Read Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) for Free Online Page B

something out, or he has turned things about. Sure, there's truth in what he's saying, but there's also something else he's not telling. I can't quite say what just yet, but the boy's hiding something.”
    “For God's sake, the boy's only just turned thirteen. What dark secret are you looking for, Stroud?”
    “Was Joey part of a group of boys who always hung together?”
    “Hung together?”
    “Did things together?”
    “Yeah, what of it?”
    “But Timmy--is he a part of Joey's regular crowd?”
    “The Meyers family's new to Andover.”
    He was an outsider, Stroud realized now, like himself.
    “The Meyers family's new to the area, but my son would not be treating a newcomer badly, Professor. I'm not sure I appreciate the tenor of your questions, nor the direction they've taken.”
    “Your son ever involved in an initiation rite with the group of boys he plays with?”
    “That's out of the question!”
    “Have you ever discussed it with him?”
    “I have had absolutely no reason to do so! No!”
    Mrs. Carroll was leaning into the doorway to the room where they stood, and for a moment Abe Stroud saw an intense spark of hatred blaze across her eyes, just before she said, “The hour is uncivil, Professor Stroud.”
    Something about the dog's behavior in the boy's story, for one, didn't ring true. Timmy's dog chasing him?
    “I think it time you left!” she said and stormed off.
    “Sorry, she ... she's not normally like this, but it's got her upset, the whole thing. These missing children, and then she thinks of how close ... how it might well have been our boy, you see.”
    “Sure ... I see,” replied Stroud. “Want a lift back to pick up your truck?”
    “No, no ... I'll fetch it in the morning.” The predawn sky told both men that it was already morning.
    “Fine. See you later then, and please, extend my apologies to Mrs. Carroll.”
    “Absolutely ... and good night, Doctor Stroud.”
    Stroud departed the neat two-story brick house in Andover, the spin of his wheels sending a cascade of rocks bulleting up the driveway as he backed out. Alongside him, on the seat, the skull tipped over and was lying upright, staring and grinning at him, laughing at him, daring him to bend and kiss it.
    Being alone with the damned thing wasn't as easy as being with Carroll and the damned thing.
    “What kind of person had lived out a life inside this skull?” he asked himself. Only time and precise examination might provide the answers. He had to get head bone connected to the neck bone, connected to all the others, to show first that the bone pile, while it appeared a random dumping ground, housed whole people who were buried intact. The bones were very likely Indian, from a mound leveled at a much earlier date when the highway was built, and now eroded completely. The last scratch had been supplied by Timmy's dog. Stroud's services might be useful to Briggs and Andover. He knew enough about bones to shed light on the discovery. Still, his heart went out to little Timmy Meyers who'd most assuredly been teased, frightened, bullied, and shamed into running off with his dog who's snarly behavior was likely in response to the other boys' bullying and pressing the ugly little skull into Timmy's face. Stroud knew how kids worked. He had part of the puzzle. But some of the pieces might never surface.
    -4-
    His return to the scene of the discovery made him angry enough to kill. Carl Dimetrios had arrived, and had moved in with his yellow backhoe. Bones were being destroyed in the process, many lost in a mountain of soil that hadn't been here when Stroud had left with Carroll.
    Stroud rushed to the backhoe and lunged onto the side step, snatching out the key. The machine came to a coughing halt.
    “Son of a bitch, Briggs!” the Greek, Dimetrios, shouted.
    Briggs rushed toward them with Dr. Oliver Banaker on his arm, shouting that Dr. Banaker was now in charge and that he had ordered the backhoe in.
    “Nothing here to preserve,