Dead by Dawn

by Wellman, Bret

  Joe pushed away, fighting against the cold grasp of steel. He might as well have been playing tug of war against his truck.

  The vampire’s breath smelled like fresh oranges. Even in the flurry of the moment, that small detail struck Joe as odd.

  There was a gunshot and Charlie screamed. Joe was able to get some separation as the creature’s hand slipped off the back of his neck. He used the new space to push it away.

  The vampire held its side and began to howl.

  Joe saw Keith holding the revolver as he got to his feet.

  He must have shot Charlie with the silver bullet. It’s working too. He’s not getting up.

  He also spotted Rose. She was climbing up from the open end of the porch in her yellow sundress.

  “Look out!” Joe yelled.

  He felt a hand clamp down on his ankle and was forced to turn back to Charlie. He kicked, but Charlie didn’t let go.

  The vampire was using the arm that hadn’t been shot. The other hung limp at its side, the clawed fingers now shriveled.

  Joe grabbed a rock from the edge of his porch and smashed Charlie in the head with it. The vampire made no attempt to let go.

  Joe bashed again and again, disfiguring its skull. It took twenty swings for the hand to even flinch. Even then Joe had to pry it open to get his leg free.

  He stumbled back to the porch, seeing Keith cornered at the far end. He was brandishing his silver laced army knife. Rose was standing a few feet away from him, hissing at a cut in her shoulder.

  The flesh around the wound wrinkled and looked soft compared to the rest of her skin. It didn’t bleed, it was simply a black gash.

  Joe reached through the window and grabbed his 10 gauge shotgun. Adrenaline was surging through his veins and he felt as though he could tear the house down with his bare hands if he wanted.

  Keith dove to the ground and Rose turned to face him. She looked so young, like Joe remembered her being as a kid. She could have been in her early thirties. One look into her cold red eyes and he knew it wasn’t her. The woman he grew up to know was gone.

  This woman was alluring; she had a charm about her. Joe suddenly found himself remembering the oranges. He wondered if that was what her breath smelled like, if that was what her lips tasted like.

  He put a slug in her chest.

  Rose stumbled backwards until she hit the wall. There was a small inch diameter hole where the bullet went in. As she turned to crouch she revealed a much larger exit wound between her shoulder blades. There was a hole in the wall where the bullet had lodged itself after exiting her body, it was surrounded by pieces of dark red flesh and gore.

  Rose was wheezing, but still on her feet. She stood straight and turned back towards Joe, the hole in her chest already beginning to close.

  “You will suffer,” she hissed.

  Joe racked the slide and took aim again. Before he could shoot, Keith lunged at her and buried his army knife in her side.

  Rose screamed and her left leg gave out. What skin he could see below her yellow sundress began to shrivel. It looked as though it took great effort for her to lift her arm.

  Keith pulled the knife free and stuck it in her back.

  The scream Rose let out was that of a dying animal. She fell to her stomach, eyes still on Joe. She used her right arm and leg to try and drag herself across the porch; her clawed fingers leaving gouges in the wood.

  Keith kneeled on her lower back and pulled the knife free. He began to stab her repeatedly. Each time he pulled the knife out, a plume of dried and dusty blood followed.

  Rose’s face began to change, shifting back into that of an old lady and even worse. By the time Keith was done she had stopped moving. Her right arm was outstretched as her left lay at her side. Her skin had gone tight to her bones, making her look more like an actual skeleton than a living organism. Her head held the resemblance of a skull, resting with her mouth open, a clear liquid dripping from her fangs.

  Joe heard wood creaking and turned to find Charlie dragging himself onto the porch. The loyal husband of countless years paid no attention to Rose and went only for Joe.

  Joe reached through the window and grabbed the jug of holy water. When Charlie got close he dumped it on his head.

  The water sizzled like acid and began to eat away at Charlie’s skin. He shrieked and attempted to pull away.

  Joe splashed more on him.

  As Charlie ran his hands over his head, the skin peeled, revealing the bone underneath. The skull continued to disintegrate. It wasn’t long before a hole had formed allowing some of the water to get inside. As this happened, Charlie began to seizure. It lasted maybe ten seconds before he went still.

  Joe allowed himself to take a breath. He turned to Keith.

  Keith wiped the army knife on his leg then placed it back on his hip. “Least we know these things work.”

  “Come on,” said Joe.

  He hopped down from the porch, taking the jug of holy water with him.

  The vampire police officer was a short way down the driveway, still laying flat on its back.

  There was a pile of gore above him. The pieces of flesh were alive. Random chunks vibrated while others moved like worms towards the body. The vampire was already beginning to regrow its neck.

  Joe uncapped the jug and poured it over the wound.

  The body sprang back to life; the arms flailed at the water as if they were trying to knock it away. The legs kicked, sending pebbles flying.

  After the body went still again Joe emptied the rest on the gore splattered ground. The noise it made when it touched the vampire’s flesh and blood was that of bacon on a frying pan. Fog rose up like dry ice.

  “I don’t think we can stay here another night,” said Keith as a plume of fire rose up towards town.

  “We’ll see,” said Joe.

  With the water jug empty he headed back to the house.

  Chapter 27

  Joe woke with the sun in his eyes. He pulled his loaded 10 gauge out from under his pillow and hefted it up with his big meaty hands before walking into the living room.

  Keith wasn’t out there meaning he must be in the spare bedroom.

  After dragging all the vampire bodies away from the house they had decided to take shifts to stand guard. Keith chose to go to bed first, waking up to relieve Joe at four in the morning. He must have gone back to bed at dawn.

  Joe walked up to the gaping hole where his window used to be. There were two charred bodies in the yard and one in the driveway. They were still smoking.

  Joe looked down at his hand, wishing he had a coffee. Unfortunately, the power had gone out the day before and that was no longer an option. He was going to have to tough it out.

  He had the ability to make coffee without power, his years on the farm had taught him that, but there were more pressing matters to attend to.

  The fridge in the kitchen still had a little cold in it. Joe figured the eggs were still good and the gas stove still worked. He decided to fry up some breakfast.

  Four sunny side up eggs for him and four for Keith, whenever he decided to get up.

  The heat from outside was coming in through the front window making the house feel muggy. If Joe had to take a guess, he would say the temperature was already pushing ninety. We will probably hit a hundred by noon.

  He ate his eggs under the shade of the porch, enjoying every bite as he surveyed the landscape. The charred vampires weren't the only thing smoking. There were plumes of smoke from all kinds of random points in the distance.

  The air force spent a lot of money last night, he thought.

  On his right, the siding was covered in dried gore. A few feet under that, the porch was stained with blood. It all smelled like a dead animal, the heat wasn’t helping.

  As he sat there, Keith’s absence became more and more unsettling. Joe couldn’t place it, but he suddenly had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  The last time he had seen Keith was the night before
. Anything could have happened between then and daylight.

  Joe decided to wait a bit longer. He told himself his mind was playing tricks on him. After everything that had happened, it was only natural to have overdramatic thoughts.

  He sat there for a little bit longer. He was almost ready to get up and check the guest bedroom. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. Keith came out a few minutes later.

  “We’re going to die if we stay here,” said Keith. His eyes were red; it looked like he could have used a few more hours of sleep.

  “Maybe,” said Joe. He had broken the leg off of one of his kitchen chairs and was whittling it to a tip with his pocket knife. Pieces of the chair were scattered around him on the floor, along with splintered wood from the leg.

  “Making a stake?” asked Keith. “And destroying the furniture?”

  Joe lifted the pointed piece of wood to inspect it. It was dark brown and about a foot long.

  “I picked up a bundle of stakes yesterday from the hardware store. I figured that was a vampire thing right? One of the ways to kill them is to use stakes. The problem is they're too soft, I think they would break before I could do any damage.” He pointed the tip of the chair leg towards Keith. “This should work a little better.”

  “Next time let’s keep them in front of our guns and we won’t have to worry about it,” said Keith.

  “I plan on it, but having a plan B never hurt anybody.”

  Keith sat down under the front window and began eating his eggs. “I’m going to head for cover today. You can come with me if you want.”

  “Yea,” said Joe. He took his new stake and slipped it into his belt, using a string to secure it in place.

  “I figure if we head out soon we can get there by nightfall, even if the main roads are backed up.”

  “Are you even sure there are still places we can go?” asked Joe.

  Keith put down another cold egg, closing his eyes and enjoying the taste. “Nope, we can die here or we can die there. At least we might stand a chance out there.”

  They sat on the porch for a bit, staring out at the corn. For Joe their hesitation was about home. His father had bought the land and worked it for years, when he couldn’t anymore Joe took over. Leaving the farm behind seemed unacceptable, but what other option did he have?

  When Keith was done he grabbed his own plate and went to set it in the sink.

  “Leave it,” said Joe. “We have to pack.”

  For Joe, packing meant loading five or six pairs of all the clothes he needed into a suitcase. For Keith it meant loading all their guns and ammunition into a drag bag.

  The bag was long and wide enough to hold every one of their rifles, and could be worn like a backpack. It was durable, had plenty of pockets, and it was covered in desert camouflage.

  Joe went out to his barn and walked the cows into his yard two at a time. He opened the door to the hen house next, then let the pigs out as well. There were animals everywhere by the time he was done.

  Joe went back to the house and grabbed his suitcase and the empty milk jug. He tossed them into his truck bed around the same time as Keith, and they both hopped in.

  Two minutes later they were down the driveway and on the road.

  “You have any idea where we’re going?” asked Keith.

  “Due west, that’s where your phone told us to go isn’t it?” asked Joe, pulling a map out of the glove box and tossing it into Keith’s lap.

  There was rubble all over the main road in town. The old brick buildings that had stood for over a hundred years were in pieces. It looked to Joe like a scene straight out of a World War II movie. Every window was shattered. The entire top right corner of the coffee shop was blown away.

  The truck bounced and swayed as they drove over chunks of old bricks. Both men were fixated, staring at the damage.

  On the far side of town they were shocked to find the old dive bar gone. All that was left of the Log Cabin was a large black rectangle and a small fire that had yet to go out. There was nothing left but ash.

  Joe almost hit a car parked in the center of the street because he was so distracted. It was a good thing Keith saw it and called out. It wouldn’t have been good if they had to make the rest of the trip on foot.

  Joe stopped at the church, thankful to see it still standing. He parked the truck near the front steps and left the engine running. He ran inside to refill his milk jug. The process took no more than a minute and they were back on the road.

  “Shit,” said Keith a few minutes later.

  The entire left half of the hardware warehouse had been knocked down, leaving nothing more than a jumble of twisted metal and bricks. Joe could see clear across to the swamp on the other side. The right side of the building, however, was strangely untouched.

  There was a large black crater in the road ahead of them. Joe saw it in time to cut the wheel. They ended up on the sidewalk, coming back to the road on the other side.

  “I wouldn’t want to be a vampire last night,” said Keith. “Maybe it’s over.”

  “No,” said Joe. “There’s no way in hell they got them all.”

  “It’s called positive reinforcement Joe.”

  “Too much is at stake to lie to ourselves. We’re going to be fighting these bastards to the last one.”

  Keith sank back in his seat, his hand going to his knife. “Sounds like fun, I guess.”

  “Let’s just worry about finding some good cover.”

  Keith’s prediction about traffic turned out to be correct. An endless pack of abandoned cars prevented them from even attempting the expressway.

  That they needed to take the back roads worried Joe. It would take them a lot longer to get out of the evacuation zone. He was afraid they wouldn’t be able to make it before dark.

  The damage done the night before covered a large area. They passed countless buildings and houses that were destroyed, either leveled or burned. They had to drive around craters that had flung cars sometimes thirty or forty feet.

  Every once in a while they would pass an area that had gone untouched. For short periods of time, they were able to climb out of the apocalypse and into ghost towns.

  Joe didn’t know what was more disturbing, the mass destruction, or the undisturbed suburban graveyards.

  The cab of the truck was mostly quiet. Neither of them wanted to talk, and the radio failed to play anything more than static. Everything smelled like burning, even the places left undamaged.

  Four hours into the trip and the gas gauge had dropped below a quarter. Joe’s eyes kept drifting back to it every couple of seconds. He was beginning to worry they wouldn’t even make it half way.

  Every gas station they passed was dark and abandoned. Another hour and they would be walking.

  He eyed some of the vehicles they passed, wondering if he could syphon their gas. Back in the day it would have been easy, now there were too many safety features. If he could even get his hands on a hose it still wasn’t certain he could get one end down in the tank.

  They broke into a gas station a half hour later and took a couple empty gas cans from the shelf. There weren't any hoses, but there was a beer bong for sale. Joe ripped the plastic tube off the end and paired it with the gas can.

  Keith grabbed a couple bottles of water and a few packs of jerky before they took off.

  There was a tan Rendezvous parked in the middle of the road a mile passed the gas station. Its front window was smashed in and laying on the front seats.

  Joe approached the vehicle with the intent of syphoning its gas. It didn’t take him long to realize that the plastic beer bong hose was too thick.

  Joe threw the tube into the woods and kicked the passenger side door, leaving a big dent.

  Meanwhile Keith climbed into the vehicle and began searching for something they could use to funnel the gas.

  Joe looked the gas tank over before heading to his truck and retrieving a hammer and screwdriver. He would have preferred a drill, but knew he di
dn’t keep one in his truck.

  The pavement felt like a stovetop as he laid down on it. He could already feel the sweat beading on his forehead. It was painful, but he ignored it.

  What he wouldn’t give for even the smallest breeze at that moment.

  Joe used the screwdriver like a spike and nailed it to the bottom corner of the gas tank.

  He twisted the cap off the gas can and held it up before pulling the screwdriver free, unleashing a steady stream of gas that poured into the can.

  “I guess we should have thought of that in the first place,” said Keith as he climbed out of the vehicle.

  When the can was full Joe stuck the screwdriver back in the hole. It wasn’t a perfect plug, gas continued to drip out. It would do a good enough job for what he needed however.

  When he stood back up there was gas all over his arms.

  Joe emptied the can into his truck before returning to repeat the process. By the time he was done they were back up to just under half a tank.

  The back of Joe’s shirt was soaked in sweat. He was thankful to be back to the air-conditioned truck. He hadn’t realized how hot it was outside. It was by far the hottest day of the summer. He thought about his animals back at the farm and wondered if he should have filled their waters before he left. Hopefully they would know enough to go to the pond at the far edge of the farm.

  The gas fumes coming off his arms filled the cabin. They chose to roll the windows down, despite the heat, to try and air it out. At least there was wind.

  Joe twisted the cap off one of the water bottles and downed it. The bottle was warm, but warm water was better than no water, and he was thirsty.

  Now that they were back on track he was able to relax, though he was concerned with how late the day was getting. They were a few hours into the afternoon and he still had no idea how far they had to go.

  Keith continued to navigate using the map. Joe went as fast as he dared on the vehicle-ridden road. They were eventually able to reach an end to the destruction. The abandoned traffic increased while the bomb craters and leveled buildings disappeared altogether.