Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) Read Online Free PDF

some Andover folk who might think it the prudent thing to do.
    A van with bright lights sped toward them and seeing it, Stroud groaned. Briggs went for the camera van like a bear on the scent of honey. It was an election year. “Here comes Eyewitness 2, Your Neighborhood Crime Watch Channel!” he said, repeating the tiresome television phrase.
    “Suppose John McEarn'll be with 'em,” said Carroll flatly. “Went to school with the jerk. Guy's like an ant, the way he crawls over dead rats.”
    “What the hell's he expect to get here now?”
    “Teeth. Briggs'll show him a lot of teeth. And he'll want shots of the bones, of course. Ratings wet dream, that's what this is for McEarn.”
    Stroud laughed lightly. It was the first time he'd so much as smiled this night. Carroll eased a bit himself now that he saw Stroud had lightened up. Someone among the searchers, all of whom had fanned out with lantern-size flashlights, shouted, “Over here! Some more! Over here.”
    Briggs stared at Abe Stroud as if he were the Wizard of Oz. He could not believe there was yet another bone pile. None of them could. “Christ, Briggs, stands to reason,” said Stroud, marching off with Carroll who he took by the arm, directing the man toward his brand new four-by-four Jeep Cherokee. It had been his first purchase in Andover. Behind them they heard Briggs telling the newsman, McEarn, about the initial discovery of a single skull. Briggs made an ass of himself by stating for the camera that, “Hell, I thought it was just--you know--maybe a passin' hippie car from Arizona or someplace, just tossed it out with other trash.”
    -3-
    Stroud placed the skull on the seat of the Cherokee and told Carroll to get inside beside it. Ray Carroll didn't know what Stroud had in mind, but he got inside anyway, checking out the Jeep's features, fascinated by it, saying he'd always wanted one, had promised himself he'd own one before he died. Stroud tore off into the ditch and up again on the other side, driving through the tree cover and out into the open field where all the others had raced to the new bone site. He hit his brights and flooded the field and the men on it, their shadows doing a dance of a distance of some fifty yards. “Throw some goddamned light on the subject,” he said curtly as Andover men scurried to get out of his way.
    “Jesus! Goddamn!” they alternately swore and threw dirt clods at the Jeep. Behind and now beside Stroud came the news van, anxious to get in closer, the wheels kicking up twice the loose soil that the Jeep had.
    When Stroud got out, he didn't have to push his way past the others. The ones remaining in his way eased back from him, allowing him entry without a word. None of them knew Stroud well, since he'd just taken up residence among them three months before but they did know he was a tough man. It wasn't something he'd done, or ever said, not even backing down Glen “Turnip” Turner. Until tonight Stroud hadn't ever had to display it. It was just accepted when another man looked into his face and those hard, cold eyes. His eyes told others that he had killed men.
    The man who'd found the additional bones was Ray Carroll's brother-in-law, Mitch Campbell. Campbell was shaken; like others here, he was a man with kids of his own, a hefty wife, and an even heftier mortgage. He worked for the city, road work, Stroud had heard. Like Ray Carroll, he became a volunteer because he always volunteered. When Andover had a completely volunteer fire department, both men were on it, as were many of the other men present tonight. In old junkers and pickups, Jimmys and Jeeps equipped with CB radios, they came from out of the seemingly empty night on a moment's notice: Andover's Minutemen.
    “What've we got, Professor?” asked Chief Briggs, playing to the camera now rolling as Briggs kneeled into sight of bones half in and half out of the earth.
    “Back off a bit,” said Stroud. “Watch your step. Damn, whole area's covered