The Vampiric Housewife Read Free Page A

time he looked forward to his trips, now he dreaded them fearing that one of these days, he might not be able to drag himself back into his cage in Sangre Valley.
         In his cramped, windowless office Charlie traded his jacket for a white lab coat. On his desk sat a black and white picture of Valerie at age seventeen when Dr. Venjamin first introduced him to her. She looked almost identical to the woman she was now, just a little less sure of herself, a little shy maybe. God, how he loved her.
         Next to Valerie’s black and white photo, sat one of his wife with their three wonderful children, all smiling up at him. John, just a year younger than he was now, in his red and white letterman jacket. He swore the boy slept in it. But Charlie loved that letterman jacket just as much as his son. He had never been a jock. To the contrary, he had always hated and envied boys like John, the ones that had it so easy . . . the sports, the grades, the popularity, the girls. John was everything Charlie had always wanted to be. He was everything Charlie was not. And that was a good thing.
         Then there was his darling Amelia, the apple of his eye. Beautiful. Smart as a whip. But more like he had been. A loner. Sensitive. But she didn’t cling to hate the way he had. She wasn’t consumed with anger either. She was lost but . . . not confused. She knew too much. That was her problem. At fifteen, he could already see that she would grow out of her awkwardness, and her confidence would ripen into the poise that her mother possessed. Yet, it was her future that worried him the most. What kind of life could a smart girl like her live in a town like Sangre Valley?
         Secretly, Charlie may have loved Harry the most. Harry was his son through and through even if physically his son barely resembled him. Mischievous with street smarts, though how he gained that type of knowledge in pristine little Sangre Valley, Charlie didn’t know. But the boy knew how to take care of himself. Just like his old man. But what really got him, what really made him love Harry was his bloodlust. Finally someone else who was sick of cold blood out of plastic pouches and animal meat. Someone who couldn’t just leave or take blood, but someone who craved it, dreamed about it, would kill for it. It made Valerie worry that he wasn’t a normal little boy. But it made Charlie feel like he, himself, was normal.
         But he shouldn’t have been thinking about his family. He had a stack of research sitting on his desk, photos, stats, medical reports, observations. It was the Romanian Project, the project that Charlie was responsible for. He was supposed to have a report of his subjects on Dr. Venjamin’s desk by the end of the day. Charlie had invested seventeen years into this project. They were more than just . . . some kind of lab rats to him. He had never really seen them as subjects to be honest. He wasn’t a scientific man. Never had been. But now he couldn’t bear to have other people view them that way. So how was he supposed to type up a cold summary of the last month? About how much food they consumed, how much rest they got, or the frequency of their bowel movements.
         Charlie never really believed he had a conscience before. He was like Rhett down the hall. Cold. Selfish. Callous. And free. He had done a lot of damage in his life and never cared. But now . . . he had things—people—to care about, perhaps for the first time. He did not want to damage that which meant he didn’t know how much longer he could work both sides of the game. Lie to his boss. Lie to his family. It was wearing him thin. Destroying his sanity. For the first time in his life, he knew guilt. He did not like its foul taste.
         He heard a knock and looked up to see the kindly faced Dr. Venjamin standing in the doorway with a smile. It worried Charlie that he had gotten so accustomed to living with beating hearts that he hadn’t heard