"Before Dawn"

Chapter 26: Ground Zero

Ground Zero. A super-creepy, old Victorian in the middle of nowhere. Dawn knew this was the style of house it was from the scary movies she's seen them in. The grounds are totally overgrown, and there's no telling what kind of critters—and creeping things for that matter—are rumbling through the brush. Her father, Cat, and Martha had never gotten into details, had always talked around Ground Zero in front of her. Now, she's here, seeing this place for the first time, and she's miles from home. She had to keep Cat's Celica on the ass of her father's van to keep up, to stay on course along the miles of winding roads.

Cat had managed to stay awake and identify key landmarks—a right at the fallen oak tree here, a left at the ravine there—and so on. He had had his seat reclined all the way back and on the brink of passing out, holding onto a strand of consciousness only to remind her of how much trouble she was in. He had played the role of DJ, selecting random songs to keep himself entertained and from passing out, afraid that Dawn would wreck his Celica, Dawn knew.

It's nearly midnight when they pull up at Ground Zero. Martha's dirty, white rust-bucket, Isuzu Rodeo—an SUV that had apparently stopped being manufactured a long time ago—was parked out front of the Victorian. Martha goes to work cleaning and stitching the gash on Cat's arm as soon as they get him inside and onto the dingy couch. She's stitching away with her one and only good eye under the limited lighting offered by the candlelight she'd set up. She's wearing a pair of glasses halfway down the bridge of her nose that look as though they'll slide right off. Dawn is sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and wonders how in the world can Martha even see what she's doing.

Bishop is pacing back and forth next to the seated, golden-eyed ghoul they'd snatched up to interrogate. He's fidgety, too. Even in the gloom twenty or so feet away, Dawn can see that look on his face—he's itching for whiskey. He so wanted a hit of the booze that Martha had made Cat guzzle down before sewing up his arm.

"That'll do it, Jimbo," Martha said, finishing with his arm, double-checking the bandages she's just applied.

Cat is too jacked up on whiskey and pain meds to give Martha a standing ovation. So, he just gives her an eyebrow raise, and half-ass thumbs up to let her know he'd heard her.

Martha gets up—mumbling something about having to lose weight—and moves over to a beat-up recliner with ripped vinyl, and sits down. She's just out of reach of candlelight, and is ghostly image staring at Dawn from the shadows. "Okay," Martha said. "Stand up and tell us everything from the very beginning, child."

Bishop stops pacing, and listens in.

Dawn stands up, the caked-on dirt shifting in her pores as she moves. She's got crazy butterflies in her stomach. She's glad it's kind of dark inside the Victorian. Martha, her father, and certainly not Cat, can see her shaking. She swears she hears Cat whisper to her that she's in soooooo much trouble in between his snores.

She takes a deep breath, and takes it from the top, noticing the embarrassing quaking in her voice that she's desperately trying to hide. She tells Martha about why she took off in her father's van to Buckroe Beach to look for Wesley Price who is now a ghoul, and how—in hindsight—she had subconsciously suspected that something wasn't right about the disappearance from his house. She tells Martha how she, too, had had some kind of intuition about the connection between Wesley and Beaumont "Mac" Reynolds's hospital escape—and their social connection, too. She tells Martha about Wesley Price's mention of The Master which draws an exasperated, concerned sigh from the True Believer. Dawn does her absolute best to justify her actions, sounding ridiculous to her own ears.