Blood & Spirits

B
LOOD
& S
PIRITS

D
ENNIS
S
HARPE

Booktrope Editions

Seattle, WA 2014

COPYRIGHT 2014 DENNIS SHARPE

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Cover Design by Shari Ryan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-595-0

EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-616-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922268

For Erin McGavic -

You took Veronica,

held on to her tightly,

and never let go.

I can’t thank you enough.

To all the people who helped me make this book as good as could possibly be.

Angela, Becca, Britton, Carrie, Doug, Karson, Lesley, Nikki, Roger, Ryan, the other Ryan, Shawna, Tammy, Ian, Mitchell, Theresa, Teresa, and countless others who’ve helped me, pushed me, or said the hard things I didn’t want to hear.

I thank you for reading drafts, and re-reading drafts, editing advice, and just being cheerleaders and drinking coffee with me in the wee hours of the morning when I needed it, as well as making me see that some things just aren’t as important as I make them.

Special thanks to Krystal, Samantha, and Shari… simply the best there are to work with.

Seriously, and with much love, thank you all.

 - OGDEN NASH

THE YEAR IS NINETEEN FIFTY-THREE.
The sky is a deeper blue, and the world is generally a better place.

A little girl plays on the grassy front lawn of a small house on Summit Drive. She has a cute face and a winning smile, even if she does tend to be a little overly plain tomboy. Her red hair is in pig-tails, and her shorts are rolled up to keep them from being as dirty as her mud-coated legs. She is a happy child.

A dark sedan pulls up in the driveway, and a man in a well-pressed uniform gets out, puts on his hat, and makes his way to her front door.

She stops playing to look at his uniform and marvel at how much better it looks than her daddy’s.

The officer talks to her mommy on the porch for a moment, but she can’t hear what they’re saying. A feeling of dread comes over her as her mommy leans against the doorway, crying. Whatever it was must be horrible; her mommy doesn’t ever cry.

Everything unravels for the little girl. From that moment on, nothing can ever be the same.

She goes to daddy’s funeral in the most beautiful dress she’s ever seen; this gorgeous thing given to her to cover the ugliest loss of her life. Everything that has been her world quickly disappears. Her only memories of a normal life will all be from before the age of eight.

***

My body jerks up to a sitting position as the tight muscles of my limbs spasm. Instinctively, air forces its way into my tightened lungs, the panic ebbs, but calm refuses to replace it. Another nightmare, but not just any bad dream. My memories had come back to haunt me.

The year is 2012. I keep reminding myself of that as I ease back down into the reassuring pillow top, already beginning to drift off again.

Kathy, that little girl, was me once upon a time. She was small and weak before Jules found her. He took her in, changed her, and gave her strength.

He killed Kathy. What he left was Veronica. He made me.

I have no regrets.

I’M TOLD IT’S AN ODDITY
that I still sleep. It only comes in short bursts, no more than forty-five minutes at a time. Most others with my condition -- and I have only known a handful -- tell me they don’t sleep anymore. Some of them haven’t in more than five decades. I can’t imagine the hell that must be. Even in my brief moments of rest, I still dream and in that I find relief. Even if the dreams aren’t what I like, they are still an escape.

The soft thickness of my comforter envelops me as I relax back into bed. Before I’m completely awake, my mind begins to unfold, opening to the world around me. In the distance, the fog is rolling in off the river, dense and blanketing, its vaporous fingers right there on the edges of my consciousness. The night is cool, and the last lights of the dying day dance across my ceiling, reflected from the crystals hanging in my window. The light tinkle as they sway into each other is a reassuring sound; the beautiful prisms they cast, a blessing. Not one night comes that I don’t wake to thank Jules for having the windows in this house ‘treated.’ I can actually see the sun, even if I can’t be out in it.

I am now completely aware for miles around me. I’m awake, and not even grudgingly so. Not tonight. He’ll be here soon. I look forward to it and fear it all at once, but I ask myself ‘why dwell on what we can’t change?’

A soft breeze blows across me as I slip out of my bed, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand out. My mind recognizes the sensation as a chill, even if my dead flesh can’t feel as it once did.

Rubbing a hand down from the base of my skull, in a futile attempt to warm myself, I open the lid to the old steamer trunk Julie brought up from the basement today. She aired out everything in it while I slept, and the interior smells as though she even put some of my perfume on a few of the choice garments. I breathe in deeply and can feel the corner of my mouth turns up slightly. Time may have dulled Jules’ scent, but it’s still unmistakable, mingled in with the fragrance in the clothing.

Clothes have always held memories for me. The crimson silk of a dress drops down over me and it’s as though his eyes were on me again. The mirror reveals the garment to be no more out of place, for its slinky cut or lack of length, than it did when I first wore it a lifetime ago, when I could still remember being a girl. I first put it on in front of him and twirled around to raise the hem, hoping to entice and astonish with my feminine wiles, foolish enough back then to believe that because I loved him, a creature like him was even still capable of love.

I’ve learned from his example and years of my own mistakes – emotion is a weakness to be managed.

Yet, here I am, slipping into this dress that I haven’t worn since he left, simply because I know he’ll remember it.

Stepping out into the thick evening air, the raw power of the river hits me with the force of a freight train. Even from this distance, the power is unmistakable. Tonight, though, it has an odd feeling, as though it were restrained.

Standing still with my eyes closed, I concentrate and listen to the pulse of the water rolling heavily over the rocky bed, feel the lapping, almost angry waves against the shoreline. I don’t know why closing my eyes helps me bond to my surroundings, it just always has. It must be another facet of my insanity.

I’ve never met someone with my affliction that was as sane as they had been when they were alive. I wasn’t ever all that sane, either, but I’ve grown more detached as time has gone by. Too often these days, I feel like a spectator. Maybe that’s just my coping mechanism. My therapist would love to know about this fabulous train of thought. Prick.

As I enter the garage, it occurs to me that I’ve only got two cars at this house. Frank was to take Julie back to town with the Charger this afternoon to keep up the appearance that everything was normal. I’m certainly not taking my old Volkswagen Beetle to go bar hunting, so the flat black Eclipse will get a workout tonight. I hate this car, but she’s been fast enough to outrun a lot of demons I didn’t feel like facing.

Pulling out of the driveway, I already wish I’d stayed at the other house today. The drive into town is only thirty minutes, but I’m tense enough tonight and don’t need the wait. Telling myself that I needed to be here, for safety’s sake, only makes me feel more upset at my fear and lack of control.

Six months ago, I’d have talked to Lucy; she’d have taken the edge off. If she were here, though, I’d have had no need to contact Jules. Now I get to feel like a failure and look like one, too.

The tires scream as I kick the car almost sideways, narrowly avoiding a deer. My lack of focus is getting worse. As much as the idea repulses me, tonight I’m actually going to have to go look for food instead of letting it come to me. I haven’t had to do that in years. On one hand, it’s a fitting start to the night, but on the other, I had really thought I’d outgrown eating out.

I always forget how much sensory input I lose when I spend time around all the steel and pavement. The dark moonless drive down rural roads is a blessing, putting me more in tune with the land, at once one with the leaves on the trees, the bats overhead, and the rocks around the base of the roadside.