Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (3 page)

Back at the top of the basement stairs she
hesitated. She was probably overreacting. There were other more
logical reasons for the smell than an intruder. She could still
sense that somewhat human scent among the other offending odors,
but that seemed just as off as the rest of it. She couldn’t picture
any possible reason for a human to smell that unbelievably rancid.
But she’d been a fan of far too many horror movies to go down there
without at least some insurance. She reached through the door and
snapped on the light switch, and a naked bulb hanging near the
bottom of the stairs flared to life.

Something moaned.

Peg froze.

She listened while she took deep breaths in
the hope that her suddenly pounding heart would slow down. The
sound didn’t repeat itself, but she was positive that she had heard
it. What she couldn’t be sure of, however, was whether it had been
human or animal or, for all she knew, maybe a sound from the
furnace or hot water heater that her imagination had just
interpreted as something more sinister. If it was indeed human then
the only smart thing to do would be to call the cops. She still had
an instinctual hatred of anyone wearing the blue uniform, but not
so bad that she would do the dumb thing and not call them in a
moment of real crisis.

She couldn’t be sure that’s what this was,
though. She could call them and then find out that all this was
indeed from some sewage problem and the sound had been nothing more
than something noxious bubbling up through a hole in a pipe. Or it
could be the dead animal. Tony would never let her live it down if
she called the police on a rotten raccoon.

“Hello?” Peg called down the stairs. “Is
someone there?” Not that she expected an intruder to actually
announce to her if he was here, but it seemed like the only thing
to do at the moment. There was no answer.

She continued to stand at the top of the
stairs for several more seconds but heard nothing else. Finally,
once her heart had stopped thumping quite so hard, she took the
first tentative steps down the stairs. This was stupid, after all.
There was very little chance that there was anything down here to
worry about, or at least anything that could hurt her. She reminded
herself that while Peg Uttech was standing here jumping at random
noises Peggy Sellnow would have just made a disgusted grunt at her
older self’s hesitation and gone charging done the stairs, waving
the knife madly in front of her as though she actually wanted to
stab something. In some ways that younger woman wasn’t gone and
probably shouldn’t be.

With that thought clearly in mind, Peg began
moving down the stairs a little faster. The stench was so much
worse down here and she had to desperately suppress her gag reflex.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped, still keeping the knife
held out slightly in front of her, and surveyed the basement. To
her right, toward the front of the house, a previous owner had made
a half-hearted attempt at finishing the basement and it actually
had drywall and linoleum flooring. This was where the washer and
dryer sat, along with a work bench and chair where Tony would
sometimes come when he got it in his head that he needed a new
hobby and somewhere out of the way to practice it. There were a few
pieces of electronics equipment on the table next to a tackle box
full of acrylic paints that he hadn’t used since the first month
they had moved in here. The light in that area was fairly bright
and there were only a few small corners where someone or something
might try hiding. She looked there quickly but didn’t find anything
out of the ordinary.

The other end of the basement was rougher,
however. The walls here were nothing but concrete and cobwebs
collected in the wood beams overhead. That was the direction of the
door that led outside, as well as the furnace and the water heater.
There were also brick structures along the walls here and there,
architectural holdovers from long ago with purposes that had been
long forgotten. A single bulb hung over there and it did little to
get light into the nooks and crannies. She sniffed the air, but
down here it was impossible to tell what direction the odor might
be coming from.

Peg took a few tentative steps in the
direction of the outer door. There was nothing out of the ordinary
directly where she could see. She looked up at the ceiling to some
of the exposed pipes, but nothing leading in the direction of the
bathroom appeared to be broken or leaking. If there were some sort
of sewage overflow she would have expected the floor to be wet
somewhere, but everything appeared to be dry. The closer she got to
the door, however, the more she thought she could see something out
of the ordinary by the stairs. She hunched down for a closer look,
holding her forearm up over her nose in a futile effort to keep the
worst of the smell out of her nostrils. Even breathing through her
mouth didn’t seem to help much.

It was dim over here, and it took a few
seconds for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Even after
they did it took another couple moments before she grasped what she
was seeing, but once she did she temporarily forgot to breathe.

There were marks going down the stairs. She
touched one with her finger and it came away with the tip coated in
semi-dried mud. The alternating pattern of the marks clearly
denoted them as footprints. Not boot or shoe prints, as there were
no patterns in the dirt, but judging from the shape they were
clearly bare human feet. They appeared to come down into the
basement but not back up. Someone had come in through the outer
door, and that person seemed to still be here.

Peg tensed and gripped the knife tighter. Now
was clearly the moment where she needed to call the cops, but
something else caught her eye before she could rush back upstairs.
There was something else on the stair three down from the top,
although she couldn’t identify it at first. It looked like a
misshapen lump of Play-Doh that someone had squished in their fist,
but it gleamed in what little light reflected off it. She didn’t
recognize it until she moved in for a closer look. It was a piece
of metal with a jagged rod-like piece sticking out of the top, and
the rod was what finally identified it. Up until recently, this
thing had been the padlock they’d kept on the outside of the outer
basement door. It looked like someone had broken it, but not with
any bolt cutters. It almost appeared to have been crushed in
someone’s bare hands.

Before Peg had any time to try processing and
denying that fact she heard a noise again from somewhere behind
her. She spun in her still-hunched position on the stairs, almost
toppling over and stabbing herself in the process before she
regained her balance. It was the same as the moaning noise she’d
heard earlier, but this time there was no mistaking that it had
been made by something living. She would have said it was a person,
but whatever it was didn’t entirely sound human. There was a deep
guttural quality that gave Peg horrible shivers, and yet it seemed
pained as well. The footprints clearly belonged to a person, but
maybe it wasn’t someone who’d broken in with the intent on doing
harm. Maybe the person was hurt.

And maybe this person is in so much pain
that the adrenaline let them crush a steel fucking lock
, Peg
thought.
Stop giving yourself a line of bullshit and run for the
fucking hills, woman
.

“Hello?” she called out again against her own
better judgment. That little voice in her head hissed in disgust
with herself. “Whoever you are, don’t try anything funny. I’m
armed.” Not that she really expected a knife to be that much use
against someone who could do such a thing to the lock, but she
still wouldn’t let herself completely believe that. There was
always an explanation. Once she was out of this basement she was
sure she would be able to think of it.

Again the moan, but softer this time. It was
almost a whimper. The mother in her reacted to that sound in a
primal way, like she needed to find whoever made it and comfort
them, but that seemed like just as crazy a reaction as believing
someone had broken the lock all by themselves.

Peg stood back up straight and inched her way
in the direction she thought the noise had come. Over by the
furnace, she thought. There was a brick wall hiding an area that
she thought might have corresponded with an old coal chute from
back in the pre-gas furnace days. She’d never had any reason to go
back there and take a closer look at it, but she realized now that
it would make a perfect hiding place. The smell was so rank here
that it made her eyes water. Even though it was clear now that the
intruder was a person and not some animal, she could still not
comprehend how it was even possible for a human to have such an
offensive odor that it could seep all the way through the
house.

She carefully squeezed herself between the
furnace and water heaters, making sure not to touch the scorching
metal. She paused when it occurred to her that if this mysterious
person tried to hurt her she wouldn’t be able to get back out with
any speed, but she couldn’t help but think again of that last sound
she’d heard, so full of pain, so weak.

“I’m coming for you,” Peg said. Her voice
wasn’t near as strong and commanding as she thought prudent,
although when she spoke again it was closer. “I still have a knife.
No sudden movements. If you don’t try to hurt me I won’t hurt
you.”

Another sound, this time more of a sigh. With
one last deep breath through her mouth Peg went around the wall and
into the hidden corner.

The light didn’t come through here at all,
but in such a small alcove Peg didn’t need to see much in order to
know she wasn’t alone. Someone was curled in a tight ball in the
corner just a foot away. Peg could have reached out her foot and
touched the person with her shoe, but she still didn’t want to get
any closer yet than she absolutely had to. About the only thing she
could tell for certain was that the person was not very large. From
what little she could see of the person’s shape in the darkness he
or she had their feet toward her with their back to the wall and
he/she was on their side with arms clutched tightly to his or her
chest. Seeing this, most of Peg’s fear left her. Although it was
still possible this person was trying to lull her into a trap, that
now appeared to be nothing more than a paranoid delusion. It seemed
far more likely that whoever this might be was frightened or hurt,
possibly both.

The lock
, Peg thought to herself.
No matter how helpless he looks, don’t forget the lock
.
Keeping that thought in mind, Peg hunched down closer to the person
and set the knife aside, although making sure it stayed within easy
reach.

“Are… are you okay?” Peg asked.

“Help.” The voice, although rough and
scratchy as though it had been worn out from too much talk or smoke
or possibly even screaming, was nonetheless clearly identifiable as
female. As Peg’s eyesight adjusted even more to the darkness she
realized the woman, or more likely girl based on her size, was
naked. It was impossible to tell the color of her skin, though, as
she was completely covered in filth. Beyond the years of black dust
and soot that accumulated in this corner that now clung to her
prone form the girl also appeared to be covered in a hardening and
cracking layer of something else. Peg took it at first to be
nothing more than mud until she understood that the patina layered
over the girl’s body was apparently the source of most of the
hideous smell. She had to force herself not to turn her head to
puke as she realizes it wasn’t mud at all. It was shit. Peg had no
idea if it was animal shit or human shit or some mixture in
between, but she didn’t much care. Shit was shit.

After the few seconds it took to force
herself beyond her initial disgust Peg gently reached out and
touched the girl’s arm in a place that seemed at least slightly
cleaner than the rest. The girl shifted slightly but otherwise
didn’t move.

“What happened to you?” Peg asked.

“Help,” the girl said again. “Mish-mash is
coming. Walking eyes will find me. Help me, please.”

Peg took her hand away. This girl was no
threat at all. She was frightened, possibly hurt, almost definitely
abused at some point. Her naked state could only bring to mind the
idea that at some point in the near past she had been raped. All
fear left Peg and was replaced by an icy determination. Whatever
had happened to this poor girl, Peg would do everything she could
to protect her.

“Listen to me,” Peg said. “Don’t move. I’ll
be right back. I left my phone in my purse upstairs. I’m just going
to go up and get it so I can call the police, and then…”

“No!” The word came out of the girl’s mouth
with far more force than anything else she’d said so far. Her voice
was achingly familiar, so much like Zoey’s had once been, but Peg
knew that could only be her imagination. The next words, however,
were back to the scratchy moans. “No no no. Can’t call. It will
know. It always knows.”

“Honey, I have to. I’ll have them send an
ambulance…”

“Eyes will see. Eyes that walk. Eyes without
a brain.”

“I promise I’ll be right back down and wait
with you until they come…”

“No!” Now the girl didn’t sound anything
remotely like Zoey. Peg could almost swear there was an actual
growl like a tiger or a bear coming from deep within her throat. At
the same time the girl moved, her hand snatching out and gripping
Peg’s arm. The girl’s fingers clenched so tight that Peg couldn’t
help but yelp in pain. Without even realizing she was doing it her
free hand went down to rest on the knife handle.

“You’re hurting me,” Peg said.

“Don’t don’t don’t,” the girl said. She sat
up and opened her mouth. In the close quarters Peg could smell her
breath and she now understood the source of the rotting meat stench
she thought she’d detected earlier. But her breath was not even the
most startling part. Even in the darkness Peg could see the shapes
ringing the girl’s mouth. Her teeth were so perfectly white that
Peg could see each one, and not a single one looked normal. All of
them came to sharp little points, but two of them, her top canines,
stretched longer than the others into a pair of wicked fangs.