Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
C louds obscured the rising sun, and a light breeze pulled a chill along behind it. Cody shivered as he pulled his truck into the DPW parking lot. He wished he’d grabbed his Critter Catchers hoodie off the peg by the side door. Maybe they could stop by the house when they found out what John the Bastard had lined up for them. Shrieky Pete’s motorcycle still waited at the side of the garage, surprisingly still sporting his pill-shaped boombox. Apparently the vandals in town avoided the city lots. Or the power of all that gospel shrieking had it protected.
“Think he’ll ever ride it again?”
Demmy’s voice was quiet and sad from the shadows on his side of the truck. Cody laced his fingers together on the upper curve of the steering wheel and rested his chin on top. He stared at the motorcycle, glad it was there to give him an excuse to not look at Demmy.
“Don’t know. A weird, apparently masochistic side of me hopes so, because the town doesn’t feel the same without Pete blasting his wailing praise music as he rides the streets.”
“Trying to save us all,” Demmy said.
“Gonna take more than that.”
“We’ve already lost the Widow Monroe. It’s tough losing the people that make the town feel like home.”
“Right, no matter how annoying.”
They were quiet a few moments, then Demmy said, “I don’t see John’s truck yet.”
“We could have slept in a little longer.”
Demmy squeezed his upper arm, and Cody finally looked at him. It was as he’d thought. A shadow of exhaustion was draped over Demmy’s thinking face. Or, as Cody had come to think of it, his resting obsessive face. However he wanted to describe it, it was proof Demmy hadn’t slept much the night before. Cody hadn’t either, of course, and maybe his tossing and turning had contributed to Demmy’s restlessness. But Cody knew Demmy had been awake thinking about vampires. He had been, too, but in a different way. More like how to save Zenona instead of a burning desire to dig into those creepy books at the library and find out all the little details about vampires. Some days—okay, most days—he longed to return to a life ignorant of monsters.
In the bright lights of the hospital cafeteria, with Amelia still in the triage area and his adrenaline up, Cody had been all for figuring out what new threat had come to town. He’d been ready to kick some monster ass. But finding out it was vampires and seeing them in action the night before had softened his resolve. Yes, he wanted to protect those he loved. And right now the only way he could see to protect the most important person in his life was to keep as low of a profile as possible.
Demmy, of course, never felt that way. He needed to insert himself—and by extension, Cody—right in the thick of danger.
“I know you’re worried about Zenona,” Demmy said.
“Yeah, I am.” And before he could stop himself, he said, “And I’m worried about you, too.”
“Me?” Demmy pulled his hand back to his lap. “Why me?”
“I’m worried you’re going to go off on another dangerous monster hunt with bright eyes and a savior complex, like usual.”
Cody regretted the words the second he said them. Demmy’s shocked expression morphed into hurt and then anger. The sight of it, and especially knowing he’d been the cause of it, sent a dagger of guilt and remorse into his heart.
“Demmy… ”
“Our good friend is missing,” Demmy said, his tone hard. “We watched her taken off to God knows what kind of fate. And all we could do after that was go home and try to get a good night’s sleep. Doesn’t that feel wrong to you? Like it or not, we’re the ones with experience in this kind of shit. We’re the ones who should have been out all night going up and down streets looking for her.” He pointed at himself as tears filled his eyes, pushing that icy shard even deeper into Cody’s heart. “I went home last night because I knew you wouldn’t want to get more involved than we already are, leaving Clarabell alone with a vampire. In a morgue! I hated myself for it. If that’s a savior complex, then fine, I have a savior complex. But right now, after what you just said, I hate you a little bit for that as well.” He shook his head and turned away, opening the door to step out.
“Demmy, wait,” Cody said.
“No.” Demmy looked back at him, the hurt and anger evident in his expression. “Tell John I’m not feeling well, please. And don’t come home until later, okay? I think we both need some space right now.”
“No, come on.”
But it was too late. Demmy slammed the door and set off at a fast clip, hands jammed in his pockets and head down. Cody watched him go, fighting with himself. He should go after Demmy, pull him into a hug and apologize. Because when he got right down to it, the truth was Cody had also felt guilty last night about simply going home instead of searching for Zenona. But he’d been so overwhelmed with what he’d learned and witnessed, he had no idea how to start.
Going after Demmy right now wasn’t the right thing to do. Demmy had specifically asked him, no, told him, to give him space. Cody needed to respect that, even if it drove him crazy all day.
A silver pickup pulled into the lot, an older model but running well. John the Bastard had arrived. He parked next to Cody and got out, throwing a quick glance his way without an acknowledgement. Another fine day at the Parson’s Hollow DPW.
“Fuck everything,” Cody grumbled before shoving open his door and following John inside.
“Was that Singleton I saw walking down the sidewalk?” John asked as he clocked in, not making eye contact.
“Yeah, he’s not feeling well, and decided to go home.”
“You didn’t give him a ride?” John frowned. “Doesn’t seem like you.”
“He wanted to walk.” Cody moved up to punch himself in. “And he didn’t want me to be late.”
“All right.” John turned away. “I’ve got some clean up needed on Main Street. All these fucking tourists are the biggest goddamn litterbugs I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, they’re not the best at sharing spaces, are they?”
John grunted in agreement. “With Singleton out, it’s just you and Bill today.” He flinched a bit. “Pete’s still in the hospital.”
“I figured as much. Saw his motorcycle still parked out there.”
“Yeah.”
“Any word on Spiffy?” Cody said.
John looked down at the dirty concrete floor and shuffled his wide feet. “No. No sign of him. And word around town is some doctor from the hospital is missing as well.”
Guilt and grief surged within Cody. Zenona was already the topic of town gossip. And here he was clocking in for his just over minimum wage job with that same goddamn town. But what the hell could he do against a fucking vampire? Correction, a small army of vampires, if Aldrik the Asshole had been telling the truth.
John shook his head as he headed for the stairs to his office. “Take truck two and do a sweep of downtown. Clean up what you can and make sure the trashcans are emptied. After that, check back in here, and I’ll have you and Bill do maintenance in the parks.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Cody didn’t want to take truck two out and clean up the trash left behind by the idiots who had come to his hometown over Halloween to glorify the monsters they’d nearly died fighting. He wanted to go home and make things right between him and Demmy, but he knew it wasn’t time yet for that. Demmy rarely set a boundary for himself, so Cody really needed to respect it. Besides, he needed time to come up with a way to properly apologize for the shitty thing he’d said. And get himself back onboard with going up against vampires.
He grabbed the keys for truck two from the pegboard and wrote his name on the checkout list attached to a clipboard hanging nearby. Checking his phone to see if he might have missed a call or text from Demmy, he wasn’t surprised to find he hadn’t.
It was going to be a long fucking day.
The entire day was a blur of menial labor and complete distraction. Cody cleared trash along Main Street twice, raked leaves, and picked up more trash in the town’s two parks. He cleaned graffiti off the moon monument, as the residents referred to the tribute sculpture dedicated to those lost the night of Nicolae’s attempted uprising, taking care to get every bit off. When he finished, his arm tired from the force of his scrubbing, Cody had lightly run his fingers over an engraved name: HAROLD (HAP) F. BLANCHARD, STATE POLICE SERGEANT.
Blinking back the hot sting of tears, Cody packed up his supplies and headed for the city truck parked nearby. Bill had worked with him in the park before getting called off by John the Bastard to do something else. Working alone, Cody discovered, was not high on his list of things he liked to do. Especially when Demmy hadn’t called or sent a text all day.
By the time he had filled the tank of the city truck and grabbed a couple of shawarmas from the gas station down the road from the DPW garage, Cody was pretty much done in. He regretted every word he’d said to Demmy in his truck. There had to be a better way to discuss their unusual cases without either of them feeling hurt and unheard.
When he exited the gas station, he stopped at the sight of a sheriff’s car parked beside the truck, effectively blocking him from the driver’s door. Lucia stepped out of the cruiser and looked at him over the roof. Her exhaustion was clear from her expression, and the sight of it pinged in harmony with the feeling inside Cody.
“You here to arrest me for something?” Cody opened the truck’s passenger door and set the shawarmas on the seat. Resting his wrists on the side rail of the bed, he looked across it at Lucia.
“Not yet,” Lucia said, and they shared a tight smile.
“Any leads?”
“No. And I’ve been up all night. About to head home and try to get a couple hours of sleep, at least until sundown. Sheriff’s orders.”
“I didn’t see anything unusual today.” Cody looked down at his hands. “Just a lot of trash from the gruesome fucking tourists that’ve invaded town.”
“Yeah, they weren’t raised right.” She ducked her head to look in the cab, then back at him. “Demetrius waiting for you at the garage?”
“No.” Cody knew his tight expression and raised shoulders were giving him away, so he told her about the disagreement. Lucia nodded and looked a little sad, which Cody thought was nice. For her.
“Yeah, you two have really racked up the monster frequent flyer miles. And you’ve both sacrificed a lot. I know I give you some shit…”
“Some?” Cody couldn’t help saying. “You’ve arrested us multiple times, and kept us overnight for questioning so often I’ve lost count.”
Lucia smirked. “Yeah, those were the days, weren’t they?”
“Not really.”
“Anyway, I know I give you both shit about it, but I also know this town would be dead, literally, without you.” She fixed him with sharp blue eyes. “And together, you’re a great team. You always have been.” She turned away to get back in the cruiser, then stopped and looked back. “Go home and apologize. You know it was your fault, so don’t try to logically explain yourself. Just tell him you were wrong and you’re sorry. A lot of lives depend on the two of you working together, Zenona’s most of all.”
“Yeah.”
“We owe her the effort,” Lucia said. “We can all catch up on sleep later.”
“I know.”
Cody watched her drive off. The smell of exhaust mingled with the odor of gasoline from the pumps around him. A car full of twenty-somethings pulled up on the other side of the pumps, drum heavy music with screaming guitars ruining their hearing. A guy got out and talked to himself a bit as he fumbled with the cap on the gas tank. The smell of crappy weed drifted to the other side of the pumps.
“Fucking kids,” Cody mumbled, then he got into the truck and left the station.
He parked in the assigned spot by the garage. The sight of Pete’s motorcycle sent another jab of loneliness into him. The sun was low in the sky, but at least an hour from setting, and the orange light gleamed like fire off the bike’s chrome. Cody transferred the shawarmas to his own truck before making sure he’d locked the city vehicle. John’s truck was still in the lot, but Bill had already punched out and gone when Cody entered the garage.
“Who’s that?” John shouted down from his office at the top of the metal stairs.
“The monster in the basement,” Cody called back.
John’s big shape filled the doorframe of his office. “You’re not funny, Bower.”
“Not the first time someone’s said that to me.” He hung the keys on the pegboard and signed the truck back in. Looking up into the shadowy area that surrounded John’s elevated office, Cody said, “Need me for anything else before I punch out?”
“No. Go the fuck home.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
The thump of the time clock stamping his card sounded loud in the open space. It was a satisfying sound, but his heart ached at the absence of a second, answering thump from Demmy punching out as well. Time to get home and fix what he’d broken that morning. He turned for the door, but then stopped and looked up toward John’s office. Had he heard someone?
“You call me?” Cody asked.
John stood in the doorway again, seemingly made up of shadows and smoke. “What?”
“I thought I heard you call me.”
“You’re hearing things. Must have caught whatever your… friend has. Go home and go to bed.” John waved a hand, apparently uncomfortable with mentioning ‘bed’ and ‘friend’ in the same sentence, less he be considered gay. “Get some rest.”
“I’m touched, John. Almost sounds like you care.”
“Fuck you, Bower.” John turned away again, and Cody could plainly hear him say in a low voice, “Pain in the ass.”
“And now we’re back to our regularly scheduled program.”
Satisfied he had properly annoyed his boss, Cody left the garage and got into his truck. He sat for a moment and looked at his phone. No word from Demmy. It wasn’t typical for them to go a full day without some kind of check in. Hell, a few hours was unusual. That coupled with the hurt expression on Demmy’s face as he’d gotten out of the truck that morning fed the ache inside him. He hated that he’d been the one to make Demmy feel that way. But, vampires? How the hell were they supposed to go up against vampires? And how many people in town had that dick Aldrik already turned? How many were they going to have to fight? And what if he knew any of them personally?
The memory of Aldrik revealing himself from inside the body bag made him shiver. Right on the heels of that, however, came the memories of walking past other body bags as he’d stopped in to visit Felicia. He sat back and dropped his hands in his lap as realization hit him. Holy shit. Aldrik been turning the old folks all this time. He’d been building up his forces without raising the alarm by taking those voted most likely to die any time soon.
Associations began clicking together, lighting up different areas of his brain. Zenona had left the cross hanging in his grandmother’s room after Demmy had run into her there. She had left it as protection because she’d known what was happening in town thanks to Dr. Graham, vampire medical examiner. And the woman who had caused Amelia to swerve off the road was now a vampire, not a zombie. And who knew how many others in town that woman had turned. Or killed.
He needed to get home and talk with Demmy. Reaching for the keys, he stopped to check the position of the sun. Probably an hour before sundown. Why was there never enough time when it came to monster hunting?
As he drove through town, Cody saw people talking and laughing as they walked the streets. Some wore masks or had dressed up a bit, but a number of others had gone full on cosplay level. One werewolf costume made Cody want to pull over and put a silver bullet between the thing’s eyes. At the only traffic light in town, he was forced to stop and allow a parade of costumed revelers to tromp across the crosswalk in front of him. He checked his phone for the date. Tomorrow was Halloween. Was all of this just a kind of test drive for tomorrow night?
The light turned green, and he waited for a couple to finish wheeling a massive stroller across the street, the two kids within wrapped up like mummies. Ugh.
By the time he’d reached the house, Cody’s nerves felt like they’d been doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Demmy’s truck was gone, but he let himself inside and called for him anyway. The house was dark and quiet, and he didn’t like it one bit. He put one shawarma in the refrigerator and heated the other in the microwave. Standing at the kitchen counter, he wolfed it down with a bottle of unsweetened tea and checked his phone again. No messages. Time to break the silence.
It took longer than he liked to settle on how to get in touch with Demmy after the argument—okay, after the stupid and hurtful things he’d said—and a full day of silence between them. As he chewed the final bite of shawarma, he read over what he’d come up with and thought it would work.
I’m sorry I was such an ass this morning. I love you, and I missed you today. I reacted badly because seeing vampires up close and in action scared me, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose you to these crazy cases. Please let me know you’re okay. I’m going out to see my grandma. I think a lot of weird stuff has gone on out there, and I want to make sure she’s okay. I love you, with all I have. Please tell me you’re okay.
He sent it, then added a follow up.
I must really love you, because I left a shawarma in the fridge for you instead of eating a second one. And John the Bastard sends his love.
Always good to leave them laughing, right?
Grabbing another tea from the refrigerator, Cody eyed the shawarma on the shelf, then shook his head. He’d already told Demmy he’d left it for him. What a dick move that would be if he ate it now. With keys in hand, he went out the side door and stopped at the sight of Trevor in the driveway. The raccoon got up on his hind legs and worried his front paws as he looked at him.
“Go forage in trash cans for a while, Trev. You’ll get fed later.”
Cody double locked the door then got into his truck and headed for Parson’s Pines.