fifty, not forty.

“Jeff, what happened to you?”

She continued to watch him, but didn’t move. Her hands and coffeepot were suspended in mid-air, the water running.

“Bad times, Jenny Penny,” his words were a struggle and so husky she had to strain to hear them. “My job went sour for me a long time ago. My life. I realized after I left you that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I’d been so stupid. To throw away someone who’d really loved me for selfish reasons I no longer can even remember.” He put his face into his hands. He was shaking. Apparently he was saying what he’d wanted to say for a long time and had practiced saying it. “I missed you more every year, I couldn’t stop it. I missed your mom and dad. Joey. Our friends. The life we had, the one I destroyed. The way you loved me and now ...” He was gazing off into space as if he were seeing something she couldn’t. “I want you to forgive me. I want—”

“Stop it, Jeff.” She looked away.

The silence rang in her ears.

Why are you doing this to me? she thought, panicking. After all this time. What was he talking about?

She recalled how much pride he’d had once and knew how hard this must be for him. When he’d left her, his job had meant so much to him. He’d had these pie-in-the sky dreams. He was going to be a wealthy broker and travel around the world, wine and dine his new yuppie wife. He was going to be rich. Have a different life than the poor one that they’d had; the one that he’d run away from a decade ago. The one he felt he’d failed in.

Jenny remained silent. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. She wasn’t sure she could stand digging up the painful past and exposing it to the light. Jeff seemed to understand how she felt, as he’d once been able to read her moods. When they’d been married. They’d been that close. It had made the betrayal that much worse.

She made the coffee. “Sure. I was going to make breakfast for myself anyway. You timed it perfect.” She frowned at the sink, reflecting on other times and places. “You always did have uncanny timing.”

She got the bacon and eggs out of the refrigerator and started preparing breakfast. A large one. It felt nice cooking again for someone. The idea struck her as funny in the middle of everything. She was tired, her head fuzzy from all that had happened. She expected to turn around any moment and find Jeff gone and everything an hallucination, like that crazy dream about Mister Michelson last night.

“I stopped by your mom and dad’s house before I came here, Jenny. That’s how I knew where to find you,” Jeff confessed. “Your mother told me about the Albers and about your dad being missing.” There was a painful edge in his voice.

Jenny froze at the sink, reality dragging her heart from exhausted numbness back down into hell.

“I’m so sorry, Jenny. I know how much you loved him. How much you cared about the Albers. Nothing could have kept me away once I’d learned that, not even your hatred.”

“I don’t,” she told him coolly, “hate you anymore.”

Jeff had been very fond of her mom and dad. He’d known them since he’d been an awkward boy of sixteen. His parents had neglected him terribly, so wrapped up in their own marital and money problems. When she’d met him, he’d been lonely and hungry for a real family.

“I’ve come to help you find them. No matter how you feel about me, Jenny. I loved your dad, still love him, and I really want to help. I’m going to help with or without your consent.”

Jenny swung around from the stove where she was frying bacon, and when her eyes touched his, it was she who was crying silently this time.

“Oh, Jeff, I’m so scared,” she breathed. “I don’t know what the hell is happening or how to fight it. Where to look. Our horses were butchered. People have been disappearing. Something is so wrong, but no one seems to know what. I feel so helpless.”

Jeff nodded, sympathetically, and patted the seat to the right of him. Jenny came over and sat down.

“It’ll be okay, Jenny,” he consoled her. “I’m here now. I won’t let anything happen to you.” His eyes were glimmering with emotions he wasn’t speaking.

Jenny wanted to believe him, but she sensed he wanted something from her, she just hadn’t figured out what it was yet. She wanted to trust him, but he was the one who’d abandoned her and Samantha. He’d let her down before, so why did she think he wouldn’t do the same thing now? She didn’t.

What she’d said before was true; her old eat-out-the guts hatred was waning. Maybe they’d never be lovers again, maybe not even friends, but she could no longer hate him. She’d made plenty of mistakes in her life, too. Finally letting go of all that baggage felt good.

“All right, Jeff, I’ll accept your help. I need it. I’ll call a truce until we find Dad and the Albers.”

Jenny wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, got up, and finished making their breakfast. Too much had happened too swiftly, and she had to have time to think.

When she had breakfast on the table, she excused herself and took a quick shower and got into fresh clothes, while he gulped down his first plate of food. She could hear him eating from the other room. Little sighs of pleasure. Munching sounds.

When she settled back in her chair, they ate together. Her first plate, his second. She felt a hundred percent better, clean and scrubbed, nearly human.

“You know, Jenny, you haven’t changed at all.” He waved a hand at her. “It’s amazing. I look in the mirror, see this gray coming in, and the wrinkles, but you’re still as lovely as the day I married you. A little skinnier, but I like that. Basically though you look the same. Swear to god.”

Jenny felt her face go crimson and tried to shrug the compliments off. “Then you’re blind.”

“I’m not blind any longer, Jenny.” He seemed sincere.

She didn’t know what to say to that.

For a while they merely looked at each other. The years fled by.

“You really were hungry, weren’t you?” she teased, changing the subject, eying him over a second cup of coffee.

“You bet.” He crumbled up a piece of toast and used it to clean the plate, like he used to when they were married. Something about it touched her. “When you’re on the road, you eat when you can. Lately, for me, meals have been hard to come by.” He halted. Again that brick wall. “How about you, Jenny? What have you been up to?” he asked a minute later. “I’ve never seen another one of your books. I’ve looked, too. You stopped writing.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” She put her hand up in a blocking gesture. “Don’t ask me why, either. Everyone does, and I’m sick to death of it.”

“Jenny.” He tilted his head, smiling knowingly at her. “No, you haven’t changed a bit. Still running from the real truths in your life.”

Jenny sighed then found herself answering resignedly anyway. “I stopped writing because I decided it was time to live my life and stop writing about fictional characters’ lives. The price, in the end, was too high, you see.”

“Did I do that to you, Jenny?”

Courageously, she countered with the absolute truth for the first time. “Yes, in a way, Jeff, you did, but to stop writing was my decision. I don’t blame you any longer for it. In fact,” she offered hesitantly, “I’m thinking of going back to it maybe.”

“Good for you, Jenny.” He brushed her hand, almost captured it, thought better of it and drew his hand back at the last second. “I was wrong to have used it as the excuse to leave you.” He leaned towards her. “I long ago realized that I didn’t leave you because I was jealous of your writing, though I was, or because I’d stopped loving you, which was an out and out lie from day one, you see. I left you because I was a weak fool who’d thought his young years, his real life, were passing him by and simply wanted to play around for a while. Teach you a lesson, I guess. Only it backfired,” he said glumly. There was regret in his eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” Jenny snorted. “The other woman turned out to be a vicious shark who then had you by the—”

“Jenny!” he chided softly.

“It’s all right, Jeff. I don’t care anymore. I despised her, and you, for all these years. It poisoned my life for too long. Now I don’t even want to know what happened between you two. It’s irrelevant. I don’t want that destructiveness in my life anymore. I won’t allow it. If everything that’s happened lately has taught me one thing, it’s that life is precious. Time. I don’t want to waste any more of it hating people. Wishing I would or wouldn’t have done what I did. What good does it do in the end?” She was thinking of her mother as well as Jeff.

“Jenny, you’ve gotten wiser with age.” He smiled, and she gave him one in exchange.

“Well, if you don’t write, what do you do?”

“Before Dad disappeared, we were sort of a two person business. Handy people, you might have called us. We painted houses, did heavy duty cleaning and light carpentry work. Pay’s not great, but the work has been coming in steady. We were our own bosses.” At the raising of his eyebrows, Jenny defended herself, “It’s better than pushing dirty plates at Joey’s restaurant.”

“Joey’s got his own restaurant?”

“Yes, he does.”

He grinned playfully at her. She’d been a carhop the summer she’d first met him. “You never could keep that food on the tray, could you?”

She glared at him. “Thanks for reminding me.

“Joey’s had his own place now for the last two years or so. Next to the old Rebel Theater. He’s the owner and cook. Doing pretty well, too. It was a donut shop before. Remember it?”

“Oh, Delicious Circle Donuts. I remember bringing home their glazed donuts for you many a morning after my night shift at the stove factory. Remember? You were addicted to them.”

“I remember,” Jenny’s voice was small. She also remembered how they’d eat them, too, in bed with steaming cups of hot chocolate, after they’d made love. Jeff must have been recalling the same thing, because his eyes were twinkling.

“I bet Joey likes having his own place. I always knew he was the kind to do good at his own business. Could never see him as some stuffed shirt with a tie going to an office every day. An old flower-child hippie, like him. They’d have made him cut his god awful hair.” Jeff grinned again. He’d really liked Joey.

“Yep, he still has the ponytail.” They both laughed.

“You actually swing a hammer, huh?” he asked her.

“You could call it that. Dad does the heavy stuff. I mostly help him. I’m a whiz with a paintbrush and a cleaning rag, the decorating, though. Now with dad gone,” the tears threatened to return, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Jenny,” his voice was soft again, “I’ve been on the move for a long time. Jobs, I took them where and when I could find them. Got involved with some bad people. Hit the bottle for a bit.” His eyes turned haunted. He sighed. “I’m sober now.”

“That’s good, Jeff.” She wanted to reach out, touch his hand in support, but didn’t.

“I had so many jobs in a short span of time that a decent place won’t hire me. I guess you would call me homeless. I don’t have a car anymore. It broke down outside of Denver, and I sold it for traveling money. I hitchhiked here.” Shame hung heavy in his words.

“By coincidence, at times I’ve earned my way by doing the exact thing you and your dad were doing. I’m pretty damn good at it, too. A carpenter friend in Illinois taught me everything he knew, and he was darn good. Remember that shelf I built you? Wasn’t too bad. I’ve learned I have a knack for building things.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding? You? The guy who once couldn’t hammer a nail in straight, is now a carpenter? ”

“Funny, huh?”

They both broke into grins at the same time.

“What a pair we are, Jeff. Two losers.”

“Yeah, what a pair.” She knew he meant it in another way as well. “Jenny, we’re not losers. We’ve both just gone a little off track. Strange the turns our lives take, isn’t it? We think we know where we’re going and, then, damn it all, how surprised we are when we end up someplace else entirely.”

Jenny stared at him.

“My God,” Jeff suddenly exclaimed. “I’ve been here for over an hour, and I haven’t asked about Samantha. Where is she? Does she live here with you, off at school, or is she married?” He licked his lips. “I want to see her so badly. I have a lot to explain, a lot to beg her forgiveness for, as well. I don’t care if I’m still a nobody. For years, Jenny,” he confessed, “I waited for my life to get better, so she could be proud of me. When it did, I was going to contact her, but it never did, and now ten years have gone by so swiftly. When your mom told me about your dad, I knew I couldn’t let any more time steal by. I had to come and see you two; set things right. I had to.” He’d flattened his hands firmly on the table.

“Jeff, Samantha’s been married for three years. She lives up in Seattle, Washington, with her husband, Russell. She already has a child. A boy about a year old now called David.” Her eyes were misty as she talked. “I don’t see her much myself these days, but I sure miss her.”

“Too late again. The story of my life.” Jeff seemed disappointed. “Is she happy, Jenny?”

“Yes, I believe she is.”

Jeff nodded and swung his head to stare out the window, so she wouldn’t see the tears glistening again in his eyes. “Married. With a child. Good lord, I’m a grandpa. Missed the boat. Again,” he muttered. “Story of my life.”

Chapter Twelve

September 1

Jenny made phone calls while Jeff took a shower. She called Sheriff Samuels, only to hear that he hadn’t any clues yet on the Albers or her father’s case.

“Sorry, Jenny, but I got my hands full. It’s gotten worse. You know the West family out past old Stoley Road? They were found dead this morning, all five of them, torn to shreds and—” he stopped in mid-sentence, unable to finish, his voice trembling.

“No,” Jenny gasped, the horrible news taking its toll.

“I’m getting ready to bring in outside help on this whole situation. State boys or the FBI. If there are any more murders they’ll be coming in and taking over, I’m sure. I can’t handle this alone anymore.” The sheriff sounded frustrated and exhausted.

Jeff walked into the kitchen. He looked almost human. She’d let him wash and dry his clothes, what he had of them, in her apartment-sized washer and dryer. Jenny couldn’t believe how few clothes he’d had stuffed in his knapsack.

She covered the phone and told him about the West family.

“Jenny, here, let me talk to him.” He took the phone. Since Jeff had lived most of his life in the area, he and Samuels were old friends.

Jenny listened as Jeff talked to the sheriff about the ghoulish murders and what had been happening in Summer Haven. Their talk was short. The sheriff was needed on a call.

Afterwards, Jeff commented, “Just like you said, he doesn’t have any leads to what happened to the Albers, your dad and the rest of them.”

“I bet he was wondering what you were doing here,” Jenny remarked with a touch of humor. “After all, we are divorced, and you’ve been away from Summer Haven for a decade.”

“No, not really. He didn’t ask.”

“Really?”

“Really. He had other things on his mind, I suppose. What now?”

“Well.” She had her purse clutched in one hand, ready to go. “I need to stop by Joey’s first, to see if he’s heard or found out anything, and then I should get back to the theater my dad and I were working on. It’s nearly done, and I promised the owner I’d finish it no matter what. I’ve already spent three days away from it searching for Dad. I don’t know where else to look, or what else to do. I might as well work.”

“You need the money that bad?” Jeff got it right off.

“I need the money that bad,” she replied sheepishly. “To pay the overdue water and telephone bill and so I can keep looking for Dad. Maybe I’ll hire a private investigator.”

“You don’t need to, Jenny, you have me,” Jeff drawled, leaning back against the refrigerator. “I’ve done my share of private eye work in my travels. Pretty good at it, too.”

Jenny smiled, “What haven’t you done in the last ten years?”

“‘Bout everything and more than you’d ever imagine,” but his words had a trace of darkness to them that Jenny couldn’t help but catch, and it kept her from digging any deeper.

“Can I come with you? I’d like to see Joey and his place.”

At first, she wanted to say no. It was odd having him with her again, but she realized that he had no other place to go. She’d discovered it was nice having someone to talk to.

“Sure. He’ll be glad to see you. He could use something to cheer him up.”

They drove in her car to Joey’s, Jeff making small talk about the changes around their old hometown. Jenny let him ramble on, hardly listening, her mind full of the uneasiness that had settled on her lately.

“God, Jenny,” he said as they drove up in front of the restaurant, laying a hand briefly on hers. “I know it’s not the best time, but still, it’s so damn good to be home.”

Jenny sneaked a quick glance at him, shrugged. “I thought so, too, at first, but now,” she sighed heavily, her eyes distant, unhappy. She nodded at the theater. “That’s what Dad and I were working on when he disappeared.”

“The Rebel? You were redoing the old Rebel?” Jeff’s voice was amazed. “God, the good times we all had in that place.”

“Yeah. I promised Mister Michelson that I’d finish it. Soon. He’s anxious to open it.”

They got out of the car.

“I know I have to have money, even if Dad is gone, and I promised Michelson I’d finish,” Jenny added. “I just don’t know if I’m up to it yet.”

“Jenny,” Jeff offered, “I’ll help you.”

She reached up and shaded her eyes in the sunlight. The weather was finally beginning to act like sea coast Florida weather. It was around eighty. “Jeff, I don’t know.”

“I need money as much as you, and I won’t ask for much,” he pushed, seeing her hesitate, unsure. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, no one to go to.”

“All right, Jeff, but I’m laying my cards face up. I’ll let you stay, and I’ll let you work with me, as long as you understand, that’s all it’ll be. A working partnership. Platonic.”

“I won’t bother you. I’ll stay in a hotel.”

She shifted around to see him better, propped up against the car, a slight breeze riffling her long hair. “Sure, and spend a bundle of money for eight hours on a bed? That’s silly. Jeff, we’re adults. You help me, and I’ll help you. You can stay at my place, free, as long as you’re in town. It’s the least I can do. I have a couch sitting empty. Why pay for a hotel room.”

“I don’t want to impose. I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay for the use of the couch,” Jeff declared generously. His pride again.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I’m going to.” Firmly.

“Okay, then, if you insist.”

Some little voice in her head told her that she was making a big mistake, but she didn’t care. Nothing seemed to really matter since her dad had disappeared, and she didn’t have the heart to kick Jeff out when he was so down and out.

Truth was she needed him right now as much as he needed her. They’d grown up together and had been best friends long before they’d fallen in love and married. She needed a friend now more than ever. And after having lost so many in her life, it felt good to have someone back. Even if it was only an ex-husband.

They went into the restaurant to find her brother. Jenny had been right, Joey was glad to see his childhood friend and ex-brother-in-law again.

Standing back, watching the two reminisce happily, Jenny thought: It’s as if he’s never been gone; as if he belongs here. The three J’s, as Joey had always liked to call them, like the Three Musketeers, back together again.

* * * *

“It’s beautiful, Jenny,” Jeff perused the inside of the Rebel Theater. He ambled around, checking the work that’d been done. “You and your dad have done a good job so far. Beautiful, meticulous work. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks.”

They were in the auditorium at the top of the main aisle with the velvet-covered chairs stretching out before them like a red ocean.

They’d spent an hour reminiscing over old times at Joey’s place, until Jenny could no longer put off work. She’d already wasted half the day, yet she didn’t want to walk into that theater, where only days before she’d been working so happily with her father, so she kept putting it off. Finally Joey had chased them out when his early dinner crowd began arriving, promising to bring them over some sandwiches later for their supper.

“That screen is something, so big. I hate the way the new theaters have gone to those midget screens. Might as well stay home and watch it on the television.”

Jenny heard an echo in her mind. Her dad had said almost the same thing.

“This screen,” Jeff’s voice was full of admiration, “now that’s a real movie screen.”

“Isn’t it?” Jenny agreed.

“I love the smell of this place. A little musty right now, but it smells like a movie house. Ah, buttered popcorn, Jujubes and Raisinets.” He breathed deeply, making her smile in the dimness. “Remember how you used to like those little boxes of Boston Baked Beans? Crunch, crunch, crunch, is all I’d hear next to me in the dark.”

“Well, enough for sniffing out the place and reliving our favorite movie snacks. We’d better get to work, don’t you think?”

Jeff followed her to the silent lobby, admiring everything as they went.

They’d begun painting one of the lobby walls when Jeff shushed her. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Jenny had dripped paint on her nose and was wiping it off.

“Something. It sounded like it came from below us. Something moving around. I don’t know.” He frowned. “Jenny, I have this funny feeling that we’re not alone in here.”

“Ha. Well, we are. The owners aren’t here. They work during the day. Somewhere. What you heard was probably mice or something. Let’s get back to work.”

Jeff watched Jenny thoughtfully for a minute or two and then complied.

She was trying to be all business, not wanting to talk about anything; working with a single-mindedness that scared him. He knew she was at the end of her rope, ready to go over the edge, and he was worried about her.

She’d hardly changed in that respect. When she was upset, she was unnaturally quiet, so they worked in silence until Joey came by with their supper. Like an over protective parent, he insisted they both take a break and sit down to eat.

* * * *

“Not much left to do, is there?” Joey scrutinized what they’d already accomplished from a cross-legged position on the floor at the base of the stairs.

“Nope. A couple more days with Jeff helping, and we’ll be finished,” Jenny estimated. Jeff’s expertise and speed had come as a pleasant surprise. “Underneath the dirt, the old place was pretty well preserved, considering.”

“Have you seen the owners lately?” Joey helped her pack up the remnants of the devoured supper he’d brought them.

“No,” Jenny’s mind lingered an uneasy second on her strange dream, “but I’m sure they’ll be around sooner or later.” She hadn’t gotten around yet to telling Jeff about the Michelsons and their peculiar ways.

“I’d planned on us working late tonight, on the chance that they might show up. They owe Dad and me some money for the extra supplies we picked up last week.” Her voice broke, and Joey put his arm around her to comfort her as Jeff looked on helplessly.

“It’ll be okay, Sis. You’ll see. Dad’ll show up one morning, alive, griping and kicking like always.”

Jenny let the tears glide soundlessly down her face and didn’t say a word.

After Joey scooted back to the restaurant, Jeff and Jenny returned to work.

“That was real nice of Joey to bring us supper over, wasn’t it?” Jeff tried to draw her out.

“Yes, he’s a nice person as well as my brother.”

“Nice people are rare in this life, Jenny. You don’t know how hard people become on the street, how little they care for anything or anyone else—just their own survival,” he remarked bitterly, as if he’d seen and experienced it firsthand.

“I know,” Jenny muttered, turning her back. She knew that Jeff wanted to talk, but in the black mood she was in, and the uncertainty of her feelings towards him, she was purposely avoiding it. She just wanted to be left alone. To work. Get it done, so she could go back to looking for her dad.

Sometime later, Jenny, checked her wristwatch. It was later than she’d thought. She looked outside, the sun had set and night was closing in. Thank God, the heat had lessened the last few days.

“About ready to call it a day?” she asked her ex-husband.

“I’ll say.” Wincing, he flexed his muscles. “I’m out of shape. Haven’t worked this hard in a long time. You’re a slave driver, Jenny,” he bantered.

Looking at his drawn face with the circles under his eyes, she had to remind herself that he’d been on the road a long time; most likely hadn’t eaten right, hadn’t taken care of himself. Here she was pushing him like she was, but he hadn’t complained, not once.

Nothing like the old Jeff.

“You’re right, let’s pack it up for the day.” Jenny bestowed a small smile on him, her heart softening at his tenacity.

“Did you hear that?” Jeff’s body had grown stiff. He grabbed her arm.

Jenny had a handful of rags and had been heading towards the door.

“Not again?” She smirked.

“No, I mean it. Listen.”

Jenny cocked her head, trying hard to hear what he heard. “I don’t hear anything, Jeff.”

“It sounded like someone ... crying ... this time. I don’t know.” He shrugged, a foolish look spreading across his face, then dismissed it with a shrug when Jenny’s irritation level continued to rise.

“Could be it’s only my imagination, but this place is spooky. I don’t remember it as being this creepy,” he said, peering into the dark corners.

She decided to let him off the hook. “You know, last week, with Dad, I was the one who was hearing things. Sounded like someone crying to me, too.” She shook her head, openly perplexed. “Now we’re both hearing things.”

A look of relief washed over Jeff’s face.

“Dad thought it was old timbers settling, pipes contracting or expanding or something.”

“Maude thought this place was haunted, too, you know,” Jeff mused aloud, studying the murkiness at the top of the staircase.

Come to think of it, Jenny had noticed his manner subtly changing throughout the day. He acted jumpy every time there was a noise.

“You always were superstitious, weren’t you? You haven’t changed much, either.”

“No, and I’ve seen some even stranger things on the road in the last few years which has made me more so. Perhaps because of the company I kept.” He fell quiet, his face closing.

Jenny cast him a patient look, waiting for more, but nothing else came. He was being too serious to make fun of, so she responded carefully, “Not me. I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, anything I can’t touch.” She didn’t sound as sure about it as she might once have, and Jeff caught that.

“Ah, not quite the cynic you used to be?”

She refused to answer.

“You know, though, it never made sense to me that you were like that, when it was you who wrote all those ghost books.”

“Two ghost books, and one vampire,” she corrected.

He hesitated and asked, “Has it got something to do with what’s happened around here lately?”

“It might.” She was purposely being evasive. At the last moment, before she moved away, she tacked on, “But you’re right, people do change, Jeff. I’m not sure what I believe anymore.”

Then they cleaned everything up in a comfortable silence.

* * * *

Jenny was washing up in the restroom, and Jeff was the only one in the lobby when he felt someone’s eyes on him.

“Jenny?” he called out softly, thinking she’d come back.

No answer.

“Is there someone here?”

Still no answer.

The lobby was brightly lit, and he could see he was alone, but the uneasy feeling persisted as he went back to what he’d been doing.

A moment later, with a series of tiny pops, all the light bulbs simultaneously burnt out, leaving him in total darkness.

“What the hell!” he swore beneath his breath, his fingers groping towards something solid.

Someone or something brushed up against him, caressed his face. He jumped, falling backwards against the wall.

Again cold fingers slid down his cheek, and he felt icy lips touching his ... and he bolted away like someone had branded him with a hot iron. Too frightened to even cry out.

Just when he thought he was free, it pressed up against him, pinning him to the wall, something with clammy frigid skin and foul breath. Arms slowly encircled him, and he screamed out loud, shoving it frantically away.

He couldn’t get away, it was so strong. Grunting, he struggled against it in vain. His stomach rebelled at the stench of the thing.

It cut his neck! He howled, and with a burst of energy born of pure terror, he managed to wrestle free of his attacker long enough to fumble into his jean’s front left pocket and drag out his lighter.

The flame flared up, bringing his immediate area into a circle of soft light and there was nothing, no one there at all.

Panting, he swallowed hard, his heart racing; his face drained as he touched his hand to his neck and brought away blood on the tips of his trembling fingers.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. The cut wasn’t deep, he could tell that, no more than a scratch, and yet ...

He retreated a few steps in shock, holding the lit lighter, and knowing the stairs were behind him; he collapsed upon one of them. His whole body was quivering.

Where had it gone? How could it have escaped so quickly without him seeing it? What had it been?

A flashlight was heading his way. Its powerful beam chased the shadows off. He shut the lighter and shoved it into his pocket, pulling himself to his feet.

“Are you all right, sir?” By the deep voice, Jeff could tell it was a man. “I saw the light bulbs go out, and I thought we’d need this.”

Jeff had calmed himself, and gratefully took the offered flashlight. “Yes, I guess we do. Thanks. I’ll replace some of the bulbs and that should fix it.”

“I’ll go turn the power off,” the voice in the dark said. “Give me a minute.”

Jeff carefully made his way over to the glass case at the other side of the lobby, where Jenny had laid the package of light bulbs. His hands were still shaking as he pulled out two, and after the man who’d given him the flashlight yelled out that it was all clear, he took the shattered rims out of the sockets and replaced them with new bulbs. He yelled out that it was done and suddenly light flooded the place.

By the time Jeff had turned and walked back the man was there again. Right where Jeff had left him, at the bottom of the stairs, and an older woman with long silverish hair stood behind him.

Jeff wondered how the man had gotten back so quickly after turning the electricity on and then off again. He wondered how long they’d been there. Had they heard him scream?

“Did you see anyone else here?” Jeff demanded, his eyes searching the lobby and gazing upwards towards the empty staircase.

“No. Just us. I’m sorry if we scared you.”

“You didn’t.” Jeff examined them then. Dressed kind of funny, he thought. A tad eccentric. The man had an earring, for god’s sake.

“We were walking in when we heard your distress call,” the man said, smiling. “I imagine being thrown suddenly into complete blackness can give anyone a fright, huh?”

“Yes.” Jeff had started to breath normally again, feeling silly at being so scared. Like a child. “I guess I was a little startled.”

The other man put his hand out to him. “I’m Michelson, the owner. This is my wife, Annie.”

“Nice to meet both of you. I’m Jeff Sanders.” He was openly relieved. “I’ve started working with Jenny.”

“Oh, her ex-husband, and you’re helping her?” The man’s eyebrow lifted over one eye.

“Yes, since her dad’s been missing. That’s why they—she—hasn’t been here for a while.”

“Mister Lacey’s missing? There was surprise in the man’s voice, but Jeff had a feeling that he wasn’t as surprised as he seemed. Though why it should matter one way or another did occur to him.

Jenny reappeared. “What’s been going on? I heard the commotion out here. What happened to the lights?” She stared around them.

“They blew out,” Jeff explained. “Don’t worry. I’ll replace the rest of them before we leave.”

* * * *

Her puzzled eyes traveled to the Michelsons and afterwards to Jeff’s white face. She moved closer to him. She had the almost irresistible urge to slip her arm around him, only stopping herself at the last moment.

“Why are you holding your neck?” she asked him sotto voce, her eyes still on the Michelsons.

“Cut myself, that’s all. It’s nothing.” The petulant tone told her that was all she was going to get out of him for now, so like the light bulb thing, she dropped it.

“I see you’ve met our employers?”

“I have,” Jeff replied in a strained voice.

Jenny flashed him another questioning look, but said nothing.

She faced the Michelsons. “I needed help, and he’s done this kind of work before. He’s very good.”

Mister Michelson smiled sadly at Jenny. “No need to explain. I heard your father’s missing now, too. Jenny, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything we can do?”

Jenny’s expression froze. “Thank you, but, no, there’s nothing you can do. The police are searching right now. Half the town is, too, and so are we. When we’re not here. I’m thinking of hiring a detective, if we don’t find him soon.” She met Jeff’s tender eyes, and when he took her hand, she let him without saying a word. “We’re going to find him any minute, any day,” she announced in a trembling voice, holding back the tears that threatened. “I know it.”

Mister Michelson wouldn’t meet her eyes, though Annie was gazing at her with a haunted expression. “Everything looks splendid, Jenny,” the woman declared, gesturing around them at the theater.

“How much longer will it be before you are done here, Jenny?” It was Mister Michelson this time.

“Less than a week or so, I hope. Jeff’s a fast worker. I’m sorry I haven’t been here much the last few days. I’m been so worried about my dad.”

Annie stepped up immediately to pat her consolingly on the back.

“Don’t worry so, child. We understand,” the older woman comforted her. “Take your time.”

Seeing Mister Michelson and hearing those words, though, had brought back Jenny’s strange dream of the night before. She looked over at him.

“This might be a weird thing to ask, Mister Michelson, but did you come to see me last night at my trailer? Late? You knew about my father being gone, and you said you were sorry and you tried to warn me of something.”

The guarded way he looked around before he answered, puzzled her. “No, Jenny. What an odd question. We’ve been out of town, and we’ve just come back. I only learned from your ex-husband here a few minutes ago about your father being missing.”

Jeff’s hand tightened. He was scrutinizing the Michelsons closely.

“Then I was right,” Jenny said, almost to herself. “It was only a dream. I’ve been having a lot of bizarre dreams lately.”

“Dreams are funny things, Jenny. Sometimes it’s hard to tell some of them from reality,” Michelson stated offhandedly, as he pulled something from his vest pocket and gave it to her. “I think that’s what we owe you so far. Including today.”

Jenny pocketed it without looking at it. “Thank you. I assure you the theater will be done on schedule, as my dad promised.”

“We need to be going, Jenny,” Jeff insisted sternly.

“I know, Jeff.” She glanced sideways at him.

He was regarding the Michelsons now with ill-disguised sullenness. “She’s exhausted. The last few days have been terrible for her.”

“Yes, by all means, Mister Sanders, take her home.” Mister Michelson’s face appeared concerned.

Jeff was practically dragging her towards the door. Jenny felt like kicking him.

“Good night, you two,” Mister Michelson’s voice followed behind them. “Nice to have met you, Jeff.”

“Good night,” Jeff said decisively, right before he shoved Jenny out the door into the warm summer’s night.

Later, back at the trailer, while Jenny was rustling them up something to eat in the kitchen, she sulked. “That was pretty rude of you, Jeff. Dragging me off like that. I wasn’t even finished talking to them. What the hell was the matter with you, anyway?”

“You wouldn’t understand, even if I told you.”

She stared at him from across the kitchen. His scraggly hair was longer than she ever remembered seeing it. It curled at the collar of his worn plaid shirt, framed his face and also brought out the strange blue of his melancholy eyes. He still made her heart quiver.

“Try me,” she tossed back.

Jeff tapped a finger on the arm of the chair. He pushed it away from the table, propping his long legs up on another one. Stalling. He lit up another cigarette. Jenny thought he smoked too much and had told him so.

When he didn’t answer, she put down the spoon she was using to make the omelets, came over to the table and sat down across from him.

* * * *

She’d put on baggy clean shorts and a green crop top that made her chestnut-colored eyes seem even darker. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and the small diamond earrings he’d given her for their first anniversary glittered in her earlobes.

Jeff couldn’t help but be astonished at how pretty she still was. She didn’t look like a woman almost forty years old. She looked like his old Jenny, and for a few fleeting moments, images of the younger Jenny crowded into his mind: a sixteen-year-old Jenny, laughing in the moonlight on her mother’s porch swing; a nineteen-year-old Jenny, hugely pregnant with their child and so beautifully happy, even pinching pennies as they’d had to do; Jenny hunched determinedly over her electric typewriter working on her first novel and smiling that silly little grin of hers as he came in tired from work; Jenny hugging a tiny Samantha, then years later, Jenny weeping, the hurt in her huge eyes, her heart broken, as he told her he was leaving her for someone else. A myriad of Jennys, and he remembered them all. He hadn’t been able to get any of them out of his mind now for years. It’s why he’d come back. God, he’d loved her so. He’d been such a damn fool to leave her.

At that moment, he wanted so badly to reach out and pull her into his hungry arms, but he stopped himself. It was too soon. It might scare her away.

In time.

“Jeff, what is it?”

“Jenny,” he began and abruptly stopped, clasping and unclasping his hands on the table, the cigarette forgotten and burning away in an ashtray before him. Its smoke wisped up in lazy circles to the ceiling. His unruly hair slipped across his eyes, shadowing his face until he shook it back. He couldn’t tell her what he’d really been thinking, so he returned to what they’d been discussing.

“The Michelsons. How long have you known those people?”

“Weeks. Not long.” Her eyes watched his expression sharply. “What’s wrong?”

“Them,” he said bluntly.

“They are somewhat eccentric.”

“No, Jenny, I mean there is something wrong about them. I sense it in my gut.”

Jenny looked away. It was the same feeling she’d had so many times before.

“Jenny, Mister Michelson knew I was your ex-husband, yet I remember distinctly that you never mentioned it to him, in front of me that is. How did he know who I was?”

“I don’t know.” Jenny was frowning, her brows knitting together. “I might have told him about you, I guess, at some time.” The truth was she couldn’t recall mentioning Jeff.

“Well, I don’t like them. They’re not right somehow. I just haven’t figured out how.” He was quiet for a time, then he said, “Let me ask you: when did all the trouble start around Summer Haven?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“How long have they been here?”

Jenny saw what he was getting at. It occurred to her that Maude had suggested somewhat the same connection the last time she’d seen her. “Jeff, you think the reopening of the theater and the Michelsons have something to do with these animal killings and the disappearances?” Her impulse was to laugh it off, but the laughter died before it passed her lips. “Because they’re a little different? They’ve been nothing but kind to me and Dad. Your suspicions are crazy.” As she uttered the words, other unsettling memories nibbled at her. That dream she’d had; some of the things that had happened when she was around them; the way they made her feel. Not to mention that Jeff was right about the timing. Jenny could pinpoint exactly when the troubles and disappearances had begun— about the exact time the Michelsons came to town.

“Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m not. I can’t tell. All I know is that I don’t trust them. Something’s wrong with them. A strong hunch.” Jeff worked his jaw tersely under his skin. “There are evil people in this world, you know. Pure evil and cruel for the kick of it.”

“I know,” she mumbled, distracted by his nearness. She could smell the Old Spice he wore. She’d always loved that on him.

He canted his head and smiled knowingly. “Where’s the nosy writer in you, Jenny? I know it’s still there. Don’t you sense something unusual about them? I mean you’re the one who wrote those horror novels and did all that research on the supernatural. You spent months and months compiling that research.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling slightly. “I remember. There’s boxes and boxes filled with it up in Dad’s attic. In fact, if I recall correctly, you’re the one who first got me interested in the unusual, the supernatural and all the myths that go with it. You helped me collect antique books and information on so-called vampire-killing devices to help me with my first novel. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember, but you’re the expert.”

“Well, the Michelsons might seem strange, Jeff, but that stuff I wrote about was just fiction.”

“Killers aren’t fiction, though. Killing cults aren’t fiction.”

Jenny’s mouth was a tight slash in her face. “You’ve got a point there. You don’t like the Michelsons, don’t trust them. What do you want me to do about it? I need to finish that job. I promised. Besides, the money’s been damn good, and I really need it. I need it to keep searching for Dad and the Albers.”

“I understand. I think we should finish their damn theater and get the hell away from it and them as fast as we can.”

* * * *

His eyes were burning, his face flushed.

There was something he wasn’t telling her.

“All right.” She stood up and resumed making their supper of bacon omelets and coffee, her mind clicking. It was a good thing Jeff had never met Irene. If he thought Annie and Terry were strange, he’d have a heart attack over their youngest daughter.

Jeff lit up another cigarette.

Jenny beat the eggs and milk and gazed out the kitchen window into the night. A thick fog was coming up; it curled like ghostly tendrils up around the windows.

Coming out of her reverie, she said longingly, “I miss the horses.” In her mind she saw them frisking around in the field behind her trailer. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear them neighing and nickering to each other. “They were such good company. Made me smile when I was down.”

“Maybe someday you’ll have more horses.” Jeff attempted to cheer her up, just like the man she remembered.

“No, I don’t think so. There’ll never be another Lightning, never another Black Beauty. I really loved those two old nags, so did Dad. God, I miss Dad so much.” Are you still alive? she asked silently. Where are you? Where are you!

Her back was to him, but Jeff must have seen her shoulders shaking, seen her hand come up to wipe at her face, and he’d know she was crying again. He pretended not to notice because he knew she hated weeping in front of other people.

“I’m so sorry, Jenny,” his voice cracked. She could tell by the anguish in it, he didn’t know what else to say.

Neither did she, so she remained silent.

She put the omelets on the table when they were done and settled down across from him. Her eyes were blurred and red. She wasn’t merely tired, she was heart weary, and she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Thanks, Jeff,” she mumbled softly. She began to eat, gulping her food down in big bites.

“For what?”

“For just being here.” She hung her head, so she wouldn’t have to look at him, and sipped her coffee. After a while, when he didn’t say anything else, her eyes rose to his face.

“It’s where I most want to be,” he whispered back. He grinned at her and reached out a hand to touch hers, as if he were trying to make things up to her, and it was like a slice of sunlight breaking through her brooding thoughts.

“It doesn’t make any difference about the Michelsons. I’ll keep an eye on them. I’ll be careful, enough for both of us, even if you won’t be. I’ll be with you every second and will help you finish that job quick. Help you look for your Dad. No one’s going to ever hurt you again.”

She locked eyes with him, her thoughts on how much he’d once meant to her, how much she’d once loved him and how much he’d hurt her.

“This time I won’t let you down. I promise. This time I’ll be there, Jenny, for you.”

Jenny had a strange and sudden premonition that sometime soon he’d have a chance to prove his words.

Outside in the night, the mists danced at the window. It looked like hateful faces leering in at them. Hateful, like the world had become.

“Let’s talk about other things.”

“You got it,” she consented, relieved.

They finished their meal, chatting about the old days and Samantha. He seemed insatiable when it came to catching up, and she obliged him. It felt good to talk about all the things he’d missed over the last ten years, and she’d missed telling him. Plus it kept her mind off her father and the Albers. The town’s troubles.

A part of Jenny was getting used to him being there already, but another part warned her not to count on him too much, after all, he’d let her down before, hadn’t he? Over and over and over. She was careful how much of her herself she offered him.

She got up to clean their dishes. He was right there at her elbow, taking the plates away and scraping them for her, helping. The old Jeff never would have done that. She noticed the tiredness in his eyes, in his movements. “When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep, Jeff?”

“Ah, I don’t know. A couple days ago.” He yawned, arching his back, a dirty plate clutched in his hand. “Let me wash, dry and put them away, Jenny. That’s the least I can do. You made the supper.” He turned on the water, shoving her away from the sink with his hip.

“If you insist. I’ll get the couch ready for you. Since you seem to be staying.”

“I could share your bed,” he tested precociously. “It’d save you the trouble.”

“No, thanks. I’ve gotten used to sleeping alone. I like it that way.” She’d brushed the remark off as lightly as she could, and hoped he wouldn’t see her blushing. She wasn’t letting him back in that easy. In fact, she wasn’t letting him back in at all.

“It won’t take much to prepare the couch. I’ll pad it with extra blankets so it’ll be more comfy.”

“Thanks,” he replied apathetically.

Jenny left him in the kitchen while she fixed the couch. She could hear the water running, dishes clinking and Jeff out there mumbling to himself. Well, that habit hadn’t changed.

As she made up the couch, Jenny couldn’t stop herself from daydreaming. In so many ways, he’d changed. He seemed sure of what he wanted. More realistic. More compassionate. Harder working. He seemed content simply to be with her.

“It’s ready, whenever you are,” she announced when she was done and walked into the kitchen. He’d finished the dishes, stacked them neatly and was reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in his hands, his shoes kicked off. He looked half asleep.

“You’re welcome to stay up all night, but me,” she said, stifling a yawn, “I’m taking a long hot bath, and then I’m going to bed.”

“You sure I can’t join you?” he tried one last time.

“Nope. See you in the morning.”

“I think I will stay up awhile, read the paper, think some.” He was still a night owl, though.

“Fine, Jeff. Turn the lights off when you go to bed.”

“Except the night light in the kitchen, I remember,” he said before she could finish.

“Yeah. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Jenny.” His voice was a wistful sigh. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I truly appreciate it. I appreciate all of it.”

She nodded and left the room, afraid to meet his eyes again.

* * * *

He listened to the bath water running and moved to the front room couch after switching the television on low, got comfortable and prone, and resumed reading the paper. As exhausted as he was, he had too much on his mind to go to sleep easily. Coming back after all these years, seeing Jenny and realizing he’d never stopped loving her, wanting her back desperately, had shaken him to his very core.

Then all this crap about Jenny’s friends and her father being missing and that weird thing that happened to him in the theater earlier.

Those people.

He finally drifted into a restless sleep with the television on and the paper crumpled on his lap. He awoke a few hours later in the middle of the night.

The trailer was silent. Jenny must have snuck out to check on him, turned the television and lights off, except for her eternal night light in the kitchen, and left him to sleep. She’d covered him with a light blanket. Just like she used to do when they were married.

He was happier than he’d been in years. For the first time, he knew he was where he should be. With Jenny. If he were patient, loving, soon he’d have it all back.

This time, he promised himself, he wouldn’t be so stupid as to let her slip away as he had before. It’d taken marrying another woman to realize what a prize he’d had in Jenny, how truly special their love had been. How lovingly she’d treated him. How good a woman, a human being, she’d been. No matter what it took or how long, he would make her love him again.

Sometime while he’d been asleep, it had begun to rain outside. It was a restful sound.

He smiled groggily and fell back to sleep.

When he awoke, Jenny was in the kitchen, making coffee in the sunlight, calmer and rested. She’d tied her brown hair back with a colorful crinkly thing, and had on shorts and a green top. He followed her movements quietly for a time, his mind’s eye seeing her eighteen again and them newly married.

“Is it okay if I take a shower, Jenny?”

“Sure. Just put it back where you found it when you’re done with it, but hurry, breakfast is about done. Pancakes.”

Jeff chuckled as he headed for the shower. He loved pancakes and she knew it.

Scrubbing himself clean, he couldn’t stop worrying about their dilemma. They had to finish the theater; they both needed the money. He’d decided not to speak any more about his suspicions concerning the Michelsons. Perhaps nothing would come of it, perhaps, for once, his feelings had been wrong.

They also had to keep searching for her father and the others, but Jenny was at the end of her rope.

“Jenny,” he queried later between bites of syrupy pancakes, “you and Joey have done everything you can to find your dad and the Albers. You’re both physically and emotionally drained. The sheriff is doing all he can, so I have a proposition for you.”

“What?” Jenny sipped her coffee, watching him.

“The sheriff recommended a private investigator to me yesterday morning on the phone, a Clyde Foster? Gave me his address, too.”

“Don’t know him.”

“But I do. Used to be a friend of mine. I say we go to his office first thing this morning and hire him to look for your dad. I’ll kick in my share of the money we’ll earn from the theater, if you keep feeding me and lending me the use of your sofa.”

“I see the sense in what you’re proposing. We need money, we need to finish the theater, and you’re right, I’m used up. A few days off would help,” she breathed, her eyes grateful. “I can only do one thing at a time.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I loved your dad, too, you know. We’ll go as soon as we’re done eating.”

* * * *

Clyde Foster was a short balding man, clad in blue jeans and a solid-colored blue shirt with a thin face trapped behind huge spectacles. He had a voice like a mouse, but seemed smart and empathetic. Jenny liked him right away. He remembered Jeff and was tickled to see him. They spent a couple minutes catching up with each other, and then got down to business.

“I’ve seen both you and your father around town, Jenny. Liked your dad. Eat at Joey’s all the time. I know you’re a novelist, a hometown girl, and I’ve read your books.” He smiled at her over the cluttered desk, his glasses slipping down on his thin nose. His office was a mess, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He took the pictures they’d brought of the missing subjects and wrote down the needed information very professionally. “I promise to devote every spare minute I have to the case, gonna give it top priority. I’ve been following the disappearances in the newspapers. It’s worried me plenty. I’ll keep in daily touch with both of you on my progress.”

On the way out, he told Jeff, “For old times’ sake, because I like you, I’m only gonna charge the minimum fee.”

“Thanks, it means a lot to us, Clyde.”

Outside, Jenny shadowed her eyes from the sun. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Yes, and one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. We’re in good hands.”

They went on to work.

* * * *

That morning at the theater they met Mister Maxwell, the projection specialist that Mister Michelson had hired to renovate the projection booth. He and his surly workers were in and out all day, doing their job. He seemed like a decent man, but reserved and solitary. In the time he was there, he barely spoke five words to either of them.

“Hello.”

“It’s done now.”

And “Good-bye”, so they could paint the small room, was about the best of it.

It was the only interruption their work had for the next week. The Michelsons were nowhere in sight. Jeff claimed he didn’t miss them, but the place still gave him the creeps.

They worked at the theater until five or six, and at the end of each day, they checked in with the police and Clyde (he still had nothing) and periodically with her mother and Joey. It became the pattern of their days and nights.

They moved on to the auditorium, painting it, shampooing the rugs and the velvet-backed chairs. Apparently Michelson had ordered new curtains to frame the screen, and when they arrived, Jenny and Jeff struggled to hang them perfectly.

Slowly, as the days went by, Jenny and Jeff became comfortable with each other, became friends again, became close.

They didn’t see the Michelsons again until the day they finished, mainly because so near to completion, they’d stayed later than usual.

When Jeff was busy loading up the car in the declining light that last afternoon, Jenny heard the violin music coming from downstairs somewhere.

Intrigued and determined to solve the mystery once and for all, she picked up Jeff’s pen flashlight from the counter, went to the door on the other end of the lobby, and snuck down the basement steps.

She groped her way downward, using the flashlight, the music drawing her on like a cool flame. When it stopped, she missed it.

“Jenny.”

“Mister Michelson?” Jenny nearly trampled over the man in the dark. He appeared out of nowhere. Jenny tipped the tiny flashlight so she could see him.

Mister Michelson’s eyes shifted through the grayness around them and came back to her.

“Get away from here, Jenny. Far away,” he whispered urgently.

“From Summer Haven?” Jenny couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Why was he acting so nervous?

“Yes. Away from Summer Haven. I can’t take the time to explain why.” He kept glancing behind them into the shifting shadows. “We haven’t got time. Only that you’re in danger here. Both of you are, and I can’t help you any longer.”

“Help me?” Her mind registered what was being said and what she was replying, but a tranquil forgetfulness was drifting into the edges of her reality. “I can’t leave Summer Haven,” she protested feebly, leaning against the wall. “I live here. It’s my home and my father—”

“Will never be found. Like the Albers and all the others, so go, Jenny. Now. Go.”

Jenny raised her hand to her face, trying to shake the encroaching dizziness away, blinked, and Michelson was gone.

Completely gone like he’d never been there at all. Jenny turned, as if following orders, and numbly felt her way up to the light with shivery fingers.

By the time she’d reached the lobby, she’d almost forgotten meeting Michelson. Except for this persistent voice in her head.

Go, Jenny. Now. Go.

Then she saw her father’s smile, he was depending on her to find him, and the words faded.

She never told Jeff about her adventure, because her mind had buried it.

Ten minutes later they were driving to Clyde’s office for their daily check-in, and Jenny was unusually hushed, the bundle of cash Michelson had somehow stuffed in her pocket, final payment, now clutched in her closed hand.

* * * *

“Well, it’s done, Joey,” Jenny pronounced proudly the following afternoon. She was sitting on one of Joey’s stools beside Jeff, eating a tuna salad sandwich and fries. A clear, cool September day with a bright blue sky.

The bright blue sky hadn’t lightened Jeff’s mood any, though.

They’d spent the morning at the farmhouse with her mother playing pretend ... pretend that her husband, Ernest, would reappear any minute ... pretend that the Albers were only on an extended vacation somewhere, and that they’d forgotten to drop the Laceys a postcard ... pretend that everything was going to be fine.

At least, Jenny had reflected out loud thankfully, her mother was still sober, even if she was living in a fantasy land.

They’d fixed the broken window in her parents’ bedroom. Estelle had taped a piece of plastic over it when she’d first moved back in, but the plastic was flimsy and hadn’t lasted long.

“All done with the theater?” Joey whistled. “I’m impressed.”

“Yep, finally.”

“Going to the grand reopening tonight?” Joey asked Jeff, leaning on the food counter. “Have you seen the ads in the newspapers about it?”

Jeff and Jenny shook their heads.

“They’re all over the place.” His eyes smiled at the two of them because he liked seeing them together.

Joey pulled the morning’s paper from beneath the counter and spread it out at the entertainment pages. There was a large ad and an article on the theater’s resurrection.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be going tonight. Some other night. Jenny’s exhausted,” Jeff said. Never. If I have my way.

Jeff snatched the paper from Joey and started reading about the theater’s history, becoming engrossed in it. Then his eyes strayed, and he found the latest article about another missing person. His lips pressed tightly as he read.

“Maybe we will.” Jenny tossed Jeff a perturbed look. They’d gone over this so many times in the last day or so, he knew she was getting irritated about it.

He didn’t want her to go back into the theater now that they were done with it. Not even to see a movie. He couldn’t tell her why, just that he didn’t want her to.

It was stupid. Just a bad feeling he had. A real bad one.

“Ah, well, I need to go looking for Dad anyway. Foster and the police haven’t turned up any leads so far. I can’t just sit around now that the theater’s done and do nothing.” There was desperation in her voice, and her face was pale. The last few nights after work, including the night before, she’d bullied him into helping her search again. They’d gone all over town asking questions of everyone and anyone.

“He,” she crooked a thumb at him, “made me go home early last night.” She didn’t openly cry much anymore, but the strain was in her tormented eyes, in her every movement.

Joey threw Jeff a conspiratorial glance.

Jeff had told him that his sister was having nightmares about finding their father dead. It was turning her into an old woman.

“Jenny.” Joey patted his sister’s hand. “You need to take it easy. You’re a wreck. If you get sick, that won’t help Dad or Mom.”

Jenny rested burning eyes on her brother. “Joey, he’s out there somewhere, I can feel it. Alive. We can’t stop looking, for him now. We can’t abandon him.” There was so much pain in her expression, Joey had to look away or he might have started blubbering, too.

Jeff captured Jenny’s cold hand and met her frantic gaze. “We’ve done all we can. Even the state police are searching for your dad now and the Sheriff is bringing the FBI in since those last murders. There’s nothing else we can do, but wait.”

“No.” It was a heartsick echo of Jenny’s voice. Then she must have seen the pity in their eyes, and she lowered her face. “Everyone seems to be giving up on finding him and the Albers alive, but not me. I’ll look until my legs fall off. I won’t ever give up.”

Jeff could see that the tears were about to fall again, and he squeezed her hand.

She turned and stared out the picture window while he finished his supper.

* * * *

Jeff had been so good to her the last week. He’d taken care of her, helped her, without a whimper.

Jenny couldn’t deny any longer that she loved him and had never stopped loving him. It hadn’t worked once, but now she was different; he was different. Soon they could be lovers again.

She studied his earnest face as he talked to her brother about the Rebel, and suddenly more than anything else in the world, she wanted his arms around her, his lips on hers. She wanted to forget the world.

She met his eyes, touched his arm. “Jeff, take me home, please?”

Joey was grinning like a monkey at Jeff knowingly.

“Okay, Jenny.” Jeff swung towards Joey and lifted his shoulders nonchalantly. “The lady wants to go home.”

“Well, take her then. Make sure she gets some sleep, too.”

“I will,” Jeff said, winking at him, and escorted Jenny out the door into the coming twilight.

* * * *

Jeff lay on the bed and watched her remove her clothes before she turned off the light. Her face was full of the old love, and it seemed to touch him.

He still loved her. Wanted and needed her. She was giving him another chance. His last one.

“To me,” he whispered as she came into his waiting arms, “you don’t look any different than the first time I made love to you. You’ll always be that beautiful.” He breathed the clean scent of her hair. “I love you so much, Jenny. Always loved you. I’ve learned one thing since I left you ... without you, I’m nothing. You’re the other half of me.”

Jenny knew he was telling the truth and felt the tears flow down her cheeks; the ache she’d had embedded deep in her heart for so long was dissolving, like icicles in the summer sun at his loving words. It was such a relief not to have to pretend she didn’t love him anymore. It was heaven. She belonged with him. He belonged with her. For always and forever.

As he kissed her wet face, and as his flesh conformed to hers, his warm hands trembled as they stroked her naked body, and she murmured, “I never stopped loving you either, Jeff. I tried, but I never could. I never loved anyone else; never loved like I loved you. I’ve known that, too, now for a long, long time.”

In the dark they made love, their hungry flesh melting together with all the passion and longing of the first time.

Chapter Thirteen

Later that night...

It was a grand opening. The theater was filled to capacity, and the people were ecstatic to be there. The mature patrons, who remembered the Rebel from when they were young, and who liked horror films with lots of screaming and noise, because that was what was playing, walked through the beautiful lobby and marveled at the faithful restoration and relived the old memories. They stood around in the plush halls and in line for refreshments in their cool summer dresses or blue jeans; the younger ones in shorts.

The popcorn machine was tapping away behind its glass windows, and the delicious aroma of butter and cheesy nachos rose in almost palpable clouds over the crowd, covering the stench from the basement below.

Soda was sold in large bright colored cups. The candy counter was an old-fashioned one but stacked with the latest sweets. Business was brisk, conducted somberly by two older looking pale adults dressed rather peculiarly and behaving as if they’d rather not be there. No one noticed, though. They were too busy talking among themselves or getting reacquainted with old friends, making casual comments about the only show being the eight o’clock late show and how unusual that was. Most of the older ones admitted they’d come mostly to see the place again, meet up with friends, not only for the movie offered.

“This is absolutely breathtaking, Gregg. It looks just the same as when I was a child,” a woman exclaimed pleasantly to her husband, as she passed through into the auditorium and the lights went dim.

“Hey, Carl, get those kids to tone it down a little. I can’t hear the damn movie,” someone in the third row complained to a man behind him with kids.

Two teenaged lovers were smooching in one of the dark back rows, their hands entwined, their bodies pressed close.

Children scurried up and down the wide aisles scuffling with each other, dropping candy and giggling like children always do as the movie’s introduction began to roll.

A group of young college men in plaid shorts and neon-colored T-shirts commented quietly among themselves and gestured with white hands in the soft gloom as the movie started.

“Hey, hi there, Tom! Didn’t know you were going to be here,” uttered a short heavy man in the fifth row. His sunglasses were pushed to the top of his head over his crew cut. He had discovered one of his fellow workers sitting in front of him. “Where’s the wife tonight, hey?” Laughter.

More muted laughter, low talking. The movie hadn’t really gotten interesting. No bloodcurdling screams yet. No murders. No special effects yet.

It seemed like a normal night at the movies with normal people in a normal theater in a normal town.

It wasn’t.

For beneath the crowd’s tapping feet and dropped popcorn, under the plush velvet chairs, beneath the flickering screen, under the restrooms was the basement.

In the basement the vampires waited impatiently. Waited for the movie’s musical score to rise in volume, which it would eventually do, and then they’d hunt.

Minutes ticked away. They could hear the crowd above them, smell the crowd above them, and slowly, one by one, the young vampires went to their knees, on all fours, and metamorphosed into huge wolves that padded silently up one of the secret passages that emptied out into the full, darkened auditorium.

The wolves moved as sinuously and silently as the night, their eyes glittering red coals and their fur rippling over their bunched muscles, up ... up ... into the last tunnel and peered hungrily out into the crowd. Carefully they picked their victims. Old people sitting alone. A young boy there by himself. A middle-aged woman catching a movie before her shift began at the plastics factory across town.

They were good at seeking out their quarry.

As the movie’s soundtrack roller-coasted in volume here and there, and the scenes sunk into near blackness, the furry shapes slunk out between the rows of chairs and hunted. Faster than the human eye could see, wicked saliva-dripping jaws clamped down on vulnerable throats, silencing the victims effectively as they dragged them through the aisles and into the tunnels, before anyone saw them.

Down below in the basement, the wolves hauled the struggling figures into bloody cages. Where no one could hear their screams of horror and pain as the wolves fed ... and fed ... and fed. The wolves were very busy the whole night.

* * * *

“I was wrong. For once Michelson’s made the right move. It’s a perfect cover. The theater. Perfect.” Irene gloated to the others after the crowds were gone as she eyed the haul for the night. Six people, some already dead from loss of blood, their wounds or sheer terror. They were the lucky ones. Of the six caught that night, some were comatose, some were weeping or begging to be set free as they peered out at the vampires from between the wooden cage slats. Cattle. Food. That’s all they were. Their anguish or pain didn’t affect Irene.

“Did a good job on the cages, you two.” She glanced over at her cohorts. She shrugged when they didn’t answer. Oh, well, they were busy.

A shriek shattered the silence as one of the others played a little cat-and-mouse with his victim. Irene’s eager gaze settled on the massive black wolf as its jaws tore at a screaming elderly woman as she tried to drag herself away. The bloody jaws closed down one time too many, and the woman’s body went slack as her severed arm slid across the sticky cement floor.

Too bad, Irene thought, most humans were so puny. A little pain, a little scare, and that was about all they could take. Sometimes the older ones had heart attacks when they were first captured. Not much fun. Weak, repulsive creatures. Ah, well, there was always more from where they came from.

Most would never be missed, and if they were, so what? “We’ll take care of anyone who’s stupid enough to poke their nose into our business, just like we’ve always done,” she hissed to herself. “Just like we’re going to do with that damn meddling sheriff, if he comes around here.” The police didn’t scare Irene. She’d killed her share of law enforcement officers. At least they were more fun. More of a challenge. They had guns.

Michelson wouldn’t dare stand in her way now. She’d taken care of him once and for all.

Irene signaled to the other two vampires. “Leave them. You can finish later. Right now let’s have a little sport. There’s someone I’d like to pay a visit to. Come on, it isn’t far.”

Her lovely nude body moved with the shifting shadows as she floated towards the steps and began to grow fine hair that quickly spread along her body and thickened into a shiny fur pelt. Her blond hair and her human features disappeared. She dropped to all fours as her face contorted with ripping sounds into a long snout full of teeth, and her head grew long pointed ears. What emerged out of the shadows was a great wolf.

It was rare when a vampire was also a shape changer. Not many vampires had the power. It took a lot of strength and mind control to complete the transformation. Michelson and Annie didn’t have the power any longer, but Irene and her two acolytes had the ability to be any number of things. A bat. A spider. A mist. They merely preferred the wolf because of its cunning, speed and strength. Its shock value.

The great wolf stood a second glaring at the cowering prisoners in the cages, its eyes intelligently malevolent as it grinned evilly, its jaws home to razor sharp teeth. It raised its muzzle and howled. The sound was eerie and heart-stopping in the dank dungeon.

One of the prisoners, a teenage girl with curly red hair and frozen eyes, began to sob hysterically as she crawled as far back in her prison as possible. “Please, let me go. My mom’s waiting at home for me and she’ll be so worried when I don’t come home,” she pleaded over and over, wringing her hands. “I won’t tell nobody. I promise. Just let me go. Please ... please ... please!”

The wolf’s soulless eyes fell warningly on the girl’s face, and the pleading stopped. Then, with a toss of its huge shaggy head, the wolf loped towards the basement steps, up them, through the empty lobby, and out into the night. The others trailed behind like gruesome lemmings.

There was someone she’d been wanting to meet for a while, and now was as good a time as any to introduce herself and her friends.

* * * *

Joey locked up after the neighborhood bag lady, Sophie, shuffled out with her bulging gunnysack.

What with the theater’s grand reopening next door, as Joey had earlier predicted, he’d had an after movie crowd so large, not only had he made money hand over fist, but the scraps and leftovers had been staggering.

Sophie had been homeless for years, yet she didn’t mind living on the street. No one told her what to do or how to do it. Unlike the other restaurant and store owners in town, Joey was known for his generosity, so Sophie was a regular. She stopped by most nights after twelve at closing time, and Joey, no matter how tired he was, had friendly conversation for her, hot coffee and leftovers. Sophie wasn’t picky. She’d eat almost anything and usually did. What she couldn’t eat herself she took along in bags for her street friends. There was now a whole community of them since the economy had tanked and died.

Tonight Sophie had stayed longer than usual. She’d been upset at some new city ordinance or something that would keep her and her kind out of the park. As much as Joey liked being a nice guy, he was relieved when she left. He was tired.

The movie theater next door had been empty and dark for an hour, and he’d sent Laurie home thirty minutes before. She hadn’t been feeling well most of the night. Morning sickness, he’d teased her. Flu, she’d teased back.

He couldn’t wait to join her at their apartment.

Joey was yawning and limping as he pulled down the shades and cleaned the place up. He scraped and scrubbed the grill, put away the dishes that Laurie had washed before she left, swept and mopped the floors, and lastly, wiped off the counters. His restaurant was a triple A, and there was no way he’d allow it to slip below that rating.

Outside, the night, slumbering beneath a full moon, had the first tang and coolness of fall, though fall in Florida was always warmer than most places. Joey couldn’t wait to get out into it. He’d been cooped up all day in the steamy kitchen, and he craved fresh air.

He was on his way out, having already switched off the lights as he went, his lightweight jacket slung over his shoulders and the night’s receipts in a paper bag clutched in one hand, when he first became aware of the unusual sounds outside the large glass window. Shuffling, nuzzling sounds, like a bunch of sheep milling together; scratching, like an ice-cutter gliding across glass.

His body was motionless, his eyes seeking out the window into the night.

A thick whitish mist had frosted the glass, filtered silver gray from the diluted moonlight. With the lights on, he hadn’t been able to see it.

It was there now. Vaguely unsettling, the mist churned against the window’s slick surface. It’d be hell to drive through, if it was that bad out on the roads, he thought, disgruntled.

“ Joey, ” a growl like whisper from behind him.

“Who’s there?” he demanded over his shoulder, his eyes sharply gleaning through the darkness where the sound had originated near the counter.

A musty odor in the air permeated his senses, growing stronger every second. It reminded him of wet dog fur.

A growl startled him, and his body jerked. He’d hoped he’d been hearing things, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“I’m in no mood for games, I’m warning you!” He shifted his body enough so the moonlight coming through the window could bathe the area he was staring at.

There was something there in the gloom behind the counter.

He’d never been robbed before, but the thought occurred to him that this might be it. He hadn’t gone to the bank yet. He dropped the paper bag as quietly as he could down by one of the stools and shoved it under the counter with his foot.

A shadow wavered in the corner.

“We’re closed,” he tried to sound brave, reaching over to switch the lights back on. He toggled the switch; nothing happened.

A waft of spectral laughter haunted the room.

The phosphorescent mist had crept inside somehow. It was crawling across the floor, curling up from the space behind the counter, eating over surfaces in its path, until it seemed to be everywhere.

A form began to take shape on top of the counter in the mist.

A grizzled wolf, crouched, watching him with human eyes that gleamed avariciously. A huge wolf.

They grew that big?

He rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers.

It was still there, black-shadowed in the silvery light. Joey couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What he thought he was seeing.

I am real.

The muffled voice came from inside his head as the creature’s eyes malevolently continued to follow him, its black tongue lolling. It appeared to grin then gracefully lifted its monstrous head, jaws snarling back to reveal razor sharp fangs, and howled.

Immobilized, Joey stood not ten feet from the apparition, too damn frightened to move.

It languidly rose, stood and padded towards him with sharp-clawed paws clicking the counter, until it was only a few feet away. It towered over him and its fetid odor was nearly overwhelming.

He stumbled backwards until he bumped against the door. The phantom wolf didn’t move.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” Joey breathed, finally finding his voice, shaking his head. “I’m asleep on my feet; that’s it. And this is a nightmare.”

The wolf, silhouetted in the moonlight, dropped its shaggy head, its eyes following his every move. It snarled low in its throat, saliva dripping from its mouth.

He was either hallucinating or going nuts.

“I have to go home.” He couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. “Laurie’s waiting for me.”

No, echoed in his head, you’re going to die instead.

Not his words.

He found he couldn’t move his feet.

The wolf had insidiously slouched closer. Hate radiated from it, like the foul stench of a dead skunk. Its eyes, glowing orbs in the haze, locked onto his terrified ones.

“What are you?” he whimpered.

The creature’s fur rippled like velvet over iron. There was the crack of bone, a tearing of skin, as it reshaped before his eyes from a wolf into a sylphlike woman with long flowing blond hair, a stone white face, blood red lips and vicious ebony eyes that narrowed in triumph at him. She spread out her hands and slightly bowed her head, as if to introduce herself.

She was beautiful and vaguely familiar, but evil emanated so strongly from her that it tainted that beauty.

Vampire, it hissed deep in his subconscious.

“There are no such things as vampires,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, sweat breaking out on his face. Her fingers pointed at him and began to rise and Joey felt himself lifted from the floor a few inches and gently set back down.

She smiled and bared bloody fangs, and Joey knew without a doubt what she was and what she wanted of him.

In a heart-gripping second, he became a believer.

Then the woman was gone as swiftly as she’d arrived, and the wolf was back, its putrid breath warm on Joey’s cold skin.

“Jesus,” he prayed, “help me.”

Nothing can help you now. I killed your friends the Albers. I killed your father.

He screamed with rage and struggled to break the unnatural power it had on him, trying to lunge at it and throttle its wicked throat, and for a moment, he thought he’d torn free.

Something snatched him high up into the air, his feet dangling in nothingness, and slammed him into the counter, knocking the wind out of him and smashing his ribs.

This time he screamed in pain.

His limp body slid from the counter and fell with a dull thud onto the floor. Sprawled between the stools, he cowered in shock, moaning.

He gazed up with glassy eyes, his mind slipping. The monstrous wolf was watching him hungrily, not three feet away through the stools, slathering.

Joey violently rocked his head, his eyes white with fear, and his tongue swelling in his throat.

This wasn’t happening! Any second he would wake up, laugh at all this, and stride out the door on his way home to Laurie.

Any second now.

The wolf inched closer.

Joey’s heart was jumping around crazily like a wild rabbit in his chest; more sweat was pooling under his hair, trickling down his face. He knew he was going to die horribly but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He thought sadly of Laurie. He loved her, he knew that now, but he would never get the chance to tell her.

Jenny.

His mother.

He grieved knowing what they would go through once he turned up missing, too. He needed to warn them, but he knew he wouldn’t get the chance. Tears brimmed in his eyes and mingled with the sweat. He waited, hardly breathing. Waited for the death stroke.

The wolf scooted even nearer.

More noise outside. Howling.

The wolf’s hellish eyes turned to glare at something behind it through the window.

Outside in the night mist, two other huge wolves with gleaming fangs stood sentinel, growling and whining, waiting also.

The wolf, inches from him, seemed to be communicating silently with them, and Joey, seeing perhaps his last chance to escape, took it.

Forcing his crippled body to move quickly, ignoring the agony, he scrambled on his hands and knees towards the door away from the apparition guarding him.

He had his sweaty hands on the doorknob, and swearing under his breath, had gotten the door open. He’d hauled his broken body to its feet, when the window crashed in. Glass shattered everywhere around him, tiny knives sliced into his skin and drew blood.

Without a look back, he torpedoed himself through the open door and out onto the sidewalk, barely running upright. His only thought: escape.

Run. Run!

He tripped over something in his path and fell to his knees, his hands reaching out on the concrete in front of him so he wouldn’t land face down.

His eyes flew open in horror as he recognized the thing he’d stumbled over. A body.

Pieces of a body scattered over the sidewalk. His fingers touched the roughness of a gunnysack.

Sophie.

In the bright moonlight, he could see the unattached arms and legs. There didn’t seem to be much blood around.

Joey lurched to his feet and threw himself into the night.

A moment later something landed heavily on top of him, his bad leg gave out, and he collapsed to the concrete like a fly under a flyswatter.

His wail of stark anger and pain crescendoed into the night as jaws pierced through the bones of his left hand and drug him, kicking and shrieking, into the shadows.

* * * *

Later that night, Jenny snuggled up against Jeff’s back, amazed at how good, how right their lovemaking had been.

The trailer was dark, except for the night-light in the kitchen. They were in Jenny’s room, in Jenny’s bed. It was as if they’d never been apart from each other, as if the lost years had been nothing more than a fleeting memory.

For the first time in a long time, Jenny felt whole again. Felt almost safe and right with the world.

She wanted to tell Jeff what she was feeling, but instead, she heard it coming out of his mouth, “Jenny, I’ve found what I’ve been searching for. You. You’re my missing part.” He shifted in the bed and studied her in the half-light, his arms securing her. She could feel his breath warm and sweet on her face. “Jenny, I love you. I never stopped. Years ago, with you, I had what I needed right in front of me, but it took losing you for me to see that. Please believe me?”

There was so much tenderness in his voice it made her want to cry. She’d finally accepted that he did love her, and that she’d always known, hidden in a deep recess of her heart, that someday they would end up back together.

It was that it’d taken so long, she’d nearly given up hope.

“Jenny?” He pulled her closer, his bare skin hot against her flesh. “Nothing to say? You usually have so much to say.”

She could sense his apprehension. He was waiting for her to let him know where he stood. Ah, so the shoe was on the other foot this time.

“Jenny,” he sounded hurt, “are you still mad at me for what I did to you?”

It was the first time he’d actually asked her that. She was quiet for a moment or two.

“I hated you,” she said in a hesitant voice, “for a long time.”

“It wasn’t just that you went to bed with another woman. I could have taken that. No, it was when you told me you loved her, not me and you never loved me ... and married her. By doing that, you betrayed me in a far deeper way, betrayed everything we’d ever had and what we could have had. “I don’t know if you’ll understand this but when you left, Jeff, you took a part of me with you. Memories. My youth. Memories of our high school days; making out in the back seat of your old Chevy; the special times we had together with my friends and family; and the way I used to look and smile at sixteen. Our first Christmas together. Our happiness. Samantha when she was a tiny baby.”

Jeff was silent beside her.

“Or the way it feels at eighteen to make love for the first time with the love of your life. You have those memories of me, no one else does or ever will. So many moments I could never recapture. Moments you tainted, I’d thought forever, by your betrayal. When you walked out on me, you took them with you. Worse, by leaving, it was as if you were telling me that the special love I thought had existed between us had all been a lie. Our life, everything. A lie. Your leaving voided all that had come before. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Jenny was weeping by then, the tears splashing down her face, as her body quivered. She couldn’t stop the words, though, once she’d begun. “You promised to love me forever. I couldn’t believe that you had never loved me as you said. It hurt so much.”

He gathered her into his arms tightly, rocking her, and whispered, “I lied. God, Jenny, I’m so sorry. I never stopped loving you. I was only trying to hurt you. It helped me to walk away with less guilt if you were mad at me. Hated me. I was a fool.” He kissed her on her lips, as if to wipe the hurt away. “That’s behind us now. Don’t hate me anymore. Forgive me. Love me. I’m so tired of not being loved,” he admitted.

“You’ll never leave me again?” Jenny probed between sniffles, snuggling up closer to his naked body.

“Never.”

Jenny kissed him.

“I love you, Jeff. I always have and I always will, heaven help me.”

They made love again and went to sleep in each other’s arms.

It was later in the night that they heard the crying outside the trailer.

“What is that?” Jenny mumbled, half-asleep, into Jeff’s warm back. “A sick cat?”

“Don’t know,” Jeff mumbled back.

It was louder now, pathetically human. Someone was knocking weakly against the door.

Jenny sat up in bed, fear silencing her. She touched Jeff’s arm for comfort before he got up and tugged his jeans on.

“I’ll go and check it out.”

He stumbled to the kitchen, switching on lights, and grabbed a flashlight from under the sink. He went to look while Jenny was slipping on a robe.

“My God, it’s Joey!” she heard him yell from outside. “My God, he’s been hurt. Call an ambulance, Jenny! Now!”

Jenny ran to the phone and made the call then ran to help Jeff drag Joey inside. They gently laid him on the couch. He was a mess, cuts and bites over his hands, arms and face. Blood everywhere.

He was hysterical, or so Jenny thought. He was raving.

“Vampires, Jenny. Help me! Don’t let them get me!” he groaned, curling up on the couch like a frightened child, his expression one of dread.

“I saw them!” Her brother’s eyes were terrified. “They ... were ... wolves!”

The sound of an ambulance’s siren droned louder and louder as it traveled from across the city.

“Joey, it’s okay. I’m here.” Jenny leaned over and hugged him. Jeff had found a towel to help staunch the blood from the nasty punctures on Joey’s hands. He held it tightly over the wound as Joey thrashed about.

“You’re safe now.”

Joey’s eyes cleared and focused panic-stricken on first Jenny then Jeff. He was obviously fighting to remain conscious.

“No ... not safe. None of us. You know the missing people? They took them. Vampires.” He grabbed at her arm, and yanked her down so he could whisper in her ear, “... killed Dad, Albers ... but he saved me.”

“Who saved you, Joey?” She was cradling him in her arms.

Before he could answer, he passed out.

“God, Jeff,” Jenny gasped. “What the hell was he talking about, and why was someone trying to kill him?”

Jeff didn’t have time to respond, because the ambulance arrived, and they were too busy watching the attendants trying to save Joey’s life.

Chapter Fourteen

September 7

“God, I can’t take much more of this.” Jenny stared glumly out the car window into the dawn. The sun was coming out from behind the earth’s rim.

In a few minutes it would be a new day.

Her face was drawn. Her gestures draggy as she leaned her head against the leather seat and cradled her face in her hands.

They’d spent half the night in the hospital waiting room or pacing the hallways while the surgeons worked over Joey in Intensive Care. He’d been hemorrhaging when they arrived.

Jenny, with the same rare blood type, AB-, had donated blood, and the doctors had done their job; Joey had made it. Now fatigue hung on Jenny like grief.

The worse of the cuts and bites would leave scars. He had a couple of busted ribs and a broken left arm. The doctors were mystified over the bites on his hands and body, and his deep coma, and had no explanation for the causes.

Jenny had called Laurie and then had had her hands full the rest of the night with the hysterical young woman. Until last night, Jenny hadn’t realized how much Laurie loved Joey. Now she knew.

They’d sent her home to get some rest.

“I was so afraid there for a while that he wasn’t going to make it.” Jenny’s eyes were closed, but she returned the squeeze as Jeff encircled her left hand with his strong right one.

“I had no doubt that he would.”

Jeff released her and turned the key. The car roared into life, and they left the hospital behind, Jeff squinting. The bright sunlight hurt his eyes.

“Where are we going?” Jenny looked over at him. “I thought we were merely coming out for fresh air.”

“Jenny, you need to rest, too,” Jeff argued. “You look half-dead. Joey doesn’t need you now. They’ll call us when he regains consciousness.”

Jenny had stopped listening.

“Jenny, I’m taking you home now.”

“No, Jeff. Not yet. Joey said something about the other missing people, about Dad and the Albers being killed. Someone must have a hell of a grudge against either my family or me.” She bit her lip, something she involuntarily did when she was ready to collapse. “I have to have answers, or I’ll go crazy.”

Jeff started to protest, but Jenny reached over and touched her fingers to his lips, shushing him.

“I know, I know. How would Joey know anything about any of that? I don’t even want to hear it.” She raised her hand as if to ward off his disapproval.

Jeff glanced at her, and his expression reflected her struggle. She hadn’t decided what to believe yet. Joey’s appalling injuries, the shock of the attack, had upset her almost beyond her endurance.

“I think the place to start would be Joey’s restaurant. Whatever happened last night probably originated there. He was working last night. I want you to take me there. Now.”

Jeff shook his head. “I think you’re being rash. You saw what your brother looked like. You heard what he was saying. There are other people missing, not only your dad and the Albers. I know, I’ve been reading about them in the newspapers. This isn’t a game, Jenny,” he commented gravely. “I don’t know why, but I think we’re in great danger. All of us. Just like Joey said.”

“Joey was delirious, out of his mind with fear and pain. You don’t really buy that vampire story, do you?” She heard her voice come out timid, unsure.

“Joey wasn’t delirious, he was in extreme pain,” Jeff contradicted her, uneasily.

“I think you should let the police take care of what’s at the restaurant, Jenny, and we should go home.” His words were adamant.

“Jeff, someone or something is terrorizing this town and kidnapping my family and friends. Someone did that to Joey, and by God, I’m going to find out what or who before it does it to someone else. Now take me to Joey’s restaurant, or I’ll kick you out of my car and go by myself,” she retorted, angrily.

He turned the car around and headed in the appropriate direction with a face closed in dismal contemplation.

She sneaked anxious looks at him as they drove through the empty town. He was mad at her, but she couldn’t really understand why. Didn’t he want to find out the truth? Didn’t he want to catch the ones doing this?

It suddenly hit her.

“You believe Joey,” Jenny uttered with a groan. “You believe there might be vampires behind all this? Vampires?” She didn’t laugh, though. Too many strange and horrible things had occurred for her to do that anymore. At the moment she was no longer a skeptic, though still not a true believer. Yet.

Instead, she offered her idea of a plausible alternative: “How about someone who thinks he’s a vampire, Jeff. A nut case? They can be pretty damn strong.”

“You think only one person is behind this?” Jeff seemed astonished.

“Well, maybe more than one?”

“All nuts, huh?”

He met her eyes, and she tried to hide the fear in their depths.

“Do you want me to drop you off somewhere, Jeff? You don’t have to come, you know.”

“Wherever you go, Jenny, I go. I told you that. I’m not leaving you alone to face anything anymore.”

She remembered his promise and nodded.

He was nearly there when he turned at an intersection and parked the car before a local donut shop.

“Before we do anything, Jenny, I have to have a cup of coffee and something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. We can eat them on the way.”

“That’s a smart idea. I could use food myself. It might wake me up.” It crossed her mind that there would be plenty of food at the restaurant, but then just as quickly she dismissed the idea. Heavens knew what they’d find there. Better to pick up something to eat somewhere else. She got out of the car and followed him into the shop.

Sometime later she and Jeff were surveying the damage at Joey’s restaurant with Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee balanced in their hands, the donuts long gone.

“Look at this mess, would ya?” Jeff snorted, shoving broken glass around with his shoe on the sidewalk outside. “The picture window and the door smashed to smithereens.” He gulped down the last of his coffee and tossed the cup into a nearby trash can on the sidewalk. “I’m getting tired of fixing windows.”

“At least we know where some of his wounds came from. I wish I knew what happened here last night and why.”

Shading his eyes, he bent over and stared inside. “Not too bad in there, though. It can be fixed easily enough, with a little money and some elbow grease.”

He’d walked to the door and carefully reached his hand through the broken glass to unlock it. He opened it and went in, flipping the Open sign to Closed .

Jeff trailed Jenny inside, and they picked around in the rubble.

He retrieved the brown paper bag from beneath a stool. When he opened it, he whistled.

“Not robbery.”

Jenny took the bag from him.

“Then what?” She looked around. She was fuming inside, itching for a fight, feeling powerless and frightened but did her best to hide it from Jeff. “Do you have any thoughts on who it was Joey was talking about last night?”

He wouldn’t answer at first.

“Jeff?”

“Well, the Michelsons come to mind right off.” There wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face.

Her mouth fell open, and she was about to refute him on his outrageous accusation when Sheriff Samuels drove up in the squad car, strobe lights whirling.

She stepped through the shattered window to meet him.

“Morning, Jenny. Jeff,” the sheriff said, after he dragged himself from the car and trudged up to them in the sunlight.

“I heard about your brother, Jenny. I’m real sorry. The hospital told me he was going to make it, though. I’m glad.” He was eying the rubble, but didn’t seem to notice any of it, as if it wasn’t important. “Seems like someone around here doesn’t like your family none too well.” He dropped the half-smoked cigarette from his fingers to the sidewalk and ground it out slowly with his boot.

He looked like he’d been up all night. His face was unshaven, his uniform wrinkled and stained, but that wasn’t what got to Jenny.

It was the expression of helpless sorrow on his face. “I’ve been looking for you for over an hour, since you left the hospital.”

Jenny felt her muscles clench. A terrible forewarning washed over her, that she was about to hear something that would be so horrendous nothing would ever be the same once she had. She had the urge to cover her ears and slam her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to hear it, though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Instead, she waited for what the sheriff had to say.

“I just got back from the morgue, Jenny. I’m so sorry.” He reached out a hand to her in a gesture of pity, his eyes skipping to Jeff, as if he couldn’t stand to meet hers.

“About what?” She blurted out in a squeak.

“We found your dad’s body this morning out in Satter’s old barn at the edge of the property. Looks like he’s been dead since about the time you reported him missing. Found the Albers’ bodies, too. By the looks of ‘em, they’ve been dead for weeks. God, Jenny, I’m so damn sorry.”

* * * *

Later, after the Sheriff had left and there’d been a visit to the morgue to officially identify the bodies, Jeff lovingly wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed.

When her tears slowed, he released her and clumped around in the kitchen, making cups of hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows on the top as she liked it. He paused thoughtfully by the blackened window, steaming cups in hand, and listened to her restlessly moving around in the bedroom.

They’d finally gotten back to the trailer for that rest he’d said she’d needed twelve hours ago.

They’d had to go to the morgue first. It’d been heart-wrenching and grisly. The bodies had been badly abused, had decomposed. They were barely recognizable. For as decayed as they’d been, the bites and scratches hadn’t been completely invisible. Jenny had broken down, and Jeff had had to take her away fighting in his arms, weeping as if her heart were broken.

Afterwards they’d had the unenviable task of driving out to the farmhouse and telling Estelle that her husband and oldest friends were dead, and that Joey, her son, was in the hospital in intensive care after a hideous assault.

They’d briefly discussed funeral arrangements and Joey’s condition. Estelle had taken everything pretty well, or so Jeff and Jenny had thought, until as they were ready to leave for the hospital to check on Joey, Jenny’s mother had said, “Jenny, honey, everything’s gonna be all right, as soon as your daddy gets back. He’ll take care of all of it, like he always does. You know? Don’t you fret. Since I’m not feeling so well, you two go on to the hospital to see Joey. Send him my love. Tell him he’s gonna be just fine. He’ll know better next time to race that bike of his across Morley Avenue trying to beat the cars. Tell him that me and his daddy will be up to the hospital later tonight, when I’m not so tired. I think I’ll go take a lie down now.”

Jenny hadn’t disputed her mother as she’d shuffled out of the room; she hadn’t the heart to hurt the old woman any more than she already was.

“Hopefully tomorrow she’ll have it straight in her head, and we’ll take her to the hospital to see Joey.” Jenny made excuses for her. Another truth was she didn’t have the strength to cope with her own emotions, much less her mother’s delusions.

Jenny had insisted on seeing Joey again at the hospital, for reassurance, before they went back to the trailer. As if seeing her father and the Albers dead had filled her with dread that Joey had died on her in the meantime, too. Jenny had stood over her brother’s blanket-covered body, talking to him as if he could hear her. He couldn’t. Joey hadn’t come out of his coma yet. His left arm was in a cast. His face was swollen all out of proportion. She cried, holding her brother’s one good hand, until Jeff had forced her to go home.

She’d been so grief-stricken she couldn’t sleep. She told Jeff she kept reliving the last few weeks and blaming herself for not looking harder, for not finding and saving the Albers and her father.

“It’s my fault they’re dead. My fault,” she’d kept saying. “Poor Joey. I should have known he’d be next. Somehow.”

She was making herself sick with blame. Sick with wondering if Joey was going to pull through.

Jeff walked into the bedroom, his thoughts on how he was going to keep Jenny from going over the edge.

“Here, sweetheart, I made you some hot chocolate.” He handed her the cup, and she turned a tear-streaked face up to him in the lamp’s soft light as she reached for it. She was sitting cross-legged in her nightgown in the bed, her hair wispy and loose, her eyes red rimmed from weeping.

She’d never looked lovelier or more vulnerable.

He settled down on the bed beside her with his hot chocolate, and they sipped together silently for a moment or two.

“Back at the restaurant, Jeff, before Samuels arrived, you talked about the Michelsons, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Why?”

“I ... I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”

She leaned her head up against his shoulder. He nuzzled her fragrant hair, sliding his arms around her.

“Come on, Jeff?”

“Ah, Jenny, I didn’t want to tell you this. You’re going to think I’ve gone off my rocker. More than you already think I am.”

“No, I won’t. I’ve known for days that something’s been bothering you. It has to do with the theater, the Michelsons, doesn’t it?”

“It does. The last day we worked on the theater something strange happened, and it scared me.”

Jenny pushed away from him and searched his face. He was serious. “Tell me.”

“It was the end of the day and we’d stayed much later than we usually did. You weren’t in the lobby, you were off doing something, cleaning up, I think. The light bulbs all exploded.”

“I remember.” There was an expression he couldn’t read on her face. “I came out and you were talking to Annie and Terry Michelson, but you seemed distracted, and you ushered me out of there so quickly it made my head swim.”

“I was distracted. I never told you what had happened before you’d come out. When the lights went out like they did, something in the dark grabbed me, Jenny. It bit me. Not hard. It’s nearly healed now.” He brought his hand up to his neck as if remembering the wound. “I fought with whatever it was. God, it was strong, and it smelled awful. I can’t even describe how terrified I was.” His voice broke.

Jenny reached out and caressed his face.

“I finally got away from it and managed to pull my lighter out of my pocket, but when I snapped on the flame ... there was nothing there. Nothing.”

Jenny was staring at him, her mouth slightly open.

“I don’t scare easily, Jenny,” he swallowed, “but that scared the hell out of me. That place scared the hell out of me and the Michelsons own it. That makes them suspect in my book, if nothing else. Then I met them and they gave me the willies, like I told you. Do you believe me?”

In Jenny’s mind she kept seeing things: the Albers’ empty house after they went missing, the horses butchered in the field behind her trailer, and her father’s mutilated body. Under it all, buried so deep she couldn’t quite call it up, was something... something about Mister Michelson. The violin. The basement. That last day on the job when she’d found that money in her hand when she got home, money she couldn’t recall receiving. Damn, why couldn’t she remember!

“And to point out, as you yourself must know, it’s been since the Michelsons came to town, almost to the day, that the disappearances and murders have been occurring. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t kept score.” She was so tired of grief, tired of the mysteries. Down to her bones tired.

“Do you believe me when I say they have to have something to do with what’s happened?”

“Yes, I believe you,” she murmured uncaringly, and reached up and pulled him down to her on the bed. She kissed him lingeringly, almost afraid he would suddenly vanish as well.

Her heart under his was pounding.

“Jenny, you need sleep,” Jeff told her and kissed her back more intensely than she believed his weary body was capable of.

“No.” Jenny tightened her arms around him. “I need you.” Losing those you love to death always made you cherish those left behind even more. Jenny’s world was dwindling, and she was clinging to anything that would keep her from sinking into the mire of despair.

She reached over and switched the light off.

The whole time they were making love in the dark, she cringed inwardly at every little noise, worried that, for them, too, time might be running out.

Chapter Fifteen

September 7

He’d gone too far this time, and as he awoke, he understood that if nothing else. Memories from the night before crowded in on him: snatching Jenny’s brother away from Irene and the others as Annie created a diversion; whisking him away to safety.

They had been furious! They’d searched fervently for their lost prey, and then had gone on a rampage when they realized the human had escaped, or so they’d believed. After they’d stopped searching, he’d taken Joey to Jenny’s.

Annie had spied on the other vampires, hidden away, and had told him about it when he’d returned. If they discovered that he’d been behind saving the human, they would destroy him and his beloved Annie.

He’d feared that Irene would go after Jenny, so he’d trailed the young ones that night and had ended up saving Joey instead.

He’d killed over the centuries. He’d killed many. He would kill more, but for his life’s blood. Not cruel sport.

Watching them torture that poor boy had been too much. He’d had to do something, and so he had. Stupid, stupid of him.

He sat up in his coffin, naked, the rim of rust-colored blood receding to a lower level as he did. The blood was an old trick he’d learned from another ancient one centuries before. It helped revitalize him as he slept, especially when there hadn’t been a kill for him the night before and when he knew he’d need his full strength upon waking.

The blood didn’t cling to his skin. He didn’t need to wipe it away for it ran off as if his skin were oiled. He reached over to a chair, collected his velvet robe and slipped into it.

The basement below the theater was musty. He loathed the dankness and coldness of it, though now there were candles flickering eerie shadows across the brick walls of his chamber.

The massive wooden door stood slightly ajar, and through the slice he could see some of the cell-like wooden cages that Irene and the others had been constructing.

Horrid cages for their future victims; the ones she wanted to torture or just feed on when she was too lazy to go out and hunt. The cages were an abomination to him, but he hadn’t worked out a way yet to stop her without signing his and Annie’s death warrants.

Mercifully, he’d been able to speed along some of the inhabitants’ inevitable deaths. Irene didn’t know about that, either. It was only a matter of time before she caught on. What he’d do then, he had no idea.

He moved into the chamber adjacent to his. The other coffins were open and empty.

Irene and her followers were waiting for him.

“I lost a victim last night.” Her voice was full of venom. “He just vanished.”

“It happens. Sometimes they do escape.”

“Not to me.” A look of hatred spread over her ivory face, and she stepped from the shadows.

“I should destroy you,” she whispered.

Candy and Tomas leered at him, standing back. Apparently they’d been waiting a long time for this. By the gleeful glint in their eyes, he accepted that he couldn’t count on them for help.

“Irene,” Michelson responded patiently, “you would have made a terrible mistake if you’d killed that boy. It’s unwise, even dangerous, killing our neighbors. The authorities would be swarming all over the restaurant and eventually the theater. The way I figure it, I saved your neck as well as the rest of ours.” He glanced at the others.

No response. Things had changed. When? The power had shifted. It was no longer his.

Whatever sickness Irene had suffered from in Boston, the weakness that had almost been her downfall seemed to be gone now. She no longer needed him.

“I can take care of myself. Even if they suspect, they can’t touch me. They can’t hurt me. I’m too strong for them. You and she are the only ones who seem to be afraid.”

Her virulent gaze brushed past Annie, who’d risen from her own bloodless coffin and was hiding behind Michelson, and came back around to Michelson.

“You won’t snatch another victim from me.”

There was a rippling shift in the air, and Annie began to groan, her frail hand letting go of his shoulder.

Michelson glanced back at her.

His one true weakness and Irene knew it.

Annie’s hands were at her throat, her eyes now locked with Irene’s, slowly filled with pain.

Michelson could feel Annie’s torment.

“Stop it, Irene! Leave her out of this!”

He reached for Annie, but she shoved him away, threw her hands up to her face and screamed. The cry of someone in agony.

“My blood’s on fire ... it’s burning ... please, stop her!”

Annie had never wanted to be one of them. She’d despised him for years for making her so, but it was her gentleness that had, in the end, changed him. Now, because of his stupidity, she was suffering.

He should never have saved Irene. He knew that now, but it was too late.

Annie fell to the floor, begging for the very undead life she’d once abhorred, as her blood boiled beneath her alabaster skin. It began to seep through her pores, through her gown, and in the beat of a heart, she was covered in her own blood. She could no longer scream, only whimper and writhe on the sticky floor at Irene’s feet. A lump of bloody flesh.

Michelson desperately tried to stop Irene, but no matter how he centered his power, his thoughts, Irene was untouched.

She laughed at his feeble attempts.

He dropped to his knees, taking Annie into his arms. She was terrified; unused to pain after all these years.

It occurred to Michelson that possibly Irene had always had the power to take him on, but had been playing sadistic games with him. Waiting for the most advantageous time to confront him.

Annie’s blood flowed across the cold cement and he knew that soon she’d be beyond help.

“Punish me instead! I’m the one you’re angry at.”

Annie continued to moan incoherently in his arms.

“Stop it, Irene. You’ve proved your point,” Michelson capitulated, his spirit beaten. “Let her go. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.” He couldn’t bear to see Annie suffer any more.

“Ah, in the end, I knew you’d see things my way.” Irene’s tone was smug.

Annie collapsed in his arms, her torment halted.

“I didn’t hurt her that badly. She’ll recover quickly.” Irene looked down at Annie with contempt. “She’s so weak. You should never have made her one of us.” She looked at Michelson, though her gaze included the others as well. “Now, you’ll all obey me.” Her cruel eyes touched briefly on each and every one of them. “You’ll do only as I say. You agree, Michelson?”

Michelson hung his head. “I agree. I imagine you’ll want to leave now?” He was silently praying that that was what she’d want to do. Seeing his dream turn into her nightmare, especially now that he’d come to like some of the townspeople he’d already met, was an existence he’d despise. He knew better, even as the words left his lips. Irene wanted to be queen, and not a benevolent one at that, and queens needed submissive subjects. “You never wanted to come here in the first place, or open this theater.”

“No, I didn’t, yet now that we’re here, I’ve opened my eyes to its possibilities.”

His eyes flitted to the wooden cages, then up at her.

“I want you to open the theater in a few hours, as you’d planned. Gathering in our meals from the movie goers has proven to be so convenient. I’m tired of searching every night for my supper so this is working out great.”

She was going to continue to feed on the customers, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“And if I won’t?” he breathed disgustedly.

“I destroy her.” Irene’s eyes went to Annie again.

Michelson gently smoothed Annie’s bloody hair away from her serene face. She lay limp in his arms, hiding in a vampire’s sleep. He picked her up and laid her in her coffin. She was a piece of stone. Far away from him. “Let me clean her up, attend to her first,” he said. “Then I’ll open the place up.”

“Good. We’ll be back later.”

When he looked up, they were gone. Savage pack of destructive animals. Always on the hunt. His thoughts were on Jenny for a moment, and for the first time in a long time he felt actual regret.

She would die now. All of her family and friends would die. Irene wouldn’t be denied her fun.

Michelson stared at the cages and flinched, but he was too busy fetching wet towels to take care of Annie to dwell on it long.

They were only cattle. Their food. They lived such short fragile lives. He should never have let their dying affect him. What was a human to him? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Hours later, a weak, but revived Annie sat behind the concession stand awaiting their first patrons, and he opened the theater’s doors for the eager crowd.

Chapter Sixteen

September 10

The hospital was calling for visitors to please leave. Visiting hours were over. Jenny could hear footsteps tunneling away through the faintly lit corridors.

Outside it would be dark. The nights had turned cooler, a little crisp, the temperature dipping to below seventy. During the day, the vibrant colors of the end of summer only made her introspective. Fall. It was usually her favorite time of year. It would never be again.

Now it would always remind her of her father’s funeral; of her mother weeping and wringing her wrinkled hands over her father’s grave; of peoples’ silent, pitying faces, tinged with fear.

There’d been far too many unexplained disappearances and brutal deaths lately, an epidemic. The newspapers were full of them.

They’d buried the Albers yesterday and her father that day. It was a small, close-knit town, everyone knew everyone else, and a funeral a day was all the town could stomach.

Her poor mother. She hadn’t believed Ernest was dead until she saw him in his coffin.

“Doesn’t look like him. Too white. Too still.”

Even the mortician, Mister Stanley, as skilled in his craft as he was, hadn’t been able to conceal the bruises and deep gouges on the victims’ faces.

The townspeople avoided their eyes as the caskets were lowered into the earth. Fear did that.

At least, thank God, her mother was no longer drinking. As if first her husband’s disappearance and then his death had shaken her into sobriety.

Now, since the dead had been laid to rest, Jenny had to decide what to do about the living that were left behind.

Jeff had been trying to get in touch with Clyde Foster for two days now. There was never any answer. He’d finally called Clyde’s home, and his wife had told them, her voice worried, that she and the kids hadn’t seen him for two days either. She’d turned in a missing person’s report.

Chalk up another one.

Jenny lingered a little longer over her brother. All evening Joey had seemed about on the edge of waking up. His eyelids would flicker, his head would toss on the pillow and his hands would twitch. He’d mutter indistinguishable sounds as if he were trying to speak.

If only he would.

She needed to know what had actually happened a couple of nights ago.

Jenny and Jeff had spent every night, except for one, at the hospital waiting for Joey to come out of his coma or die. They’d stolen naps in the lobby on the uncomfortable orange plastic couches and had taken turns at Joey’s bedside, hiding from the nurses, who would have made them leave.

After that first night, the doctors had told them that Joey would probably not make it. They’d done all they could.

Her brother had hung on tenaciously, and now it looked as if he’d come through the worst. The doctors had taken him off the life support systems, but the IV still dangled from his left arm. He’d lost a hell of a lot of blood.

“Joey,” Jenny cajoled, stroking his bruised cheek. “Please come back to me.” Don’t leave me, too.

Jeff was asleep behind her in one of those hard chairs, and Jenny stifled another yawn, as she stole a look back at him.

She was weary as well. Neither of them had had much sleep the last few days, what with the funerals, their vigil at the hospital, and her mother’s rapidly growing bizarre behavior. They’d tried in vain to get Estelle to come stay with them, or to allow them to stay with her at the farmhouse, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Estelle wanted to be alone.

Jenny could hear the nurses coming down the halls shooing people away.

“Gotta go, brother.” She smiled down at him, but as she turned to leave, Joey’s hand came out and clutched weakly at her jacket.

“Don’t ... go.” It came out as a croak.

“Joey,” Jenny breathed, relief lighting up her face. “Thank God.”

Joey’s eyes fluttered open, dazed and bloodshot. His smile was a faint shadow of itself, but a smile just the same.

“Sis.”

“Jeff!” Jenny exclaimed over her shoulder. “He’s awake.” She took Joey’s limp hand in hers.

Jeff came to so quickly, he nearly slid off the chair. He was behind her, his hand on her shoulder, before Joey muttered his next sound.

“Jeff?” Joey’s eyes focused vaguely on his ex-brother-in-law.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Jeff grinned.

Joey looked slowly around, his expression confused. “I made it. I’m safe.” A funny look scurried through Joey’s eyes before they closed again; he seemed to drift away, yet his hand tightened on Jenny’s.

A nurse appeared in the doorway.

“Get the doctor,” Jenny told her, excitedly. “He’s come to.”

The nurse frowned her disapproval, but taking one look at Jenny’s happy, but determined face, scurried off to find the doctor without saying a word.

The nurse returned with a young doctor in a white coat, who’d been making his late rounds. He was short with longish blond hair and understanding eyes.

He examined Joey and pronounced, “He’s out of the coma, sleeping now. Real sleep. He’s made it. Against the odds, I’d say. He’s one lucky boy.”

The doctor faced her and Jeff. “I’ll advise his primary doctor that he’s out of the coma. I’m sure he’ll want to see both of you first thing in the morning. Right now it’s late. Go home, get some sleep yourselves. You look as bad as he does.”

“Okay, home it is. Thank you, Doctor.”

Jenny nodded wearily, then Joey’s eyes clicked open, and his hands swept frantically out searching for hers.

“Jenny. Don’t go. Don’t leave me ... alone.” Talking seemed to hurt him and the words came out painstakingly slow and slurred. “They’ll try ... kill me ... again ... know it!” His eyes were wide with remembered horror. Fresh terror.

“Joey,” Jenny was hovering over him, a frown on her lips, “Who are you talking about?”

“The vampires .” Joey shuddered visibly, sweat popping out over his battered face. Jenny felt sick in the pit of her stomach.

“Joey, no. Think harder. Who really attacked you?” There were tears of frustration gathering in her eyes.

Jeff was studying Joey closely, a strange look on his face.

“Please, listen ... believe me. Vampires!” He seemed to rest for a moment, shutting his eyes, searching for words. “Huge wolves .” Then, in a trembling rush, “Jenny, don’t let her get me!” The despairing panic in his face made Jenny’s throat close up.

Joey tugged Jenny down to his lips, and he could barely get the final words out in a rasping breath. “A woman. Pretty. Long blond hair, black eyes ... looked like Samantha.”

Irene.

Joey’s grip relaxed on her, and her shocked face moved away from her brother’s.

Jeff hadn’t heard the last part.

“What did he say?” Jeff asked.

“Nothing. Just nothing,” Jenny lied.

Joey’s eyelids closed heavily, and with a last gasp before he slipped away, he expelled, “They killed Dad. Albers.” His hand dropped to the sheet.

Jenny backed away from the hospital bed.

Could it be true? Were the Michelsons killers?

The doctor was standing to the side, regarding them curiously.

Jenny faced him. “After we leave, Doctor, I want someone in here with him the rest of the night.”

“He’s perfectly safe here,” the doctor protested. “Sometimes after a person is assaulted, traumatized, they have nightmares or delusions. Sometimes they believe something happened that never did. A hard bump on the head, like he’s had, often does that. No one’s going to hurt him here.”

“I still want someone here, an orderly, a nurse’s aide, anyone,” she repeated, her voice steely. “The people who attacked him weren’t in his imagination, Doctor. They might try again.”

“We don’t have the staff to give each patient round-the- clock care—”

“I don’t want him left alone for a second,” she interjected angrily. “I don’t care what the cost is, do you understand?”

“Perhaps you should call the police then?” the doctor remarked and brusquely turned away, out of patience.

He was out the door before she could say another word.

“Jenny,” Jeff caught her arm, settling worried eyes on her. “Calling the police might not be a bad idea. Doctors’ aides and nurses won’t keep him any safer.”

“Maybe not,” she replied, her eyes distant, “but all I can think of, Jeff, is that the police didn’t stop my father from being kidnapped and killed; the police didn’t save the Albers or any of the others. They haven’t, even yet, a damn clue to who’s committing these crimes, so you can’t blame me one bit if I’m a little skeptical about putting Joey’s life in their hands. Now can you?”

“No,” Jeff sighed. “I don’t blame you, but what else can we do? We can’t camp out here in his room, day and night, until he can come home.”

Jenny contemplated Joey’s damaged, sleeping face tenderly, knowing Jeff was right, but not knowing what else to do. Joey twisted restlessly in his sleep, as if he were having bad dreams. He cried out, moaned.

There were scratches, marks, on the side of his neck. Somehow familiar. Jenny stared at them.

Her dad had had marks like them on his neck. It seemed ages ago now.

“Let’s go home, Jenny. You need to rest or you’ll be no good to no one, not even yourself. We’ll get a good night’s sleep. I’ll put a call in to Sheriff Samuels on our way out, and see if he can spare a man for the night outside Joey’s room. Then tomorrow we’ll decide what to do about it. I’ll even ask a few of the nurses and aides to keep a special eye on Joey tonight, if it’ll make you feel better, but I agree with the doctor, nothing’s going to hurt him here. He’s safe.”

Jenny gazed up lovingly at Jeff and nodded weakly. She was so confused about everything, her head was killing her. “Okay. Whatever you say.”

“Good. I’ll go make the call and meet you by the nurses’ station in a few minutes.”

When he’d left the room, she pulled a delicate silver chained necklace with a tarnished cross on it from around her neck and placed it carefully around Joey’s, clasping it in the back. It’d been a present long ago from her father after her first communion. This morning, she’d seen it lying in a corner of her jewelry box when she’d been searching for something else, and had, for some unexplainable reason, taken it out and put it on. After all these years. She’d thought, at first, that it’d just been a sentimental act precipitated by her father’s death. Something he’d given her as a child that made her feel closer to him now that he was gone.

In that moment, though, looking down on those mysterious bites on the side of her brother’s neck, she wasn’t so sure.

She followed Jeff out the door. They were supposed to spend the night with her mother, who suddenly didn’t want to be alone that night.

* * * *

“Do you still think we’re in danger?” Jenny asked Jeff, as she leaned over the restaurant’s window in the sunlight the next morning. She was pushing in the metal glazers points that held in the new windowpane with a putty knife.

Her question didn’t fool him one bit. She was frightened.

Jeff cocked his head at her, his hand with the putty knife poised above the window. He was working along behind her, tediously pressing in a straight line of putty where the glass met the wooden frame.

Since it was warmer than the last few days, almost hot again, he was wearing cutoff jeans, a short-sleeved T-shirt and a strip of cloth tied around his forehead like an Indian.

He didn’t like being so close to the theater, suspecting what he did, so his glances kept sneaking in that direction, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.

It was broad daylight, he kept assuring himself, and so far all of the attacks had apparently taken place at night.

“I don’t know, Jenny, but I’ll tell you this. First your horses, your friends, your father and now your brother. Looks like a kind of pattern to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

“You might have a point there,” she responded unhappily.

He turned to stare at her. Something was going on in her mind that he couldn’t figure out. Something was bothering the hell out of her, and she wouldn’t let him in on it yet. He was trying to be patient, but he didn’t like it.

“You want my opinion? I told you before. I think we should grab your mother and your brother, no matter how sick he is, attach the trailer behind Joey’s truck and move to another state. Immediately. Cause I think this is bigger than us. I don’t think we have a chance in hell of fighting it. Whatever it is. I believe we should get the hell out of town. Go into hiding. Now.”

“Coward,” Jenny replied sullenly.

“No, I mean it. I think we should go.”

She lowered her eyes, staring somewhere off into the distance. Not saying anything to his suggestion. That in itself was different.

A few days ago she’d confided, “I can’t leave Summer Haven. I’m not running away. I’ve done that most of my life. No more. This is my home. No one’s chasing me off. I’ll fight if I have to, but I’m not leaving. Ever. I don’t want to talk about it again,” she’d said. Then she’d strode purposely away to avoid another confrontation.

They were at Joey’s Place putting in a new picture window. Right after the damage was first done, the day that her father’s body had been found, they’d slapped up a large piece of plywood until they could get the time to fix it right.

“Can’t have anyone else breaking in here and looting the place,” she’d said, with the tears of grief fresh on her cheeks.

Doing something, anything for Joey had seemed to help her. She’d measured the window with her father’s old tape measure she’d had in her car and had remarked, “I’ll call tomorrow and order a new window. Thank goodness there wasn’t any damage to the window frame, only broken glass. I want this place cleaned and looking as good as new when Joey comes back.”

“Sort of like a present to your brother, huh?” he’d asked. She’d never had any doubt that he would make it.

“Something like that.”

“Jenny?” He stood up, the stiffened muscles from squatting so long making him grimace, and wiped the sweat from his brow with his fingers at the same time. He’d caught the uncertainty in her eyes.

What the hell was bothering her?

Earlier, when they’d visited the hospital, Joey had been awake. He was doing better, though extremely weak and unusually restrained, for Joey anyway. The despair was still with him. He wouldn’t say much. Only that he hadn’t made any of his story up. Vampires had attacked him.

He was terrified of the dark, terrified of people. He said he couldn’t stop the nightmares.

Jenny hadn’t tried to talk him out of any of it. She’d listened or watched, her face troubled.

Sheriff Samuels had sent out men to stand guard outside Joey’s hospital room whenever he could spare them. Since the kidnappings and murders had increased, the sheriff said he was going to call in the FBI and Jeff prayed it’d be soon.

The nurses had informed them that if Joey awoke at night and found no one else in the room, he’d lapse into hysterics, screaming, They’ll get me, they’ll kill me this time. And he’d have to be heavily sedated.

Some nights, when an officer wasn’t available, he and Jenny would stay as long as they could. Until the nurses caught them and ushered them out. They didn’t know what else to do. They couldn’t afford to hire a bodyguard for her brother.

They finished puttying the window.

“Well, that’s done,” Jenny groaned, stretching. She was wearing shorts, too, and her hair was captured in a braid.

Jeff couldn’t help but admire her, she was so pretty, so alive. He loved her so damn much and was so grateful she’d allowed him back into her life. This time, he’d sworn, he’d never let her down again.

“Let’s get inside and clean the rest of the mess up in there.”

“Anything you say, boss,” he joked as he trotted behind her.

After they’d swept the loose glass up and scrubbed the blood away, Jenny went behind the counter and made a pot of coffee. When it was ready, she poured them both cups, gathered the left-over donuts they’d bought that morning and set all of it on the counter.

She was drinking her second cup with Jeff when she calmly asked, “What happens if they, whoever they are, try to kill Joey again?”

“We don’t know that they will.”

“If they do?”

“Jenny, I told you we could take Joey and your mom and leave.”

“No, not yet, the doctor says he’s too weak, too sick to be moved.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. It was the first time Jenny had even considered going. It gave him hope.

Abruptly she changed the subject. “Do you know anything about ... vampires?” Then she chuckled as if it were a joke.

He stared up at her in the sunlight, taken aback. Not only at the question, but at the fact that it was Jenny asking it, joke or not.

He played along. “Jenny, why are you asking me? You’re the expert. After all,” he mentioned softly, smiling at her, “you did write a book on them, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

“In Summer’s Night, if I recall correctly, you wrote about all the ways one can kill a vampire. Didn’t you?”

“I did. I just never thought in my wildest nightmares that I’d ever have to make any other use of that knowledge. If any of it was anything other than pure fiction. Who knew?”

“Didn’t your dad have an old shotgun at the farmhouse?”

Jenny shut her eyes. She seemed frustrated. “According to legend, a shotgun won’t kill vampires.”

“What does?” he played along, with no hint of sarcasm.

“A silver bullet in that shotgun maybe, or a stake in the heart and then hacking the heads off. To be caught out in sunlight. If I remember my research accurately.” Jenny gnawed her lip and slid her eyes away.

“Whew, sounds messy, and dangerous, too.”

Jenny shrugged. “I guess it would be.”

“Why don’t we go over there now and confront them?” Jeff said carefully. “It’s daytime. We’d be safe. If they are vampires, that is, they’d be sleeping, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah, they would,” Jenny responded.

The last few days, for some reason, things had begun to nag at her, she’d confessed to him, stopping her in her tracks. “ I sure wish I would have made it down to the basement the other day, saw what was making all the noise down there. If Michelson wouldn’t have stopped me.”

It was as if she were bringing together pieces of a complicated puzzle using snatches of her conversations with Michelson, what she’d seen and experienced at the theater and other things she wouldn’t talk to him about. She was keeping secrets, but he wasn’t about to push her until she was ready to reveal what they were.

She frowned. “Could be they are down there.” She laughed nervously. “Well, if you believed in such things.”

“Yeah, if you believed.” He gave her a hard look.

She reflected a moment. “Who could face them anyway, day or night, unless they were prepared to fight them,” she mouthed softly, so softly he knew she was actually talking to herself, not him. “Who knows where myth ends and reality begins.”

“Yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “If you believed in that sort of thing. Silly, huh?”

“Yeah, silly,” closing the matter. She refused to look at him, yet her restrained manner gave her away. She was worried. She was beginning to believe and didn’t want to.

They fell silent, as if by some unspoken rule, and finished their work.

After about an hour, Jeff announced, “Let’s go home. We’re done here.”

“Good idea,” Jenny murmured. “Let’s go home.”

* * * *

The following evening, Jeff read through the last three days of old newspapers that had accumulated as Jenny cleared up the supper dishes. They hadn’t been home much lately to read them.

They’d visited Joey at the hospital before supper. He had been groggy from the sedatives most of the time, or asleep. At least he was healing.

When Jenny sat down, Jeff handed her the front page. “Look at this.”

Jenny scanned the columns of cramped type. “All the articles on missing people?”

“Yes,” Jeff retorted grimly. He’d walked over to stand at the window, his back to her, gazing out.

Jenny read the first one, her eyes clouding over.

“The old woman’s daughter claimed she went to the show at the new theater and never came home. Two nights ago,” she stated lamely.

Jeff was beside her. He’d picked up more pages from the table on his way and dropped them in her lap.

“Read that smaller story on the bottom of Tuesday’s front page.”

Jenny read it, her lips pursing tighter every second. “Says here that the two teenagers went out for the evening. Their mother isn’t sure where they went, but, here,” she tapped the paper, “she says that earlier in the afternoon they were talking about going to the theater, the Rebel, for their late show.” Jeff nodded.

“A coincidence?” she pondered aloud.

Jeff raised his eyebrows at her. “No, the newspaper reporter doesn’t think so, either. He’s going to talk to the theater owners and investigate it.” He thought for a moment and remarked, “I wonder if the sheriff has called in the FBI yet?”

She got up clutching the newspaper in her hand, headed for the telephone and dialed, her hand shaking. “Good evening. Could I speak with Sheriff Samuels, please?”

She listened for a long time, silent, then said, “Thank you,” and hung up, eyes stunned, her body taut.

Jeff came up behind her and swiveled her around to face him. “What’s wrong?”

“Sheriff Samuels never reported in after his shift last night, and no one’s seen him. Like Clyde Foster, he’s missing.”

“Oh, my god. One of his leads must have panned out. Maybe he got too close,” Jeff mumbled, under his breath. “Or discovered something he wasn’t supposed to?”

“Last time I spoke to him he said he’d been gathering information for the FBI, if things didn’t get better. Said he was bringing them in to help.”

“Maybe,” Jeff said what she herself was thinking, “it got him killed, too.”

Jenny wandered into the front room without another word having decided what she was going to do. She was going to that theater tonight. Confront Michelson. She couldn’t believe that if those kids of his were killers, that he knew about it, much less sanctioned it.

What about Jeff? She didn’t dare tell Jeff what her plans were. He’d never go for it. He’d find a way to stop her, and she’d never discover the truth.

If Irene had killed her father and hurt her brother, she was going to pay for it. Damn if she wasn’t. Teenager or no teenager.

Jenny wouldn’t allow herself to linger too long on Joey’s other accusations. Instead she hid her doubts and fears and pretended they didn’t exist.

She waited until Jeff had fallen asleep on the couch. He’d tried to stay awake as long as he could, but his exhaustion finally had gotten the better of him. She knew why he’d started sleeping there again instead of in her bed with her. Closer to the door. Closer to the phone. He was scared.

A little after ten, she crept stealthily out of the trailer. Putting her car in neutral, she shoved it down the sloping driveway, grateful it was a small car. When she was sure he wouldn’t hear the motor, she started it up and drove down the narrow dusty roads towards town.

She’d thought about taking her father’s gun, but it would have meant going to her mother’s first, getting it and then being grilled about why she needed it. Jenny didn’t want her mother calling Jeff after she’d left, either, which is what she would do. Jenny had no doubt of it. Not only that, but she’d look pretty conspicuous slinking into the theater with a shotgun under her arm. Someone would call the police on her.

Anyway, she was sure she had nothing to fear from Mister Michelson. No matter what the evidence, she knew in her heart he wasn’t—couldn’t—be part of any of it.

She waited outside in her car until the crowd started filing into the theater for the showing of the featured film.

A film called Near Dark. She’d heard of it, a horror movie about a gang of vicious young vampires whose existence was just one long killing spree.

Another coincidence? she couldn’t help but ask herself.

It was a good thing Jeff wasn’t there because he’d have a conniption fit over what she was doing.

She watched the people shuffle in. Not a bad crowd for a late Thursday night. It looked like a normal one of happy moviegoers to her, going to a normal movie theater.

She had to admit that she was hoping, praying, that what she suspected would turn out to be the nonsense it seemed to be. Only an insane person could believe there were such things as eternal blood sucking undead, right?

She wasn’t insane.

She got out of the car and slipped into the side entrance. She never asked herself why she was being so clandestine, possibly if she had, she wouldn’t have gone to the theater in the first place.

Inside, she made her way down the hallway and inspected the lobby. Only a few stragglers, getting last minute sodas or chocolate covered raisins.

She could hear the music playing behind the screen in the auditorium, the advertisements and the coming attractions were just beginning. The aromatic smell of buttered popcorn lulled Jenny’s senses.

Everything was so normal. What was she thinking?

Annie Michelson was sentried at the auditorium’s main entrance next to the glass cases that held the snacks and candy. She was as lovely and eccentric as usual in a long silky gown, her hair neatly tied up in a braided bun at the nape of her slender neck. She was serving double duty. For a few minutes she’d accept tickets at the entryway then rush over to stand behind the cash register at the candy counter to take peoples’ orders for soda, popcorn and sweets. It was a good thing there wasn’t a large crowd.

She wasn’t smiling, and her movements appeared stilted.

Mister Michelson and the rest were nowhere to be seen. Jenny wondered who was selling the tickets out front. She hadn’t been able to tell from the car. Too many shadows in the ticket box.

Mister Michelson was probably up in the projection booth working with the equipment. He’d talked often enough of running the booth himself, saving on hiring a projectionist.

When Annie’s head was turned, Jenny threaded her way through the sparse crowd and hurried up the balcony stairs towards the new projection booth. On the way, she heard people commenting on how lovely the old place looked, how plush and classy. Pride at the work she and her father had done rippled over her and then melancholy that the experience had had to be ruined by everything since.

Mister Michelson had his back to her, peering out one of the portholes into the auditorium, when she opened the door at the top of the stairs.

She didn’t think at first that he’d heard her come in.

He pivoted and slid a hoop off a coiled black spool of film that lay flat on top of a round metal plate. He picked up the end of the film and began to thread it fumblingly through, over and around a series of rollers on a machine to his right. There was a strip of film crossing the space between the two machines already; in fact, there was film everywhere crisscrossing the lower spaces of the room near his knees, like a celluloid obstacle course. It surprised Jenny that though Michelson had said he was modernizing the projection booth, instead he’d equipped it as if it was still nineteen eighty. Rolls of celluloid film? Very strange.

He acted as if he wasn’t sure of what he was doing, and there was an audible sigh of relief as he flipped a switch, and the film actually began to move through its prescribed path of rollers and pulleys. By the noises and cheers below them, the movie had begun.

Mister Michelson was dressed in elegant evening wear, a dark jacket with tails, and a white shirt with lace at the cuffs. It looked odd among the machines. His golden earring glittered. His curly dark hair shone in the flickering lights.

It was then he acknowledged her perched at the top of the stairs behind him. “Jenny?” He turned slowly, and the face he exposed to her was one of misery. “What are you doing here? I warned you to stay away.”

“So that wasn’t a dream,” she said with a haunted smile. “Either time.”

“No.”

She studied him as she’d never done before. He was so pale, so perfect. His eyes glimmered like tiny stars. If she stared into them too long, she forgot ... herself. “Am I distracting you?” Her eyes tore away from his and came to rest meaningfully on the projector. She knew she should leave, that second, but her feet were glued to the floor, and her bones were putty. Shock. She’d wanted the truth, and now she was afraid she was going to get it.

“No. The machines won’t need anything now until the movie’s almost over.” He looked away from her, out one of the portholes. The movie had finished its credits.

“Jenny,” he warned on a sigh as the movie lights played mesmerizingly across his stone face. “Get out of here while you still can.”

“Not until you tell me what I came here to learn. Joey was attacked the other night at his restaurant. He nearly died.”

“I know.”

“He’s going to be okay, though.”

“I’m glad I got to him in time.”

“You were the one,” Jenny gasped. The hair on her arms stood on end as if the room had suddenly filled with static electricity.

“Yes.”

“I owe you.”

He brushed off her gratefulness with a curt gesture. “Then get out of here. Now. No more questions. Just go.” He slowly turned to look at her.

But Jenny plunged on breathlessly, unable to stop herself. “Joey said wolves attacked him ... and a woman with long blond hair.”

“Irene,” Michelson grunted hatefully.

Oh, no.

Jenny instinctively shifted away from him, her face draining to the color of fresh snow. She couldn’t stop the next words from escaping her lips. “Joey thinks—”

“What does he think, Jenny?” Michelson cut her off. There was something eerie about the way he stood there glaring at her. He acted as if he were angry.

“He not only is convinced about the wolves, but he thinks the wolves were ... vampires. Ridiculous, huh?”

“Oh, Jenny.” A doleful tilt of his head. “It’s true, and you know it, don’t you?” he whispered forcibly.

Jenny whimpered low in her throat. She couldn’t speak.

Mister Michelson fiddled with the film. His shoulders stooped as he let out a tortured sigh. “See these?” He pointed at the large horizontal circles that the film was coiling off of. “They’re called platters. It’s where you lay the film. You get a movie in maybe five, six, seven shipping reels like this one.” He tapped a square flat container.

Jenny followed his motions with her eyes, afraid to move.

“You use this makeup and tear-down table,” he walked past her and laid a slender hand on an odd-looking contraption at the other end of the tiny room, “to splice all the reels together into one huge one to make the complete movie.” He nodded at the tall apparatus that had all the rollers and threaded film on it. “This is called a tree. It feeds the film through and regulates its speed. There’s even an automatic failsafe right here,” he pointed, “that shuts down not only the platters but the projector itself if the film breaks.”

Fear had wound itself tight in Jenny’s throat, and she couldn’t swallow.

“It’s an efficient piece of technology, even if it is antiquated. I like the hands on that it gives me.” His face was doting as he gazed at the thing. “The Super Simplex S1 projector. That’s what they call it.”

Jenny listened, unmoving. She had the feeling she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s far better than the old reel-to-reel projectors we used in the thirties and forties. Did you know that in the early days we used to employ arc carbon lamps, complete with flames, to illuminate the images through the film and onto the screen? Horrible fire hazard, that’s what they were. Horrible. I remember them well from when I first opened The Grand here. This is much safer.”

“Irene’s a vampire?” Jenny hadn’t been listening to what he’d been saying.

Michelson arched a black brow at her. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you ... we all are, my dear. Every one of us.”

The film continued to click around the rollers and along its narrow path through the machines. The sounds of the movie in progress crested and hushed.

He reached out and took her hand. Jenny was too numb to put up a fight. “I never meant for you, or anyone you loved, to be hurt. I’ve admired you. It’s Irene. She wants you all dead. I can’t defy her, stop her, any longer. She’s far too powerful. The ancient ones usually are.” He let go of her hand. “It’s still not too late, Jenny. Irene and the rest aren’t here now. You still have a chance to survive if you leave now.”

Hatred flared in her eyes. “Did your daughter kill my father and the Albers?”

“Yes.” No feeling whatsoever. “Though she’s not really my daughter, Jenny. The others, they aren’t my children, either. It was a ruse we used to pass for normal people. A normal human family. It helps against suspicious minds when the authorities begin to look for murder suspects.”

“All the people that have turned up missing?” Jenny’s eyes were widening in horror.

He nodded somberly. “Irene and her acolytes appetites are insatiable. They kill not only for the blood but for the sport of it.”

Monsters, Jenny thought.

“Yes,” Michelson answered as if she’d spoken aloud. “They are monsters. Even among my own kind.”

He read my mind.

Michelson met her shocked eyes.

The vertigo she remembered from other times swept over her, and her mind was bombarded with vivid, terrifying images. Vignettes of Michelson and the others merging one into the next. How he first met them. Irene. Annie. What they were. How they hunted. The blood and the killing... Jenny saw it all. Her face went rigid with fright. Only insane people believe in monsters.

He shook his head at her and smiled enigmatically, showing his fangs.

Jenny felt fear drain her will and fill her mouth with cotton. She stepped back a little, her fingers trembling against her thighs. She couldn’t stop the involuntary cry from escaping her lips as the brutal reality sunk in. The movie noises covered it. No one had heard her, and no one would hear her if she started screaming for help. He could kill her, too, and no one would ever be the wiser. She muffled her next scream, covering it with her shaking hands.

“Now you understand,” he spoke in a fierce undertone. “I’d never hurt you or anyone you love, Jenny. Not on purpose. Great writers are so rare. I know. And I like you. Truly like you. Feelings are rare for our kind.” He heaved another sigh. “Now go!” His face altered into something hideous, inhuman, before he moved away to check something on one of the machines. He turned his back to her once again, as if he’d forgotten her.

Jenny inched her way back towards the stairs cautiously, her hand sweaty on the banister. Her world was revolving in excruciatingly slow motion.

“Run!” He glared over his shoulder at her and suddenly hissed.

Jenny bolted, nearly tumbling down the steps she was in such a hurry to escape.

Michelson’s voice dogged her. “ Run and hide, Jenny! They’re looking for you.”

In a blind panic, not knowing what she was doing, she ran. The next thing she knew she was cowering in a dark corner of the theater’s auditorium, not really sure how she’d gotten there.

Panting, she hunkered down against a wall, trying to keep her wits about her long enough to decide what to do. She lost herself in the gloom and the faraway voices coming from the screen, but not for long. As her eyes grew accustomed to the lightlessness, she caught them flitting about on the edges of her vision in the room—fleeting shapes sifting in and out of the shadows as the screen’s images danced around them.

She heard a muffled groan. A cut off cry.

In the murky twilight under the movie screen, two adult shapes were dragging a third, smaller struggling figure that looked like a child between them up the aisle, disappearing about halfway, almost into thin air. The noise from the movie covered the child’s cries.

Oh, my God. Had no one seen it but her? They were abducting people.

She compressed herself into an invisible shape in the corner until she was sure they were gone. Now she knew how a mouse felt, chased to its hole.

She had to get out of there.

In a crouching position, she stealthily crept up the aisle. The lobby was empty. She slithered up against the wall, her heart pounding so wildly against her chest she couldn’t hear a thing, ready to make a dash for the doors when she realized someone was blocking her way.

Irene.

“Running away, Jenny?” Irene tsk-tsked her. “No, I don’t think so.”

Terrified, Jenny hesitated a split second too long and then made a suicidal dash for it.

She never made it through the lobby.

Something huge, covered with fur, heavy with wicked teeth and claws, brought her down. As she tumbled helplessly onto the hard floor, something knife-sharp slashed across her face tearing open the skin. Sticky warm blood gushed out. The screaming pain exploded and plunged her into oblivion as the something began to drag her away.

* * * *

Jeff awoke sometime near the end of the night. The trailer was silent. Too silent. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it.

He surged up from the couch and searched the trailer. No Jenny.

“Oh, Jenny, you didn’t go there alone?” he asked the emptiness. He feared she had. His hands went up to knead his face. What to do now? He looked at the kitchen clock: 3:43 A.M. If Jenny wasn’t home yet, there had to be something wrong.

He ran to the window. There was no car in the driveway and the theater was five miles away. Jenny’s dad’s car. It was across the field in the garage; it had been there since his disappearance.

Jeff threw himself out the door and crashed through the field in the dark towards the farmhouse. He’d played in this field so many times when he was young he knew every tree and bush of it.

Minutes later, every muscle yelping in protest and holding his side in agony, he pounded on the farmhouse’s rear door, then the front. Estelle didn’t answer. She must still be in bed, asleep, and he couldn’t wait.

He would have liked having some kind of weapon, but there wasn’t time.

He sprinted to the garage, hacking the rusty lock away with a large rock. He broke in, found the old flashlight Ernest had always kept hanging in the corner and hot-wired the station wagon. It seemed to take forever to start the old wreck.

Then, praying all the way that the car wouldn’t die on him, he raced like a madman into town.

Let this be a false alarm. Jenny, please be okay.

* * * *

Jenny came to shuddering, a dull thudding ache in her cheek. The first thing she was truly aware of was that she was sore, sore all over, and cramped.

It was dark. Not end-of-the-world dark, just dark. Her glazed eyes clung to the miniscule bit of light that they found and her consciousness migrated to its warmth. A single candle sputtering in a dish.

In a cave. Not a cave, a basement, her befuddled mind told her. The damp earthy smell and the echoes of the place reminded her of an old cave full of rats, spiders and slimy water she’d once discovered as a child. Except here, the rats and spiders were malevolent, bloodthirsty and immortal.

She must be below the theater somewhere. There were no noises up above, so the movie must be over she thought, and the theater was closed for the night.

No help there.

Her numb fingers discovered the limits of her prison as she lay on her back. A large wooden cage. She felt it more than saw it. It couldn’t have been more than five feet by eight. She could lay in it, or sit, but not completely stand. She moved, and a splinter pricked her.

The place stank of death.

She heard the soft weeping. There were other cages. There were other people down there.

“Someone help me ... please ... don’t let them kill me,” came a pitiful moan behind her somewhere.

To her right, there was sobbing.

Jenny’s eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness, and she could almost make out the cage to her right. There was something huddled in the corner, but no sounds emerged.

“Someone. Anyone. Help me!” A woman’s pain-stricken howl cut through Jenny, making her blood curdle.

She lifted her head to see better, but the pain and nausea sent her back to the floor, and she passed out again. It must have been minutes later— it could have been hours—when she came to, and this time the horror and futility of her situation hit her full force.

She was locked up like an animal in a cage. No one knew where she was, and she would die as horribly as those other poor wretches, the earlier inhabitants of the wooden prisons, had died. Tears mingled with the blood on her face, and she had to fight to keep from shrieking out her anguish. Screaming hysterically wouldn’t help. She needed to save her strength. She needed to think .

Instead she thought of her father. Had he died in one of these pens? Would she die here, too? She’d never see Jeff, her mother, or Samantha again. Ever. Why hadn’t she believed Joey? Listened to him? Why hadn’t she left well enough alone?

“Awake, finally?” It was Irene, outside Jenny’s cage, gloating in the candlelight.

The same candle, now mostly gone.

Jenny cowered away from the specter, pushing herself into a corner, trying to hide. Her face felt like it was swollen to twice its size, and she was weak from loss of blood. Her fingers crept up her neck. Had Irene ...

“Don’t worry. I’m saving you for another time. I’ve already fed.” Irene answered Jenny’s fear.

“You can’t get away with this,” Jenny whispered spitefully from her cage. “Someone will be looking for me. Someone will find me.”

“That’s what they all say. You humans are so predictable.” Irene cocked her head at the other cages. Her lips drew back, and her sharp fangs gleamed against her blood red lips.

Jenny felt like she was in the Twilight Zone or an episode of Supernatural. This couldn’t be real ... couldn’t really be happening to her, could it?

“No, your precious ex-husband won’t help you, either. I’m leaving to find him now.”

Jenny stared up at her, refusing to rise to the bait. Irene just wanted to torture her. She’d been thinking about Jeff, praying that he’d come after her.

“Later tonight, I’ll take care of that brother of yours, too. I don’t care how many guards he has. This time he won’t get away.”

“Leave them alone,” Jenny spat, clenching the wooden slats of her jail and squeezing until her hands ached. “I’m warning you!”

Irene swatted Jenny’s hands viciously with something hard, a stick, perhaps, and Jenny cried out in startled pain, yanking her wounded fingers back in.

“What are you?” Jenny cried.

Irene’s face in the yellow candlelight turned malignant with an eternal, unearthly evil. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Irene floated out of the feeble light.

Jenny heard someone crying.

From the shadows came the soft taunting farewell. “You think you’re different, Jenny, but you’re not. You’re like all the rest, and you’ll die like all the rest.”

Jenny fought to keep her sanity. She wanted to kick, wail and beat at the cage, but she knew that wouldn’t solve a thing. It wouldn’t get her out. “Where are the others?” Jenny called out in a tightly controlled voice.

“Out until dawn.” A spiteful laugh.

Jenny ran her tongue over her chapped lips. God, she wanted a drink of water. She touched a hand gently to the side of her injured face. There go my looks.

She wasn’t going to get out of there. Michelson wasn’t going to help her this time. On the verge of breaking down completely, she felt like laughing, but she knew it’d hurt too much.

“No, he won’t.” It was Irene’s voice. She hadn’t left, as Jenny had believed. “But you won’t be alone.” There was a cruel joke somewhere in the inflection. “I’ve brought you a ... visitor.”

* * * *

Irene unlocked the cage, scraped open the door enough to shove another person through and locked it again. A soft bulky warmth fell up against Jenny. A familiar scent.

“Where am I?” a stunned voice asked near to her.

“Mom?”

“Jenny!”

Instantly they were together, clinging to each other.

Irene laughed as an ephemeral mist enfolded her, and when it dissipated, she was gone.

Jenny squinted down at her mother in the candlelight. “Are you all right, Mom?”

“I’m not sure. I’m hurting.” Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She collapsed in her daughter’s arms as if now that she wasn’t alone, she could let go. “Being tossed around like a football didn’t do me no good ... and she bit me, Jenny,” her voice incredulous; indignant at the same time. “And it hurt like hell. Ernest’ll be so angry when he sees what she did to me. Wait ‘til he sees.” She started to ramble then, disoriented, her speech slurred. Her skin was fever wracked. She was going into shock.

Jenny examined her mother’s neck in the weak light as best she could and there were deep blood-oozing lacerations at the base of it. Bruises and cuts along her arms. Her face had been beaten. Jenny wanted to cry. Instead, she cradled her mother’s frail body, rocking her back and forth, talking softly to her, as if she were a child.

“There, there, Mom, it’s going to be okay.”

Lucid for a moment, her mother groaned breathlessly, obviously in intense pain, “What are we gonna do, Jenny? You were always so smart. You’ll get us out of this, won’t you?”

How? Jenny felt worse than she’d ever felt.

“No matter what you’ve ever thought, I was always proud of you ... my Jenny ... always loved you best ... still do ... Jenny Penny.” Moaning pitifully, she fainted in Jenny’s arms, a broken rag doll.

The blood along her mother’s neck and face was soaking through Jenny’s fingers. It was warm and there was so much of it. Weeping silently, Jenny tried to staunch the flow with torn strips of her own clothing, tying a bandana loosely around her mother’s neck as if she were going to a square dance.

“Wake up, Mom, please wake up,” Jenny pleaded, but her mother was beyond her in another safer place. A place with no blood-hungry ghouls, wooden cages and the threat of further torture and death. Her mother wasn’t dead, yet, but without immediate medical attention, she wasn’t far from it. “Don’t die,” Jenny cried, her heart constricting in fear.

Her mother’s body began to go into convulsions, and there was nothing she could do.

“You bitch!” Jenny railed at the absent Irene at the top of her lungs. “I’ll get you for this, Irene! Believe me, I will. Somehow. I’ll get you for this!”

As her threats ricocheted off the cold brick walls around her, the other unwilling occupants of the prison remained mute, as if they’d long ago given up hope of escaping or revenge, or as if they were beyond it. With one last sputter, the candle went out, leaving them in the deepest blackness Jenny had ever experienced.

“Ah, damn,” Jenny swore, pulling her mother’s slack body closer, as if she could protect her from the horrors around them.

The hours stretched into an eternity.

* * * *

“Jenny? Jenny, are you in here?” Jeff whispered urgently, his flashlight’s ray of light flitted across the bars of another filthy cage—this time with someone alive in it—shattering the velvet blackness and lighting up Jenny’s upturned bloody and abused face. She’d been beaten! His Jenny. In her arms was her mother’s prone form. For a moment the horror of what he was seeing threatened to drive him crazy. But she was still alive!

“It’s me, Jeff.” She released a great sigh of relief, her dirty fingers reaching out to him, and an expression of relief claiming her face.

His warm hands closed on hers through the slats.

“You came after me!” She gasped unbelievingly.

“Yes, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out where you’d gone to. Thank God I woke up soon after you’d left.”

“Thank God,” Jenny smiled through bloody lips.

“Would have been here sooner, but I had trouble with your dad’s car.” The beam of his flashlight illuminated other cages. “Oh, Jenny, what the hell is this place? These cages. God, the stench! The bodies.” He gulped, still panting from exertion, his mind reeling as his eyes darted around, horror-stricken.

“You got that right. It’s hell. Please get us out!”

He was staring at Jenny’s mutilated face, at her mother’s still body. “They got your mother, too.” Then he pulled himself together. “Jenny, are you able to walk? Are you all right?”

“I think so. Now that you’re here, I will be. My mother’s the one I’m worried about. She’s unconscious and needs a doctor.”

“What happened to you two?”

“Irene,” she enunciated the name with obvious hatred, “kidnapped me as I was leaving the theater after seeing Michelson. Then she bludgeoned my mother half to death and brought her here, too.” Her eyes hardened in the flashlight’s beam, and she whispered, “Joey wasn’t lying, Jeff. They’re really vampires , swear to God. They’ve been living down here, sleeping during the day. They’ve been abducting people. Feeding on them or killing them at their leisure. It was they who murdered the Albers and my father.” Her voice was hollow. “They were the ones who attacked Joey.”

“Vampires, yes, I believe you, Jenny. There are coffins in the next room. They’ve been down here in the basement all the time.”

“Yes, but don’t worry about it now. I’ll tell you everything later. We’ve got to get out of here before they come back.” Jenny’s voice was frantic with fear.

“You’re right.” He was inspecting the place, playing his flashlight into the corners and into the other cages, as he shone the beam on the decaying bodies.

Jenny stifled a cry. None of them seemed to be moving, or even alive.

“My God, those poor people,” he breathed as he covered his nose with the edge of his shirt and peered into the nearest cage. The smell of rotting flesh gagged him. He was afraid he was going to throw up. Jeff checked the other cages, and when he returned, he said, “They’re all dead, I’m afraid,” dismay in his voice. One of the dead bodies, or pieces of it, was Sheriff Samuels. The uniform tipped him off. He didn’t tell Jenny, though.

The people that had been locked in the cages would never make it out, he grieved. He willed himself not to think about it. It hurt too much.

Jenny looked down at her mother’s placid, but remote face. “She might not make it.”

“She’ll make it.” Jeff tried to sound like he believed it.

“We’ve got to go,” Jenny said again. “Irene’s not here now, she went out looking for you. If she doesn’t find you, she’ll go after Joey again. She told me so. We’ve got to get to him before she does.”

“Okay. We’re out of here.” Discovering the outside latches on the cage, he fumbled with and undid them and swung open the door. He helped pull an unsteady Jenny and her unconscious mother from the cage and into his arms. “God, Jenny, what happened to your face? Does it hurt much?”

“A little.” She winced. “It won’t stop bleeding. I think I need stitches, buy it’ll heal. I’m more worried about Mom.”

He scooped her mother’s limp body into his arms. Jenny held the flashlight so they could see. They scrambled up the basement steps through the darkened theater lobby, Estelle in Jeff’s arms. They prayed with every step that Irene wouldn’t reappear until they were gone, and that the other vampires were too busy to note their absence.

Twice, Jenny had to stop, leaning against him, on the verge of fainting. She forced herself to remain conscious. She said there were things she had to do.

Then they were out in the parking lot.

“My car’s gone.” Even in the dark they could see it wasn’t where she’d left it.

“They must have disposed of it,” he said, “but your dad’s station wagon is right over there. I had no key and had to hot wire it, baby it to keep it running, but I got here.”

“You always were a fast thinker, but you won’t have to do that again. I know where the extra key’s hidden. He always kept one in the car, in case.” She told him where to find it. As they drove away, Jenny prayed aloud, “Oh God, I hope Irene and her friends don’t find us before the sun comes up.”

Jeff just flashed her a worried frown. He didn’t need to answer. Me, too. It was in his eyes.

Heading for the hospital, Jenny concocted a story for the doctors in the emergency room about her mother’s condition. She’d say she’d been mauled by stray dogs. Then she came up with a scheme to smuggle both Joey and her mother out after the doctors had tended to her.

“What about you?” Jeff asked.

Jenny’s fingers tenderly explored the puffiness on the side of her face. They still came away bloody. “Maybe a few quick stitches, if we have the time, but I have no intention of wasting time over myself. We’ve got to get in and get out, fast. Irene could be at the hospital right now. Drive faster, Jeff,” Jenny ordered, shivering. “Michelson said Irene has gone over the edge, so I’m not taking any chances. We can’t be anywhere before dawn that Irene can find us, nor can we leave my mom or Joey where Irene can get at them when the sun sets again.”

When they were pulling up to the hospital, Jeff heard Jenny crying beside him in the predawn. She was rocking in the seat, her arms tightly embracing her mother, her face buried in her hair.

“Jenny?”

Her face lifted up to him, a pale bruised moon shape streaked with tears and grief. “She’s dead, Jeff. My mother’s dead.”

He kept driving, his jaw clenched. He laid a gentle hand on Jenny’s shoulder and said nothing, letting her cry in peace. There were no words he could give her that would change anything.

After a while she remarked sadly, “At least now they’re together. Mom and Dad. Just like they wanted. Like she said they would be. Perhaps now they’re happy. There’s no money problems in heaven, is there?”

“No,” he replied. “There isn’t.”

They left her mother’s body in the back seat, covered with one of the blankets Jenny had found in the rear of the station wagon. It was still dark enough so that no one would notice it. They’d be back with Joey and on their way again in minutes.

The hospital was tomblike. It was easy to slip by the half drowsing nurses at the main desk. They tiptoed past, when their heads were turned, and into Joey’s room.

“We’re taking you out of here to a safe place where Irene can’t get you,” she whispered, though Joey couldn’t hear her. He was in a deep sleep. Drugged, probably. Thank goodness the IVs and tubes had been disconnected. His coloring and his breathing seemed normal, too.

They carefully carried him out of the room and down the hallway. As luck would have it there wasn’t one nurse at the nurses’ station. They must have all been with patients.

“What about your face, Jenny?”

“I’ll tend to it later. I trust my gut, and right now, its screaming for us to get out; I’m listening.”

They slipped out one of the side exit doors and around the building to their car. It was easy.

“Where do we go?” He checked in the mirrors. Irene could be hunting for them right now.

“To the farmhouse. I don’t think Irene will think we’d go back there, but to be safe, we’ll go down into the cellar. Dad never locked it. It won’t be comfortable, but it will do until the sun comes up.”

They hid the car in the woods behind the farmhouse and moved Joey and Estelle’s body into the cellar.

It was an old fruit cellar, small and narrow, with doors that closed in on it at ground level.

“No, no lights,” Jenny cautioned, as he switched on the flashlight. He turned it off.

It wasn’t easy getting to it in the dark.

“Just follow me. I know the way well enough.” Jenny gave directions as they stumbled through the yard and down into the cellar, bumping into things once in a while.

Making a pile of the rest of the blankets from the car, they laid them under Joey on the table her mom had once used to stack her home canned supplies on and covered him. The cellar wasn’t much cooler than an air-conditioned room, so Jenny hoped Joey wouldn’t be the worse for it.

She didn’t know what else to do.

Her mother’s body they wrapped in a blanket and lay gently in a corner.

They crouched together in the murky cellar, Jenny fighting away her obsessive fear of the dark as they talked in conspiratorial voices.

“What do we do when it gets light?” he asked.

“We go upstairs and call Laurie to come and take care of Joey. Tell her some of what’s going on, and then we go back to the theater and destroy them.” There was a bone chilling fury in her voice that he’d never heard before.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“What else can we do? We can’t go for help, even if they’d believe us,” she stated acidly. “By the time we’d convince someone to get over there, they’d just be gone. Like all the other places they’ve butchered in.” She shifted towards him, as he held her in the earthy smelling cellar. “Jeff, we have no choice, we have to exterminate them. We can’t allow them to live. Any of them. We can’t allow them to go on doing what they do. Terrorizing. Mutilating. Killing.”

“So ... you think we can kill a bunch of devious blood-thirsty vampires that have probably been at this murdering of humans for a very long time and have gotten away with it? Us? You and me by ourselves?”

“I know it’s dangerous but we have to try. What other choice do we have? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to become a fugitive and run, hide, the rest of my life. Do you?”

“No.”

“So are you with me?”

“Yes.”

It made her uneasy to think of killing Michelson. He’d saved Joey’s life, after all, but for Jenny there was now only black and white. Michelson was a killer like the rest of them. A vampire. A night creature of eternal evil.

“You’re right, Jenny,” Jeff said. “We have to find a way to destroy them.”

“I want revenge for Mom and Dad, and the others,” she swore, her voice full of determination. “I’d rather die trying to destroy them than not to try at all.”

His voice was low and passionate. “I told you I’d never run out on you again, didn’t I? But I’m warning you now, we may not come back. There’s no room for mistakes.” His voice faltered. “We’ll probably only get one chance.”

“I know, Jeff.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him hungrily, gratefully. When the kiss was over, she said, “Together, we’ll make it. I know we will.”

He kissed her again and held her close, aware that it could be perhaps one of the last times. “God, I wish I had a cigarette and a hot cup of coffee, some food. I’m hungry as a bear. Chilly for some reason, too.” It didn’t make it any easier knowing it was all up there above them, just feet away. It might as well have been miles.

“When it gets light,” was all she said.

They tried not to think about food, snuggling deeper into each other’s arms.

“You got a plan?” he probed a little while later, laying a kiss on the top of her head.

“Not exactly.” Her laugh was sour. “It’s funny, years ago when I wrote those horror books, I never in my wildest nightmares ever thought I’d be in just such a situation as I’d put my characters in or using any of the information I’d researched.”

“You and me both,” Jeff groaned.

“I know what kills them, according to all the legends. A stake in the heart, loping off their heads or keeping them from their coffins after sunrise. Bullets of silver. A few other things. In fact,” Jenny’s voice grew excited, “right after my first book was published, one of my obsessed readers sent me something that might be of some real help ... a vampire-killing kit. ”

“A what?” Jeff laughed this time. It sounded eerie in the dirt cellar.

“Remember, it was a small wooden box about eight inches long, and oh, five inches deep or so. It had a sort of gun in it in the shape of a cross. Thinking of the silver bullets brought it back to me. There were silver bullets in it, too. Round ball-like ones. I thought it a strange thing to send me. I thought it was a joke, but it was genuine and very old, an antique, from the early nineteenth century, I believe. Beautiful. Probably worth something. That’s why I kept it.”

“Well, where is it?”

“I’m trying to remember what I did with it. There was even a book with it. Now that would be helpful. What did I do with it?” She fell silent for a few moments. “Oh, I know. After we divorced it was probably with that stuff Mom and Dad let me store in their attic. I had boxes and boxes, nowhere to go with them.” Her eyes darted upward. “It’s here. Upstairs in the attic. As soon as it gets light, we’ll go and find it.”

“Then what?” He was curious.

“We study it. Quickly. Then we go kill them; burn that hateful place to the ground with them in it if we have to.”

Jeff was surprised at that bit of news. He knew how Jenny loved the old theater, and he was achingly aware of all the work they’d just done restoring it.

He didn’t have to ask, though, she answered it for him, “No matter how lovely it is on the outside, it’s an evil place. It’s always been evil. It’s time for it to die once and for all, forever, as well.”

He was quiet for a minute or two, thinking. “Burning it might not be quick enough. We should blow it up. It’s the only way.”

“How do we do that, Jeff?”

“A box of dynamite would do the trick.”

“Where would we buy dynamite? Doesn’t it take some kind of a permit or something?”

“I don’t know.”

She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Dynamite is probably expensive, and we can’t afford it. I’m flat busted broke. I sent my bills out last week, and my money’s gone. Since my last divorce, no credit cards yet, either. Of course, I didn’t know that this week we’d need to buy dynamite.”

“Neither did I,” Jeff tossed in. He thought for a second, and snapped his fingers. “Is there any gasoline in your dad’s garage, or do you have any at the trailer?”

“Yes, here somewhere. In the garage, I think.”

“I have an idea. Let me kick it around a little longer then I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I’ll check on Joey while you do that,” Jenny said.

* * * *

“What’s going on?” Joey questioned weakly, waking as Jenny was tucking the blanket tighter around him. “What are we doing in Dad’s cellar?” Then without missing a beat, “Jenny, what did you do to your face?”

She’d turned Jeff’s flashlight on and set it upside down on the packed dirt floor. For a few moments it’d provide just the right amount of soft light to see Joey by.

Jenny smiled for the first time in days. “We kidnapped you from the hospital, and we’re hiding out until dawn.” She didn’t want him to know about their mom yet. He was still too weak. She lightly touched a finger to her face. “I was in a fight, you might say. I still am, but I’m going to win.”

“Where’s Laurie?” he asked, and heaved a sigh of relief when he heard she was all right.

With that, his head drooped, and just when Jenny believed he’d fallen asleep again, he opened his eyes and murmured, “You finally believed me. I’m so glad.”

“I believe you,” Jenny whispered softly.

“They’re after you now, aren’t they?” he exhaled in a dead, hopeless voice, taking her off guard. “They’re gonna get all of us in the end anyway, Sis. We’re as good as dead now.”

“Stop it, Joey! We’re going to survive, you’ll see, I promise. Jeff and I are going to destroy them, and the theater, forever, as soon as light comes.”

“Oh, I sure do want to believe you in the worst way, but I can’t.” He turned his head away from her, his covered body shuddering, and fell back into a fitful sleep.

She and Jeff huddled together, waiting for the dawn, and finally their exhaustion caught up with them.

When Jenny awoke later, horrified at having drifted off, she shook Jeff roughly. There was faint light seeping from under the cellar doors, and the darkness was now a shade of gray around them. “Jeff, wake up! What time is it?”

He checked his watch. “We made it,” he divulged with groggy relief, stretching and yawning the cramps away. “By my watch, the sun should have come up two hours ago—and we’re still alive!”

“That late?” Jenny crawled to the cellar doors and threw them open.

Outside, the day had begun, but was heavily overcast with inky storm clouds. It felt more like late evening.

“Great, it’s going to storm.” Jenny rubbed her eyes, looking out into the angry gray world. “I wonder if this counts as daylight or not?”

Jeff grinned weakly. “Looks like daylight to me. Let’s go.”

Together, they took Estelle’s stiff covered body upstairs and laid it on her own bed and established Joey in the front room on the sofa. Jenny was grateful that he remained asleep, because she didn’t want to answer any more questions about the fresh tears that covered her face.

Jenny telephoned Laurie and asked her to come take care of Joey; informed her of some of what had happened, telling her she’d explain the rest when she got there.

“Let’s get some food into ourselves before we start looking for weapons, that vampire kit and that book,” Jenny suggested. “We’re going to need the energy, and I’m so hungry.”

“Me, too,” Jeff tossed in and looking hard at her face, added, “That ugly cut of yours has stopped bleeding.”

“Good. I’ll slap a couple Band-Aids on it before we leave.” She headed into the kitchen.

“Coffee first sounds like a fantastic idea,” Jeff said, “or I won’t be able to stay awake another second. Then I’ll fix up that face of yours. I have a certificate in first aid, did I ever tell you that?” Jeff slumped on a kitchen chair, studying the lightning that roiled across the skies.

She threw him an amused look back at him, as she made the coffee. “Isn’t there anything you can’t do?”

He thought for a minute, gave her a grin back. “Nope. I’m just a multitalented person, I guess. Wait till you see what I concoct for that theater.”

Thunder broke the stillness as Jenny chuckled and prepared a quick breakfast.

She still couldn’t bring herself to turn the lights on.

Chapter Seventeen

September 13 11:15 A.M.

“Jenny, it’s getting late,” there was a growing urgency in his voice.

“I know, I know,” she grumbled from behind a stack of dusty crates and boxes. The one bare bulb that hung from the middle of the ceiling hardly provided enough light to see by, but she was doing the best she could. She had a flashlight in one hand. “I know it’s here somewhere, Jeff. All the rest of my stuff is up here. I know I didn’t get rid of it. Don’t ask me why, I just didn’t.”

Laurie was downstairs tending to Joey. They’d told her the whole truth, and somehow she hadn’t laughed at them. Jenny wasn’t sure how much she actually believed, but Laurie had consented to stay with Joey and not let anyone know about it. She’d said that the hospital had alerted her and the police as soon as Joey’s disappearance had been discovered, and she’d been in a frenzy with worry until Jenny had called. She’d been just relieved that he was unharmed. Safe.

When she’d arrived, she gawked at Estelle’s body with startled eyes, crossing herself like someone in an old horror film. She had easily consented to take Joey and run as far away as they could from Summer Haven if Jenny and Jeff didn’t come back or call her by nightfall. She’d been silent since.

“Jeff, that cigarette?”

“Yeah?”

“Put it out, would you. You want to burn the whole house down? Besides that, I can’t breathe.” Jenny grimaced, digging into another old chest.

The attic was a confined, enclosed space, and Jenny couldn’t take the smoke any longer. Jeff had been smoking like a fiend since they’d begun searching. Finding the wooden box and the book was taking far too long.

“Ah, Jenny, if I ever needed a cig, it’s now.” He dutifully put it out anyway.

He’d helped her look for a while until she’d ordered him to get out of her way. She had a better sense of where to look than he did.

Then Jenny had handed him her father’s shotgun. Her mother had discovered it in the backyard a few days ago, covered with mud, but had never cleaned it, merely shoved it into the closet and left it.

“Not in bad condition, mechanical wise,” he’d remarked, sliding his hand down its barrel. “It looks like someone dropped it into a garbage disposal.”

“We won’t be able to use it. Won’t do us any good,” Jenny had humphed in the corner amidst the cobwebs.

Jeff glanced at her strained face.

“A shotgun won’t kill vampires.” Her shoulders sagged. “Remember?”

“Yeah,” Jeff had said quietly. “You’re right.”

He tossed it haphazardly into a corner then abruptly retrieved it. “I’m going to take it along anyway, just in case. It might not kill them, but it might slow them down.”

“Fine with me,” Jenny said, too busy to really care, continuing her search for the book and the kit, leaving him to his own devices.

Now he was sitting cross-legged in the corner of the attic beneath the dirty window, where the most light was, resting a moment, sharpening another of his homemade wooden stakes with his army knife. He’d found the wood behind the garage. A pile of it in different shapes and sizes.

“I found it!” she yelped about fifteen minutes later, popping up with something in her hands. “The box. Found the book, too.” She grinned through the sweaty grime on her face.

It was hot in the attic. Her wound, now covered with a white gauze patch surrounded by bruises and smaller cuts, looked like a badge, a grim battle scar of what she’d already been through.

Jeff laid the stake he was working on aside and peeked over her shoulder as she inspected the book.

“How to Recognize and Destroy Vampires by Professor Ernst Blomberg,” Jenny read. The book was tattered, a faded purple in color, with a threadbare binding. “This is truly amazing.” Jenny leafed through it after Jeff snatched the wooden box from her.

He opened it. Inside lay a thing that looked like a huge crucifix, a silvered powder flask, two silver bullets with crosses embedded in them that looked more like silver balls, a small bottle of something labeled “Professor Blomberg’s new serum” and a tapered silver-capped loading rod. The crucifix-pistol could also be used as a stake when in close quarters, he supposed.

“Only two bullets left.” Jeff whistled between his teeth. “There are places for six. Not much room here for error. I wonder what happened to the rest of them?”

“Someone else became a believer, that’s what. I hope he got what he was aiming for. ”Jenny put the book down on a nearby trunk and took the open box out of Jeff’s hands. “You said this is a gun? It looks like a big cross to me. How does it work?”

Jeff lifted it from its red velvet bed. “There’s a steel barrel, I think, inserted into the body along its length.” He pointed to the lower side of the head of the cross. “This is a crude cap lock firing mechanism of some sort, and here, at the bottom, is what they call a percussion nipple. I imagine the lock works, the guts of the gun, is this flat spring that runs along the underside.” He turned the cross over and showed her the long spring that ran beneath a notched sear.

She watched intently.

“To cock and fire it, you just pull the folding sear, or trigger, back, then manually lift this flat spring and lock it into the sear’s notch.” He demonstrated. “Then when you pull the trigger back, the notch will release the spring, which also serves as the hammer, and it’ll detonate the cap, firing the pistol. Voilá!”

“You seem to know a lot about guns, too. You never cease to amaze me, Jeff.” It was another compliment.

“I told you I learned a lot on the road.”

“Interesting,” Jenny uttered, her brows creased, as she studied the crucifix gun in her hands. “It’s so little, so beautiful with all that designed ivory, to be so deadly. You think it still works?”

“I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t.” He took it apart expertly, examining the pieces, and then snapped them back together. “It looks sound to me. I’ll have to trust it. We can’t waste any of the silver balls practicing.”

“And that silver flask?”

He opened it and took a whiff. “I think it’s black powder, but I’m not sure where it fits in exactly. It’d be handy to have if you want to start a fire, though.” His expression settled into contemplation as he put the flask back in its place.

“There’s an inscription here,” Jenny disclosed, running her fingertip over a faded paper label pasted on the inside of the lid. “I can barely make it out. ‘This box contains the necessary items for protection of persons who travel into certain parts of Eastern Europe or—”

“Or Summer Haven,” Jeff tossed in sardonically.

Jenny continued without acknowledging his snide remark, “‘where the populace is plagued by evil manifestations of what is known as vampires.” Jenny read the rest out loud, frowning deeply. It explained how to recognize a vampire and described their care, feeding and habitats.

Jeff muttered something every once and awhile she couldn’t catch.

“Listen to this.” She read again from the book. “‘Vampires are at their weakest at that precise moment when the night kisses the dawn, and they are anxious to find their safety and their coffins lined with their native earth. Dawn?”

“I suggest we don’t wait that long,” Jeff advised caustically, rubbing his aching neck, a finished stake lying in his lap.

She skipped through pages until she came to the chapter on How to Kill Vampires . “To kill a vampire, it says here, ‘You can plunge a wooden stake, or any kind of stake, including steel, through their hearts; or you can leave them to the mercy of sunlight; or you can burn them. Contrary to old myths, garlic and crosses can’t always protect you; it depends on the age and the evilness of the vampire you’re facing. Fantastic,” she muttered. “They come in different levels of evil.”

Jeff groaned. “Wonderful.”

Her eyes slid to the bottom of the page. “‘Vampires have a great fear of water. Water saps their strength, and in large quantities, can actually immobilize them.’ We have to remember that. It says the silver balls in the kit were fashioned from a fifteenth-century saintly pope’s melted down crucifix, and they’re deadly to vampires. It warns that only those true of heart can hope to win against vampires. Others will perish. ”Jenny looked up and met Jeff’s worried eyes.

“He writes as if he knows what he’s talking about.” Jeff gazed up at the raftered ceiling, his voice thoughtful. “And to think, when you first received that so-called vampire-killing kit all those years ago, you thought it was a joke. Now ... it might save our lives. We better hurry, Jenny.” He twisted his wrist at her, showing her his watch, his mouth a slash in his gaunt face. “It’s already twelve. It gets dark these days around seven.”

She nodded.

He held out his right hand, palm up and opened. “Give me the box, Jenny, and you finish reading that book. You’re the speed reader here. See what else can help us, while I go find that gasoline. Then we have to get out of here.”

She closed and handed him the box, her head bent over the book again, her face screwing up in concentration.

Jeff left the attic silently.

It was after one by the time she and Jeff had loaded everything, including themselves, into the station wagon and headed back to the theater.

The old car hadn’t wanted to start and had delayed them even further. They’d discussed using Laurie’s car instead, but decided, in the end, that she and Joey would need it themselves if they had to flee the area.

It was raining hard by then, thunder and lightning roaring across the slate skies. They couldn’t see more than three feet ahead. The windshield wipers kept sticking on the downswing, and Jeff had to keep stopping, going out in the downpour to get them going again.

“Damn old junk heap,” he kept grumbling, kicking it in the tires every time he had to go out in the rain and fix it, trying to hide his mounting desperation.

They weren’t two miles away from the farmhouse, and had stopped for the third time to attend to the stubborn wipers, when the old station wagon finally gave out. No matter what Jeff did, he couldn’t get it going again.

“Damn! I don’t believe this!” he cursed, jumping back into the car, looking more like a drowned rat than a man. “It won’t start.” He pounded the steering wheel in frustration, lowering his head into his trembling hands.

Jenny thought, at first, he was crying.

“Jeff?” she touched his wet head, shivering with the knowledge that time was running out, and they were still miles away from their destination. Long miles.

He turned his face toward her, looking old and weary. “It won’t start, so what do we do now? We’re in the middle of nowhere with a broken down excuse for a lousy car, and it’ll be dark in a few hours.”

“We get out and walk, run, if we have to.” She watched the rain as it battered the car’s open hood.

They really didn’t have any other choice.

“Through the woods would be the quickest way I know. I’ll lead. There’s an old path I used to take to town when I was a kid. I bet it’s still there.” She gathered the two cans of gasoline and slid out of the car, merging into the heavy rain like a ghost into the mist.

After gathering the bundle of stakes, and stuffing the rest of the paraphernalia into his pockets, Jeff followed resignedly, trudging through the clinging mud, cussing loudly, and dodging wind-whipped branches.

The rain and mist were a miasmic veil hanging low over the forest. It was like walking through mushroom soup. Every couple of seconds, a bolt of lightning would light up the wet woods, like a stage lit with lights, and momentarily blind them.

Jeff had his army jacket on, for the pocket space, and Jenny had a thin green windbreaker on. Both were drenched in seconds.

It could have been worse; at least it wasn’t any colder.

In a few hours it would be dark, and if they didn’t get to the theater first and kill them, night would come, and they’d be the hunted again.

Jeff had a strong premonition that they wouldn’t get a second chance if they messed this one up.

They’d be dead.

As they mucked through the endless dripping woods, his footsteps seemed to be saying what his mind didn’t want to hear. “Don’t have much time ... don’t have much time ... you’re gonna die, ha, ha, ha.” Over and over.

Shut up, he growled at them, as he slipped in the mud for the fourth time, and Jenny had to help haul him to his feet.

Perhaps this hadn’t been such a damn good idea. He was no vampire killer. Damn.

Ahead of him, Jenny seemed to be able to hear his thoughts. “You can turn back anytime, Jeff,” she said in a weak voice he could barely hear over the hard rain.

He let go of everything he was lugging, grabbed her arm angrily, and spun her around. Right in her face, he said through clenched teeth, “I told you, I’d never let you down again, never run out on you, now didn’t I, Jenny? Where you go, I go. I damn well meant it.” His eyes burned. He yanked her to him and kissed her so hard she could barely breathe. His hands snuck under her jacket and encircled her, bringing her closer. His hands inched upwards.

She finally pulled away, her eyes both warm and scared. Then she laughed. “Here we were traipsing through a swamp in a downpour, on our way to kill vampires and blow up a movie theater, and you’re thinking about sex,” she teased him.

Then they both were laughing. He picked up the stuff he’d dropped, and two of his free fingers connected with hers as they continued their journey.

Chapter Eighteen

September 13

It was a grueling trek, and when they finally made it to the theater, the stormy afternoon was almost like night. The cloudburst hadn’t abated, and both Jenny and Jeff were exhausted to the bone, soaked and trembling.

Jeff had no trouble breaking in the back entrance of the theater. He used some little wire like gadget that jimmied the lock, and they were in.

“Your street friends taught you that, too, huh?”

“Yep.”

He slipped the gadget into one of the large pockets of his jacket, the pocket that didn’t have the wooden box, the hammers and the book in it, and picked up the stakes from where he’d laid them at his feet.

Jenny tread on his heels into the theater, hanging on to his coattails like a terrified child, listening to the spooky silence. Everywhere they stepped they left water spots.

Inside it was as dark as a crypt.

They sprinkled the gasoline from one of the cans over everything as they went. Jenny tried not to dwell on what had occurred there on her last visit, but the disturbing images haunted her, and she couldn’t shake them.

Her childhood memories of the place had been forever obliterated and replaced with the hateful truths she’d seen downstairs. If it hadn’t been for her righteous anger and hunger for revenge, she didn’t think she could have stood it.

The beauty of the place eluded her for the first time. The red velvet carpeting reminded her of blood, the opulent curtains and gleaming wood everywhere of the inside of a plush coffin.

All those stories that Maude had hinted mysteriously at so long ago, and all the things Michelson had revealed and she’d seen ... just how many people had died in this place? The disappearances. The fire long ago.

It was malevolent, like them. Evil. Why hadn’t she sensed it before as Jeff had.

Just last week they’d been working here every day with that below them; a few weeks ago, her father had been scraping paint and making jokes. It made her sick. Because of this damn theater, her father, her mother, the Albers, were all dead, and Joey had been turned into a scared, beaten shell of a man.

Maybe she and Jeff would be its next victims.

None of them would have been put in jeopardy if she hadn’t stopped by this cursed place that night all those weeks ago ... if she never had met the Michelsons. It was all her fault. That was the real reason she was back now. To pay that debt.

Soon the pungent scent of gasoline saturated everything: the engulfing aroma of buttered popcorn and chocolate, the newly shampooed smell of the carpets and the sharp scent of Windex.

Jenny had wandered close to the shimmering mirrors on one wall. She avoided looking into them too closely. Mirrors in a darkened room gave her the creeps. There always seemed to be more in them than her muted reflection.

Jenny.

Almost against her will, her eyes rose to the muddied glass. There were phantom people wavering deep inside it, watching and gesturing at her. She quickly looked behind her. There was no one around. She stood alone. She rotated back to the mirror.

They kept coming. Scores of them. Spectral figures emaciated and wispy in the mirror’s dark shadows, crowding their horrible faces up against their side, staring at and ogling her. Like a whole other nightmarish world of lost souls captured, embedded eternally, in the theater’s mirrors. In the theater.

Jenny reeled away from the ghoulish specters.

Jenny.

It was the Albers. George with his butchered face and Maude in her pretty, bloodied, summer dress. The pain and yearning in their haunted eyes twisted a knife deep in Jenny’s guts. They were weeping, reaching out to her ... but the Albers were dead.

Then Jenny’s eyes, filling with tears, roved over the other ravished faces. There was Sheriff Samuels. Guess he never got a chance to meet with the FBI. Clyde Foster. Other people from town. Friends. Her mother and her father, their eyes so full of fear, as if they didn’t understand where they were, or why.

“Mom ... Daddy ...” Her heart froze.

“Jeff!” she cried out in terror, and there he was, his arms going around her, pulling her head to hide against his chest. “Did you see them,” she whispered, her shoulders shaking, “in the mirror? ”

Jeff studied the mirrors over her shoulder. “Jenny, what are you talking about? I don’t see anyone. You scared me half to death ... the look on your face a moment ago ... are you okay?”

Jenny spun around. The shadowed mirrors were empty again. “Oh, God,” she mouthed, still in a state of shock. “They’re gone, Jeff. The people in the mirror. The Albers, Mom and Dad, and all the rest. I saw them! I swear it. They were waving at me. Trying to get my attention. Trying to tell me something.”

Jeff enfolded her into his arms, calming her, as they hunkered down in the corner at the top of the stairs to the basement. “I hate this place,” he admitted. After a while, his lips brushed against her ear, “We have to go below now.”

She wanted the theater to burn to the ground. Every brick and stick. With all of them in it, but she also wanted to get out alive with Jeff.

Just burning the place up, Jeff had explained, or even exploding the top floor, might not guarantee that the vampires in the basement would be destroyed. They had to go below and make sure they were down there in their coffins. Then they somehow had to strategically blow up the building from down there.

He tugged the flashlight from his pocket and beamed the light directly ahead of them so they wouldn’t trip. Their only hope was to slip in and out as swiftly as they could. Unheard and unseen.

If they weren’t able to do that, they had the crucifix gun from the vampire kit, the stakes, gasoline to douse the vampires with and homemade torches to set them afire. After that, they’d burn the whole place to the ground.

He took her hand firmly in his, and together they descended back into hell.

Jenny’s heart was sledge-hammering in her chest. Her hands were so clammy with fear she could hardly hold on to the remaining can of gasoline Jeff had given her to carry. She felt like she was going to throw up.

They came to the entrance of the long corridor, musty and full of spider webs, which branched off to the larger rooms where the coffins and the cages were, and halted.

Those awful hours in that stinking cage, the terror, the pain ... her mother, beaten and weeping in her arms, going into convulsions ... the sobs of the other prisoners.

Jenny’s body was betraying her and she couldn’t stop trembling, as if someone had dunked her in a tank of icy water. It was embarrassing, but she couldn’t stop it.

A noise. Something falling, something crashing somewhere above them.

Jeff shut the flashlight off immediately, leaving them to grope in the tarlike blackness.

It had to be one of them. Upstairs already.

“Maybe the storm’s brought them out earlier than usual,” Jeff’s voice leaked out, small and nervous, as if he were only talking about bugs or something. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Another scraping noise and Irene’s demon like laughter echoed around them.

They were trapped.

“Oh, my God, they’re awake,” Jenny choked out the words, gripping Jeff’s hand like a vise, trying not to let her mounting fear paralyze her. “We’re too late.”

“Come on! We have to find a place to hide,” Jeff urged.

“They read minds, Jeff. There’s no hiding from them.”

“Then don’t think. Try to blank your mind,” he instructed under his breath. He grabbed the can of gasoline from her, opened it and sprayed its contents behind them as they went. “If we’re going to die, by God, they’ll go with us.”

They ran into the room with the cages. The enclosures were empty, except for the decaying bodies. The stench hit her, a live malignant presence. The room was candle lit, and Jeff snuffed them out as he rushed by them.

In the adjoining rooms, the coffins gaped open, untenanted.

Jeff shoved Jenny down behind a stack of boxes, diving in after her. They squatted in the silent darkness, listening. Waiting.

They didn’t have long to wait.

“It’s over. You’d better come out. You’re right, you can’t hide from us.” Irene’s voice drifted to them in their hiding place. “I’m glad you dropped in, so convenient. I told Michelson you’d be back. I know your kind. Righteous and avenging.”

Jenny could feel Jeff’s hand touch hers, clammy, cautioning her not to move or speak.

Seconds passed.

“You want to play games?” Irene’s voice had turned hostile.

Jenny screamed, and before Jeff’s disbelieving eyes, she was sucked from his side and catapulted over the boxes. She landed with a sickening thud and another scream, fuller of hatred than hurt, on the other side.

Jeff charged, bellowing in anger, out of his hiding place, a stake and hammer ready in his hands. He stopped dead in his tracks at what awaited him and dropped them listlessly to the floor.

Irene had Jenny by the throat, ten feet above the ground. Jenny’s hands flailed helplessly at her captor, her eyes filled with fear and loathing as she continued to struggle and kick at the thing that had her in her grasp.

Jeff could see them clearly, because Irene’s face, her whole body, glowed as if it were incandescent. It lit up the room and was reflected into thousands of silvery floating threads that mingled with the rising mist.

“Let her go, you bitch!” Jeff yelled at the vampire. “Let her go!”

Irene only laughed.

Jenny plummeted to the cement floor. She didn’t cry out, not even a whimper, when she landed.

Jeff ran to gather her into his arms, his eyes hard with caution staring at Irene as he did, his held-in rage darkening his face.

“Let them go, Irene,” Terry Michelson, his Annie poised supportively by his side, warned in a deadly voice from behind them.

Jeff looked back at him. He hadn’t seen the couple enter. They’d appeared from nowhere.

“It won’t hurt you, this once, to be merciful. You’ve killed her mother and father, her friends. Isn’t that enough for you?” Michelson moved forward, a candle materializing in his hand. The flickering luminance lit up his pale features in an eerie way. He looked like a ghost. “It’s time we leave this place anyway.” His cold eyes raked the cages. “You’ve fouled your own lair so badly again that it’ll only be a matter of time before they discover us. Again. Flush us out like rats. Again. ”

“Let them go?” Irene spat disdainfully. “You must be kidding. They came here to kill us—all of us. Do you think they’d have pity for us? They were going to burn us alive.”

“Look around. We deserve none.” Michelson sighed, shaking his head.

To Jenny it seemed as if something had died in him. The will to keep living the way they were living. Jenny suddenly had his thoughts in her head: In all his centuries, he’d never seen such carnage as Irene and her friends created. He’d never felt guilt, until now. His eyes briefly went to Annie. Perhaps she’d truly changed him.

“You’re vile, malevolent, Irene, the worst of our kind, not fit to live. Us, too, for standing by and letting you. I don’t blame them for wanting to destroy us.”

It happened so swiftly, Jeff didn’t have time to move, much less to protect Jenny. She was ripped from his embrace again, tossed like a doll into the air and rammed against the high ceiling. She cried out once as her body hovered above them, a physical pawn being tugged first one way than another in Irene and Michelson’s struggle for power.

Jeff’s eyes followed her for a moment, and then he lunged at Irene. She swatted him away like an annoying insect without taking her eyes off of Michelson.

“If you hurt her,” Jeff hissed at Irene from the floor where he’d landed, “I’ll destroy you. Somehow. I swear it.” Then he scrambled toward something on the floor, and a wooden stake flew through the air.

Irene spun around, and lifting her hand faster than the eye could see, stopped the stake in midair, inches away from her face, yet it kept her busy just long enough for Michelson to make his move.

He had Irene by the throat in the millisecond it took Jenny to fall—landing neatly in Jeff’s outstretched arms.

Michelson and Irene grappled and flew apart, staring at each other like blood-hungry cats, circling.

“I’m going to kill them.”

“I can’t allow that, Irene.”

“You can’t stop it.”

“I can try.”

The other vampires had shown up and were hovering across the room from them in the dark, waiting.

Jenny, just coming to, and Jeff didn’t stay around to watch as the two vampires slammed each other around the room like super beings, egged on by the others. He dragged Jenny to a safe spot behind a coffin, closer to the stairs.

Irene was clearly the stronger from the very beginning, and when Annie came to her husband’s aid, Irene simply slashed her with her fangs across the neck, nearly decapitating her.

Then Irene vanished and reappeared with a lit candle in her hand. Viciously, before Michelson could prevent it, she reached down and touched its flame to the hem of Annie’s gown. The dress caught fire unbelievably fast, as if it’d been a fuel doused torch.

Through the flames burst the most excruciating howl of agony Jenny had ever heard. Almost equaled by the one from Terry Michelson as he rushed towards Annie’s writhing, flame engulfed body. He couldn’t get near her.

The smell of roasting, rotten flesh diffused into the air and mingled with the rising vapor.

Jenny covered her eyes and her ears with her hands.

Michelson launched himself at Irene as Jeff, seeing perhaps his only chance, brought the small box from his coat pocket and took out the crucifix gun. He readied it, took careful aim, and fired at the nearest vampire. Candice.

The silver bullet must have found her heart. She fell shrieking and thrashing to the floor.

Jeff dropped the crucifix into his pocket and ran towards her with a stake and the hammer raised. He never needed it. Death took her in a puff of smoke. She was gone, just like that. As if she’d never been. A pile of ashes that melted into the concrete floor.

Jeff pulled the crucifix gun from his pocket again. He reloaded it, tamped in the black powder (the use Jenny had finally discovered from the book) and the other silver ball with shaking hands ... but not fast enough.

“Jeff, watch out!” Jenny cried.

His face jerked up.

The other male vampire was hurtling towards him, metamorphosing into a huge black wolf, its rapier like fangs barred, its lupine eyes brimming with hellish hateful rage.

Jeff screamed and tried evasive action.

Jenny was hurt, but ignoring the explosion of pain it caused her body, she scrambled towards Jeff to help him.

The vampire wolf hit him as he moved, glancing off to his left and instantly circling back around for another charge, knocking the last bullet out of his hands. It rolled away with an echoing ping-ping-ping into the murkiness somewhere.

“Damn,” Jeff swore and flung himself to the ground on his hands and knees, barely dodging his attacker long enough to search desperately for the lost bullet, in vain. He didn’t find it before the wolf was on him, tearing at him.

Yanking the gasoline can from the floor as she went, and with Irene still preoccupied with Michelson, Jenny hurled herself on the wolf. She pounded it over the head with the can, stunning it long enough for Jeff to roll away.

The wolf wheeled on Jenny, knocked her to the ground with one huge paw and returned to Jeff.

It was practically on top of him when Jeff must have remembered the crucifix gun’s other use, because the wooden tapered loading rod was still jammed in the barrel. Clutching it in his one hand as he tried to fend off the wolf, he brought it up under the animal’s belly. He yanked back on the trigger at the same time, lifting and trying to lock the spring in the sear’s notch by feel only.

He maneuvered the crucifix around to point towards the monster’s chest. As the vampire’s teeth clamped onto his neck and his claws dug into the sides of his body, Jeff squeezed the trigger, expelling the loading rod into where the creature’s heart must have been.

With a piercing howl, the creature fell away, groveling on the floor ... and then he, too, dissolved slowly into a puddle of whitish ash.

Jenny crawled to Jeff’s side. “You’re hurt,” she wept, seeing the blood.

“No, just scratches. I’ll be okay.” He was still staring at the spot where the vampire had been.

Irene and Terry Michelson were still locked in their final death struggle. It wouldn’t be long.

Jeff must have realized they had precious little time left to do what they had to do, because he was on his knees. With Jenny’s help, he made it to his feet before she could protest. He was surprised to find he could stand and actually walk after what had happened, but didn’t waste any time thinking about it.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jeff captured her hand and practically carried her out of the room and down the hallway, “and do what we came to do.”

She could barely walk, much less run.

“Because if Irene wins back there, we’re dead, and so are a lot of others.” The horrible sounds behind them surged into one chilling scream. “Let’s pray we have the time to do it,” he said. He retrieved the flashlight from his pocket, nearly dropping it in his haste.

* * * *

They hobbled into a tiny room at the end of the corridor.

“It’s the furnace room,” Jeff whispered. “I noticed it earlier when I was here looking for you. Michelson had a brand new furnace and air conditioning unit put in. Not that you need it here in Florida much.” He smirked in the flashlight’s faint beam. “Maybe they like it cooler than we do.”

“What are we doing here?”

“We can blow this whole place to kingdom come with this furnace, the gasoline we’ve spilled, the kerosene there, a match and a matchbook but we’ll have only minutes to get out ourselves. Just until the matchbook burns and the fire spreads.”

“Do it,” Jenny breathed, giving him permission. She didn’t have to think twice about it.

“Here, then, hold the flashlight for me.”

She took it and directed it where he wanted her to as he scrambled over and turned the gas on full force and switched the furnace on. Jenny could feel the instant vibration.

He moved away from her and started ripping the gas pipes loose from the wall and she heard the hiss of the escaping gas. Smelled it.

As he worked, he explained, “See these cans?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re ten gallon cans of kerosene, half-full. They’re left over from before when they used it to help keep the fire in the old coal furnace going, or to start it, or fill the old kerosene lamps they had here when the place first opened. Used it to help get tar stains out of the plush carpets upstairs, as well.”

“Hurry!” Jenny’s eyes kept rushing towards the open door.

“Back towards the door. Now!” he ordered a moment later.

She did as she was told.

A splashing sound and the cloying heavy scent of kerosene filled the air as he spilled it across the floor.

He lit a cigarette, puffing furiously until only about half was left. She could see his anxious face silhouetted in the hazy circle of light as he fished in one of his pockets and brought out a book of matches. Bending the cover over backwards, he propped it on the floor in the middle of the kerosene spill. Then he jabbed what was left of the cigarette into the matches, lit side up.

Taking the flashlight from her, he yelped, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

He pushed her out of the room ahead of him. They staggered up the stairs, breathing heavily, up into and through the lobby and out into the rainy afternoon, like bats fleeing from the light.

They’d just cleared the front doors, bursting out into the wet parking lot, when Jeff tackled her to the ground, protecting her body with his own.

The world behind them exploded.

A few seconds slower, and they’d have been barbecued.

Shaken, but relieved that they’d escaped alive, Jenny cried in Jeff’s arms, crouched on the ground, as the theater burnt. Soon it would be nothing but ashes, as well.

Hopefully, with the rain, the fire wouldn’t travel over to Joey’s Place.

“Shhh, shhh, now, sweetheart,” he comforted her lovingly, as the firelight flickered across her tearstained face. “It’s over. We’re safe. They’re all gone. Dead. Forever. No one’s going to get out of there.” He squinted his eyes back at the flames. “It’s a good thing the movie didn’t start until later. At least there weren’t any people to worry about frying.”

Jenny watched the fire. She could feel the intense heat reddening her face. It made the night warm.

She thought of her dad and her mom, the Albers. Sheriff Samuels.

Sorry, I couldn’t save any of you, but no one else will ever die by their hands again.

Then she thought of Michelson and silently thanked him, even if he had been one of them. In the end, his sacrifice, his courage had saved them, she was sure of it. If he hadn’t helped, she and Jeff would be dead now.

She looked at Jeff and smiled, almost her old self. “You really blew up the place. Isn’t there anything you can’t do?” She smiled weakly at him.

He smiled back through the grime. “Not much. Do you want me to take you to a doctor, Jenny?” he asked gently.

“No, I don’t think I need one. Mostly I’m bruised and tired.”She brushed the now dirty gauze patch on her face with the tips of her fingers. “Maybe, later, for this, but it can wait. I just want to go home. I want to see Joey. Laurie’s probably worried to death by now.”

She had to make arrangements for her mother’s burial and tell Joey, which filled her with fresh sorrow.

In the light from the crackling flames, she saw the blood on Jeff’s clothes, on his neck. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” he said, so firmly that she didn’t even try to change his mind. “I’ll take care of it myself. It’s not that deep. I need a bath, a bed and you, alone, in my arms. It’s better if we don’t stick around anyway. Too many questions.” He waved at the pyre behind them. “Let the police and the authorities take care of this mess. Let them think it was an accident or arson. It doesn’t matter.”

“Then let’s go home, Jeff.”

He helped her to her feet, and they limped to the nearest phone to call Laurie. She’d come and get them.

Off in the distance, a fire engine’s siren cut the night like a banshee’s wail of torment.

Jenny hoped they’d get a flat tire.

She wanted that damn place to burn until there wasn’t a stick left not charred.

* * * *

Once they were at the farmhouse, Laurie insisted on taking Joey back to the hospital, where he belonged, now that everything was over. Jenny agreed.

Telling Joey about their mother was hard, but he accepted it easier once he learned that the theater and the vampires were obliterated, and the vampires would never kill again. Joey was so relieved, he cried.

Jeff doctored his own wounds, deep gashes where he’d been clawed and bit, with Jenny’s help. He cleaned and bandaged the slash on her face, the other multiple scratches and cuts she had over her body and he predicted that she’d have to be seen soon by a doctor. “That gash on your face needs stitches and besides all those bruises and smaller cuts and scrapes, you might have a few cracked ribs, too.” Their survival had been a bona fide miracle any way they looked at it.

Jeff phoned the police, and afterwards the funeral home. The respective authorities came, asked a lot of questions, weren’t happy with most of the answers, but finally took her mother’s body away. There’d been a lot of similar killings. All unsolved. What else could the police do. It was then that they found out that Sheriff Samuels had never called in the FBI at all.

“I guess he never got a chance to,” Jeff said, “before they got to him.”

There would be an inquest, of course, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

It was over for them and that’s all that mattered.

After the new acting sheriff, someone neither Jenny nor Jeff knew, and the people from the funeral home were gone, they elected to stay at the farmhouse for the night. They were too exhausted to walk back to the trailer.

Once in the spare room’s bed, as tired as they were, they made love, as if having been so close to death had made them cherish their love more.

Jenny couldn’t stand for him to be out of her sight, and she struggled to make the connection between the man Jeff had been once and the man he was now. They were so different.

She kept seeing him in her mind, trudging behind her through the woods in the rain, fighting the vampires and lighting the cigarette that set the theater ablaze.

* * * *

Jenny slept better than she had in a long time, waking before dawn to a puzzling noise from down the hallway somewhere.

She sat up in bed, coming through the layers of sleep groggily, like a swimmer from deep waters to shallow, rubbing her eyes. Her senses were still dulled.

The sun was beginning to tint the windows, casting a pinkish blush on Jeff’s sleeping and bruised face. He’d taken quite a beating the night before. She didn’t want to wake him.

The sound of breaking glass in her mother’s room.

“Mom?”

But her mother was dead.

Jenny crawled out of bed, sore and stiff from the night before, her side a sharp pain probably from the broken ribs, and wandered down the hall into the last room. The window was wide open, and a chill draft brought goose bumps to her skin.

The room wasn’t vacant.

In the twilight of the impending dawn, a figure stood cloaked in darkness in the corner by the dresser. It floated forward and out of the shadows, glaring at her.

“Irene?” Jenny whispered, too shocked to move.

“Yes,” the voice was muffled, distorted.

“I thought you were—”

“Buried in rubble and ash like the others?” Irene moved closer, the first of the sun’s rays sparkling behind her. Illuminating her for the first time.

Irene reminded her of a melted wax figure. Her clothes were still smoldering from the fire, her face and body horribly mutilated. Scarred.

The room reeked of burnt flesh. The apparition was enveloped in a filthy smoking mist that blackened everything it touched.

Jenny didn’t move. She found she couldn’t. She couldn’t call out for help.

Somehow Irene was holding her.

Brutal images assaulted Jenny’s thoughts, making her body flinch violently ... Michelson’s brutal death, the theater exploding and trapping them, Irene fighting the flames, screaming and cursing, crawling from the burning rubble of the theater ... scrabbling out and escaping into the cool night. Screeching to the dark skies her promise of revenge.

Evil glowed like hot coals from the sadistic eyes in a puffy, bloody face. A ghoulish smile showed gleaming fangs. Irene’s malice battered her like a sickness coming to its fever pitch.

With a contemptuous smile, Irene released her mind, and Jenny crumpled to the floor, a strange lethargy creeping into her limbs. She scooted up against the wall.

“It’s almost dawn.” Jenny’s voice squeaked out. “I thought vampires couldn’t tolerate sunlight?” She’d begun that shaking again.

“I’m not like other vampires.” Irene’s voice sounded savage now, but still in such a low register, Jenny had to strain to understand her. “Only direct sunlight while I’m in such a state will harm me. I am weakened,” she confessed bitterly. “For now.”

Jenny couldn’t move.

“I have lived over two millennia and never thought I’d die. Though I was ever stalked by your kind, hoping to ensnare and exterminate me. It’s why I despise humans so. Yet I have always gotten away until now. I am dying. Because of you.” Her voice was tinged with an intense malice. “All I have to do is drain every last drop of blood from your body, Jenny, before full dawn and I might still live. It’s painful, Jenny and when you’re dead, I’ll give you my blood, and you will become like me. A vampire.”

Jenny’s mind shattered. To be like them. Monsters. To have to kill and drink human blood and take human lives. To live only at night. To sleep in a coffin. Irene’s ancient blood would make her like Irene. Damned and vicious. No!

Irene was on her, and Jenny had no voice to scream with, had no will to fight her attacker. She fell to the floor, helpless, with Irene on top of her and Irene’s fangs tearing into her neck, ripping her throat open so she could slurp up the warm blood faster.

I’m going to die. Jenny thought incredibly. Like Mom and Dad, but worse ... worse ... I’ll be like her! No, no.

With her will alone she freed her voice. “Someone help me,” she screamed. “Jeff!”

Suddenly Jeff was there, pulling Irene off of her. The vampire rolled to the floor and came awkwardly to her feet to face him. A pathetic figure, maimed and scarred as the victims she’d left strewn behind her over her lifetime, still Jenny had no pity for her.

The sun was coming up. Irene was having a hard time keeping out of its direct rays. She kept moving with the dwindling shadows in the room.

Jenny had covered her torn neck with her hands, trying to staunch the blood’s flow, trying not to pass out. She’d bleed to death.

“Now I’ll have both of you,” Irene croaked.

“Not if I can help it,” Jeff vowed with more courage than he felt.

His eyes rested a moment on Jenny as she lay on the floor bleeding and then traveled the room as if he were searching for something.

He edged towards the dresser, the vampire matching him step for step, and abruptly lunged for Estelle’s crystal bottle of holy water. He scooped it up in his hands, pulled out the tapered stopper and splashed the contents over her.

Irene wailed as the holy water, like acid, ate her skin.

Jeff smashed the empty bottle against the side of the dresser, and moving in swiftly, plunged the large glittering sliver of wet glass deep into Irene’s heart like a stake and then he shoved her out through the window into the full sunlight.

To her dying day, Jenny would never forget the vampire’s shrieking. It rose like a trumpet of hell, and only died away after there was nothing left of her.

When the body was a puddle of smoldering rags in the singed grass, Jeff knelt down by Jenny’s side and gathered her into his arms. She was barely conscious.

He ripped a section of material from the bed sheet, tied it loosely around Jenny’s neck and told her to keep pressure on the wound. Then he ran to the phone in the kitchen to call an ambulance.

She could hear him praying out loud that she wouldn’t die before it got there.

As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Jenny was reminded of something she’d read in the book on vampires: Only the true of heart can hope to kill a vampire.

She asked feebly, “How did you know she was here? How did you know what you did would kill her?” Jenny asked through bloody lips, so weakened she could barely raise her head as he held her.

“Your mother told me,” he said softly, an awed gleam in his eyes, now awash with tears. He brushed the matted hair back from her face. The pain was making her grit her teeth.

Her world seemed to cloud with confusion. “My mother?”

“Yes, your mother woke me and told me you needed me. Told me how to kill Irene.”

“My mother’s dead.” Jenny coughed, clutching at his arm, as the world wobbled around her.

“I know,” Jeff said wonderingly, and his face broke into a beautiful smile. “She also told me to tell you she loved you. She always has and always will. ”

His smile was the last thing Jenny saw before she passed out.

Epilogue

December 24

Outside, in the night, it was snowing, a light snow, but snow nonetheless. The first time, the weather person said, that it’d actually snowed in Florida in over fifty years. A true Christmas Eve.

It was thirty-one degrees, in Florida.

A Canadian cold front had rampaged across the whole United States and plunged Florida’s usually mild temperatures into a record breaking cold. Jenny knew it could ruin the orange groves, but hoped the damage wouldn’t be too bad. She’d only seen snow a couple of times in her life, and it was lovely.

The snow lit up the landscape around the old farmhouse, drifting and sifting, kissing the ground, but never really coming to rest for very long in any one place. It was so beautiful. Shimmering like tiny white stars everywhere. It would be gone by morning.

Inside it was warm and cozy. In the newly redecorated kitchen, Jenny was fixing mugs of hot chocolate for everyone, sprinkling them with miniature marshmallows. She added a plate of freshly baked Christmas cookies next to the mugs, humming an old Beatles’ song from her high school days.

It was good to be feeling like herself again. After Irene’s attack on her three months before, she’d had to spend a long time in the hospital in intensive care; she’d had to have plastic surgery. Joey and she had been hall mates. The scars on her neck were still red and angry. They would take more surgery and time to heal, but she’d been very lucky, a little more blood loss, and she would have been dead.

If it hadn’t been for her husband, Jeff. Husband. That sounded good.

As soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital, Jeff and she had remarried. They’d sold the trailer and moved into her parents’ old farmhouse. In the last month, they’d begun renovating it with the money from the sale of the trailer: new carpeting, wallpaper, kitchen cabinets and furniture.

After Christmas they were tackling the upstairs, and in the spring, they would add siding and better insulation.

Right after the first of the year, Jeff was going to try his hand at his own contracting company.

Even though the theater had burned mysteriously to the ground, renovating it had gotten them lots of later job offers, though Jenny wouldn’t be doing that sort of work anymore. Jeff already had a new crew lined up and waiting.

In the hospital, she’d missed the inquest of her mother’s death. Since there’d been such a rash of the same kind of murders, all unexplained, the cause of death by the FBI, had been listed Homicide by person or persons unknown. Investigations still ongoing. Jeff, the only one talking at the time, hadn’t even tried to tell the authorities the truth. What purpose would it have served?

The burial had been swift and discreet. Jenny had been devastated that she hadn’t been well enough to attend, but she was sure her mother had forgiven her. She’d been out to the graves to talk to her parents and lay flowers many times since.

They were together again. Forever.

Jenny picked up the tray of hot chocolate and carried it into the living room. Her eyes smiled as they came to rest on the twinkling Christmas tree that dominated it.

There was a fake fire on the flickering television screen and laughter. What had happened in August and September now seemed, at times, a vague nightmare.

Joey, still recovering, sat on the new sofa, his arm around Laurie.

“I just told Jeff the good news.” Joey beamed, squeezing his girlfriend. “Since I’ve got a house now, it’s time to really settle down.”

The Albers’ will, it’d turned out, had left their house and everything they owned, money included, to Ernest and Estelle Lacey; with Ernest and Estelle both dead, it had gone to their survivors. Their three children.

Joey had been given the Albers’ house, because Jenny and Jeff had taken the farmhouse and some of the money. Jenny hadn’t wanted her childhood home to be sold, having discovered its true value to her heart.

Their older brother Tom had taken his share in money only. Everyone was happy.

“I need a wife,” Joey said red faced. “I guess it’s catching, and Laurie has said yes to marrying me.”

“Well, I’ll be.” Jenny laughed, putting the tray down. “It’s about time. Congratulations, you two.”

Jenny gave Laurie a hug. “Welcome to the family, Laurie. What’s left of it anyway.”

“Have you set a date, yet?” Jeff inquired, sipping his hot chocolate. His face had filled out as well as his frame. He had the look of a contented man. The restlessness was gone. He’d even gotten a haircut for their wedding.

“Yes, the nineteenth of January. It’s a Saturday. Jeff, you’ll be my best man, won’t you, since I was yours? For the second time.”

“You know I will.”

Joey had gotten up and was poking around in the presents again, shaking and squeezing them, trying to guess what was in the ones marked for him.

Jeff grinned at Jenny, nodding towards her brother. “Still a kid, ain’t he?”

“Yep. He never grew up,” Jenny sighed, making a face. “Peter Pan forever.”

Everyone laughed.

“Get away from those presents!” Jenny laughingly chided her brother for the third time that night. “Can’t you wait until the rest of the family gets here, for Pete’s sake?”

“You know me, Sis.”

“Yeah, I know you. You’re a sneak.”

Their older brother, Tom, and his family were due any minute, Jenny’s daughter, Samantha, her husband and child, too. They were all coming to spend Christmas with the family for the first time in years. Jenny couldn’t wait to see them.

She had a lot to be happy about.

She was writing again. After ten years. Really writing, with Jeff’s encouragement, and it felt good. Her writing would never cause her guilt again, only joy. She’d make her mom and dad proud of her again. Make herself proud.

About two weeks ago, Jenny had been contacted by an editor at a large publisher who wanted to bring her three books out in print again. It hadn’t been the first time in the last ten years that she’d been approached, but it’d been the first time she said yes. The rights to the books had finally reverted back to her.

She’d also begun a new novel. A sort of vampire love story. The editor had offered to buy it sight unseen. Of course, he thought it was a horror story, fiction. Jenny knew better.

“It’s going to be some Christmas, isn’t it?” Jeff said, but knowing they deserved it after all they’d been through. In his mind, he’d told her, he could still see her locked in that cage as he had first found her, dirty and bloody, her dying mother lying in her arms. He’d involuntarily shuddered as he’d spoken of it. They’d earned the happiness they had now, he believed, and he’d fight tooth and nail to keep it.

“Yes, it is,” Jenny laughed back. She nursed her memories as well. In her mind, her mother and father were still here with her in the farmhouse. Ghosts, but happy at last, and together. She often heard their youthful laughter as she moved through the rooms, just like she heard the Albers when she visited Joey’s house. “To have my family all together. Be back with the ones I truly love.” She gave Jeff a particularly astute look, and smiled at her brother, ponytail and all, and her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Laurie had changed her hairdo, too. She’d liked Jenny’s new perm so well, she’d had one herself. It made all the difference, at least she no longer looked like she’d just stepped out of the sixties.

Jeff beamed at her.

“And happy,” Jenny continued. “This is what I’ve missed all these years.” Her eyes swept the room and gazed a brief moment out into the falling snow. “Being home back in Summer Haven. Where I’ve always belonged.”

Jeff took her hand. “Like they say, there’s no place like home.” His eyes were soft and grateful.

Then he hugged his wife tightly, kissing her in front of everyone; telling her, not for the first time, how pretty she was in her tight black slacks and green turtleneck sweater, her diamonds glittering on her ears, her long hair in soft flowing curls that softened the shape of her face, set off her lovely brown eyes and hid her scars. Her happiness made her glow.

“Here, here!” Joey raised his hot chocolate mug in an impromptu toast, and the others followed, laughing, as someone knocked loudly on the front door.

“I bet that’s Samantha,” Jenny exclaimed, squeezing Jeff’s hand tighter, her face lighting up.

“I bet you’re right.” Her husband smiled over at her, his eyes welling up with tears of happiness as he stood up and pulled Jenny to her feet.

Singing “Jingle Bells” softly, she answered the door.

About the Author:

Kathryn Meyer Griffith a wife of 32 years (husband, Russell), mother (one son, James) and grandmother (two grandchildren, Caitlyn and Joshua). She was a graphic designer in the corporate world for over 20 years but has been a writer for over 39 years. She’s published fourteen novels and seven short stories since 1984. And by July 2012 all of her older out-of-print Leisure and Zebra paperbacks will be re-released again by Damnation Books and Eternal Press in revised and updated paperbacks (with new covers) and in e-books for the first time!

She considers herself a horror writer but has also written paranormal romances, time travel and murder mysteries. She loves chocolate, cats and nature, classic rock and country music (her brother is a singer/songwriter and does the songs for all her self-made book trailers that are on her websites).

Her published books: Evil Stalks the Night (supernatural horror) 1984; The Heart of the Rose 1985; Blood Forge 1989; Vampire Blood 1991; The Last Vampire 1992; Witches 1993 & Pinnacle 2000; a novella called The Nameless One in Dark Seductions , an erotic horror anthology 1993; The Calling (supernatural horror) 1994. The Nameless One – ALL OF THESE ARE BEING REPRINTED AS NEW PAPERBACKS AND E-BOOKS (for the first time ever!) between now and July 2012 by DAMNATION BOOKS and ETERNAL PRESS…watch for them!

Scraps of Paper 2003; All Things Slip Away, the second mystery in the series came out in 2006. E-book & paperbacks Egyptian Heart 2007; Winter’s Journey 2008; The Ice Bridge 2008, and two ghostly short stories, Don’t Look Back, Agnes and In This House. BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons , an apocalyptic saga from Damnation Books, June 2010. The Woman in Crimson , a vampire novel, from Eternal Press, September 2010.

Her websites:

http:// www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

See all her new covers and self-made book trailers; some with her singer/songwriter brother Jim Meyer’s original songs!

http:// www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG

http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://moh.spruz.com/member

http://www.facebook.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://www.jacketflap.com/K.Griffith

http://www.shoutlife.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://www.goodreads.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://romancereadersandwriters.ning.com/profile/KathrynMeyerGriffith

http://romancebookjunction.ning.com/profile/kathrynmeyergriffith

Email Kathryn Meyer Griffith at: rdgriff@htc.net

She loves feedback!

Also from

Kathryn Meyer Griffith:

Witches

Author’s Revised Edition

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

eBook ISBN: 9781615723553

Print ISBN: 9781615723560

Paranormal Supernatural

Novel of 110,123 words

 

Amanda Givens is careful how she uses her powers. She doesn’t want the people of Canaan, Connecticut, to know they have a witch among them...even a good, white witch. For years, she’s lived quietly in a remote cabin in the woods with Amadeus, her feline familiar.

When she’s wrongly blamed for a rash of ritualistic murders committed by a satanic cult, she knows she can’t hide any longer. She’s the one the cult’s after. More than that, she’s the only one who can stop them and prove her innocence. In doing this, she’s drawn back in time by the ghost of the malevolent witch, Rachel Coxe, who was drowned for practicing black magic in the 17th century. Now, as Amanda tries to rehabilitate Rachel’s reputation in an effort to save lives, as well as her own, she has to rely on a sister’s love and magical knowledge, and a powerful sect of witches called the Guardians, to help her get home safely.

Also from Damnation Books:

The Lost Village

by Mark Edward Hall

eBook ISBN: 9781615721856

Print ISBN: 9781615721863

Horror Vampire

Novel of 256,448 words

 

Sarah Jameson Landry and her five year old daughter, Annabelle, haunted by the same insistent voice, embark on a reluctant journey to find their ancestral home. They discover a strange little village that somehow went adrift from the rest of the world. They uncover a horrifying legacy of missing children dating back hundreds of years, and learn the terrible secrets of their own ancestral past.

Michael Bannon, haunted by his own demons has come to James Village in search of anonymity. He finds distance cannot erase the terrible mistakes of the past. He discovers also that he is connected to Sarah and Annabelle. They form an alliance with a small group of friends and villagers, who are tired of being afraid, and resign themselves to the task of seeking the. Together they embark on a terrifying quest to destroy the evil that lies at the center of all their lives.

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