Chapter Seventeen
Closure
Everyone except Anthony is asleep when I get back to the house.
He stood sentinel in the living room, keeping watch over everyone. We kind of have that in common these days, both of us can function on very minimal sleep. I fill him in on everything, as well as my plan to visit Gwen in the morning. Tammy’s asleep in my old bed. She doesn’t move when I climb in and lay next to her. Sleep hits me surprisingly fast. Maybe I’m exhausted from the emotional workout I got dealing with not only Dad, but seeing Mack and having to put him down. Ugh.
I dream of being seventeen again and waiting tables at the diner. Mack’s there, asking me if I got my homework done and hinting he’d make me something to eat for free if I was hungry.
Dammit. The world is worse off for him not being in it.
Sunrise wakes me up. As a kid, I hated mornings. Though, I probably didn’t hate mornings themselves as much as I dreaded going to school and getting teased by everyone for being the ‘dirty poor kid.’ The teasing petered off in high school since our money situation had improved by then. Those four years I blended in with the kids who didn’t fall into any identifiable subgroup. Not a jock, a preppie, a cheerleader, a nerd, or a weirdo goth kid… just sort of a background extra in my own life no one paid much attention to.
I slip out of bed without disturbing Tammy, then close my eyes and summon the dancing flame.
Yes, I slept in my clothes.
I’d been to Mack’s place a few times while working for him. No, nothing creepy. We weren’t alone. A few of us from the diner went out there to earn some extra money helping him clean out the garage once. Another time he hired us to help paint. Normal stuff. Completely innocent. Honestly, I think he was just looking for an excuse to help me out financially. He didn’t really need to hire help for those things.
Anyway, point is, I’ve been to his house… and can picture it.
The flame expands into a doorway sized opening that I step through and out into the real world—in fact, onto a swath of gravel serving as his driveway. A smallish, elevated wooden deck serves as a front porch. His house is kind of embedded in a steep hill. Trees surround the property, which is about two miles outside of downtown. He’s less remote than my parents’ place but it still counts as the middle of nowhere. The white siding is a little dirty in spots. A red Bronco—the same one Mack drove when I was a kid—sits on the gravel a little to my right. That thing’s gotta be thirty years old or more.
Need to get this done before my family wakes up so I can go with them back to the hospital. Not sure there is a ‘proper’ way to deal with a dying parent. Are we all going to stay at the house for up to a month, visiting him every day until he’s gone? Or is it good enough to visit him for a week or so and then go home and wait for the bad phone call?
I don’t have anything pressing going on, really. If I want to shutter the PI biz until this is over with, I have the freedom to do it. Yeah, pretty sure I’m going to be staying here until Dad is gone…. Even if he outlasts the doctor’s prediction. I have a lot of lost time to make up for—or try to. Mary Lou and hers might head out at the end of the week. Dusk plans to permanently stay at the house. None of my other siblings nor I mind the idea. Someone needs to take care of Mom and he’s the only one of us who has absolutely no ties anywhere else in the world.
But before I leave, I think I’m going to make sure the house at least has satellite internet so that Dusk can email us all. I’d like to stay in touch if I can.
Anyway, the sounds of activity inside the house tell me Gwen is awake already. Not surprising if she’s the one who opens the diner up soon. Probably wakes up before sunrise.
I go up the wooden stairs and knock.
The woman who answers the door is simultaneously familiar and strange. This is definitely Gwen, but she looks more like Gwen’s mom. The last time I saw her, I was eighteen and she was in her thirties. Time has been relatively kind to her, though. She’s sixty-something now. Still has the same shoulder-length hair, though it’s silvery blonde now.
“Gwen?” I ask.
“Yeah. Do I know you?”
“It’s been a while, but yeah.” I smile. “Samantha Sundance?”
“Holy crap.” Gwen blinks. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
She steps out from the door and hugs me. “How you doing, kiddo?”
“I’m okay.” I return the hug.
“Never thought I’d see you back here. Word is you went off to bigger and better things.” Gwen smiles.
I offer a weak smile. “Bigger, yes. The jury’s still out on the better part. ”
“I’m about to head to the Monarch,” says Gwen. “Don’t really have time to properly catch up. Are you going to be around a while?”
“Probably yeah. This won’t take too long, but it’s important.”
She tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s about Mack.”
Most of the color drains from her face. She stares at me for a long, awkward moment. “Bad news, isn’t it?”
My face gives it away before I can say a word.
She breaks down in sobs.
I help her inside, to the living room and a seat on the couch. It’s like a trip back into the 1980s in here. Everything is beige or brown. Except the TV. That’s on the newer side, a nice big flat panel.
“What the hell are you doing here telling me this?” Gwen sniffles. “Where are the police?”
“The police aren’t equipped to deal with this.” I take her hand in both of mine, looking her in the eyes. “What I’m going to tell you sounds extremely crazy and weird, but I promise you it’s the absolute truth.”
She stares at me.
“Normally, I don’t go around telling people this sort of thing because most people can’t handle it at all.” I take a breath. “Mack asked me to tell you the truth, so here I am.”
“He asked you? But… he’s dead?”
“You’ve obviously heard rumors going around here about all the missing people.”
Gwen nods. “Some say there’s a serial killer out there. Or aliens are abducting people. Old Earl Miller thinks the government is operating a secret CIA lab out in the woods and they’re grabbing people for experiments. ”
“I’m afraid the reality is a lot weirder than an unethical government project. This is going to sound really crazy but… Klamath has a vampire problem.”
She blinks. “Are you on something, dear?”
“Nope. Look at me. Do I look like I’m in my forties?”
“Well, umm. No, actually. I was thinking you seemed a bit young. What’s your secret?”
I chuckle. “I used to be a blood vampire... but now I’m something else.”
She blinks, totally lost. I don’t blame her.
“I’ll explain.”
“Please.”
“After my attack, I spent a few years as an undead, bloodsucking vampire—and one thing led to another, and I ended up as a different kind of vampire. An energy vampire, to be exact.”
She stares at me.
“That’s oversimplifying things. Point is… there are vampires here in Klamath and one of them attacked and turned Mack.” I look down. “He’s at peace now. His spirit asked me to tell you what happened to him. He didn’t leave you willingly. He was taken from you.”
Gwen fixes me with a hard stare. “This is pretty crazy.”
I reach out and take her hand.
“If you’re a vampire, what are you doing out here in the daytime?”
“I’m not that kind of vampire anymore.” I rush a brief explanation of psychic vampires vs. bloodsuckers… and tack on at the end that the creatures running around Klamath are something different still. Definitely undead though. More savage—but no attached souls.
“I dunno…” Gwen bites her lip. “I kinda knew he was dead already. I mean, he wouldn’t have just left. Figured some crazy person tried to rob him and shot him out in the middle of no where where the law wouldn’t really bother to go looking. Vampires, though? You are serious?”
I consider how to prove it to her—and get an idea.
“Come outside real quick.”
Gwen hesitantly follows me out onto the front deck and down the stairs. I walk over to Mack’s old Bronco, grab the back bumper… and lift the rear driver side wheel off the ground, though damn, this thing is freakin’ heavy. They used to make cars out of metal, after all. While I don’t exactly make it look effortless, the fact that I moved it at all has Gwen gawking. I ease the truck back down, then dust my hands off.
“There. That isn’t normal, is it?” I say.
She just stares.
Oh boy. Did I break her? Some people just can’t handle facing evidence that the supernatural is real. Most will dismiss it and pretend they didn’t see whatever they saw, then go about the rest of their lives trying to forget. Some crack and become unglued. I’m starting to regret being so honest with Gwen. Luckily, I can wipe her memory if need be.
“Son of a bitch. You’re not making this up.”
“Nope.”
“You killed Mack?”
“Not exactly.” I bow my head. “He was trapped inside a sort of zombie vampire—I’m still not too clear about what’s going on up here. Be that as it may, he was helpless to stop the forces controlling him. After I put his body to rest, his ghost appeared and talked to me for a few minutes. He was worried about you and asked me to speak with you.”
Gwendolyn stares at me, her face stuck halfway between rage and grief. It doesn’t feel like the rage is directed at me.
“You came out here to hunt the bastard who attacked Mack?”
“Not exactly. I came out here because my father’s dying of lung cancer,” I say in a somber tone. “But… once I found out th at there’s something crazy going on out here, yeah, I’m planning to hunt the creature down.”
Gwen hugs me again. “I’m so sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“You’re going to destroy the bastard who did this to Mack?”
I rest a hand on her shoulder. “I will do everything in my power to take him out.”
She goes grim-faced and looks at me. “I want to know. When you get that bastard, could you come tell me it’s over?”
“You’ll be the first to hear about it.”
Gwen lets out a long sigh. “I should get going. People are waiting on me to open the doors. Mack would want me to keep the Monarch going.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Need a ride anywhere, Sam? I don’t see a car.”
“I’m okay.” Oh hell with it. She’s in this deep. “I can teleport home.”
With her looking right at me, I summon the single flame and leap back to my old bedroom.