“Ramona!” Taylor yelled, making everyone jump.
“Will you stop doing that?” Huck hissed, going to the backdoor. “It’s still locked, she couldn’t have gone out this way.”
“Fuck this shit, man.” BJ jerked his snub-nosed revolver around the kitchen, seeing things that weren’t there. “Let’s get to the plows!”
“I’m with him, Sheriff.” Deputy Andrews turned with the submachine gun wrapped in his hands. “People are disappearing right under our noses! We can at least make it to the Blue Lark and try their landline.”
The sheriff’s lips moved with his finger bouncing around the group. “Seven,” he counted, turning to boldly face the swinging door standing between them and the plows. He swallowed thickly, as if going out there was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. “Okay, to the Blue Lark and no detours. Let’s evacuate.”
Everyone shared their uncertainty with shallow head nods before falling in line. Backpedaling, Huck brought up the rear, envisioning a tall and lanky Greeve step from the pantry nobody bothered to check. Breathing hard, he conjured up worst case scenarios because that’s how the mind works in crisis situations. Five people gone: the elderly couple, Paula and Bud, and now Ramona the trucker. Poof!
Ghosts.
Vampires.
Oh shit.
Goosebumps prickled his flesh and he couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. Slipping through the swinging door and pouring out from behind the counter, he stopped next to everyone else, heart lurching in his chest.
“Oh, there you are!” Helen smiled up at him from the booth, a forkful of cherry pie hanging in her hand. “We were wondering where you ran off to.”
Chapter Eight
Cherry Pie
At first, nobody said a word. Huck just stood there and blinked at the elderly couple, certain his eyes were deceiving him. Convinced the drugs pumped into his system by a criminal organization were making him imagine things. But the long look on the sheriff’s face told him he wasn’t the only one seeing Helen and Earl eat pie in the dark like nothing ever happened. Surreal wasn’t the right word. There was no synonym to describe the terror tightening Huck’s chest.
DeSean snuck closer with the phone out, their cherry-stained smiles carving wrinkles through his forehead. “What the hell?”
“Thought we were going to have to get our own coffee,” Earl snickered, trading a playful wink with his wife.
The couple’s amusement tapered off into a grave silence that made Huck fight off a shiver. The cellphone light scarcely reached their faces, accentuating the dark circles rimming their sunken eyes. They must’ve driven all day and night to see their grandkids on Christmas and something was amiss.
“What happened to the lights?” Helen asked, holding a hand up to block the screen’s glare.
“Where did you go?” Taylor asked in an unsteady voice, adjusting his grip on the heavy revolver pulling on his arm.
“When the lights went out we went to the bathroom. Isn’t timing everything?” She grinned coyly at her husband. “When we came back out, everyone was gone.”
“We were just in the bathroom,” Nina told her. “It was empty.”
“We shared the men’s room,” Earl clarified. “Her phone is dead and we only had my light.”
“Man, this is some messed up shit,” DeSean whispered, cellphone trembling in his outstretched hand. “How you be sittin here in the dark eatin cherry pie like nothin happened?”
Earl crumpled his brow, eyes snagging on the Uzi clutched in Deputy Andrews’ hands. “Did something happen?”
“Ramona is missing,” Johnny told him, grabbing a long knife from next to the rotating pie case. “So’s the cook and waitress.”
“We’re leaving,” BJ volunteered, looking to the others for backing. “Right?”
“Leaving?” Helen’s lips pulled down in a reverse smile. “To go where?”
“To the hotel in those snowplows.” Taylor looked over a shoulder into the kitchen like he just heard something. “There are some bad people coming and we need to get some help. You should come with us.”
“In this mess?” Earl stuffed more pie into his mouth and shook his head. “We can’t all fit in two snowplows.”
“We’ll ride in the back with the sand all the way to town if we have to.”
Abrupt laughter shot from Helen. “Deputy, the nearest town is twenty miles from here,” she said, stopping to sip coffee against a backdrop of falling snow. “We’ll stick it out right here, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Well, if you see our waitress before you go, can you send her over? We need a refill.” Looking out the window, Earl exhaled a melancholy sigh. “Could be here for a quite a while.”
Huck stepped closer to the booth, drawing Helen’s cloudy eyes. “What’s all over your mouth?” he asked, the Nano wrapped tightly in his hand.
The elderly couple looked at each other and burst into laughter. “I’m afraid we were hungrier than we thought.” Helen dabbed a napkin against her thin, red lips. “Pardon the mess, but this pie is absolutely delicious!”
Sheriff Taylor yanked the revolver up to Helen and Deputy Andrews followed his lead. Jerking the Uzi around to the booth, he widened his stance to absorb the weapon’s powerful kick.
“Sheriff,” Nina cried, pulling Johnny against her. “What’re you doing?”
“Get out of the booth.”
Helen stared up at Taylor, the colorful smile melting down her face. “Excuse me?”
“I said, get out of the booth and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Dancing from foot to foot, BJ swapped an anxious look with his big brother, face twisting in the faint light.
“Sheriff,” Nina tried to say in a calm voice. “Now is not the time to start overreacting.”
“I’m not overreacting. Now, get up!”
Folding their brows, shadowy lines spiderwebbed from the corners of their eyes. Helen and Earl turned to look at each other before slowly setting their forks on their plates and growing quiet.
“Boss-man?” Andrews said, nervously looking between them.
“Sheriff, put the gun down.” Nina stepped forward, shivering as the cold sank its teeth into the helpless diner. “This is exactly how cops lose their jobs.”
Taylor inched closer to the booth, the Colt .45 outstretched in his right hand. “That’s not cherry pie on their faces.”
“Please don’t let my lack of manners get under your skin, Sheriff. I can assure you my overindulgence is simply a result of our harrowing drive here.”
“Is that right?” he said, scraping Helen’s cheek with a finger. Yanking his hand back, he rolled the cherry glaze between a thumb and finger before bringing it to his nose.
Huck’s face crumpled when he stuck it in his mouth.
Chest pumping, DeSean spoke in a choked whisper. “What is it, Bob?”
Taylor swallowed, a horrid realization budding in his eyes. “It’s blood. Now, get out of the booth!”
Staring dumbfoundedly at him, Helen burst into a bout of high-pitched laughter that quickly spread to her husband. The cellphone flickered in DeSean’s hand and went out, giving the diner back to the night.
Chapter Nine
To Hell with the Devil
Forming a tight circle around Johnny, the group turned with their guns out. White plumes jutted from their mouths, vanishing into thin air like the elderly couple. The absurdity of it all made Huck reconsider that maybe he was dead after all, and maybe this was his Hell. The last normal piece of his life he could recall was taking a 1969 Camaro SS for a test drive with sunshine winking off the black hood. Now, here he was on the run from God knows what and people were disappearing before his very eyes.
DeSean fumbled the cellphone light back on. “The fuck is going on here?” he panted, illuminating the empty booth where only the remnants of cherry pie and cold coffee remained.
“I am shitting my pants,” BJ whispere
d, swinging the .38 around the diner. “That’s what’s going on here.”
“I told you!” Johnny stuck his head out between Nina and Huck. “They’re vampires! We need garlic from the kitchen and something to make crosses with.”
“Kid,” DeSean panted, “now is really not the time.”
“You heard their laughter,” he countered. “That hurt my ears!”
Huck felt lightheaded and it scared him to no end. Maybe the drugs were still running through his veins or maybe the kid was right. Either way, if he passed out now, he would never see RaeAnn again. She would grow up with a deceased father and a vegetable for a mother. Forcing air into his throbbing lungs, he saw Helen and Earl quietly watching from the shadows collecting in the corners like tar, but it was just his heightened senses taking advantage of his moment of weakness.
“To the trucks,” he shouted, unlocking the front door and barely noticing it was already unlocked. Whipping it back and dashing outside, the others gave chase, putting their heads into the driving wind and snow. The group bolted past the sheriff’s Bronco and then a white Subaru Outback parked off to the side that must belong to Helen and Earl, which meant they were still here. Fresh footprints caught Huck’s eye, making him slip. They were everywhere and this wasn’t good. He tried calculating how many people it would take to make that many impressions and didn’t care for the answer.
Jumping up onto the closest plow, DeSean threw the orange door back while the others provided cover. Huck spun around when someone whispered in his ear, thrusting the gun out to nothing at all. Nina’s hair blew up from behind, pulling a shriek from her chest.
He jerked the gun around to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Somebody just blew on the back of my neck!”
“It’s just the wind,” BJ yelled over the storm, holding the snub-nosed revolver out like something was charging the group. Something big. “Don’t start panicking on me now, lady!”
“I’m not panicking!”
DeSean stuck his head out of the truck, squinting against the snow. “They cut the power!”
BJ whirled around like someone just tapped him on the shoulder, snowflakes lighting upon his lashes. “Let’s check the other one!”
“Look!”
They followed Johnny’s finger to the ground, where – one after another – a single pair of ghostly footprints pressed into the freshly fallen snow. The gusting wind faded away in Huck’s ears, leaving only the sound of his pounding heart. Hopping down from the plow, DeSean watched the phantom prints leisurely circle him in the snow. He turned with the gun aimed at something he couldn’t see but knew was there.
“Okay,” Nina gasped. “Now, I’m panicking!”
“Back inside!” Taylor cried, pulling the group from their horrified trances.
High stepping through the deep snow, Huck followed everyone inside and forced the door shut against the wind. He turned the deadbolt and staggered backwards, incredulously watching the footprints track closer in the snow. For whatever reason, he felt like every frantic beat of his heart was drawing it closer. If it weren’t for the terrified looks bending the faces behind him, he would think he’d gone mad because this was impossible. Despite the fact he’d written plenty about the impossible, Huck didn’t believe in ghosts and zombies. Not in real life. In real life, monsters are just metaphors for something else. Something troubling. The best stories illuminate a dark truth about reality in a terrifying way, using an impossible tale sure to grab your attention. Yet on the rarest of occasions, such as now, reality is darker than fiction.
The mysterious footprints stopped just outside the front door, snow already filling in the tracks behind. Looking up to where a head should be, Huck stared at the semi crashed into Bud’s old pickup. The vehicles were barely visible through the falling snow and whatever was standing just outside the diner wasn’t visible at all. A phantom breath fogged the glass and the group backed away from the door.
“The hell is that?” DeSean whispered.
“I don’t want to know,” Nina whispered back, taking the long, pie knife from Johnny.
“The front door was unlocked when we went outside,” Huck panted, drawing everyone’s eyes. “I locked it when the power went out. Remember?”
“Yeah, so?” Andrews swung his pinched gaze back to the footprints. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying somebody unlocked it…from the inside.” Huck looked them over, examining their eyes one frightened pair at a time. “One of us is helping them.”
“Well, it ain’t me, man.” BJ gestured with the gun. “I don’t like helping people.”
“Me neither,” DeSean grunted. “Fuck people.”
“Dude,” Andrews started, “nobody is helping them from the inside. This isn’t an Agatha Christie novel. It was probably that crazy old couple.”
“Yeah,” Huck breathed out, cringing when he saw the fear swelling in Johnny’s eyes. “Maybe.”
“Now what, Sheriff?” Nina asked. “We can’t go out that way.”
Taylor opened his mouth to respond but stopped short when he heard someone crying behind him. Spinning around, a gasp ripped from his throat. Horrorstruck, the group stared at Helen standing barefoot in the corner by the unlit Christmas tree. Punished for some unknown truancy, she kept her back to them and sniveled in the dark. DeSean held up the cellphone and the weak glow did little to shed any light on the mystery.
“Helen?” the sheriff squeaked out, slowly tracking snow across the floor.
Her weeping grew louder, hitching in her chest.
“Helen!”
She stopped crying and grew still, planting a high-pitched tone in Huck’s left ear.
“What’re you doing?” Taylor asked, coolly cocking the hammer back on his cannon with a metallic double click.
Without turning to face them, she answered in a childlike voice that sounded as frightened as they were. “I’ve been bad.”
Her spooky response sent a visible shudder through the diner, tightening Huck’s back down the middle.
Sheriff Taylor cleared his throat and stepped closer, magnetically pulling the group with him. “What do you mean?”
Huck glanced over his shoulder to the glass front door, expecting Ambrose to be standing there with a bloody grin but only the footprints remained. It was impossible to tell if whatever made them was still there or not. Returning his attention to Helen, his skin tickled with the unmistakable charge of negative energy running through the diner, standing the hairs up on his scalp.
“I wasn’t supposed to kill him,” Helen admitted in a mournful whisper.
Face drawn, DeSean edged closer with the phone going first. “Kill who?”
“The stupid cook.”
“Man, let’s get the…” BJ trailed off when Helen turned to face them. Mouth smeared with blood, dark lines burrowed through her wrinkled flesh. Teardrops of blood blinked from her eyes, racing down her pallid cheeks and glistening in the cellphone light and, despite the grotesqueness of it all, it was impossible to look away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wringing her bony hands.
DeSean cocked his head to the side, the snub-nosed revolver swallowed up in his hand. “Sorry for what?”
“For this.”
BJ pushed past his brother. “Fuck this vampire bitch,” he said, bringing the gun up.
“BJ, no,” Taylor shouted.
Setting his jaw, BJ put two rounds in Helen’s chest. She jerked backwards and fell into the Christmas tree, knocking it against the wall. Shiny balls crashed to the floor, shattering into jagged shards around the presents. Springing to her feet, the old woman’s lips pulled back into a hideous sneer, releasing a high-pitched screech that made Johnny cover his ears.
“Don’t look at her!” Taylor yelled, taking dead aim at her face.
A clear liquid dripped from her long, sharp fangs as Helen’s face shifted into something not of this world. Something that shut Huck’s motor functions down upon eye contact. Th
e back of her neck inflated like a hood, slightly lifting her small face from her body. Oily scales slipped over her skin like armor and the sight was so repulsive, nobody noticed Earl drop from the ceiling behind. The old man grabbed Johnny by the hair and yanked, dragging him across the diner while Helen crept closer with an odd clicking sound coming from her tongue.
Nina broke through the fog of shock before anyone else and drove an elbow into the side of Earl’s head, knocking him to the floor. Looking up, he hissed and she hit him with a side-kick to the face, producing a bone-chilling crunch that sent him tumbling. Using his momentum, he rolled to his feet and made a beeline for Johnny. Blood gushed from his broken nose and determination swirled in his oily eyes. Nina plunged the pie knife into his back but Earl barely noticed. His bare feet slapped against the checkered flooring, face morphing into the unholy.
Forcing a weak breath into his lungs, Huck used all of his strength to raise the Nano and shoot Earl in the face. The old timer spun to the floor and stopped moving at Johnny’s feet.
Wide-eyed, Johnny looked up from the crumpled body. “Holy shit, that was awesome!”
“Get back,” Huck yelled at him, inching closer.
BJ cried out in pain and Huck spun around to see Helen hugging him like she hadn’t seen him in years. Paralyzed by fear, BJ hadn’t moved an inch since she changed. He didn’t run or shoot; he just stood there and let her get close. She was taller than he was now, standing on her bare toes and holding him tight. Her clothing hung from her elongated bones, torn in awkward places they normally shouldn’t. Hissing at the sheriff, she threw her head back and sank a pair of glistening fangs into BJ’s shoulder. He dropped the small revolver to the floor and screamed in agony, his only form of resistance. Everyone trained their weapons on Helen (or whatever ghoulish form of her now remained), but nobody had a clear shot. Heart pounding, Huck watched her suck on BJ’s shoulder like a bat to a calf. Blood oozed from the two bullet holes in her chest and it wasn’t fucking possible. The gun grew so heavy in his hand, he couldn’t raise it. He could barely blink his eyes against the incredulity washing over him.
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