"Jesus! Fuck!" Collins screamed. "Help me, for Christ's sake, help me."
Tyreese staggered toward Collins, pulled back his arm and drove his meaty fist with sledgehammer-like power into the girl's face, collapsing her nose into a bloody mess. The creature's head flew back, dislodging her jaws from Collins's arm, but taking most of the layers of clothing with it, along with a chunk of the detective's forearm. Her left eye sailed from its socket with a wet slurping sound and spun almost comically by its optical cord a few times as she staggered backward, the detective's torn flesh dangling from her mouth.
The flashlight dropped from Collins's grip and went skittering across the floor as he clasped his uninjured hand to the wound on his wrist.
Tyreese threw a protective arm around the older man's shoulders, holding him up. "Move!" he yelled, trying to guide the cop back toward the exit.
The vampire girl, her eye still dangling from its socket, licked Collins's blood from her lips, then swallowed the piece of his forearm in two deliberate gulps. The two other vampires, emboldened by the scent of the detective's blood, advanced on the men like a pack of starving hyenas, closing in for what would now be an easy kill. And to their right, the fat man had freed himself from Tyreese's stake and was pushing himself to his feet, the black wound just above his heart oozing dark goo that trickled down his chest.
"Take it," Collins hissed, nodding at the Taser. He pulled his good hand from his bloodied forearm and tried to switch the Taser to it, but the weapon slipped through his blood-slick fingers and bounced to the floor.
"Shit!" Tyreese hissed, as the vampires surged forward again, the last-remaining threat now lying uselessly on the floor.
A deafening roar rattled the walls of the building as the room was suddenly and totally filled with a dazzling light and deafening roar. The vampires froze as they threw their hands over their eyes against the blinding white light filling the room.
Tyreese had a split second to glance over his shoulder and see the oncoming lights. He shoulder-barged Collins out of the way and the two men tumbled to the floor as the roar doubled in volume and the wall facing the street exploded into a million pieces. The vampires disappeared, replaced by the bulk of a huge tactical SWAT truck as it smashed through the entrance of the building, crushing the teenage vampire beneath its massive wheels in an explosion of black liquid, and sending the other once-human monsters cartwheeling into the back wall. The fat man was still standing, though. He cowered in the center of the room, his forearm slung across his face to protect himself from the vehicle's headlights.
The rapid crack of gunfire rose above the sound of the vehicle's engine as five shots rang out in quick succession, each bullet gouging out clods of flesh from the fat man's body, sending him spinning away. Tyreese fired a sixth and final shot that exploded half of the vampire's head. The fat man collapsed into a heap, thick black rivulets of blood flowing from the bullet wounds. But a second after the vampire hit the ground, Tyreese saw the creature's wounds were already beginning to heal.
The side door of the SWAT truck slid open and Birdy, her face bloodied and dirty, leaned out. "Run!" she yelled, her hand beckoning the two men toward her. "Run!"
Collins tried to stand, but his legs gave out and he collapsed back into the rubble that had been the building's foyer.
"Get up!" Tyreese demanded, but before Collins could even try to comply, Tyreese had slipped his hands beneath the cop's armpits and lifted him to his feet. Collins's legs seemed to have lost all their strength, and he wobbled precariously.
"Hold on to me," Tyreese said into Collins's ear, yelling to be heard over the rumble of the SWAT van's engine. The two men staggered and stumbled to the door of the truck. Tyreese all but threw Collins into the rear compartment next to Birdy then climbed inside himself, collapsing into a panting heap on the cold metal floor next to the cop.
From his position on the floor of the SWAT tuck, Tyreese saw the fat man sit upright, the damage from the fusillade of bullets he had fired at him now almost fully healed. He sure as hell isn't going to win any beauty pageants, Tyreese decided. The vampire's head was still a god-awful ugly mess, but even in the couple of seconds Tyreese had to view the vampire, he saw the broken skull and ribbons of flesh knitting back together again.
"It's a nightmare," Collins mumbled, from where he lay on the floor of the van. "I'm in a goddamn nightmare."
Birdy slid the door of the van closed. "Go!" she yelled and the van began to reverse out of the decimated foyer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Pass me the first aid kit. There, behind the driver's seat."
Detective Phillip Collins heard the concern in Tyreese's voice despite the fact that he seemed to be talking from miles away. Right now, his world was a comfortable, reassuring blackness with only an occasional flash of orange to light the dark point in space he occupied, and remind him that he was still alive. He felt... disconnected from his body, detached from reality, as though the bare minimum of his personality still existed, compressed to the center of his brain; able to observe, but lacking the motivation to interact.
A ragged line of light flashed through his body. Pain—that was definitely pain. The light grew stronger, noise louder. Collins felt his mind begin to float upward, to some unseen surface, toward reality, as, nerve by nerve, his brain began to reconnect with his body.
His eyes opened.
He caught a brief glimpse of Tyreese kneeling over him, working on extracting a bandage from its protective wrapper. Birdy knelt on his left, her face painted with consternation. Collins's eyes moved, first left then right as his brain reestablished more connections. He was in the back of the SWAT van, Collins realized, and, judging by the tone of the engine and the rumble and rattle of the vehicle, they were moving.
"Who's driving?" Collins ground out; his tongue felt thick in his mouth, his lips dry as dead leaves.
"Quiet," said Tyreese, taking Collins's injured arm in his hands and winding the bandage he'd just unwrapped tightly around it.
Collins winced as pain shot up his arm.
"Who's driving this thing?" Collins demanded.
"I am." A voice, a woman's voice, drifted back to him over the roar of the engine.
"Who the hell is that?" Collins croaked.
"That's Genie," said Birdy. "She saved me, plus she knows how to drive."
Collins tried to sit up. He winced as the pain in his arm pulsed, once, twice.
Tyreese slipped an arm under the detective to support him, then eased him over to a metal bench running along the side of the truck.
"Thanks," said Collins, parking his ass on the cold metal seat. Tyreese remained standing, his hand holding on to a leather loop attached to the ceiling, swaying as the vehicle made its way through the stormy LA darkness.
"You okay?" Tyreese asked.
Collins nodded and gave a thumbs up. He watched Tyreese move to where Birdy sat on a bench on the opposite side of the truck. Only now that he was again in full control of his senses did he notice the kid was covered in dried blood and sported an inch-long gash on her cheek that was still oozing blood.
Tyreese set about cleaning the wound with some antiseptic wipes from the first aid kit.
"Don't think it needs stitches," he said after a second or two of inspection. "Show me your hand." Birdy extended her hand palm up, and Tyreese quickly cleaned up the grazed skin with another antibiotic wipe.
She looks exhausted, Collins thought, but the hint of a smile was there on her face.
"You did good, kid," Collins said as Tyreese checked the back of her head, carefully moving Birdy's hair aside to check her scalp.
The smile on Birdy's lips broadened and Collins saw a twinkle of satisfaction in the girl's eyes.
"I think you'll live," Tyreese announced finally.
Collins looked toward the front of the vehicle. All he could see was the back of the woman Birdy had called Genie, her short-cut afro and the profile of her face. He glanced down at his injured a
rm. A red stain had already begun to seep through the white bandage Tyreese had used to expertly dress his wound, but at least the fog filling his head was dissipating. That was both a good and a bad thing, because as his head cleared and his faculties returned to him, so did his appreciation for just how much he hurt.
"Does she know where she's going?" Collins asked, as he moved his good hand to support his damaged forearm.
"She says she does," said Tyreese.
"Is he going to turn into one of them?" Birdy asked abruptly, staring at Collins's wounded arm.
"No. I doubt it," said Tyreese, looking directly at Collins.
Truth was, Collins thought, none of them had any idea what would happen to him.
Genie's voice came from the front of the truck: "That's zombies. These things are vampires, got to suck you dry for you to become one of 'em."
"Here." Tyreese offered the cop a small bottle of water, twisting the top off for him.
Collins straightened up, gritting his teeth as pain shot through his injured arm to his elbow. He took the bottle and gulped down half of its contents. The water felt wonderful against his dry throat and parched lips. "What road is this?" he said.
"Victory," Tyreese called back, making his way toward the front of the van.
"We need to be on Sherman Way. My hangar's on the west side, away from the commercial airlines."
Tyreese tapped Genie on the shoulder.
"I heard him," she said. She slowed the truck, made a wide left, and began heading north.
•••
A couple of miles later, the truck's already sluggish movement slowed even more then ceased altogether with a squeak and hiss of brakes.
"Why've we stopped?" Collins asked, rising from the bench, cradling his injured arm. He had nodded off; lulled to sleep by the engine's growl, exhaustion, and the two pain killers Tyreese had handed him from the first aid kit. He walked to the front of the truck and stood between Genie and Tyreese. "What the...?" He squinted through the water-blurred windshield at a stretch of road blocked by an assortment of cars, vans, and trucks. Many of the vehicles' doors were open, as if the owners had simply walked away.
Or run away. Or been dragged kicking and screaming from their cars. Both these thoughts followed in quick succession through Collins's mind.
But why had they left? Collins scanned an array of switches and buttons on the truck's dashboard, found the one he wanted and flipped it. Instantly, the road ahead of the vehicle illuminated to almost daylight levels by the vehicle's multiple spotlights.
"Christ!" whispered Tyreese, leaning closer to the windshield.
Ahead, there should have been a bridge spanning one of the giant storm channels that crisscrossed the city. Hundreds of feet wide, the culvert was designed to move floodwater away from the city and out to the coast. But the bridge was gone, washed away by a raging torrent of water, nothing left of it now but ragged chunks of concrete and twisted metal. The rising flood had already slipped over the lip of the huge concrete culvert and was edging slowly but surely up the road, submerging the line of abandoned vehicles one-by-one.
"The storm's just too much for it," said Genie. The floodwater had already claimed several cars; their roofs were just visible. It was lapping at the tires of a Chevy just a couple of vehicles ahead of the SWAT truck.
Collins knew the LA storm drain system had been designed back in the nineteen-thirties as LA was still growing. He'd found himself wandering through some of them over the years as they were a prime dumping ground for killers to hide their victims. Those things were damn big, designed to carry millions of gallons of water an hour, but with the amount of rain that must be falling across the county right now... they just weren't capable of handling it.
"Guess that's why the cars all stopped," said Birdy, joining the adults at the front of the vehicle.
"And it's only going to get worse," said Collins. "Shit!" He thought for a moment, pulled up a mental map in his head. "We need to double back. Take Woodman north to Saticoy."
"But what if that's washed out too?" said Tyreese.
"Probability is that this is where the majority of the overspill pressure was focused, which is why the bridge failed. I doubt anything north of here is going to be affected."
Collins wished he felt as confident as he tried to sound. Truth was, every bridge south of Hansen Dam could be gone, for all he knew. And if that was true, well, then they were screwed, because there was no Plan B.
•••
They followed Woodman Street past stores and businesses, all shuttered or boarded up. Some had placed hastily stacked walls of sandbags around the entrances to their business, but that had done little to protect against the ferocity of the storm holding the city in its clutches. The brunt of the flood overflow now ran through the side streets, turning them into rivers.
"We should have stolen a boat, not a truck," said Genie, as the van pushed its way up the street. They were barely doing five miles an hour, the water reducing their traction to the point that it would be dangerous to go any faster.
Genie maneuvered the van around an abandoned Volkswagen in the middle of the road. Both its driver and front-passenger doors hung wide open, water gushing through the interior of the car.
Tyreese rose with a grunt of pain from the passenger seat and laboriously made his way to where Collins sat next to Birdy. There was a question that had been on his mind almost since the detective had suggested his plan to fly them out of the city: "Are you even going to be able to get off the ground in this weather?"
Collins considered the question, then shrugged. "Not like we have much of an option but to try," he said.
Tyreese did not like the answer, but he knew it was the truth. He'd rather take his chances flying than stay in this city a minute longer than was necessary.
"So how do you expect—"
Tyreese, Collins, and Birdy were all jerked from their seats as the SWAT van braked abruptly.
"God damn it," Collins hissed. His injured arm had collided with Birdy's shoulder. "What the hell are you—" The words froze in his mouth as the sound of the van's engine suddenly stopped. He was about to continue, but Genie was not listening. She was staring out her side window.
"Genie?" said Tyreese. "What's going on?"
Genie didn't answer. Instead she opened her door, letting in a gust of noisy, almost-freezing air and rain.
"Genie! Jesus! What's she doing?" Collins yelled as Genie slipped out of the truck.
Tyreese was up and moving immediately, scrambling to the front.
Genie stood just outside, one hand holding on to the door handle, staring out into the darkness that lay just beyond the pool of light of the van's headlights. She was soaked through already, but she didn't seem to notice or care.
"Genie?" Tyreese said, easing himself into the driver's seat and scooting over until he could lean in close to her. He kept his voice as low and calm as he could, "What's going on?"
For a few seconds Genie did not reply, then without turning her head, she said, "There's a child out here. I saw her when we made the turn."
"What? Where?" Tyreese struggled to try and see farther into the darkness.
"Hush!" Genie demanded, "I'm listening."
Birdy joined them, looking over Tyreese's shoulder. "What's going—" she fell silent when Tyreese put his finger to his lips.
The continual rattle of rain smashing against the floodwater was the only thing Tyreese could hear. He slid across the driver's seat and climbed down to the ground next to Genie, water almost up to his knees.
"There!" she whispered after a couple more seconds, "Hear that?"
"I can't hear a damn—" He stopped as his ears picked up the muffled sound of a child sobbing. He turned and stepped up onto the foot plate of the van, then leaned back into the cabin. "Hand me one of those," he said to Birdy, pointing over the back of the seat to a set of heavy-duty metal Pelican flashlights fixed to the wall next to her.
Birdy pulled a flashl
ight from its holder, reached over the back of the driver's seat and handed it to Tyreese.
Tyreese turned it on. The powerful beam cut through the rain and darkness. Tyreese played the light slowly left then right.
They had stopped next to a row of homes; small, single story affairs, their borders delineated by chain-link fences and the occasional privet hedge, their gardens and paths obscured below inches of water that lapped against the homes' front porches.
"Over there," Genie said, placing her hand on Tyreese's and guiding the beam to the front stoop of a home one house back in the direction they had come.
"I don't see anything."
"There!" Genie said, and pointed to a shape huddled on the porch.
It didn't look like a kid to Tyreese, more like some garden ornament that someone had moved out of the rain, but as he kept the light focused on the porch, he saw the top of the shape move upward and reveal the pale face of a child. Tyreese's mind finally made sense of what he was looking at: it was a kid in a raincoat, sitting on the front porch, knees brought up to their chest, her head (or his head, it was impossible for Tyreese to tell what sex the kid was from here) covered by the raincoat's hood.
There was no glow from the child's eyes. The kid was human. The first human they had seen since leaving the apartment building.
The child got to her feet, blinking nervously in the light from Tyreese's flashlight.
Can't be more than seven, maybe eight, Tyreese thought.
"What's going on?" Collins asked from behind Tyreese, his voice low. He felt Collins's hand on his shoulder as the man used him to lean outward to get a better look.
"There's a kid out there," said Tyreese.
"We can't leave her here," Genie said. She took a step toward the house where the kid still stood looking back at them.
"Hold on," said Tyreese, his voice carrying a firmness that stopped Genie mid-step. "Just wait for a second."
Genie turned back to face Tyreese. "I am not leaving her," she declared flatly.
"I'm not asking you to," said Tyreese. "We just need to think this through."
The Darkening Page 24
