The Last Days of October (23 page)

She followed his
pointing finger to a set of buckets in the corner of the pen.
 
In one bucket, a length of hose and a funnel
peeked over the rim.

“And look at
this.
 
On its neck.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Look.
 
It’s been cut.”

He pointed at the
beast’s neck.
 
She had seen the
bloodstain earlier but had taken it for just another spot on its coat.
 
The dawn of understanding rose in her brain.
 
Why Dad and his crew weren’t as skinny as the
creatures from Wal-Mart or the ones that had charged out of the high school;
why the cow was so afraid of her.

I carry his blood.
 
I have his scent.

“You can’t see it
from where you are,” Justin said, “but there’s a scar on the neck where
somebody cut this thing and then sewed it up.
 
They did a shitty job.
 
What do
you think…”

She cut him
off.
 
“He’s farming.”

Justin looked from
the cow to Amber.
 
He rose, wiping his
hand on his jeans.

“That’s how he
became their leader.
 
That’s how he
controls them.
 
He controls their food.”

“Mother
fucker,
” Justin muttered.

“All the people
are gone.
 
They’re either dead or they
turned—either way, they’re no good to a vampire, not anymore.
 
They’ve drained whatever animals they could
catch.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He found these, and he kept them.
 
He bleeds them every night.
 
And he gives the blood to the ones that have
pleased him.”

“Wow.”
 
Justin chuckled weakly and shook his
head.
 
“Don’t take this the wrong way,
Amber, but…in a strange way, I’m kind of impressed.”

“You know what
this means, right?”
 
She asked.

He blinked at her.

“It’s never going
to stop,” she said.
 
“Not with him.
 
And now, not with her, either.
 
Some of these things might die off, but
his
crew will survive.
 
Because he’s farming.”

“So that means…”

“We can’t
leave.”
 
She wrapped her arms around her
chest, suddenly cold.
 
“Not yet.
 
We have to finish this first.”
 
She swallowed.
 
“We have to finish
them
.”

Justin took a deep
breath and shoved his hands in his pockets.
 
He nodded, exhaling slowly and staring down at the stricken cow.
 
He closed his eyes.

“I think I know
where they are,” he said.

30.

Heather awoke to a
memory.
 
An old one, the aftermath of a
prehistoric fight whose genesis existed nowhere in her recollection.
 
Amber had been a baby then, not yet able to
walk.
 
Mike had gotten mad about
something—she couldn’t remember what.
 
Something she’d done.
 
Or hadn’t
done.

You’re lucky you have me, you know
that?
 
You’re so fucking stupid, it’s a
miracle you remember to breathe.

She remembered
packing her car after he left for work that morning and sitting in the driveway
of their tiny house on base.
 
Strapped
into her baby seat in the back, Amber screamed.
 
She wanted out.
 
She didn’t like
the straps holding her in, holding her back.
 
Restricting her every movement; chafing her soft skin.
 
She wanted to be free.

Heather laid her
forehead on the steering wheel and cried.
 
Not so much from hurt feelings; by that point, she had grown used to
being called stupid, ineffective, unthinking, blah blah blah, she didn’t have
two brain cells to rub together.
 
She
cried out of frustration, because after all that, she was still sitting in the
driveway.
 
She hadn’t even started the
car.

“Why does he do
this?” she asked no one.
 
“Why can he say
anything he wants to me?
 
Why does he do
that?”

The answer came
simply:

Because he can.

Right.
 
Because on a very fundamental level, he knew
that no matter what he did, she wouldn’t leave.

Now she stared
through the windshield at the house where the Mike-thing and his entourage had
sought shelter for the day.
 
Sun poured
over the brown grass and bathed the porch, the shutters, the roof.
 
It turned the cab of the truck into a
miniature greenhouse, raising the temperature to an almost uncomfortable level
despite the autumn chill outside.
 
As it
did this, it asked a question:

What now?

Indeed.
 
She hadn’t considered what she would do if
she made it through the night in the woods.
 
With the gun pointed to her head, the idea of survival had been a luxury
she couldn’t afford.
 
Had she allowed
herself to think beyond the next breath, she might have thought beyond the
morning, and then the day.
 
She might
have disconnected from the peace she’d made with dying.
 
And then when Mike finally decided to call
her bluff and charge, she might have hesitated to pull the trigger.
 
Maybe not long, but long enough to matter.

She reached over
and cracked the driver’s window.
 
Cool
morning air from outside flooded the cab and made her almost sleepy again.
 
She inhaled a chestful of it with her eyes
closed, considering her next move.
 
Tired
as she was, she couldn’t afford to take a nap right now.
 
She would have to walk until she found a
functioning automobile.
 
Mike’s entourage
had left their keyless vehicles at the edge of the woods, and while she would
check under the floormats and behind the sun visors for spare keys, nothing was
ever that easy.
 
The old truck would run
if she fueled it, but without a container and a hose to siphon with the fuel in
the gas tanks would have to just stay there.
 
Probably forever.

Forever.

She opened her
eyes and looked at the house again.

“No,” she said
aloud.

You can stop this now.
 
Burn that house.

No.
 
She wouldn’t do that.

Why?
 
Because he’s such a nice guy?

Because for the
last almost twenty years, he and Amber were her only family.
 
Because once upon a time, for all his faults,
he had made her feel loved and protected.
 
He hadn’t been all bad, and maybe not even half bad.
 
By this evening, she would be at Fort Bragg,
reunited with Amber.
 
Very shortly, this
creature that had overtaken her husband would starve to death.
 
Vampire king or not, he needed blood.
 
And there wasn’t much of that left.

She didn’t have to
burn him.
 
He’d die on his own, without
her help.
 
Which was good.
 
Because she didn’t know if she could give it.

She saw something
moving in the side mirror and turned to see a dirty white minivan pull up
behind the truck.
 
It took her a moment
to recognize it as the one Amber and Justin had taken the night before.
 
Her heart nearly stopped, then raced when the
doors opened and the two of them emerged into the morning.
 
She threw her door open and jumped out onto
the road.

“Amber!”

Both of them
froze.
 
Amber stared at her in horror,
speechless.

“I’m okay,”
Heather said.
 
“He didn’t get me.
 
I’m normal.
 
I….”

Before she could
finish, Amber ran forward and enveloped her in a crushing bear hug, the
strength of which felt incongruous with her slight frame.

“I thought you
were dead,” she said thickly.
 
“Like
Dad.”

“I’m fine,” Heather
said.
 
She looked over Amber’s shoulder
at Justin.
 
He stood leaning against the
van, hands shoved in his pockets.
 
He
smiled.

“I’m glad to see
you, too,” he said.
 
“You wouldn’t look
good with fangs.”

Despite the night
she’d just experienced, she smiled.
 
She
kissed the crown of Amber’s head and held the girl as she shook with sobs of
relief.
 
They stood this way for a long
time.
 
When Amber showed no signs of
letting her go, she kissed her again and murmured, “We need to get going now,
okay?
 
Put as much distance as possible
between us and this place.”
 

Amber pulled away,
sniffling.
 
She threw a glance past
Heather at the farmhouse.
 
“Is he in
there?”

“Yes.”

Amber looked back
at Justin, who looked down at the ground and kicked at a pebble with the tip of
his shoe.

“What?”
 
Heather asked.

“We figured out
how he’s still eating,” he said.
 
“And we
can’t just go.”

When he finished
explaining, Heather turned to stare again at the farmhouse.
 
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said in a
tone of disbelief.
 
“He’s
farming
?”

Amber folded her
arms and nodded.
 
“Crazy, right?”

So there would be
no starvation.
 
This would continue.
 
He would drink the blood of a cow, and he
would make good on his promise to track her down.
 
They could run to Fort Bragg,
but he’d find a way to solve the distance problem.
 
He could bottle the stuff and take it with
him, keep a 20-ounce in the cupholder while he stalked her from place to
place.
 
Because while they could run all
day, at sundown they had to pick a place and stay there.
 
And with winter coming, the nights were
getting longer.
 
They would remain that
way for a long time.

Justin cleared his
throat.
 
“Listen,” he said.
 
“If you two want to get in the van and go
somewhere else for a little bit, I can take care of this.
 
You don’t have to be a part of it.”

Heather looked
from the farmhouse to him.
 
She bit her
lower lip.

“No,” she
said.
 
“I do.
 
I have to be the only part of it.”

With Amber and
Justin watching, she walked over to the truck and began gathering paper and
other dry things from the floor of the cab and the glovebox.
 
Everything she would need to start a fire.

The house was old,
the timbers dry and flammable.
 
They sat
in the van and watched the blaze consume the structure.
 
When the screeching started, Heather plugged
her ears and hummed until it stopped.
 
It
didn’t take long.

As the
fire-weakened frame collapsed into a great pile of smoking and glowing wood,
Justin started the van and sighed.

“We probably
better get going,” he said, dropping the gear selector into drive.
 
“Day isn’t getting any younger.”

Something occurred
to her then, and she put a hand on his shoulder.
 
“Can you wait just a minute?”

“Sure.”

She opened the
door and got out.
 
Neither Amber nor
Justin said a word as she walked towards the burning house, stopping when the
heat grew too great for her to continue.
 
Then she removed her wedding ring and hurled it at the flames.

“Let’s roll,” she
said.

Author’s Note

Have you ever told
a child not to be scared because vampires don’t exist?

Yeah.
 
Me, too.
 
We’re lying, of course.
 
Vampires
have shadowed us since humanity’s earliest days; Lucy and Peking Man probably
ran across one at some time during their short and difficult lives.
 
Every culture has a story about a mythical
creature that attacks people and sucks their blood, and there’s a reason for
that: we’ve all met vampires.
 
And some
of us have fallen victim to them.

Dude…are you drunk?
 

Not right
now.
 
I’m dead serious: vampires are
real.
 
Think I’m crazy?
 
Consider this story:

A few years ago, I
ran across a childless lady in her fifties who, until about five years
previously, had been living on her own.
 
She had a good job, a healthy retirement account and substantial equity
in a house and land.
 
She lived within
her means and used credit responsibly.
 
She wasn’t rich, but she’d done well for herself.
 
She’d built something.

And then she met a
guy.
 
And married him.

By the time I met
her, the retirement account was gone.
 
Where’d it go?
 
Same place as the
equity in her house.
 
Poof!
 
She owed money on credit cards.
 
And the husband?
 
Left her.
 
Moved out.
 
Not because she was cheating on him, mistreating him, drunk, hooked on
Colombian marching powder or any doing any of the other things that tend to end
marriages, but because she was tapped out and had nothing left to give
him.
 
I know this because at her
settlement conference, the soon-to-be-ex actually told the mediator and his
lawyer that he’d left his wife because she wasn’t maintaining him in the
lifestyle he preferred.
 
She couldn’t
fund his stupid hobbies anymore, or his bad investments.
 
He’d taken everything she had, and then he
left her.
 
She had very little recourse,
because in our state there’s no law against being an evil son of a bitch.
 
In many ways, we’re a
caveat emptor
jurisdiction.

The essence of
vampirism is the draining of life to the benefit of the vampire and the
detriment of the host.
 
Vampires take
more than they truly need and more than you can afford to give them, and they
keep on sucking even as you wither and start to die.
 
They do this because they’re out for
themselves.
 
Your spiritual, physical,
emotional or financial health isn’t a secondary concern—it’s not a concern at
all.
 
They don’t care that their need to
possess you has cut you off from friends and family and other relationships
that once made your life a better place.
 
They don’t care that they’re spending you into bankruptcy or that you’ll
never be able to retire because they wanted to take out an equity line to buy a
bass boat or a 401K loan to buy a mobile home for that thirtysomething loser
kid from their first marriage (seen it, seen it, seen it).
 
They.
 
Don’t.
 
Care.
 
They want you to do something for them.
 
That’s it.

The phenomenon
isn’t confined to romantic partners; sometimes it’s your own kids doing
this.
 
I once got appointed to an adult
guardianship case for this 90-ish man who had spent World War Two fighting with
the Royal Army in Burma.
 
After his wife died, he ended up in a cruddy
nursing home as a ward of the Department of Social Services because his
alcoholic daughter—a 60-year-old toddler—was blowing all his money and not
looking after his needs.
 
She and her
husband lost the home he’d spent a big chunk of his savings acquiring for her,
because they were too drunk to hold jobs and pay the mortgage.
 
So they moved in with him and used his credit
cards to buy liquor.
 
I think she’d had
her fangs in him for a long time, but after her mother passed and Daddy started
slipping, she sucked harder.

In stories,
vampires knock.
 
Or they skitter around
at night, screech, whatever—they’re pretty easy to spot.
 
The real ones?
 
Not so much.
 
Nobody I’ve known or worked with who fell victim to a vampire was
stupid.
 
They just had a weakness
somewhere—a need to be loved, a fear of being alone, a need to remain in a
socially-recognized, committed relationship relationship regardless of the
cost—and somebody exploited it.
 
They
opened the door for the wrong person.
 
These stories are very common.
 
And in their own way, very old.

So how do you get
rid of a vampire?
 
What is the real-life
equivalent of sunlight and wooden stakes?
 
I don’t know.
 
I’m not a
therapist.
 
I don’t know if therapists
know, either.
 
If I had to venture a
guess, I’d say the sunlight would be awareness; bloodsuckers prefer the dark,
because once you see what they are it becomes harder for them to take advantage
of you.
 
And the stakes…maybe those would
be words.
 
Like “no.”
 
And “get lost.”

I don’t know.
 
If you do…I’m all ears.

Although writing
is a solitary pursuit, bringing a book into the world can’t be.
 
I’d like to thank Jan White, Lori Withers,
Janet Rojas, Teresa Layton, Roger Bradshaw, Charles Butler, Karen Bennett,
Angelina Jennings and Susan Jennings for reading an earlier version of
The Last Days of October
and doing what
they could to keep me from inflicting bad fiction upon the world.
 
I didn’t take every piece of advice I received,
so any errors or poorly executed passages are my fault and mine alone.
 
I have no excuses.
 
If you have any comments, feel free to reach
out to me at
[email protected]
.
 
I could screw up a microwave burrito, so I’m
sure there’s something.

Thanks for
reading.