Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) (3 page)

But he was getting far ahead of both himself and the physical evidence to support such wild imaginings. All he had was a skull that had lain in a ditch beside the road and the image in his head of the missing boy he now knew was Timmy Meyers.

Stroud held onto the skull as if it were a treasure. The others began doing as Briggs said. Carroll looked to Stroud for his okay, and they moved off, going about the black forests in the moonless night, their flashlights as useless as dentists tools against the great pyramids near Gîza.

He had often visited his now deceased grandfather here as a boy, and if he fought back the good, rich fun of those days with old Grandpa Ananias Stroud--going fishing, boating, horseback riding, camping out in the wood, and listening to the old man tell ghosts stories--if he peeled back that layer, he recalled vividly the other Andover. Walking about in the fog, the eerie bleak fields gobbling down the ineffective lights, Abe Stroud's memory opened further, allowing him to remember that Andover had always been 
strange
. It was a place forever pervaded by a sense of imminent evil. The Spoon River itself was a black abyss by nightfall, and its course ran along the property back of the old manse. As a boy he'd stare out at it from the window on the third floor where he'd slept, a long, moving, giant eel. For the past three months he'd slept in that same room, now as a man. He'd watched the river but had forgotten that it was an enormous monster snake until now.

Breathtaking in its blackness, he once had believed anyone going into the Spoon at night was instantly taken away to a bad place. It was the spirits of land and water--forests gnomes and river demons combined--that had teased his boy's mind with misty figures giving chase over the moorlike pasture that had enticed him into the Spoon one night. He didn't even remember stepping from land to water, nor who had pulled him out, or how he was returned to the house. In fact, he hadn't remembered the incident until now, searching for bones not six miles from the manse, in what had begun as a search for a living boy who'd gotten lost out here.

Now Professor Abe Stroud clearly remembered--unless the metal in his head was causing havoc with his memories again--that much of his fascination with Andover was a child's curiosity about ghosts because 
he had seen ghosts.
 In his grandfather's house, and in the wood around the great old manse. Like anyplace inhabited by mankind, the place had its share of secrets. Even as a boy, the place was pervaded with a kind of spirit life all its own, as if the trees housed souls and the bushes hid body snatchers.

The skeleton crew of officials and the army of volunteers who'd come in search of the disappeared Timmy Meyers, hadn't much in the way of high-tech equipment, but they carried enough weaponry to lay waste to twenty acres if the need arose.

Stories and rumors of grave-robbing, child-snatching warlocks and witches abounded here, tales of dark and evil rituals carried out in the dense, black under-forests that hugged the Spoon River. Abe Stroud had paid little heed until now. He was not the boy who'd followed apparitions into the black river any longer. He was a veteran of two nasty wars, one in Vietnam, one in Chicago. He was now getting on in years and had finally earned that degree in archeology, and had remained with the University of Chicago an additional two years to also claim a doctorate in anthropology. He had no illusions about man or the horror of his past and present.

Stroud was a big man at a full 6'4”, his gait measured in the thoughtful step of a Henry Fonda or a Yul Brynner, but the rough cut edges of his face, particularly the high cheek bones and wide forehead were reminiscent of statues found only in big city museums. Clint Walker in his TV 
Cheyenne
 phase came to mind for a lot of people, except that Stroud's Indian blood came from a Cherokee great-grandmother named Minnie Hale. His hair was peppered with silver strands. His eyes were an icy steel blue-gray, and they seemed to light on any object they came across.

Even as a young person Abe Stroud couldn't abide heavy clothing, especially in a cramped area; he was often seen in his shirtsleeves even on the coldest of days. At the moment he huddled inside his parka just staring at the sad skull while some of the men in the “posse” stumbled onto the burial site Stroud had predicted they'd find. Some were aghast at the number of bones the lights were now picking up.

It was a boneyard in the middle of a field back of the trees. From here the lights of the cars on the road were shut out.

Someone in the group called Turnip by his pals, a man who'd been drinking since the rescue effort began, shakingly said, “It's ahh ... a burial site for the witches!”

“Oh, shut up, Turnip!” shouted Briggs, pushing through. He stopped suddenly at the sight before him.

But Turnip kept talking. “Place where they cast off 
parts
 they don't ... u-use. I heard it's their way.”

“Might be a blessing if it's so,” said Abe Stroud, making them all turn and stare at him. It seemed the maddest comment anyone could make. When the professor of archeology realized how his comment had been taken, he said with deliberate emphasis, “A cult working the area would be a lot easier to trace than a serial killer who randomly stalks victims. Briggs knows that, don't you, Bill?”

Briggs cleared his throat and nodded and said, “The professor's right on that score.”

Turnip said, “Hell, he's been right on every score, Briggs. Maybe he ought to be chief of police, or maybe he knows 
too
 much. Maybe he knew right along...”

Stroud stepped to within smelling distance of the hefty man called Turnip. Another man beside the sloppy Goliath made excuses for him. “Don't pay no mind to Glen, hell ... he don't know shit, Professor.”

“That's obvious,” said Stroud, glad that Turnip was turned away by his friends who'd all come in a pair of pickups together. “Look,” said Stroud, straight out. “In my bones I feel this isn't the work of a local spook cult. I've seen things like this in Vietnam and Cambodia, and I've seen some things in Chicago that sent me racing here when I got word about my grandfather's death.”

“You mean his 
will,
 doncha?” said Turnip with a laugh that started a few of the others laughing as well.

Abe had expected such talk among the law-abiding, peaceful citizenry of the small city; it came as no surprise to him that men like Turnip would place a man like Abe Stroud on his top-ten list of the dangerous and circumspect. Small towns and cities thrive on backfence gossip, barroom bullshit, the extravagant and melodramatic, tall tales of flannel-shirted knights who overcame the obstacles of bringing down a deer with a telescopic lens or stories of the “one that got away.” In Andover peace was not enough. Stories abounded about a Big Foot creature that roamed the nearby wood, of a hound from hell that occasionally made off with a cow or a child from a crib. There were rumors of twisted night people who lived for the pleasure of drowning others in the Spoon. Now Abe wondered if Andover wasn't about to get just what it wanted; he had the distinct feeling Andover wasn't going to be quiet any longer.

The Meyers boy's disappearance was the second in as many months. The other boy, Ronnie Cooper, aged eleven also, had his picture in every store window in town, on every fencepost and tree for miles around. It was as if the forest were abducting them. The thought made Stroud fearful. Suppose there was a Green River-type serial killer at work here? A serial killer who preferred little boys?

Other strange, oddball happenings might be chalked up to tavern talk. But now it seemed there was something in the wind that bespoke an explosion of horror, a disastrous stench like the smell of blood as it ripples up from a dagger cut. Abraham felt too old for this work, too old and too tired.

“Whole thing smells bad,” said Briggs in his ear in a conspiratorial manner. “Closest crime lab of any real caliber is in Springfield. “S'pose we oughta get some of these bones over to Herman Kells over there. Herman'll put these bones in perspective ... put 'em through their paces. Crime lab's the best 'round these parts.”

Stroud was aware that Briggs was attempting to impress him with his police jargon. “What about sending some to a friend of mine in Chicago?”

Briggs looked dubious for a moment. Then he said, “Sure, sure. You got contacts?”

“Good contacts.”

“You use my secretary, Mabel, for anything you need, Professor.”

“Thanks, I'll do that.”

Briggs then began shouting to his closest deputy. “Call out Magaffey, or is Banaker on this week? I can't keep it straight. Neither one of 'em much with m.e. work, but they're all Andover has,” he said apologetically to Stroud. “Go!” he ordered his deputy. “Tell 'em what we got. Tell 'em to pack a lunch. We'll be here through noon tomorrow. And call Carl Dimetrios--”

“Dimetrios?” asked the deputy, confused.

“Yes, damn it!”

“Who's Dimetrios?” asked Stroud of Carroll who had rejoined them.

“Dimetrios operates the John Deere place out at Three Corners.”

“Get us some heavy machinery out here, a backhoe maybe,” said Chief Briggs to anyone within earshot. “It's my guess we got our own little Killing Field right here, Mr. Vietnam Vet.” He directed this comment at Stroud. “What do you think?”

Stroud swallowed the comparison without pointing out to Briggs that it would take literally hundreds of thousands of skulls the size of the one in Stroud's hand to begin to put this dark little plot of earth in the running with Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. “You can't go in there with a backhoe, Chief,” he said, “not until we know what we're dealing with. Suppose this is an Indian burial mound we've stumbled onto? It could be a major archeological find.”

“Give you something to do, huh? What other purpose would waiting serve?”

“It will give me time to determine the extent of the site and--”

“With a hand pick, on foot? Sorry, Professor but--”

“An important archeological find could mean a great deal to the history of the town, Chief.”

“History never was my favorite subject; besides we got men out here ain't seen their families in over twelve hours, men who've got jobs waiting. Now suppose somewhere in all this is that boy's body, and the other one before him? We got to know now.”

“But, Chief, these bones are old!”

He wasn't listening. Not a word more. He was off in another direction to give more orders to other deputies. Stroud watched him as he loped away, carrying his weight like excess baggage as if he had not had time to accustom himself to it. Briggs had been a basketball star at the local junior college, had gone on from there to the police academy, and had never been beyond Andover's limits except for the occasional excursion over to Springfield. He boasted of having traveled to St. Louis and Chicago once. He didn't particularly like or understand Abraham Stroud, and most likely agreed with Turnip's general assessment of the brooding former Chicago detective turned archeologist. Briggs, no doubt, could not understand why he'd given up the excitement of police work in a major city for the opportunity to dig holes in the ground.

Neither had Stroud gone out of his way to endear himself to the men of Andover. He never had a beer in a local watering hole. He was never seen doing anything beyond the gates of Stroud Manse where he preferred the company of the horses in the stable to that of most men. He'd never been seen on the arm of a woman in Andover. All strikes against him.

Briggs, by comparison, spent all-nighters chugging beer with friends and relatives at places like the Iron Horse Saloon, a place with a neon boot overhead and a fiberglass horse out front. It was located on a road--the old Combs Hill Road that ran alongside of the Spoon River for a stretch--that was morbidly referred to as Tombstone Highway for the number of drunk drivers killed going over a rail there.

Stroud picked among some of the additional bones that'd been uncovered. It looked to him like it was the work of some animal that had unearthed the remains. He was wishing again for more light when he found a long femur. It seemed too long to be a match for the skull, unless the youth had been exceptionally tall. He put aside the other bones and again studied the small skull up close. The eye sockets were huge and empty like the innocent look of a sad animal, like the living eyes of a South Vietnamese child he'd once seen in two parts. Her torso and brain were both still operating, as were her eyes, while at the same instant her soul was taking flight from war.

Stroud wanted to fling the damned skull away, but instead he doused the light, cradled the skull gently, and stepped back toward the trees that masked the squad cars and pickups on the roadbed. He wasn't aware that Carroll and some of the others watched him. Half of Briggs's people were here, the other half were out near Sagammon where another report had come from--a sighting of a boy alone walking the highway. Why didn't the same asshole who made the sighting bother to pick the boy up?

Abraham Stroud empathized completely with the lost boy wandering on the highway; the boy's situation pained him to his core. Abe's bones talked to him all the time--bones left broken and riddled with metal by a firefight that had left him a lost boy on a battlefield. He had lain in a field of dead in Nam; he had assumed he would die there. It had taken sixteen hours before someone on his side had found him amid the dead, and by that time he had spoken a long time with his bones and the bones of others. The little skull in his hands talked volumes which all amounted to a whispering complaint: “Desecration.”

He suddenly turned to Carroll, abruptly saying, “You don't just pick up little skulls in weed fields; they don't grow from the earth the way rocks do.”

Carroll nodded and muttered, “Agreed.”

“Don't you see, Mr. Carroll? Someone, earlier, this way came ... found this unusual 
rock
 and dug at it until it looked back at him. Curious, intrigued maybe, he picked it up, even carried it away from the other bones ... dropped it where we found it.”

“Got pretty far away before he tossed it aside.”