CotN Ch. 2: Safehouse

She spun around to face him, bracing herself with one hand on the dashboard to avoid flying through the windshield. The truck had no seatbelt on the passenger side. "How the hell do you know my name?" If that even was her name. Still… Gwen was as good a name as any, and she needed one. It might as well be hers, for the time being, at least.

Bram held up his hands in a gesture that was obviously meant to be reassuring, but all it really accomplished was to make his already horrible driving that much worse. With a grimace, he clutched the wheel and spun it as far to the right as it would go, sending them screeching around the corner.

"Could you…not do that again?" Gwen panted when her breath had finally come back and her heart was no longer beating a mile a minute. "Just…keep your hands on the wheel and tell me what's going on!"

"Sorry, sorry…" Bram muttered. "Anyway, like I was saying, I know about you 'cause they want you. The vampires."

Gwen's mind went just a little bit blanker, but with shock this time, not amnesia. "Vampires?" She repeated numbly.

"Sure." Bram nodded. "You know. Leeches, blood-drinkers, fangs, nightwalkers, pretty much run the city…vampires. Those two chasing you were a couple fine examples." He slammed on the brakes, and Gwen narrowly managed to keep from hurtling through the windshield. "Your picture and info has been circulating the city for more than six months now. They want you bad, kid. Or, they want whatever's in your head."

"There's nothing in my head!" Gwen snapped. "Look, I can't remember a single thing before about fifteen minutes ago! I didn't even know my name until now! And speaking of which, how do I even know that's my name! You could be making all of this up! You could be in league with them, whoever they are!"

"Like I said, they were vampires." Bram repeated calmly, swerving to miss a mailbox and sending Gwen flying back into her seat.

Gwen righted herself and promptly punched Bram in the arm.

"What was that for?" He protested indignantly, rubbing his arm as they pulled up to a red light at a crowded four-way intersection.

Gwen looked at him in astonishment. He really was crazy. "You save my life—so you say—from vampires, and again, this all according to you, and then you try to kill me by pretending that the street is your playground!"

Her driver looked at her as though she were the crazy one swerving all over the road like a suicidal maniac. "Yeah, but…you hit me!"

Gwen folded her arms. "I'm not apologizing until I get answers," she said, watching the traffic light warily. When it turned green, she wanted to be ready to hold on for dear life again.

"There's a piece of paper with need proof of your identity in the glove box." Bram answered. "Now, I need you to shush for a second. I'm listening for sirens." The tires screeched as he accelerated down the street, and Gwen was thrown to the side when he hauled on the wheel, speeding down an alley.

Gwen opened up the glove compartment, which was stuffed full of tattered road maps, parking tickets, a fast food wrapper or two, and a single dusty glove. Before she could even begin to sort through all of it, the truck lurched around another corner like an over-eager dog in a park full of squirrels, and the contents of the glove box fell on the floor.

"How am I supposed to find it in here with this mess?" Gwen asked as a last lingering clump of trash fell to mingle with the rest of the assorted litter on the floor.

"It's in there!" Bram said shortly, re-entering the road and blowing right through the next red light, somehow managing to not hit anything or anyone on the way. "I didn't mean to check it now! Can you wait 'till we get there? I've got another one in my pocket somewhere."

"Where is 'there?'" In all the confusion, Gwen hadn't even thought of this wild ride through the crowded city streets as something that would have a destination.

"A Safehouse." Bram said. Sirens could be heard faintly behind them, and Bram swore, accelerating again.

"You could try obeying the traffic laws," Gwen grumbled, settling back into the seat with her arms folded.

--

A Safehouse, as Gwen soon discovered, was an apartment with a single musty cot pushed up against the wall, a battered folding chair, and some gallon jugs of water clustered in the far corner. Or, at least, this one was. Bram told her that Safehouses came in many shapes and sizes and degrees of furnishing.

After locking the door, Bram unfolded the chair and sat down. Gwen took the bed. "I'm guessing you've got some questions…"

"You'd better believe I've got questions." Gwen muttered.

"And I'll answer anything I can." Bram finished, digging in his coat pocket. "First, though…" he frowned in concentration, and finally pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Got it."

He handed the sheet to Gwen, who unfolded it with some trepidation. When she saw what was printed on the paper, she nearly dropped it.

It was a black-and-white picture of her, a little distorted from the photocopier, with her name underneath and a phone number, presumably to contact whomever was putting up the poster. Huge block letters spelling out 'HAVE YOU SEEN ME?" took up the rest of the page.

"Why?" Gwen asked when she finally found her voice. "Why do they want me?"

Bram shrugged. "That's something even I don't know. Sorry. There's a sizeable reward out for you, too. I don't know where it's coming from, though. That number just goes to an automated, um... one of those...."

"Answering machine?" Gwen offered.

He snapped his fingers. "Yeah, one of those. Anyway, point is, dead end."

Gwen shook her head slowly. "And…they're vampires?"

Bram looked at her incredulously. "I've told you about five hundred times. Yes, they're vampires. What kind of amnesia do you have, anyway? Are you like that guy from Memento or something?"

"...I don't know what that means," Gwen said slowly.

Bram rubbed his head, making his hair stand up in all directions . "Ok, I'll give you the short version. This is New Prospect, Massachusetts. The vampires own it, more or less. The normal people don't really know about it. They see something weird, they forget about it, because they don't really want to remember. The rest of us just do the best we can to stay alive. Got it?"

"Are we safe from them here?" Gwen asked dubiously.

Bram blinked. "Huh? Yeah. That's why it's called a Safehouse. "He shifted to a more comfortable position on the metal chair. "See, vampires can't enter a private dwelling without invitation. So, they can get into this building, but not into this room. Breaking down the door and shooting us, though…well, they don't really have to be in the room to do it. So, no problem."

Gwen looked at the door uneasily. "So, um, how exactly are we safe here?" She half expected the man in the suit to burst in any minute.

"I was getting to that!" Bram replied in annoyance. "Don't interrupt, kid, I'm trying to explain stuff. Now, they can't break down that door 'cause there's cold iron in it, see? Thin sheet of iron running through the middle of the wood. They don't like iron. Makes 'em blister and smell like rotten meat. It's disgusting. Won't kill 'em, though, more's the pity. So, Safehouse. Safe."

It was hard to keep up with Bram when he talked, mostly because Gwen got the feeling that he was having trouble keeping up with himself. "So, how long do we have to stay here?" She didn't have anywhere else to go, but the thought of spending an extended period of time in this room was not a prospect she enjoyed. It smelled like mold, and she could see into the bathroom. It was gutted. Besides, she was hungry.

"Well…" Bram scratched his head, sending his already messy hair into a further state of disarray. "A few hours should be good, just so I can make sure your little buddies didn't follow us. I gotta make a phone call, but I think I have someplace better for us to go. I don't think he'd appreciate it much if we lead the Fang Brigade right to his door, though, so…we're gonna wait."

"Who's 'he'?" Gwen asked, drawing her legs up onto the bed and leaning back against the wall. A few hours wasn't so bad.

Bram hesitated. "He's….well, he might be able to help you. Problem is, he's kind of an asshole. So, the other reason we're waiting is to give me time to come up with a convincing argument."