beyond the black lines | styles

P.24 - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

~ 2014; 5:45 pm ­– The Motel – Omaha, Nebraska ~

Evelyn.

I met with my father and uncle Dexter at the motel like he asked me to.

My father and I checked into a room a few doors down from where uncle Dexter was staying. The motel, like any others before it, hosted two queen beds, a small kitchen, two dressers, a desk, and poorly lighted by a yellow hue. Uncle Dexter had been staying in the motel for a while because of this vampire situation, and had practically decorated his own plain room with newspaper excerpts, old and new research, and written notes. Straight from a crime drama television show, his room spoke of a determined hunter.

I told Harry to wait near the coffee house we went to earlier while my father and I met with uncle Dexter, but knowing his restless instinct to not listen to me, I figured he'd be at the nearest pub by now.

"Sorry for the mess. I don't usually have visitors." Uncle Dexter apologized.

The three of us gathered around the desk in the room to discuss the information we collected today. A few stray papers were caught in pages of books, or being pulled out by uncle Dexter's rummaging. It reminded me a lot of his old house, which brought a smile to my face from the memory.

"So, this is the gist of what I've gathered from the few weeks I've been tracking this thing." He said as he laid out a map. "I've followed it since its first attack. At the time, I thought it was a one-off thing; most of the vampires 'round this part of the coast were found back in '09, until more attacks started happening and some sightings of a so-called 'vampire' being reported. It seems to be traveling west, and right now it seems like it's staying around Omaha for a little while. Now, it's more than likely that it's hiding out somewhere in the forests. The one behind that Bailey Grounds Camping Company sounds like our hotspot, but we can't know for sure if it is just one vampire or if it's a pack, so we need to be careful."

"Don't do anything reckless." My father spoke as he glanced towards me. "When we take this thing down we need to make sure it's contained. The last thing we want is to terrorize an entire town and have the real police on our asses."

"Agreed. Hey bug, what else did you find out about that Murphy family?" Uncle Dexter asked.

"Well, their son who went missing with the other's is named Edison, but he prefers Ed or Eddie, so it's likely he'll answer to those. He's eighteen. All of them grew up in the area. They went camping for three days, two nights. The parents weren't home when he left; they were in town at a city council meeting about their cattle."

Uncle Dexter and my father looked towards each other.

"Sounds about right." Uncle Dexter said, nodding, "We got a similar story from the other families." My father stepped away, nodding as well, pulling out his phone as he walked to the end of the room.

"Do we know anything else about those camping grounds?" I asked him. "Any strange deaths, past missing persons reports–"

"Already on it," My father said, "Good afternoon, this is agent Bonham, we spoke earlier... yes, I was wondering if you've found what we discussed earlier?" He left the room, leaving me confused.

"Your dad is very worried." Uncle Dexter sighed.

"What? Why? It's just another vampire."

"Let me rephrase that– your dad is very worried about you." A small smile fought his scarred upper lip, as he sighed again.

"Me? Did he say that?"