When she opened her eyes again, she looked right at me, but I could see that the person looking out from Leah’s face was not Leah at all. Something else had taken over, something wild and dangerous, something deadly and thirsty.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Panic began to rise inside me. I couldn’t let Leah kill her parents. The one thing I knew for sure was that I had to get Leah out of there before something terrible happened.
I had the element of surprise on my side when I bent and rammed my shoulder into Leah’s stomach. Reflexively, she let go of my arm and doubled-over on a grunt. When she did, I wrapped one arm around her legs and lifted, pitching her over my shoulder. I took her right hand in my left and had her fairly subdued in a fireman’s carry. Luckily, Leah was a lot smaller than me, so I was able to get her out of the house before she started to struggle too much.
Moving as quickly as I could, I rounded the garage and set Leah on her feet, pushing her up against the siding. “Leah! Get a hold of yourself. Those are your parents!”
Leah wasn’t even looking at me. She had turned her head toward the front of the house and her nose was wiggling again like she was sniffing.
I pulled my hand back and slapped her as hard as I could. “Stop that!”
Leah’s eyes met mine and, for an instant, there was murder in their depths. At least it wasn’t that animalistic hungry look, though. I considered that progress.
“Leah, please! Snap out of it,” I pled.
She closed her eyes as if she was concentrating, though she huffed and panted a little more. When she opened them again, I could see my Leah surfacing in the chocolate depths.
“Come on, let’s get you back to my house,” I said, putting my arm across her shoulders, a very pal-like gesture, but one meant to ensure that I had some control over her if she decided to bolt.
Leah said nothing. And, though she nodded in agreement, my anxiety was only marginally eased.
I decided that we’d have less chance of being seen if we traveled to my house using back yards instead of the sidewalk so Leah and I took off around the back of the house.
We darted behind fire pits and barbecues, decks and trees, anything that we could hide behind as we went. I’d never thought to be pleased that none of our neighbors had fences or pools, but today I was.
When we were two houses away, in Mr. Vanderpool’s yard, his dog, Bodie, leapt out of his doghouse and started barking. I started shushing him, trying to calm him, my concentration on his noise level rather than on Leah. That few-second lapse was a huge mistake.
She moved so quickly it was over before I really knew what happened. Bodie was lying on his side, behind his doghouse, whimpering quietly as Leah fed from his neck. I couldn’t see any of her face; it was buried deep in his fur. I was so appalled and so taken aback, I just stood there watching for the longest time before it occurred to me to try and stop her.
Finally, I jerked into action, grabbing Leah by her shoulders and pulling as hard as I could. Nothing would dislodge her from the dog’s throat, though. Her control was complete. “Leah,” I whispered, my voice a little shaky. “Leah, please stop. We’ve got to go.”
I could hear wet slopping sounds that made my stomach roll and saliva pour into my mouth. I liked dogs, but not that much.
“Leah, please.”
I tugged again and this time she released her hold on the dog. When she looked up at me, her face was covered in blood and blood spatter from her nose down. There were even a few specks dotting as far up as her forehead.
Her expression was strangely blank. I really don’t think she had any idea at that moment who I was. I think the only reason she stopped was because she was finished feeding.
I grabbed her arm and pulled. Mechanically, Leah got up and followed me.
By the time I got her home, Leah was coherent. And very upset. She ran straight into my bathroom and slammed the door behind her. I could hear her retching, but it didn’t sound as if anything was coming back up. I heard the water run and some splashing sounds. Finally, the door opened and one very subdued Leah emerged. Her face was shiny and clean, but her eyes were dull and burdened and a little teary.
She walked to the bed and perched on the edge, her shoulders slumped in dejection.
“I can’t believe I did that,” she said, her voice wavering. “I love animals, especially dogs.” Though her head was lowered as she picked at her fingernails nervously, I could see that her chin was trembling with suppressed emotion.
I sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder. “Leah, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s going to take time for you to learn how to control this, to manage it. I mean, it’s not like you set out to do it,” I said, hoping to encourage her. “Look at it this way, at least you didn’t hurt somebody, like your mom or dad. Or me.” I smiled then bumped her shoulder playfully. “Especially not me.” I saw her lips twitch in a weak smile and I took that as a good sign.
Leah fell back on the bed and pulled a pillow over her face. She lay like that for several minutes. I debated leaving her to herself for a while, but then she spoke. Her words were muffled by the pillow.
“What? I couldn’t understand you.”
Leah lifted the pillow just enough to clear her mouth so I could hear her. “I said, ‘Why don’t you smell like that’?”
“Like what?”
“Like that? They smelled so delicious, my parents. Even the dog smelled good,” she complained.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a chemistry thing.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. She flung the pillow off and sat up, her brows pulled together in a tight little frown. She bit her lip pensively. “You smell more…I don’t know. Maybe it’s less, less…fresh and juicy, like you’re not quite…I don’t know.” She watched me thoughtfully, unable to articulate what she was sensing.
“Alive?”
She mulled that word for a while, looking at me as if she was trying to see deep inside my cells. “Maybe, but how could that be?”
“It’s a long story,” I said vaguely.
“And we’ve got,” Leah looked down at her watch then back at me, “eight days until school’s back in. I’m all ears,” she declared, her smile a little stronger and more genuine. She needed a distraction from her worries and she saw one in hearing about my worries.
I deliberated for a moment. Having held my secrets so close for so long, the thought of confiding in someone felt strange. But then I realized that Leah had nearly as much going on as I did, only with more to lose. If there was anyone I could trust to keep my confidences at this point, it would undoubtedly be her. “I’ll tell you all about it after you call your parents. Deal?”