Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (18 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?” Peg asked.

“Clothes off or I hurt her.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
still
on?”

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

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

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

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

“Not like I had one. So yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Focus
, the inner voice said.
You’re
not getting out of here through the help of anyone else. The burden
is all on you. And I sure as fuck know you’re not going to let this
happen without making it very hard on them. Right?

Right. But Peg wasn’t even sure what else she
could do at this point. Nothing else could happen until she got out
of this cage.

Well then, Sherlock, I guess that means
you should do something about that, huh? Jesus, I don’t even know
how you function sometimes
.

“Great, now I’m being insulted by my own
brain,” Peg muttered. She skooched closer to the front of the cage
and got as close a look at the lock as she could from this angle.
Unlike the rest of the cage it didn’t seem to be made of silver,
just an everyday over the counter combination lock. Zoey would have
been able to crush it easily, which had to mean that there was
something else preventing her. Peg reached a hand through the bars,
wincing every time her skin accidentally brushed the metal. She had
to figure out what was causing that. It could be the secret to her
escape. When she touched the lock she felt the same thing, that
unpleasant scorching tingle, and she let go quickly.

Peg sat back on her haunches, thinking and
very much aware that she didn’t have a lot of time before those two
came back and ended any chance she had at experimenting. Maybe the
cage was electrified. Something like that would require a power
source, though, and she didn’t see anything remotely like that. So,
not electric.

It could all be in your head
, the head
voice said.

“Yeah, sure. Just like you.” Except there was
something too that, maybe. Obviously she wasn’t imagining the pain,
but just how much of that pain could she take? She touched the bars
again, this time forcing herself to keep a grip for several
seconds. When she let go she realized she felt oddly invigorated.
It really wasn’t too much different than cutting. Any and all pain
in her hands was nothing compared to all the mental pain she had
tried to drown for all those years.

Except that wasn’t going to do her any good
right now. She heard footsteps approaching the van again, and she
huddled up in the center of her cage trying to look confused and
broken. Honestly, she didn’t have to try too hard. It was a feeling
she had learned in intimate detail throughout most of her life.

Neither of the creatures said anything to her
as they pulled her cage out of the van. Peg noticed before they
grabbed the bars of her cage that their hands were still gray and
smoking where they had touched Zoey’s. She could smell a sickly
sweet, pungent odor as they held her own, the smell of garlic on
frying meat. Neither of them flinched at this. Holding the cage
between the two of them and not making any effort to keep Peg from
being jostled inside, they took her around the side of the van and
finally gave her a better look at their environs.

The lake was indeed within easy walking
distance from here, but the only other feature of the landscape
other than the occasional tree was the collapsing ranch-style home
ahead of them. Judging from what little remained of the paint job
and decorations Peg’s best guess was that it had been built
sometime in the seventies. It might have been a quaint little place
in its infancy, but now half of it had fallen in on itself. The
decorative hedges and plants outside had been left to grow
unchecked, with one bush even growing in through a broken window,
catching the ragged and moldering remains of a curtain fluttering
in the breeze off the lake.

The house had a door, but it hung on the
frame at an angle that made it obvious that it couldn’t close. The
cage was large enough that the two creatures had to shove it
through the doorframe, although the deep gouges in the wood on
either side implied that they had done this many times before. Peg
had to wonder just how long this had been going on. She didn’t
think it should have been possible for people to just disappear so
often for so many years without these things ever getting caught.
Someone should have caught on by now, or somebody should have
accidentally wandered onto the property and discovered something
amiss. Of course, Peg realized, it was highly likely that someone
had done exactly that. These things could have turned them away
with their hypnotic abilities, though, and the people would have
never been the wiser. Or maybe they hadn’t even bothered with that.
Peg could easily envision a pair of teenagers, perhaps looking for
a place to screw away from the eyes of their overly-watchful
parents, thinking the old abandoned house on the lake was the
perfect place to get away and then never be seen again.