Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) (12 page)

“It's Sheriff Briggs, Dave,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Did you send him?”

“No ... no, I didn't.”

“He says you did.”

“Stall him, honey. Keep him at the door. Don't let him or anyone near Timmy! You understand?”

Dave Meyers slammed down the phone with a resounding bell chime replying. He started out, his boss shouting that if he left it was the end of his job. Meyers returned, ignoring Mr. Blanchford, and dialing for Ray Carroll as Blanchford repeated his threat in his ear. “Ray! Ray! Son of a bitches want our boy, Ray!”

“What's this? What're you talking about, Dave? Can you slow down and explain?” asked Ray Carroll from his insurance brokerage office.

“Could be your Joey next, Ray. We're surrounded by them.”

“Calm down, Dave! Dave! We ... you don't know that. There's no evidence all that crap Magaffey fed you and Kitty's true!”

“Christ, Ray! If I didn't know better! Maybe Kitty was right about you.”

“Right about me?” Carroll was completely confused by now. “Dave, I want you to take a deep breath, think about what you're saying, and--”

“Ray, don't patronize me!”

“I'm not!”

“Like hell, you're not. You think I don't know how this sounds? It sounds looney-tunes, I know, but my kid and Kitty are at stake and--”

A double clickety-click on the wires stopped him from speaking for a moment. Ray heard it, too, but said nothing beyond asking Dave Meyers if he were still on the line.

“Dave, your son is safe! He's alive! You and Kitty ought to be kissing the ground, for Christ's sake, but instead--”

“You ... Kitty said you might be one of them!”

“Shit, Dave! Nobody--repeat--nobody is out to get Timmy! Or you, or Kit! Nobody.”

“They're there now, at the house! Briggs, Stroud!”

“Just checking on the boy's progress is all, Dave.... Dave?”

But Dave was gone, tearing from his place of work to home. He'd been a fool to trust the old man, Magaffey, and his concoctions and lotions. Nothing would stop these Satanists and fiends from finishing Timmy off. Dave and Kitty Meyers had become convinced that some of the very men who'd put up a mock show of concern and an all-out effort to locate Timmy had in fact been the very devils who'd kidnapped and tortured him into his present condition. They had heard tales of a witch cult operating in and around Andover, tales that spoke of men and women who'd graduated from sacrificing goats and dogs to little boys and helpless women. They'd talked to Dr. Cooper who told them about how he had lost his boy, Ronnie. Cooper had told them that they had been lucky, that he'd never get his boy back alive.

It had been on Dr. Cooper's suggestion that they rush Timmy from Banaker Institute, that it was not a safe place. He also told them they must trust no one, that half or more of the population of Andover could not be trusted.

Dave hadn't wanted to believe it. But now, Kitty was frantic. She might do anything. He wondered if they were both going mad in the effort to salvage what remained of their son.

At home, in his lonely, too large, hauntingly cold old inheritance, Abraham Stroud wondered if he shouldn't just call Cage back in Chicago and take him up on the Iraq trip. There was more going on in the Middle East than unrest--there was a fantastic dig going on that had uncovered ancient mummies and gilded coffins and curses--lots of curses--to those who dared disturb the Assyrian kings and queens found there. Cage was going at the end of the month, and he'd invited his former star pupil to go along with the team he was putting together at the behest of the Iraqi government. Thus far, Stroud had put Dr. Cage off because he had no idea how long or complicated the settlement of the estate would be. Now, the strange goings-on in and around Andover and most assuredly the bone find here had complicated things further.

It would be a simple enough thing to do as the rest of Andover chose to do: stick his head in the sand, go about his business...

He went out to the stable where Lonnie Wilson, a half retarded, huge man who'd never left the manse, staying on to care for the horses that he loved, asked after his health. Lonnie had Star, the big brood mare, prepared. All that Stroud had to do was get in the saddle. Riding helped clear his mind, helped him make decisions.

“Fine, Lonnie,” he said, “and how're you?”

“Cou-couldn't be-be-be-better, sir. Beau-ti-ful day.”

“Yes, it is, Lonnie. Thanks for getting Star ready.”

“Yow welcome.”

“Want to ride out with me?”

“Naaaaa, too much to do here.”

“Suit yourself, Lonnie.”

He turned once to see that Lonnie was waving him off still, a huge smile on the big face, his blunt Wellington boots cutting a ridge in the earth where he kicked out in an habitual and rhythmic digging.

Stroud was gone all of an hour and it pretty much decided for him that he'd call Cage back--not about the damned “marrowless” bones, but about Iraq. Cage needed the funding he could bring to the expedition now, as well, and why let such a friend down?

Ashyer was waiting at the door for him, however, the telephone extended to him. “Mr. Carroll of the town, sir.”

It was Ray Carroll. He was concerned about the Meyerses. They'd taken their son and all three had left Andover. They'd left their house standing open. Carroll characterized it as 
fleeing.

“From what are they running, Ray?”

“I don't know. Got it into their heads that Timmy was no longer safe here. Got it into their heads he'd disappear a second time, the way Ronnie Cooper did.”

Stroud flashed on Magaffey's seemingly harmless presence at the home, and he wondered what the old man had been feeding to the terrified couple. “Tell me, Ray,” said Stroud. “How much do you know about the Cooper incident? Was it similar?” Stroud recalled what Dr. Cooper had said, that the “bastards” had done his kid in. What bastards? Who? Was he generalizing about the rampant childnapping that seemed for the past year to be sweeping the country as the latest in crime? Or had he meant something more specific than that?

“Naw, not really. Ronnie got odd with his father all of a sudden.”

“Odd? How?”

“Afraid like.”

“Afraid of his father? How many kids aren't?”

“Exactly, but Ronnie just took to running away.”

“I see. Anything else similar?”

Carroll thought for some time. “Matter of fact, come to think of it--”

“Yes?”

“Kid came back the first time with a lot of scars on him, cut up pretty badly. Word had it he'd fallen from a cliff. Least he was found below a bluff.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

“He wasn't the same.”

“Wasn't the same?”

“I mean, he was, like, withdrawn and bedridden after that. Never showed at school. They were sending books in. Parents said he'd contracted pneumonia, but nobody ever saw him after that.”

“Wait a minute, Ray--”

“Yeah?”

“Are you saying he wasn't held at the hospital until he became well? That he--”

“Coopers reacted just like the Meyerses. Snatched him from Banaker's place too soon. Ronnie just never got better, and then one night we were searching for the kid again, but--”

“But he was never found.”

“Right.”

“Like Timmy's dog.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, yeah, the dog, Dish,” Carroll said.

“So where do you suppose the Meyerses have taken Timmy?”

“They got family over near Springfield. I have a suspicion they headed that way. I locked up the house for 'em. I thought it was just Kitty, you know, but I get this weird call from Dave ... seems to have been spooked by your and Briggs's visit to the house.”

“I was in the company of Dr. Magaffey, not Briggs.”

“I see. Look, we maybe will have to finish this talk later. I gotta go.”

“Ray!”

“Yeah?”

“What do you say we take my four-wheel tonight and look for that dog?”

“Sure, sure. About eight okay?”

“Deal.”

Whole portions of the old manse had been shut down to conserve on energy, Abe Stroud supposed. He remembered that his grandfather had closed down the enormous, unused ballroom, for instance. The big ballroom was located at the north end, overlooking the Spoon where it forked around a plot of island the old man called Huck Finn's Island, but it really had no name. The old man had just told him it was Huck's Island because they'd read Mark Twain's novel together and it seemed a fitting tribute to the clump of trees out there.

Abe got a burning desire to look in on the old ballroom and peer out through the floor-length windows that stood opposite Huck's Island. The wraparound porch stopped short of the north end. To go out on the veranda there, he'd have to pass through the ballroom.

The Ashyers whispered between themselves when the key was finally located among a cache of keys on a large jailer's ring in the pantry. Stroud wanted to find the doors that fit each key, and he figured he had the time to do so if he stayed in Andover. He still had not called Merton Cage regarding Iraq. Something was holding him back.

The Ashyers seemed agitated at his opening the ballroom, making him even more curious about the place.

They kept up a constant chatter, taking turns.

“Mr. Stroud never allowed anyone into this room.”

She said, “Something about a murder having been committed here once.”

“Just an old story,” he added with a nervous laugh.

“Mr. Stroud believed it,” she added.

“Who was supposed to have been killed here?”

“Your great grandfather, Ezeekial Stroud.”

“But the death certificate said death by madness.”

“We really don't know the particulars, sir,” said Mr. Ashyer, his tone clearly telling Stroud he wished to say no more.

The reserved couple seemed to be working out very nicely, and Stroud's suspicions had been considerably chased away by the cheery nature of the two and how they seemed to enjoy doing things for him. Still there remained about the couple a strangeness, a deep sadness even.

“I'll just have a look about,” he said, and disappeared into the ballroom alone.

The electricity had been cut to this area. It didn't stand to reason that the place was shut down due to his great-grandfather's having died here. Even if he had been shot or knifed in this room, the furniture and fixtures alone told Stroud that the place had been opened and used in fairly recent times. His grandfather had made use of the room before he had shut it down.

The room was expansive. At its center was a lovely crystal chandelier. But its dazzling beauty refracted the weak light coming in through the thick red velour drapes through a blanket of cobwebs. The furniture--tables, settees, chairs--was covered with yellowed sheets with an inch or two of dust that flew up at the touch, creating a ghostly cloud that whirled like so many misplaced atoms, until the particles finally settled like sediment at the bottom of a spring.

One swirl of dust leapt up at his side as he moved past the table a bit too energetically for here; the current of air coming off him disturbed this place. He looked into the swirl of dust as it created a fairylike presence. It seemed there was nowhere in this house he did not see the spirits of his forebears, for through the swirl of dust particles high over the mantel his grandfather was staring back at him. It was a portrait he'd forgotten but now remembered as always being here. It was not his grandfather but his great-grandfather, Ezeekial Stroud. He looked so much like Ananias that it was uncanny. Standing before the picture as a boy, he'd never seen the resemblance.

He also saw in the stern, hard gray eyes something of himself. He recalled having been frightened by those eyes when last he stood in this room, and he now heard his grandfather, angry with him for having come into the room. It had been off limits to all but his grandfather even then. And his grandfather would come and sit amid the collected dust and stare for hours at the portrait of his father, Ezeekial. One night Stroud snuck down and heard the old man talking gibberish to himself in the room, talking to the painting that Stroud now felt compelled to reach out and touch.

It was layered with dust, but somehow those eyes of Ezeekial Stroud, ever watchful, surveyed the entire ballroom with his unerring, penetrating stare. Right through the veil of dust, right through the years.

Stroud shook himself and went on with his journey across the hardwood floor to the windows where he expected to see the river and the island. He pulled back the drapes, causing a rain of filthy dust to engulf him, making him sneeze.

“Christ, this place needs cleaning!”

The damage done, he pulled back the drapes to reveal the floor-length windows, amazed to find eight-foot-high wrought-iron bars outside them. The gate around the windows was crisscrossed with spider webs, leaves, and blown grass, obscuring the view of the river and the island.

“What the hell ... bars?” Stroud turned on hearing a noise behind him. Deep in shadow on the other side of the room, someone stood and an eerie, unreal whisper said, “Abraham.”

It was a voice like Ananias Stroud's voice, but that was impossible.

Stroud rushed at the corner where it came from but there was no one there, only a cold emptiness. When he looked up at the picture of Ezeekial he realized that Ezeekial's eyes were on him, that in fact, no matter which way he moved, from right to left and back again, the ancient eyes seemed directed at him.

“What's the meaning of these bars?” he asked aloud and instantly felt foolish.

Ashyer pushed open the door and said, “Did you call for me, sir?”

“Ashyer, were you just in here?”

“No, sir.”

“Those bars,” he said, pointing to the windows. “What can you tell me about them?”

“They've always been there, sir ... since I've been here, anyway.”

“But why bars on just these windows. If you're going to put bars on windows, shouldn't you do it for all the windows? At least on the ground floor?”

“Doctor Stroud,” said Ashyer, “at one time all the windows on every floor had bars about them. Your grandfather was having them all barred but the job wasn't quite finished when he passed on.”