Chapter 37
"You're such a good boy," Abner cooed as he scratched his hands down Cujo's back. The Saint Bernard panted happily, his nose turned up in the air as he tongue lolled out of his mouth, enjoying the back scratch. Abner grinned, knowing how much the puppy liked that. "You're getting pretty big now."
"Pretty soon, he'll be taller than you when he gets up on his hind legs."
Abner pouted up at his mother as she laughed in amusement. "Too bad Dad hates pets," he mumbled and wrapped his arms around Cujo's neck. He would love to take the Saint Bernard home as his own dog, but his father was firmly against any animal being allowed in his house. It was sad though. No one that came in would adopt Cujo, and Abner still couldn't understand why since the dog was a big sweetheart.
"It's time for him to go back in his cage." His mother pointed toward the empty cage with the door still wide open. "It's time to close up and go home."
Abner sighed but did as told and nudged Cujo toward his cage. The dog whined, not wanting to return to it, but he reluctantly crawled into his lonely cage, flopping down near the back and resting his head on his paws with a miserable look in his eyes. When he glanced at his mother, Abner frowned at the shake of her head. There would be no convincing his father to allow them to adopt Cujo. With a sigh, he closed the cage door.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Abner told Cujo. "You be a good boy until then." He frowned sadly when Cujo turned his head away from him. Standing up, he followed his mother out of the clinic.
"Oh, Abs, I know you love that puppy," his mother said as she placed a hand on his head. "But we simply can't adopt him." After they were outside, she locked the front door.
Abner pouted, puffing out his cheeks and not caring how childish and immature it made him look. It was simply another reason he wasn't happy with his father. Working at the animal clinic was his only time to really take care of any kind of pet. Sometimes while he worked, he liked to pretend that all the animals there were his pets, but then night closed in and he had to leave them all behind. It was depressing!
"I got a call from your aunt the other day," his mother said as she led the way to her car.
That statement wiped away all thoughts about animals as Abner snapped his head up toward his mother. "Which one?" he asked warily as he eyed with some trepidation. He had a handful of aunts, some being quite distantly related to him, but they referred to them simply as aunts because it was easier and didn't give him a headache trying to remember the exact wording for how exactly they were related to him.
"Your aunt Astrid," his mother answered as she opened the door of the car.
"Aunt Astrid?" Abner shouted, gaping at his mother over the roof of the yellow Volkswagen Beetle. "What did she want?"
His mother blinked at him, confused by his reaction to that news. "She wanted to tell me that her son was in town. Apparently he came here to visit for Christmas, though I guess he didn't want to spend it with us since he never contacted us. Oh really, Abs!" She placed her hands on hips as she frowned at him. "What are you looking all scared about? Your cousin is a very nice young man."
"No, no, no!" Abner raked his hands through his hair, grabbing at his dusty blond locks as panic washed through him. "He can't be here!"
"Abner Rene Faust!" His mother stomped her foot on the ground with a severe look on her face. "What has gotten into you? When has he ever done anything bad to you?"
"Mom, go home," Abner ordered as he turned down the street.
"Abner, get back here!" his mother shouted after him, but Abner merely started running away. "Where are you going?"
Not stopping to listen to his mother's shouts, Abner turned the corner at the end of the block and kept running. He needed to talk to someone about this, but he couldn't tell his mother. She didn't even know anything about the power he possessed, and she would probably freak out or not believe him if he told her about his cousin. His stomach churned with sickness as he ran, the memory of what he saw only days earlier resurfacing unpleasantly in his mind. At least, that sick feeling wasn't accompanied by the itchy sensation that resulted in the buildup of too much energy that needed to be released. Abner wasn't sure what might happen if he didn't expel the energy, but his imagination provided him with some gruesome ideas.
Digging into his pocket, Abner pulled out his phone. It would be rude to simply show up unannounced, and he didn't know if the other man would even be home at the moment. He hit the number in his phone book, blushing at the fact that it was there. The phone rang as he held it up to his ear.
"Yeah?" the man said when he answered the call.
"Johnny!" Abner might have grinned like an idiot at hearing the man's voice, but the panic grabbing at his heart killed any joy he might have had at that moment. "Are you at home right now? I need to talk to you. In person. It's important."
"You okay? You sound kind of panicky?" There was a frown in Johnny's voice.
"Yes. No! I don't know." Abner pressed a hand to his head. "Just - Can I come over?"
"Uh, well, I'm not exactly at home right now." Something like a door opening was heard in the background.
"What?" Abner skidded to a halt. "Where are you?"
"Who's that?" A woman's voice came through the phone, and Abner blinked, recognizing it.
"Was that Kitty?" Abner asked, half hoping he was wrong.
"Uh, yeah," Johnny answered awkwardly. "Kitty hang on." Footsteps could be heard, perhaps Johnny walking away from the woman. "After finding that body, Kitty and Ember kind of got freaked out, and they felt better about having a guy around since Ember had a gig tonight and she lives in the opposite direction as the rest of her band, and she doesn't have a car, so she and Kitty would be walking back to her place, alone, at night, and it just didn't seem like a good idea for them to be wandering around by themselves with this rapist murderer in town." He sucked in a breath after the long, rambling sentence.
A flash of light made Abner duck into an alley to avoid being seen by the driver passing by him. His mother would probably be trying to find him after he ran off. "Can I still meet you somewhere?" he asked hopefully.
"This is something that can wait, huh?" Johnny sighed. "Where are you right now?"
"Uh, well, my mom and I were just leaving the clinic, so I'm still around there. Maybe we could meet up in the park?" Abner bit the inside of his cheek as he waited anxiously for Johnny's response.
"I don't think it would be wise for you to be walking around there when it's dark out like this. Just wait there with your mom until we get to the clinic. Okay?"
"Uh," Abner said awkwardly, worrying his lower lip. "Yeah, sure. I'll see you then!" Hanging up his phone, he cringed. By now, his mother would be long gone, searching the streets for him, which meant he would be left alone to wait at the animal clinic until Johnny showed up. He smacked a hand over his face, wondering what he was thinking when he ran away from his mother. The obvious answer was that he wasn't thinking at all. He heard mention of his distant cousin being in town and panicked. His stomach still felt queasy as he recalled what he saw years ago.
Taking a deep breath, Abner left the alleyway and headed back toward the animal clinic. Now that he was alone, he realized just how stupid running away was. He probably made the others worry about him as well, though they thought his mother was still with him. When he reached the animal clinic, Abner leaned against the wall and slid down into a crouch. It was quiet, and few people wandered around this section of town this late at night. He chewed nervously at his lip, hugging his arms around him as he waited. Every once in a while, he pulled out his phone to check the time.
When an hour passed, Abner worried that Johnny wasn't going to come, maybe even forgot that he was going to meet up with him. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair, debating getting up and going home. His mother was probably having a heart attack with worry after he ran off and disappeared. But he couldn't talk to her about this, and the need to tell someone was eating him up inside.
A shadow loomed over him. His body tensing up, Abner turned his head and released a startled scream when he glanced up at the person standing over him. He toppled over onto his side, his heart racing. When laughter reached his ears, Abner flushed darkly, stiffly climbing to his feet. His legs ached from crouching for a long time.
"Where's your mom?" Johnny asked as he frowned at the shorter man.
"Well, uh, she went home," Abner answered awkwardly, refusing to meet Johnny's green gaze.
"You've been sitting here all alone since you called?" Ember gawked at him.
"What were you thinking?" Johnny shouted as he grabbed hold of Abner by the shoulders. "What if that rapist murderer found you? Just because it's only been girls so far doesn't mean that that he won't attack a boy if he had the opportunity."
"I know. I wasn't-" Abner blinked several times when he found arms wrapped tightly around him. His brain couldn't seem to process the fact that Johnny was currently holding him. Over Johnny's shoulder, he could see Ember and Kitty sharing smirking looks with each other.
"God, Abner! How do you think all of us would have felt if something happened to you?" Johnny released the other man from the tight embrace and held him back a pace with his hands still gripping Abner's shoulders. "Whatever it is, it could have waited. You should have just gone home with your mom."
"No!" Abner snapped firmly, staring with stern hazel eyes at Johnny. "I know who the killer is."
"What?" gasped the other three in shock at his declaration.
"Abner, how could you possibly know who the killer is?" Kitty asked with worry on her face.
His eyes flicked to each one of their faces, and Abner frowned miserably as he lowered his gaze. Taking a deep breath, Abner launched into his tale. "So six years ago, my family decided to have this whole huge family reunion thing. We have some relatives in Montana that own this huge farm so it seemed like it was a great place to hold the big gathering. Anyway, before dinner one night while we were there, Aunt Astrid wanted me to go call her son in because he was working in the barn." He glanced up worriedly at the other three, who only gave him confused, curious looks. None of them understood where this whole story was going. "We're very distant cousins," he said firmly. "My family is like over here." He held up his right hand, making a little circle motion with his finger. "And his family is way over here." He reached his left hand as far left as it could go, copying the circle motion. "I can't even begin to guess our true relation to each other, so we just call each other cousins. Anyway, so I went to the barn, and-" He swallowed thickly, remembering what he found when he entered the barn.
A hand closed around his own, and Abner glanced up to see Johnny watching him closely. Behind him, Kitty and Ember both waited patiently for the man to get up the courage to finish his tale. Abner closed his eyes, wishing he never saw what he did. After a moment, he was able to continue.
"Living here in Amity Park, it's not all that unusual for normal humans to become aware of the supernatural," Abner said, delaying the inevitable truth that he would have to share with them.
"I can certainly attest to that," Kitty agreed with a quick quirk of her mouth as she glanced at Ember.
"Right. So it's not that surprising that I had some idea of what kinds of creatures exist out in the world. There's a large number of supernatural beings in our school." Abner rubbed at the back of his neck as he frowned. "But my cousin-" He shook his head. "I had never encountered something like him before, so when I entered the barn and saw him in his true form, I was too stunned to scream or move or basically anything. I just stood there like a statue watching what was happening. I can't tell you how many nights I woke up seeing that woman's face in my mind with her head thrown back, eyes rolled back in their sockets, and mouth gaping up like she was trying to scream as my cousin," he gulped thickly, "pounded into her."
"So you saw your cousin having sex?" Ember raised an eyebrow at him. "I get that at twelve that was probably something you weren't expecting to see. But it hardly seems like major news to tell us."
Abner pursed his lips as he narrowed his eyes at her. "He was an incubus. He wasn't just have sex with this random woman. He was killing her. The incubus feeds on his victim's life energy during the action of having sex. And he wasn't exactly gentle about it either. When he finished and just left her body lying on the ground, there was," Abner gestured down at the lower region of his body, "blood splattered all over her legs. Just like that body we found." He frowned at Johnny.
"So an incubus is in town," Kitty said, looking grim at this news. "Should we contact Principal Masters?"
"Not just an incubus," Abner argued regrettably. "My cousin. My mom told me earlier that Aunt Astrid called her to say that he was in town. It's not that shocking that he didn't tell us anything. We don't visit my uncle for Christmas since my dad hates my uncle. But he especially wouldn't want to tell me about it. After he killed that woman in the barn, he threatened me. He said if I ever told anyone about him, he'd-" Abner shrank away, hugging an arm around his body. "He'd kill me the same way he killed that woman. Distant blood relation or not, he didn't care."
"We're not going to let him hurt you," Johnny assured him firmly, squeezing Abner's hand which he still held. "And if this is your cousin that killed those women, then we need to tell Principal Masters right away. You can tell him what your cousin looks like in his human guise, and he'll be better able to track down your cousin."
Abner nodded jerkily to that suggestion. Kitty and Ember walked around to rub his back supportively as Johnny pulled out his phone to contact their principal. He felt somewhat better after telling them what happened six years ago, but the memory still left him feeling shaky.
jeanette9a: You'll find out soon!
Dr. Strawberries: Yay, VladxLancer moments! 8D Maybe it was for a Halloween party? A dare? He lost a bet to Tetslaff? Or he just uses it to get pity out of his students so that they'll care a little more about doing their homework. XD;;;
fullmoonwolf950: Lancer was an awesome teacher! I wish I had teachers like him. =( Maybe I would have done better in school. *pats Vlad* It's okay. Your students are like your kids! 8D *shot* Stupid photobucket! DX It took me a while to figure out how to get it to stop adding random string of letters at the end of my file names when I upload a picture there.
XD: Vlad and Lancer would be great parents! 8D;;; If... they could have children. orz *sobs* Poor Danny! He doesn't get a moment of peace with everyone wanting him! XD;;; And yes~ If you tossed me some ideas, I'd considered them! 8D