Primal Promise

Twenty-Seven

Jameson was beside Blaine as the group exited the wood at the far end of Diamond Lake. The closer they'd gotten to the lake, the worse the mood had seemed to grow. The sky was that soft pinkish gold of dawn but there was an electricity in it, a tension that none of them could shake.

The moment they exited the woods and entered the more civilized trails around the water, the wind shifted and a smell touched their noses.  It was rust and pain.  Blood.  Too much to be anything good.   

As one they moved.   None pausing to question as they raced toward the cabin. Those who had been human the whole of the night were left stronger in the dawn hours, so Blaine and Jameson were neck and neck the whole way,  Andrew not far behind.

They saw.   The broken glass, the darkened house, the wrong in everything.  Spurred on with a panicked surge of energy.  As they leaped up onto the deck, fear sank through them and chilled them to the core.   This was very, very bad. 

"Jaris!" Blaine ran through the house in wild desperation, calling her name as he cast his eyes into every room.  Rushing down the hall until he reached the broken door. "Oh my God!"  He fell back, his hands over his mouth in shock. 

Jameson was right behind him. The scene would forever be burned into his memory. The curtain was on the floor, the edge of it soaking up the wide blood pool that spread from the body in the corner. 

 Herb's face, half tore away over the gaping hole in his neck and chest, was spattered as were the walls all around him. The closet door had been cracked in the middle and bent inward. It and the wall beside it were crisscrossed with streaks and dripping lines of cast-off crimson.  

The sound of the others coming through the house stirred Blaine from his stupor and he threw himself past Jameson to move toward the last door, the one ajar. He pushed it open and fell with a wild, desperate cry of utter misery.    

Jameson tore himself from the horror in the front bedroom and followed.  Inside, Blaine's collapsed frame was bent over a large puddle of blood.  Sobbing, he screamed into his hands, his back convulsing with the force of his mourning.  

 Jameson quickly took in the beds' state.  Mattresses were pulled askew, blankets and sheets ripped and hanging off,  the window open, curtain on the floor, the rod hanging at a sad angle.  And the blood.  It was too much to have hope that the one who had shed it had survived.  His heart broke as he tried to find some answer to this.   He was not prepared for such horrors. 

A soft thump sounded and the bi-fold door of the closet opened just an inch. Blaine dove toward it and jerked it open, prepared to attack as the limp form of Max tumbled out onto the floor at his feet.  He was bound hand and foot in duct tape, his mouth also covered.  His face was pale and sweat-damp, his little head lolling limply as his father scooped him up.

"Max... Max, oh God." Blaine peeled the tape away from his mouth slow and gentle. The boy was breathing, just unconscious. "Okay.. you're okay, son. You're okay." A mantra more to himself than even to the boy as he petted his hand over the boy's head.

"Jameson..." Jacqueline spoke from behind him, her voice strained. "You are needed."

Jameson put his hand on Blaine's shoulder, squeezing and, when the man looked up, motioned toward the front of the house.  "Take him outside.  Fresh air."  A nod from the man, and he rose and hurried out.   Jameson followed down the hall, intentionally keeping his face forward as he passed the broken bedroom door. Mourning would happen later. Now, he needed to find out what had happened.

It was not a difficult thing to figure out.  Someone had thrown a cinder block through the wall of windows. There had been gunshots, judging by the spent rounds on the floor between the kitchen and the living room.   There were spatters of blood near the broken windows and it was more than likely many of those bullets had found their targets.