Free Vampire Blood by Kathryn Meyer Griffith Page B

earlier. Came out in the first place to corral you and get us on the road before we got sidetracked with that spooky talk about dead bag ladies and cults.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and they all laughed.
    “Thought maybe, after shopping, we might eat supper out in town somewhere, too,” George suggested.
    “It’s a shame that movie house isn’t open yet,” he said. “A movie afterwards might have been nice.”
    Maude shot a dark look at Jenny, but said nothing.
    The older couple ambled towards the house, but Jenny couldn’t stop thinking about the butchered animals and the dead woman.
    What was going on in Summer Haven?
    The day turned out to be long and sweltering, and Jenny pushed herself more than usual, only stopping for the cheese sandwich that she’d brought along and no supper at all.
    Yet she experienced a sense of accomplishment as twilight fell, and she appraised what she’d done. She’d been so busy that the time had slipped away and only the fading of the light had forced her to stop.
    Maude and George hadn’t returned the rest of the day. Maybe they’d decided to eat supper out after all. Good for them.
    Jenny’s stomach growled.
    She put everything neatly away and drove into town. The dark was settling in like an old friend, and she was hungry, but she first had to get a couple of necessities, milk, Hersey bars and Hostess cupcakes, from the supermarket.
    Afterwards she’d treat herself to a healthy meal at Joey’s: a big fat cheeseburger, malt and onion rings. She deserved it. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone.
    Jenny was in the third aisle, mentally scanning the shelves, trying to fill her basket, when she spotted her. She was half-turned towards Jenny.
    A stumbling gray-haired woman in a dirty looking sweater with missing buttons and hatred narrowing her red-rimmed eyes clasped a bottle of whiskey to her breast. She hissed at another woman and was making a scene in the middle of the supermarket. The store employee had her by the arm, as if she were a truant child.
    The old woman was behaving like someone homeless off the street, an animal, or a person not quite right in the head, as she snarled at the younger woman in a checker’s uniform. Then, totally unprovoked, she stomped maliciously on the younger woman’s foot.
    The store’s employee shrieked and released her.
    Jenny had unconsciously moved closer. Drawn. She could hear them arguing now.
    “I told you to get your damn hands off me!” the old woman spat, gloating. “You got no right, no damn right to talk to me like that, missy! Told you, I’m not stealing it. I got money to pay for it. I do,” the old woman protested vehemently as she started sidling away, trying to escape. “Get away from me, or I’ll poke your eyes out next.”
    The crazy woman spun around like a whirling dervish, and Jenny’s worse fear was realized.
    She knew her.
    Mom.
    As her demented mother sprinted from the store, still clutching the bottle, she passed Jenny, nearly knocking her down. With her mouth open and her eyes wide in shock, Jenny fell against the shelves of cold cereal, knocking a mess of them to the floor, and gaped at the fleeing woman.
    Their eyes had met for a split second, and her mother’s had filled instantly with guilty hatred. She hadn’t spoken to her daughter, but had escaped out the electric doors. The checker dogged her trail, railing at her to stop until she lost her outside in the dark beyond the market’s lighted doorway.
    Shocked, Jenny froze in the middle of the aisle. The words: Mom, wait for me! Mom! Come back! echoed in her numb mind, but her tongue had swollen in her mouth, and they’d never gotten any further.
    She couldn’t have been more devastated if her mother had physically slammed her to the ground and spat on her. Her heart was battered by the fresh memory of her mother’s spite. Her mother’s crime. Stealing from the store like a common criminal.
    Why is she acting like this? she thought tearfully.