No.
It can't be. It's not possible. It must be some sort of mistake. There's no other way around it. Someone must be framing her.
It feels like forever as I turn my head to look behind my shoulder. My bulging eyes search across the room, even though Miss Madden is standing directly in front of me. She's smiling sweetly at me, though her brow is furrowed.
There's no way that sweet woman, who reminds me of my mom, who accepted me without questions asked, could have done such a horrible thing. Only monsters do that.
"You weren't supposed to see that," Miss Madden continues as she marches past me with an apologetic grin. She stalks to one of the bodies that used to be the little boy Richard, fiddles with the rope tied behind it and cuts it loose, the body plummeting on the floor headfirst like a sack of flour. There is a sickening crack as its head collides with the concrete floor and I feel my stomach lurch.
Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't scream. Don't scream.
I chant that mantra in my head and I barely catch what Miss Madden is saying as she drags the body by its feet further into the garage.
"I meant to tidy up before dinner but I just got so excited with the preparations that I completely forgot!"
I feel numb. It's like she's talking about cleaning a messy living room instead of disposing bodies. How can she be so casual about it? Unless. . . she's done it before?
"I would ask you to give me a hand but I usually like to take all the credit, if you don't mind," she grunts as she cuts the rope of Mrs. Kathy Gibbins-Lopez and her body slinks to the floor, though not with as sickening crack as the little boy. "It brings me much favor from them, if I say that I'm doing it all by myself."
I have no idea what she's talking about, my mind is blank except for the repeated mantra singsonging in my head like church bells.
"I meant it as a surprise for your friend,"
Something clicks within me and I raise my head to look at Miss Madden directly in the eye. She's grinning at me.
"What?" I manage to croak out of my dry mouth.
Miss Madden scoffs. "I'm not stupid, Miss Walker. These-" she indicates to the buckets full of blood. "- are for your friend. As you can see, I got quite lucky today and I'm certain that she will appreciate it."
I say nothing. Instead I stare horrified at her smiling feature. Does she know? For how long?
"Oh come on," she titters delightfully. "There's no need to act all innocent. I'm aware that your friend is a creature of darkness."
"H-how?"
"Her absence during the day, your unwillingness to discuss your affairs and not to mention, the specks of dried blood and other stuff around the hem of your sweater when you arrived this morning," she chuckles lightly, giving me a pitiful look as if I'm a complete novice. "She's not the only vampire I've seen or met."
She takes hold of the left edge of her empire dress and slides it down, revealing a black dotwork tattoo of a crescent moon.
"I'm curious to know where yours is located," she wonders curiously, caressing the tattoo with her finger as if it were a treasure.
Why does she think that I have a tattoo like hers? My brain is taking a longer time than I expected to process the realization. But when it does kick in, my eyes widen and my dulled senses are suddenly fully alert.
She's a Sangue?!
A devoted follower of vampires? The bunch who'd do anything to become one of them? Even murder people? Wait a minute. She seems to think that I'm like her. Why? Because I came with Sophie? Do vampires even let sangues accompany them? No, that can't be it, Sophie mentioned that vampires think they're pathetic. Pathetic but useful.
"Miss Walker?"
I blink, resurfacing from my rapid thoughts. She's looking at me expectantly. Should I lie? No, she's probably waiting for me to show her my non-existant tattoo. She'll probably become suspicious or even get angry if I refuse to show her. No, I have to keep her calm and relaxed. That'll be my only way out of here.
"I-I don't have one," I decide to tell her the truth and wait for her reaction.
Miss Madden looks surprised, her eyebrows jumping up on her forehead. But she recovers quickly and gives a tittering laugh. "Oh how silly of me," she shakes her head. "Of course you don't have one. Renfields usually don't,"
I'm confused. What the hell is a Renfield ?
"I mean, that would have explained your ragged appearance this morning," she reasones with a nod of her head. She continues with the act of dumping the hanging bodies on the floor with a casual flourish.
"How long?" I ask, determined to look down on the congrete by my feet than at the mangled bodies. I have to know why she's doing this. What atrocity compelled her to kill so ruthlessly for the sake of pleasing the vampires?
Miss Madden looks up from dragging the body of Mr. Miguel Lopez, tiny beads of sweat on her forehead. "I've been doing it for about a year," she replies.
My stomach lurches. A whole year of killing innocent people?
"Why?" I croak helplessly, feeling the numbness of shock spread throughout my body. But I force myself to tense up, clenching my fists so hard that my fingernails are digging into my palms. I need to stay alert if I am to get away from this place alive. That's why I need her to keep talking.
"I need to stand out from the rest of us," Miss Madden explains matter-of-factly. "It's a tough competition and it's not easy to please our nocturnal lords and ladies. So I have to stand out."
"But why?" I press on, daring to take a step closer to the carnage in front of me. "Why would you do this? Why do you need to do it?" The way my voice breaks tells me how hurt I am at discovering this little secret of hers.
Her expression softens a bit and she straightens up. "After my husband passed away, I was devastated. George was everything to me," she begins. "I would have been nothing but an empty shell of my former self if it wasn't for the support and loving care from my father. I endured the loss for 2 years with the help of my father," she chuckles. "I was even beginning to start feeling like myself again. But clearly, I wasn't meant to stay happy for long. After my father's death, I was almost thrown off the edge," Her soft brown eyes go dark. "I contemplated suicide. After all, I had nothing left to live, I had no purpose after losing my two most important people in my life. I was even searching of various methods on how to do it in the dark parts of the internet. However, I stumbled upon something else there; a forum that discussed the apparent and yet hidden existence of our dark feeders. Those people were sharing their experiences with them, others debated theories about their supernatural properties. At first, I couldn't believe what I was reading. Vampires?" She laughs. "In real life? It sounded absurd. But their stories seemed so real, so genuine that I couldn't really believe it to be false. I spent days and nights reading everything about them, everything that those people had shared amongst themselves. It was truly interesting but what I discovered was far more interesting the deeper I perused the forums. I discovered that the vampires would reward you handsomely if you served them well."
"Like what?" I ask curiously, feeling drawn in by her story, despite myself.
Miss Madden's eyes glisten greedily. "A drop of their blood, for example," she replies, licking her lips. "By the look on your face, I can only surmise that you've never tasted their blood, haven't you?"
I shake my head, appalled.
She laughs. "I guess Renfields don't get as much luxuries as we do. You're missing out, Miss Walker. Their blood has got some amazing qualities that can be quite beneficial for humans."
I have a hard time picturing that, given how savage vampires are and how indifferent they generally feel towards us humans. I have to keep her talking though, so she won't notice me inching out of the garage. "What does it do to you?"
"Oh, a lot of wonderful things. This, for example," and Miss Madden lifts up Miguel's body as effortlessly as she would be holding a small sack of potatoes in her arms. She then proceeds to throw it across the garage like she's throwing a basketball. The body hits the wall with a crash and crumbles down on the floor. "Inhuman strength," she explains cheerfully as she pats her hands clean on her apron.
I stop dead in my tracks, shocked. Well, my chances of getting the hell out of her alive are reduced to nothing. Vampire blood did that? No wonder they prefer to remain hidden from the rest of the world; if a greedy manufacturer, for example, ever got hold of a vampire, he'd make a fortune creating enhancing drugs. Or imagine their blood in the hands of a bad person, like a war general, a dictator or your everyday psychopath. I shudder at the very thought of it.
"Yes, a few drops of vampire blood can transform you from an ordinary person into extraordinary. It's such a shame that it wears off quickly. It only lasts a couple of hours." Miss Madden pouts.
I really hope it has been a couple of hours since she ingested hers.
"So yeah, the other sangues wrote on the forum about their rewards for their services to the vampires and I was intrigued," Miss Madden resumes her story as she goes to unleash the last hanging body of Richard's father from the tethering rope. "I had been ready to leave this world but I realized that all these years, I had never really done anything for myself, you know? I had lived for my Georgie and then I lived for my father but I hadn't really experienced anything exclusively for myself. This was my opportunity; it was daring, dangerous even but I felt excited nonetheless. So I gathered all the information that I could from other sangues and began planning. Vampires are in constant need for food, you realize that of course. It's hard to come by when they choose to avoid hunting for humans, especially when those hunters are out there looking for them. So I read that some dedicated sangues are willing to gather blood for the vampires, either extracting it from themselves or hunting the humans for them. I chose the latter because I didn't want to risk either me draining myself accidentically or be prey to a particularly hungry vampire.
It wasn't that hard really, my father had left me some morphine and other sleeping aides prior to his heart attack and it was just a matter of injecting it into people whenever they stayed. I failed horribly the first couple of times, overdosing the guests and sometimes they would wake up while I was extracting their blood because I had given them too little." Her delicate shoulders quiver with suppressed laughter. "But soon, I got the hang of measuring the doses correctly and could slip it in the guests' food. Word traveled of my actions to other sangues and soon it reached the right individuals. They came, usually one by one and I gave them the blood I had collected and they rewarded me. Well, it took some time to actually receive their blood but I was thrilled when it finally happened."
Miss Madden moans slightly and sways at the memory, like she's picturing a particularly steamy moment with her late husband. "It tastes like the sweetest wine in the entire world," she tells me, her breath hot and heavy and her face is slightly flushed. "It is completely out of this world but the aftereffects are the best, of course. Enhanced senses, superhuman strength, immunity to all diseases. All that from a vampire's blood."
"So that's why you're doing it?" I ask incredulously, disgust apparent in my rising voice. "For more blood? It sounds to me that you're just like any other addict out there, doing whatever it takes to get another fix,"
Miss Madden's euphoric expression vanishes and is replaced by a dark, cold glare. "No," she says in a low tone. "I'm not like those pathetic excuses of human filth. I admit that I do enjoy the taste and properties of their blood but I'm striving for something much grander."
"What, to be the most famous serial killer in all of Canada?!" I ask loudly and deep down, I'm astonished at the sudden outburst of anger. Shock and hurt generally are replaced by anger when encountering some kind of betrayal, I guess.
Miss Madden's beautiful face contorts into rage. "No!" she shouts angrily and throws the last body harshly across the garage in a fit of fury. "I've realized that being a snivelling sangue is beneath me. All my hard work just shows that I'm worthy! Worthy of becoming one of them!"
My eyes widen. She's completely bonkers! She actually wants to become a vampire?! Does she really think that they will ever grant that lunatic wish of hers? Despite myself, my lips curl in a sneer.
"They'll never turn you," I say with some confidence. I may not know a lot about other vampires but I've been sticking with one of them and from what I know, they're as selfish as they can be. They only think of themselves. Self-preservation or some shit like that.
"What?!" she hisses incredulously, narrowing her eyes to slits. "Of course they will! I've been collecting blood for over a year now, killing almost 50 humans without ever being detected by the police or those hunters! I'm a valuable asset to them!"
"If you're such a valuable asset to the bloodsuckers, then they will never turn you. Why would they? With you turned, they'd lose their link to the humans and who'd say that you wouldn't hoard all the human blood once you're turned?" I shake my head, almost laughing out loud. "No, they wouldn't want that."
"Shut up!" Miss Madden screeches in cold fury. "I would never do that! I would still do my duty to them!"
My sneer amplifies and for a minute I'm worried that it'll get stuck on my face. "You really don't get them, do you?" I jeer at her. "Been doing this for a year, been in contact with them, even tasted their blood and yet you don't know anything. They only think of themselves and once you're turned, you wouldn't give a crap about humans or other vampires for that matter, other than yourself. That's probably what they fear and the reason why you'll always stay a sangue."
"What do you know?!" she snarls, actual spittle spitting out of her mouth. "You're just a pathetic Renfield, not even worthy of licking the dirt off their shoes!"
"I'm not a fucking Renfield!" I shout furiously. "I'm not a fucking sangue either. I'm just human, the only decent fucking thing in this place!"
I realize too late what a horrible mistake I made by shouting that. I just couldn't help it. I'm too angry and my outrage took hold of my reasoning. And my temper, just like it has done for countless others, will be my downfall.
Horrifying realization seems to dawn on Miss Madden as she stares openmouthed at me.
I'm human, I've witnessed her atrocious act and she has spilled the beans on everything.
Shit.
I turn on my heels and run as fast as I can from my would-be killer, a horrid shriek issuing from the depths of her throat, following me out the dark forest.
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That's it for chapter 22!
Leia's in trouble. What will Miss Madden do with her?
Phew, I'm so glad I managed to finish this one before the year ends! I've already decided that one of my new years resolution will be to try to finish this story by May. So I've got 5 months and 20 more chapters.....Oh boy XD
Oh well, let's see how steady I can keep this pace! :D
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and can look forward to the next one. Thank you again for the support and patience!