Graham Masterton: Innocent Blood

Recent Titles by Graham Masterton from Severn House

The Jim Rook Series

ROOK

THE TERROR

TOOTH AND CLAW

SNOWMAN

SWIMMER

DARKROOM

Anthologies

FACES OF FEAR

FEELINGS OF FEAR

FORTNIGHT OF FEAR

FLIGHTS OF FEAR

Novels

DOORKEEPER

GENIUS

HIDDEN WORLD

HOLY TERROR

INNOCENT BLOOD

Graham Masterton

First world edition published in Great Britain 2005 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2011 by Graham Masterton.

All rights reserved.

Wednesday, September 22, 8:34 A.M.

As usual, the school gateway was jammed with mothers awkwardly trying to maneuver their oversized SUVs in and out, so Lynn steered her Explorer over to the opposite side of the street and parked it with two wheels mounted on the grass.

‘Remember it’s your dance class today,’ she told Kathy, turning around in her seat. ‘That means no dawdling after school, OK?’

‘I don’t feel good,’ Kathy protested, flopping in her seat.

‘Nonsense. I’ve never seen you look healthier. Just because you have a math test.’

‘I think I’m going to barf. I know I’m going to barf. I can feel all of those mushed-up pancakes in my tummy, and they don’t like it down there.’

Lynn snapped her seat-belt buckle back into place. ‘OK, then. If you feel so bad, I’ll just have to take you back home to bed and cancel your dance class.’

‘Not my dance class! That’s not till three thirty! I’ll be better by then!’

‘No, I’ll have to cancel it. You can’t jeté with a tummy full of mutinous pancakes.’

‘But I want to be an actress like you. Why do I have to learn math? You don’t have to know math to be an actress, do you?’

‘You don’t think so? Supposing you’re an actress and you make squillions and squillions of dollars like Julia Roberts and your agent takes three and a quarter percent more than he’s supposed to? How are you going to know?’

‘Because all agents take more than they’re supposed to. Agents are chiselers and shysters and they all work for Satan.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake! Who told you that?’

‘You did.’

‘Come on,’ said Lynn, unbuckling her seat belt again. ‘Let’s get you into school before Ms Redmond gives you another demerit for being late.’

Kathy climbed out and tugged on her beret. She was a small girl for ten years old, with blonde braids and a pale, elfin face like her mother’s. Her eyes were that same luminous green as her mother’s, too, like pieces of a glass bottle found on the seashore. Her legs were so skinny that she kept having to pull up her long white socks.

‘What do you want to do after your dance class? We could go to De Lunghi’s for spaghetti if you like.’

‘So long as Gene doesn’t have to come with us.’

‘I thought you liked Gene.’

‘I don’t like his nose. He looks like an anteater.’

‘He does not. You’re just being obnoxious.’

‘He does too. Every time he has soup the end of his nose dips right into it.’

They crossed Franklin Avenue to the school gates. The Cedars private elementary school didn’t look like a school at all: although it had no religious affiliations, it shared the First Methodist Church building, with its tall square tower and its gray stone walls, and several of the classrooms, even though they were large and airy, had stained-glass windows, with scenes of Christ surrounded by little children.

‘You won’t forget to bring home your hockey kit, will you?’ asked Lynn. But at that moment Kathy caught sight of her friend Terra, and waved, and jumped, and immediately skipped off. Terra’s mother, Sidne, came up to Lynn and the two of them watched their daughters run through the school gates and into the yard, where thirty or forty other children were jumping and screaming and tearing around in circles.

‘Some tummy ache,’ said Lynn.

‘Oh, the math test,’ smiled Sidne. ‘Terra said she had leprosy.’

‘ Leprosy ?’

‘That’s right. On the spur of the moment, it was the only illness she could think of. At least it shows she’s reading her Bible.’

‘They really kill you sometimes, don’t they? I love Terra’s braids.’

‘Janie did them. I don’t know how she has the patience.’

They walked back to Sidne’s car together. ‘Did you hear from George Lowenstein?’ Lynn asked her.

‘No, nothing. If you want to know the truth, I think he’s looking for somebody younger.’

‘But you’d be perfect as Corinne, you know you would!’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I used to wonder when I would have to stop playing wayward daughters and start to play harassed mothers, and maybe it’s now. I think I’ll go to Miska’s and have a massage and a pedicure. And then I’ll go to Freddie’s and order a treble strawberry sundae with extra cream.’

‘I’d join you, believe me, if we didn’t have a read-through.’

Lynn said goodbye to Sidne and crossed the street. A short, crop-haired man with a neck like a stovepipe and a maroon polyester shirt was waiting beside her Explorer. His face was the same maroon as his shirt, and beaded with sweat.

‘What the fuck do you call this?’ he demanded.

‘What the fuck do I call what?’ Lynn didn’t want to show that she was the slightest bit afraid of him.

‘What, you’re blind? Where’s your goddamned guide dog? You parked on the goddamned grass, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but there was no parking space anyplace else.’

‘Oh, and you think that’s some kind of excuse? If there was no parking space anyplace else you should’ve gone around the block again until there was . You’re all the same, you women. You think you can do whatever you damn well like and say whatever you damn well like and park wherever you damn well like and you don’t give squat for nobody else.’

Lynn opened the Explorer’s door and climbed into the driver’s seat, but the man clung on to the door to prevent her from closing it.

‘Listen, lady, I don’t even have to take care of this piece of grass, but I do, because it’s outside of my house and I’m proud of my house, and then somebody like you comes along and drives their goddamned vehicle all over it. How would you like it if I came around to your house and drove my goddamned vehicle all over your goddamned grass?’

‘I think you’d better take your hands off my door,’ said Lynn.

‘And what if I don’t?’

‘I’ll call for the school security guard, that’s what.’ All the same, her heart was thumping wildly. The man had a large maroon wart on the left side of his nose and she couldn’t stop looking at it and she was convinced that he knew she was looking at it.

He turned his head around for a moment, as if he were looking for somebody, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he turned back to Lynn and said, ‘OK. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to curse you for this. I’m going to wish on you the shittiest day that you ever experienced in your entire life.’

He took his hands off the door. Lynn immediately slammed it and locked it. He stood beside the Explorer, not saying anything more, but he lifted his finger and pointed it at her as if to say, you mark my words, lady, you’re going to remember this day for ever .