Fifty Percent Vampire, #1, page 25
I hitched up my backpack and set off at a fast run, only stopping to rest when I reached Raven Lane, where I collapsed panting onto the wall next to the fire house. Thirsty, I unpacked my flask and drank deeply. Thus refreshed I ran on again as far as Hemingway Bridge, where Mike had so heroically prevented the homeless guy’s attempted suicide last fall.
Mike.
I shook my head and pressed on into the night. The sooner I made it out of town the better, away from any police patrols. At the town limit a raindrop splashed heavily on my nose. I looked up and more raindrops exploded on my cheeks. That’s not what I ordered! Holy mackerel, what sort of country was this that it rained at midsummer?
The rain grew stronger so I pulled on my hood and ran faster. Lightning flashed and I counted ten paces before the resulting thundercrash. Close. The storm seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. As I sheltered beneath a tree, the thought crossed my mind that I should return to Wicket Lane, but I instantly discounted it. No, I’d made my decision to leave, and I was determined to stick to my plan. A little shower of rain wouldn’t hurt me.
Bam! The next bolt of jagged lightning was followed so closely by its ear-splitting thunderclap I almost jumped out of my skin. The weather god was angry with me tonight. Mom had often warned me it wasn’t safe to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm so I forced myself on through the deluge, recalling there was a red barn a mile or so ahead. If no car turned up to offer me a ride before I reached it I would shelter there until the storm passed.
However, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle when the outline of the barn came dimly into view through the chill mist that had risen above the roadway, so I urged myself on, having warmed my muscles and settled into a steady pace which I felt confident to maintain for at least a few more miles. No vehicles had passed me, which in a way was good because I didn’t really want to be spotted this close to town, but in a way was worrying because I hoped to hitch a ride sooner or later, and it looked as though due to the lack of traffic it was going to be later. My bad luck just kept on coming.
And wouldn’t you know it, after I’d left the red barn way behind me, the rain began to fall again, without the thunder and lightning this time, but accompanied by a whirling, gusting, moaning wind that lashed the big drops like whipcords into my face as I ran. Water had penetrated my jacket, my jeans were soaked through, my running shoes were overflowing. It seemed nature was playing a horrible game with me, although I knew that couldn’t possibly be true. Weather was weather. Totally random. That the rain had eased up the moment I passed the red barn had been pure coincidence.
I ran on, wondering how much farther it was to the bridge. If nobody stopped to give me a ride I probably wouldn’t make it before dawn, by which time I would have contracted quadruple pneumonia. My cheeks were burning hot, despite the icy rain pelting my face. My hands were so cold I couldn’t control my fingers. Don’t give up, Astrid, don’t turn back, urged a voice in my mind. There’s nothing left for you in the human world. You’re a blood-crazed murderer. You have to go home. So keep running.
As I pushed on through the drenching darkness I found myself wondering how Mom and George would react to my return. And Angus too. Mom would be heartbroken. George and Angus would laugh wickedly. The quitter, home to submit to their rules and doom myself to joining them as a vampire—or to becoming a vampire’s lunch. I thought I would prefer one of them to kill me. Or maybe I ought to stop at the bridge and, instead of crossing my Rubicon, throw myself into the swollen river and let the current wash me away to oblivion.
One thing was certain, going back to town was out. There was no future for me at Wicket Lane with Aunt Jean, Uncle James and Emma. No future for me with my best friend Rachel and the other girls who cared about me at Rosenberg High. And worst of all no future for me together with Mike Hanson.
CHAPTER 45
(Mike)
Missing Person
I was on night duty at the station, playing myself at yet another game of chess, when unexpectedly the telephone rang. Sunday nights were ordinarily pretty quiet, especially when it was raining this hard. The last call we’d received was to take care of a disturbance at a house in Wellesley Road early Sunday morning—a post-exam party that had gotten way out of hand. One of the young revelers had been rushed to hospital, passed out on an overdose of some dumb drug or other, and had her stomach pumped, but she’d woken up okay in the morning and been sent home. We’d taken a long list of names, and Lydia had visited the girl’s parents in the afternoon to take more details, and during Monday’s team meeting the chief would decide on any action we would take. I was glad to note Astrid Sonnschein’s name wasn’t on the list. That sort of trouble she could do without.
I put down the white knight, sighed, and picked up the phone. “Yell-ow,” I intoned. “Officer Hanson speaking. How can I help?” The voice on the line sounded familiar. I frowned. “Mrs. Power? Please, just slow down.”
Shortly afterwards I had the satisfaction of waking Lydia from her beauty sleep. “Guess what?” I said. “Your favorite Romanian has gone AWOL.”
“I’ll be right over,” she replied. I could tell from her voice this was one teen hunt she was keen not to miss.
As the guys began to arrive I assigned Edgar to man the desk in place of me, checked my gun had a full load, grabbed my rainjacket and jogged out to the lot where my cruiser was waiting. The full moon glared briefly from behind a stormy-looking cloud over Lookout Point and I shuddered. Strange things had been known to happen around here on the night of a full moon. If Astrid was missing on a night like this I didn’t want to be stuck in the office worrying myself sick. I wanted to be out there searching for her. As I pulled out of the lot with the windscreen wipers going full speed I prayed to the Lord I would catch up with her before anyone else did.
CHAPTER 46
(Astrid)
It was a Dark and Stormy Night
The rain fell harder and the wind raved on, causing me second thoughts about continuing my journey. Water was streaming icily down my back. My strength was beginning to fail and my chest ached. I peered back along the road, hopeful of a glimmer of light indicating an approaching car, but none broke the darkness. Fighting despair I trudged on beneath the branches that whipped back and forth, my shoes squelching at every step I took.
Suddenly an intense light filled the road. A car had emerged from a farm track about fifty yards ahead and caught me in its headlights. I thought for an instant about turning and running, but it was too late. The car crawled toward me through the rain, blinding me in the glare. It was a police cruiser. As it purred to a halt next to me the window slid down. “You need a ride?”
“Officer Hanson,” I exclaimed, unsure whether to feel relieved or mortified or just throw myself into his strong arms. “You scared me.”
“Astrid,” he said gruffly. “Astrid, what are you doing way out here? Is that your backpack?”
I looked away, thankful the pouring rain concealed the prickly tears streaming down my face. “Yeah, Officer Hanson, it’s my backpack. I’m going home.” I tried to sound firm but my voice was trembling. Like the rest of me was trembling. With exertion, of course.
Mike pushed open the door. “Get in.”
“No,” I said, and turned away.
“Miss Sonnschein!” he commanded. “Get in the car right now! I will not have you die of pneumonia. Don’t make me come out there to arrest you.”
I looked over my shoulder, saw the determination on his face, and my heart sank. No point trying to escape. I couldn’t outrun a speeding patrol car. Plus if I did as he said I would be sheltered from the rain. So I splashed back to the car and climbed in, averting my face from his questioning eyes, my cheeks burning, raindrops creeping down my nose and falling off the end of it. Life was unrelenting in finding new ways to embarrass me.
“Do you know how many people are out looking for you tonight?”
I turned to him in shock. “What?”
“I’m not here by chance. Your aunt woke up,” he said. “She had a bad feeling, faith, premonition, whatever. She rushed to your room, found you gone, imagined you the latest victim and called me. Damn it, young lady, people are thinking you’re dead!”
I stared at my dripping runners in shame. Not only was I now sitting in Mike’s car looking as bedraggled as a wet hen, I’d also frightened Aunt Jean into calling him out to search for me. This proved more than ever that my full name was Astrid Big Trouble Sonnschein. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
We sat together not speaking as the rain hammered on the roof. Flashes of lightning lit us every couple of seconds and thunder crashed, but not even such a racket could compete with the uncontrollable chatter of my teeth. I flinched as something touched my shoulder.
“Here.” Mike passed me his jacket. “I guess you forgot to put an umbrella in that survival pack of yours.”
As I put on the jacket I said nothing.
Mike started the engine then switched it off again. Curious, I turned to face him. He was staring straight ahead at the darkness beyond the windshield, his hands gripping the wheel hard. “Your relatives are worried sick—and so was I,” he said. “Glory be, even Tafani had a pang or two. Why would you run away from us like that?”
I took a deep breath and in one big rushing waterfall of words blurted out everything about the party and how I’d drugged Evan to get my evil way, and how he’d fallen asleep, and how I’d woken up in a drunken haze and found him on the backseat with his throat ripped out. Poor Evan. The guy all my schoolmates had egged me on to seduce.
But maybe it hadn’t been me. Your Honor, I was lying there totally out cold due to the incredibly intoxicating effects of my first ever alcoholic drink while someone or something came by our car, spotted Evan lying unconscious after I’d slipped him too many Zoldipems, opened the door and helped themselves to his bodily fluids.
“I can see why you thought you had to run,” Mike observed when I was done explaining. “But running is the act of a guilty person ...”
“... or a scared or confused person,” I continued in a small voice.
“So I think I should drive you back to town and you show me where Evan is.”
I stared at him aghast. “What do you mean? You haven’t found him yet?”
Mike shook his head. “Nobody’s reported him missing.”
I couldn’t believe it. Evan had been lying dead in his car all day and most of the night and his parents hadn’t reported him missing? And nobody had walked past and noticed his body?
Mike put his hand on the key. “So where are we headed?”
“I don’t know.”
His jaw tightened. “How can you not know?”
“I guess I wasn’t paying much attention to Evan’s driving. It was dark. And when I woke up and saw what had happened I was in a hurry to get away. You know, like in a total panic.”
“Think carefully. You must have noticed something.”
I recalled having had to duck down as I ran toward the house. “I almost hit my head on the For Sale board.”
“A For Sale board? Which realtor?”
“I’m not sure.” I thought hard for several seconds. “It was, um, that red, white and blue logo you see all over town.”
“Danilo’s?”
“Could be.”
“And what did the house look like?”
“Big. And the yard backed onto the woods.”
Mike grabbed the microphone. “Edgar? You there? This is Mike.”
Edgar’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Sure, Mike. What’s the news?”
“I need you to call Mr. Danilo and ask him for a list of all the houses he has on sale.”
“Right now? At this time of night?”
“Yeah right now. It’s kind of urgent.”
“You got it.”
By the time we reached town Edgar told us he had the list, so Mike dropped by the station to pick it up. I waited in the car, shivering. When Mike came back he handed me the sheet of paper, which had ten addresses on it. “Okay,” he said grimly. “We visit all these places till we find Evan.”
The first two houses I didn’t recognize, and we didn’t find Evan’s car at either of them. When we arrived at the third address, Bailey Avenue, and got out of the car to take a look, it kind of felt familiar, but Evan’s car wasn’t there either, so we moved on. After we’d visited all ten and none of them were it, Mike switched off the engine and regarded me thoughtfully. “Are you sure it was Danilo’s?”
I flipped on his flashlight and shone it up at the last of the realtor’s boards. “As sure as I can be.”
“In that case where’s Evan?”
“I didn’t dream it.” No way had I dreamed it. Nobody with their throat ripped out like that could have sat up and driven away as though he’d suffered nothing more painful than a hickey. I took a minute to think. “Take me back to Bailey Avenue.”
“He wasn’t there.”
“He was there yesterday, I swear it.”
Mike’s eyes were full of distrust, but he nodded and drove us back to Bailey Avenue. At the house we both got out and Mike scanned the street and the front yard with his flashlight. A big tree loomed in the yard, a willow. I remembered brushing through the dangling leaves as I ran away. And Bailey Avenue was on the edge of town, with the forest looming blacker than the night beyond the houses. “This is definitely the place,” I said. The crime scene.
“So where’s the car?” Mike swept the yard again with his flashlight. “Whoa.”
A red eye sparked back at us from low to the ground. Something on the lawn.
“What’s that?” He held the flashlight steady and we both flinched as a large bird swished past us at head height, cawing loudly. A crow, or maybe a raven.
I shuddered and moved closer to Mike. “A bird flying at night? Don’t you find that ...”
“... creepy?” he finished. “Not really, owls do it all the time.”
“But that wasn’t an owl. When did you last hear an owl caw? It’s a sign.”
“A sign? Of what?”
I don’t know, a sign of me going crazy. I looked around, straining my eyes through the darkness, confused. I was so sure this was the place Evan had parked. But where was he? Someone found his keys and stole the car?
“Mike, I’m telling you, he was right here.”
Mike sighed and looked at his watch. “Well, he’s not here now so we should call it a night. Time I drove you back.”
“Back where? To jail?” It wasn’t so much a question as a whimper.
“Back to jail, right,” he said. “Seriously, Astrid, why would you think that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I murdered Evan and disposed of the body.”
Mike thrust his hands in his jacket pockets and stood looking at me. “Sure. And you hid the car too. That’s why I found you in the middle of the night soaked to the skin trudging along the road to nowhere. Seriously, if I thought you were a killer you’d be handcuffed and sitting in the cage.”
“You don’t think I did it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’ll need to find some evidence that’ll stick to you first. All I have right now is your ‘confession’.”
We got back in the car. He was right, I suppose. Without a body, my policeman buddy had no murder, just another missing person. No proof I’d committed any crime. He probably thought I’d made up the whole affair; alcohol can do strange things to a girl. But I wasn’t going to let him dismiss the case so easily.
“The whole town thinks I killed Zoe and Daniel. Everyone hates me.”
Mike raised a Mr. Spock eyebrow. “Everyone?”
“Yes, everyone. I barely had any money for my escape fund because none of the customers at the Chalet have tipped me in months.”
“You can’t think everyone hates you, Astrid. That’s a dumb idea.”
I glared at him. “So I’m imagining everything? I’m delusional, is that it?”
“No, just kind of misguided and lonely and scared,” he said. Spot on, Mike. You should become a psych. “What about your parents? Do they hate you?”
“No, but …” Well, Mom for sure didn’t, but George had shown signs now and again.
“Your aunt, your uncle, your cousin Emma,” he continued. “And all your friends at Rosenberg High?”
“You mean any friends I have left,” I muttered, looking away from him.
“And me. What about me?” he said. “I don’t hate you. How could I?” He brushed a strand of damp hair away from my nose and I turned to him with wide eyes. “What’s there to hate?” he continued. “You’re nice ... pretty ... um, nice.”
I let out a smirk at his limited vocabulary of compliments.
“Don’t laugh,” he grumbled, his face reddening, but I couldn’t help myself. “Okay, I’m taking you home. Your family must be worried sick.”
“Family,” I whispered. “Oh Mike, I was so scared I’d be sent back to Romania. Or worse.” I burst into tears, giving him no option but to stop the car and hold me close. Five minutes later I pulled reluctantly out of his embrace and he drove me home to face Aunt Jean’s music. When we arrived at Wicket Lane we sat for a minute or two in companionable silence, listening to the rain. I stared at the front door, dreading what awaited me beyond it.
“Go,” said Mike. “You’ve kept us all from our beds long enough. Next time I see you, please don’t let it be as a runaway.”
Next time. I smiled and considered for a moment planting a kiss on his oh-so-close cheek, but I was still in shock about Evan so thought better of it. Maybe next time wasn’t a sensible idea. Every time I’d kissed someone in this town bad things had happened to them, very bad things. I didn’t want to give Mike my curse so just said a polite thank you and goodbye and scurried off to ring the doorbell, bracing myself for another round of scolding.
