The Night Killers

by Senese, Rebecca M.

  As he backed away, he saw the bed in the center of the room. A figure lay under the covers. Lucy. He stopped then headed for the bed.

  Specks of blood and flesh dotted the sheet. Lucy’s brown hair lay spread in a mass of curls and waves across the pillow. Her eyes were closed, face composed in sleep. The sheet rose and fell with her steady breathing.

  He had to wake her up, needed her to be awake, to help him deal with this terror that threatened to overwhelm him. Lucy, with her paranoid, obsessive, suspicious ways was the only one who could ground him.

  He took a shuddering breath and touched her hand. Cold but not the coldness of vampires. They’d given her something but he had to wake her up. A glance around the room showed him only the dripping wet redness that was slowly sliding down the walls. Nothing to help him here.

  He tightened his grip on her hand and let it lead him into her, into the stillness of her sleeping mind. Awareness of the external world fell away and he felt only darkness, only silence. He had not had to enter another person’s mind so completely since his scanner training years ago. But he remembered the back door. Always leave a way out, his instructors had taught him. Always visualize the way to return to the outside world or you could become trapped inside another person’s mind, lost in the miasma of their subconscious. Their warnings came back to him now and he recalled the old back door in his family’s house, before the madness. It had been white wood with a window covered by a white curtain in the top half. A chain lock had been out of his reach for most of his life. He remembered the first time he could reach it, how proud he had been. A dark brown rubber mat sat in front where he always had to remove his shoes before entering. All the details flooded his mind. When it came time to pull away, he knew he would remember that image.

  With the back door firmly in place, he allowed himself to sink deeper. The image of the door receded and feelings washed over him, subtle and gentle, not yet making much impression. Lucy’s sleeping self had been diluted by whatever drugs the vampires had given her. He would have the sink deeper to reach her.

  As he focused, the feelings became sharper. Images flowed into his mind. The familiar corridors of the lab, brighter and newer. People moved along the corridor, dressed in white lab coats with badges slung around their necks or clipped to the belts. He followed one into the main lab, a larger room than the lab Lucy worked in. Bright, shining equipment lined the walls. People bustled in and out, carrying compads, touching their ears in the characteristic way people had when wearing earbuds infrequently. By the main table, a tall man bent over a microscope. Greying brown hair curled back away from his high forehead. A strong aquiline nose pressed against the microscope as he peered through the lens. His lips were moving but the voice was distorted. A dream voice.

  Lucy’s father, Peter thought. But she wasn’t here. He had to find her. He pulled away from the image, moving toward the door. As he reached the doorway, her father stood up. Beside him, one of the technicians jostled his arm. The glass container on the lab table crashed to the floor, spraying liquid into the air. Voices howled as the people reacted. Lucy’s father cried out as droplets hit him in the face.

  Peter pulled away and he was in a black corridor, a dirt floor under his feet. He reached out and touched rock walls. The blackness was impenetrable, unending. He extended his mind and felt fear, confusion, panic. A closer memory, he thought. He was getting somewhere. All he had to do was follow the fear.

  He sunk deeper, the fear buffeting him like waves in the ocean. Her fear echoed in him, became his fear. Her confusion became his confusion. Layers of emotion pressed against him, almost too much. He fought to maintain some objectivity, to hold himself just separate enough. He was with her but he couldn’t become her.

  The flood of sensation slowed. The darkness lessened around him. Tiny pinpricks of light shone above. The sky at night. Outside in the desert. A breeze ruffled his hair and rustled the fabric of her turban.

  She stood in front of him, her back to him, wearing the familiar tunic, her pants shoved into the worn desert boots.

  “Lucy,” he called out in his mind.

  Her body shuddered. The desert breeze rose, responding to her actions. In this dream world, she affected the landscape, not the other way around. He had to connect to her.

  “Lucy, it’s me. Peter. I’m here.”

  Peter... The word floated like a suggestion on the breeze. Not spoken aloud.

  Not here, should be, shouldn’t have come...

  “Lucy, it’s all right, I’m here.”

  The turban shook from side to side. Shouldn’t have come. I’d hoped he’d be looking like me.

  “I am looking,” he said.

  He wasn’t. He didn’t want a cure. He wanted something else...

  Elliott, Peter realized, she’s talking about Elliott. The steady wind made him shudder.

  “Lucy, what has he done?”

  The children, infecting, growing. He wants to stabilize...

  “Stabilize what?”

  Species, stabilize the vampires as a species, create a standard life cycle. Birth, growth, reproduction, but not death. Keep death out of it.

  Peter shuddered again but not from the wind. “Reproduction. He’s infected those children to see if they can reproduce?”

  The wind rose up in a wail, giving voice to Lucy’s anguish. Peter felt himself slipping. Her emotions threatened to engulf him. Already the desert scene was blurring and shifting. He had to calm her down.

  “It’s all right, Lucy, I’m here. I’ll get you out of here and we’ll stop him.”

  Too late. Already part of the experiment.

  She turned around then, to face him. Her stomach bulged, curved out like a large ball. Her hands cradled it.

  Horror flooded Peter. He took a step back. “Elliott?”

  Lucy shook her head. Ours, but Elliott will use it for his own purpose. I can’t let that happen. Please...

  Ours, Peter thought. The idea bewildered him. He’d never thought of having kids, of subjecting anyone to this world. Did he have that right now with a child afflicted with the infection from both him and Lucy? What would that child be like? This was why Elliott had sedated her, to keep that child. Another avenue to explore in his goal to creating a viable vampire race.

  Not with his child.

  He stepped forward and grabbed Lucy’s hands. She lifted her gaze to his, tears reflecting on her cheeks.

  “We’re going to stop him,” Peter said. “I’m here and we’re getting out but I need you to wake up now, Lucy. Come back with me and wake up.”

  She shook her head. I can’t...

  “You can, you must. You’re stronger than this, Lucy. Strong enough to survive ten years. Strong enough to save me. Wake up!”

  His shout brought him back to the cave. The wet stench assaulted his nostrils. His hands tightened on her arms. Behind her eyelids, her eyes moved from side to side, then the lids began to flutter.

  “Wake up, Lucy,” he said aloud.

  She came back to him then, eyes open, sitting up in the bed, her hands clutching his arms.

  “Peter.” Her voiced sounded hoarse, choked.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “We have to get out,” she said. “Elliott...”

  “I know.”

  She nodded. Her eyebrows drew together. “Why are you naked?”

  He smiled. “Let’s talk about it on the way out. Okay?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It felt almost like old times, driving the Scourge of Heaven van with Sami in the seat beside him. Several times, Rick almost reached across to take her hand but stopped himself. Unspoken words hung between them and he knew they had to be spoken at some point. He should never have taken out his despair on her and left her to deal with the loss of Michael herself. But the words would have to wait, as always, until the fighting was done.

  Behind him, he heard Josh going over the provisions again, counting out the guns, ammunition, fuel for the flame
thrower, and Kaminski shields. Three of the children crowded around as he dismantled an Uzi and reassembled it. Now he was urging one of them to try it.

  “Should I tell him to stop?” Sami said.

  “No, he’s just blowing off steam,” Rick said. “Might be good for them to know the weapons.”

  Sami shrugged. Her fingers tapped the Council compad on her lap. “We should have left them at the lab.”

  Rick glanced in the rear view mirror, watching the girl Trina strip an Uzi with practiced skill.

  “I’m not sure they’d have let us or if that’s such a good idea,” he said. “Who knows what mischief they could have gotten in to. You said they were infected like Katey and Marc.”

  “Yes,” Sami said. She held her gaze straight ahead.

  Too many unspoken words, he thought then he felt the familiar tingle in his ear bud.

  “Rick, coming up on the coordinates from Sami’s return.” Sister Theresa’s voice sounded tinny in his ear.

  “Set up in a perpendicular position,” Rick said. “I want to come at them from two different angles and open up two front lines, then one of us should be able to slip inside.”

  “Roger.”

  “Coming to your position in five.”

  She signed off. He noticed Sami turning in her seat to face the back.

  “Suit up,” she called. “We’re landing in five. Trina, you and the other kids will stay in here.”

  In the rearview mirror, Rick saw the girl frown.

  “We can help,” she said. “We can call the others.”

  By the ladder to the flame thrower hub, Ted looked over from checking his sidearm. “Call what others?”

  “The other kids like us,” Trina said. Beside her, Katey and Marc nodded in unison.

  “Trina.” Sami’s voice was soft. “You saw them die.”

  “Not all. Some of hid inside the caves. I told them to.”

  “You told them?”

  The girl nodded. “I told them to look out for Peter. He’s awake now.”

  “The older others don’t see him,” Katey said.

  The singsong quality of their voices raised the hairs on his arm. Rick saw from the way Josh suppressed a shudder that he felt the same. Only Sami seemed unaffected by these odd children.

  “What older others?” she said.

  “The vampires.” Katey cocked her head as if to say ‘obviously.’

  “He’s doing... oh!” Trina sucked in a breath. Both Katey and Marc did the same. Marc whimpered and clutched Katey’s hand.

  “What?” Josh said. “What’s wrong?” He leaned toward the girl, hands digging into his pants as if to stop himself from grabbing her by the shoulders.

  Rick saw the far off look in her eyes. Even if Josh had grabbed and shook her, she wouldn’t be aware of it. He forced himself to look away from the mirror and watch the road. But now all the skin on the back of his neck was shrinking, curving up the back of his head. He realized he was hunching over the wheel and sat up straighter.

  “He blew them away.” Trina’s voice floated to him.

  “He had a gun?” Josh said.

  “No,” Trina said. “He raised a wind, with a thousand tiny stakes...”

  Her voice trailed off. Stars started flashing in front of Rick’s eyes and he realized he’d forgotten to breathe. A deep breath banished the stars but left the uneasy feeling behind. Who or what exactly were they rescuing?

  Stop, he thought, it’s Peter, a fellow squad member and the Night Killers take care of their own no matter what. Peter was Peter, bottom line.

  But he had been infected.

  And then cured.

  A full cure? Wasn’t there residual left over from the infection?

  Stop! He clenched the wheel. Focus on the road. Another minute and they would be in position to rendezvous with the Sister who rode with Mitchell and Marjorane and the other three kids. No room for doubt now. He had a job to do.

  His fingers blanched white on the wheel.

  Ahead he saw an outcropping of rocks grow in size against the early morning sky. Within the hour, the vampires wouldn’t be able to come outside. If we can extract Peter and Lucy and any remaining kids, we can make it out, he thought. For a moment he didn’t understand what that light feeling was and then he remembered: hope.

  “Get ready,” he called out.

  The rock formation grew, looking like knobby fingers sticking out of the desert. He slowed the van as they got close. On the shifting sand, he saw traces of tracks. Probably left by Sami as she fled, he thought.

  “Does this look like the place?” he said.

  She leaned forward in her chair to study the view through the windshield. “It looks like it. We came at night so it’s hard to be certain.”

  “Good enough.” He depressed the trigger in his mouth. “Sister, we’re just about in position.”

  His ear bud tingled. “Roger that. We’re ready here, Rick.”

  “Stand by for visual signal.”

  He stopped the van ten yards from the main outcropping. It towered over them as they disembarked from the van. Rick checked the gun at his waist and slipped a band of stakes across his chest. Both Sami and Josh finished suiting up with practiced ease. Ted had already climbed into the flame thrower hub. He waved one nozzle at Rick in a salute.

  Trina stood by the side of the van, Katey and Marc just behind her, holding hands. Although her expression was flat, he sensed a hunger in her gaze as she watched them finish preparations.

  “Can you reach the other kids in there?” he said.

  She blinked and focused on him. After a moment, she nodded. Her eyes closed. Her body became rigid. Katey and Marc took a step back. Marc huddled against Katey’s side. His tiny fingers clenched her hand so tight they turned white but the girl didn’t seem to notice. She stared at Trina.

  Trina trembled as if shivering in a cold wind. Sweat beaded on her forehead, dampening her dark hair. Her lips opened and closed as if she was trying to form words. Red blotches formed on her cheeks. Her eyebrows drew together with her effort. Her shoulders began to rise, hunching her body forward. Her hands hooked onto her pants, digging in and bunching them.

  Rick grew more uneasy as he watched her. He didn’t like this at all. She was going to hurt herself, blow a blood vessel or something. He took a step forward, reaching out to touch her.

  “They’re hiding.” Her voice whispered. “The older others are hunting them, panicking. He is angry.”

  Rick felt Sami come up beside him. Her familiar scent filled his nostrils.

  “Who’s angry, Trina?” Sami said.

  “Elliott. He’s angry about Lucy.”

  Rick nodded. “Let’s give him something more to be angry about,” he said. “Trina, tell the kids to head to us as fast as they can.”

  The girl gave a brief nod. Finally her body sagged and she opened her eyes. She leaned back against the side of the van and wiped her hand across her forehead.

  “They’re coming,” she said.

  “You kids stay here,” Rick said. Katey frowned but Trina gave a weak nod. Marc huddled closer to Katey who finally huffed and put her arm around him.

  Rick turned away from the kids.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Josh and Sami. He gave a wave to Ted. Ted waved the nozzle, then hit the button. Flames shot out into the sky. Can’t get more visual than that, Rick thought. The Sister would see it for sure.

  Rick headed forward in a crouching run with Sami and Josh flanking him. He pulled the sonar detector from his shirt pocket and traced it over the rock surface for the best opening. There, that crevice led deeper inside. He gave a nod to Sami. Josh pulled a personal globe from his pocket and smacked it on his forehead. The light flared on. Rick gestured Josh forward. The man slipped through the crevice. Rick pulled out his gun and followed. Sami took the rear.

  They ran forward in a fast crouch. Present the smallest possible target, Rick always thought, and keep moving. A moving target was harder to
hit, even for a vampire.

  The crevice widened to well past shoulder length, enough for two to walk side by side but they stayed in single file. From up ahead, Rick heard a shriek.

  “Boys and girls, let’s take them down,” he said.

  Josh whooped and sprinted ahead. Rick and Sami scrambled to keep up. The corridor bent to the left and widened into a high arching cavern. The light from Josh’s globe barely reached the other side. Rick pulled a burster out of his pocket, set it and whipped it toward the ceiling. The burster exploded in light, burning hot white. Around the cavern, crouching in outcroppings, vampires snarled. Two came flying at them from the right. Rick raised his gun and fired.

  He hit the male in the right shoulder. It spun back, howling but the other shorter male was already diving past. It aimed for Rick who threw himself to the left. A shot rang out. The shorter male shrieked as its knee disintegrated. Sami darted closer and staked it.

  Rick smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  The burster shadows danced across her dark face but he saw her lips turn upwards. “My pleasure, captain.”

  Maybe not so many words needed after all.

  The three of them raced into the center of the cavern. Forming a circle they battled the vampires as they came. Josh blew the head off a raging female before dodging away from two males. Sami dropped kicked an older male, then spun to shove a stake home. Rick sucker punched a male, then drove the stake up into its chest. The vampire gurgled and sank to the ground.

  A familiar tingle came to Rick’s ear.

  “We’re in, meeting some resistance but less than I expected,” the Sister said.

  “I know what you mean.” Rick fired at a vampire menacing Sami, hitting it in the forehead. Sami dispatched it before moving on. Movement to the left caught his attention. He turned. Josh was struggling with a large male. Inch by inch, the male drew closer, baring his fangs, aiming for Josh’s neck. Josh’s arms bulged holding the male at bay then he relaxed. The male made a final dive. Josh pulled the trigger and the shot gun he’d positioned between then blew through the top of the male’s head. As the body fell, Josh staked it just to be thorough. He saw Rick watching and gave him a grin; Josh’s favorite trick.