Race for the Blood

By Sheila Jecks

Carmen Ballenger sat on an old kitchen stool in the basement of her house in Chance and waited.
She set spells in motion while she was in prison and now it was time to harvest the blood. The right kind of lifeblood for beauty was very hard to find. But it was available again and she meant to have it all.
No mistakes this time.
She kept her eye on the water bag, it had bizarre symbols and evil cantos burned onto the leather. It looked ancient...and frightening.
Like it knew what was going on.
Kellie also tried to keep her eyes on it, but Carmen just smiled, the little blood it contained belonged to her and only she knew its secrets.
The water bag seemed to be about a third full, and Carmen looked at it with longing eyes.
Her daughter Kellie also sat on a small stool and worried the hem of her short black skirt. She was in trouble and she knew it. She hadn’t meant to let Bert understand what was going on yesterday. When Carmen told her to go back to Bert again she didn’t want to. But Carmen wanted to know how much the law knew. She did all the right things, and Bert was glad to take her back, but she got carried away with anticipation and her concentration slipped and next day he realized what was happening.
Without the blood Carmen provided in the past, Kellie’s appearance was deteriorating. She tried to make the formula herself while Carmen was incarcerated. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the right kind of blood or the proper proportions. It was always wrong. So, although it kept her alive, it couldn’t keep her young. She didn’t have the glow of youth she had five years ago.
She used to have the right amount of bulging in the bra to catch any male eye that was wandering. It served her well in the past, but now the bulges were sagging, and it didn‘t look good anymore.
Her mother was not looking so attractive either. Her appearance had deteriorated and she was old now. Gone were the rosy cheeks, bright eyes and thick curly black hair. Her body aged significantly in the past five years. She also anticipated her drink, to the point she was salivating and it was dribbling down the side of her chin.
A small sound came from the dark corner by the old furnace, four eyes turned to look at the figure laying on the floor.
Mike McKay opened his eyes. His blond hair looked greasy, dirt smudged his cheek and side. His arms, tied behind his back, were stinging and pinging from lack of circulation and his neck hurt as his head was tilted awkwardly.
Now everything came back to him. The phone call on his cell phone telling him to go to the old Ballenger place. He figured something was wrong, there were no lights on in the old house.
He remembered going inside and starting up the stairs because he spotted a small light in one of the back bedrooms on the second floor. He reached the landing for the upstairs steps and looked into the mirror on the hall wall in time to see a figure with a frying pan behind him.
Obviously he hadn’t been fast enough to avoid the hit on his head.
Now he looked around and saw the two women sitting around a lit candle on the other side of the basement.
He tried to call to them but the tape on his mouth just let sounds escape. He tried to move his head to attract their attention, but they ignored him.
Who were these two old women?
He looked, but in the dim glow of the candle they didn’t look familiar and he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t look at him. He kept wiggling around trying to ease the pins and needles, at least his arms would feel better if he was lying on his front.
When the women finally looked at him they looked at each other and both of them got up and came and stood over him.
Scared the shit out of him!
They each grabbed an arm and pulled him up and sat him against the wall. That felt much better.
Why were they doing this?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheila Jecks
• Release date: Jun 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311302465

Sheila Jecks

Sheila Jecks is a compulsive writer who specializes in stories that are weird, odd and a little off. The unusual has always intrigued her and found its way into her writing. Her other interests are genealogy, old graveyards and stories told by the pioneers who opened up Canada.

Book preview

Preface

Psst, you two, look over here! she hissed, and was finally able to grab Sonny by the arm. They were startled, but stopped and spoke in their normal voice. What’re you doing out here, Livy?

Hush, don’t talk so loud, the bad guys got lose, and they’re in the building holding the sheriff and Sara and Mike with a knife. I don’t think they found the big gun I haven’t seen it anywhere, but they’ve got Sara in a cage and are shoving the other two into cages too. I don’t think good things are going to happen to Sara, those guys have bad shit in mind.

I’ve got to lie down for a moment, said Sonny, I don’t feel good. With those words he crumpled to the ground.

Joe and Livy looked at him with open mouths. Who just falls over?

Almost as soon as Sonny hit the ground, he was back up, but there was something different about him. He looked more confident, more in control, what changed?

Alright you two, we have to get under cover before we’re seen. said the mailman. He’d not been out in quite a while. Sonny was doing fine, there was no need for his alter ego to appear.

Sonny, you O.K.? said Livy, eyeing him up and down.

Yes, there was definitely a change about him. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but he was different!

Sure am, sugar, we’ll get those two smugglers out of the building and deal with them one by one. I think we need some bait, you know, a reason for them to come out. How about you go and call to the sheriff as though you don’t know what’s going on and tell him you found the break in the phone line and he should come and help.

CHAPTER 1

Bert, where the hell are you? called the irritated sheriff, but deputy Bert Dempsey wasn’t there. He was still having his coffee break at the Breakfast Mug cafe.

Still not accepting his deputy was absent from duty, he got up from his office desk and checked the back room (aka) the ‘Holding Cell’ to see if his wayward second-in-command was having a little lie down after his morning coffee break.

Sheriff Cam Grant swore softly as he went back to his desk. He hated to nag at Bert, but something had to be done.

He can’t keep doing this. He has to snap out of it, it’s been five years since Kellie left, he thought, he’s just wallowing in self pity, it’s past time to move on.

CHAPTER 2

Bert was eating again, even though he finished his official ‘coffee break’, he still sat and tried to make his break last longer. He was lonely.

He took his comfort where he found it these days, and more and more he found it at the counter of the local cafe.

As the only deputy in the seaside town of Chance, Oregon, he was entitled to two coffee breaks, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon.

He always took both.

Bert Dempsey was alone, not divorced, just alone.

His wife Kellie, turned out to be Carmen Ballenger’s daughter. She was the witch that terrorized the town five years earlier when she was trying to drain the blood out of one of the town’s local girls.

The sheriff managed to arrest her and although the law didn’t have a specific charge for ‘witchcraft’ anymore, it did have comprehensive ones for the murder of several boys.

It was over a year before she came to trial and the judge sentenced her to life in prison for the death of two teenage boys.

CHAPTER 3

Sheriff Grant looked out over the roiling ocean and saw the black storm clouds hovering over the horizon. The irritated lightening was poking annoying holes in the ocean.

Putting the absent Bert out of his mind for now, he picked up his iPhone and called the Oregon Weather Service again.

He’d tried earlier but it was busy. Looked like they were going to have an interesting day. Interesting meaning, ‘something screwy’ was going on, they didn’t get weather like this at this time of year, but he hoped he was wrong.

Hi Jim, Sheriff Cam Grant here from over in Chance, I was just calling to find out when you were going to start broadcasting the storm warnings, and what kind of prep did the guys at the National Weather Service advise? How bad did they say it’s going to be?

Hi Cam, we’ve got all sorts of warnings coming in now. They’ll be on the radio at 15 minute intervals starting at 12:00 noon. The TV Station is going to broadcast every 15 minutes too, or until it goes off air. It’s going to be a big one, high winds starting today, Monday, April 10, with high water and big rain kicking in just after midnight tonight. Make sure you get those folks along Dune Crescent to hunker down or head inland. There’re really exposed out there on the spit. Make sure the store fronts in Chance are boarded up too. Tell everyone to stay indoors, this is going to be huge.

Thanks for the info, Jim, I’ll get right on it. Going to start blowing today, that’s Monday with the rain coming tonight you say? O.K. got it. Thanks for the info. Got to get going... lots of things still to do.

CHAPTER 4

The little town of Chance was hunkering down and getting ready for the year’s worst storm. It was known for its fine clean ocean beaches, friendly citizens and a few years ago, a crazy witch that wanted to drink the blood of teenage boys and girls.

But that was over now, people didn’t talk about it anymore. Who knew, Carmen Ballenger, the owner of the best eatery in town was a ‘real live’ witch? But she was caught by the local sheriff five years ago.

And that was almost the end of that!

CHAPTER 5

After a lengthy year long trial Carmen Ballenger a.k.a. the witch, was sentenced to life in prison for the death of two young men, and the attempted murder of Sara McKinney.

The prison yard at the Oregon State Correctional Institution (OSCI) allowed Freda Gowolski AKA Carmen Ballenger to move freely among the women inmates. Although the time spent in the yard was strictly monitored, what they did was not.

Carmen made her self ‘comfortable’. She spent a lot of time off in a corner talking to herself, and waving her hands around. The other women inmates thought she was crazy, but they all wanted to be her friend. A lot of privileges and new perks came to her friends.

Four years after her conviction, Carmen was able to convince the sentencing judge that she was just a pawn in the hands of a young man she befriended.

Even though it was highly unusual, she got a meeting with him in his chambers. The staff couldn’t believe he agreed to a private hearing without even his secretary present.

Carmen told the judge the young man that disappeared when she was captured, had a paranormal hold on her, and she was unable to do anything without his consent, it was he who was able to control people. So, she really didn’t deserve such a harsh sentence in a maximum security facility. She made him believe she was sorry and should be able to live out her life in peace and quiet in a medium facility of her choice.

She looked at him, and he was unable to look away. Her hands were weaving back and forth and she was whispering to him. Unaware of time passing, he finally looked at the clock on his desk and couldn’t believe so much time had elapsed.

He called his secretary who called the guard and told them the prisoner was ready to go back. Carmen stood up and went meekly.

The judges secretary was stunned at the changes in the court documents, but when she asked him about them, he flew into a rage and told her to do her job, and he would do his. Her place was not to question or second guess him, it was to do as she was told.

The next day when the press asked him why he was so lenient with this serial killer, he blustered and stammered and told them to quit harassing him and go find some crooked judge to pick on.

This was not like him at all.

Carmen had the facility she want to go to all picked out; she was fussy, it had to have certain specific qualifications.

She was moved from the State Correctional Institution to the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF) in Oregon within the month and was allowed the ‘freedom’ of the prison’.

No one ever had that kind of perk at this facility before. In the beginning, some inmates complained and said they were there longer and should have the same privileges, but oddly, they stopped asking soon after and no one ever asked again.

She established herself in the prison community, and began to lay her plans for escape.

One thing Carmen had learned over many years was, the simple way was always best. The groundwork was done, but she had to wait for the right time and she wasn’t impatient.

Time passed.

Five years later to the day of her sentencing, a new group of prisoners was due Monday, April 3rd. Maybe this time luck would come Carmen’s way.

Of course, ‘luck,’ had nothing to do with it.

She needed a little ’drinky’. Not just any blood would do, it had to be the right kind and it had to come to her.

Three days after her arrival at the correctional facility one unsuspecting young woman, befriended by an older inmate suffered a horrific accident. The facilities hospital staff didn’t care that the girls body was absolutely dry; completely drained of blood. And it didn’t matter to the authorities of the Correctional Facility either.

Prison life continued as before.

Carmen, satisfied now, moved on.

CHAPTER 6

It was an early spring morning, and Sonny the young man Carmen lied about at her trial and blamed all her troubles on, sat in the taxi line up at the San Francisco International Airport in California. His thoughts turned to the coming despised date, and realized it was almost five years to the day that he came to live in Daly City.

As he sat and waited, he was getting agitated, and didn’t know why.

The last time he felt this bottomless dread was the day Carmen Ballenger the witch stole him away from his mother when he was twelve. The years he spent with her were the worst of his entire young life.

When she was arrested and they looked for him as an accomplice, he managed to slip away, he was very good at blending into the background and disappearing. He had to do what she told him, but he was never happy about it.

When he was finally free of her, he vowed he’d never, ever go back!

At the time he didn’t know where to go that she wouldn’t find him, but he thought the more miles between them the better. He travelled down Coast Highway #1 as fast as he could hitchhike, one day when his money was almost gone, he found himself just outside San Francisco, in Daly City.

When he first came there after the ill fated debacle in Chance, Oregon, he had hours that he couldn’t account for, sometimes even whole days, but that almost didn’t happen anymore.

He worked hard at forgetting the right things.

When he thought about it now, he wasn’t sure how he survived those first months, no money coming in, no one to turn to. But when he was really in trouble, he would wake up and find the money in his pocket or in his wallet.

He got a job as dishwasher in a tavern on State Street and life fell into a quiet pattern. Eventually he decided Carmen couldn’t find him and he ventured out and made a new basketball friend at the War Memorial Center in Daly City on Mission Street who drove taxi part time. When he couldn’t take a shift, Sonny subbed for him and discovered he had a knack for streets and addresses.

Then he knew what he wanted to do with his life. All he had to do was get enough money together to buy a cab when one became available, and pass the License Test.

Sonny was smart, the License Test was no problem, the money was.

Now that he looked back, it was such luck that an old Aunt he didn’t remember sent him a cashiers check for the exact amount of the taxi and the Official Seal. At first Sonny wasn't sure what an Official Seal was, or where to get one, but the other drivers liked him and explained how it all worked.

He was the youngest man in the fleet and the other older men were proud of him. They encouraged him, and although they didn't help every new driver, they all looked out for Sonny.

It was during that time that he had some long days he couldn’t recall. Sometimes it bothered him that there were holes in his memory, but since it hadn’t happened lately he was beginning to forget about them.

At night when he wasn’t working he would wonder how the aunt knew he needed the money, and where he was or where to send it? In the beginning, he thought he should send a thank you note or something; it was a lot of money from someone he couldn’t remember. But then he got to thinking, and rationalized that she probably wouldn’t want to be bothered with a sloppy thank you card, and it would be better if he just let it go. He would show he was grateful by working hard and being a good driver.

He loved that the customers wanted to talk to him, he never tired of hearing their vacation stories or lending a sympathetic ear when they needed to let off a bit of steam. Who better to listen and not judge than the taxi driver they’d never see again.

Sonny was happy with his life; he didn’t want anything to change.

It was a long process getting his ‘Official Seal’, especially because it came from the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation, but he knew he would never be able to work on the right side of the law if he didn’t have one. He even had to join the United Independent Taxi Drivers (UITD) as an owner operator. It was a lot of paper work and money, but worth the effort. He knew this was where he belonged.

So, what was with all this anxiety all of a sudden today, on April 10. There was nothing in his life that should cause him this kind of angst.

Minute by minute it was building, and now he couldn’t stand it, he put the taxi in gear and pulled out of the cab line even though he didn’t have a fare and sped down the road out of the airport and headed to the I 80 Freeway. He had to get away, but he didn’t know where? He went north and finally came to the I 5 expressway and began to drive in earnest.

Seems he was headed to Oregon.

CHAPTER 7

Finally home in Chance, Oregon, Mike McKay was on summer vacation from the University of Alberta in Canada. Mike loved the school he was going to, it was the best Agriculture faculty he could find.

There was no ocean in Alberta, just lakes and rivers and grasslands as far as the eye could see. He missed the white caps on the ocean waves, the clear salt air; he even missed the sand. He also missed his mom and dad, but he vowed he would never tell them that, his mom would guilt him into staying home and he’d never get his certificate in Animal Management.

Mike, you’re home at last, I thought April would never come, said his mother after giving him a big bear hug and a kiss on the cheek. Your dad and I have missed you so much. Sit down, I’ll get you some lemon pie, said Judy McKay to her son who just walked in the door.

He also missed someone special. He couldn’t wait to find out if she missed him that way too.

Sara McKinney, whose parents were dead had no where to go after being rescued from Carmen the witch who wanted to drain all Sara’s blood into an ancient leather water bag. Thank goodness Sheriff Grant rescued her from the evil old woman.

Since the McKays took Sara in, she finished high school and was into her second year of college. She wanted to pay her own way as much as possible, so she worked weekends in winter and full time in the summer months for Henry at the Breakfast Mug.

Even though she didn’t have to pay the tuition and she was able to live at home, she still needed clothes and spending money for school activities, she didn’t want to have the McKay’s pay for everything. So she was happy to work for Henry.

Besides, she was a grown up woman (almost) now, and her taste in clothing and make-up changed since Mike saw her at Christmas and she was anxious to see if the improvements had the right effect.

Hi there son, said Joe McKay as he came in from the barn in his old blue coveralls. Joe was still a strong, silent farmer at heart. A few years ago he was a big man with a large dairy herd. But now he was a Gentleman Farmer with two cows. It left time for he and Judy to do some other things that always interested them.

Glad to see you home son, we missed you, said his dad giving him a warm manly hug. When you’ve finished here, come out to the barn and I’ll show you what the stork brought us.

Joe knew his son was interested in every aspect of the farm and wanted to expand the dairy herd again when he finished school. He couldn’t wait to show him the latest addition to their tiny herd, a healthy White Face heifer, two days old.

By the way, son, there’s someone working at the Breakfast Mug that can’t wait to see you either. Take the Hummer after you’ve eaten and check it out, said Joe as he walked over to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Sit down, Joe, said Judy, "I’ll get you the last piece of the lemon pie from last night. How is it Mike,