Peripheral Vision: A Supernatural Thriller(51)
When the sun finally set over the valley, Elizabeth again ventured down through the sloping cellar door. In her hands, she carried a cardboard box that was marked on the outside with black sharpie. Two words were legibly written...”canning supplies.”
The basement below the Bayard House was filled with old odds and ends that were collected and forgotten over the years. There were a couple of broken dirt bikes, 6 or 7 of Grace's sewing machines, an old desk, that had probably been Jason's at one point, and an broken organ that Eli had always planned to fix. He never got to it. The ceiling was somewhat low and the concrete foundation was cracked and broken in some spots, exposing the cool dirt from below. Three wooden support beams connected the floor to the unfinished floorboards of the ceiling. The pillars ran down the center of the room, and when looking out from the stairs, seemed longer and narrower than they should.
The antique treasures and broken and forgotten memories were lit up by three hanging light bulbs that ran parallel to the support beams and cast shadows along the cracked walls. Exposed wires hung from light bulb to light bulb and seemed to intertwine with the large variety of undisturbed cobwebs that called the basement home. Two sets of stairs connected the basement to the ground level. The indoor steps, which extended down from the kitchen, ran along the north wall of the basement. At the back of the narrow basement was the second set of stairs. These steps rose up from the floor and extended to the outside sloping cellar entrance. To the right of these stairs, was the crooked door jam that lead down to the old canning cellar- the below below. And on the west wall of the cellar, there was another door-the odd little door, which lead to the unfinished and for the most part, forgotten escape tunnel. It was still nailed shut.
Elizabeth made her way from the bottom of the kitchen steps, carrying her box, and crossed the basement floor. She ducked beneath a large cobweb near Eli's organ, and then stopped to adjust her hold on the large cardboard box. At the back of the basement, still lying near the bottom of the south steps, were the two bagged bodies.
Elizabeth set the box down next to the garbage bags and pulled the flaps open. Inside were a number of old glass canning jars. She seemed to smile for a moment as she glanced into the box. Her mother, Grace, had been an avid “canner” and had taught her daughter Lizzy all her secrets. Elizabeth felt a warm feeling of pride sweep through her chest. Her eyes began to water, glistening even in the dimly lit cellar. She wiped a hand across her eyes and got back to work. She quickly set up a small card table, next to the box, and placed the jars on top. To her left, near the organ, was an old horse trough. It was heavier than she expected, but she was still able to drag it over to her “work station.” Then she pulled open the trash bags from around the bodies, exposing their white lifeless faces to the dusty cellar air.
She looked into the blank eyes of her victims and for a brief moment, a feeling of remorse rose up from her belly, and then it was gone. In its place was the dark thirst. A thirst for that feeling of power she had experienced earlier in the day, beneath the bright afternoon sun.
She bent over and using all of her strength, lifted up the lifeless young woman's body and rolled it into the horse trough. Elizabeth took a jar from the table and set it directly beneath the woman's dangling right arm. Then, taking her knife from the canning supplies box, she silently moved the sharp blade across the woman's cold wrist. The blood quickly spilled down from the wound and into the glass jar. She continued the process, until all the blood from the woman was drained and then, she repeated the ritual with the man. As one jar was filled to the top, she would quickly replace it with an empty one and fit it with a lid. By the time she had finished, she had twelve full jars of her new “medicine”. She carefully placed them back in the box and carried it back up to the kitchen. On the stove, was her mother's pressure canner. Elizabeth placed the jars, one by one, into the canner and then covered it with the lid.
At the same time, she turned on the stove in order to boil the water that would allow her to seal the jars up airtight. After the sealed jars cooled, she returned them to the canning cellar where she placed them up on a wooden wall shelf. The shelves had been used for years by her mother, Grace, for the exact same purpose. Well, almost the exact purpose.
The following morning, Elizabeth used a small sharp-toothed hacksaw, to carve the bloodless bodies into a more manageable size. She placed the pieces back in the black trash bags, and burned the trash bags in the old burn barrel behind the barn. The stench was horrible, and at one point Elizabeth thought she couldn't help but vomit. The feeling passed, however, and soon Elizabeth was back in her kitchen enjoying a cup of hot tea. Now I can sleep, she thought, now I can finally go to sleep. And sleep she did. A restful, dreamless sleep. And when she finally opened her eyes, four days had passed, and only one thought resonated in her head. I'm thirsty, she thought, I need a drink.
In the years that followed, she found other ways to quench her growing taste for blood. Stray dogs and cats became easy pickings for Elizabeth. The sensation that came from the first drink wasn't the same with the animals, but it was the only choice she had. Drifters were one thing, but making someone from town disappear was another thing altogether. It was too risky. No, she would wait. She decided that she could sustain her thirst with the animals for now, and when the opportunity presented itself for her to obtain “real” medicine, then she'd take it.
In 1999, the opportunity finally presented itself. That opportunity came in the form of Nick Fielding. The former high school football star- turned town carpenter, was just what she had been waiting for. A young, strong, able bodied- but impressionable- man to help her get what she needed. It was good timing, because a year later, Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. Over the next eleven years, she fed more often than not on the “real” stuff. Nick was good at what he did, that was for sure. Not only did he fix things around the house, and finish her father's tunnel, but he provided for her too. It sometimes worried Elizabeth how many girls Nick was able to find, but as the cancer spread, there was only one medicine that truly seemed to help, and that outweighed her fears of getting caught.