Her mom’s hair had returned. It was short now, but it had filled in completely. She had a glow in her eyes that Ginny had never seen before. They changed colors in the light from blue to a deep purple when she fell back into shadow.
Ginny stood with her back to the stairs that led up to the main level and stared at her mother. Madeline was gorgeous. She radiated beauty in every way. It amazed Ginny to think of her mom as a predator, but that was without a doubt, what she had become. She considered all the biology lessons she had gotten from high school, college, and even her father, and how they said that nature adapted animals to their environments. Madeline was, no doubt, adapted to luring in prey.
“Mom, the sun is down.”
“Thank you, Ginny.” She was standing next to Ginny’s father who was seated at one of the tables, looking through a microscope at something. She kissed him on the cheek and moved towards the stairs but Ginny moved to bar her way. “Ginny? What is it?”
“Why won’t you talk to me?” Ginny blurted out, almost yelled. She could feel tears welling in her eyes but fought hard to hold them back. Madeline seemed taken aback. “We used to talk all the time. Now you run out of the room every time I come in. Why?”
Madeline just stood, staring, avoiding eye contact. The woman who gave birth to and raised her, one of the strongest people she knew, couldn’t make eye contact with her. This shook Ginny to the core. All her life, her mother had preached showing respect for others. ‘You show respect by respecting what they say’, she used to say. She couldn’t imagine what her mother must be going through if she had been forced to abandon her own mantra. “Ginny, I… I can’t talk about it right now.” She said as she gracefully side-stepped Ginny and sailed up the steps as though she were flying on a stream of air.
This time, Ginny didn’t try to stop the tears. They blurred her vision as she backed herself into the nearest wall for support and then slid down to the ground. It wasn’t long before her father’s arms slid around her. He held her and rocked back and forth.
“We’re all going through some changes, Kiddo. But it’s going to be alright. I promise.” He assured her.
They sat there on the floor in the basement for quite a while. Nearly half an hour passed before she let go of him. “I’m sorry, Dad. I must be a mess.” She was trying to dab at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.
“We’re all hurting, Sweetie. Your mom is having trouble dealing with what she’s become. I’m trying to find a cure, but I’m no medical doctor. Maybe you can help me.”
“Dad, I’m in my fourth year of pre-med. I’m no doctor either.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be any help. Albert Einstein didn’t have a degree.”
At that, she chuckled. “Well I’m definitely no Albert Einstein!”
“We’ll see, Ginny. Don’t know till we try, do we?”
“No, I guess not.” She motioned towards his microscope sitting on the table across the room. “What are you working on?”
“Oh, just trying to isolate the virus so I can watch it reproduce. So far, it’s pretty incredible. It reproduces at an alarming rate. Someone infected with it would succumb to it in an hour or so, given the right conditions.”
“Like Mom.”
“Yeah. She’s pretty sure she was bitten a couple times. I can only guess that administering the virus in multiple doses would make it that much more effective.” He stood and offered his hand to help her up. She took it.
“I guess we’d better get started, then. I’ll go make some coffee if it’s going to be a long night.”
“Sounds good, Hon. I’ll fill you in on where I am when you get back down.”
She walked up the stairs feeling a little better. At least she still had her father to talk to. And maybe he could give her some insight into why her mom had been so distant as of late. She walked into the kitchen which was just a few feet from the basement steps and rinsed out the coffee pot in the sink. She was about to fill it with water when she dropped it into the sink and screamed. Outside the kitchen window, shrouded in the blackness of night and barely visible through her reflection, was a handsome young man staring at her with a maniacal grin that exposed large, sharp teeth. “Dad! One of them is outside!”
She heard his heavy footfall on the stairs as he trudged up, shotgun in hand. She looked back at him and pointed to the window. “Right there! Outside the window!” Her father ran to the window to peer outside but saw nothing. Quickly he reached over and slapped at the light switch. The darkness in the kitchen removed the glare from the window and he could see clearly outside, but still, nothing.
He was just beginning to speak when they heard three hammering blows on the front door. The giant oak door rattled on its hinges. Her heart leapt into her throat as her father moved to the front door to look out the peephole. “What do you want?” He yelled through the door.
A muffled and eerily calm voice emanated from the other side of the door. “We just want to come in. Why don’t you open up so we don’t have to get mean about it?”
Ginny grabbed the biggest knife she could find from the butcher’s block on the counter. Philip looked at her as if contemplating something. He ran to the kitchen and dragged the stove out just enough to get to the back of it and smashed the connection of the gas line with the butt of the shotgun. She heard a metallic ping and the hiss of gas escaping into the kitchen. He stopped and listened for a moment until the man outside banged on the door again.
“Last chance.” The man outside said.
Her father went into one the drawers in the kitchen and pulled out the aluminum foil. Tearing off a large piece, he crumpled it into a ball and threw it in the microwave. He whispered in her ear to move to the garage and as she did, she heard the beep, beep of him punching numbers into the keypad. When he was done, he ran to catch up to her. As they shuffled down the hall, they heard glass shatter upstairs.
“They’re getting in.” Philip whispered fiercely. “Go, go, go.” He pushed her towards the door to the garage. He pushed in front of her and opened the door, burst into the garage with the shotgun trained ahead of him. A quick scan around the garage and they were satisfied they were alone. She climbed into the driver seat of her car and started the motor. Her dad hit the button for the garage door and jumped into the car, locking the doors just in time as two of the vampires crawled under the opening garage door and onto the hood of the car. One of them reached back as if to punch the windshield when a deafening shotgun blast exploded in Ginny’s ears. The vampire was thrown backwards off the hood of the car and a jagged hole the size of a fist was left in the windshield. The second vampire paused when the other one was hit. It was just long enough for Philip to cock the shotgun and send one more blast that threw the second vampire from the car. Her ears were ringing. All she could hear were muffled shouts. Her dad was yelling something to her, but she couldn’t understand. Finally, she simply threw the car into drive and floored the gas pedal. The engine roared and the car lurched forward, just barely passing under the garage door that was still opening.
One of the vampires tried to jump on the hood but just bounced off of the windshield that now had two gaping holes in it that sent cracks spider webbing off in every direction. She sped down the driveway and out into the road. “Dad! What if we run into one of those patrols the President was talking about? They might kill us!”
“I’ll worry about that when it comes to that, Virginia.” He was looking behind them as he spoke. A blinding orange flash lit the night sky as the house exploded in a massive fireball. Her dad smiled and laughed but his amusement was suddenly cut short. He turned to her. “Hold on, we’ve got company!” He yelled as they heard a thump on the roof of the car. There was another thump on the roof and claws ripped through the roof of the car overhead. Philip pointed the shotgun up where the hand was trying to rip into the car and pulled the trigger. Her hearing had been returning to her until that shot. Now her ears were ringing anew and the lifeless vampire was rolling
to a stop on the road behind them.
The woods around the road slowly gave way to sparse vegetation and they could see the limits of the city. “Head into the city!” Her father yelled. “Maybe we can find help there.” She pushed her little car faster, as fast as she dared. Getting away wouldn’t do any good if she wrapped the car around a tree. They needed to get to shelter where they could wait out the night. It wasn’t long before they were moving through a residential area. She slowed the car down in the hopes that they could find people or a vacant building that they could bar themselves in for the night.
They were confident that they had shaken the pursuit of the vampires that had assaulted them at their home when she turned a corner and surprised a group of dirty, dangerous looking individuals in the process of picking through the wreckage of a car. She slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt.
Her father was calm, but urgent. “Reverse, Ginny. Put it in reverse and get us out of here.” He eyed them warily. She slammed the transmission into reverse and floored the gas. She cranked the wheel around so the car would turn in the opposite direction then put it back into drive and took off down the street. The group smiled and gave chase.
She heard the impact of one of them jumping onto the roof, but this time she didn’t want to give her father a chance to fire the shotgun in the car so she cranked the wheel hard to the left and then to the right and threw the dark figure from the roof of the car. “They’re still on us!” Her dad yelled. He rolled down the window and pointed the shotgun towards the group of them. Numerous shots rang out but she only saw one of the vampires fall.
She turned another corner, hoping she could find a clear stretch of road where she could outrun them but the street ahead of her was cluttered with cars that she had to drive around. Suddenly, a large man flopped down onto the hood of the car with a loud bang and he plunged his hands into the weakened windshield to grab her arms. She screamed but couldn’t wrench her arms free. She couldn’t even see enough to steer the car. With a great heave, the vampire on the hood pulled himself into the car and his head burst through the windshield, inches from her face. His teeth gnashed and snarled. Her dad began beating the vampire with the butt of the shotgun, but it wouldn’t let go.
His weight against the steering wheel caused the car to lurch to the left. She was able to force the wheel back to the right but in doing so, the vampire slid further into the car and her shoulder erupted in pain as his teeth sank in. She screamed in pain and ripped her shoulder free. The vampire went after her neck next and she felt its teeth burrow into her flesh again. She heard the loud crack of the shotgun going off once more and the vampire’s grip loosened. She got one hand free and was able to use it to push his head away from her neck even though he was still fighting to get to her. She was almost able to make out the telephone pole before she hit it at full speed.
The vampire was jettisoned from the car as the driver and passenger side airbags deployed. Ginny’s head hit the canvas bag and felt it cushion the blow, but she was still disoriented. She looked over at her dad. He was unconscious. He had a large gash across his forehead that was bleeding badly. She shook him but he wouldn’t wake. She pulled the door handle and had to lean into it with her shoulder to get it open. It gave a shriek in protest as the twisted metal ground against itself. She was able to stagger up from the car and was dazed when the body of a woman slammed up against her and pushed her up against the open car door. The woman instantly began biting her neck, lapping at the blood that flowed from her wounds. Another vampire pounced on her and began biting her arm when a loud pop rang out and the monster’s face turned into a gory mess. It dropped to the ground. The woman latched onto her neck released for a moment to look up and see what was happening. When she did, her head disintegrated into a cloud of pink mist.
Ginny looked to her right and saw a man approaching with a rifle of some kind. He was walking in a combat style with the rifle pointing towards her. “Who are you? Who are you?” He yelled.
“Help us!” Was all she could think to say. “Please! They attacked us!” Her eyes widened as she saw another vampire emerge from the shadows. The man must’ve seen it as well because he turned just in time to fire a few rounds, dropping the fiend as quickly as he had dispatched the others. “My dad! Please!”
The man paused for only a second before replying. “I’ll get him! Get to that building!” He pointed towards a dark building with boards in the windows. The front doors were cracked open and she could see the face of a woman peeking out. She was motioning for Ginny to come towards her. She must’ve been in a haze because before she knew it, the man was grabbing her arm roughly and dragging her towards the building. He had already grabbed her father and thrown him over his shoulder. His rifle now hung at his side. Two more vampires came running at them with teeth bared and the man let go of her arm, drew a handgun from somewhere and fired two quick headshots into the vampires in one fluid motion. This time, she was able to shake off the haze and she bolted for the doors of the building. She heard the man firing his weapon behind her. She prayed she would make it to the building. It seemed like an impossibly long distance she had to cross. She was almost to the building when a vampire ran towards the woman in the doorway. The woman yelled in fright and drew a handgun. The vampire staggered as she fired over and over again. Eventually, the gun simply made a clicking sound and the woman continued to pull the trigger. She must not have been as good a shot as the man because the vampire still stood there, frozen, but not dead. It rocked back and forth on its heels. It slowly resumed its movement towards the door. The woman in the doorway screamed and a giant dog leapt from the doorway and tackled the monster. It latched onto the vampire’s arm and threw its head back and forth. This time it was the vampire that screamed.
The man caught up to them and pushed her inside the building. He laid her father down on the ground quickly and ran back outside. She heard two rapid gunshots and the man and dog ran inside, closing the door behind them. She heard the sound of a large board being slapped into place. The room was dimly lit by a small light. An orange hue filled the waiting room of what looked like a doctor’s office.
“Dowse that light.” The man whispered and the woman switched it off with a click. They all sat in silence. The room was black as pitch. The only light that entered was from small holes she could see in random places along the wall. Her eyes had not adjusted to the dark yet, but the light coming from one of the holes suddenly went dark and she guessed it was either someone looking out, or someone looking in. Her heart beat so rapidly she was afraid the things outside would hear it and they would be doomed. She could hear them outside. She heard the shuffle of steps and the occasional shifting of some random pile of something that the vampires were looking through. After a long while, she heard the man’s voice. “We’re clear, they’ve moved on.” The two women breathed a sigh of relief. The man still kept his voice low, however. “What the hell were you two doing driving around at night? Didn’t you hear the warnings?” Ginny heard the click of a lighter as a small flame blazed and his face became visible again. The light was just enough so they could see. Ginny was shocked to see the man staring directly at her as though he had been able to see clearly the whole time. When she hesitated, he waved her to silence. “Never mind.” He said. “Let’s get upstairs and make sure you are alright.” He picked up her father and threw him over his shoulder again. The woman with the lighter now flicked the small light back on and led the way to the rear of the building where they walked up a flight of stairs and entered what appeared to be a small loft apartment.
The man laid her father on the couch as the woman began to speak. “What’s your name?” She asked.
“Ginny.” She replied.
“Nice to meet you, Ginny. I wish it were under better circumstances.” The woman had a very proper British accent which surprised Ginny. “My name is Maggie. And the rude one is Charlie.” The man looked up at the comment and Maggie smiled at him.
&
nbsp; “Yeah, rude.” The man said. “Is that what they call dragging people to safety these days?” He said with a smile directed back at Maggie.
Ginny was about to talk when her neck and shoulder suddenly felt like they were on fire. She staggered and had to catch herself on the edge of the couch. She let out a grunt of pain.
Maggie looked her way with sudden concern and moved the light closer to her so she could see better. “Oh God, Charlie. She’s been bitten. Looks like at least twice.” Maggie led her over to a chair and had her sit down. Charlie came to her side with a first-aid pack and began looking over Ginny’s wounds. He shot a concerned look in Maggie’s direction.
“Don’t waste that stuff on me. I know what it means.” She didn’t want to, but she began to cry softly. Everything they had gone through the last few days had been trying but now she couldn’t help but think about how careless they had been. They simply assumed that the attacks would continue in the city and leave the outskirts alone. Now, she would become a monster like her mother. Oh, God! She thought. We blew up the house! What is Mom going to do when she returns from hunting? But she had her own problems now. Soon, she would slip into a coma so deep she would appear to be dead. A short time later, she would rise as something only vaguely reminiscent of her former self.
Maggie and Charlie had moved aside and her father knelt down in front of her. “Daddy?”
“I’m here, Baby. I’m here.”
“They bit me Daddy. They bit me. I don’t want to be like Mom. I don’t want to!” She threw herself into his arms and cried. He held her and ran his fingers through her hair. The darkness began to creep up on her, to creep into her. She began to smell and feel things that she had never felt before. She could smell the blood of the man that had saved her. Charlie was his name. She thought. He smelled good. The darkness crept in further and the world around her slowly faded to black.
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