Blooded: Dead Things

by A. D. Key

  The Nebraskan Shadow felt her face become warmer from her increased blood pressure. I bet Blayne’s girlfriend is behind that one and Kronos in one of the others. Maybe. Who knows?

  For a moment Lana stood between the steps and Number Two contemplating checking the three rooms and squaring off with Kronos or whatever was in there. But then decided she should find out if there was even a person to find and save; for all she knew the girl was dead.

  Lana turned left and began following the railing that led from the stairs to the Smiley Face; looking over the side she could see the big empty room below. The old hardwood under her boots made more noise than the stairs and previous floor combined. Lana prayed it did not give way.

  The CLUNK CLUNK of her low heel intensified as she passed Number Three, coming closer to the red spray paint. Her hand tightly squeezed the stake to the point where she had feared she might break it. That certainly would not help things.

  Standing in front of the last door, the smell of the fresh paint combined with the musty odor of the house made Lana extremely nauseated. Let’s get this over with. Lana touched the chipped knob, stake ready for a slaying, and pushed the decayed door…

  Inside sat a girl with brown hair.

  Lana nearly peed on herself, but then noticed the gray masking tape over the wiry brunette’s lips in the niche of time. The girl was taped to a chair the same way the Shadow saw in movies—tape wrapped around her feet and gray strips ran underneath her bosom to the back of the chair.

  Blayne’s girlfriend had been crying for some time, her cheeks were soaked and red. Lana knew she must have stopped recently because she had not heard the sniffling that comes with the heavy flow of tears. But upon seeing her savior the girl had resumed weeping.

  The rescuer did not like the scenery. There were no windows; jumping from the second story was not an option. They would have to go back the way Lana had come, or go up the stairs that went right up through the ceiling behind the kidnapped girl. Bad idea.

  A trap. This entire thing was a trap. Lana knew this all along. She was not stupid. Seeing the scissors purposely left beside the chair not only guaranteed something bad was about to happen, but it would be seconds from now when they were on their way back towards the black question marks. It felt ironic somehow. What to do now? That was the question.

  The Shadow slowly peeled the sticky tape back from the girl’s lips, not wanting to cause her further pain. Although sore lips was the least of their worries.

  “Elp me,” she said.

  Lana could tell by the way she spoke this girl had been born deaf or partially deaf; she did not know which due to a lack of education on this…condition? Lana tried to conceal her surprise. She had not expected Blayne’s girlfriend to have a disability; until now she figured from her own experience that all teenage boys except for Cole were harsh and insensitive creatures.

  Then her surprise turned into anger. She snatched the blades up and cut the thick strips at the back of the chair. How could Kronos do this to her…? Well he is a Vampire and she is a human.

  Lana stood up after cutting the ligature around the girl’s hands and feet. Now what? I don’t know where Kr —the Shadow froze mid thought, a deadly suspicion formed in her bones like osteoporosis.

  Lana stared at the oddly placed stairs. Why would someone build a stairway in a room?

  The deaf girl rose from the old-fashioned chair. Lana put a finger to her lips, signaling her to be silent. It would not matter to Kronos how much, or how little noise they made, but the absence of vocal chords being used helps the adept tracker concentrate.

  When she ascended the stairway with the painted arrow on it, she had known her nemesis was up here Lana recalled.

  But that feeling had not changed.

  With Kronos, her ability was supposed to work like someone playing a game of “warmer” or “colder” upon finding something.

  It did not lessen or become stronger.

  Eyes closed, the highly alert Shadow walked to the second stairway. She waited. Waited for the “colder” feeling. The girl with the permanent scars etched into her face stood at the foot of the stairs and opened her eyes. The wooden stairwell was not lit. It was pitch-black and she could see nothing.

  Lana ran.

  She grabbed the deaf girl’s hand and ran. Lana knew. She had known before ever coming through the front door of the “Haunted House”. But what was she to do? She could not send out an alert through the Shadow Connection—a system Shadows often use to communicate with each other by telepathically sending out images of their locations—it would result in Kronos killing the poor girl. Besides, even if she wanted to Lana did not know how to do such a thing. The superhuman had more slaying years than the other Shadows she had met over the years. But she seemed to be the only one who hasn’t mastered this critical power.

  Lana stood at the foot of the lightless stairway and faced the truth. There would be no “colder” feeling. Deaths were here. Lana left the room hand in hand with the bait, not having the faintest idea where her enemies patiently waited.

  But it did not take long for one—the one—to present himself.

  The two girls had just barely made it out of the red Smiley Face room when Kronos rushed out from behind door Number Three holding a silver canister. It became clear why he had turned on the electricity. The Vampire wanted to make sure the Shadow could read the canister’s label. It was marked Acid, Bitch.

  Lana quickly turned for the railing that ran alongside the small floor. Simultaneously, she tucked her left hand inside her long sleeved leather jacket and raised the jacket up to shield the side of her face while placing her right boot on the rail—her free hand still clasped with the Deaf Girl’s shaking palm.

  Then the Shadow heard the sound of her own voice bouncing off the bare walls. Her ear was on fire.

  And Lana didn’t realize the other girl hadn’t stepped up onto the railing. Instead of them jumping down together, the other girl’s legs bumped against the rail. Their hands dissevered, becoming two again, and while Lana was in the motion of jumping she saw a mop of brown hair topple over the side.

  The Shadow witnessed the girl land neck first on the hardwood floor. She heard bones break and knew she had failed. With the sudden distractions, acid eating away at her ear and the kidnapped girl’s fall, Lana landed on her backside. Fortunate the old floor did not collapse from the impact. She forced open her eyelids. Cole’s worried face was centimeters from hers, and when she looked up at the railing Kronos had disappeared.

  The next thing the Shadow knew she was in the emergency room with no memory of how she came to be there. “Blayne. Is he alive? How is he handling the news about…about his girlfriend?” Lana asked.

  “I never saw the boy,” he told her.

  Later Lana realized she had never known the name of Blayne’s girlfriend and finding out was unlikely. To her, the girl would always be referred to as Blayne’s Girlfriend or the Deaf Girl.

  A girl had died right before her eyes and she didn’t even know her name.

  Lana shook her head, snapping back to the present. Still walking the familiar gray pavement of the cemetery with Cole. The birthmark on the Adam’s apple of his throat highlighted in the bright sunlight.

  After the death of her father she had expected Kronos to come after her unstinting, generous mother, but he never showed any signs of interest. She was, is, grateful. Not bothering to look at them, she shuddered passing the grave markers of her departed relatives. All three of them—grandfather, grandmother, and father—had been laid to rest side by side.

  Now is not the time for emotions to tear me. The hunt has to come first…not the hurt. The Shadow pushed forward. Thoughts plaguing her mind.

  Her graduation was four days ago. That same night Kronos had lead her and Cole on a wild goose chase out of state. The Shadow was more than willing to pursue, in hopes that college and life in general would be better without contentiously having to look over her shoulder.


  But now they are back home and she does not know why.

  Upon approaching a golden suburban parked on the left side with heavily tinted windows, they spotted some visitors up ahead in the cemetery. One of the suburban’s windows slid down and a cute little boy with a yellow sponge on his white shirt perched up from the backseat. “I’m Devin,” he waved, smiling bashfully. Lana gently waved back. The fair-haired boy giggled and shied away from the window.

  Lana smiled at a couple not too much older than her and Cole standing in between the rows of grave markers. The tall and unadorned woman politely returned the sweet gesture with a wave before bending to place variegated flowers on a grave. Cole gave that friendly nod that most men tend to do nowadays, which in return the oddly short man reciprocated.

  Bound for the vast empty space at the rear of the cemetery, the Shadows left the pair. Striding upwards and turning left at the zenith of the hill, they obeyed the cement wall on the right steering them to awaiting land that hankers for more bodies.

  Right smack in the middle of freshly mowed bluestem grass, a sudden gust of wind lurched the pacifying aroma and the tallest weeping willow Lana has ever seen. Its talon like limbs cavorted in every direction, screaming for souls to accompany the loneliness that invades its territory. The tepid air finally settled, sending a calming peace over the broken-hearted willow. Lana thought the whole scene to be appropriate; that was what most people look like and feel like when they first come to a resting place for the dead.

  Briskly gliding downhill through patches of cut grass, they continued on with their search for the Vampire in hiding. The fence met another seven foot wall and the excited pair stole glances up the high land and small woods on the other side of the field. Seeing no sign of ordinary humans, or anyone for that matter, Lana and Cole jumped up, readily flipping over the cemetery border leaving city limits.

  “One, two,”

  “We’re coming for you,” they sang quietly.

  LUCAS

  PARKED in front of our motel room, I sat shirtless with my damp shirt in my lap. I intensely directed my crazy eye look at him.

  “What?”

  I continued eyeing him like a mad man.

  “What?”

  I stared incredulously, not answering. Others would have found it humorous. Leon did not. This time my cousin demanded, “WHAT?”

  “A zombie, Leon?” I questioned, raising my eyebrow in continued skepticism.

  “Man, that’s what it looked and acted like. And the smell was worse than that summer our dads gutted those two deer in Uncle Joe’s barn.”

  “Yeah. That was on your eighth birthday when you made Rachel yack by trying to explain what a uterus was,” I recalled, laughing so hard my muscles flexed. Our cousin Rachel, Uncle Joe’s daughter, was a month shy of turning seven when Leon drew her a diagram of her internal plumbing. For Leon and me it was one of the best summers ever.

  “Hey, it was difficult being the only seven year old in sixth grade. Not only was I young.” Leon opened the car door. “But I seemed younger due to my birthday being the twelfth of June.”

  “Difficult for you? You stole all my chicks!” I declared, striding over to the room.

  “Seeing as how I graduated from high school at thirteen I couldn’t really date college women!” my cousin, the genius retorted, passing through the threshold. Leon’s intelligence helped him to become a veterinarian at age eighteen. Early one morning when he was four his father accidentally ran over his puppy backing out of the driveway. After weeks of grieving Leon knew he wanted to help spare others the pain of losing their pets too soon if he could help it.

  I unlocked the door. Room seventeen.

  “Why is our room number the only one displayed in red? The others are black.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. OCD. Why don’t you figure it out genius? Or ask the manager.”

  Inside the motel, I opened the flimsy bathroom door, my backpack of clothes still on the bathroom floor exactly where they were left at lunch time. I left the cheap, burgundy door open. Exchanging my damp-coffee clothes for clean ones, leaving it up to Leon to find the location of the cemetery.

  While he sat in his crimson cotton t-shirt, I knew Leon was recalling the events from the restaurant. He had not particularly cared for our waitress, but she had showed an interest in him until the “magnificent Luke” arrived, is what my cousin says.

  “It’s not like you have trouble getting women now,” the slightly offended genius muttered to himself while opening up his royal blue laptop.

  “I heard that!” I said, pulling the clean shirt down over my head.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Leon said, tapping away at the keys. No doubt rolling his eyes.

  PART TWO

  4: In The Same Town

  THE MYSTERY LADY

  IT WAS NOTICEABLE but I knew no one was paying attention; my blue AC/DC shirt reflecting the sunlight while I eavesdropped.

  I had followed the two boys—one with shoulder length brown hair, the other blonde—and watched them get out of a dark blue car and enter a motel room. I retrieved the vibrating phone from my pants pocket as I pendulously awaited at the side of the building. The smell of weeks old trash from the nearby dumpster blew right by.

  “I know what it is and it starts here,” I answered but with a different accent than the American tone used previously with the rude American boy on the sidewalk.

  “Raven, get—”

  “Olsen. Olsen cease talking,” I commanded him with a British accent. He knows I’m not British that it’s my favorite way of communicating when stressed. It calms my mind better than a stress ball. Using the American tone does make it easier to communicate here but there was no need when talking to Olsen, who was across seas.

  A yellow 2009 Gemballa Mirage GT pulled into the parking lot.

  “They reside in room seventeen, but I have not received further directives on this matter. “Until I do, we will be in Kansas.” With my mind made up, I terminated the conversation and espionage.

  The yellow car circled and parked sideways taking up spots next to the motel. I’ll be seeing you soon, Brighton Leon Carmany. Farewell, I thought and hopped in on the passenger side. The sweet smell of coca butter was a pleasant greeting.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Oh, Ganesha. At least I was an attentive little spy this time. Unlike before when I had been too distracted and wasn’t paying attention to where my feet were headed,” I said concerned, choosing the American accent. Her dark hand touched the gearshift and we slowly pulled away from the motel. “This isn’t like me. My mind was so focused on other things I bumped right into one of them earlier, dumping my coffee all over him.”

  “Are they hot?” she asked, smiling.

  I playfully rolled my eyes. “I never thought I would be so happy to be wearing a wig. Being exposed is the last thing we need.” Of course, sitting there, scratching at the fake brown hair, feeling my worried mind settling, I had no way of knowing that shortly the evil that would be marching toward our house.

  KIMBERLY & JIMMY (The oddly short man)

  “IT’S ONE O’ NINE.” THE BONEY WOMAN IN AUGUST Cemetery looked away from her watch and down at the headstone. She and her boyfriend had been here awhile—even before their brief encounter with the two dark-haired teenagers. A star, the sun, casted off rays onto exposed rows of buried bones; no shade to cover the graves. The frequent breezes had come to a standstill; no longer rolling down the flowerless hill in her father’s cemetery. The nape of her neck was perspiring and leaving before the unpleasant liquid covered her was highly on Kimberly’s mind.

  “Ah!” A scream echoed through the cemetery.

  “Jimmy, is that your brother?” she asked nervously.

  The short five-foot-four man looked up from the headstone to the golden suburban. He sighed seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “You know he’s probably playin’ games again, Kim.”

  “Help me!” A child’s scream beckoned.

  Jimmy and
Kim sprinted through her father’s cemetery, and fear entered their minds without an invitation. Running around the left of the suburban, Jimmy saw to his horror Kim’s father holding his eight year old brother up by the shoulders. “Joseph, what are—,” Jimmy stopped short noticing the blood on the man’s white collared shirt, a bloody tear in the arm, and a rib peeking out from the fabric.

  A terrified Devin punched the zombie’s pale gray chin.

  Arriving on Devin’s other side, Kim witnessed her father lean in and bite the skin off of the tiny child’s neck.

  Jimmy tackled the assailant to the grass, and the tall woman caught the crying child. Several layers of his tender skin gone, blood drizzling down from the bite.

  Kim yanked off his adorable little shirt and tied it around his slender neck. She quickly strapped him in the back and hurried around to the driver’s seat.

  Now standing, Jimmy thrusted the older man before he could completely stand again and the crazy man tumbled down the hill. Jimmy hurriedly joined his alarmed girlfriend.

  LUCAS

  THE certified genius glanced up when I exited the tinier than tiny bathroom. Sporting my dark denims and a shirt with white long sleeves and a light blue middle. “I found it.”

  “How far do we have to drive this time?” This Vampire Hunter didn’t bother to conceal his annoyance. Since our home is in Tennessee we are pretty much guaranteed to drive an extremely long distance. Leon’s visions tend to take us back and forth across the States. “I’m a little disappointed that our trip here was a dead end. And zombies dude? I don’t know. That’s just stupid. You better not be losing your touch,” I said, pointing to my skull, I collapsed down spine first on the twin bed.

  “Luke, that cemetery is only five miles from here.”

  I sprang up from the surprisingly comfortable mattress. “Huh?”