I don’t know how much time had passed before I realized the girl was having trouble breathing. “Don’t scream,” I said, then took my hand off her mouth. She sucked air like she’d been too long under water. I could smell the blood where her bare feet had been scraped and cut during her escape. She was thin and unkempt and stank of fear.
It didn’t make sense. Why would Calvin bother with bringing a girl back to his house? Was he holding people and siphoning their blood? Why would he complicate his life like that? I just couldn’t see it. That kind of blood farming was way too risky and way too much work. It was far simpler, cleaner and more efficient to go hunting. By the same logic, there was a simple and clean answer to the question of what I should do with this girl. She was a free meal. I could simply drink her blood and walk away, leaving the corpse for Calvin to dispose of.
That was my initial inclination. The minutes passed. The girl had dropped to her knees, no longer squirming. My grip on her wrist was all that stopped her from collapsing completely. I wanted there to be people who deserved to be taken off the menu. Was this girl, mewing in limp defeat, one of them? And if so, what distinguished her? I really had no idea, and the dilemma was maddening.
“Don’t scream,” I said again, then draped the girl over my shoulder like a sack of bones and started back to the road.
I called Karla and she met us a few minutes later where she’d dropped me off. The girl had been whimpering softly most of the way, but seemed to settle down when I put her in the front seat of the car. Karla’s jaw dropped when she saw the girl, but she didn’t waste any time getting practical. She cranked up the car’s heater, then took off her jacket and wrapped it around the girl’s shoulders.
“She’s fucking freezing, Shake! Give me your windbreaker.”
I did as I was told and Karla wrapped it around the girl’s feet. When she was satisfied with her ministrations, she asked, “Is this the missing girl?” apparently having jumped to the conclusion that I’d found the Arnauds’ niece.
I shook my head no, which seemed to disappoint her.
“Who is she, Shake?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? You just found her in the woods?”
“Why don’t we head back to Sacramento,” I said, wanting to put some distance between us and Calvin.
Karla turned back to the girl. “Are you okay, honey?” she asked, making an adjustment to the windbreaker. The girl smiled weakly and nodded. Karla put the car in gear and headed back toward the freeway.
I was wondering if the girl knew where she was, if she would be able to lead someone back to Calvin’s house. I leaned forward so I could see her. She was a lot smaller than Karla. Wrapped in the oversized jacket, she looked like a child. Her eyes were open but unfocused. “What’s your name?” I asked.
She blinked but didn’t look up at me when she spoke. “Joy.”
“Do you know where you are, Joy?”
Again, without raising her eyes, “No sir.”
I hadn’t caught it when she’d said her name, but there was enough accent in the “no sir” to place her from the south. “Where are you from, Joy?”
“Galveston, Texas.”
“How long have you been at that house?”
She finally raised her eyes and looked at me when she answered. “Two weeks maybe. I’m not sure. He was taking my blood.”
That got Karla’s attention. “What’s she talking about, Shake?” Then to the girl, “Who was taking your blood?”
I knew I was going to have to do some explaining to Karla, but I preferred not to do it in front of the girl. “Is that where you were, in Galveston, before someone brought you here?”
“Yes sir. I mean, no sir. I live in Galveston, but I was visiting San Francisco.”
“You have family in Texas?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you want to go back?” I asked.
“Yes sir,” she said, starting to cry, “I do.”
We rode in silence as far as Folsom where I had Karla exit the freeway and we found an all-night Rite Aid. The girl had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up until the car stopped. Yawning, she raised herself enough to look out the window. Apparently satisfied that she didn’t have the slightest idea where she was or why, she settled back down in the seat, curling up under Karla’s jacket.
While Karla was in the store, I puzzled over what to do with Joy. The airport wouldn’t work. Without ID, she wouldn’t be able to buy a ticket and security wouldn’t let her board a plane. I called Amtrak on my cell phone. There was only one train per day going south, and it had already passed through Sacramento. That meant she’d have to take the bus.
Karla came back with two bottles of water, paper towels, disinfectant, socks, a pair of cheap tennis shoes, two sweatshirts, and a couple of energy bars. I had Joy move to the back seat with me, and told Karla to take us to the L Street Greyhound depot in Sacramento. While the girl ate the two energy bars and finished off one of the bottles of water, I used the other bottle to clean and disinfect the cuts on her feet.
I suggested she get rid of the t-shirt she was wearing. She looked down at the dirt and stains, then pulled it off without modesty. She was thin as a rail. She looked at her arms, rubbing her fingers lightly over the bruised needle
