Blooded: Dead Things

by A. D. Key

  I’ve never left… Blayne’s girlfriend, Lee, and the bodies she and Cole saw in the cave flooded her mind; people she could not save. I can’t leave, she thought. But the single crack on the passenger window provided a cogent argument. Did she really want to risk exposing herself? Troubled, the Shadow, crossbow in hand, took a few steps away from the minivan.

  That’s when Lana realized the shouting hadn’t been for her alone, for the scenery wasn’t the same.

  Two Asian men were about to jump from the bed of a red truck. Lucas hurried in their direction… The tailgating Picture Man slumped over against his tinted car… The two houses, each one on her left and right of the road have expelled their occupants; the ones that are not the sparing types, the dead, frightening type… Loki walked across the road to the house on her right to eliminate a rotting and limping old man… The uneasy stillness in the air unmasked the truth; Vampires have lived on this planet approximately forever and have truly spared the human race, the Shadow thought.

  Now standing outside the car, Leon and Cole prepared to deal with three more zombies slowly but hungrily moving towards the line of vehicles. Leon aimed the rifle. And Lana noticed something disturbing.

  Three of the four zombies looked normal save for the extremely pale skin covered with blood and the absent-mindedness. The fourth girl in green pants…was more frightening. Her white skin was the same color as the others but her veins were visible.

  At least Lana thought they were blood veins until she used her Shadow power. Instead of tiny blue spider webs—the skin that was visible through the torn fabrics and not caked by blood—the veins and thick arteries seemed to be… Brown? The Shadow’s eyes magnified the snow white face penciled with brown lines but that wasn’t what made the Shadow shiver.

  The red eyes.

  The red eyes and the way the girl moved churned Lana’s stomach. The girl walked slowly but faster than the plain ones as if…resolute.

  Leon shot the girl in the green pants. But that wasn’t what caused Lana to jump. She turned to the sound of multiple rounds being fired. The unfortunate girl Lana had left behind outside of the minivan now laid face up with holes in her head. The military shot her from a few yards away. The pickup that had swerved past them to avoid a collision when Lucas slammed on his breaks now maneuvered past the van to be the second in line out of the state.

  ✽✽✽

  …Two Asian men had fled the big red truck. They pointed at me and the two Asians standing on the bed of the automobile; one male, one female. They were trying to tell me something, but of course I don’t speak Chinese. Although the two in the front seat look Americanized and probably could translate, they stayed safely inside their aseptic area, free of deadly bacteria.

  What a lovely time for tourism! To Nebraska!

  While the last China man tried to make his leap, the Asian lady wrapped her arms around him and bit into his spine. Wanting to put the tourist out of his misery, I fired my gun. The man’s tiny muscles relax. The creature released her hold and the man’s stomach hit the bedside, tumbled over landing skull first on the pavement. I felt guilty. Not because I killed a human, but how easy it now felt.

  The girl hunched over and hissed wildly at me.

  “I like Asian chicks. Stop ruining it!” I said back.

  Then something I had never seen before happened. Her face was…changing, like there was an unseen force drawing thin brown lines expanding away from her mouth. Closing her eyes, she suddenly positioned herself up right as if snapping her spine in place. At least that’s what it sounded like to me. Lots of loud and strange popping sounds expelled from her body. What the hell? Her bones breaking? Is this an Asian thing?

  By now the two Asian Americans were standing outside, gaping curiously at the Thing standing on the bed of their truck. The strange popping stopped. Every passageway of blood in her face, neck, arms, and hands were clearly defined. Her eyes opened and she gazed down upon me. I read the expression in its intelligent red eyes; you are going to kill me, but will you stop my kind? For the first time in my life, I thought about something I didn’t believe existed. The Devil.

  The round from my gun connected above her newly developed red eyes, right in the brain. She hissed. My jaw dropped open and my blood ran cold. She swung her leg over the side of the truck—coming for me.

  Another bullet forced its way into her forehead. Silence. I killed her this time.

  “Ma’am!” Someone shouted. Soldiers in camouflage pursued Lana and she hurried away from the minivan. Judging by the dead woman on the pavement I guess she couldn’t save her. Cole diminished the last of the six zombies, two having joined the others. Loki, ringlets of blonde hair bouncing, and the driver of the station wagon, an abnormally thin-looking boy, walked to the Picture Man slumped over his Mustang. His voice drifted all the way down to where I was by the big red truck.

  “Mister, this isn’t the best place—” the boy started.

  Loki interrupted, “Is there a bite mark on you?”

  “Huh?” the thin boy gave her a confused look. They were standing inches from the unresponsive man.

  “When you let those losers touch you with”—she paused trying to think—“their…mouth…” The loud sound of a tank started up.

  Lifting his head from his forearms, the middle-aged Picture Man looked at me. I wasn’t that close so I couldn’t really tell. But his eyes seemed to glaze over like they had been blind for years. He had turned. That much I was sure of. Suddenly, he swung his arms at Loki. She jumped back. Her feet and legs tangling with the boy. The only two trees on either side of the two way street threw themselves furiously in the same direction. The strong moving, no longer calm, winds moved toward the tree trunks like a suddenly frighten child taking in a deep breath stealing the air from the room. Landing on her side, Loki helplessly watched her shotgun spin to the edge of the pavement…

  I heard two noises; the sound of a military tank and Leon’s own vociferous voice shouting, “Lucas!” He had also seen Loki fall. And I saw something else rise from the ground beyond him. I tried pointing to warn them, but Leon and Cole abandoned their positions for the blonde who just fell to a questionable death.

  While curiosity tempted Leon to see what I pointing at, I knew the image of Raven replayed in his mind—over and over she fell from the sky, dying and taking the world with her. And anxiety rocked both our souls like that of a hundred convicts awaiting the verdict of a possible death sentence. Is Loki bitten? If not it won’t take long.

  The wind wrapped itself around chunks of Leon’s long hair as he tried wiggling his way through the small space separating the two cars. His body rumbled forward and Loki stared at him with an infatuation similar to that of an eleven-year-old girl after being saved by an attractive lifeguard. He reached the end of our bumper as Lana pulled the curly, blonde haired girl up by her forearms. Cole, now on the hood of the Mustang, grabbed Leon and held him back in case the bullet fired from a soldier’s gun missed. Luckily, it did not. The grumpy, older Picture Man from the Mustang bowed backwards dead, ending his moment of terror.

  This whole time I’ve been frantically racing back, repeatedly using my vocal chords—blocked out by a tank—to the gang hoping that it counts for something. I won’t make the shot that matters so I don’t even try.

  Seven soldiers passed the group standing in the middle of the road. And even they did not notice the still, standing girl with ripped green pants and a hole in her forehead…

  Leon and the others finally took notice of me. But was it too late?

  My arm extended, pointing. Five faces turned to the Chevy Biscayne…

  ✽✽✽

  …Biting her nails, Kimberly sat in the empty car watching out the back window when Cole and the others turned to face her. The side glass broke. Nails dug into Kimberly’s neck and broken glass slashed the sides of her arms as she was pulled through the window.

  Cole stared hatefully at the girl Leon had supposedly killed. I knew it! Green
Pants knelt to the ground taking the raw meal—Kimberly—with her. The five of them rushed to the other side of the car. Cole has suspected and thought he had confirmed that Lucas and Leon couldn’t be trusted, but then he saw the rifle’s entry wound as the walking dead girl ate from Kimberly’s voice box.

  Leon shot her…again. “Anyone in favor of dismemberment?” He asked, the five of them standing on the gravel of the semi-paved driveway.

  “Sure,” Cole volunteered. “But I’m not touching it.” He kicked the mailbox post in half, and then stabbed at the bones in her neck with the jagged end, eventually dissevering the head.

  Leon raised his gun and shot Kimberly. He closed his blue eyes, pausing for a moment before opening them again. “I saw him again. Devin’s small feet and small hands and wondrous eyes fall once more to the hard pavement. Will I ever be able to let Devin go?” Cole hadn’t been there when Devin died, but in that moment he felt really bad. Leon was being haunted by this little boy’s death. Cole cleared his throat to get rid of the knot forming back there.

  ✽✽✽

  …“Damn it!” I shouted irately after the huge dark green tank crushed Loki’s shotgun. On my way over, I had no choice but to watch with apprehension as everything unfolded; the zombie going after Kim, and the military running right over the shotgun. Cole and Leon strode over to me. “We have to go,” I said. Cole used his ability, his pupils multiplying from two to four, in the tanks direction. Numerous bodies were advancing towards the short line of vehicles. “More zombies.”

  Wanting to forget about everything, I jingled the keys in front of Leon. “I’m riding in the back.” I smiled at Loki.

  “She’s fifteen,” Cole whispered in my ear.

  I snatched the keys out of Leon’s hand. “I have a pretty ass,” I said running a hand through my blonde hair. It was obvious to Cole I wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. I got the feeling Loki could be clingy and he knew I wouldn’t risk going to jail for having sex with someone that much younger than me. I was eighteen but my nineteenth birthday was fast approaching.

  “May I ride with you?” the new kid with bad acne pointed to his smoking vehicle.

  “You can take the Mustang,” Leon declined.

  The boy jogged to the idling vehicle and pulled up on the handle. Locked. He looked down at the key pad. “I have to break the glass in order to get inside. You gonna have me drive around with a busted window by myself?”

  I gave in. “You and Lana sit next to and in front of that kid in case he is changing,” I told Cole. Leon signaled for Alec. Lana took Leon’s original spot upfront and he shifted over to Loki’s seat forcing her in the back behind me.

  “What is your name?” Leon asked the pimple-faced boy while everyone buckled up.

  “Alec.”

  “I’m Leon Carmany.”

  We were next in line. A soldier scanned us with grocery store looking barcode scanners. “Maybe checking our body temperatures,” Leon surmised. The soldier flagged us to continue through, granting us passage. The gateway out of the state closed behind us. We were the last ones allowed out.

  “I’m Lana Queen.”

  “Whoa! What happened to your face?” Alex asked tactlessly.

  “I’m Cole. Why do you so many zits?” He returned the attitude and the shamefaced boy next to him diverted his eyes to the window.

  “Loki,” his friend with the heart shaped face and gray irises raised her hand, introducing herself. There was silence from the driver. Leon nudged me with his elbow to introduce myself. “I’m disturbed,” I responded. “How many times did you shoot—”

  “—That different…” Lana was still unable to actually say the word zombie.

  “Yeah.”

  Leon looked away from the old, wide road to me. “She seemed to be officially dead after—”

  “—The second shot? One mutated in front of me.”

  “What?” Cole shuddered. “I can’t imagine seeing someone change, much less the already transformed transforming.”

  “I’m just gonna use the word ‘species’,” Lana said, “cause I have no idea what to use, but that girl wasn’t just another species. She is, was—”

  “Evolved,” Cole and Lana said simultaneously.

  “Perfect! They just popped into existence today and evolve!” I remarked sarcastically.

  “Luke, they are not immune to death,” Leon said.

  “I don’t think you understand.”

  “She was noticeably faster than the rest,” Lana explained. “And the concentration in her eyes wasn’t like them.”

  “You saw her eyes? Without a scope?” Leon asked, tucking his brown hair behind his ears. Leon had to look through the rifle to completely see her face.

  “We see better than you,” Cole clarified.

  “They have the ability to think, not like us, but they know certain things,” I said with absolute certainty, reverting back to the former subject. “When I saw yours she was near the car standing still. Too still. She only moved after those panicking scared soldiers passed. And when the Asian woman changed she saw everyone but came at me.”

  “So?” Alec responded, his voice straddling the line of rudeness.

  “No one else had a weapon.”

  Leon ran his hand over his smooth chin, coming to a conclusion. “They know danger.”

  “And we know not to get bit,” Loki chimed from the backseat. “How could Kimberly just sit there not knowing a crazy person was there? Also, her quietness and constantly rocking back and forth was freaking me out.”

  To Leon’s surprise, my knuckles whitened. “For brief a second I wished Kimberly would disappear while she was following us through Lana’s field,” I admitted. “I feel bad now.” Leon turned and looked directly into Loki’s unsympathetic eyes. “There is this thing called the grieving process.”

  “We obviously didn’t notice her either,” Lana reminded her friend. “And I saw how close you were to that man.”

  “I’m not bit.”

  “You lost the shotgun,” I threw out. I wasn’t happy.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, turning her gray eyes to the floor of the car.

  “Yeah, sorry the only attention she’s getting is the wrong kind,” I heard Leon say under his breath.

  Cole turned to Alec, the wind nipping at their faces through the busted window. “I know there can only be one ugly Volkswagen in Nebraska and it speed by Lana and me earlier today when we were looking for someone. You almost hit us!”

  “I knew I recognized you two!” He said, and Lana turned around in the front seat, as much as her seatbelt would allow. “Why were you—”

  “Sorry ‘bout almost runnin’ over you,” Alec apologized. “Was taking my niece to the hospital. What did you mean you see better?” he asked Cole.

  “Want to hear another horror story? It ties in to where we are going.”

  “Which you haven’t asked about,” Lana pointed out.

  “My families dead. I was going anywhere.”

  A sign read:

  Now leaving Nebraska. Come back soon!!

  “Yeah right!” I said and pressed the gas petal to the floor, the numbers noticeably increasing on the speedometer. I couldn’t leave the place behind fast enough.

  My cousin and I had traveled from Tennessee to Nebraska and rescued two girls from his vision. The seer and I are alive. For now.

  But will Kansas be any better?

  The dead are evolving…

  There’s a girl with us named Loki…

  And Raven… What do we do about the Vampire Goddess…?

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  ~~~

  Acknowledgements

  ~

  A huge thank you to:

  my husband, Jay,

  he’s been my rock;

  Kristyn,

  for her incredible book cover;

  R.L. Stine’s classes, for making Blooded better than it started out;

  my friends for accepting me for the vam
pire artist I am; my reader’s group, and Amber A., Jo B., Richard G., Brandy W., Lori L., Jonathan B., Josh P., and Vinny F., their online support means more than I can say;

  And the small town of Springfield, Tennessee for proving you don’t have to come from a big city to live your dream.

  Thank you for reading my book. Please remember to take a moment to leave me a review. It’s very important and it would mean so much to me.

  I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

  xoxo -A.D. KEY

  You can leave your review here

  P.S. You may leave an additional review on Goodreads or anywhere you wish. You can also get this book for a friend. And look for the sequel

  BLOODED 2:

  SECRETS

  ~~

  About The Author

  Voted biggest bookworm, A.D. Key was raised in Tennessee (USA), and is the author of Blooded: Dead Things, Blooded 2: Secrets and Blooded 3 coming soon! A.D. Key is also a lover of homemade tacos and pizza with ranch dressing.

  Come say Hi on Facebook and Instagram!

  ~~~