Her dad was fond of talking about karma, mostly in a joking way but sometimes seriously in his contemplative, not-quite-spiritual way, and those occasional pronouncements whisper back at her now.
You’re gonna pay a karmic price for that one!
She can hear him saying it, like he might have said after catching her playfully cheating at Monopoly—his voice, clear as if he’s right behind her now in this stinking hallway, walking with her as they move farther and farther away from the source of the stench. As if making a pronouncement about her immediate future.
Rachel bolts roughly away from Kevin and Kayla, finding the closest open doorway—an observation room. She pukes onto the floor, turning her face to the far right and avoiding the box in her arms. She endures three hard bile-spiked convulsions, then takes a moment to spit out the worst of what’s left.
“Sorry,” she coughs wetly.
Her throat burns and her sinuses are ravaged. For several moments, she simply clutches the doorjamb—the box of medical wrappings trapped between her abdomen and the wall—and tries to balance herself. She takes in long, slow breaths through her mouth.
After a minute, she realizes she’s shaking her head, back and forth.
She’s not going to think that way anymore.
No regrets.
She suddenly feels as if her whole life has been one of capitulation. Giving in to her mother’s illness, folding in on herself while grief had its way with her. Letting her lesser, self-pitying demons control her while her dad reached for a new life. Surrendering to baser impulses, pushing her friends away when they wanted to help in the wake of tragedy. And then, all too recently, second-guessing her decisions when the world exploded around her. She feels on the verge of capitulating again and not seeing the situation for what it is. She’s about to fail herself. She can see it clearly, that moment on the near horizon when she will turn inward and fail herself, fail her father.
She can’t let him die in vain.
These are monsters she’s dealing with.
They’re the ones about to pay a karmic price.
She spits foul saliva and bile onto the floor, clearing her mouth. She straightens up and turns around. Kevin and Kayla are watching her warily.
“Okay, let’s g—” Rachel starts.
A concussion hits her.
She’s aware of herself falling, her box clattering on the dirty floor, and in her vision somewhere, she catches stutter-glimpses of Kevin and Kayla also tumbling. Her head is filled with noise. She is already on her back by the time she realizes that the sky is roaring. She shuts her eyes tight and—
—the red tendrils are pulling at her again, coaxing her, and it makes all the sense in the world to simply surrender and go limp, to let the warm limbs lift her toward her father, to take her too, to be with him again as if nothing happened, to start over. The red throat narrows and roils as if swallowing, and she feels her body giving up, but no! She won’t let it happen, she feels Kayla close to her, and—
—when she can open her eyes into a squint, she sees Kayla rocking on her side, hands covering her ears. She also sees one of Kevin’s legs jerking in the air above Kayla’s head. Everything is shaking under the sound.
“Stop it!” Rachel yells at the ceiling, but the sound dies under the thundering bray.
The walls shudder as if in the midst of an earthquake, the sounds of medical machinery clanking all around them. The roar lasts for perhaps twenty more seconds, then slices cleanly off, leaving an echo of itself in the air, leaving her ears ringing. Something made of glass shatters in the far distance.
“Jesus Christ!” Kevin cries.
“Why does it do that?” Kayla asks, her voice a timid warble. Her face is blank with confusion or shock.
Kevin is already laboring to his feet. “I don’t even want to think about it. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He works his jaw left and right, trying to pop his ears.
“They’re communicating,” Rachel says, accepting Kevin’s hand up. She immediately bends to gather supplies and throw them back into her bin. “They’re up to something again. Already. Planning, maybe.”
“Figuring out how to murder us,” Kevin mutters.
“Kevin!” Rachel barks. “Dude!”
He gives her a glance, then Kayla an even more sheepish one. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Kayla. We’re fine. Let’s get in gear. They’re doing something.”
Rachel shoves at his shoulder, and he nods again, deserving it. Then she helps Kayla up, only to find that the girl is brushing her hands on her pants with something akin to anger.
“It’ll be all right,” Rachel soothes, giving Kevin a hard stare. “You’re safe.”
“But I’m not,” she says. “I’m not.” She eases up, sniffing. “Everything is worse. I shouldn’t have left my house. I shouldn’t’ve have left my room in the library. I was safe there. It was dark and quiet and safe. I was fine there till you—”
She catches herself, then buries herself against Rachel in a hard embrace. No tears, no sound, just holding her tight.
“I didn’t mean that.” She shakes her head furiously against Rachel’s upper abdomen.
Kevin lifts his box and gives Rachel a look.
“I got her,” she whispers. “Go ahead.”
He takes off through the double doors, into the lobby, and out to the truck. As the doors clatter shut, Rachel pets Kayla’s wild hair.
“I’ll take care of you, sweetie,” she says. “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. I promise I’m doing my best.”
The words escape her naturally, easily, and she thinks of her mother then. The vividness of the image stuns her. It’s warmed by memory, and it calms her. How many times did her mother say those kinds of words to her when she was young? She remembers her little conversation about both of their moms, back at the library.
Kayla nods against her.
“I know,” she says.
At that moment, the truck starts up. Rachel takes Kayla’s face in her hands, and looks straight at her.
“You ready to get out of here? Go back to the library?”
“Let’s do it.”
Kevin meets them in the lobby, then about-faces back toward the truck.
Everything seems to turn sluggish at that moment. At least, that’s how Rachel will think of this moment in retrospect.
Outside, the skies stutter and roil. Crimson light seems to fall in shards from the ever-present clouds of smoke. Kayla has handed her bin to Kevin, and he is in the process of setting it in the truck bed.
That’s when Rachel sees them: the two men who had been clamped to the evergreens on the other side of the parking lot. They’re halfway across the asphalt now, and closing, scurrying in mad, bent-back gallops. She can see the insane yet single-minded purpose in their eyes. Her words choke in her throat. On instinct, she recoils, and wraps herself around Kayla to shield her. She yanks the girl back, away from the assault, away from the threat, and toward the front of the truck, down and away.
Now a hoarse yell of warning erupts from her, and Kevin reacts with a full-body jerk, twisting downward.
The bodies leap from the ground, snarling—
Thunder cracks, and everything is muffled.
Rachel feels a shower of shrapnel against her back and right flank, and she winces at the sting. A hot spray of blood needles her skin.
Silence.
Whatever happened, it happened in an instant.
Her ears are ringing.
“Sh—shit!” Rachel yells, on the ground now, lifting her head cautiously, wincing in anticipation of another blast. Where are the bodies? Where did they go? She searches frantically. She has the sense that someone saved them at the last possible second. Was it Joel, coming for them?
Kayla shivers beneath her, curled into a ball.
“You okay?” Rachel says.
Her voice feels far away, bass-heavy.
The girl nods against her shoulder.
Kevin is on the ground, fac
e-down, trying and failing to lift himself. His big arms are shiny with new blood. There’s blood everywhere, and Rachel quickly finds the source. The two bodies that assailed them lie motionless not far from Kevin, their limbs angled unnaturally, broad expanses of exposed flesh stained black and green. A trill of uneasiness travels Rachel’s spine, and she lets go of Kayla to tend to Kevin.
Her eyes dart everywhere, not spotting anything. She feels utterly exposed.
Kevin is moaning and cursing. “The fuck! Where’d that come from?”
Rachel goes to her knees next to him, tentatively reaching for him, trying to help. There’s gray matter on his clothes, and a single large bone shard is embedded in his shoulder. She stares at it with disgust. It’s very clearly a piece of cranium.
“Oh God!” Kayla whines. She’s anxiously wiping blood from the side of her face. “Is he hurt?”
“I think so.” Rachel watches that piece of bone. “Kevin, you have a piece of skull in your shoulder,” she says. She doesn’t know what else to say.
He can’t seem to hear her. He’s pushing himself up off the pavement, or trying to. His hand slips once, twice.
Then he speaks loudly. “Everyone okay? Damn, I can’t hear a fucking thing.” His voice pitches louder. “Rachel?”
Rachel reassures Kevin with her touch, shifts position to get in front of him. She uses one hand to calm him. “Shhhh.” The word devolves into a whimper, and she feels the urgent need to get him under cover, to get back in the truck and leave this godforsaken place.
Kevin’s features are pockmarked with gore and bone. He blinks rapidly, wiping at his eyes. Rachel can’t tell if any of this blood is his.
“What happened?” he yells. “Fuckin’ OW.”
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
She gestures at her ear, shakes her head, and he nods, understanding.
“Did someone shoot at those things? Are there more coming? I can barely see. Fuck!”
Rachel studies their surroundings. She can’t see anyone—not a soul. And no more bodies are racing toward them, but that could change at any moment.
C’mon, girl.
Just like her dad would say.
She yells in frustration, briefly, loudly, then shuts up. She closes her eyes tight, tries to shove out pessimism, she can’t deal with all this—Can things stop, for chrissakes stop, for a minute?
Kayla stares at her with worry.
“Grab those bins and put ’em in the truck, Kayla,” she says, and the girl moves unsteadily to do so.
Without ceremony, Kevin plucks the skull shard from his shoulder, sends it spinning into the parking lot. He inspects himself. His jaw still works rhythmically, now more forcefully. He’s going to need attention.
Rachel spots Kevin’s handheld radio, a few feet beyond him, closer to the truck, which itself is speckled with more gore. She goes to the radio, snatches it up.
Oh no.
Its face is shattered. She finds the Power and Send buttons and tries them anyway. Nothing. She inspects the exposed innards helplessly, trying to find an easy fix, a loose wire—nothing. It’s done for. She tosses it the back of the truck, looks around.
The bodies on the ground—the ones that were clamped to those trees moments ago—are decimated and have already mostly bled out. Rachel can’t make sense of them, of what has happened to them. The bodies’ heads have been brutally ripped from their torsos. The flesh of the shoulders and chest has disintegrated, leaving a messy, hollowed-out shell. She searches the area for the heads, but there’s no sign of them. She does see what appears to be more shards of skull, as well as mushy, purple blobs of gray matter. The heads have exploded as if targeted by a high-powered weapon. Simultaneously. Someone around here is an expert shot but had no apparent regard for the safety of three survivors.
“What happened?” Kayla whines.
“I don’t know,” Rachel says simply. “But I know we have to get out of here. We’re completely in the open. We’re in danger. Again.” Her voice is flat and dry, resigned. “Different shit, different day.”
Kayla whimpers.
Rachel looks at her own arms and clothes, which are dotted with spots of blood and brain. A few days ago, she would’ve gagged at the sight, but she doesn’t even pause. She lifts her shirt and finds that her right side is inflicted with cuts of all sizes. She’s bleeding—not horribly but enough to need bandages. From one of the larger punctures, she withdraws a bone splinter.
“Great,” she says, dropping it.
She casts wary glances in all directions, including back at the dark hospital.
“We’ve got everything we need in the truck. We need to get back to the library. We can take care of Kevin there.”
“And you,” Kayla says meekly.
As if hearing them, Kevin shouts, “We need to get back! Like now.”
He twists his head to look at her, make sure she heard him, and she gives him a curt nod.
“Kayla, get in the truck. Hurry.”
While the girl scurries up into the truck, Rachel kneels next to Kevin and offers herself as a crutch. He’s a mess. He keeps wiping at his arms, seemingly frustrated that he can’t make a dent in all that red. Rachel has never seen him tremble before.
“I can’t get it off,” he says loudly.
“We’ll take care of you at the library!” she tries. “Keep some pressure on that shoulder. Can you hear me?”
“A little,” he says after halfway reading her lips. “Fuck!”
“I’ll drive,” she says. “Let’s get you in the back.”
With some grunting effort, she manages to help him up.
“I think I’m concussed,” he says. “Just like my football days. Fuck. I’ll shake it off. Wow.”
Wobbly, he digs into his front pocket and pulls out his keys, hands them over.
“It’s all you, Rach.”
CHAPTER 10
Rachel has Kevin’s keys in her hand, and now she’s simply staring at them, breathing hard. Getting him into the back was a trial. The big man was on the verge of collapsing into unconsciousness. She fears that the concussion—if that’s what it is—is a bigger deal than he’s making it out to be. Her only basis of comparison is the concussion Bonnie diagnosed in her father, and that took days to recover from.
She realizes that she’s whisper-repeating a rather foul word.
Kayla touches her forearm. “Are we going?”
“We’re definitely going.”
“You can … you can drive us back. Right?”
For the first time, Rachel notices that the truck has a manual transmission, and she lets out a mournful cry, which echoes loudly in the confines of the cab. She stops and closes her eyes.
“What?!” says Kayla. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything! Why did I bring us here?”
She cranes her neck to peer back at Kevin. He’s flat on his back, and his chest is still heaving up and down. His large body is splayed perpendicularly across the corrugated floor, dots of blood spotting his clothes, mostly across his right side. He’s holding his skull with his hands, his teeth gritted. She can’t ask him to drive in his state.
Kayla only sits there, staring out the window, with that one hand still positioned on Rachel’s forearm. “It’ll be fine,” the girl says, quiet, desolate.
Rachel glances out at the ground next to the car. The two bodies there are a horror show, torn apart, ghastly. Blood has pooled everywhere.
“I’m sorry, honey, I don’t mean to—” Rachel covers Kayla’s hand with her own. “You shouldn’t have to be seeing this. You shouldn’t have to go through this. But we’re on our way, okay?”
Rachel can see now that Kayla is turning unresponsive. There’s a dried tear track down the pretty girl’s cheek, right along her nose. Rachel can’t take her eyes off that tiny path for a moment. It looks like a scar that will remain there for her whole life. And as she watches it, something surges inside her, stronger than anything else she
’s felt over the past few days.
Rachel is now Kayla’s protector, as surely as if she’s her legal guardian. From what the girl has told her, her family is dead. Gone. The girl is only twelve years old. There is no one left for her—except Rachel. It is now her responsibility to shield this girl from harm. For the rest of her life. As long as that might last.
Rachel feels that she took on the role of protector in the library. She immediately took the girl under her wing and calmed her down, made her feel a part of something again. Yes, but it wasn’t conscious; it was an automatic big-sister thing. She didn’t understand what Kayla really needed. Now, out here in the open, having narrowly avoided death yet again at the hands of one of these beasts, it’s hitting home.
Rachel scans the larger area. There are no moving bodies that she can see. No gasping human-monsters. No humans with high-powered rifles. No threat.
For now.
“All right, sweetie, I need you to watch outside for any more bodies, okay? Any people, actually. But stay as far down as you can. I’m gonna figure out how to drive this damn thing. You let me know if you see anything. Anything moving. We don’t want that to happen again while we’re sitting here.”
Rachel has Kevin’s weapon now, right here in the cab, and she’s not afraid to disintegrate one of those bastards while it’s still at a safe distance.
The library seems much farther away now, without the radio, without Kevin driving. She thinks of Joel and Mai and the others, hopes they’re all right. Has something happened at the library, too something like this? Somehow, she doubts it. The image of Felicia comes to her, standing there at the destroyed book-returns window, looking powerful despite her injuries. Protective. Safe.
As Rachel prepares to turn the key, sending out a silent prayer to whoever’s listening, she wonders what has happened here.
Those bodies went down. Someone destroyed those bodies before the bodies could destroy them. Is there someone out there with an entirely more effective, violent means for dispatching these monsters? What else would explain the destruction of the immediate threat like that? Why wouldn’t that someone approach their fellow survivors first, rather than putting them in danger?
Blood Dawn (Blood Trilogy Book 3) Page 9
