Bloodless

The dark, clear sky glittered with stars almost as if lighting her path. She couldn’t help but smile a bit. She had never been a big fan of the rain, but the clear, crisp weather afterwards? That was her favorite.

Sunflower barked at the traffic speeding past them and again Veronica smiled. It had been a while since they were able to enjoy their nightly walks together.

It wasn’t that late, yet as she crossed the four-way street she could already see signs of the night life wandering down.

Veronica turned her eyes up head and instinctively slowed her pace. She’d all but forgotten about this house. This wooden, broken down shack. She often wondered why the city hadn’t torn it down yet and rebuild something new. It stood alone: a good distance apart from the surrounding houses. Almost as if even the newer houses knew this was unhollowed ground.

Veronica started to speed past the house, sunflower pulling her along, clearly excited about moving faster. But abruptly Veronica paused directly in front of the path up to the front door of the wooden shack.

Whaaaa!

Was that a … baby?! Veronica’s thoughts of dread towards the house disappeared and were replaced by only one: I need to save that child.

She sprinted up to the front door and the baby cried out again. Veronica looked at the boarded up front door trying to figure out the best entrance. How did someone else break in to leave their baby? More importantly who abandons a baby? She thought to herself.

After a few moments Veronica decided to test her strength and just rip off the boards. She was surprised how challenging this was but noting her struggle Sunflower started chewing on the boards and helping to pull them off.

“Good girl, Sunflower!”

Finally, she had torn off enough to crawl though but it was too high up for Sunflower. Veronica quickly tied her leash to one of the wooden planks still attached.

“Stay, good girl,” Veronica whispered. Sunflower whined but did as she was told. Carefully, Veronica climbed through the hole in the door and searched for the crying child. The cries were louder, more wild but seemed to be coming from all directions.

Confused Veronica searched all through the downstairs: in the kitchen and the living room. She had to cover her whole face from the smell of the rotting couch in the living room. It took all her willpower not to throw up everywhere.

The carpet on the stairs was half ripped up leaving exposed the now deteriorating hardwood underneath.

Whaaa!

Clearly from upstairs. Cautiously Veronica headed up, gripping the hand rail in the areas it was still in place. Fear and stress started to slowly crawl back into Veronica’s thought processes as she realized it might have been smarter to just call the police. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to dial but she had no signal at all in the house. Her panic rose a little but another cry from the baby kept her walking up the stairs.

When she reached the top the sound was coming from the closed door at the end of the hall. Somewhere below she could hear Sunflower barking faintly.

She reached with a shaky hand to touch the doorknob. As she pushed open the door her senses were quickly assaulted but the smell of death and decay. It was worse than the couch.

The baby cried from the crib inside.

“It’s alright. I’m going to take you out of here. It’s okay,” she muttered. One foot in front of the other while doing her best to breath through her mouth she approached the crib. There was a faded, yellow blanket covering the now silent baby. She reached in to pull the blanket away and screamed in traumatic, horror. She had never seen anything so sad and sickening on her life: the baby was dead. Had been dead for probably months now. She covered her mouth in shock.

Veronica started to step back, trying to regain enough muscular control to run out of the house. But before she could move someone reached out from behind her, exposed her neck and bit down hard. She was surprised how mostly painless it was to have all her blood sucked out of her. Almost like drifting to sleep.

In the morning the local single mothers club pushed their strollers down the busy street, chatting away about losing ten pounds, how stupid men could be and if it was healthier to cut out carbs. One of the mothers stopped in surprise and rising concern when she saw a beautiful golden lab that she recognized tied up and sleeping outside the old abandoned house. She paused and walked up the steps. The dog woke to the sounds of her approach and barked with excitement.

“Sunflower? What are you doing out here alone?”

The dog only barked in response, but inside the house the woman could hear a baby cry.