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Still no sign of Earl.

The damned stuffing wasn't going to make itself. That hoeing wasn't going to take care of itself either. Where the deuce was he?

She placed the cleaned and waiting chicken aside in a large pot of water to allow it to rinse in herbs and salt water, an old recipe handed down by her mother to her. Washing and wiping her hands, she decided it was too lovely a day not to step out into it, at least for a moment. She did so with the ulterior motive of looking in on Earl. He was getting up in years, and there was no such thing as being too careful. Suppose he'd fallen inside the barn there, hurt or cut him self? This might account for the uneasy neighing that old swayback was putting up, and the racket Merleen was still raising with her mooing was going to put the old girl off her milk for a month.

Strange that the dog wasn't right in there with Merleen, making harmony, she thought as she neared the barn aperture, which was bathed in black shadow, a stark contrast to the light of the outside world.

“ Earl… Earl, honey? Are you aw'right in there?”

She stepped into the shadow and into horror. Earl was hanging by his tied heels from a large tenterhook at the end of a pulley, his throat slashed at the jugular, the blood pumping out in large coughing spurts like a poorly pressurized pump. The blood settled into a pool of red inside a sterling-new bucket Earl had brought back from the feed and grain store just the day before. Earl's dead arms dangled, limp tendrils trying halfheartedly to touch the blood-soaked earth and straw-strewn barn floor. His old dog lay dead half in and half out of Merleen's stall.

The horse was whinnying wildly and kicking at its stall. Merleen continued in distress. Chickens scattered and nervously paced. The only light she saw was that which streamed in through cracks and at the rear of the barn, and she wanted to race for the light, afraid to turn or back out the way she'd come, sensing that Mankiller-living up to his namesake- was in the shadows behind her. At the same time, she was wholly unable to move, frozen in place, her fear and disbelief overwhelming, cutting like a cold blade into her soul, and here she was… caught, trapped like this… without a weapon or a plan of any sort…

Matt Matisak stepped from behind the barn door and easily draped his arm around the old woman in a firm manner, squeezing her shoulder and indicating Earl's corpse as if he'd brought her a gift to show off, pleased and proud of his demonic accomplishment. Hillary's scream was cut short by a swoon, a dark blotch of redness filling her brain at the moment Matisak's bloody hand streaked her forehead.

“ War paint,” Matisak joked as she fell into a dead faint on the straw. Earl's dead form swayed in response.

Matisak next lowered a second tenterhook. The hooks had held an ancient carriage in the air which he'd earlier lowered and rolled to the rear of the barn. There were four hooks, one for each axle of the carriage, but he had only two bodies to drain.

Maybe he'd wait for those Res cops the old man had warned him about…

While he hadn't quite enough jars to accommodate the two additional blood-givers, he believed leaving four bodies rather than two dangling here would surely make a greater and more lasting impression on Jessica Coran and send her racing back like a yo-yo to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area in search of him. And as she hunted, so too would he…

He was ready for her to make her appearance this time, for he'd located the coins, a small sack of gold eagles, circa 1879. He'd have enough ready cash to do a complete and thorough job on Jessica. His thoughts continued to race as his hands busily worked to remove the old woman's clothing, revealing her leathery skin.

He now tied a small-link chain around Hillary's ankles as he had with Earl, and then he attached her to the J-hook and hoisted her wizened old body up. She dangled like a slaughter animal, her morning chores and dinner preparations going unattended forever now.

“ No more care in the world,” he assured her pliant form. But even as he hoisted her up, he realized she'd have to wait a bit, until he finished bleeding old Earl first. There was only one bucket in the place sterile enough for his needs, unless maybe he could find something new in the kitchen to assist in his endeavor here.

Serendipity had played its pixieish part in his vampiric orchestration of events. He'd been wondering and even worrying how he was going to get Jessica to come to him, while doubly worrying about what sort of containers he'd use to bleed his host and hostess. All senseless worries now, he thought. All things to those who wait, he told himself, and then the old man had shown up with his shiny new, silvery bucket, still fresh with the red and blue Chickasaw brand-name label along its front.

With Hillary now secure, the blood rushing to her head, Matt Matisak now began dipping the mason jars he'd confiscated from the old lady's fruit cellar into the bucket. He quickly filled each and screwed on the lids as he went, until Earl had no more to give. Hillary was coming around.

He emptied the remaining fluid from the bucket and into another jar, using a Rubber Maid ladle he'd stolen from the kitchen earlier, until the bucket was completely drained of Earl Redbird's blood. He then looked into Hillary's upside-down eyes as they blinked open in confusion and terror, which spread through her quivering old frame. He smiled in a kindly manner and said, “I didn't get a chance to thank you and Earl, ma'am, for all your kindness. I'm doing that now.”

“ You bastard! You god awful son-of-a-creature of Satan, you son-of-a-”

Her words were cut short when he severed the jugular, and the rest of her epithets came out in a spittle of gibberish and gurgling and blood.

Matisak stepped back to watch the action of the blood as it pumped itself snakelike down into the silver bucket. He again calculated he had enough jars.

“ It's not the best of blood, but it's carried you two a long way,” he said to the now-silent corpses. He marveled a bit at the way Hillary's corpse flinched and jerked toward the end. Earl had gone much more quietly, but then he'd had a rather bad contusion to the head. A lot of the blood was spilt over the straw and dirt floor, which was a shame, he felt. There was little to do for it; he hadn't the kinds of controls he would prefer. Bleeding a person ought to be more an exact science, as it had been with Dr. Gabriel Arnold back in Philly. Now that dialysis machine, he thought, that was control. He meant to purchase or steal a portable one of his own, no matter what. He meant to be ready for Jessica when she at last came to him.

But here in the rickety old barn, given the conditions, the fact he was a fugitive, the primitive tools he had to work with, he hadn't done so badly. His former care and technique over his victims would, in time, return to him. “Just give it time,” he assured himself, patting and jingling the little canvas bag filled with precious coins, “and I'll be back, stronger than ever.”

He drank down one of the pint jars filled with Earl's blood now, gulping, feeling sated for the first time since his arrival in Tahlequah. The blood fix soothed his frayed edges, calmed his mind, lulled him.

He knew he couldn't stay. The Redbird farm was seen by people going by every day. They'd look at it and instantly feel something odd, sense something out of kilter, see the lack of smoke in Hillary's chimney, smell no baking odors and sense a hundred other things out of sync here. Pretty soon the flies would come and the all-too-natural odor of the corpses would waft out over the little patch of corn that Earl had planted in the spring.

He'd been with the Redbirds for nearly a month now, and they'd finally accepted his story that he was indeed related to them. Some of the neighbors wondered about him, asked nosy questions, but no one recognized him or seemed to want to recognize him. He had altered his appearance, growing a full beard, coloring his hair, sporting glasses, but still he'd imagined that someone might be smart enough to figure him out. If no one else, then Earl.