His grandfather had sometimes read from the journals, entries written by his ancestors sometimes hundreds of years before.
Sometimes he only referred to them. He would say, „In the books, it was written,‟ and then he'd launch into one of those crazy stories.
They had seemed almost like fairy tales at first, and though violent, they helped Adelmo lose himself in fantasy and eased the pain of his parents‟ loss.
Oddly enough, when his grandfather stopped telling the stories, it was when their absence began to affect Adelmo the most.
“Where‟s that operator?” he wondered aloud, but the phone still gave him nothing but silence. His thoughts drifted once more…
His grandfather opened a musty, leather-bound book with a spidery scrawl and began to read. His voice seemed to change, sounding weathered by time, as if the old man was actually inhabited by his ancestor as he read the words written hundreds of years before.
“It is the time of wolves. Wolves who walk like men,” Emil read, his voice now raspy and deep as if squeezed up from the earth through centuries of dust.
Little Adelmo's eyes grew wide.
“They are an abomination!”
Adelmo‟s jaw dropped.
“They must be destroyed.”
Nicoleta Alexandru lowered the ancient leather journal and looked deep into the eyes of his only grandson, Adelmo, the last in the line of Alexandru.
“Tell me, Adelmo. How do you suppose these creatures must be killed?”
Adelmo just stared into his grandfather's eyes and waited for him to continue.
“How did our ancestors, those who came before, rid the world of these abominations?”
“I don't know,” said a disembodied voice.
“What?” Adelmo started from his memory at the sound.
“I don‟t know, sir,” said the operator, “I suppose you could try locally. There‟s no listing and no forwarding number. If he's moved, that information wouldn't be in my database if the customer requested it be kept confidential.”
Adelmo knew his grandfather would never do such a thing.
“Do you have the number of the village precinct? The police?”
“Please hold.”
Adelmo's grandfather was well known in the area, and being a small village, he thought the local authorities would likely either know if something had happened to his grandfather or direct him to someone who did.
Once again, Adelmo‟s thoughts drifted to the past…
The journals told, in elaborate detail, how to kill what it called abominations in ways such as severing the head. The description could be quite graphic. Other subjects discussed were how werewolves traveled in packs, how to spot them in human form, as well as lore and legends about
vampires.
A little something for everyone, Adelmo, mused.
Adelmo wrote down the number of the village police and thanked the operator. Suddenly he noticed the time. Almost ten o'clock. How long was I up in the attic, anyway?
“Better call from the shop,” he muttered, and grabbed his keys from the counter as he headed out the door. There was no time to make breakfast. He would have to stop at the market to pick up something to eat on his way.
Lana was coming in late today and Adelmo was already almost an hour late opening the store. He could have sworn he'd gone into the attic just before seven o'clock, opened the trunk, and then come straight downstairs to call his grandfather when he'd discovered it empty.
Adelmo was so distracted at the thought he'd lost almost three hours of his life staring into his parents‟ empty trunk that he barely noticed the yellow tape strung across the entrance to the local grocery story as he pulled into the parking lot.
It wasn't until he got out of the car and felt the policeman's hand on his shirt that he realized something was horribly wrong.
“Where do you think you're going?”
Adelmo looked at the officer, then past him to the „do not cross‟ police tape stretched across the
entrance.
“In the store.”
“No you’re not.”
“Can’t a guy get a doughnut?”
“You bein' a wiseass?”
“Huh? No.” Adelmo replied, confused.
“Then get back in your car and get the hell out of here.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s a crime scene, pal, whaddya think? Now step back!”
Adelmo did, and looked around the parking lot. He’d been so engrossed in his thoughts he hadn't even seen the police cars, ambulances, and camera crews.
“Hey! You hear what I just said? Move it!”
The big cop was getting furious now, so Adelmo got in his car and backed out, but something made him pull around the side of the building and get out. Curiosity had gotten the better of him. He wanted to know what was going on.
He sidled up to a TV van, whose crew was just setting up for a live shot. Adelmo moved as close as he could to the news reporter to hear the details.
“Ready in five!” the reporter yelled, alerting her crew, “five, four, three, two, - Devereaux's
Market, a local grocer in the French Quarter, was the scene of a grisly double homicide, discovered just before seven o’clock when one of the neighborhood store’s regular customers arrived and looked through the window to discover the bodies of Frank and Delia Devereaux, husband-and-wife proprietors for the past fourteen years…”
“Oh my God, Frank!” Adelmo exclaimed, earning a dirty look from one of the news crew’s producers as the reporter continued, moving closer to a nervous-looking middle-aged man standing off to the side.
“William Harris, who’s shopped at Devereaux's for ten years, made the discovery.”
The man nodded awkwardly as the reporter continued.
“Mr. Harris, can you tell us what you saw?”
Adelmo couldn't believe it. He’d been in the store just last night. Frank had bagged his groceries as Delia rang them up. He’d known them since he was a kid.
“…since they always open at six-thirty on the nose, I figured maybe something was wrong. It ain't like them to have the doors locked- “
“And then what happened, Mr. Harris?” the reporter prodded.
“Well,” said Harris, “I just froze. I couldn't believe it. I don’t even know how long I was standing there, so much blood…”
His voice faded out as his words triggered something in Adelmo’s head. “…don’t even know how long I was standing there…”
Adelmo had climbed the stairs into the attic, but it was too dark to see the pull chain. He pushed the little light on his watch at exactly…six fifty-seven…right about the time… don't even know how long I was standing there…‟
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