Maybe, I thought darkly, he doesn’t want us there because he knows we’re going to kick some serious drinker zombie – crawler, whatever the hell they’re called – ass.
My mind made up, I leaned down and spat a thick watery stream of toothpaste into the sink. There was no way I was going to be the one responsible for calling off the attack. We were sticking with the plan. It was a good plan, a smart plan, and, when things were all said and done, it was going to be a successful plan.
I just knew it.
Rinsing off my toothbrush I tucked it into the waistband of my shorts and shuffled back over to my sleeping bag. Rose was already tucked into hers, eyes closed and breathing deep and steady. The girl could fall asleep faster than anyone I knew. It was kind of weird, to be honest. Not that I was complaining.
Becca and Livy were still awake. Their whispers carried over the top of the lockers but I knew that within a matter of minutes they would be asleep as well. That just left Ms. Siegel.
Laying down on top of my sleeping bag I waited until Rose’s breathing got even heavier, Becca and Livy’s whispers died down, and I could hear Ms. Siegel’s soft snores before I stood up. Quickly tying my hair off in a long braid I pulled a black hooded sweatshirt over my t-shirt and exchanged my shorts for a pair of dark leggings. Twice I froze, certain I’d woken someone up, but when I didn’t hear anything I finished changing, tucked a small flashlight into the front pocket of the sweatshirt and grabbed my gun before tip-toeing out the back door.
Maximus’ warning about the farmhouse wasn’t the only one I was going to ignore. Whether he liked it or not I was going to Travis’ gravesite.
Alone.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER I WAS seriously regretting my decision.
I hadn’t been attacked or maimed or dragged off to the farmhouse by my hair, but I had definitely forgotten how far it was from the middle school to the Renner Hotel. If I’d been feeling one hundred percent the distance wouldn’t have been a problem, but after being on my feet for most of the day and tromping into the woods and back again my knee was all kinds of sore. If I was smart I would have taken some aspirin. Then again, if I was really smart I wouldn’t be walking around town in the middle of the night in the first place.
Every little noise made me jump. I almost had a full-blown heart attack when a cat climbed out of a dumpster and went sprinting across my path. I was having serious flashbacks to the first night the drinkers had attacked when I’d run for my life through people’s backyards. But I was too stubborn – and stupid – to turn around.
Trying my best to ignore the pain radiating up my leg with every step, I gritted my teeth and kept moving. If I didn’t get to Travis’ grave tonight then chances were I never would. I didn’t know what I expected to find when I got there. I didn’t even know what I wanted to find. If the grave was undisturbed then nothing would have changed. Travis would still be dead. My best friend would still be gone. But if the grave was empty…
Goosebumps prickled my flesh as I considered the ramifications of stumbling onto an empty grave. If Travis’ body was gone it could only mean one of two things. Either the drinkers had sunk to a new low, or Maximus was telling the truth and Travis was a drinker. But how had he been turned? And when? And why the hell hadn’t he come and found me?
The drinkers were blood-thirsty monsters, no question. But they could still think and reason and act human when they wanted to. Maximus was a prime example of that. So if Travis really was a drinker why hadn’t he given me some sign? A note. A midnight visit. Something to let me know what had happened to him.
Cutting through a subdivision of cookie-cutter houses I huffed and puffed my way up a short hill and stumbled down the other side. I could just make out the hotel in the distance. Even in the dark it stood out because of its sheer size. At seven stories high it was one of the tallest buildings in all of Revere.
I stopped at the edge of the cornfield. The stalks towered over my head, rustling ominously in the breeze. The last time I’d walked through this field the corn had barely been ripe. Now it had all gone to seed. What hadn’t been picked over by birds hung limply off the stalks and felt like dry sandpaper brushing against my skin as I tentatively entered the field.
Palm wet and clammy, I gripped my gun too tightly as I navigated through the narrow rows and columns. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d walked through the cornfield before, but that had always been during the light of day when I felt safe and secure. Now I felt open and exposed. Every rustle made me flinch. Every sharp crack of a fallen stalk under my foot made my pulse race even faster. By the time I was halfway across the field I was a nervous wreck…and that was before I sensed someone following me.
It started with a tingling at the nape of my neck. A month ago I would have chalked it up to teenage paranoia (because we all know the two girls in the corner of the room aren’t really whispering about us, right?) but I’d since learned the importance of listening to my instincts.
And right now my instincts were screaming at me to run like hell.
I forced myself to take a deep breath.
It’s a deer. Just a deer, moseying around for a nighttime snack. Nothing to be afraid of. Deer don’t even have teeth. At least, I don’t think they have teeth.
A cornstalk snapped off to my left, the sound of it ricocheting like a bullet across the field.
RRRUUUUUUNNNNNN!
I took off like a horse out of the gate, galloping towards the hotel as fast as my legs would carry me. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of my own heartbeat and I didn’t dare look back over my shoulder, but I knew something was following me.
Something dark and deadly.
Something that thirsted for my blood.
Cornstalks slapped me across the face and tangled in my hair as I ran, yanking at my braid. I jerked my elbow up, deflecting the worst of the stinging blows. My breath – what there was of it – came in stuttered fits and starts. Phlegm bubbled up in my mouth, coating my tongue in a gooey mixture of salt and saliva.
Who ever said running for your life was sexy?
I could feel myself slowing down. My damn knee was burning like it was on fire and every time I pressed my sneaker down into the dirt and pushed off I wanted to scream in agony. Three seconds, maybe four and the thing that chased would be on top of me.
Tears mixed with the sweat pouring down my cheeks. I felt like one of those antelopes on the Discovery Channel, except this time I was the one in the back with the gimpy leg. The one you knew was going to get caught and slowly devoured while it was still alive and squealing in pain. And even though you didn’t want to watch you couldn’t make yourself look away.
The hotel loomed ahead of me through the corn, taunting me with its nearness. Maybe if I could get through the front doors I would have a chance. No one knew the twisted labyrinth of hallways better than me. But I wasn’t going to make it. No matter how fast I ran, I wouldn’t get to the hotel in time.
My only chance was to stand and fight.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I Told You So
I DROVE MY GOOD LEG into the ground, pivoted sharply, and dove headfirst into a parallel row of corn. Twisting onto my back as I fell I managed to catch a glimpse of the thing that was chasing me. It shot past in a streak of blurred movement, moonlight reflecting of its silver fangs and pale, milky skin.
A drinker. The first one I’d seen since Angelique. Well, except for Maximus.
Stumbling to my feet I raised my gun, waiting for the bastard to realize he’d overshot me and turn back around.
It didn’t take him long. I could hear his footsteps as he walked back through the corn. He was moving slowly, taking his time now that he’d run me to ground. In his mind the chase was over and the only thing left to do was savor the kill.
“I can smell you little human,” he crooned in a soft, sing-song voice.
Again with the smelling and the ‘little human’ shtick? I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn’t had them f
ocused with laser intensity on the corn stalks in front of me. The drinkers seriously needed to sit down together and come up with some original material. There was a reason ‘I vanna suck your blood’ wasn’t used in movies anymore. It might have been terrifying in the first Dracula, but by the time the thirty-second remake rolled around?
Eh.
Not to say I wasn’t terrified. A drinker could come at me singing the theme song from My Little Pony’s and I would still be in danger of peeing myself. Because no matter how much I pretended otherwise, I wasn’t as tough as I appeared. When it came right down to it I was just a girl with a gun cowering in the corn while she waited for a monster with silver fangs and claws and an unquenchable thirst for blood to jump out and yell BOO.
I didn’t have any super powers. I couldn’t go all Harry Potter and Avada Kedavra his ass out of here. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t special. Although I did have one thing going for me…
Exceptional stupidity.
“Over here, asshole!” If I thought I could remain hidden in the corn I would have kept my mouth shut and my head down, but there was no way the drinker was going to lose me now that he’d caught my scent. My only chance was to get him to attack head-on. At least then I’d have a shot – pun totally intended – at firing my gun.
One to the head, one to heart, I recited silently as I waited, every muscle tensed and ready.
The stalks rustled. I held my breath.
“There you are, little human! Did the lamb get lost from her flock?” With a bone-chilling laugh the drinker leaped out of the corn and landed in an elegant crouch three feet in front of me. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with greasy, slicked back hair and a narrow chin. His head tilted up, eerie blue eyes flashing with sinister intent as his gaze raked me from top to bottom. When he saw the gun I held his mouth thinned into a curling sneer. “What a naughty, naughty lamb you are.”
“You have no idea.” My index finger jerked against the trigger. I waited for the familiar explosion of sound as the bullet ripped from the muzzle and tore a hole right through the middle of the drinker’s forehead, but instead the only sound to come out of the gun was a hollow click.
Oh shit.
“The little lamb is out of bullets!” All but crowing in delight the drinker rocked back on his heels before springing to his feet. Standing, he towered a good six inches over me, his lanky, long-limbed body silhouetted in the moonlight. The navy blue polo shirt and cargo shorts he wore screamed college prepster but the sharp silver fangs were all drinker.
I shuddered when I remembered what it felt like to have those fangs sink into my flesh. The initial pain and shock of being bitten had been nothing compared to the agony that had followed. One tiny prick on my hand and it had felt like my entire arm was being consumed by flames.
It wasn’t exactly an experience I wanted to repeat.
“Stay back,” I warned, waving the gun. It may have been useless, but it was the only weapon I had. Not surprisingly the drinker wasn’t exactly quivering in his white preppy sneakers.
“What are you going to do with that, little lamb?” His head tilted to the side. “Decorate your mantle? Best start with the whimpering and the begging. Maybe – if you’re nice – I will drain you quickly. Would you like that?”
“I don’t beg.”
“You will when I’m finished with you.”
Unlike Angelique who had enjoyed playing with her food, this drinker attacked without warning. One second I was standing, the next I was flat on my back and the drinker was leering over me, his face an inch from mine.
Dropping the gun I curled my hand into a fist and punched it into the middle of his chest as hard as I could, hoping to catch him off guard. But he just laughed and swatted my arm away like it was an annoying fly.
“Feisty little lamb. Your blood is going to taste so, so sweet.” With a low grown that turned my stomach he lowered his head and skimmed his tongue along the edge of my jaw, tasting my sweat and tears. I craned my neck, desperately trying to avoid him, but pinned flat on my back there wasn’t much I could do.
Well, there was one thing.
“Don’t touch me, you perv!” I brought my knee up between his legs with as much strength as I could muster. Not exactly an original move, but it was a damn effective one.
With a low gurgle of pain the drinker rolled to the side and I scrambled to my hands and knees. My fingers sank into the dirt as I tried to crawl away, but the drinker was too fast. I screamed when I felt his hand close around my ankle. Screamed again when he yanked me backwards and flipped me over like I was a ragdoll. A broken cornstalk jabbed into my spine. It was painful, but as I looked up into the contorted face of the drinker I knew it was nothing compared to the pain I was about to feel.
“Bitch!” he hissed, snapping his teeth so close to my ear I felt a tiny whoosh of air. His eyes burned a bright, fiery blue. “You’re going to pay for that, little lamb. Where do you want me to start?” Trailing a fingertip down along my arm he sliced through the sleeve of my sweatshirt as if it were made of paper.
Don’t beg.
Whatever he does, don’t beg.
I pinched my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see this. But there was nothing I could do to stop myself from feeling it.
Using his sharp nail as a blade the drinker slowly worked his fingertip into the soft, sensitive flesh on the inside of my elbow until I couldn’t hold in my gasp any longer. I heard the pop of his lips smacking together as he sucked my blood from his finger. More blood ran down my wrist in a thick ribbon of red.
I wondered if he’d nicked an artery. Was I going to bleed out in the middle of a cornfield? Somehow I didn’t think it would be that easy.
I opened my eyes, helpless to do anything but watch as the drinker lifted my wrist at just the right angle so that my blood ran directly into his mouth.
It splashed on the corners of his lips, staining them a deep, dark crimson. After a few seconds that felt more like hours he let me wrist drop and settled back on his haunches with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Do you know,” he began conversationally as though we were sitting in a classroom talking about a history paper due at the end of the week, “that everyone’s blood tastes differently? We don’t know why, but I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?”
My mind was going into shock. I could feel it shutting down. It was trying to protect me from the horror of what was happening. Locking itself away so I wouldn’t have to endure the agony of being slowly tortured to death. Except if I wanted any chance at surviving this, no matter how impossible it seemed, I needed to be alert. And to be alert I needed to feel. So even though it would have been easier to close my eyes and float away to a place where my blood wasn’t being drained by a monster with silver fangs and a sadistic streak, I forced myself to remain present.
“Not really.” Struggling to sit up I clenched my hand into a fist and closed my elbow as tight as I could. With my other arm in a sling it was the only thing I could do to try to stem the bleeding. “But I bet you’re going to tell me anyways. Assholes always like to hear themselves talk.”
The drinker’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, little lamb.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” I snorted. “You’re going to do that anyways.”
“Yes, but I can make it hurt in ways you’ve never dreamed about even in your worst nightmares.” His gaze flicked to my arm where, despite my best efforts, I continued to bleed. Tracing his lips with the tip of his tongue he grinned as his eyes lifted to mine. “Your blood tastes sweet, like fruit. It hasn’t been soured by fear. That’s the best kind, you know. The sweet. It’s so very hard to find.”
“Luck you,” I bit out sarcastically.
“I am, aren’t I? Here I thought it would just be another routine night, and then you tumbled into my lap all wrapped up in a pretty bow. I should share you with the others.” He tapped his index finger, stained red with my blood, against his chin. “But I don’t think I will.”
&nb
sp; In some distant part of my mind I recognized the best thing to do would be to keep him talking. The longer he talked, the longer I lived. It wasn’t much of a plan but it was the only one I had.
“How many of you are there? I thought you had all left Revere.”
“Leave Revere when there are so many new children to tend to?” The drinker clucked his tongue. “What kind of a father do you think I am?”
Children? Did he mean the crawlers?
“Is that what you’re doing to everyone you haven’t drained?” I demanded. “Turning them into – into monsters?”
His claws slashed through the dark, too fast for my eyes to follow. It took a few seconds before I realized that he’d cut me with them. Then the pain hit like a sledgehammer being dropped over my head and I shrieked as I hunched forward over my right leg, staring in horrified revulsion at the thin strips of dangling flesh.
The bastard had peeled my calf like a shrimp.
“Say what you want about me, little lamb, but watch your tongue when you’re speaking about the children. I know they may not be much to look at now, but given time and a bit of teaching they’ll make fine soldiers.”
Fury nipped on the heels of my pain as his words registered. Soldiers? The drinker zombies weren’t children and they sure as hell weren’t soldiers. They were human beings. They were my friends, my neighbors, my teachers. And if by some miracle I lived through tonight I was going to find a way to make them human again.
No matter what it took.
“Well we had best get on with it.” Licking his nails clean of my blood and smiling a wet, crimson smile the drinker stood up and stepped over my legs, straddling me. “Only five hours to sunrise which doesn’t give us a lot of time, little lamb. I think I’ll start with your toes. They’re so often overlooked, although I have no idea why. Have you ever seen how much a toe bleeds when you rip off the nail? No, I don’t suppose you have. But you will.”
I waited until he leaned down to pull off my sneaker before I scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it right at his face. Howling in surprise he staggered back, clawing at his eyes. Not wasting a single second I scrambled to my feet and took off into the corn. Adrenaline helped dull the pain, but I knew it was only a matter of time before my body gave out. I’d been in rough shape before the drinker had gotten his claws into me and the blood loss I’d suffered wasn’t exactly improving things.
The Lola Chronicles (Book 2): A Day Without Dawn Page 14
