Damon (36 page)

I set aside the book and went to help. I took the hand-drawn map to the secret village, which I’d only had the chance to glance at until now, and sat down on the edge of the bed to study it. Immediately, I saw the problem.

“Road A, Road B, Road Yellow, Road Green. These aren’t actual names. He wrote it in code. We need a code key.”

Damon shot up and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

I fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I knew where the secret village was. I knew where it had to be. But, I didn’t want to tell Damon. He’d kill us both before morning.

The secret village could only be found on the other side, after death. The village where our family lived was where the dead lived.

Actually, I was amazed Damon hadn’t figured it out for himself yet. He would. And then, he’d decide we needed to die.

I’d already faced death twice that week and was too tired to deal with it again tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Something landed hard against the door and then the knob rattled. Damon pounded on the door. He’d forgotten his key.

I got up to let him in and he entered carrying a file box. “All his old notebooks,” he said as he dropped the box to the spare bed. “It’s in here.”

“Okay,” I said.

Then I watched in alarm as Damon reached behind him and removed a revolver tucked into the back of his jeans. He tossed it to the bed.

“Where’d you get that?”

He barely glanced at me as he began to dig through the contents of the box. “It was in the car.”

“Why do you need a gun?”

“I don’t know,” he said, sounding agitated, “this is your planet.”

He didn’t seem interested in the gun, so I went back to sit on the other bed, using the remote to flip around channels on the TV, trying to find a comedy. Something to help me wind down and improve my mood. Elliot’s book had only depressed me and I was trying my best not to remember my mother had died.

Sometime around midnight, my eyes finally began to burn. Damon was still absorbed on the other bed, sifting through his granddad’s old things, searching for the code key to lead us to the secret village, and didn’t notice when I took the revolver and slipped it under my pillow. I was afraid he’d figure out the truth about the secret village and I knew I’d never sleep if I lay in expectation of being shot in the head.

SOLDIER, YOU’RE WASTING TIME! GET TO THE PORTAL NOW! a male voice yelled in my ear.

“Shut up!” I growled, covering my ears and kicking the cover.

Damon chuckled softly.

“You shut up, too,” I told him.

I turned onto my side, pulled the covers over my face to block out the light, and went to sleep.

When I woke, the room was dark but something felt wrong. The room felt empty. I stumbled my way to the bathroom area and turned on the light. Damon wasn’t in the room. The second bed hadn’t been slept in and papers littered the bedspread.

I went to draw the curtains and was nearly blinded when sunlight streamed in. At least a minute passed before I could see well enough to notice the car was gone from the parking lot.

I went ahead and showered and dressed, figuring Damon had gone for breakfast and coffee. When a maid knocked to see if we wanted the room cleaned, I looked at the mess of papers on the bed, got more towels, and declined her offer. Then, I went to hide the gun I’d stashed under my pillow. I didn’t need hotel staff finding it. I had no idea where it’d come from, and whether it was legal or not. But, it wasn’t there. Damon had taken it during the night.

That was when I realized he wasn’t out getting breakfast. I looked at all the papers and notebooks spread out on the bed and knew he’d found something. Something that had sent him off running.

He’d found the code key. He’d gone to find the secret village of alien vampires.

He’d be back eventually.

With a sigh, I pushed papers aside and sat down to try to think what to do. He might be gone for an hour or for weeks. With relief, and disappointment, I saw he’d left me the silver briefcase. From experience, I knew he did that when he wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone and wanted to make sure I had money.

So, I had money, but no car.

I’d abandoned my car at Cynthia’s and was now a long way from home.

There was enough money in the briefcase to buy a used car if I needed to. If it came to that.

Or, at least I hoped I did.

I hadn’t looked in the case in a while, so I carried it to the bed and opened it. Stacks of money were still inside, along with a note.

I lifted the sheet of notebook paper and unfolded it. In red ink, or maybe blood, was written,
It’s All About Damon!

Hmm. After closing and locking the case, I sat on the bed with the note. The main character in Elliot Jenkins’ book was named Damien. My Damon had taken the name from that character. Maybe he’d meant to write Damien.

I’d read the book cover to cover and tried to clear my fogged brain enough to think how in the world a fictional character could be some kind of answer. But answer to what?

The code for understanding the map? Probably. It seemed to make sense that Elliot might have hidden a code in his book. It made better sense that Damon might believe he’d found a code in the book, whether or not it was really there.

Elliot hadn’t been bitten by the beast in the cave that day, but he seemed to have gone crazy all the same. As obsessed as Damon in finding the cure for our insanity, the secret village and the portal leading to another planet. Or, alternate dimension. The land of vampires.

In the book, Damien had been searching for a secret village full of alien vampires, only to find a portal, a wormhole, through space, leading to a parallel universe.

I still had enough of my sane mind to know neither really existed. The beast in the cave didn’t exist. I’d made it all up in my mind. Or, Damon had made it all up and I was now crazy enough to let his delusions enter my own reality.

I wasn’t sure how far gone I was. I doubted I’d be the best judge of that. To a crazy person their thoughts seem perfectly logical. They believe they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are sane and everyone else is crazy. There’s no convincing them they’re the crazy ones.

I was still functioning. Of that, I was fairly certain.

I could still interact with the public.

So, I grabbed my room card and my purse and went to get breakfast on my own.

***

When I returned Damon was back at the motel, sitting on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the revolver. The barrel was pointed at his face when I opened the door.

He looked at me for a long moment before he blinked hard and finally seemed to recognize me. He tossed the gun aside and rushed to grab me. He was hot and shivering again, in an agitated state, his body hard as stone.

“I thought you’d left me forever,” he said, holding my head in a tight grip. “I thought you’d run off. Forever. I couldn’t leave without you.”

I struggled to get my arms up between us, to loosen his grip a little. “I went for breakfast. You left me in the middle of the night. I hate it when you do that.”

He finally seemed to breathe normally instead of rasping in my ear. “I found it, Maggie. I really found it.”

“The secret village?”

“Yes. I came back for you.” He stepped back and held my face between his hands. “It’s time to go. Right now.” He laughed and gave me a solid kiss. “You won’t believe it.”

He was probably right about that. I probably wouldn’t believe. But I would go wherever he wanted to go. Always.

We drove back into the wilderness, to the place we’d found before. We passed the old cemetery and I wanted to stop to see if the town had put up headstones for Gram and Grampa Harvey, Chester, Bella, Verna and the rest. But Damon didn’t even glance at it and kept going.

He slowed, though, when we approached Pawpaw’s house. I thought he was going to turn in and bother the nice people again, but he shook his head and sped up again.

“That happened in the past,” he whispered.

I could only assume he was remembering our previous conversation with Pawpaw and his son.

When we found the road on the map Chester had drawn, we turned in and drove on. I found the map confusing, but Damon seemed to know where he was going. Or pretended to know where he was going. We left the car on the side of a lonely road and hiked over the rough terrain into the woods. We found a narrow trail, probably made by animals, and began following it.

I was worried. Worried we wouldn’t find what we were looking for. Worried we’d find the red beast in the cave. Even worried we’d find the hidden village. I wanted to find answers, but I was afraid of running into an entire village of vicious creatures. I was scared of actually facing this red vampire beast. I was afraid it would tear us to shreds, and also afraid it would recognize us as one of its own kind. And prove we were like that thing. I didn’t want to turn into some ugly furry red beast attacking people in a cave.

But Damon’s grandmother and my grandfather hadn’t turned into any sort of creature at all. They’d gone insane and committed suicide. They were dead and buried. The same with their children. The hidden village didn’t exist.

So, what were we searching for?

“The cure,” Damon said, reading my mind again.

“Right.”

“Oh!” Damon said suddenly. He slapped himself on the forehead and stopped walking.

“What?”

He winced. “I lied to you about something. I promised to tell you the truth as soon as I remembered.”

“Okay. What?”

“Granddad didn’t die of a heart attack. I told you that so you’d think I was human. I meant to confess that earlier, but I forgot.”

I looked forward on the trail. “Does it matter? Is he dead?”

Damon lifted my hand and kissed my fingers. “He came up here, to the mountains. He told me he was going to visit my dad. But the next day, or maybe two days later, I got a call that he was dead. They’d found him up here on this trail.”

He pulled me to the side of the trail and looked down solemnly. “Right here. He was dead right here. Right there. The alien vampire found him and killed him. Granddad wasn’t like us. The vampire didn’t recognize him.” He nodded his head with certainty. “But he’ll recognize us.”

I looked at the spot where I’d been standing, then at Damon. “Is that true?”

He looked up at the sky, pursing his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. Then he made a clicking sound. “No. That’s not true. He was found in a motel room. I was found dead on the trail. Or… no, I’m still alive.” He nodded with certainty. “I remember. That’s what it was. He died in his sleep in the motel room. And it was about five days after he left. Yes!”

He snapped his fingers and smiled at me. “That’s what happened. He was dead in a bed. Near here. I remember now. They said it was a heart attack.”

I let out a breath, silently glad I hadn’t been walking on the spot where his granddad had died. “Well, he must have been up here searching for clues, just like us.”

Damon took my hand and we started walking again. “Yeah. That’s what happened. I remember.”

“Okay. I’m glad you told me.”

Though, I couldn’t see what difference it made. We already knew Elliot had spent most of his life searching for a way to cure his son. He’d been as obsessed as Damon.

It was a nice walk, actually, following the winding trail through the trees, and not having to deal with too much undergrowth. Despite the steep climbs in places and the muddy ruts. I tried my best to enjoy the walk and be happy. But I kept looking over my shoulder.

“This is where they all used to live,” Damon told me. “Where their houses were. This road led to their houses.”

We weren’t on a road, not even close, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Granddad owned the land. It still belongs to him, and now us. There’s a grassy place near the creek where we’ll build our cabin. I haven’t seen it but Granddad described it to me. We’ll find it.”

Again, I had to take a breath and resist commenting. At least half a dozen times, Damon had told me the cabin was already built. He’d claimed he’d built it himself.

“We really own this?” I said instead, gazing around at the scenery, trying not to sound bored.

“All of this,” he said, pointing. “Over this mountain and on, all the way to the top of the other mountain.” He seemed very certain of this.

But I knew it wasn’t true. This was the first I’d heard of it and if it had been true, he’d have mentioned it the first time we came here, looking for Pine Hollow.

I didn’t contradict him. He couldn’t help it. He was getting one of his dreams mixed up with reality.

Something caught my eye through the trees and I looked around, trying to see it again. It had been… shiny and… silver. Peeking through the trees.

“Damon,” I whispered, “I think someone’s watching us.”

He stopped and squinted, searching the landscape. I did the same but couldn’t see anything unusual. It had stopped raining but a thick haze hung in the air making it hard to discern edges and details.

“Probably an animal,” I whispered. I hoped it wasn’t the landowner, preparing to shoot us for trespassing.

He nodded, keeping a serious, suspicious expression, and we turned to walk again along the trail. “No. It’s them,” he whispered. “We’re close to home and they’re watching us. Keep moving. They won’t strike from behind.”

I clutched Damon’s arm and walked as close to him as I could without stepping on his foot.

“They won’t hurt us,” he said. “They won’t attack their own.”

“What if they don’t recognize us?” How many times had Mama come at me, wielding some type of weapon with eyes wide with outrage, demanding to know who I was, and what I wanted in her house? Too many times.

“They know us,” he said. “Granddad warned them we were coming.”

“Jeez.” I hugged his arm tighter. “Now I’m scared. Thanks a lot.”

He stopped suddenly and turned, staring at something in the woods. His eyes widened. “Right there,” he said, pointing. “Look. They’re over there, watching. I can see them. A dozen. Maybe more.”

I turned and looked all around, but saw nothing but trees and haze and droplets of water falling from leaves. “Where?”