Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter (Book 2): Hell Night

by Kincade, Matt

  “Is there another way?” asked Alex. “Does the alley go through?”

  Buck answered, “I don't think you could get the bus down that alley.”

  “It's either this or go back through town,” said Josh.

  “I'm gonna try to run it.” The bus picked up speed. The engine roared. The flaming wall grew closer.

  Alex picked a target. A small blue sedan. Smallest car there. He pushed the pedal down to the floor and gritted his teeth. “Here we go. Hold on!” he screamed.

  The bus slammed into the barricade with a hollow car-crash bang. Metal screamed and glass cracked. The passengers sprawled in the aisles, thrown against the padded seat backs in front of them.

  Alex opened his eyes. The burning sedan was inches from his face, just on the other side of the bus's spiderwebbed windshield. He swore and gunned the engine again, downshifted, and tried to push the car out of the way.

  The little blue car in front of them moved, but not enough. Alex could hear the big bus wheels fighting for traction on the pavement. He worked the gear shift, trying to find reverse. The gears snarled and rattled in protest. “Shit goddammit!”

  A mob of zombies came at them from the left, holding makeshift weapons—boards and knives and tools. An old lady with a white-haired perm like a cotton swab lurched toward the bus, holding a crescent wrench. The dead lady swung the wrench and shattered the passenger window next to Tom. He cried out and put a bullet through her face.

  More of the undead approached at a run, half of them engulfed in flames. They smashed out the windows with rocks and hammers, boots and bricks. The passengers in the bus recoiled, backing into the aisle, screaming as they poured bullets into the zombies massed outside the window.

  One of the undead wormed his fingers into the rubber seal between the folding passenger doors. Alex let go of the gear shift for long enough to draw his pistol. He put a shot through the glass door and into the zombie's head.

  A zombie ran up carrying a huge, wickedly-pointed chef's knife. It stabbed the bus tire, and the explosive force of the tire deflating blew him back across the street.

  Finally, the gearshift slid into reverse. Alex revved the engine and let the clutch out again. “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn . . .” The bus shuddered and lurched backward. The barricade receded in the front window. “Somebody tell me where to go!” he screamed.

  “Left at the sheriff's station!” yelled Josh. He struggled to stay standing next to Alex. “You can take Old Mine Road past the retirement home, then turn left on Ashford Road, and it connects with the highway again.”

  The bus raced backward up the street. The flat tire flapped and wobbled, and the bus swayed dangerously. Alex slammed on the brakes at the main intersection in front of Annie's. The bus slewed sideways, and the boxy back end swung around until the bus's grill pointed down Old Mine Road. He jammed the bus back into first gear and gunned the throttle.

  The bus swerved and wandered all over the road. Alex fought for control. “I'll drive this fucker all the way to Vegas on the rims if I gotta.”

  “You got this,” said Buck.

  “Okay,” said Alex as they drove by the front doors of the high school, “almost there. Ain't nothin' to it.” He held the wheel tightly with both hands, his mouth set in a grim, determined slash.

  “About a hundred yards more,” said Rachael. “Left up here.”

  “We got this,” Alex muttered. “We're gonna make it.”

  A single zombie shuffled into the road ahead of them. She was young and thin, dressed in a paisley skirt and a bikini top, covered in powder-fine, white, desert dust. A peace sign was painted around her navel, and she had a glow-stick necklace around her neck. Her hair was tangled into the mother of all bed-head.

  Alex shook his head. “Don't know where you came from, darlin', but it ain't your lucky day.” He squared up the bus and aimed for her.

  Another zombie stepped out next to her. He had a scraggly beard and a hairy chest. He was naked except for a conical, Chinese straw hat. “The fuck?” said Alex.

  “Oh, no,” breathed Rachael. “Oh, God, no. The festival.”

  More zombies poured from the alleys along Old Mine Road, zombies with dreadlocks, with beards, wearing swimsuits and silver bangles and glow sticks. Topless, body-painted, wearing feathered headdresses, fishnet tights, and animal ears. One woman was nude save for bikini bottoms, combat boots, and pilot's goggles. The flesh of her right arm ended at the shoulder, and its skeletal remains hung uselessly at her side.

  “Did y'all slip me some acid?” said Alex.

  “It's the festival,” Rachael said. “Oh my God, he got the Transcendence Festival.”

  “Hippies,” muttered Alex. “That's all we need. Gol-damned zombie hippies.” The reanimated corpse of Jessica Treefriend smacked sharply against the windshield of the bus. Blood splattered the cracked windshield. She tumbled and crunched under the wheels. “'Bout how many folks go to this festival?”

  “Maybe five thousand,” said Rachael.

  Alex grimaced. “Well, shit.”

  The dead festival-goers crowded into the street, packing the road shoulder to shoulder, shuffling toward the bus.

  Alex didn't slow down. He rammed the old bus into the thick of them, throwing bodies in all directions, the dead spilling away like a boat's wake, splitting open, ground into hamburger under the wheels. The bus cut a wide swath but slowed by degrees. The wheels skidded on blood.

  The crowd parted. A zombie ran through the gap, carrying a metal trash can. It made a kamikaze jump in front of the bus, and metal screamed as the can wedged into the undercarriage. A woman dressed in a feathered samba costume dived under the wheels, carrying a metal magazine rack.

  They came by the dozens after that, carrying office chairs, bicycles, pallets, a street bench. They fell willingly under the bus, their cargo twisting and grinding under the wheels. Things clunked and popped and ground against the undercarriage. The bus slowed even more. Alex downshifted. The engine groaned.

  More and more zombies crowded in front of the bus. Whichever way Alex tried to turn, they followed, falling beneath the wheels in piles and heaps. The bus pushed a pile of mangled bodies in front of it like a gruesome snowplow, the dead stacked so deep Alex that could barely see out the windshield. All the while, zombies pounded on the windows and reached their arms inside.

  “Shit goddamn, we ain't gonna make it,” said Alex.

  “Can you turn left here?” asked Buck. “If you can get the door up next to the theater, maybe we can make a stand there.”

  Alex shook his head. “I'll try.”

  The bus swerved and shuddered like it was driving in deep snow. The bus had become a giant, hideous meat grinder. Gallons of blood sluiced from beneath the tires as they crushed and pulverized zombie bodies by the dozen.

  Slowly, inevitably, the bus ground to a halt.

  Alex gunned the engine one more time and was rewarded with the sound of the rear wheels slipping on entrails.

  The dead crowded in on all sides, blotting out the sun, groping blindly into the bus, flaying their arms on the broken glass. The bus rocked wildly back and forth.

  “The bus is done,” said Alex. He grabbed his rifle. “Ain't nothin' for it. We're gonna have to fight our way through this.”

  “Jesus,” said Rachael.

  “Okay, here's the plan!” Alex yelled to be heard over the howl of the zombies. He held up his AR-15 and used it to point at the emergency exit on the left side of the bus. “Everybody's gonna unload through this one window. We're gonna try to make a hole in the crowd. We reload, and we go out the emergency door. Then we all rush for the theater. Try to get the doors closed and locked, and then . . . well, and then we'll see where we are. Wish to hell I had a better plan, but we're kinda up shit creek at the moment.”

  “Not like we had a better option,” said Billings. “You did the best you could.” He sighed. “It's been good knowing you all.”

  Rachael held her pistol at the ready.
“Let's not get all mushy, huh?”

  They aimed their guns out the same window, at face level, and cut loose. When they stopped, there was a new hole in the bloody crush of zombies. Alex kicked the door open. He jumped to the ground and held his katana high. He swayed as his boots slipped on the piled bodies and blood-slicked pavement. “Come on, y'all, we gotta move!” Alex cut four zombies in half with one huge swing, taking out as many again with his backswing. Blood sprayed from severed necks, and body parts littered the ground. Alex whirled like a dervish, hacking his way through the massed crowd.

  The rest of them jumped out of the bus, guns blazing, and followed Alex. They fired at point-blank range, the zombies practically impaling themselves on the rifle barrels before being blasted to their final death. Ribbons and streamers of brain and flesh flew in every direction, floating away in a fine, red mist on the cool, morning breeze. Hot brass from their guns rained down all around and splashed in the pooled blood on the asphalt.

  A dead hand reached out, grabbed the barrel of Buck's shotgun, and yanked. He stumbled forward, and they grabbed his wrists. He fell to his knees and the dead closed in.

  “Buck!” Rachael screamed. She fired into the thick of them. He tried to pull free, but they held his arms fast and pulled him down. More hands seized him by the hair. Victoria Bettancourt, former secretary for the Standard Gypsum Company, tore his throat out in one bite. Buck yanked his hands free and staggered back. Blood gushed from the gaping crater of his throat. He gargling and gasped, took two staggering steps, wide-eyed, toward Rachael, and fell onto his face. Blood still poured from his throat like a burst pipe.

  The survivors tightened up, pressing their backs against one another. The zombies surged forward again and again until the survivors were trapped against the side of the bus.

  Billings conserved his shots, taking careful aim each time, and was rewarded over and over with one more zombie falling away.

  Josh blasted another zombie in the eye, and its brains exploded from the back of its head. His rifle locked open on an empty chamber. He dropped the now useless weapon and gripped the ax with both hands. Next to him, Emily fired her pistol again and again and again.

  Josh swung the ax, misjudged his swing, and fell. The corpse of Betty Somers, the postmaster, dropped on top of him. Her blue uniform was crusted with old blood. She bared her teeth, and saliva dripped from her rotten jaws. Josh used both hands to push the ax handle against her throat, but another zombie piled on, and another, until his arms shook with the effort.

  The zombie's yellowed teeth sank ever closer to his face, snapping and growling. Rancid drool dripped onto his face. He caught a whiff of the zombie's putrid breath and gagged.

  Josh closed his eyes. His strength was gone. He screamed in rage as the teeth came ever closer.

  “Dan! Stop this!” Emily's shriek cut through the din like a drill sergeant's whistle.

  The zombies, as one, froze. They fell silent and turned toward Emily. Suddenly, the sound of the breeze, the panting of a thousand zombies, the drip of blood, and the idling bus could all be heard.

  Emily stood in a wide stance, holding her pistol with the barrel pressed tightly against her own temple. Her finger tightened on the trigger. “Stop this right now! I swear to God I'll do it.”

  “Emily,” said a chorus of a thousand zombies. “Put the gun down. Let's be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable?” Emily screamed. “Reasonable? You want to talk about reasonable?”

  The zombies, if it were possible, managed to look petulant. The closest of them even wrung its hands.

  “You win, okay, Dan? You win. I'll go with you. I'll do whatever you want. But you have to promise that you're going to let them go. Nobody else dies.”

  Josh, relieved of the crush of zombies, stood up. Blood soaked his T-shirt. “Emily, no. Don't—”

  Tears stung her eyes. She shook her head. “I'm sorry, Josh. There's no other way.”

  “Put your weapons down . . . and come to me. Be my bride and they live.”

  “We're keeping our weapons,” said Emily. “Otherwise, no deal. I don't trust you. I don't trust you any further than I can throw that bus.”

  The zombies all around glared at them like hungry dogs on chains.

  The crowd of zombies went silent for a moment. “Very well . . .” said the zombies, with the patterns and inflections of Dan Sinder's voice. “Keep the weaponsss . . . Come to me . . .”

  “Let them go,” said Emily.

  “Oh . . . not yet . . . not yet . . . not yet . . .” the zombies all around murmured. “First, they must attend the wedding . . .”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I don't like this,” said Josh.

  “Well, if that isn't the understatement of the year,” Tom muttered.

  The survivors walked in single file, away from the bus and the carnage, up Old Mine Road. Abandoned cars sat in the middle of the street, their doors hanging open. The pavement was littered with dark red stains, bits of clothing, purses, shopping bags, and random effects.

  Emily walked in the lead, followed by Alex, Josh, Tom, Billings, and Rachael. On all sides of them, thousands of zombies marched. They hissed and moaned and growled at random, muttering, “Emily . . .”

  “Don't like it much myself,” said Alex. He slowed to walk alongside Josh. His left hand rested easily on the hilt of his sheathed katana, and his right hand readjusted the angle of his ever-present cowboy hat. “But I don't see how we got much choice in the matter, for the moment. 'Less we all want to get ate up like kibbles.”

  Emily kept the gun tight against her skull, her finger on the trigger. The zombies bowed and scraped to her, cringing and wringing their hands.

  “Come . . . come . . .” the zombies moaned. “Come with us . . .”

  “Where are you taking us?” Emily asked.

  “To the chapel . . .” As one, a thousand zombies pointed toward the Ashford Mansion, the big, dark building squatting there on the mountainside, overlooking the town like a vulture in a tree. “To the wedding. . .”

  “Come with us . . .” The zombies took Emily by the arm, gently pulling her along as the congregation of the dead began to move up Ashford mine road.

  “Don't touch me,” she snarled at the zombie. “You hear me, Dan? Don't you dare let these hideous things touch me.” The zombies backed off, cringing and bowing.

  At the back of the line, Rachael trudged like a sleepwalker, staring at her shoes while the tears ran down her face.

  “Who's got some bullets left?” Alex whispered.

  “I've got one full clip,” said Emily.

  “I'm out,” said Josh.

  “One clip left for my pistol, six more bullets in the rifle,” said Billings.

  “Twelve in my rifle,” said Tom, “and one spare magazine.”

  Alex nodded thoughtfully.

  As the road slanted upward toward Old Prosperity, Alex whispered, “So, where are we headed again?”

  Billings looked back at him and responded, “Sounds like he's taking us to Ashford Mansion. It has a little chapel next to the main house.”

  “Man, we've got to do something,” whispered Josh.

  Alex glanced around at the crowd of undead surrounding them. “Kid, what the hell do you suggest?”

  He shrugged. “I don't know. You're the superhero. Isn't this, like, where you pull some crazy heroic shit, and we make our escape?”

  Alex laughed. “Superhero. I don't reckon Batman gets stabbed as often as I do. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Sometimes in life, comes a time when you're doin' pretty damned good if you're still alive at all. This is startin' to look like one of them times. Fact is, we've gone right past shit creek, and now we're floatin' down the mighty shit river. But if we ain't dead, we ain't lost. So let's not do nothin' stupid quite yet. We're just gonna keep our mouths shut and our eyes open, and maybe we'll get our chance.”

  Josh answered, “I'd rather shoot Mr. Sinder in the face.”

 
Alex shrugged. “Right there with you. But hell, this might be a good thing for us. He's doing the classic supervillain schtick. He's thinkin' he already won. He's bringing us right to him. One thing you learn in my business is that evil villains are mostly a bunch of dumbshits when you come right down to it. They're all ego. Plain old attention whores. Blinded by how awesome they think they are.

  “See, what we gotta do is go along with it, be all horrified at first, but then . . . then we flatter him a little bit. Say things like, 'But how could one man do all this?' That sort of shit. Ask him a few questions. He's gonna want somebody to brag to about how gol-damned smart he is, so he's gonna start running his mouth off about why and how he done what he done. That's when we might have a chance. Could be he lets something slip, or maybe he lets his guard down. We just gotta play it by ear.”

  “So, what, all this is a cry for attention?”

  Alex nodded. “Kind of sad, when you think about it.”

  ***

  The grim procession made its way up Old Mine Road, threading through the burning remains of Prosperity's residential neighborhood. As they passed, they saw cars burned, front doors kicked in, windows broken. Tidy squares of neatly-trimmed lawn, deep green, defied the desert from behind smashed, white, picket fences.

  “God,” said Billings, as he gazed out over the wreckage. “This was my home. Look what that bastard did to my home.”

  “Every door is broken down,” said Tom. “They must have just gone door to door.”

  Josh said, “Like Jehovah's Witnesses from Hell.”

  A handful of dead zombies lay sprawled on a front lawn, brains lolling obscenely from their shattered skulls. “Guess not everybody went without a fight,” Alex remarked. “Here's hopin' there's still a few folks hidin' out.”