She wrapped a dishcloth tightly around Mark’s forearm and held it in place while she tilted her face to the sun coming through the kitchen window. The kitchen they sat in looked almost normal compared to the kitchens of the safe houses, and from here, she could see the neighbor’s backyard, where a swing set gathered rust at its joints and a good portion of the chain-link fence had been overrun with kudzu.
The safe houses, dotted at judicious distances throughout Willow’s End, were dismantled shells with no dark nooks and crannies. They had plywood-covered windows and reinforced doors and a supply of wooden stakes along with the prosaic cans of beans, soups, and chili in the doorless cabinets.
They were homey fortresses, put in place to harbor anyone caught out when the sun began to set.
Sanctuary from the vampires.
Lea moved Mark’s hand to the towel on his arm and took the cup, glancing out the now-glassless sliding glass door of the family room as she passed through. A fire pit lay in the backyard like a giant, prehistoric beetle overturned and unable to reclaim its feet, dead in the knee-high grass. A shed at the back fence had lost both its doors in one storm or another, and it gaped blankly at the house, looking both abandoned and damned as kudzu crawled slowly onto its swaybacked roof.
Behind her, Lady whined and danced nervously in the doorway, her toenails clicking…but she wouldn’t leave the kitchen. Mark snapped his fingers at the little dog, and she turned and leapt lightly onto his lap, where she whined some more as she watched Lea’s progress.
Chance wailed and heaved himself against the door of the reinforced laundry room, rattling it in its frame. Lea hesitated, her heart beating sharply, even though she knew he couldn’t get out because she had, in fact, helped to trap him in there. Had even helped build the trap.
The door rattled again, and Chance moaned in frustration. The hair on Lea’s arms rose, wavering like sea grass in a changing tide. She shivered. How could a nine-year-old sound so monstrous? she wondered, not for the first time. But of course, the answer was easy. He sounded monstrous because he was. A monster. Isn’t there anything of the little boy left in him? Lea, who loved children, tried to puzzle out how much of Chance might actually remain, and she wondered if there were any parts of his brain not yet burned away by the disease.
She tilted the cup, letting a drop fall near the base of the door. She listened as his nails scrabbled madly at the other side. “I have it, Chance, but you have to stay back,” she said, keeping her voice both calm and steady. Carrying. So he couldn’t miss either the tone or the content. “There’s sunlight out here. Get to the back so it won’t burn you. I don’t want you to get burned, Chance. Destiny wouldn’t want you to be burned when she gets back.” She listened intently. All was stillness from the laundry room, but she sensed him trying to puzzle it through his burning brain. “Destiny will be back any day now,” Lea said. The repetition of Destiny’s name seemed sometimes to get through to him, but for Lea herself, she thought of Destiny as Promise, and always would.
“Move back, Chance,” Lea said. “Here comes the sun.”
She opened and unhooked the padlock on the small pass-through at the very bottom of the door. It was smaller even than a cat door, just big enough for the plastic cup. She’d have to set it in and close the door in a hurry, because Chance wouldn’t be able to control himself once the blood was in there with him.
No vampire could control itself around blood.
Chapter 2
In 1983, a vampire plague started in Manhattan, and within two years, it had washed across half the country, tumbling towns, cities and remote hamlets alike, including Wereburg, which sat in upstate, western New York, just under Lake Ontario.
The town of Wereburg was semi-rural, semi-urban, semi-suburban and an ideal spot to become an outpost…one of many that dotted the landscape of this new America. Marshal Law had been enacted by President Reagan, and the National Guard had absorbed the other branches of the military–what was left of them. It was the Guard that acted as conduit for news and survivors and kept the lines of communication between the outposts open.
Destiny Riser, whose family had occupied the house in Willow’s End where Chance was now trapped, had lost her parents but managed to get her little brother to safety in the Wereburg High School. There, the survivors grouped together under the direction of Mr. West, a science teacher from the high school.
While the survivors were still getting on their feet, a careless blunder had left them vulnerable to an attack, and Destiny’s brother, Chance, had been bit and changed over. Her final promise to him was that she would fix him, save him, make things right. From that day on, she’d rechristened herself as ‘Promise’.
She rode a black horse she’d named Ash through the woods behind the Willow’s End development, determined to find her beloved little brother. She didn’t want him living the animalistic, scrabbling life of a vampire…he would be better off dead, and she was the one who would stake him, relieving him of the burden of his nighttime life. For these vampires were not the Hollywood version, urbane and sophisticated–they were desperately unhappy monsters spurred only by their bloodlust. Hollywood had failed, too, in the portrayal of what killed a vampire. Holy water, crosses and pleas to personal saviors did not daunt these vacant bloodsuckers. Only sunlight or a sharp implement directly through the heart dispatched them with any speed.
It became clear that vampirism was a disease of the blood and mind–a sort of rabies that acted on its victims’ muscles and nerves, their synapses and even, perhaps, their very DNA. The vampires had an allergy to sun and would smolder and die in the light but their strength was that of a PCP amped junkie, and the fire that burned in their brains left little room for cognitive thought.
But there were a handful of people with at least some immunity. They were the half-and-halfs.
Peter Gallagher had lived in a Pennsylvania town called Bishop. He had been bit the night his wife had been killed, and their unborn baby had died inside her. He’d fought the disease and come out of it and then been moved to a base hospital in New Jersey where they were working on an immunization. There weren’t many people like Peter–in most cases, a bite meant death, and if it didn’t, then it meant becoming a vampire–and the scientists at the base were desperate to study his blood to find what made him different.
A doctor at the base hospital, Dr. Edwards, used Peter’s blood to synthesize something better than an immunization…he found a cure.
Plagued by a bleak and worsening depression, Peter had left the base hospital long before he knew of the doctor’s discovery. He traveled with the Guard to his old hometown, and that was where he found Snow, the horse that his wife had raised from a foal. It had seemed a miracle of sorts to find her unharmed and eager to be reunited with him. From there, he’d traveled with the Guard to Wereburg, spurred on by rumors of another horse and a driving need to leave his past behind.
In Wereburg, he’d met Promise. They’d developed an instant, if uneasy, bond: Peter troubled by his past and by the recurring twinges of vampirism, and Promise fiercely intent on finding her brother.
But with Peter came the idea of curing Chance, rather than killing him. With the help of her friends, Lea and Mark and their new friend, Peter, she was able to trap Chance in her old family home in Willow’s End, despite the protestations of some of Wereburg’s citizens, the most vocal of which was Deidre Morris, a former high school popularity queen and current outpost busybody and bully.
Promise and Peter had left with the Guard, leaving Lea and Mark to watch over Chance. They hoped to get to the base in New Jersey and retrieve the cure they didn’t know, but hoped, would be there.
After days of hard travel, they’d reached the base and discovered that Dr. Edwards had developed what he thought would be a cure for people like Peter…half-and-halfs with some immunity. But there would have to be testing done first. If his theory was wrong, then it might actually make Peter worse, make him a full-blown vampire.
/> Before they’d been there a full day, the base had been overrun with vampires, and Dr. Edwards had died in the ensuing bedlam. Promise had rescued the case of precious vials, but at the cost of losing Peter and the horses in the confusion of the violent night.
Unsure of whether they were even alive, she left with the Guard. Horrified to leave them behind, but with nowhere else to go, the desire to get the cure back to what might be the only thing she had left–her beloved baby brother–spurred her on.
She could only hope that Peter would follow.
Chapter 3
“She looks very tired,” Robert said, his eyes on Promise. She stood facing south at the intersection nearest the Greenville school, a case the size of three briefcases sat at her feet. The sun, fading as it tumbled into the clouds in the west, painted her skin a washed-out yellow. Her arms were crossed at her waist, and she gripped her own sides, her coat bunched in clumps in her squeezing hands. A pink scrunchie tied her long, black hair into a tail that fell halfway down her back.
She looks more forlorn than tired, Evans thought, and his heart contracted, filling him with a familiar pain and anger. He knew she was still looking for Peter. For her sake, he hoped Peter would catch up to them soon, but he was also afraid of Peter’s return. He still had no doubt that Peter had made it out of the base, but what was he like now? Had he changed over all the way? Had the violence and blood–killing Billet–somehow stimulated the disease that already ate at him?
“Promise,” he called across to her. “It’s time. Sun’s going down.”
She turned, and he thought her eyes glittered with tears, but it must have been the sun–when she got to them, they were dry. She smiled first at Evans and then at Robert, but the smile was faint and did nothing to relieve the desolation in her eyes. “I’m glad to be back here,” she said. “It’s a good outpost. It reminds me of Wereburg.”
Three days out from the base had brought them back to Greenville, New York, where Peter, Promise and the Guard had spent a night while on their way from Wereburg to the base. Robert Allen welcomed them back, the people in the outpost working quickly to accommodate the lab workers and soldiers. Many pairs of eyes had cut to Promise. They all remembered Ash and Snow and wondered where the horses–and the young man who rode with the strikingly pretty girl–were now.
Promise seemed oblivious to the stares.
Evans put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him in a brotherly, one-armed hug. She looked up at him, her eyes bleak, and he kissed her forehead. “Everything is going to work out. I still believe that,” he said. “Do you trust me?”
She nodded, and he squeezed her again. “Let’s get inside. Miller’s probably ready to kill me for not helping out.”
She cast one last look over her shoulder as they entered the school.
“Big difference from Hillsborough, huh?” Evans said and spooned chili into his mouth. Beside him, Lu sat hunched over his own bowl, his glasses tinted with steam as he ate.
Miller sat back in her chair, her face ghosted with disgust. “Try and close it up, huh, Evans?” she said. “Try not to be such an animal.” She looked into her empty bowl. “Not that I can talk. I scarfed mine pretty quick.”
“This is my second bowl, though,” Evans said and grinned apishly. A pinto bean skin covered two of his teeth. Promise laughed and then put her hand over her mouth, catching it.
“It’s okay to laugh,” Miller said quietly, brushing Promise’s shoulder with her own. Then she turned back to Evans and Lu. “Hillsborough was a scary sight. It was pure carelessness, I’m sure.” When they’d gone through Hillsborough four days ago on their way to the base, the outpost there had been unable to take them in. A rampant case of the flu coupled with poor conditions in general had caused the people of Hillsborough to quarantine themselves. Deaths had occurred.
When the Guard and Promise had come back through, it was evident that it had gotten much, much worse over the intervening three days. Bodies lay under the windows of the warehouse outpost building. Pale and sickly faces behind pebbled glass windows had writhed and shivered like nightmare specters.
It had never been a good spot for an outpost; too wide open, too dirty, with no way to effectively get the sick somewhere that they wouldn’t sicken everyone else. No safe houses had ever been set up, and the supplies were not watched closely enough. They should have outfitted themselves in the grade school or high school as Wereburg and Greenville had done. But they hadn’t.
“But I guess carelessness can happen anywhere,” Lu said, reminding Miller of where they were coming from. He took his glasses off and buffed them against his black T-shirt. Everyone had thought the base impenetrable with the amount of soldiers in attendance. Coupled with the incredibly important work they were doing there, it seemed the base should have been the safest place to be.
And yet, they too had been overrun.
Miller nodded, and her head dropped. “Yes, it can. You’re right,” she said. They’d lost Billet, one of the members of their unit. He’d been turned and then (they theorized) killed by Peter. He was the unit’s third fatality since the trip from Wereburg. First they’d lost Shields and then their commander, Riker, and now their original six had dwindled to the three at the table with Promise.
It was a hard, hard world, Miller thought. Nothing was permanent. Nowhere was safe.
Evans pushed the bowl away with a satisfied sigh. “I think I’m going to quit the Guard and stick to Greenville. I could get used to this,” he said and stretched his legs out to an empty chair, crossing one ankle over the other. “Lu, what do you think happened? At the base? Christ, there were plenty of guards…soldiers watching everything! How could the vampires get in?”
Lu shook his head and shrugged, but Miller caught a hitch in his features, a quick flick of his eyes left and right to the other diners. Some of them were the lab workers they were transporting to Wereburg. Lu was a smart guy, the smartest soldier she’d ever worked with. If something was eating him, she wanted to know what it was. Information was always an asset. Riker, the commander they’d lost, had taught her that.
“What is it, Lu? What are you thinking?” she asked, leaning toward him and lowering her voice. His eyes flicked across the room again then settled back on hers.
“I don’t think the vampires had to get in…I think they were already there.”
“What?” Evans said, his feet slamming to the floor. His face was dark with incredulity. “You’re losing it, Lu. We’d have know if the base had…” Miller flapped her hand at him and cut her eyes to the people at the other tables. Evans lips tightened, but when he resumed, his voice was quieter, audible only to those at the table. “We’d have known if there were vampires at the base. It’s not like you can hide one of those things.”
Across from him, Promise shifted uncomfortably. She was hiding a vampire: her little brother, Chance. And one of the things she worried about most was that it would somehow affect the safety of her friends Lea and Mark, or even worse, everyone in Wereburg. Even though she had him way out in Willow’s End, it did not completely allay her fears. She’d never told anyone in the guard why she wanted the cure so badly. They had all just made the assumption that it was for Peter; that that was why they were traveling together. She had let that assumption go by uncorrected. Now she looked across to Evans’ anger-darkened eyes, and a rill of real unease stirred along her skin.
“Ev, think about it,” Lu said. “Everything you just said: there were guards, lots of them, they were watching the place…security was very tight there, very buttoned up. You know that. So what does that leave?”
Miller was looking at Lu with skepticism, but something else was lurking in her eyes–the beginning of belief. Lu’s suspicion made a lot of sense, but she wasn’t convinced. It was…so nutty and shortsighted. Dr. Edwards was smart, a genius, even; he’d never have allowed it. “No, you’re wrong, Lu. They wouldn’t have kept vampires at the base.”
Lu turned to her, his expr
ession that of a very smart person trying to be patient with someone slower on the uptake. “Okay, let me put it in these terms: if there had been some kind of espionage at the base…a bomb planted in a lab, for instance…knowing the security measures there, what would you be led to assume?”
“Inside job,” Evans said promptly, and Miller nodded agreement.
“Right,” Lu said. “It would have to be an inside job. Same with the vampires. Here’s what I think: they might have been testing their vaccine–their cure–and got careless with one of their guinea pigs.”
“And by guinea pigs, you mean people?” Miller said. “You think they were trying out the cure on people?”
“Either that or they had somehow captured a vampire and were holding it in the lab,” Lu said, lowering his voice further and glancing around. The other tables had begun to empty out, and the room darkened as people took their Colemans with them as they left. Lu leaned further over the table and dropped his voice until he was barely whispering. “They might have been experimenting on it and it broke free, or maybe it just bit one of them. That’s always a possibility. And who knows…the disease could be communicable through a scratch. It’s not likely…but we don’t really know. That’s what makes the whole situation–if it was what I think it was–so dangerous.” The lantern in the middle of the table threw odd, dancing glints across Lu’s eyes. “I guess it’s a moot point now, and we might never know what really happened back there, but you can’t keep a vampire captive like a lab rabbit. It’s too dangerous.”
Promise felt another sharp shift of panicked guilt. What if they got back to Wereburg and it had been compromised…fallen because of Chance. The worst part, the truly hellish part, is that she had no way of knowing, and without Peter, she had no one to talk to about it. She wouldn’t know until they got there.
Lost in her own troubling thoughts, Promise didn’t see Evans’ considering stare from across the table.
Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance Page 29
