Missed me, you rat shit bastard.
I landed when a sudden painful jerk took my left leg from under me. I collapsed and rolled onto my back to keep from landing on Phaedra.
We smacked the earth and she gave a loud “Uff.” Blood and bile sprayed from her mouth. Phaedra was minutes from dying.
The chain from another cinderblock missile was wrapped around my ankle. A second zombie loomed from behind a pile of rocks. He advanced in low simian crouch with a metal pipe in his hand.
I kicked the chain free and stood. Phaedra sagged in my arms. Her aura faded to a low burn.
Things were getting worse by the second.
I held Phaedra tight and took off again. I ran from the gully and crested the rise.
A Jeep charged up the other side. No lights. No aura. A zombie was at the helm.
The Jeep came straight at me. With Phaedra in my arms and dying I froze with indecision. Jump? Run? What?
I needed those wheels to escape.
I let the zombie come right at me. At the last possible instant I jumped out of the way.
The zombie swerved to hit me. In a flash of vampire speed, I snagged the steering wheel. Hard. The front tires bit into the dirt and the Jeep flipped onto its side.
I put Phaedra down and hustled to the Jeep. The zombie lay squirming where he’d been flung against the firewall of the vehicle.
“You should’ve worn a safety belt.” I gave him a karate chop across his neck to break his upper spine. His head lolled to one side, eyes bulging and drool gushing down his face. I grabbed him by both arms and threw him out of the Jeep.
I ran to the other side of the Jeep, hooked my hands under the front fender, and heaved it upright. The strain stabbed my back, and my right leg felt like it had gotten shot again.
I lifted Phaedra, hobbled to the Jeep, and buckled her into the passenger’s front seat.
I flopped behind the steering wheel and twisted the ignition key. As soon as the engine kicked over, I stomped the gas. The rear tires threw tails of dust and pebbles as I spun the Jeep around.
The road was two hundred feet away. We bounced over the uneven ground and skidded onto the road. I straightened the track of the Jeep and raced north.
Zombies closed upon the road, moving stiff as fence posts. I zoomed beside them, seeing their pale faces gaze at us.
We had escaped. The zombies couldn’t catch us now.
A quad bike rounded the bend ahead of me, a zombie at the controls. The fat rider hung on to the handlebars like they were the horns on a buffalo. A second quad bike shot through his dust trail.
Two quad bikes against this Jeep?
No contest. I aimed for the lead bike.
They came at me full speed. The zombie riders let go of their hand controls and stood on the foot pegs. They intended to ram me and fly into the Jeep.
Fools.
I kept accelerating. Drawing from the last measures of my supernatural juju, I forced my reflexes to go to vampire speed.
Milliseconds decelerated into seconds. The zombies and their bikes moved in slow motion.
They flexed their legs to leap off the pedals.
I swerved right. The Jeep fishtailed against the first bike.
We bucked to the side. The front tires of the quad bike flattened against the side of the Jeep. The struts holding the wheels ripped free and the bike somersaulted behind us. The zombie smashed against the rear panel of the Jeep.
I wrenched the steering wheel in the other direction. The Jeep nearly tipped as it careened to the left.
I bore down on the second quad bike. This zombie rider readied a large spike.
The Jeep rammed his quad bike and crushed the front end. The quad bike crumpled and dragged the zombie beneath our wheels.
Thonk. Steam and the odor of glycol sprayed over the Jeep’s hood.
The zombie had punctured the radiator.
Time sprang back to normal speed.
I checked the gauges. They were still in the green. We had a few minutes before the loss of coolant destroyed the engine. My kundalini noir jerked spastically, twitching with anxiety because we were miles from safety.
I raced along without lights. The dust cloud trailing the Jeep glowed like a luminescent plume.
The Jeep rattled on the uneven road. The temperature gauge crept to the red line. Phaedra slumped against her lap belt. Her aura trembled like a weak flame.
I grasped Phaedra’s hand. The chill surprised and frightened me.
How could I save her? I was no doctor.
Something moved to my right. The zombie from the first quad bike I’d run over was still with us. He climbed across the right rear window for the roof, nimble as an orangutan. That’s because his lower torso had been ripped off.
I slammed on the brakes, hoping to catapult him loose. Instead he thumped against the roof.
I sped up. The idiot light for the coolant temperature came on. The Jeep bucked over the washboard road. The zombie bounced on the roof. Where the road smoothed, I accelerated and swerved side to side. The zombie thumped but wouldn’t let go.
I braked again, then sped up. He hung on for the ride no matter what I did.
What did the zombie want?
Of course, as long as he was with me, he would use his psychic connection as a beacon for the other zombies to follow.
I reached up and felt the zombie’s fingers where they hooked into the rain gutter. I braided my fingers into his and snapped the digits like breadsticks. I peeled the broken fingers from the rain gutter. “I know I shouldn’t litter.” I grabbed him by the wrist, jerked him loose, and pitched him like a bag of trash into the rocks.
The temp gauge was in the red zone. The engine was about to seize.
We passed the first houses where the residents rested like sleeping cows, oblivious to the plague of the undead spreading around them.
We reached the cemetery and the paved road. The engine lights came on and the engine squealed its death cry. I stepped on the clutch and kept us rolling. The Jeep’s tires hummed on the smooth asphalt. I wanted Phaedra to acknowledge that we were safe. I clasped her wrist. Her pulse was as faint as her aura.
The Jeep lost momentum near the outcropping where I’d hidden my clothes before my transmutation. I pulled off the road and let us stop as close to the rocks as I could.
“We’re okay,” I told her.
But she couldn’t hear me. Her aura flickered, becoming fainter and fainter.
CHAPTER 49
I pulled Phaedra close. I smoothed her hair. It was moist with perspiration and cool, too cool.
“Don’t die, sweetheart. Not after all that. Please.”
Her aura flickered again, like a loose wire had moved into place. Her eyes struggled to open and a weak breath pulled through her nostrils.
I set her back into the seat. “Good. We’re safe.” I glanced south to make sure.
Her aura remained weak and her breathing shallow. What could I do to keep her from dying? I ran through the scenarios. Stop a police car and ask for help? Say, Mister Cop, I’ve got this underage girl here and we were attacked by zombies.
Fatigue weighed upon me. My body felt weak.
Phaedra drew a breath and it caught in her throat as if her body didn’t want the air. Her aura brightened-not by much, going from dim to less dim. Limp tendrils grew from her penumbra, waving like soggy reeds in a sluggish current.
I cupped her neck and stroked her hair. “Stay with me.”
The tendrils from her aura trailed into smoky wisps and disappeared.
I clenched my fists in anger and desperation. Not her.
A familiar panic and dread returned. I found myself spiraling down a funnel of despair. As a young boy, I couldn’t help my mother in her struggles with my alcoholic father and the abuse of the in-laws who blamed her for the family troubles. He wasn’t an alcoholic before he married you. I couldn’t help her when we were evicted and lived like vagabonds on the charity of our cousins. When we stud
ied about the homeless in school, I realized we were talking about my family.
I fooled myself into thinking that as a man I’d never again lose control of my life. Then in Iraq, despite all the might and money of the United States of America, my men and I found ourselves alone in the havoc of urban combat.
We fought in the chaos, mindful of the one misstep or the instant of hesitation that could mean going home upright and whole or on our backs in body bags. One terrible night I led my squad in an ambush and we didn’t hesitate to annihilate the enemy. When the firing stopped, we had instead massacred a family of Iraqi civilians.
I went insane with despair and ran into the lair of an Iraqi vampire who, as punishment for my sins, turned me into one of the undead, a vampire.
Then as a supernatural I learned that it was my nature to fight injustice.
Now, once more, I was bound by conscience to rescue Phaedra.
The last bit of her aura danced from her head to a spot over her heart.
I had to save her. I couldn’t let her go. I would do the one thing I swore not to.
My fangs sprouted and I drew close to her throat.
Phaedra wouldn’t die but she wouldn’t live either, not as a human.
I opened my mouth and let my fangs probe for the choicest spot to penetrate. Biting quickly, I guided my fangs through the skin and deep into her vein.
My nose sifted through the many smells: sweat, dust, and the fragrances of her blood, adrenaline, the rich cocktail of a young woman’s potent estrogen, and the bitterness of her medications.
Blood gushed into my mouth. A liquid banquet of pleasure flooded across my tongue, down my throat, and to every crevasse in my body. My belly felt the heft of the blood and my limbs flushed with viscous warmth.
I pumped recuperative enzymes into Phaedra, hoping that the sudden healing of her flesh would pull her from the brink.
I pulled my mouth away. Thick drops of blood clung to my lips and teeth.
Phaedra’s aura returned, the penumbra glowing cherry red.
Now to cheat death.
“Phaedra,” I whispered as if we were lovers sharing a pillow. “Open your mouth.”
Those young pale lips parted and her fingers hunted for my face.
Phaedra was my first human that I would turn. We were both virgins at this.
I wanted to deny the arousal but I couldn’t, no more than I could deny how much I relished savoring her succulent blood.
Lust pounded through me in a drumbeat of sexual conquest. I wanted to rip Phaedra’s blouse and bra apart and press my body against hers.
My hands fumbled for her belt and I had the image of me spreading her legs and thrusting into her while blood streamed from her throat, between her breasts, and over her belly.
I gripped the upholstery and my talons tore into the fabric.
No.
I would only turn Phaedra, no more.
My hands trembled from the struggle. I clasped the back of Phaedra’s neck and brought my mouth to hers.
I sealed our lips together. I pushed her blood back into her mouth and licked her teeth.
A fountain of energy rose from deep inside. The fountain gathered force, as if propelled upward by an explosion.
The energy flowed from my mouth into Phaedra’s. Our heads fused as one and a current of psychic force surged from me directly into her.
The current was a lightning bolt fixed between us. The energy crackled in my head.
Slowly, the crackling weakened. The lightning bolt dimmed, turned into a weak spark, and disappeared.
The force receded from me and I pulled my mouth from Phaedra.
Her aura blazed neon orange. Her eyes were open to the point of popping from their sockets, straining with horror and pain as if she’d awakened in a raging volcano.
Phaedra gasped and lurched in the Jeep. She gagged and retched, spewing bloody vomit on her clothes and the interior.
She raised her hands, gawking with terror as if her flesh was on fire.
The scene mirrored what had happened to me in Iraq, though now I was on the other side of the experience.
The words of the ancient ekimmu who had turned me echoed through the years:
I’ve given you what you want.
Immortality.
As a vampire.
CHAPTER 50
Phaedra convulsed. She stared at me, then through me. Her face showed the astonishment of this new universe. Then the realization seemed too much, and the weight of this new world brought an overwhelming fatigue. Her convulsions eased. She closed her eyes. The undulations of her aura smoothed into an amber sheath.
I stroked her hair. It was moist with perspiration, the last time this would happen. I hope she didn’t have a thing for garlic, but she was Italian.
I’d done it. Forced again into something I promised myself not to do. I’ve created a vampire.
Phaedra was stuck forever as sixteen. I didn’t know the rules for underage bloodsuckers.
She didn’t want to die and she wouldn’t, at least not in human terms.
Now she was my responsibility, even more than before. Yesterday she had one kind of family, now she had another: the immortal undead.
I retrieved my backpack and hooked it over my shoulder. I took Phaedra in my arms and carried her down the hill to my Toyota.
We needed to rest. She had a new existence to start, and I had the zombies to destroy.
I drove us through town and back to the forest. I hid the Toyota in the trees and carried Phaedra and my backpack to the morada.
I emptied Phaedra’s duffel bag of camping gear. I laid the sleeping bag inside one of the benches of the morada. I removed her parka and slipped her into the sleeping bag.
She shivered. Her eyeballs shrank within the sockets. Her hair was like dry grass.
My watch said 4:17 A.M. The morada gave enough protection from the morning sun, but to be sure, I zipped the sleeping bag over Phaedra’s head and covered her with the bench seat, temporarily entombing her.
After washing Phaedra’s blood off my arms and changing into my clothes, I chucked the sweatpants with their zombie funk into a plastic bag. I retreated to a corner opposite the door. I sat on the dirt floor, 45 pistol in hand, and arranged a coat over my head.
I didn’t make the effort to stay awake. Phaedra’s adolescent blood (the best, especially from virgins, but in this case, oh well) and the need to sleep hit me like a sedative.
I awoke lying on my side, my face in the dirt. I held the pistol like it was a metallic teddy bear.
A tapping noise drew me to the door.
I gripped the pistol and pulled it close to my chin as I peeked from under the coat.
The cracks in the door shone with morning light. The board covering the latch quivered and moved out of place. A small black ball poked through the opening. The ball had two beady eyes and a pointed beak.
A crow.
It cawed.
I threw the coat aside. Phaedra remained asleep inside the bench.
I waved at the crow. “You’re practically inside. Come in.”
The crow jerked its head from side to side as if studying what was in the room.
“What do you want?” I wondered what the Araneum needed. An update on my current assignment? A new mission?
My joints hurt and I approached the door like an old man with arthritis. The crow pulled its head back through the hole. There was a quick scratch of claws and the flutter of wings.
I eased the door open, careful to avoid any sunlight. Fortunately we remained in the morning shadow of tall Ponderosas.
The crow was gone. What did it want? Was it from the Araneum? If so, where was my message?
I scanned the forest. Phaedra and I were alone. She would awaken soon as a vampire.
I closed and latched the door. I primed a camping stove and made coffee. It’s recommended that you don’t cook inside an enclosed space, but we were vampires.
I inspected my right leg. The wo
und had healed and left me with bullet scar number…I’d lost count.
I sorted through Phaedra’s gear to look for something of use. I unzipped a toiletry bag. It contained jewelry and watches. One watch was a lady’s Cartier, the other a Rolex Oyster. I counted six jeweled necklaces. Four diamond tennis bracelets. Strings of pearls. Gold rings.
I found a camera bag, empty except for prescription bottles stuffed with rolls of hundreds.
All this cash and jewelry made for a handy getaway kit.
Where had this stash come from? Phaedra didn’t dress like she was lavished with a wardrobe budget.
She’d stolen the jewelry, I was sure. How she’d gotten the cash, I didn’t want to know.
I picked up a cigar box covered in macaroni and sprayed with gold paint. Probably a crafts project from summer camp a long time ago. Sequins and costume jewels had been glued over the painted macaroni.
I opened the box, expecting childhood treasures and mementos. Inside rested a dozen razor and knife blades, all embellished with toy gemstones and dabs of gaudy fingernail polish. The blades seemed almost ceremonial in their decoration.
Under the blades I found an envelope stuffed with photographs. Some of the photos were Polaroids, others inkjet color prints. Every picture framed the same subject, a bleeding slash across flesh: an arm, a belly, the back of a leg.
The flesh belonged to Phaedra.
She was a cutter. She ritually mutilated her body out of self-hatred.
The back of the photos had short poems about the wounds. Mostly about fascination with the blood and controlling the pain.
I was too repulsed to feel pity. Even undead, I couldn’t do this to my body. This girl had huge problems and now she was one of us.
I put the photos and blades back into the box, which I pushed into the duffel bag.
The coffee boiled. I poured type B-positive to half fill a cup and topped it off with coffee.
The bench seat exploded into pieces. Splintered wood sprayed across the room.
Phaedra sat up, aura blazing. Her talons clutched at the adobe sides of the bench. Black smudges ringed her eyes and made the eye sockets appear like velvet pits. The retinas of her tapetum lucidum glowed crimson as if on fire. Her face had an ashen pallor and blue veins throbbed at her temples. A red tongue lapped between her new fangs.
Jailbait Zombie fg-4 Page 20
