Blooded: Dead Things

by A. D. Key

  LUCAS

  PUTTING ON THE BRAKES, we stared with open mouths. Several yards ahead verdant green fire rose over the fence in Rush Cemetery. Climbing towards the sky, the green fire changed into snow white smoke and then disappeared.

  “Wow!” Leon boomed, slicking back long strands of hair. “A Vampire in daylight?” We had never seen anything like this; only heard stories.

  “More importantly, who killed it?” The human-killing creatures of the night would never willing step foot in front of the star. The sun. And no normal human could force them to do so. We had heard rumors of supercharged humans possessing the instinctive ability to track Vampires.

  “We have never seen a Tracker,” Leon said air quoting Tracker, dismissing my theory.

  “Never seen a zombie,” I said air quoting.

  “Point taken, Luke.”

  While exiting the old graveyard to ponder the Vampire’s death and to continue with the stakeout at the cemetery’s entrance, we noticed two dark-headed figures running in the field along a graveled driveway towards the white house… If Leon had known one of them was our Potential we might have stayed longer in the end. But would it have helped?

  6: Hope

  KIMBERLY

  THE SKY WAS AT THE WRONG ANGLE. Upside down. Kimberly unbuckled her seatbelt, and Devin appeared next to her outside of the wreckage. The tiny cuts on her hands stinging as she climbed out through the glassless window. Facing the way they had traveled, shocked eyes refuse their sight. A body lied in the intersection.

  Jimmy’s body.

  An elderly couple got out of the small car behind her and Devin. An obese woman with multiple chins walked toward them from the right. A man with a gun strode away from his white four-door truck that had been behind the person in the dump truck who caused the accident.

  The door of the dump truck was open.

  Something deadly looking resembling that of a human fell down from it…

  The heavy woman yelled, “Thing! Thing! Kill it!”

  Bang!

  The halfway sitting up thing slumped down again. Dead.

  “How did you get that on your neck?” the man from the white truck addressed Devin, pistol by his side.

  “Why?” Kimberly asked defensively, pulling the boy closer. The boy’s shirt now soiled with a red coloring.

  “The radio said to watch out for people that looked like death.”

  “And for people that had excessive bleeding,” added Hefty.

  “And excessive bleeding,” he repeated and pointed his weapon at the child. Devin screamed in terror. A cloud muted the sun…

  “IF ZOMBIES DO START TAKING OVER, we’ve got a bigger problem than trying to kill them.”

  My eyes were bulging. “What’s harder than that?” I demanded.

  “Luke, look around you. What do you see?”

  Rush Cemetery stood to our right and the field of bluestem grass (more than likely used for hay) to the left. I took a few seconds to think, running my fingers over my square chin. “Nothing.”

  “And the nearest city’s forever away,” Leon informed me.

  “Are you telling me that any cities we find out there—”

  “—Population does well to even get above seven hundred. They’re going to be less likely to be infected—”

  “And when they hear about this they’re gonna keep it that way,” I concluded.

  “Locking and boarding up. No one gets in.” The realist turned to the small rolling knolls of land. “Luke, there is nowhere to hide out there.”

  “Damn it!” I contemplated our options. And arrived at only one. “Okay. After we save this girl we are going home.”

  “Which girl?”

  “The one that shows up. The girl from your last vision.”

  “Okay. Since we’re waiting let’s go back. I forgot my book.”

  “Seriously, dude? You spend more time reading the poems of T.S. Eliot than the amount of hours I use watching busting Asians on the internet. You have it memorized. Can’t you just write it?”

  Leon huffed. His annoyance caused me to laugh in amusement. “Okay, okay,” I said. I turned the key over. The car’s engine rumbled to life. “Here’s to her not dying while we go on a book quest.”

  “That street light was on and the gate was closed,” Leon said, recalling his vision. I put the car in drive, tires slowly rolling along the road. “Didn’t you say this happened before dark…?” I asked.

  …Lana and Cole, flashlights in hand, neared the end of her gravel driveway. They saw a deep blue-colored car so waxed that it reflected the scenery as it drove away from the cemetery entrance. While the car passed by Rush Cemetery, the street lamp—not knowing the time of day—stirred from its slumber…

  ✽✽✽

  “This can’t be good,” I said when we drew near the four-way stop sign. A dump truck and a golden suburban blocked a great deal of the intersection. Four wheels of the beat-up suburban pointed towards the darkened blue sky, and broken glass and pieces of metal covered the pavement.

  “Hey! What the hell is that guy doin’? Why would anyone aim something deadly like a gun at a kid?!” Leon said. His southern accent tended to come out more when he was angry.

  I stopped the car at the white line painted on the pavement and reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my pistol. I tucked it against my back, the barrel pointing down inside my pants. The safety still on. The two of us quickly hopped out, hurrying over to the people idly watching while a man threatened a child’s life.

  The young, light-haired boy wrapped himself around the leg of the adult female next to him, tears streaming down his innocent face. “Please, help!” the woman begged us. The man with the obviously dyed hair, way too dark for his age, lowered his firearm upon our presence.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the woman.

  “Kimberly. This is Devin.”

  “And you?” Leon asked the older man with dyed black hair. The hair on his face was gray and white.

  “Tyler.”

  “Tyler, I’m Leon.” Simultaneously, we noticed the pale gray dead man by the dump truck. And then another man, short and bald and lying face down. “What happened here?”

  “Something… Zombies—I think. This kid is one of them.”

  “No, I’m not!” Devin cried, and called out to the short dead man, “Jimmy! Jimmy, help!”

  Leon tucked back the brown hair that had fallen in front of his eyes and stepped toward the wrecked car. Tyler stiffened. “I’m just going to check on Jimmy,” Leon said, hoping to calm the man. He bent down beside the dead man lying face down on the pavement and placed two fingers on Jimmy’s carotid artery; located on the side of his neck. Leon looked at the extremely thin lady standing next to the child. “What is Jimmy to you?” He asked her.

  “My boyfriend. And Devin’s brother.”

  Leon hesitated. Not wanting to confirm what the rest of us knew. “He’s dead.”

  Shocked, Kimberly hung onto Devin’s little hand. She looked as if she might faint. “My brother is missing. There’s something wrong with my dad. A stranger is pointing a gun at Devin. And now my boyfriend is dead?”

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler said, giving false condolences. “But he has to be stopped.” The man pointed his gun at the little boy. Devin hid behind Kimberly, screaming frantically and pulling at her legs.

  “Listen to yourself,” I spoke up, hoping to talk some sense into the man. “You’re talking about killing kids.”

  “He’s infected,” Hefty chimed in.

  “He’s not,” Kimberly said, her voice shaky.

  I sneered at the uncaring overweight lady. “So what if he is? There might be a cure.”

  Kimberly once again tried reassuring everyone. “Nothing touched him.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Hefty.

  “Exactly!” I snapped at the eager to kill woman.

  “I can know,” Leon said calmly.

  Tyler raised an eyebrow. He was curio
us. “How?”

  “I’m a Veterinarian. I work with wounds. May I have a look?”

  “Go,” he says waving his life stopper, the gun.

  Briskly, my cousin and I walked over to the shaking, condemned boy and squatted down in front of him. “Devin, it’s okay.” Leon was a stranger but the certainty in his voice brought the little boy out of hiding. Leon untied the knot and slowly unwound the shirt. He had to have felt the tension radiating from the stringy-haired female with cuts on her hands. I sure did.

  “I’m eight. Everyone tells me I’m smart for my age. Are you smart for your age?”

  “Yeah,” Leon smiled. And then his heart momentarily stopped. It had to. Because mine did. Both of Leon’s jobs included saving people’s lives. This hurt me, but I knew it meant more to him.

  Bright purple skin dangled from the top of a wound the size of Devin’s fist; the edges spotted with green pus and the tiny veins surrounding it were white underneath the flesh with a brown outline.

  Looking the eight year old in his fear-filled eyes, a lump like the size of a life threatening tumor formed at the back of my throat.

  “Please,” Devin pleaded, barely loud enough for us to hear. Innocent tears sparkling in the light of what felt like frozen time.

  Kimberly’s body blocked the view from the two quiet observers behind her. The overweight woman couldn’t see over Leon, and Tyler was unable see this side of the poor child’s neck. Leon’s mouth parted in anguish. Does he open his mouth and take indirect responsibility for ending the imaginative spirit behind those youthful child eyes that peer into him? Or does he try to lie in hopes of saving him?

  My cousin and I will never walk in this world the same way we did when we woke up this morning. We will never forget the silence. The silence of little Devin. Motionless before his little body swayed towards Kimberly. She swooped down, catching her dead boyfriend’s dead brother.

  Leon, unable to move, stared at the air where Devin had once stood.

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler apologized for killing the child. But it didn’t mean a damn thing. He climbed back in his truck with his stupid hair that had been dyed black.

  I felt chunks of food and stomach acid touch my tongue. I hunched over and regurgitation splashed on the scattered debris.

  Tyler and the oversized woman crossed the intersection, moving around the collision. The old man ushered his sobbing wife to their car.

  “Let’s go, Brighton,” I said, practically pulling Leon up by his arms. “We’re going back to Rush. Then we are gettin’ the hell out of here! As for your book, I’ll buy you a new one.”

  ✽✽✽

  To clear my mind, I rolled the window down and breathed in the calm but misleading air blowing in on our way back to the graveyard. I hope she lives. A welcoming image of intelligent eyes brightened behind my own. The smile in her trusting irises made nauseating gloom and darkness fall away like beautiful sparkling snow from a graceful cloud.

  Odd. I didn’t even know her name.

  Maybe if I hadn’t been up until three in the morning watching reruns of women’s MMA matches and listening to classic rock, then I wouldn’t have shown such hostility towards her and I would know her name. I could help her; the girl who wore the shirt displaying my favorite band.

  But if I had not been up in the early AM maybe I wouldn’t have seen her.

  “What… Are you okay, Lucas?” Leon interrupted my thoughts.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “About…that kid? I can’t bring myself to say his name.”

  “Not that. Anything that isn’t that. This day is about to take a turn that involves me feeling like I’ve been butt-raped isn’t it?”

  Leon put a hand over his stomach. “I got a bad feeling.”

  “Considering what just happened, well yeah.”

  “Pull over.” Not waiting for a complete stop, Leon carried him to the front of the vehicle. Breathing fast, he placed his hands on the hood like he was trying to concentrate.

  “Leon?” I gave him a sidelong glance, shutting my door.

  “Luke, I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said and walked away from me.

  “Yeah, you mentioned that. Now say something else, like are you having some traumatized attack?”

  “Fatigue…” he said. “Pavement vibrating. Patches of grass shifting around, chasing each other as if they are trying to find the right spot to settle.” He described what he was seeing. “That’s not right.”

  “Seriously, I’m already freaked the hell out!” I yelled, not far behind him. “Stop moving!”

  He turned.

  I saw his eyelids blink once. He trudged a single footstep forward on the open road.

  The seer’s knees buckled…

  RAVEN

  …WHY IS THE SKY SO FAR DOWN? He wonders. He has been falling for some time now. There has to be a bottom. Right? Water gently touches his smooth cheeks. That must be from the cascade. Where is it going? Wind violently pushes him upwards taking him into a lightless abyss…

  …It’s black.

  “Wake up,” he suddenly says.

  “Who is that? Why are you whispering?” I ask calmly.

  “Wake up,” the familiar voice urges.

  The sound of an irregular heartbeat thumps loudly before being masked by incoherent babbling.

  Orange rays—source unknown—burst onto my tan face, like sunrise on a scorching summer day, blinding me. Clasping my fingers over confused squinty eyes, incoherent babbling escalates into shouting. The orange rays respond angrily, dividing into three darker ones thwarting around my skull. Two of the rays dig with great effort through my ear canals, scratching at the eardrum like a cockroach. The third, without hesitation, unkindly delivers itself up into the airless passageway of my nose.

  The voices stop.

  All is mute except for the sound of a heart beating implausibly slow…

  I smell an unforgettable scent. Fear.

  My eyes snap wide open. The seats to my left and right are vacant. Every passenger on the plane is gathered behind me, screaming in my direction. Lifting my head off the back of the seat in front of me, my eyesight aligns with the dead, glazed pupils of a zombie. His lips seem to curl up with elation. Bent over the padded seat, it leans forward avidly moaning.

  The irises and pupils of my eyes are not typical colors… The white parts are blue… My brown ringlets flatten and turn light yellow…

  Putting my hands around the zombie’s neck, its eyes instantly change from red to the same brilliant, sapphire blue I had seen earlier today… Grabbing me by the shoulders, it suddenly morphs into Leon Carmany. “Raven, you have to wake up!” Leon warns again.

  I calmly awakened from the nightmare—a first—to bundled layers of fluffy clouds drifting under a bird, the airplane, that remains to be the interloper in the sky. I had not meant to go to sleep, at first, but then the relaxed atmosphere took over my body. I certainly didn’t expect to have a bad dream with so many hearts beating in the enclosed area.

  What I found more surprising than me not waking to the sound of the screaming voices in my head that haunt me when I sleep, is the sensation that someone on this flight is not well…

  LUCAS

  “STOP!” LEON SPLUTTERED, CHOKING ON FALLING water.

  A bottle of water dropped from my trembling hand to join the other four bottles on the side of the road. “Finally! Do you have any idea what I’ve just been through?!”

  My cousin, the seer, rested his head back against the car. “No. Why?”

  “I’ve been splashing crap on you for the last five minutes!”

  He eyed the plastic containers. “Or drowning me.” He climbed to his feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting in,” Leon said, plopping down on the car seat.

  I huffed and went to the other side of the car. “Well?” I said, shutting the driver side door, waiting for an explanation.

  “I don’t know. I feel better. The word r
aven feels like it should mean something.”

  “You nearly hit your big head and made my spine turn into Forest Gump pulling your dorky guts off the road because you wanted to dream about Edgar Allen Poe!”

  “Why are you yell—”

  “—Because your wrong and incorrect vision made us come here! I just saw a tiny boy get his tiny boy brains removed! And I don’t want to fight evil bastards that are just as evil as the evil Vampires we already remove from this psychotic planet you and I call home!”

  Leon didn’t have a response. Or he just chose not to respond to my outburst. I used the moment of silence to compose myself.

  “If this thing gets out of control we’re going to be seeing more than Devin,” my cousin finally spoke, water dripping from his shoulder length hair.

  “That’s what scares me, Leon.”

  I started the engine and the two of us persevered with our journey to save the unsuspecting black-haired girl with scars on her lips and damaged ear cartilage.

  LANA & COLE

  BLACK SHADOWS danced around cave rocks caused by hand held lights. Something dripped onto Lana’s nose… Her light shined upward to the cave’s ceiling, followed by her friend’s ring of light. Cole’s usual cheery smile quickly twisted into the upside down version of the Joker’s memorable smile; his favorite villain.

  As if she swallowed tacks, air sharply cut into Lana’s throat causing her to fumble over her words. “S-S-Someone’s been trying t-to Push for a while.” Some of the bodies with missing heads and teeth marks told her a new Vampire is or has been in this tunnel. Fresh Vampires are the easiest to kill for they have not acquired what the older ones have learned. And since they do not have the ability to Push they must feed by physically holding and biting their prey.