by Amira Rain
Chrissy said Dada again, and I stood up from the couch with her.
“Let’s go call Dada, Chrissy. I’m going to tell him that I’m sorry and that I love him, and that I’ll do anything to prove it to him. Then, I’m going to put you on the phone to talk to him and tell him what you can say now.”
This was all what I would have told him, anyway, except that he didn’t answer his phone, probably thinking that I was calling to fight with him again.
After pacing around the kitchen for a brief while, I finally decided that I’d just take Chrissy out with me to try to find Hayden out running patrol. I knew that his afternoon route often took him near the house, so I figured he couldn’t be too far away. I was ready to fight for him. I was ready to embarrass myself by stopping his whole patrol if need be, just to talk to him.
After putting on my tennis shoes and covering every inch of Chrissy’s extremely pale skin with baby sunscreen, I put a floppy white sun hat on her head, and out the door we went.
“Let’s go find Daddy, Chrissy.”
“Dada.”
“Yes, we’re gonna go find him. I think his patrol will be coming by the eastern clearing in just a little while, so we’ll go wait for him there. Maybe we’ll even see some butterflies while we’re waiting.”
With the sun rising high in the sky, we walked through the vast backyard, took a very short forest trail to cut across roughly east, and then we emerged in the clearing, which was maybe the size of a small school soccer field. We didn’t immediately see any butterflies, though. To my horror, what we saw instead appeared to be some sort of an ambush. Across the clearing, I could clearly see four chalk-white faces peering out from the trees, vampires who were probably watching and waiting for Hayden and his patrol to come by.
I knew they could see me. Completely unable to help myself, I screamed, which made Chrissy wail, sounding terrified.
Right away, the four vampires began approaching, moving quickly. They weren’t moving so quickly, though, that I couldn’t see the expressions on their faces. Leering, they were all obviously glad that I’d walked into their little trap, despite the fact that I probably wasn’t who they’d been hoping to catch in it.
Suddenly trembling from head to toe, I took a second to think about my options. One, I could try to run back up the trail to the house. However, I just didn’t think I had time. With their superhuman speed, the vampires would easily outrun me, especially since I was carrying Chrissy. I didn’t think I had time to make a phone call to Hayden or send a text, either.
In the end, my body just kind of made the only decision I could make. I simply suddenly found myself moving without even thinking about it, as if my body was running itself independent of my brain.
First, I quickly set Chrissy on some moss behind a boulder about a foot or two away. Next, I grabbed a baseball-sized rock from the base of the boulder in one hand, and a thick fallen branch in the other. If Chrissy and I were about to be attacked by Warren vampires, which it seemed certain that we were, I wasn’t going to go down with a fight.
I was at least going to inflict whatever damage I could with a rock and a branch first, for whatever good it might do. It might buy us a few more seconds until help arrives, I told myself, willing to believe that that might actually be true.
Behind the boulder, Chrissy wailed. Now back on my feet to the side of the boulder, I drew in a shaky breath, forcing my legs to continue supporting me. The four vampires were coming faster now, only thirty feet away, then twenty. I tightened my grip on the baseball-sized rock, ready to bash some Warren vampire skulls in, or at least make one hell of a try.
However, before I even could, a gunshot rang out in the silence of the clearing, and the vampire now closest to me instantly fell. Gasping, I dared to think that Chrissy and I might live.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Immediately after their friend went down, the three other vampires slowed, turning to look to the west. Another gunshot rang out, immediately followed by another, and in the time it took me to blink, three vampires were sprawled on the grass in the clearing. The only one remaining began charging west. Not a moment later, another gunshot sounded, and the fourth vampire immediately went down.
Then, stunning, baffling, and disorienting me, I heard Jen’s voice coming from somewhere not too far away.
“Hey, Syd! It was me doing that! It was me shooting the gun! Can you believe it?”
I wasn’t quite sure exactly what I believed anymore. Knowing that Jen had fired a gun was making me experience a more profound sense of distorted reality than even seeing the Warren vampires had.
Just to my right, behind the boulder, Chrissy suddenly stopped crying and began babbling softly. “Ah-Zhen. Ah-Zhen.”
Looking from her back to the clearing, I saw Jen emerge from the trees to the west, with a gun in her hands, pointed at the ground. The sight made me feel extremely relieved yet utterly terrified at the same time.
Seeming to be humming a little tune to herself, Jen began walking over to me, surveying the four unconscious vampires in the clearing as she did so. “Yup. Got ‘em. Got ‘em all.”
Like Bucky had told her, her aim was deadly accurate. Each of her shots had hit the vampires right between the eyes. Her shots weren’t truly deadly, though. The vampires she’d shot would be back up in just a minute or two, with the holes in their heads already healing. She’d bought us time, though. However, we needed to move quickly to get back to the house.
After snatching up Chrissy, I looked at Jen again, intending to tell her to hurry up and follow me. However, I saw that she’d come to a stop and was looking at something to the east.
She suddenly narrowed her eyes. “Oh, God. It’s Mel.”
I followed her line of vision and saw a pale-faced vampire dressed all in black tearing into the clearing, closely followed by Mel, who was just a few paces back and to his side.
Jen raised her gun. “Just stay put for a sec, Syd, and don’t be afraid. I’ve passed an advanced-level firearms safety and training class, and I know exactly how to use this weapon.”
Lining up her aim while the Warren vampire and Mel got a little closer, Jen paused for a moment or two, then fired. I blinked, opening my eyes hoping to see the pale-faced vampire hitting the grass.
However, on this last vampire, Jen’s aim had been way off, and she’d ended up getting Mel right between the eyes. Mel was now on the ground, motionless, with a dark hole in her forehead. Momentarily forgetting that she was a vampire, I screamed, hands flying to my face.
“Mel!”
Just as I mercifully remembered that Mel would be just fine, Jen fired again, this time taking out the Warren vampire, who dropped like a fly not ten feet away from Jen, and maybe fifteen from me and Chrissy.
Just a second later, several Watcher vampires, all women, began streaming into the clearing.
Jen cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at them. “Drag Mel somewhere safe! And kill all the Warren vampires before they wake up from being shot!”
Jen then came jogging over to me with her gun pointed at the ground, asking if Chrissy and I were okay. When I said that we were, Jen said good, and then began hustling me back down the trail with her free hand on my back, and her other hand still pointing her gun at the ground.
Glancing down at it, Jen told me to look how safe she was being. “See, rule number one of firearm safety is that you never point your weapon at anything you don’t intend to destroy…ever. Doesn’t matter if you’re out of bullets, like I am, doesn’t matter if you don’t think you loaded it in the first place…Bucky says you just don’t ever do it, so I never do.”
More rattled than I’d probably ever been in my life, I could only speak two words in a shaky voice. “That’s good.”
Glancing back at the clearing, Jen suggested we start jogging back up to the house. “Who knows how many more of those Warren freaks are out here, and with us out of bullets…well, we should probably just be as fast as we can. I mean, t
o be honest, I’ve kind of always wanted to pistol-whip someone…just to see what it’d feel like. But I should probably try it first on a human criminal, not a vampire.”
Jogging along the trail as fast as I could, holding Chrissy, I said that was probably a good idea. Jen agreed, saying that it sure was, and then fell silent, jogging alongside me with her gun still pointed at the ground.
Neither of us spoke for a minute until we turned a slight corner and emerged from the forest trail with the house coming into view in the distance. The house wasn’t all we saw, though. Coming in from the west, moving silently and slowly, several dozen Warren vampires dressed all in black were creeping around the side of the house.
Immediately, Jen grabbed the back of my shirt and silently began pulling me back to the trail. Only once we were on it again, hidden by trees, did she speak in a whisper so quiet it could barely be heard. “So…I think this is the ‘full-scale attack’ everyone’s been talking about for so long. And I am definitely, for sure out of bullets.”
Petrified, I glanced down at Chrissy, who’d somehow managed to fall asleep in my arms during our jog up the trail. Then, just as quietly as Jen had, I whispered back to her. “Well, what should we do?”
At exactly the same time, as if we’d both been hit by the same bolt of lightning to the brain, Jen and I both answered my question in a whisper. “Call Hayden.”
Having tucked her gun in the waistband of her jean shorts, Jen was already pulling out her phone before we’d even said the second syllable of Hayden’s name.
Trying to force my panic-stricken brain to work, I told Jen to first shut off the volume on her phone so that if we didn’t reach Hayden and he tried to call us back, the ringing wouldn’t be heard by the nearby Warrens. “See if you can do the same to my phone, too, just in case. Just grab it from my pocket.”
After shutting off her own phone’s volume, Jen fished around in both my pants pockets but came up empty. “I don’t even think you have your phone on you, Syd.”
It was only then that I realized that I’d left it on the island at home.
“Okay, no big deal. Just go call Hayden on your own phone now, then.”
Jen did, eyes widening just a moment later when he apparently picked up. Just a split-second later, she began whispering. “It’s me and Sydney. Chrissy, too. We’re at the front part of that one trail that leads to that meadow that always has a ton of butterflies in it. It’s that one part of the trail that where if you go forward when you’re facing straight, you’ll be walking toward the house. Feel me, bro?” She paused for just a moment or two, then continued whispering. “Yeah. They’re swarming all over around the house. Please haul ass as fast as you can, because I have a gun, but I’m all out of bullets, and the only possible defense I have left is pistol-whipping, which I feel like I should probably try first on a human criminal, not a vampire.” Jen paused again for another moment or two, and then said okay. “See you soon.”
She ended the call and pocketed her phone, silently giggling, before whispering again. “Hayden had no idea that I have a gun. He is gonna be so mad!” She paused again for another brief, silent giggle before continuing. “The only person who knew was Trevor, because he surveilled me going to the gun range every day; but he couldn’t tell, because he swore his own self to secrecy that one day when he pinkie promised me that he wouldn’t tell where I went in Sweetwater unless it was someplace illegal.
He did make me promise to all these different little safety regulations and things, though, like keeping my gun locked up in the barn instead of the house, but…well, Bucky made me promise all that stuff, too. Anyway, I wonder where Trevor even is? When I left Sweetwater to come back home, he was right behind me, but I almost think I lost him when we hit all these different little roadblocks for construction. I just went right around the last roadblock, because a construction man held up a sign to me that said GO; but then when I glanced back, I saw that he’d flipped it around to where it still said GO to me, meaning that it probably said STOP to Trevor. So, maybe he just got stopped for a really long time or something.”
Straining my ears, I suddenly shushed Jen. “You hear that?”
She silently listened for a few moments, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s a woodpecker, I think.”
Unsure of whether to laugh or cry, I did neither, shaking my head instead. “No. Not the woodpecker. Down the trail…a very soft, rhythmic, faintly rustling sort of noise…like footsteps of people who are trying to stay silent.”
Jen listened again, then whispered back to me. “Okay…now I hear it. What if it’s our people, though? Maybe those girls who I told to kill the Warrens in the butterfly meadow. Maybe they’re coming up the trail now, dragging Mel.”
Looking down the trail, I suddenly bit back a gasp, grabbing Jen’s arm. “Look.”
A group of Warrens, all in black, had come into view after rounding a slight curve in the trail. They were maybe only forty feet away, maybe even less. Immediately, they spotted Jen, Chrissy, and me, and after quickly all exchanging glances, they took off at a sprint as a group.
*
With a hand on my back, Jen began pushing me toward the trailhead, not even bothering to whisper anymore. “Try to make a break for the house with Chrissy. I’ll try to pistol-whip a path for you guys.”
Already breaking into a run with a still-sleeping Chrissy pressed to my chest, I said okay, and within a few paces, I saw the house. With the light amber color of the lower level almost completely obscured by black-clad vampires swarming around the house, I didn’t see that there was any possible way I could get in, not to mention that I had no intention of leaving Jen behind. We’d just have to run somewhere else, just praying that we’d get help in the form of Watcher vampires along the way.
The moment I began telling Jen to hang a right with me, toward the forestland, my prayer was answered. I froze, making Jen slam on her brakes, too, jostling into me.
“Jen, look at the house.”
Watcher vampires, led by Hayden, were now charging in from the west, fangs bared. And within a second or two, everything was chaos. Watchers knocked Warrens to the ground, and Warrens tackled Watchers from behind. Watchers pulled knives and began stabbing Warrens in the chest, and Warrens did the same. Very quickly, the vast backyard became a blur of mayhem, with all vampires moving with such speed that it was often difficult to tell who was who.
The Warrens that had been on the trail charged out at this point, although they didn’t charge at me and Jen. A group of female Watcher vampires behind them made sure of that, almost steering them away to the other side of the yard.
Knowing that we were still in great danger even though the Warrens were all presently occupied, I told Jen we should still seek shelter somewhere. “Like, maybe in the shed.”
The shed, where a few lawn mowers were kept, was just a short distance from the back patio, and I was pretty sure we could reach it while still avoiding the fighting. However, not a moment after I’d suggested it, it was flattened by a Watcher leaping through the air with a Warren, body-slamming him on the shed. The tremendous boom of the impact somehow didn’t even make Chrissy startle.
Jen asked me where else we should try to take cover, but I realized right then that cover was kind of being taken around us. Jen asked what I meant, and I told her to look all around us.
“See how our fighters are sort of starting to form a loose ring around us with their backs turned toward us? I might be wrong, but it seems like they’re trying to form a ‘ring of protection’ around us or something.”
Jen began looking all around, doing a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, although she stopped just short of it, narrowing her eyes. “Oh, God. It’s Mel.”
I followed her line of vision and saw Mel charging out from the trailhead, looking as if she hadn’t taken a bullet to the brain mere minutes earlier, and had instead downed an energizing shot of espresso. Flanking her were two other Watcher women, both looking just as ready for battle
as she appeared to be.
Within seconds, it became clear that my theory about what the Watchers in the backyard were doing was correct. They’d now formed a fairly cohesive loose circle around me, Jen, and Chrissy, and they tightened the circle whenever it seemed that a Warren vampire was trying to get in.
After watching the action for a little bit, Jen turned her gaze back to me. “You think we should try to get to the house by crawling between their legs or something?”
I said that I didn’t think that would be necessary. “I think we’re pretty safe here, so we should probably just stay put.”
It turned out that we were more than safe where we were. Within a few minutes, so many Warrens had been killed that Hayden ordered his fighters to start throwing headless corpses in a pile so that everyone still fighting didn’t trip over them.
Sickened by the gore, I’d long since closed my eyes, but I now dared to peep them open and have a quick look around, stunned although not really, to see Jen watching all the action while holding a little bag of peanuts, popping a few into her mouth.
Seeing that my eyes were now open, she held out the bag to me. “Do you like honey roasted?”
My mind was so jumbled by the absolute panic and terror I’d felt earlier that I couldn’t even think of what I liked or didn’t anymore, and I was unable to issue a response.
Undaunted, Jen reached into her back pocket with her free hand, produced another little package of peanuts, and held it out to me. “I have regular salted, too, if you like those better.”
Not fifteen feet away from us, someone issued a yell of clear pain, and I looked just in time to see Hayden finish driving a knife deep into a Warren vampire’s chest. He then immediately withdrew the knife and held it aloft for just a split-second before sweeping it in a downward arc across the enemy vampire’s throat. Writhing on his back, the vampire made a strangled gurgling noise while a jet of blood shot feet above his throat, spraying Hayden a bit.
Nausea rolled over me in a powerful wave, and I suddenly noticed that it was as if a hazy gray curtain were being slowly pulled across my eyes from each side. As far as my body, my legs had seemed to turn to rubber.
