Chapter Thirty – Faith

 

Sam and I lugged the gallons of gas we'd siphoned from his car's gas tank in through the front door after he took the bolt cutters to the padlock. I was past the point of questioning all the stuff that he had in his trunk, and was starting to just be thankful the cops hadn't pulled us over and searched the vehicle.

I still didn’t know what to think about this whole thing, about the story Sam had told me in the kitchen, and while we were out getting the gas and the salt from the Camaro. Full Moon Security? Some secretive government project he used to work for, and the military before that? This was all wackadoodle crap out of a bad horror movie. How the hell was I supposed to believe this?

And then there were the two of us. The undeniable connection and attraction between us. The way his lips had felt on mine, the way his arms had held me so close and so perfectly. I’d felt safe in his arms. Even when I’d found the basement, and he’d put his arm around me, I’d felt the security in his embrace.

Sam was right about one thing, though. I’d been more than happy to come to my own conclusions about all this stuff, make my own assumptions about how it might be a wild conspiracy. Maybe that was why I was so ready to embrace this whole thing just as fiercely as he’d embraced me.

But still! Polish vampires? The supernatural?

Seriously? What the hell?

But, there were a few undeniable facts. First, my dream earlier today. Then the weirdness I’d felt about this house, the way it drew me to it, clouded my thoughts. The people at the coroner’s office? People Sam called Renfields, like in the Bram Stoker book. And then there was the undeniable similarity in features between the pictures of the two men, Ironside and Tanchovsky, and to the man in my dream.

I mean, what would anyone think in this situation? Things were way out of whack, and the only way any of it even came somewhat close to making sense was to believe what Sam was telling me. That the supernatural world was real, and was all around us, even if we didn’t know about it.

And, I could even understand why he hadn’t told me at first. Would I have believed him yesterday, when I first met him? Would I have believed a single word out of his mouth without having seen and experienced all of this for myself? Hell, it was all happening to me, and was as real as the smell of fuel in my nose, and I still barely believed it.

And then, of course, there was us. Again. Us. Even a little lie like the supernatural world really being real, and him being a hunter of these creatures, wasn’t enough to break that.

“Sam, should we really be doing this?” I asked, gas cans sloshing at my sides.

He reached down and took one of the cans from me. “Burning this place down? Yeah, absolutely. What else would we do to it?”

My free hand rubbed the upper part of the arm holding the other gas can. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just feel…I don’t know.”

“Look at me,” he said, his eyes looking down into mine. “Faith, if we don’t take care of this thing, it’s just going to get other people. Things are just going to get worse. I don’t know why he’s moving outside his territory, but it’s clear he is. We need to do what we need to do.”

With a sigh, I nodded before looking away. “This just isn’t the kind of thing I thought this would turn into.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s part of why I didn’t want you involved. It’s not for everyone. But, we’re here, and I can’t leave you alone while I do this. It’s not safe.”

I nodded again.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, let’s get this over with. Ready?”

“Guess I have to be.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said with a grin. He turned and headed out of the front room, back to the kitchen where we’d found the trapdoor. He led the way as we stalked through the dark house, carrying along our liquid combustion and bag of salt.

“You know,” I said idly as we walked into the kitchen and over to the trapdoor, “I think I should be worried that you have two gas cans in your trunk. Do you do this kind of thing a lot?”

He grinned a little as he got down on his knees, wedging a flat head screwdriver into the gap in the floor and beginning to pry at the door. “It’s kind of a hobby.”

The door came up with a creak and a waft of stale air, then fell back on concealed hinges as it revealed a hole just big enough for a large man to climb in and out of.

“Smell that?” Sam asked, peering down inside. “Smells like dirt and skin.”

“Ew.”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the small flashlight he’d used the night before. Sam clicked it on and shined it down into the emptiness beneath the kitchen floor, revealing a ladder that led down into the area beneath the house.

“Probably was built original to the house, but the upier had any other access points boarded up when he first arrived. His soil would be something he’d definitely want to hide.”

I leaned in close to Sam, putting my head right down next to his as I peered down into the cellar. “Well, couldn’t he just get more if something happened to it?”

Sam shook his head. “All the way from an obscure village in Poland? They’ve got to carry it around, and lots of it, if they want to stay alive. One of the drawbacks of immortality, I guess.”

“That and rotting away, having to steal skin from people. Might consider that a small drawback as well.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a grin, “you’re right. A small one, for sure.” He handed me the flashlight, had me shine it down into the hole.

“Gentlemen first,” I said.

He flipped around, went to lower himself into the hole. He stopped on the second rung down and locked eyes with me. “You sure about coming down here with me? It’s not too late to back out. I’ll understand if you do.”

“Said I wanted to see this to the end, didn’t I?”

He just nodded, then continued down the ladder. “Okay,” he said as he reached the bottom, “I’m ready. Send them down.”

I got down on my knees next to the hole, and began to lower one of the gas canisters down into the depths. He stretched up, grabbed the metal container over his head, and took it from my hands. First one, then the other.

As I leaned down to drop the salt into the hole, though, I heard something outside.

A distant noise, the sound of car tires on the dirt and rock road outside. Was that a car coming up the drive?

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked from down inside the basement, his hands up and over his head as he took the bag from my hands. He must have seen the reaction to the noise outside on my face, known something was up.

“I think we’ve got a problem. Someone’s here.”

A look of surprise, but not fear, passed over his face. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right up.”

I stood up at the side of the hole, a million thoughts running through my mind as I backed away from it and waited for Sam to rejoin me in the kitchen. Who could it be? The police? Tanchovsky, or Ironside, or whatever he called himself?

Outside, at the front of the house, a car door opened and closed. “Faith?” called a familiar man’s voice. “Faith?”

“Dr. Lawrence?” I asked, as Sam, now back on the ladder, paused his climb to look up at me.

“Your boss?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Shit, Eb Shook must have told him we were interested in this place, or something.”

He stayed half-in and half-out of the hole, his feet still firmly planted on the rungs of the ladder. “Well, we need to get him out of here. Fast. This place is going to go up like a tinderbox.”

“I know,” I breathed.

“This is just we need.”

“Dammit,” I whispered. “This is all my fault.”

He frowned. “Don’t say that.”

Outside in the front, my boss called my name again. “Faith! Faith? Faith, are you inside?”

I groaned. “Well, if I hadn’t gone to Shook’s with you, they wouldn’t have even thought to tell my boss I was out here.”

“Shook might not have ever spoken to me, though. It’s okay.”

I really had wanted to see this all the way to the end, to have that sense of justice when I saw the black smoke begin to rise from the boxes of soil Sam assured me were down in the basement. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it was in the cards for me.

I sighed and started for the hallway that led out of the kitchen and to the front of the house. “Tell you what. Get back down there and get to work. I’ll handle this.”

“Wait! Where are you going?”

I stopped, looking back over my shoulder at him. “What do you think? If he sees us together, he’s going to ask a million questions, and it’s just going to be harder to get him out of here. So, I’m going to go talk to him alone.”

“What about my car? It’s right outside, Faith. What’s he going to do if he finds out you went behind his back to help me?”

“I don’t think he saw it yesterday,” I replied as I turned around to face him. “I can explain it away, I promise. He’s just an old man who’s being protective and worried, that’s all. You just get to work, okay?”

“Faith!” Dr. Lawrence called from outside. “I know you’re in there! Come out and talk to me, please.”

“I don’t like us splitting up, even if it is just your boss outside. Look at what happened when we got split up, earlier.”

“Sam,” I said, nearly hissing and stamping my foot like a petulant child, “people are dying. You said it yourself. That’s more important than what happens between me and my boss. If I lose my job, I lose my job. It’s not like I liked it anyways.”

He clenched his jaw again and gave me a tight nod. “Okay. Just make it fast, all right? You’ve only got a few minutes till I’m finished salting the soil, then the fire starts. Okay?”

“Got it,” I said with a nod.

“And Faith?”

“Yeah?”

“Please…be careful. I just found you.”

I flashed him a smile before turning around to continue on my way down the hall. “You, too, okay? Besides, it’s just my boss. I’ll be fine.”

Boy, was I wrong.