Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels by D.J. Goodman Page B

sound to anyone who had never done
it, the things she could do with that case were more seductive than
drugs. She’d even tried cocaine on a couple of occasions, but coke
hadn’t done anything to calm the demons in her brain. This was
different. This was better. And yet, this was almost more frowned
upon.
    Tony would know. It would be impossible to
hide this. She would crawl into bed with him later and he would
see. He would get upset. He might even scream at her, although
knowing him she thought it more likely that he would cry. He
wouldn’t be able to trust her with herself again, just like in the
old days before they’d been married. She didn’t want that. But
wants had nothing to do with this. It was all about a need that no
one else understood. And if she had to call her mother, then that
need had to be fulfilled.
    Peg took out her Bluetooth headset, put it on
her ear, and then went into the contacts on her phone. Anita
Sellnow’s number was filed under “B.” Every so often she would get
it in her head that she would finally delete the woman’s number.
She didn’t have it written anywhere else, partially in the hope
that something might happen to her phone and the number would be
lost forever. But she could never make herself get rid of the
number completely. She didn’t know why. It would have been a sweet
relief. Maybe Peg didn’t think she actually deserved that
relief.
    After too many more seconds of hesitation she
finally hit the call button. The phone began to ring.
    Please don’t pick up. Please don’t pick
up. See that it’s me and don’t pick up. Please please
please .
    One ring. Two rings. Three.
    Go to voicemail. If it goes to voicemail
I’ll hang up before I have to speak and then I’ll just say I tried.
I won’t have to try again .
    Fourth ring. Click .
    Silence from the other end.
    Hang up, Peg , she thought. It was a
pocket dial. You didn’t mean to call her. It was an accident. Hang
up .
    Another moment of silence. And then-
    “Peggy?”
    “Hi mom,” Peg said. She closed her eyes.
Blindly she groped for the black case on the table. It was a faux
leather travelling case for toiletries, something she’d picked up
for cheap at Walmart. She hadn’t opened it in years, but she’d
stowed it because she knew the day would come again when she had to
have it. She undid the zipper.
    Don’t make me pull anything out of it,
mommy. Please don’t .
    “Peg,” she said again. Peg wanted to pretend
that she heard some kind of pleasant surprise in her voice, but she
didn’t. “What do you want?”
    Peg opened her eyes, reached into the case,
and pulled out a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
    “Maybe I just wanted to call to talk.”
    “You never call me and I never call you, so
just tell me what you want.”
    She could tell her mother that Zoey was
alive. She’d want to know. She’d be ecstatic. The woman might even
physically leap for joy, or break down crying, or scream to God
above that she was so happy and grateful.
    Peg didn’t feel inclined to give her mother
that. Instead she pulled a lighter and some gauze from the
case.
    “I called because…” She almost said that she
had called because she wanted to say she was sorry. It was always
her first instinct every time she heard Anita’s voice. But she’d
apologized over and over again in the past, sometimes for things
that had actually been her fault and sometimes for things that had
not. Anita never gave her anything for her apologies other than a
grunt or a cold stare. “…I’ve been thinking about Zoey a lot
lately.”
    “Well praise the Lord and pass the ketchup.
What a wonderful day this is. Peggy Sellnow has been thinking about
someone other than herself for a change.”
    Uttech , she thought. It’s Peg
Uttech, mom .
    She reached in and grabbed the last item in
the case: a small box of single edge razor blades. She’d opened and
used them once. Otherwise they had been sitting in the hidey hole
for years.
    “Mom, I