The Blood Bargain by Macaela Reeves Read Free Book Online

Dad’ s training. Step one; secure the immediate area.
    The Scott ’ s house was typical suburban great room design. I had been over a time or two when I was younger, they had a daughter two years older than I. Calli and I used to play dolls before she hit the dreaded teen years. Not much had changed from my memories of the place. From where I stood I could see the sprawling sectional in the living room, the benches and table in the dining area, and stainless steel kitchen. All of which were completely unoccupied.
    I started quietly down the hall that shot off between the dining area and the kitchen. No threats found in the half bath to the left aside from the too bright orange walls.
    T he mudroom just beyond the bath was littered with long abandoned piles of laundry. The only other room on the main floor was the office by the stairwell.
    Something bad had happened in this room.  Bloody handprints were on the glass of the French doors. The furniture was a mess, pictures knocked off the walls. My eyes went to the framed family photo on the console table from a theme park. It had to have been when Calli was about eight. Three smiling faces in mouse hats from a lifetime ago stared back at me.
    The slow methodical pounding against the sliding door got my legs working again. Up the stairs I went, two at a time. Rounding the corner into the purple and white bedroom I saw Calli . Or what was left of her. She was dead. Really dead, not the up and walking around kind. She was on her bed like a display piece, severely decomposed. Her hands folded neatly across her stomach.
    A single bullet wound in the skull.
    Mrs. Scott was the same in the room next door, stretched out on the master bed arranged as one would be found in their coffin. She also didn't show any wounds besides the bullet hole in her forehead, yet both bodies were so far returned to earth it was hard to tell. The clothes they wore were perfectly spotless. Each had been laid out in their Sunday best. Mr. Scott was nowhere to be found. Had he killed his family and hit the hills? What was with the blood downstairs?
    There were other pieces to this story. One’ s I would never know. Still, it cut at my heart no matter how I spun it in my head.
    Walking out of the master bedroom en route to the guest room I heard the glass break downstairs. My prep time had expired and I hadn.t even finished searching this level let alone come up with a plan. I dashed across the hall into the guest room, thankful to find it unoccupied.
    Shutting and locking the door gave me a few minutes to think. I checked the closet, no attic access panel. I looked out the window, aside from being a two story drop there was nothing good down there. The road was thick with them, every last sloucher wandering slowly in my direction.
    Just wonderful.
    The room itself was pretty bare, a twin bed in a nautical theme, a three drawer dresser and some wall art. I tested the dresser, even with my throbbing shoulder I was able to slide it over in front of the door.
    With nowhere to go, all I could do was sit and wait.
    It was the most surreal thing. For hours I sat in that little room. I memorized every pattern in the popcorn ceiling until the sun set and I could no longer see it in the dim moonlight. Every corner of the picture frames. The small dent in the wall to the left of the nightstand by the
    bed. The butterfly print on the comforter. I sat with nothing to do but think. I clasped my mother's pendant till the pattern almost broke the skin of my palm.
    I thought of my Father. My M other. My dead friends and my live ones. It was almost as though I was going through a mental flip book of my life. Preparing for the inevitable.
    The banging on the door confirmed that. It did take them a bit to get upstairs. They found me though, I knew they would. I never expected this to be a permanent solution. It started with a slow scrape and a moan. Then there were more. Now it took the weight of my body to hold the chest