Crimson Rush A Vampire Romance (Crimson Book 1) (4 page)

“Go to work at Club Crimson. Keep your ears open, and see what you can find out,” Charlie suggested.

My mouth fell open and I could actually feel the blood drain from my face. “You are nuttier than a fruitcake. Not only do I already have a job, but this bad ass vampire your chasing, already insinuated that I was asking for trouble by hanging out with vampires. He also more or less said I should stay away from Luke. He sure seems to be giving out a lot of warnings for someone who wants my blood.”

Charlie drew his brows together. “That is weird.”

“You’re not sending her to work at that club, mate. All that will do is get her killed.” Luke got to his feet and started pacing the floor. “You need to come up with a better plan.”

“Yeah maybe,” Charlie said. Letting out a loud sigh, he stood up. “Luke and I have some business to take care of in New Orleans. It seems there is a rogue vampire feeding from the prostitutes. I’ll be gone for a few days, but in the meantime, you keep a good watch over your shoulder. They’re here to harvest blood, and yours is exactly what they’re looking for.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t figured out on my own, but I decided to play along.

“Sure,” I agreed. “But I’m still not going to work at that club.”

Charlie leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “It was a pleasure to see you so beautiful and all grown up.”

“Thanks.”

Luke waved as he followed Charlie out the door.

I’m not a rude person, and I’ve always tried to be hospitable, but I was glad to see them go. I needed time to think. I’d basically been in shock since they’d arrived, and my state of mind sure wasn’t getting any better.

* * *

It was still dark when I drove into the Westland Super Center parking lot. Calling it a super center was probably stretching the definition some. They did carry hardware and clothes, as well as food, but Westland’s was nothing like the super centers you’d find in the big cities.

On Friday mornings I usually helped Jaycee open the store. I didn’t mind. It gave me some overtime, and that meant a few extra dollars on my paycheck. These days it seemed everyone needed a little extra come payday.

Jaycee Harris was the weekend manager at Westland’s. She always came in at 3:00 am to start stocking shelves. Jacee didn’t mind coming in early either. That was probably on account of her being alone now that her son Derry had run off to Hollywood, hoping to get into the movies.

Derry had never been much good to Jacee anyway. All he ever did when he was home was drink and get into trouble. I thought she was better off with him gone, but of course Jaycee didn’t see it that way, so I tried to be sympathetic.

I parked as near to the building as I could, choosing a spot beneath one of the light poles. The phrase, as silent as the grave, came near to describing what Cookson Springs was like at 5:00 am.  There was no sound at all, except for the buzzing of insects that swarmed near the top of the light pole, and my own breathing. As I walked across the pavement, even my footsteps seemed loud in the utter stillness before dawn.

The dark - the silence - the solitude, none of this had ever bothered me, but that was before I knew there were vampires living right here in my hometown. Now simply walking through a deserted parking lot seemed like a perilous act.

Wasting no time, I made a beeline for the side door. Jaycee knew I was coming, so she’d likely unlocked it by now. I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled on the door and it opened.

Though it wasn’t as bright as it was when the store was open, there were enough lights on that it was easy to see.

“Jaycee. I’m here,” I called out.

There was no answer, so I figured she was in back pulling merchandise. I sat my purse on the shelf beneath my cash register and went to look for Jaycee. I liked to let her know when I came in. That way she’d get my hours down right.

“Jaycee!” I called again, this time louder.

Making my way to the back of the store, I glanced down each aisle as I walked by, but there was no sign of her. I could hear nothing but silence, and the sound of my own breathing.

She should have heard me by now, or at least come looking for me. It was already ten minutes past five.

The closer I got to the back of the store, the more I felt that burning - searing pain in my head. Whenever I got these strange headaches, it always meant something was wrong.

It started at the top of my head and worked its way back to my neck. By the time it reached my spine, the sensation turned into ice-cold chills. Running away was the smartest thing to do, but that wasn’t me. If there was a possibility someone was in trouble, I couldn’t just run off.

The double doors to the warehouse were closed, but streams of thick - dark red blood seeped from beneath them, spreading across the white tile floor.

My breath caught in my throat. I was torn between grabbing the phone and calling the police, or going back there to see if I could help Jaycee.

She might still be alive
.

The little miss do-good part of me propelled me.

With extreme caution, I pushed the doors open, doing my best to sidestep the blood. There was a lot of it, so that wasn’t an easy task.

The warehouse was much darker than the front of the store. My eyes scanned the floor and the neatly stacked boxes, but there was no sign of her. Before continuing, I pulled a broom from the rack where it hung on the wall. It wasn’t a great weapon, but better than nothing.

As quietly as possible, I followed the trail of blood down the box-lined aisle and rounded the corner.

I heard the low growling - grunting sound before I actually saw it. As soon as I turned the corner, I froze.

When in the grip of true terror, to say you are scared stiff doesn’t really cut it. In that moment, I was so horrified that I couldn’t even scream.

Johnny Brownson, the part time stocker, was lying on the ground with his gut torn open. Jaycee, or something that slightly resembled Jaycee, was stuffing his entrails in her mouth.

The Jaycee thing looked up at me with pale glazed eyes and growled. Still I couldn’t move. It wasn’t until it started moving toward me that the paralysis broke. My screams shattered the overlying silence.

By the time I thought to run, it was already within a few feet of me. I swung at it with the broom, successfully knocking it off balance, but not much else. 

I put so much focus into running, that I didn’t pay enough attention to where I was stepping and managed to slip on a pool of blood, just before reaching the warehouse doors.

Too panicked to pray, and too scared to look back, I scrambled to my feet and burst through the doors. I practically flew through the front of the store, not even daring to stop long enough to catch my breath, at least not until I got to my car. Too late I realized I hadn’t grabbed my purse on the way out, and didn’t have any keys.

My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure it would burst right through my chest. Resting my back against the car, I tried to pull in enough oxygen to keep from fainting. That’s when I felt the hard plastic of the phone in my back pocket.

“Thank God!” I gasped.

It was a struggle to get my trembling fingers on the right numbers, but I managed. The sound of the 911 operator on the other end, was like hearing angels sing while trying to climb out of the pits of hell.

They didn’t find any sign of Jaycee. I don’t think old Jud believed me when I told him Jaycee was the one who killed Johnny. He was convinced I was in shock and my eyes had played tricks on me, so he’d simply listed Jaycee as missing.

Not exactly professional police work, but that was old Jud for you. His gray hair and tired blue eyes spoke of the countless years he’d served as sheriff in Cookson Springs. He had his own way of doing things, and up until now, it had worked.

I spent half the morning in Westland’s parking lot answering questions for the police, while trying to ignore the ghouls gathered outside the yellow police tape.

Not that I was surprised. This was probably the biggest thing to happen in Cookson Springs since the tornado of 1976.

My hands were still shaking when I got in my car and left, but I was a lot calmer than I’d been earlier. Now I wished Charlie was still around. I wondered what he would have to say about this new development.

I was fairly sure that what I’d seen wasn’t a vampire. The Jaycee thing very closely resembled the zombies I’d seen on TV.

It was impossible. Those things just didn’t happen, but then again, vampires didn’t exist either.

Jud was right about one thing; I was in shock. Who wouldn’t be if they’d just found one coworker eating another?

I probably wasn’t quite as shocked as some people might have been. Growing up with stories of Indian curses and Big Foot, had a way of taking the edge off of weird, at least a little.

Zombies!

Vampires!

What else was out there?

I needed someone to talk to. My go to person for weird things was my Uncle Basile. Since I wouldn’t be going into work, I decided to call on him.

Uncle Basile wasn’t really my uncle. He was actually my mother’s uncle. I’d always had a close relationship with Basile, but we’d grown even closer since my parents died.

As long as Uncle Basile was around, I’d never be completely alone in the world.

Of course there was also my cousin Dusty. Although I didn’t have a real tight relationship with Dusty, we looked out for each other. He’d always been there when I needed him. My cousin might have seemed a bit shallow to others, but I knew better. He wasn’t Einstein, but he had a big heart.

The drive to Uncle Basile’s house didn’t take long. He lived in an old trailer outside his auto repair shop, which wasn’t too far from town.

The garage doors to his shop were closed, so instead of trying the door, I just went around back to his single wide mobile home. It was an old model from the sixties, but he kept it clean and comfortable.

Uncle Basile knew about a lot of weird stuff, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to take to the idea of vampires.

After knocking on the door, I let myself in without waiting for an invitation. Basile wouldn’t mind. He insisted that his home, was my home.

Like I suspected, Basile was sitting in front of the TV, watching an old black and white program. There was a can of RC cola, and a bowl of fried pork rinds sitting on the little table he kept next to his recliner.

A black cap covered his head, which was mostly bald, this being the reason why he always wore his hat. At one time his hair had been as dark as his eyes, on account of his mother being African American, and his father Cajun. Basile was real proud of his heritage, and never failed to remind us that we should be too. 

“Those things are going to kill you,” I told him, pointing to the bowl of rinds.

“I reckon I’m not so lucky,” he said with a hardy chuckle. “On Judgment Day, I’ll still be here checking folk’s oil and patching their bald ass tires.”

Leaning down, I gave Uncle Basile a quick hug before sitting in the small love seat. It was the only other furniture in his living room, aside from the end table, TV, and recliner.

“I heard you had a time of it this morning. What you doing out and about?” he asked before popping a pork rind into his mouth.

News sure did travel fast in Cookson Springs
.

“I found Johnny’s body this morning when I went to work. It was horrible! I’ll be seeing that picture in my head for the rest of my life,” I told him, closing my eyes in an effort to block out the nightmarish image racing to the front of my mind.

“Sure be a pity about Johnny … and that Miss Jaycee going missing.”

I nodded.

I wasn’t sure how to approach the subject. The last thing I wanted was for him to get all hocus pocus on me. He had a habit of doing that, probably because he was from voodoo country. Both he and my grandmother were born in Louisiana. As far as I knew, Grandma Maria still lived there. I’d never met my Grandma Maria, due to her and Mom having a falling out.

When my mom was just sixteen, she left home and came to Oklahoma to live with her Uncle Basile. She never went back, and never spoke to her mother again.

No one ever talked about why Mom left home, and my family avoided the subject like the plague. Even now that Mom was gone, Basile refused to talk about it.

“You know how I have a gift?” I asked.

That’s what he’d always called it, a gift. Now I wouldn’t exactly call it that, on account of it being such a royal pain in the ass, not to mention downright scary sometimes.

There was nothing quite as unnerving as using a public restroom, and having some dead girl peek under the stall to ask where her mama was.

Of course it could also be heartbreaking, which isn’t pleasant either.

“Put on your ears girl! You even listening to me?”

Basile’s scolding snapped me back to the present. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little tired.”

“I asked if you been getting messages?”

I shook my head. “No. I was just wondering if you knew about any other weird things?”

Basile wrinkled his forehead. “Like what you talking about?” he asked.

Shrugging I said, “I don’t know … anything strange … like maybe vampires?” I added under my breath.

Leaning forward, he grasped my chin and started turning my head around so he could look at it. “Did you fall down and bump your head girl?”

“No!” I said, twisting my face into a scowl.

“Hmm … then you been smoking some of that wacky weed.”

“Uncle Basile … you’re not fooling me. You know something about this kind of stuff. I’ve heard you tell folks around here how to protect themselves from evil spirits and such.”

Basile’s eyes grew suspicious. “Why you asking?”

I quickly related what happened with Uncle Charlie, Club Crimson, and Westland’s.

Basile was shaking his head in dismay. “That no good rascal Charlie. He done gave your pa his word he wouldn’t be back here. Does he know about your gift?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes.

I shook my head. “Just the stuff about the witch blood.”

“Good … and don’t you be telling him. Best not be telling any bloodsuckers either.”

“But what about vampires … and Rush? What do you know about it?”

“Don’t know anything about no Rush, but I know there be vampire creatures. Never actually had a run in with one myself,” he said, his eyes clouding with worry.

“What do you know about them?”

“Not much. Mostly a bunch of mumbo jumbo.”

It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about vampires, but I wasn’t about to give up so easily.

“Like what?” I asked again.

“What you be asking about vampires for anyway? You best just stay clear of them. With Moon Fest so close … I’d think you’d be more worried about that. What costume you going to be wearing?”

“Uncle Basile … this is important. I think what’s happening is linked to what happened to Max.” I thought it best to leave out the part about going to work at Club Crimson. Basile was liable to whack me in the head and tell me I was a pea brain.

Whatever was happening in Cookson Springs wasn’t good. I had to do something.

Basile’s weathered face twisted into a grimace. “You listen to me Starla Lavelle. You best be staying away from vampires. What I’ve heard about them aint good.”

“What do you know about them?” I asked again. “How come no one knows they’re real … why didn’t I know?”

“You didn’t know cause’ I didn’t tell you … and I didn’t tell you, on account of you need to stay away from them. All the gals these days … they be thinking that vampires be all flowers and romance. Just a lot of hogwash. They be killers … that’s what they be.”

“Wouldn’t staying away from them have been easier to do, if I’d known they might be real?”

“Guessing you’re right about that,” he said with a nod. “But you might have just got too curious too.”

“So tell me,” I urged.

Still he hesitated,

“Uncle Basile! How am I supposed to help Max, if I don’t know what I’m dealing with?”

“Even if you do know … aint nothing you can do for that boy. Let the doctors figure it out.”

It was sure looking like Basile was going to be a stubborn old coot, which wasn’t really a surprise. He’d always taken it on himself to look after Dusty and me. To get anything out of him, I was probably going to have to do a bit of manipulating.

“Well I guess I’ll just have to start hanging out with Charlie and find out for myself.”

I had no idea if I was serious or not, but I let Basile think I was.

“Don’t you even think a being such a numbskull! Charlie’s nothing but a trouble making fool.”

“Well if you won’t tell me,” I said with a shrug.

Basile shook his head and grumbled, “You have always been thick in the head.”

“Uncle Basile!” I gasped.

“Well it be the truth. Someone says stay out of the water … you get in. Someone tells you not to eat the holly berries … and you eat the holly berries.”

Okay that stung, but isn’t it always that way when someone reminds you of something you’d prefer to forget. Even thinking about the day I picked those berries and ate them, was enough to make my stomach lurch. Sure, I’d only been seven years old, but that was old enough to mind what you were told. That wasn’t something I’d always done. My tendency to be wayward cost me greatly that day.

Basile downed the last of his RC and threw the empty can across the room, where it landed in a box half full of old soda cans.

“Back home they call them
rougarou
. The
rougarou
could be a vampire, or a wolf man … just depends who you talk to. They been around long as anyone recalls. Folks say they are monsters that drink blood, and they hate the sun. If you want to keep yourself safe from the
rougarou
, best not be looking in their eyes.”

Okay, so I’d already broke one rule it would seem.

“Well most of this sounds like regular old vampire lore,” I told him.

Basile nodded. “There be a reason why old stories … get to be old. That be because they have some truth to them.”

It didn’t seem like Uncle Basile was going to be as much help as I’d hoped. “So how do you keep yourself safe from them?”

Basile laughed. “Well you don’t be visiting with them … that’s for sure.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I was visiting.” The memory of my meeting with Marcus must have put a blush on my face, because Basile’s eyes turned to razors.

“You best be careful. I hear tell a vampire can seduce a virgin in a church pew.”

After what I’d just experienced, I had no doubt this was true. “You were going to tell me how to protect myself,” I reminded him.

“You don’t invite them in. That’s one thing. They can’t go in your house without being invited.”

That would have been nice to know, before I’d invited Charlie and Luke in. Sure, Luke seemed harmless enough, but you never knew.

“Also … vervain will slow them down … not kill them though. Only ways I knows to kill them is a wooden stake in the heart, and the sun.”

None of this was new. It was the same thing you’d hear from any Dracula movie. “There must be more,” I insisted.

“Sure there be, except I don’t know it.”

“Are there any other weird things out there I should know about?” I asked.

“There be lots of things in this world you don’t know about. Hope you never need to find out.”

I was hoping for a little more detail, but when Basile made up his mind about something, it was near impossible to shake it.

“Well thanks Uncle Basile,” I told him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “I think I’m going to go home and get some rest.”

“Smartest thing you said today,” he told me. “And when that no good Charlie shows his dumb ass again, you send him over here to talk to me.”

“I’m sure he’ll be pleased as pie to get reacquainted,” I said, trying not to smile.

After leaving Basile’s place, I sat in my car, taking a few minutes just to close my eyes. Things were happening so fast, my head was spinning. I hadn’t had any time to really absorb the way my entire world had changed, or at least the way that I now saw the world. Closing my eyes didn’t help much. Every time I did, I kept seeing Jaycee eating Johnny.