Read Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) for Free Online

of the twisting highway had been neglected here for so long that even the center lines had become invisible. Stroud thought the road looked like the nearby river, two of a kind.
    “Eerie, isn't it?” asked Ray Carroll of the bone field.
    “Yeah, you might call it that.”
    “Never seen the like of it ... outside the carcass room at the slaughter house.”
    “Slaughter house?”
    “Sure, Andover's biggest employer. We hold the policy.”
    “What, like cattle? Beef?”
    “Beef, yeah, but everything else, too. Sheep, pigs, veal when the season's on.”
    “Lot of bones there, sure.”
    “Bones are ground up for meal. Every so often somebody has an accident on the job. We cover the damages--workman's comp package, the whole shot. We have an inspection made once a year. Last time, I went along.”
    “How old's your boy, ahhh?”
    “Joey, he just turned thirteen. Quite a boy. Won MVP for soccer this year. He's a good kid. Gets in his share of trouble, but a good-hearted kid like him, you won't find another--”
    “Think he understands the importance of our finding Timmy?”
    “Sure ... sure he does.”
    Then how could he sleep?  Stroud wondered.
    The insurance man and the hard-edged archeologist continued on in silence toward Carroll's house aside for an occasional question raised by Ray Carroll.
    “What do you think my boy can tell you?”
    “Don't know till we ask.”
    “He won't know anything about the bones, I promise you.”
    “He may not.”
    “He likely doesn't know anything about the other boy's disappearance either.”
    “Maybe not.”
    “But you want to wake him in the middle of the night and ask him anyway?”
    “I do. You can tell me no, of course, bar me entrance at the door, if you like, Mr. Carroll, but so long as you do not, I'm going to wake the boy and ask him some questions.”
    “I see.”
    Stroud caught sight of the grinning skull that dirtied the seat between them when they passed under the street lamp.  Make no bones about it,  Stroud thought but did not say.
    They arrived at the Carroll house where all lights were out. Ray Carroll made a loud entry, purposefully rousing first his wife and then the children. He had several kids, two younger than the boy Stroud wished to question. Mrs. Carroll had to be restrained by her husband. She didn't want her son “interrogated” in the middle of the night. When Carroll tried to explain to her who Stroud was, the fact he was a former cop upset her even more.
    “Darling,” Carroll pleaded, “Abe's just trying to get at the truth.”
    “Joey wouldn't lie to me.”
    “No, I know that, but this isn't like cutting school.”
    “If your child were missing, Mrs. Carroll, you'd want everyone to cooperate,” said Stroud firmly.
    “You're that stranger that took hold of the Stroud place, aren't you?” she asked with a suspicious index finger pointed at him.
    “I am the grandson, yes.”
    She nodded, her stare summing him up. He was from Chicago, therefore he was a mobster in hiding, more likely related to Al Capone or Bugs Moran than to old Mr. Stroud. And even if he was who he said he was, old Mr. Stroud himself had been an eccentric oddball.
    “It could save a life,” Stroud said.
    Stroud was finally allowed a few minutes, but not alone with the boy. The mother and father stood nearby, staring pointedly at their son.
    “Yeah,” he said sleepily, rubbing his eyes, “we were all of us playin' when we found the bones.”
    “Now, listen, Joe,” said Abe Stroud, “those bones--did you kids dig them up?”
    “We didn't ... sir, not all of us ... and not at first.”
    Stroud studied the child's expression as he spoke and he believed the boy was telling the truth as best he might under the circumstances. “Joe, how did you boys first discover the bones?”
    “Timmy's dog got at 'em.”
    Then Timmy did have a dog with him, and so the vision of the dead animal hanging limp over the child's amazed eyes was not merely symbolic or meaningless