Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (37 page)

Cory hid in his own
mind for a time, although he only had a vague awareness of how
long. It occurred to him that he had spent a lot of time in such a
state, unaware of the passing of minutes and hours. Maybe he didn’t
exist in the same plain of time as everyone else. His perception of
it could be completely different. If that was true he thought he
should feel proud, unique, special. This was the kind of thing he
dwelt on, since he didn’t want to think about the things that
happened outside his mind during this period. He had to distance
himself. It was the only thing he could do to keep from thinking
about everything that happened.

Sometimes he had a minimal awareness of his
surroundings. He knew he was still in the bedroom, still on the
bed. He could tell from the pain and sickness that kept him from
leaving the room that the blood he sometimes drank was spiked with
silver and garlic, and he occasionally had enough concentration to
realize this was the reason he had been laid up for so long in his
first week, that the woman had been keeping him poisoned rather
than nursing him back to health from his gunshot. During these
times his thoughts were coherent enough that he thought he could
possibly figure out exactly who she was and why she was doing
this.

Then she would come into his room, sometimes
without any clothes. These were the times he went away
completely.

The first several times he disappeared within
himself he didn’t think he recognized the environment in his
fantasies. Indeed, to begin with the place was half-formed, with
only the occasional splash of green or gentle trickle of running
water to tell him that he was somewhere outside. Soon though he was
able to make out trees towering above him and the rich earthy scent
of years of fallen leaves rotting to allow the next generation of
plants to grow on top of them. The proportions felt all wrong, as
though he were looking at all this from closer to the ground than
he had any right to be, but even though this gave him a strange
sense of vulnerability he still felt safe here. He had the
impression that someone was always nearby, and as long as she was
he would be okay.

The woman herself stayed hazy long after
everything else became clear. He knew for certain he was in the
woods, and after a time he remembered it as a place called Hobbes
Woods, to be specific. He was both alarmed and excited to realize
that he was remembering all this from when he was a child. This was
the place where she would take him, a secret place where she didn’t
even take his sister. The revelation that he had a sister did
nothing for him, but remembering the wooden arrows on the trees
that marked the paths and the way the bugs would scuttle over the
top of the creek’s water, occasionally disappearing as a fish came
up from the bottom to feed and then vanish again, that was what
excited him. Because at this place in this time the world was still
fresh and full of wonder. The things that would hurt him, drive him
away from his own sense of self, were years in the future and had
no place here. Here, and only here, he could be at peace.

He didn’t know how many times he had to visit
the Hobbes Woods of his mind before the woman started trying to
speak to him, but the first few times she attempted all he heard
was a garbled gibberish. He got the sense that she was being
interrupted by the words and noises someone was making outside his
mind, and that kept him from being able to listen. Soon though it
came to him, a soft, smoker-rasped, yet gentle voice. He recognized
it right away as the voice that had been speaking out in his head.
It took him longer to give it a name, but even then the only name
that would present itself was Gramma.

She towered over him, partly because she was
standing up a hill from him but partly because he was small. Even
though he saw her right now through childish eyes he could
recognize with an adult’s comprehension that she was very tall even
for someone older, even considering how age had started to stoop
her shoulders and pull down at her body. She gave the impression
that she was fighting off that age bravely, that if anyone could
figure out how to ignore the later years in life and go on to
immortality it was her. Her fine silver hair—never dyed, since she
said she liked the way the gray gave her a distinguished
look—floated gently in a constant breeze that never seemed to touch
Cory himself. Although in this world of his mind it was clearly
summer: she wore a flannel shirt and long jeans, the sleeves on her
shirt rolled up to show muscled arms that should have belonged to
someone half her age, the legs of her jeans dirty from constantly
leaving the woods’ beaten path to see what she could find where
others hadn’t bothered to look.

“Cory,” she finally said. “I’ve been trying
to reach you.”

“Is this some vampire power I didn’t know
about?” Cory asked. His voice was high pitched, that of an eight
year old, yet this didn’t come across as strange to him. Of course
he was eight if he was seeing her. By the time he was nine she was
dead from… well, that part he couldn’t remember yet, except that it
was something horrible. “You know, like, being able to talk to the
dead?”

“I’m not technically Gramma,” she said. “I’m
just your memory of her.”

“So you’re actually a part of me?” Cory
asked.

“More or less.”

The scene shifted as they talked, going from
one spot in the woods to the next, many of them hazy around the
edges as the memories had faded with time. He realized that, given
how close Hobbes Woods was to Fond du Lac, he really must be a
local of the city after all, or at least from nearby. He hadn’t
been kidnapped from somewhere else in Wisconsin like he suspected
with some of the other vampires. That meant there might have been
people looking for him this whole time he’d been out on the
streets. He might have a home somewhere.

But no, as soon as he thought that he knew it
wasn’t true. No more clear memories came to him here, but he knew
that there were things where he had come from that he’d needed to
escape. Maybe they weren’t as dreadful as the cave and whatever had
been waiting behind the door, but maybe it was. He decided he
really didn’t want to know that much.

“You’ve forgotten me until just recently,”
Gramma said.

“I’ve forgotten a lot of things from before
the cages,” Cory said.

“No, I don’t mean you’ve forgotten your real
Gramma. I meant you’ve forgotten me. The figment of your
imagination you created so you could maintain some kind of
sanity.”

“Is that what all this is?”

“It is, and it has been since you were much
younger. Don’t try to remember. Trust me, you don’t want to. That’s
part of why you conjured me into existence. So someone else could
remember it all. So you didn’t have to.”

“If that’s true, then why did I never see you
while I was in the cage?”

“You did sometimes. Occasionally I was able
to break through. We’d meet here and you would be able to get away
for just a while. Other times he wouldn’t let me through.”

“Who wouldn’t let you through?”

“Let’s just say I’m not the only thing you’ve
seen that wasn’t actually there in real life.”

“I’m confused.”

“That’s because you don’t really feel like
you’re ready for a truth you already know. Or else something else
is causing a block in your mind. Heck if I know. Either way, I
can’t tell you that part yet.”

“Why am I here right now?” he asked, but he
didn’t need her to answer. Things were going on outside of his mind
that he wasn’t able to deal with, things that he believed were
similar to what had driven him away from home and into the waiting
hands of the cave guards. He could almost hear the sounds Lynn
made, the words she said. She told him she loved him even as…

“That’s not love,” Gramma said. “That’s not
even close. Anyone who thinks that’s love has never really
experienced it.”

“If that’s not love then I don’t know what it
is either,” Cory said.

“Don’t be silly, little CC.” He remembered
that nickname. She had been the only one who had ever cared about
him enough to give him one. “Of course you do. If you didn’t know
what love was then you wouldn’t have these memories to hide
in.”

“I messed up, Gramma. I messed up so
bad.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I should have known something was wrong. I
should have figured it out.”

“You did, remember? I was the one that tried
to tell you, and I was also the one that tried to get you to go
with FancyDancer. Deep in here somewhere you realized that they
were to be trusted while Lynn wasn’t. You were just confused. And
you were intoxicated, I think.”

“Um, no, I don’t think I’ve ever been
drunk.”

“Intoxicated by the feeling that someone
actually cared about you. She saw that, you know. It wasn’t your
fault that she’s enough of a bitch to exploit something like
that.”

“I still don’t even understand what all is
going on, though. Why is she doing this?”

“I assume you mean this in general, not this
as in what she’s doing this exact second.”

“Of course you know what I mean,” Cory said.
“You’re me.”

“Not my fault your Gramma’s sarcasm is one of
the best things you remember about her,” Gramma said. “As for
telling you why, all I can do is help you make sense of what you
already know. So what
do
you know?”

“I’m not sure.” He paused, idly wondering for
a moment if he was actually pausing in his thoughts or just
imagining that he paused. “I know she’s a vampire.” Pause again. “I
think she got that from me.”

“How do you know she wasn’t a vampire
before?” Gramma asked.

“The teeth, mostly. They’re new.” Outside of
his mind he thought he might be able to even feel those teeth
somewhere touching him, but he refused to let himself know for
sure. “And she was able to go out during the day with no trouble.
At least at first. That’s why she’s only going out really early or
really late now, I suppose.”

“And the how?” Gramma asked.

“The night she brought me in,” Cory said.
“She could have easily taken my blood while I was unconscious.”

“Good. Now start following that line of
thought, little CC. One of the first things she does when she meets
you is drink or inject some of your blood. Does that seem like the
kind of thing an average person would do upon finding someone
bleeding to death from a gunshot?”

“No,” he said.

“So she already knew what you were. And she
probably already knew how to poison you, which is why she was
giving you spiked blood from the beginning. Run into anyone else
lately that knew how to poison you?”

“No. Well, yes, but it’s not like the Dusters
had anything to do with…” He trailed off.

“There might be a connection between her and
them, CC. I mean, isn’t it a little convenient that they were out
of their supposed territory, and then there she was to miraculously
rescue you? Especially considering how good they are at killing
every other vampire they’ve come across?”

“But there’s no why to any of it. Like why
she would possibly want to be a vampire.”

“Most people don’t realizes how privileged
they are in just being a normal human, remember. They know nothing
about the guards or the cages or the door at the end of the row.
All they see is the power, a way to escape from the rest of their
lives. Heck, for all we know Lynn thought she was going to sparkle
after she turned.”

Cory grunted. “Why does everyone keep saying
that? There’s nothing sparkly about being a vampire.”

“Never mind. Doesn’t matter. So why she
wanted to be a vampire is easy. The question we both need to ask
now is why go about it this way? If she’s working with the Dusters,
then what are they really?”

Cory waited for a moment but she didn’t say
anything else. “Okay, so what’s the answer?”

“How the heck should I know? I only have the
facts that you do. What you need to do is find more facts.”

“But I can’t. She has me in that room again.
And she keeps… poisoning me to stop me from escaping.”

“She’s not there all the time. She’s been
going out. She has to. That blood she keeps bringing back has to
come from somewhere.”

Cory suddenly remembered how the blood she
had brought was richer and more full flavored than anything else
he’d had before. It seemed like a good assumption now that none of
it had come from a butcher like she said. Or at least not that kind
of butcher.

“Do you think she or the Dusters are Vlad the
Mystery?” Cory asked.

“Heck if I know. But now’s no longer the time
for asking questions. I know you haven’t been paying attention, so
I have. She’s leaving. Now’s your chance to do something.”

“Do what? I’m still going to be sick…”

“I’ll be with you. But you have to go.
Now.”

Gramma faded first, her cock-eyed smile the
last thing to go. Then the woods faded, the crisp clean scent of
the outdoors becoming the rancid odor of body sweat, shit from the
bathroom, and old blood. He tried to fight coming out, but he felt
like she gave him one final push out into the real world.

The first thing he
was aware of as he came back was that he was wearing nothing but
the ragged, stained bed sheets. Cory had almost expected Lynn to
leave him tied up to prevent any other attempt at escape, but he
was free, or at least as free as he could possibly be considered in
this place. He felt a deep, overwhelming shame as he looked down at
his body. A part of him desperately wanted to blame himself. That
was the part that said he must have deserved every bad thing that
had happened in his life, that he must have done something to make
Lynn think the things she had done to him were acceptable, that
maybe he had somehow asked for it.