anightwithoutstarsfinal

by Unknown

  “Maybe,” Travis said hollowly.

  I wanted to say something to make him feel better, but what? Sorry your parents were most likely torn apart by vampires? Sorry your dad is dead and mine’s alive? Sorry everyone we knew was gruesomely murdered? Yeah. That would make a great Hallmark card. “Travis, maybe when we—”

  It happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. One second the car was barreling down the road and the next the wheels were squealing and Dad was yelling and I caught only a fleeting glance of the crater in the middle of the earth where the road used to be.

  I was thrown to the side as the car spun. My head cracked hard against the window. Dad’s airbag deployed with a whoosh of air. Travis shouted something unintelligible. I felt a sharp pull on my braid, but I couldn’t turn around. I was too busy scrambling to secure the seatbelt I’d forgotten to buckle. My fingers slid clumsily over the metal clip, numbed by fear and desperation.

  The car swung to the left, the tires spitting out gravel as it veered towards the ditch. Everything was a blur of color and sound. I heard someone screaming and only distantly recognized the voice as my own.

  We hurtled off the side of the road, a sleek silver bullet headed straight for its target: an old oak tree, more dangerous than any gun when you were flying towards it at eighty miles an hour. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dad trying to spin the wheel. His mouth was agape, his eyes rolling wildly. Spit flew from between his lips and made a long, wet line across the dashboard.

  Gross.

  The car hit a dip in the grass and bucked, hard enough to send us air born. What were really only milliseconds felt like minutes as we sailed through the air. The force of our landing pushed me up and out of my seat. My head slammed against the felt ceiling and I felt something give in my neck with a sharp crack.

  “BRACE YOURSELVES!” Dad cried.

  The collision with the tree launched me forward. Without my seatbelt I didn’t have a chance in hell, but as I headed towards the windshield I was filled with the oddest sense of calm.

  All things considered, dying in a car accident wasn’t the worst way to go.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Decision Time

  Dying really pissed me off.

  It wasn’t the whole being dead thing that annoyed me – even I knew you couldn’t get thrown through a windshield and survive – but I had really expected a little bit more than this. A bright twinkling light would have been nice. Maybe some angels with harps or at the very least fluffy white kittens. Was that too much to ask after everything I’d been through? It must have been, because all I got was darkness.

  It was impenetrable, as though I’d fallen into a deep, dark void of nothingness. I could feel I was lying down, but when I tried to sit up my body wouldn’t cooperate. My limbs felt heavy. My head weighed a thousand pounds. The only body part I could move were my lips and when I smacked them together I tasted metal.

  The voices came then, so indistinct and fuzzy I thought I was imagining them at first. But like a bad radio slowly being tuned in they became sharper and clearer until I was able to make out every third or fourth word.

  “…out of nowhere. Couldn’t…time.”

  “Is…dead? Oh God, all…blood.”

  “…move her? Is it okay if we move her?”

  “I…know. I DON’T KNOW!”

  “Stop yelling.” The words came out sluggishly, like I was trying to speak around a mouthful of cotton balls. I heard a sharp intake of breath, followed by a muffled sob. “Travis?” My eyebrows pulled together.

  Another sob, this one louder than the last.

  Definitely Travis.

  “Lola, you’re a-alive!” he blubbered.

  I was? That couldn’t be right. For the second time I tried to sit up, but nothing was working like it should have been. There was a prickling at the base of my skull and under my hands, like someone was poking me with tiny needles. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m dead. You probably are too,” I said kindly, wanting to break the news as gently as possible. “You just don’t realize it yet.”

  “No one is dead, honey.”

  “Dad?” I tried to turn my head in the direction of his voice, and this time my muscles cooperated. Someone squeezed my hand and excitement shot through me when I was able to move my fingers, followed closely by fear. I had to be dead. If I wasn’t… If I wasn’t, then why couldn’t I see? Why couldn’t I move more than a few inches? Was I paralyzed? Oh, God. I was. I was paralyzed.

  “I’m right here,” Dad said. “I’m right next to you.”

  “I can’t… I can’t see you.” Panic pitched my voice up an octave. “Am I blind?”

  Travis snorted. I jerked my head to the side. The movement was a little easier this time, but it still didn’t feel right. It was jerky instead of smooth. Hard instead of effortless.

  If you want to know what it felt like to lay on the ground not knowing if I was irreparably damaged or not, move your left pinky finger. It’s easy, right? You barely have to think and it twitches. But what if you’re giving the command and nothing is happening? What if you are thinking about moving that damn finger as hard as you possibly can and it doesn’t work? What then?

  “Do you think that’s funny?” I demanded, hoping I was the only one who would notice the fear creeping into my voice. “Is having a blind best friend amusing to you?”

  “Lola, you’re not blind.”

  “Really? Then why can’t I—”

  “Your eyes are closed.”

  Oh.

  Gritting my teeth from the force of concentration it required, I managed to peel my eyelids apart. The resulting rush of color after so much darkness was overwhelming. I cringed away from it all; away from the smoking crap of metal that vaguely resembled a car, away from the glass that seemed to cover everything, away from the blood that covered the glass. Instead I looked at myself, lifting my head with a soft grunt of effort to examine the cuts that sliced through my flesh, making it appear as though I’d been wrapped in thin red ribbon.

  My turtle t-shirt was torn to shreds, exposing my abdomen. A shard of glass stuck out of my side, wedged between two ribs. There was a burn mark on my right knee. A bloody gash on my left.

  No wonder Dad and Travis had thought I was dead.

  Feeling was beginning to return to my body in fits and starts. After two tries I managed to lift an arm and touch my face. I didn’t need to look at my fingertips to know they would come away bloody. I could feel the blood running down my cheekbones, sliding into the corners of my mouth, dripping off my chin. It explained the taste of metal. It didn’t explain why I wasn’t writhing in agony, although I had a vague idea.

  I remembered how my other injuries had healed overnight. The cut on my knee. The scratch on my face. The bite marks on my hand. And I knew that somehow, someway, Angelique was responsible for how I was healing now.

  The crash should have killed me. Instead, with every moment that passed, I felt more and more aware. My skin was tingling all over. I felt a vague pop in my back, and my stomach did a queasy flip as I realized my spine had just realigned itself. Thanks to a vampire my body was literally healing from the inside out and I didn’t feel one ounce of pain, just a numbness that was gradually fading.

  Way to go, Angelique.

  “Help me up.” I lifted my hand towards Travis, who backed up a step and frowned. There was blood on his forehead from a cut right below his hairline, but otherwise he seemed fine. Dad did too. He hovered at the edge of my peripheral vision, twisting his hands and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  “Lola, are you sure you should move?” he asked nervously. “Your injuries look very severe. ”

  Don’t worry, thanks to the vampire who bit me I’m fine. Oh, I didn’t tell you about that? Yeah, this crazy bitch sank her teeth into my hand and now I can’t get hurt. Pretty cool, huh? Except she can sense me, which means I’m putting both of your lives in danger.

  “It’s superficial,” I said, hating myself f
or lying, but unable to force the truth past my lips. It darkened the tip of my tongue, a festering sore I couldn’t spit out.

  Travis took my hand and helped me gingerly to my feet. Grass prickled between my toes. I looked down and saw I’d lost a shoe. We’d ended up nearly a hundred yards from the road. The tree was off to the left, the car still wrapped around it. Our supplies were scattered across the ground. Spying a tiny battery I picked it up and tucked it into the front pocket of my shorts. “You should go stand over by my dad. You know blood makes you queasy.”

  But even though his skin had taken on a faintly greenish tint, Travis held his ground. “You still have a piece of glass sticking out of your side.”

  Whoops. Tearing off a piece of fabric from the bottom of my t-shirt I wrapped it around my hand and carefully pulled out the shard of glass. Blood spurted in an arc of dark red before I scrunched up the side of my shirt and shoved it into the wound. “Ouch,” I said belatedly, wrinkling my nose. “That hurts. Like, a lot.”

  “Are you sure?” Travis’ expression was skeptical. “Because it really doesn’t seem—”

  “Shock. I think I’m in shock. What about you? That’s a nasty looking cut on your head. And you, Dad,” I said, raising my voice. “What about you?”

  If there was anyone in shock, it was my dad. He jolted when I said his name and blinked several times before he said, “I’m fine. I… I’m fine. The airbag saved me.”

  And mine hadn’t even gone off. It was official. The fates that be seriously wanted me dead. Like I’d ever done anything to them.

  My mom used to say that bad things happen in threes. If that was the case then I still had one more near death experience to go, although it was going to pretty hard to top being attacked by a vampire and getting thrown through a windshield.

  I peered up at the cloudless blue sky, shading my eyes from the sun with the edge of my hand. It was impossible to tell the exact time – none of us had a watch or cell phones that were charged – but the sun was definitely higher than it’d been when we left town.

  Every minute that ticked by brought us closer to sunset… and closer to the monsters that lurked in the shadows.

  “We should gather up what isn’t ruined and head back into town. See if we can steal another car.” I glanced at Travis to gauge his reaction. He didn’t look too happy, but what else could we do? Sit around on the side of the road and wait for help that wasn’t ever going to come?

  Nobody had time for that.

  I walked towards my dad, picking up a shirt off the ground as I went. It was one of his white gym shirts from when he actually used to go to the gym. By the time I finished wiping off my face and arms and threw it in the bushes it was stained red with blood.

  Dad was staring at what remained of the car, his eyes vacant. When I touched his arm he startled. “It’s okay,” I said gently. “It’s me, Dad. Lola.”

  “Lola.” His eyes were red and puffy. A bruise was already forming on his jaw and both cheeks were swollen. I guess getting punched in the face with an airbag will do that to you. “I really thought…” He hesitated and drew a ragged breath.

  “It’s okay,” I repeated, more than a little caught off guard by the emotion he was struggling to contain. The only other time I’d seen him this upset was the day Mom walked out. “I’m fine, see? No harm done. We have to get going though, Dad. We can’t stay here. Do you think you can walk back to town?”

  “Walk back to town?” he repeated blankly.

  “Yeah. It’s only what, like three or four miles?”

  “Try ten,” Travis called out.

  “Try minding your own business.”

  Travis muttered something under his breath before he resumed picking up what remained of our belongings, leaving me feeling like an ass. I would make it up to him later. Somehow. Right now I could only focus on one thing at a time and that one thing just happened to be getting Dad to snap out of whatever daze he was in. I gave his arm a little shake. “Come on. We can do this.”

  A motivational speaker I was not.

  “It won’t matter anyways,” Travis said.

  I spun to face him. His arms were filled with clothes. I recognized a pair of jeans and one of my shirts. “What won’t matter?”

  “If we steal another car or not. Didn’t you see the road? It was blown up. There’s no way around.”

  So there really had been a crater in the middle of the road. In the middle of the road right where the exit for the interstate was. The only exit heading north our little town had. My throat tightened. They planned this, I thought darkly. They planned everything.

  “So we head south instead.” It was the next logical choice, wasn’t it? “No big deal.”

  “Towards the city?” Travis snorted and tossed the clothes into one of the remaining duffle bags. “You’re supposed to avoid big populations during something like this, not head right towards them.”

  Frustration closed like a vice around my chest. I wanted the answer to our problems to be simple, but every time I turned around it felt like I was slamming into a wall so high I couldn’t see what was on the other side of it. “Then what?” I cried, throwing my hands up. “What do you suggest we do? Because I’m fresh out of ideas here, Trav. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing any more than you do.” Tears burned the back of my eyelids, which only made me angrier. I didn’t want to cry. Crying was weakness. And when you were on the run from a pack of bloodthirsty vampires, weakness was death. I raked a hand through my hair, accidentally popping out the elastic tying off the end of my braid. My hair sprang free in a messy halo of frizz around my face and I lost sight of the elastic in the grass.

  Perfect.

  Freaking perfect.

  “The Renner Hotel,” Dad said suddenly.

  “What?” Travis and I chirped in unison.

  “The Renner Hotel,” Dad repeated. He tried to smile and ended up wincing in pain instead. “Out past the elementary school. It’s been abandoned for years. No one ever goes out that way. We could stay there. Stock up on more supplies and lay low until help arrives.”

  My thoughts veered instantly towards Angelique. I needed to be getting as far away from town as possible, not hiding out in it. I started to protest, but Travis cut me off.

  “That could work,” he said, scratching his chin. “At least it would be better than driving around and running into trouble on the road. Good idea, Mr. Sanchez.”

  No, I wanted to shout. Bad idea. Very bad idea!

  I should have told them about Angelique right then and there. What did I have to lose?

  Only everything.

  Travis had left his own mother behind. Leaving his best friend would be easy, and I was afraid my dad was weak enough to go with him. I was even more afraid he wasn’t, and that by deciding to stay with me he would condemn himself to death. Either way, it was a decision I wasn’t ready for Travis or Dad to make.

  “I don’t think we should stick around. Maximus said it would be safest if we headed for the mountains.”

  Travis looked at me like I was crazy. “How do we do that if the exit’s blocked off? Besides, who knows if he was even telling the truth? Maybe he’s one of them.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Maybe he’s working for them, then. We have no way of knowing. Maybe the mountains are a trap. I think your dad is right, Lola. The Renner Hotel is our best chance.”

  Two against one. I had a bad feeling about it, but what could I do? Either admit the real reason I didn’t want to stay or keep my mouth shut.

  For once, I did the latter.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Renner Hotel

  The Renner Hotel used to be Revere’s one claim to fame. Back in the seventies or eighties (I never paid much attention in history) it was nothing more than an old warehouse. A fancy banker from New York City bought it with some nutty idea of knocking it down and building a world-class luxury hotel. Within five years the hotel went belly up and the building had sat vacant e
ver since.

  “There are going to be cockroaches and mice and rats,” I predicted as we trudged across the enormous cornfield that separated the hotel from the elementary school. “Great big rats with sharp teeth and long whiskers that will pounce on you in your sleep and rip your throat open.”

  “If you’re trying to scare me it’s not working,” Travis said mildly. “We’re still staying here overnight.”

  I glared at his back. A line of sweat darkened his shirt between his shoulder blades. It’d taken us a good four hours to walk the ten miles back into town and the sun was heavy in the sky, bringing an unrelenting wave of heat along with it. “But you hate rats.”

  Travis didn’t even turn around. “I would rather face a hundred rats than one of those things from last night.”

  “A hundred rats?” I scoffed. “That’s a lot. That many rats would definitely kill you. They would crawl all over you and chew out your eyeballs and climb in your mouth—”

  “Lola, that’s enough,” Dad snapped.

  I pinched my lips tightly together. Dad wasn’t doing so well and I didn’t want to raise his stress level any higher. Seeing his friends and neighbors dead in the street, their bodies flayed open and reddening in the sun like cooked lobsters, had done enough damage already.

  We’d stayed out of the houses as much as we could while we searched for supplies, but it didn’t really matter. The corpses were everywhere. Some drained of blood. Some not. Some looked like they’d simply drifted off to sleep, while others had been visibly tortured. I really hoped seeing all the dead people would dissuade Dad and Travis from wanting to stay in town, but they had their plan and they were sticking to it.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, I reasoned. After all, we didn’t know what was happening outside of Revere. It could be better… or it could be a thousand times worse. Without any means of communication – not a single cell phone I found had service and the internet, along with the power, was still down – we had no way to tell what was going on. Was the attack nationwide? Global? Would it happen again, or had the vampires moved on? And if they had moved on, where did they go?