“So a bunch of people take off and one guy rants about vampires. I assume there were other details that make you think it’s connected to what we encountered?”
“Just the location,” Ricky said. “He lives near where the salamanders were catalogued.”
“Salamanders?”
“There is this book I found. I guess it’s more of a diary,” Ricky said. He began to explain.
# # #
“Okay, so you think that somehow the salamanders eventually evolved into…”
“Or infected, more likely.”
“Okay, infected a person or people and they inherited some of the qualities.”
“Yeah,” Ricky said. “Imagine that the salamanders weren’t a separate species or anything, but they were infected by something themselves. Maybe that infection found a way to jump to people. It could be the same way that a strain of flu starts with birds and then mutates until it can work on a different species. I suppose it might be like that and it made its way to people in the area and eventually took over this community.”
“Huh,” Alan said. “I don’t think that really fits with my understanding.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because of the similarities that I noted with—you know—other things. I thought maybe that they were an offshoot or related in some way. I definitely wasn’t thinking of it as an infection,” Alan said.
“It fits though, right? A person transforms after they’re bitten. It definitely appeared as though it was a disease that was transmitted through bites, like rabies or whatever.”
“True.”
“Maybe the things that you…”
“Careful,” Alan said. They were still way too close to where he lived for him to be comfortable talking about the creatures that had attacked him.
“Maybe they are related but their origin is somehow similar to these lizard vampire things.”
“I suppose.”
“Could be something in the air or in the water.”
“Yeah,” Alan said slowly.
“Anyway, one of the reasons that I’m curious is because this guy has lived, like, forty years since his attack and he has really definite ideas about it not being safe for him to leave his property. Assuming he’s right about that…”
“Big assumption.”
“Sure, but he must be doing something right, right?”
“I guess,” Alan said. “If it’s even related and he’s not crazy.”
“Exactly. So that’s the first thing to figure out. Without describing any of what we saw, I want to get him talking on the subject and see if any of the details align. We can’t reveal anything though because if he’s crazy he might just latch onto what we say and parrot it back to us. That’s one of the ways that people drag you into their stories. They pick our your details and repeat them back.”
“Ah. So how are you going to work this?”
“I guess I’ll talk about the disappearance. People we lost at the wedding are still listed as missing. If he keeps up on the news, maybe he has heard about those cases and we ask if he sees any similarity to what he experienced. That could open the door.”
Alan watched the passing terrain and tried to imagine how that conversation might go. They might only have one chance to establish credibility with the man and if Ricky went fishing around for the guy’s story, it could make him wary to talk.
“I don’t know,” Alan said eventually.
“About?”
“Well, think about this guy having the story for forty years, like you said. When was the last time he talked publicly?”
“He was interviewed a couple of times in the late seventies and early eighties. There was the initial news, then a year later some of the families hired an investigator. He talked to them. And the final straw, I think, was a group that was investigating UFOs and abductions and stuff. They published their interview with Romeo and at the end he kicked them out. As far as I know, that was the last time he talked publicly.”
“But privately?”
“His brother-in-law used to be a deputy. That’s one of the people I talked to.”
“So, someone he trusts.”
“Yeah,” Ricky said.
“I imagine that after all this time he is pretty guarded about what he says,” Alan said. “I bet you won’t get anything out of him unless you offer something first. Put yourself out there, open for ridicule, and he might feel comfortable enough to share.”
“Like I said though, I don’t want to tell him the details of what we saw because then we won’t know if he has any actual information.”
“Hold something back and let him fill it in.”
“Like how they’re allergic to light?”
“No,” Alan said. “Can’t be something big like that. We already know he has referred to them as vampires, so of course they would be allergic to light.”
“How they have to count seeds?”
Alan shook his head. “Too common. I’ve read about that in three or four sources since the wedding.”
They said it at the same time.
“Tapping.”
“Yes,” Alan said. “Tell him everything except the tapping and how they use it. Then we can ask him if they were able to open any locked doors or if he thought they were telekinetic or whatever.”
“Okay,” Ricky said. “Good.”
“And if he doesn’t seem crazy but he’s reluctant to talk, one of us should side with him and one of us should be more antagonistic.”
“Like ‘good cop, bad cop’?”
“Yes, almost, but not so contrived. More like alignments than anything else. One agrees and one disagrees,” Alan said.
“You’ll have to give me an example.”
# # #
The driveway passed under a stone arch. Alan leaned forward to look at it as they drove under it.
“Are you sure this is it?” Alan asked.
“The address on the mailbox was right and we’re supposed to see a big gray house up on… There it is.”
Ricky pointed through the windshield as the driveway emerged from the trees. The hill swept up to an enormous house. The lawn was covered by a thick blanket of snow. As the car climbed up the hill, the view opened up in every direction around them.
“I was picturing a cabin in the woods,” Alan said.
Ricky shrugged.
“He’s expecting us?”
“No.”
The driveway was plowed up to the garage and there was a space to the
