The Last Days of October by Jackson Spencer Bell Page A

around the corner prompted her to
check the side of the house, where she found Mom closing the crawlspace
door.  
    “What are you
doing?” she asked.
    Mom looked up,
startled.   Her hand shot up in a stop gesture when Amber swung her legs
over the railing and dropped to the ground.   “Don’t come over here.”  
    “Why?”
    “Stay away from
the crawlspace,” Mom commanded.   “I don’t
want you going near it.”
    Frowning, Amber
ignored her and walked half the depth of the house to where her mother stood
beside the squat little crawlspace door.   Mom stood beside the hose cart, with a brand-new hose neatly rolled into
a coil.   Amber blinked at it and felt a
sharp stab of pain in her abdomen; she had accompanied Dad to the hardware
store when he’d bought it.
    “I told you not to
come over here,” Mom said.
    Amber shrugged.   “What’s with the crawlspace?”
    She reached for
the door, but Mom’s hand shot out and pushed hers away like a woman batting a
toddler away from a hot stove.   The
sleeve of her sweater retracted to reveal a bright white bandage over her inner
forearm.   Amber blinked at this.
    “Do NOT open
that!” Mom barked.   “Do you understand
me?”
    She blinked,
stunned by her mother’s tone.   And the
bandage.   Crossing her arms again, she
glanced at the door.
    “He’s under
there,” she said.   A statement, not a
question.
    Mom closed her
eyes and nodded.
    A breeze blew down
between the houses but it was a gentle breeze from the sunny street, warmer
than the air presently surrounding them.   Still, Amber suddenly felt very, very cold.   She thought of the creature she had seen on
the porch last night.   It rested now
beneath the house.   She could see it
there, white skin dotted with flies, stinking and still, hands clasped over its
abdomen.   Staring at the floor joists
above it, sleeping with its eyes open.
    Waiting for
sundown.
    A moment passed
before she could speak.   When she did,
her voice felt gravelly, dry like the leaves beneath her feet.   “Anyone else or just him?”
    “I don’t
know.   And we’re not going to find
out.   We’re going to stay away from this
door and forget all about it.”
    “Are you going to
get a lock for it?”   Amber asked.
    Mom stared at her.
    “Why would I lock
it?”
    “Because if you
don’t, he— it— is just going to get out
tonight and come banging on the door again.”
    And honestly, she didn’t add, I don’t fully trust you to not let him in.
    “And if I do,” Mom
replied, “he’ll be trapped in there.   And
eventually, he’ll starve.”
    Amber thought of
the bandage.   Her eyes narrowed.   “What’s with the bandage on your arm?”
    “Accident before
you got up.   I cut myself.”
    “Accident?   Sure you’re not trying to feed him?”
    Mom’s face twisted
into an indignant scowl.   “That’s
ridiculous!”
    “Is it?”
    Mom said
nothing.   For a moment they just stood
there, staring at each other.   Amber
noticed then the redness in Mom’s eyes and understood that she’d been crying.
    Like you ought to be , said a voice inside her.   He’s
your father, or was.   Don’t you
care?   Doesn’t this bother you at all?
    She looked away,
closing her eyes and willing the voice away.   It did bother her, but not enough.   She tasted traces of chocolate in her mouth and realized that she had
woken up the morning after shooting her own father and had eaten candy.   Candy could still taste good and it could
still grab her interest because she didn’t really care about this, not in the
way she should have.   There had to be
something wrong with a soul that could see her father as a vampire, shoot him
and still pig out the next morning on junk.
    Like I said , pronounced the Collin in
her head, you are one fucked-up bitch.
    She threw a look
over her shoulder at the deserted street behind her.   Unmolested by passing cars, dead leaves
gathered freely on the blacktop.  
    Dead , she