Bloody Little Secrets Page 3

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  I spotted the sign for the clinic at the next stoplight and hung a left, swinging the Mustang into a parking space near the door. My mouth started to water as I entered the building. There were so many people. Between the waiting patients and the nurses, it was hard to contain myself. My fangs slid out and I clapped a hand over my mouth. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady myself. If I played my cards right, no one would get hurt. I glanced down at the calendar on the counter as I approached. November 1. So I’d returned from the dead on October 31st? Really? Ugh, that was so cliché.

  “Can I help you?” a middle-aged blond woman in scrubs asked me at the lobby counter.

  Keeping my mouth covered, I looked her in the eye.

  “I need to speak to you in private,” I said quietly. So quiet I wondered how she’d heard it.

  “In private.”

  “In the back,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  The woman rose from the desk and led me over to a door where nurses were calling other patients in. We walked down a long corridor past a number of examination rooms until we came upon an empty one.

  I followed her in and shut the door. Her scent was intoxicating. Steak, hamburgers, chips. It was hard not to bite her neck then and there, but maybe having the blood in my system from yesterday gave me an ounce of control.

  “I need you to take me to the blood. If anyone asks, I’m from the local high school and you’re giving me a tour of the place for a project.”

  “You’re on a tour,” she murmured.

  She opened the door and led me down an adjacent hallway, away from the examination rooms. We stepped into a large storage room full of medications, medical supplies, and giant refrigerators. I closed the door. I noticed a cooler on the floor and hoped there would be something cold to stick in there with the blood. I flung the fridge door open and nearly collapsed at the sight of all that blood. Bags and bags and bags. All for me! I greedily filled up one cooler, and then another, throwing in some ice packs I’d found in there as well. I couldn’t fit them all in, but this would keep me full for a couple days.

  I thanked the lady and headed back into the hallway. A nurse stepped out of another room, colliding with me.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said and then stopped, meeting my eyes.

  My heart pounded in my chest. Oh god. She used to play Bunco with my mom.

  She gasped and I tried not to focus on how good she smelled. Like apple pie.

  “Vicky?” she whispered, and then shook her head. “Oh my, I’m so sorry, it’s just that you look like someone I know, I mean, someone I knew.”

  I caught her eye and looked into them.

  “You did not see anyone that looked like Vicky today. You never saw me at all. Now go back to work.”

  “I never saw you,” she muttered and wandered off towards the lobby.

  I had to get out of this town.

  There was a door to the right that I prayed would lead me out the back. I slipped through it and shut it behind me. I ran for the car and threw the coolers on the passenger seat and the floor next to me. I flipped open the top and grabbed one of the bags. Hmmm, it even came with a handy straw. I pulled the tab open and the scent of pork chops and cheesy potatoes filled the car. I sucked on the straw, which hooked neatly into the bag, as I drove through Rochelle, keeping the bag down on the floor. The lovely goodness spilled down my throat, making it difficult for me to concentrate on driving. I chuckled to myself. I was totally drinking and driving. Although I think the cops would be much more horrified to find out just what I was drinking.

  But I had one last stop. One last chance to say goodbye. I drove through town and turned into the first residential subdivision I passed. Crystal Cove. That’s what they named the subdivision. So lame. There were no crystals or coves as far as I could tell. And weren’t coves on water? Not in the middle of Illinois.

  I took the first street on the left. Prescott Drive. I pulled up across the street from the blue house with a large porch. I spent so many days and nights on that porch, usually talking to my friends. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost eight on a Saturday morning. My parents should be leaving soon to take Donovan to indoor soccer practice.

  I sat watching the house for ten minutes before the garage door went up. My dad walked out to the car, which was parked in the driveway. I slouched down in the seat, not wanting him to see me. His movements were slow, forced—not with his usual bouncy steps. He unlocked the car and opened the door for my mother, who followed behind with my ten-year-old brother, Donovan, in tow. My mother’s face was drawn; she’d lost some of her youthfulness in the last week. My eyes filled with tears. I wanted so badly to jump out of the car and run up to them. But the shock alone might kill them. They had buried me. Their little girl was dead. And so she was. This girl, this creature I had become, was not the Vicky Hernandez they had raised.

  The doors closed on the car and they backed out of the driveway, heading out of the subdivision. My heart ached as I watched them disappear around the corner. I wished there was some way I could talk to them, some way I could be with them again, but I couldn’t think about it anymore.

  Tears raced down my cheeks as I revved the engine, peeling out and leaving tire marks on the street as I exited the subdivision. Those would be the last marks I would leave in Rochelle.