Vampire Hunter: Corey Crowgarden's guide to killing vampires for fun and profit.

Lesson 6 Part 4

A mid afternoon sun lounged in the western sky. Kids roamed the street in packs hurrying home from school. Carrie pulled the car into the driveway behind Patty's. It had sat there for a few hours, pasted with colourful autumn leaves.
"Are you ready for this?" Corey asked. If he was being honest, he would tell you that the question was as much for himself as it was for Carrie.
"Sure, what's the big deal?" She asked but didn't wait for a reply. Her driver side door creaked open and there was the sudden amplification of the kids yelling to each other and the school buses rumbling down the street. Her door slammed shut.
Corey picked up the bouquet that had rested at his feet. "It's go time," he said to himself and opened the passenger door.
Carrie had her house key in the door and it opened easily enough. Corey looked over the chain link fence to see if Monty was attached to the leash that was connected to the small dog house.
The dog was sleeping in the shade of the maple tree that had already dumped a fair bit of its leaves into the backyard.
Carrie and Corey went through the back door.
"Patty!" Called Carrie, as she climbed up the back stairs.
"Quiet, please," Patty said in a librarian tone, part whisper, part hiss. She must have been in the kitchen that was just at the top of the stairs, appearing quickly wearing an old blue dress and thick white apron. She stopped suddenly. Corey guessed that she had expected to see Carrie, a pleasant surprise spoiled with her recognition of Corey, despite his most charming smile and bouquet of flowers.
"You!?" She said, with a crack to her librarial tone.
"Nice to see you too," Corey said with a forced smile, technically more of a gritting of his teeth. Carrie looked back at him with a "play nice" pout and he doubled his effort to remain cordial.
He climbed up the short set of stairs that lead to the kitchen and shouldered his way past Patty to retrieve a vase for the bouquet.
"You aren't supposed to be here!" Patty said, her voice getting a bit louder.
"Why not?" Corey replied. He looked a little vexed, whether at his inability to find a vase in the place they were supposed to be or at her remarks it was hard to tell. "My name is on the mortgage and property tax bills. If you look I'm fairly certain I still pay the phone bill too. If you were to call the police, like you are thinking of doing, this address is on my drivers license. Is it on yours?"
"Dad," Carrie said cautiously, "we didn't come her for a fight." She was at the top of the stairs now, behind Patty who had taken up a position behind Corey with her hands on her hips and eyes glowering, burning a hole in the back of his head.
"No, you're right, we didn't," Corey agreed, although he had known that was likely what he was going to get. "Patty, dear, could you put the flowers in a vase please. They seem to have moved since the last time I was here," Corey said, with a small but irreverent smirk that made Patty even angrier. 'I'm such a prick,' he thought but that only tempered his smirk to widen. Patty moved past him and opened a different cupboard, one that used to hold spices and took out a small, glass vase. She needed to stand on her tip toes to get it down from the middle shelf.
Corey went through the dining room, noticing the condition of the solid cedar table that had been a wedding gift from Karen's parents. He missed them quite a bit, although he was never sure how they felt about him. Carrie was on his heels.
"HEY!" Patty yelled.
Corey brought his finger to his lips. "Shhh..." Corey said, "put some water in the vase."
They went down the hallway Corey leading the way. He glanced at the photographs framed along the hallway. Photos of baby Crystal and Carrie brightened the hallway with pictures of Corey and Karen on their wedding day.
So much time had passed.
They stopped at the bedroom door. "Ready?" Corey asked and Carrie answered with a shrug.
Corey moved to the windows that faced towards the east beyond the blinds made of thick, black out fabric. He sat at the foot of the bed and turned to look at his inert wife. His youngest daughter sat on the other side near the head of the bed next to   her motionless mother.
Carrie pressed her finger on Karen's cold flesh searching for any sense of a pulse. Carrie's brow knitted with concern as she searched for a pulse. Tears started to streak down Carrie's cheeks and her hands shook. Corey stood up, walked around the bed and embraced his child. Her head sunk into his shoulder and he could hear her gasp for breath as she wept.
"Take a minute," Corey said, thinking back to a hospital bed. They had called the room "the launching pad". No one recovers from this room. His mother was hooked up to a machine that assisted her breathing, which got progressively more difficult as her lungs filled with fluid, until that night, at about three in the morning, she drowned in her own fluids. He remembered what that had felt like. Maybe it was different for daughters, he sincerely hoped so. "You're going to have to pull yourself together. We'll wait until dark to see if she is what I think she is."
He couldn't even bring himself to say it.
They could hear Patty coming down the hallway, the soles of her shoes on the hardwood floor. Carrie stood up and wiped away her tears. Corey left the room and met Patty in the hallway, buying Carrie a little more time to compose herself.
Patty's diminutive frame was in the middle of the hallway, her shoulders at the bottom of the picture frame, the baby photos of Crystal smiling at the side of Patty's head.
"Patty," Corey said, "I owe you an apology. You are right, we shouldn't just barge in like this. You have done a great job taking care of her and I'm sorry for being so disrespectful earlier." See, I can be a real F'ing charmer if I want.
"I was just worried about you disrupting her sleep, that's all," Patty replied. Corey wasn't buying an ounce of it.
"We can wait in the living room," Carrie said, emerging from the bedroom into the hall.
"I'll make some tea," Corey said. "If the tea bags are in the same place."