All Our Times Have Come

“Oh, honey. Are you hurt?” Helen held out her weathered hand, moving carefully.

The girl shook as she stared at the body sprawled on the cement between them. Blood pooled slowly around her sneakers as it seeped from the man, melting and absorbing the thin layer of fresh snow where it traveled. A smear of red trailed down her nose and across her lips, dripping from her chin and under the torn neck of her sweater. Helen stepped around the unmoving body and reached slowly for her.

“He can’t hurt you now, honey. Come on, you’re going to be okay.” Her wrist was cold in Helen’s hand as she allowed herself to be gently pulled away, back toward the mouth of the alley. She continued to shake, and did not speak.

__________________

“Dammit, Jepson, I don’t know anything more than what I told your boy on the street.” Helen shifted her hands, rotating the mug of steaming coffee to warm her chilled fingers. “I heard a scuffle and a voice, like a moan. I turned the corner and saw the poor thing looking half scared out of her mind, looking all torn up. Turner was on the ground, not moving, swimming in a pool of blood.”

“And you didn’t see a weapon of any kind, a knife, or broken glass maybe?”

“Nothing.”

Sheriff Jepson frowned at her, his mouth thinning until it disappeared beneath his unkempt mustache. Helen glared back at him.

“And if you ask me one more time, I’m taking myself back home and you can forget about bidding on my basket at the Spring Sociable.” She held up a hand to forestall his protest. “You have my statement, and now you owe me answers. How is she? Has she spoken yet?”

Jepson flipped his legal pad closed and leaned back, the old desk chair creaking beneath his weight.

“Not word one.” His whiskers bristled with the gust of his sigh. “But Jackie called down from the clinic, looks like she’ll be okay. I can’t say much more, what with her being the only suspect in a murder investigation.”

“Bull hockey.” Helen spit the words, dropping her mug on the desk with a splash. “You know as well as me that Joel Turner had a file as thick as the glasses on my face, and was a danger to every young thing that crossed his path. Never was a sorrier case of no-good in this town, and if you had seen the look on that child’s face like I did, you’d know beyond a doubt that any harm done was an act of self-defence.”

“Be that as it may–”

“Michael Claymore Jepson, you get off your high horse right this minute. Now you listen to me, and listen good.” She leveled a shrewd eye at him. “I will not see you turn that girl’s trauma into some kind of witch hunt to bolster your ego, or relieve your boredom. And you can bet that shiny star in your pocket that the Women’s Coalition will have a few things to say come re-election if you try to soak up a little spotlight with some horse apple murder charge. Especially,” she pressed on as the Sheriff shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “considering the reports and letters of complaint that I personally know you’ve received against Turner over the years. And what did you do about them? Nothing, that’s what.”

“Alright, Helen, calm down. Jesus H. woman, take a breather.” He gestured placatingly and smoothed his whiskers with each hand in turn. “I’m just doing my job here you know, there’s no need to make this personal.”

“Seems to me you could have been doing a lot more of your job prior to that young woman getting cornered in the streets by a predator.” Helen reclaimed her coffee and eased back in her chair. She sipped the tepid drink and raised a brow at the closed pad of paper on the desk. The Sheriff sighed again and reopened his notes.

“We found a bus ticket in her backpack. Tamara Hodge, looks like, or at least that’s the name on the ticket. Picked up in Lebanon on an open line fare, could be headed to any of a dozen stops on the way up to Georgetown. Looks old enough to have a driver’s license, but not carrying one. Runaway, like as not. Jackie says she doesn’t have a mark on her, by the way.” He looked at her pointedly.

“Not all wounds are visible, Jepson.”

“Well, I’m sure you’d know better than some.”

Helen stood abruptly and turned to leave the room, her home-made grab bag slung tight over a ridgid shoulder.

“Oh, now hold on, Helen, I only mean that you might be able to get in her head, given your history. Get her to talk to us, at least.”

“Well now, that’s a quick turn around.” Helen stood her ground in the office doorway. “Five minutes ago there was nothing you could tell me, and now you want me to do what? Make her some cocoa, offer to braid her hair? Compare assault stories while we roast marshmallows on an open fire? Mind your business Jepson, and keep my history out of your mouth.”

“I meant your history with fosters.” Jepson’s expression held neutral, but his voice softened.

“I haven’t held an active foster-parent registration in well over twenty years, you know that.”

“Well, Helen–” Jepson stood and joined her at the door, opening it and gesturing toward the hall. “Maybe it’s time to renew. If we’re not pushing for arrest, and I warrant there’s no need for those extremes just yet, all things considered, then we still need a safe place for the girl to stay while we sort out next steps. Like it or not, a man has been killed, and we don’t know much more than that. She can’t leave the county until we get social out here, and word back from the D.A..”

Helen listened begrudgingly as they crossed through the station and paused at the double doored exit.

“It’s your call, of course. A few nights in a jail cell won’t do her too much harm at this point, I imagine.”

Helen crossed her arms and shook her greyed head.

“You’re a manipulative old bastard, Michael Jepson.”

He smiled, and tipped his hat.

__________________

Helen was quiet through most of the drive back to the farm. When they pulled out from the clinic at dusk and headed out of the small town, she had asked what kind of music Tamara preferred; switching through the channels, she eventually settled on the local country station and offered for the young woman to change it anytime if it didn’t suit her. The snow picked up around them as they drove, blowing in from behind the truck in steadier gusts and flurries. An hour into their drive they passed over the Silver Creek bridge, the water frozen solid beneath a thick layer of snow. Helen offered a well worn horse blanket from under the bench, and set it down carefully between them. Tamara remained silent, a pained look on her face as she watched the white blanketed fields go by.

__________________

“Ezekiel! You stop that, be nice now.” Helen admonished the growling setter and reached to pet his russet head, scratching behind a drooping ear until his hackles lowered and his tongue lolled happily. “Don’t you mind old Zeke now, Tamara. Don’t know what got into him, but he’ll warm to you in no time. He’s a sweet boy.”

Helen gave a final pat to the dog and turned to kick the snow from her boots. “Let’s get some food in you and get you to bed, you must be exhausted.” She hung her jacket on a wooden peg by the door, and carefully held out a hand to accept Tamara’s borrowed winter coat, with the bold yellow ‘Sheriff's Station’ patch across the back. She winced as their hands brushed and a chill shuddered up her arm. “Saints above, how are your hands still so cold? Go sit yourself by the space heater, I’ll warm us up some soup.”

Pushing the still wary dog ahead of her, Helen followed the wood plank walls of the cabin and entered the kitchen. Ezekiel circled in his bed by the wood stove and huffed at her before dropping down and resting his chin across a paw. His sad eyes watched as she moved from the refrigerator to the stove, a tupperware of leftover harvest stew in her hands. She paused at a cupboard, eyeing a mason jar of homemade hot chocolate mix, before she closed the door with a bang and returned to the stove.

She entered the living room with a full glass of fresh milk, two steaming bowls of soup, and half a loaf of sliced and buttered bread. Tamara sat on the floor by the heater, a knitted blanket drawn loosely around her shoulders and trailing back toward the chair she had pulled it from.

“Tuck in now, this will warm you up and set you to rights.” Helen eased herself to the floor beside the girl, ignoring the creaks and pops of her knees. She watched as Tamara fiddled with her spoon, pushing potatoes and carrots listlessly through the broth. “Tamara, you have to eat. You’ll sleep better if you do, I promise.”

Tamara offered her first tentative smile and swallowed a small mouthful of soup.

__________________

“Pick up dammit, pick up–” Helen lifted her shoulder to hold the cordless phone as it continued to ring in her ear. She pulled Tamara’s hair back with one hand while the other reached around her and held the kindling pail steady. Another slew of blood and bile expelled violently from the young woman as she hunched on her knees, her thin arms shaking underneath her. The meager mouthfuls of soup had long since been regurgitated, and the stream of black, copper scented vitriol she continued to retch up was finally beginning to slow.

“Mama…” Tamara moaned deliriously and swayed, listing sideways.

“I’ve got you. Hush, child, you’re okay. All done now, I’ve got you.” Helen moved her gently onto her left side and pressed the sleeve of her denim shirt against her pale and sweaty forehead. The phone slid from her ear and dropped inside the neck of her shirt, ringing hollowly against her stomach.

“It hurts.” The younger woman whimpered and curled against herself, grabbing at her ribs. “I’m so hungry.”

Helen jolted in surprise. She realized the phone had stopped ringing, and a distant voice was calling her name.

“Don’t hang up!” She reached into her shirt and fumbled for the phone, pulling it out backward and flipping it around quickly. “Jackie, don’t hang up, I’m here. Hello?”

“Helen, I swear to jeebus, do you know what time it is? Calling people at this hour, this had better be an emergency.”

“I’ve got my arms around an agonized teenager who just finished vomiting blood all over my living room floor, how’s that for an emergency? I thought you said she wasn’t injured? Christ on a cracker, Jackie, you need to come get her, she needs a doctor.”

“Hell.”

Helen listened to the frantic movement on the other end of the line. Tamara had relaxed in her grip, her breathing steadying from gasps to an occasional hitch. She was icy cold.

“Helen, the storm really picked up on our side. I don’t think I can get to you tonight. How’s she doing? What happened?”

“I don’t even know.” She sighed and continued to brush a hand against Tamara’s damp hairline. “One minute we were eating soup together on the floor, and the next she’s on all fours puking blood. Didn’t you check her for injuries, do a scan or something?”

“Of course I did.” Helen winced at the change in pitch. “I ran a full CT. I’m telling you, that young woman was fine, not a scratch on her; no bruising, no internal bleeding, not a mark. Is she fevering?”

Helen pressed the back of her hand to Tamara’s forehead and cheeks. “Chilled. She’s in pain though. She said she’s hungry.”

“Well. Did she throw up anything other than blood?”

“Just a couple of mouthfuls of soup. Who knows when the poor thing last had a meal?”

“Keep her hydrated, see if she can handle a little broth at least. Could be a ruptured ulcer, who’s to say? I’ll get on the horn to Jepson, see if we can get a 4x4 gassed up and headed your way. But fair warning, Helen, it’s the devil’s own out there. I can’t see past the porch light the way this snow is coming down. Power’s already flickering at mine.”

“Okay, well, just see what you can do. She seems to be holding her own for now.”

“Call me if anything changes?” Jackie’s voice took a softer tone. “You know it warmed my heart to see you take her in like you did. Brought back memories of better days.”

“That’s enough of that now.”

“I’m only saying. She’s in good hands. Call me?”

“Will do.”

Helen ended the call and stared down at the now sleeping girl in her arms. She roused her gently and guided her slowly to the bathroom to help her wash her face and rinse her mouth. She seemed to be dazed, following Helen’s hands with her mouth as the warm cloth passed over her cheeks. Helen braced her in strong arms as they moved into the bedroom where she slipped her into a clean set of flannel pajamas and under the quilted covers. She padded down the hall to fill a glass of water, and stopped on the way back to grab some towels and a wash basin from the hall closet.

The bed was empty when she returned.

“Tamara?” She called out. Pulling the chain of the bedside lamp to flood the room in yellow light, Helen hurried to the other side of the large bed frame and scanned the empty floor. She knelt to glance under the bed, checked the closet, and moved quickly back down the hall.

“Tamara, where are you? You need to be in bed, honey, you’re not well. Tamara?”

Ezekiel whined from his bed as she passed through the kitchen.

“Zeke boy, where’d she go?” He wagged his tail twice and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

Helen stood at the front door and eyed the Sheriff’s jacket, still where she had left it. There was fresh snow on the tiled entry floor. She quickly donned her gear and pulled the heavy coat from the hook, bending to grab her high beam and the extra pair of Bogs. She gasped at the rush of cold wind and snow that blustered around her as she pulled the door open and stepped into the night.

“Tamara!” Her voice whipped past her ears on the wind, lost in a flurry of cold. The flashlight tracked the haze of ice crystals like some kind of science fiction warp speed of stars pelting at her through the ink black sky. She stepped back inside and grabbed a worn coil of rope from the shoe locker. Pausing to tie one end to the porch railing, and the other around her waist, Helen picked up the bundle of clothes again and plunged headlong into the storm.

__________________

She found the barn mostly by sense memory, following an unseen but familiar path through the climbing snow. The heavy barn door clapped in the wind, unlatched and protesting with every gusty blast of air that pushed and pulled it in its frame. The barn was dark as she entered, and oddly quiet after the bluster of the storm outside.

“Tamara?” She called tentatively and swung the flashlight beam around the hay strewn space. The stalls, mostly empty, were silent and still. Setting the boots and jacket down, Helen shivered and untied the rope, slapping her hands against her arms to shake the snow to the hard packed floor.

“Damn.” Flicking the switch on the wall a few times, she cursed the persistent darkness. She picked up the flashlight and moved forward, searching the jumping shadows carefully for any sign of the teen as she made her way to the breaker box on the far wall.

“Honey, are you in here? Please be in here…”

There was a flutter of wings from the back of the barn, and the strangled honking of a goose echoed against the rafters.

“Saints alive!” Helen clutched her chest in surprise.

The old bay mare whinnied in her stall, rushing at the door in a frenzy and clacking her hooves at the gate. Her eyes rolled back in her giant head, flaring white in the light as she gnashed her teeth and reared back into the darkness again.

“Steady, Jezzy, don’t you start.” Helen eased past the frightened horse, bouncing the light from side to side as she hurried across the barn. “Tamara, are you back there?”

She reached the goose shed and chicken coop, built into the far corners of the barn and closed to the elements. The shed door was open. A wet, squishing sound bled through the open doorway.

“Tamara?”

The sounds stopped abruptly.

Old Jezzy nickered softly from somewhere behind her as Helen waited on the threshold of darkness. She traced the flashlight beam around the open door. A figure emerged slowly from the gloom.

Her hair was loose around her face, a tangled mass of clotted and dripping curls. The blue plaid pajamas shone starkly around the slurry of blood and feathers that streamed from her throat to her waist. Her eyes shone reflective and opaque, like a deer, caught in the glare of her light.

“I’m sorry.” Tamara gurgled in a sob. “I’m just so hungry.”

Helen gasped and jerked her hand in an ingrained urge to cross herself in prayer. She locked her knees. Tamara continued to cry.

“Stay back.” Helen’s throat tightened, strangling the words to a fearful whisper.

“Please.” Tamara stumbled from the darkness of the shed, a flurry of goose down dropping behind her. “Please, I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

Helen reeled and ran for the barn door. She cried out as Tamara overtook her, rushing past in a blur of darkness, pale limbs, and icy wind. Jezzy lunged in her stall and screamed, slamming her hulking body against the gate that held her captive and too near the passing creature that reeked of death. Helen stumbled at the sound, dropping the flashlight to bounce in a disorienting kaleidoscope of horse teeth, rusted metal bars, and blood soaked flannel. She scrambled to reach it and froze, staring in horror at the dirty bare feet that now stood between her and the door, highlighted with floating dust motes in the strong beam of light.

“Helen, listen to me, please.” Tamara crouched like an animal in the spotlight, her eyes a luminescent green. Her fingers were black with blood and dirt, digging deep gouges into the packed dirt floor.

“You killed Joel Turner.”

“Yes.”

“You drank his blood.”

“He followed me from the bus. I tried to warn him. I swear, I tried to keep him away. He wouldn’t listen.”

Helen reached a trembling hand for the light and slowly stood.

“What are you?”

“A vampire, I guess?” Tamara wiped at the tears on her face, rising to stand level with the older woman. “Chupacabra? Something bit me, I didn’t ever see it. Mama said–” Tamara paused and licked a bloodied lip, swallowing quickly. “My mother said that I had the devil in me. I couldn’t stop what was happening, how I was changing.” Her voice hitched, and her eyes shone brighter. “I had to leave. She put me on the bus.”

“The bus to where?” Helen pressed a hand to her own chest, clutching the soft denim of her shirt and fighting every instinct to run, or scream, or faint.

“It didn’t matter. Anywhere. Nowhere. I rode until I couldn’t control the hunger any more; I didn’t want to hurt anybody. And then that man followed me. I really tried not to hurt anybody, I tried so hard.”

Helen watched the shaking girl. The darkness pressed around them, eating away at their edges, leaping forward with every tremble of the flashlight gripped too tightly in her shaking hand. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, steadying herself.

“Back up. Slowly, to the door.”

“Please, don’t run, I promise I won’t hurt you.” Tamara shuffled toward her.

“Stop! I said back up, and dammit girl, this is my barn; I don’t care what you are, you will do as I say.”

Tamara nodded and stepped back, slowly blending into the darkness. Helen tracked her one step at a time, walking them past empty stalls and into the open arena.

“There’s a breaker box on the wall behind you. Open it, flip the mains back on.”

“I don’t know how–” Tamara looked nervously at the tall black panel as she opened it.

“I’ll show you, just do as I say.” Helen felt her tension ease slightly as the girl turned away to trace the case with her hands and find the tripped switches. She flinched when the lights came back on, startled by the sudden hum of electricity, and the closeness of the now visible room. Tamara jumped too, gasping a small laugh of embarrassment as she turned back around. Her eyes were a deep brown again, human in every way. Aside from the dried and flaking blood that stained her mouth and clothes, she looked like any of the too-thin teens that Helen had housed for so many years, and so long ago.

Helen stared her down and felt some kind of sadness when Tamara shrank back and lowered her gaze. “You ate my Christmas goose.”

“I didn’t–” She swallowed and looked up at Helen. “I mean, just the blood. It’s still in there.”

“Alive?” Helen raised an eyebrow.

“Um. No, ma’am.”

“Well then. At least you’ve got some color back in your cheeks. I’ve never received such violent complaints against my autumn soup before, but I suppose we’ll need a new kind of recipe book if we’re going to get you fully back on your feet. No more humans.”

She quietly watched the tears that tracked shiny pathways down Tamara’s filthy face.

“But– I’m a monster. You don’t mean that. Nobody wants me.” Her thin shoulders jerked as she cried harder and covered her face with her hands. “Nobody wants me, you can’t mean it.”

“Hush now, child. I’ve seen monsters in this world, and I’ve seen what monsters can do. I don’t know exactly what you are, but you’re no monster. That takes intent.” Helen reached a hand toward the sobbing girl and paused, just shy of touch. She waited for Tamara to curl her fingers down, showing her reddened eyes and sniffing, to clear her dripping tears, or scent the hand in front of her.

“Can I touch you?” Helen smiled, haltingly, and her hand tremored in the air.

Tamara nodded and clenched her fists tighter to her mouth, leaning forward to press her forehead into Helen’s palm like a cat. She breathed in deeply, properly smelling the woman as she was pulled carefully and slowly into a one-armed hug. Her tears were cold as they dripped down Helen’s wrist.

“Please, be real.” She whispered against Helen’s collarbone.

Helen breathed a laugh against her dark hair. “If blood drinking supernatural teens can be real, I’m pretty sure a hug can be real too.”

“You’d be surprised.” Tamara’s smile was fragile when she looked up. “You smell warm. Safe, and good.”

“Like home?” Helen offered a watery smile.

Tamara nodded, and began to cry in earnest again.

Helen pulled her own heavy winter coat around Tamara’s shoulders, and wondered how long a foster-care license took to get approved these days.