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 4. HUNTER

Maude sat in a lawn chair on her covered front porch with a blanket draped over her legs, when Ellis pulled into the driveway. Still smoking, he thought, his eye catching the orange ember of her cigarette.

“You didn’t have to sit out here and wait for me,” he said as he climbed the steps with his duffel bag in hand.

“The hell I did. I came out here to smoke a cigarette, and your sorry ass just happens to pull up,” Maude said.

They laughed.

“How was the drive coming in?” she asked.

“Awful,” Ellis says. “Is it always like that?”

“Afraid so. I don’t know where they’re coming from or where they’re going, but traffic is worse everywhere these days.”

“Goddamn, Portland really did turn to shit, didn’t it?”

“Sure did,” she said. 

Ellis hated cities, but he hated this one most of all. He hated the slow drizzle that stretched until spring. He hated the low cloud cover as if the sky was swallowing him. He hated the people piled on top of each other, jammed into buildings and inching along in rush hour traffic. He couldn’t avoid them, though. Monsters thrived in cities. In places like Portland, they could commit their horrific acts and hide in plain sight. Cities were where his work was needed the most.

Ellis headed for Portland after reports of the attack popped up in his news feeds. When he heard about the first one he was suspicious. When he heard about the second, he was on the phone with his hunter buddies. When he heard about the third attack, he was arguing with The Ex about watching their daughter for a few weeks. By the time reports of the fourth attack reached him, he was already on the road. He committed details of the victims to memory. Cole Stevens, aged 24, bartender. Sonya Townsend, aged 33, nurse. Shanice Francis, aged 27, airport worker. Gary Linell, aged 53, administrative assistant at a utility company. They all lived in different neighborhoods, worked in different industries,  and had different routines.

What amazed Ellis was the messiness of it. Whatever vampire did this made no effort to hide the victims’ bodies or cover their tracks. It was unlike them to be so sloppy. Their society was a closely guarded secret, and they were adept at living in the shadows. The hunters had tortured enough vampires over the years to know that their society had ways of covering up their gory feasts, yet they still knew next to nothing about Johanna and The Seven. For Ellis, the true targets were the vampires at the top.

Maude’s safehouse made Portland tolerable. She opened the door, and an aroma of roast beef, scalloped potatoes, and freshly baked rolls welcomed him. Most hunters called her house rules strict, but Ellis thought of them as being a good guest: leave the space better than the way you found it. A hunter couldn’t take their safehouses and hosts for granted, especially one as good as Maude. Hosting a safehouse was an act of conscience. The hosts didn’t get anything out of the arrangement and received nothing in return for their sacrifice. They did it because they wanted to make the world safe from Johanna’s monsters. 

“The guest room is all made up. Towels are on the bed in there. Can I get you anything to drink? We have water, pop, and iced tea. Someone left their fancy beers here on their way through not too long ago.”

“I don’t drink anymore.”

“I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take an iced tea,” Ellis said.

The spare bedroom was tidy, but there were traces of Maude: a bookshelf with creased romance novels; VHS tapes of John Wayne movies; and the persistent aroma of Vapor Rub.

“I can sleep on the couch, Maude. It doesn’t bother me. I won’t put you out,” Ellis said when he met her in the kitchen.

“I won’t hear it, mister,” she said, handing him a glass of iced tea. “You’re company. The cot is just fine for me. Got a couple of youngsters on their way, but they can sleep in the living room. Now make yourself useful and help me get dinner on the table.”

Silence fell as he set the table and Maude heaped steaming slices of roast beef onto a serving platter. In the silence Ellis’ oldest and toughest demons crept into his thoughts. Driving through the Rocky Mountains and then the desert, he had managed to keep those demons at bay. By the time he reached the Columbia River Gorge, they were a goddamn hoard. Now, he was worn out by the travel and traffic, and he’d lost his strength. He needed a home-cooked meal and a good night’s sleep.

Ellis and Maude sat down at the table, and they said Grace. Ellis served Maude before serving himself. Maude’s cooking always lifted his spirits, but as he chewed his roast beef it tasted like dust. I’ve got to get these goddamn demons off my back, he thinks.

“How’s Terry?” he asked.

“Terry’s getting on. Still eating and sleeping the way the doctors say he should be. He’s as ornery as ever so some part of him is still the man I married thirty-two years ago.”

“Is he talking?” Ellis asked, hope sparking in his chest.

“Goodness, no. The same grunts from when you were here last.”

“Oh.”

“You can go in and see him after dinner, if you want. He’d welcome your company.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” Ellis said. “I don’t want to bother him.”

“Won’t bother him none. The night nurse doesn’t come until nine. I’m sure he’d love to hear your stories.”

“Nah.”

They didn’t speak.

“Nobody blames you for what happened, Ellis. Not me and certainly not Terry. I know in my heart Terry doesn’t blame you. He always knew the risks of the job.”

“Tell me,” Ellis said, changing the subject, “what do you think about these attacks?”

“If you ask me, these bloodsuckers are getting pretty sloppy.”

“Seems that way.”

“Oh yeah, they’ve been making a mess all over the city. With that Queen of their’s missing, they’re getting chaotic.”

Johanna and The Seven had been cracking for several years. The fractured and dysfunctional leadership were so embroiled in their power struggle that it weakened their hold over the Underground. Each vampire hunter was independent, so it was hard to know for sure, but the data that Ellis collected over the years indicated that the vampire kill rate was rising. Johanna and The Seven were failing to protect their own. The boom in vampire hunting created an opportunity. For generations, hunters could do little more than keep the balance. That was Terry’s ethos, keep the balance, and he and Ellis always butted heads about it. Keeping the balance wasn’t enough for Ellis. He needed to wipe the monsters out for good.

“It’s been a vacation for us hunters,” Ellis says. “We’ve hardly have to do any work at all. They’re killing each other off in some places. The civil wars in Norway and Germany will wipe them out if they keep going on like they do. Not here. Awful mess you have here.”

“It’s attracting the wrong kind of attention,” Maude said leaning back and wiping her mouth with a napkin.

There were no witnesses to Cole Stevens’ murder. Video footage of Sonya Townsend’s death was leaked to the media, but the face of the perpetrator revealed little more than a dark-haired, Caucasian woman in her mid- to late-thirties. Gary Linnell was killed in a home invasion.  The prevailing theory in the media was that they were homeless drug addicts that filled the streets of Portland. Hunters like Ellis suspected otherwise.

There was something else that had been bothering Ellis for nearly a year. There was a case in his hometown of Tulsa of seven bodies found in the back yard of a suburban home. They appeared to have been hastily buried, and the new owners discovered them after they moved in. Ellis had it on good authority that there was no vampire nest in Tulsa, which is why he decided to start a family there, and these were the first killings of its kind. Ellis did some asking around, and with enough pressure an informant divulged a piece of information. There had been a runaway. A female vampire came to Tulsa on her own. Nobody knew why, but she had been found and returned to her nest. In every case and every hunt since then, Ellis had been looking for a connection, and his gut told him that he was getting closer to the truth.

Maude pushed seconds and then thirds on Ellis. “Since you don’t have a woman to feed you no more,” she said. By the time dinner was over, Ellis was so sleepy from the drive and the food that he thought he might fall asleep in his chair. He offered to clean up for Maude, and with little resistance she accepted the offer. With each visit, Maude was growing older and more gracious to accept Ellis’ help. He was wiping down the counter tops and turning on the dishwasher when the night nurse arrived.

Maude met the nurse in the living room and the two chatted about Terry. He ate breakfast and lunch that day, but he didn’t have an appetite for dinner. He hadn’t defecated all day, so the day nurse gave him more water to drink and recommended they try a laxative if that didn’t help move things along. His toenails needed to be clipped, and there was still time before Terry was put down for bed for the night nurse to take care of that. Overhearing the exchange made Ellis decide that he wasn’t read to see Terry, so he slipped down the hall and into the guest bedroom before Maude could mention it again.

He sat on the edge of the bed and checked his phone: five messages from Jeannette, his twelve-year-old daughter, and one missed phone call.

Did you make it okay?

How’s Terry?!?! Tell him I said hi! 💕

Mom made hamburger casserole. I picked out the meat. 😫

Mom said that when I start making dinner, I can make whatever I want, even if it’s vegetarian. 🙂

I’m done with my homework! Call me! I have about an hour before bed. 😴

Just tried to call you. Guess Maude is talking your ear off. 😄

He missed the phone call by only a few minutes.

When they split up, Amanda’s gripe was that she may as well have been a single parent with all the time he spent on the road. She already worked full-time and took care of Jeannette. With a divorce she and Dale could be together. Ugh, Dale. Dale had a clammy handshake, a soft potbelly, and the personality of a wet noodle. He also had a steady nine-to-five job at a bank and health insurance. He was home at the same time every night, except Wednesday nights with the bowling league, and he had the predictability that Ellis lacked. Dale gave Amanda and Jeannette the security that they deserved.

Clarity illuminated Ellis’ thoughts. The single mother, Sharice Francis. She was the missing piece. Details of her death were largely absent from reports, almost as if they were deliberately withheld. Ellis pulled out his tablet and opened the bookmarks he had on her case. He re-read every article. The reports weren’t just similar. They were identical to each other, the same details, the same statement from the police department, and even the same exact images with the same crime scene photo and profile picture from Sharice’s social media accounts. 

The vampires are the reason that The Ex filed for divorce and for full custody of their daughter. The vampires are the reason that Amanda kept a calendar of the days of the year that Ellis was on the road, and they are the reason that the calendar was blocked out almost entirely in red marker.

A call from The Ex came in. Ellis briefly considered whether he should answer it and how badly his decision would interrupt his sleep. Get it over with, he thought. He answered.

“Look who decided to pick up his phone,” her voice droned on the other line.

“Hey, Amanda.”

“Checked your messages recently?”

“I did. I got Jeannette’s messages. Sorry I missed them.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to your daughter who was up past her bedtime waiting for your call. Why didn’t you just call her when you got in?”

“Jut lost track of time. I got to talking to Maude.”

“And you couldn’t send her one damn text?”

“Like I said. I lost track of time.”

“You and your damn excuses.”

There was silence on both ends of the line, each of them waiting for the other to talk.

“It’s getting late, Amanda. I have to go.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

“Have a good night, and tell Jeannette I love her.”

“Tell her yourself.” There’s a click as Amanda hung up.

The statement echoed in Ellis’ head as he prepared for bed. Tell her yourself. It beat to the rhythm of Ellis brushing his teeth. Tell her yourself. He heard it just behind him and off to the side as he unpacked his bag and undressed to his his boxers. Tell her yourself. It skipped like a scratched CD as he lay in bed attempting to sleep. Tell her yourself. Amanda’s low voice and Oklahoma drawl was as clear as it was when she hung up the phone on him.

Tell her yourself.

Tell her yourself.

Tell her yourself.

Ellis pulled out his tablet, opened his browser, and started reading.

Download the pdf here. Or download the ebook here.