The Darkening

by Paul Antony Jones

  Collins exhaled a long sigh when he saw the child on the porch. "We can't hang around here all night. Is someone going to go get her... him, whatever the hell it is?"

  Genie was off then, as though Collins's question had given her tacit approval to go grab the kid. She splashed through the water between the truck and the house in wide, almost comical strides.

  "Genie, wait!" Tyreese called out after her. He didn't pause for Genie to stop before he too was splashing through the floodwater after her, leaving Collins and Birdy nervously watching from the driver's side door.

  Tyreese caught Genie just as she reached the rusty metal gate separating the road from the path leading to the front porch. The kid stood on the wooden deck staring at them, wide-eyed.

  "Wait! Would you wait just a goddamn second," Tyreese snapped, grabbing the woman by the right shoulder to slow her. "Just slow down."

  Genie flipped around to face Tyreese. "It's a kid," she snapped. "I'm not leaving her here."

  "I'm not asking you to do anything except wait, just for a second. Okay?" Tyreese swung his flashlight back toward the porch. The kid was just standing there. He could make out the kid's face, pale and cold in the folds of the raincoat's hood; the child was terrified, he was sure.

  "Hey kiddo," he called as calmly as he could, trying to keep the nervousness he felt at being so exposed out of his voice. "Your mom and dad there with you?"

  The child, eyes wide, facial expression one of obvious fear, glanced first left then right, then shook her head, no.

  "Is there an adult with you?"

  Again a shake of the head, no.

  "You all alone?" asked Genie.

  Another shake of the head, no.

  Genie looked at Tyreese, confused.

  "Can you come down here to us, baby?" Genie asked.

  A vehement shake of the head this time.

  Genie started through the gate, but Tyreese held her back. "Let me," he said and gently pushed past her, following where he thought the path would be below the ebony sheen of the three or four inches of water that submerged the front garden.

  The kid did not move. It was as though she was rooted to the spot, Tyreese thought as he carefully made his way the final few feet to the porch. He stopped, one foot perched on the first of two wooden steps leading up to the flat wooden deck of the porch.

  "Hey, kiddo," he said, speaking gently, even as his eyes flicked left and right, "What's your name?"

  The kid hesitated, then, "Stevie."

  "Well, Stevie, I'm Tyreese, but you can call me Ty." He smiled. "That lady behind me," he continued, "her name is Genie."

  It was impossible to see anything outside the cone of his flashlight, the night was so damn dark, and that made Tyreese even more nervous. He beckoned to the boy again, smiling, "Come on, Stevie, we'll get you out of here. Someplace warm. You hungry?"

  Stevie did not move, but this close, Tyreese could see the kid was shivering; whether it was from the cold or fear or both, he could not tell.

  "Come on, kiddo, come here." He held his hands at arm's length and beckoned with his fingers.

  "I can't," the boy bleated.

  Tyreese took another step up toward the porch. "Why not?"

  "'Cause they told me to stay here." Tears were running down Stevie's cheeks, snot trickled from his nose.

  "Who's 'they' Stevie?" Tyreese asked, planting his feet firmly on the boards of the porch floor. The kid was just a few feet away now.

  "Mommy and Daddy," the kid sobbed.

  Tyreese was confused, "But I thought you said... Oh, shit!" Realization hit at about the same time he heard Birdy scream and Collins yell a warning.

  Tyreese dove to his right, just as a shadow detached itself from the roof and swept down toward him, swinging down onto the porch. As Tyreese fell, his right leg cracked against a large concrete planter. He felt the prosthetic leg shift from its fastening, flopping uselessly in the leg of his pants, hanging there by its sleeve. He rolled out of reach of the vampire's grasping hands.

  The vampire dropped to the deck, landing between the steps down to the path and where Tyreese now lay on the deck. If it had not been for her glowing yellow eyes, Tyreese would have thought the girl was still human. She looked to him to be maybe a couple of years older than Stevie. Probably his sister, he thought. She was dressed in a pretty, but blood-splattered dress that hung limply from her body, soaked through by the rain. The girl crouched, her arms spread wide like a linebacker trying to block any way past her. She snarled, a long guttural growl, then, lightning quick, lunged at Tyreese.

  Tyreese sat up in time to throw a wild swipe at the vampire with the heavy flashlight he held in his left hand. He missed, but the girl stepped back for a moment then dove at him again, coming in low at him, feinting to the right, then dodging to the left as she tried but failed to duck under Tyreese's clubbing swing.

  The flashlight connected with the side of her skull with a satisfying thunk that sent her momentarily reeling sideways. She wasn't disoriented, Tyreese noted, as she almost instantly began to move back toward him.

  Stevie started to scream, wailing like a tiny foghorn.

  A movement from the shadows to Tyreese's left caught his attention. Something was coming up the wooden steps toward him. He swung the beam of the flashlight in that direction... illuminating Genie as she climbed the stairs. She threw her hands up to protect her eyes from the glare, then screamed as the vampire girl shifted her attention and darted at her, snarling.

  Tyreese hadn't even noticed that Genie held her ax until she raised and swung it—almost reluctantly, Tyreese thought—at the girl's head. Genie's telegraphed intent allowed the girl to dodge the ax. She slipped beneath the swing and leapt back out of range.

  Tyreese moved into a sitting position, his back leaning against the front wall of the house, a darkened window behind him. He pushed his back hard against the stuccoed wall of the house, then used his one good leg to slowly push himself upward, grunting with exertion as he used the wall for leverage, while simultaneously trying to point the beam of his flashlight at the girl. He heard the sound of shattering glass a millisecond after his mind registered the two arms thrusting on either side of his shoulders. They were big, masculine hands and they grabbed him firmly on each shoulder, pulling him backward through the shattered window.

  "Jesus! Genie, help!" Tyreese yelled. He flung his arms wide looking for purchase as the vampire tried to pull him into the darkness of the house, only to have the flashlight slip from his cold, wet fingers and go spinning off into the darkness, landing with a splash somewhere below the deck.

  Genie's face was a mask of confusion and fear. She didn't seem to be able to decide whether to help the kid or Tyreese as he struggled to pull himself free. With just the one functional leg it was almost impossible for Tyreese to get the leverage he needed to free himself, though. If he hadn't been so large, he would have been pulled into the pitch black interior already. If that happened, he knew he was toast for sure.

  "Grab the boy," Tyreese yelled at Genie through gritted teeth as he continued to struggle with his attacker, trying to avoid the vampire's snapping jaws.

  Genie did not move, frozen to the spot with indecision of who to help first.

  Tyreese threw one shoulder forward then the other in quick succession, trying to shake loose the vampire's grip. He felt the fingers gripping his left shoulder slip away. It was enough to allow him to pivot around on his good leg and throw a pile-driver punch into the darkness of the room, right at where he estimated a face would be. His knuckles connected with something cool and oddly dry... and serrated teeth that sliced into his fingers. He felt the flesh give beneath the force of his punch. Feels like punching that Memory Foam material they make mattresses from, he thought.

  Then he was free... and slipping back to the porch floor. Caught off balance, he waved his hands for anything to halt his fall, found nothing, and fell hard to the wooden deck. He looked up and saw Genie moving to grab the boy, but
the girl — Stevie's sister, Tyreese was sure of it now — stood between the hysterical boy and Genie, like a hyena protecting a kill from a lion.

  The girl bared her fangs, hissing a warning at the approaching woman.

  Genie swung the ax. The girl dove out of the way, backing up. Genie took another step forward and swung again, forcing the girl farther into the opposite corner of the deck.

  "There's gonna be more of these bastards," Tyreese called out as he began to pull himself across the deck toward Genie. "We need to grab the boy and go." He pushed himself to his knees. "Stevie, come here. Come on." He reached an arm out toward the kid, his fingertips brushing the child's coat, but the kid stepped back, his face a mask of fear as his eyes flicked back and forth between Tyreese, Genie, and his sister.

  Genie's wild ax swings had managed to force the girl into the farthest corner of the deck.

  "Grab him. Now!" Tyreese yelled.

  Genie threw one more swing of the ax, dropped it to her side then turned toward the terrified boy.

  "It's okay," she said, reaching for him. "I've got you."

  The front door of the house flew open, crashing against the siding. A woman, her eyes yellow flame, darted from the darkness beyond the doorway, her bloody robe flapping as she flew toward Stevie.

  "Mommy!" the boy squealed in fear as the vampire swept him up in her arms. Tyreese caught a last despairing look of Stevie's terrified face as the woman pulled him from his feet and dragged him screaming back into the house. A half-second later, the vampire-girl darted in after them, slamming the door shut behind her. A half-second after that, came the sound of locks being thrown into place

  "Noooo!" Genie's cry was a drawn out note of despair. She began to move toward the door but Tyreese grabbed for her.

  "Don't! It's what they want. It's a trap, goddamn it. A trap. Help me, for Christ's sake or we're both dead."

  Genie hesitated, her body leaning first toward the front door the boy had been pulled through then back to Tyreese. For one horrible moment, Tyreese thought she was going to go for the boy and doom them both. Instead, Genie stepped toward him, grabbed him under his arms and heaved.

  For a woman Tyreese estimated to be in her mid-fifties, Genie was damn strong. She hefted him to his good foot while she slipped a hand under his armpit and around his back for support.

  "Get us out of here," Tyreese said. They moved toward the porch steps.

  From behind them came the sound of something scuttling over the roof tiles.

  "Run!" Collins yelled from the cab of the SWAT van. Tyreese saw him raise a carbine to his shoulder using his good hand, balancing the muzzle in the crook of the elbow of his injured arm. Two shots rang out so quickly Tyreese could barely separate them.

  Something roared in anger.

  Tyreese and Genie hobbled down the steps of the deck and into the waterlogged garden. Tyreese tried hard to resist the urge to turn around and check his six, focusing instead on moving forward.

  Two more shots rang out. Tyreese flinched instinctively with each of them. Something big and heavy splashed into the water behind them. He heard the distinct sound of a second object splashing into the water. Tyreese twisted just for a second, just long enough to get a view of the house.

  "Oh, shit!"

  Two vampires, both male, their eyes glowing against the backdrop of night had begun to give chase. He could see where Collins's bullets had hit the one man in the chest, the wounds already healing, doing little more than slow the creature's pursuit of them.

  Tyreese felt all hope drain from him. "Leave me," he told Genie. "Just leave me." There was no chance they could both make it; he was just slowing Genie down. If she left him, he could delay the vampire's pursuit long enough that she would at least have a chance to get to the van.

  Genie said nothing, instead tightening her grip around Tyreese's shoulders. She kept moving forward, her eyes never leaving the SWAT van, Collins's silhouetted figure in the driver's doorway, the carbine still raised to his shoulder.

  A succession of rapid, almost blinding, flashes lit up the night as Collins switched the carbine to full auto. The unmistakable thud, thud, thud, of full metal jacket rounds striking flesh was barely audible over the man-made thunder that now rocked the night. The vampires screamed; hurt, maybe. Stopped? Tyreese knew that the best he could hope for was that it would slow their pursuers down long enough that he and Genie could escape.

  "Faster!" Collins yelled, then unleashed another fusillade.

  Ahead of them, beyond the wan circle of light cast by the van's lights, Tyreese saw multiple pairs of yellow eyes in the darkness. He counted twenty or more just to his right, drawn from their hiding places by the cacophony of gunfire and the promise of blood.

  "Christ! Move, move, move," Tyreese yelled at Genie.

  "I'm going faster than I have in twenty damn years," Genie hissed back at him, "and I'm carrying your ugly ass."

  "Yes, ma'am," Tyreese offered back.

  They reached the side of the SWAT van just as a vampire landed with a reverberating thud on the van's flat metal roof. The middle-aged man stared down at the two humans, his jaws dripping black saliva, his face full of malice and hunger. Then its head exploded with three gouts of black liquid as several rounds from Collins's weapon ripped through it. The vampire spun around and fell head first, splashing into the water at Genie's feet. Even with three holes in its head, the vampire still reached a limp hand toward the two humans, clawing at them. What was left of its lower jaw opened and closed, snapping on nothing but air.

  "Get your asses in here," Collins screamed. He tossed the still smoking carbine onto the passenger seat, then reached down with his good hand and grabbed Tyreese under his left armpit while Birdy used both of her hands to grab him around his right arm. Together they heaved Tyreese inside as Genie pushed his bulk through the door. They dragged him unceremoniously into the back of the truck, collapsing into a tangled heap on the floor. Genie climbed into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut behind her. She turned the ignition keys. The engine fired up and Genie slammed the truck into gear, accelerating far faster than she should, sending the back end of the truck fishtailing first left then right.

  Something thudded against the front of the van, followed almost instantly by a bucking of the floor as the wheels rode over what could only have been a body, then the wheels found a semblance of traction and they were moving away.

  Nobody said a thing for the longest while.

  Finally, as his breathlessness began to fade, Tyreese found his voice; "The airport," he said, "get us to the airport and get us the hell out of here."

  "It was a trap. A goddamn trap," Collins said, between panting breaths.

  "What?"

  "They used the kid to lure us. I mean, we know they keep their intelligence after they... change... but Jesus! I think they become more devious."

  "It's like they're demons," said Genie. It was a statement not a question.

  Tyreese's instinct was to poo-poo Genie's observation, but the truth was he thought she might just be right. These things were utter evil. They had used the kid to lure them to the house; a level of deviousness and inhumanity usually best left to al-Qaeda or ISIL.

  Collins caught Tyreese's eyes; there was no sign of any disagreement in them.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  "What time is it?" Collins asked. He had dozed briefly, not long enough to get any meaningful rest, but enough that he woke momentarily confused and unsure of where he was.

  Tyreese glanced at the truck's dashboard clock. "It's a little after four in the morning."

  They were making painfully slow progress. Genie was keeping their speed at about five miles an hour, not just because of the waterlogged roads, but also to avoid the numerous abandoned vehicles that littered the streets and the debris that had been dislodged by the floodwater. That flotsam and jetsam drifted by on an almost continual basis; mainly small branches and the odd errant trashcan, but oc
casionally a fallen tree would tumble by and Genie would have to carefully maneuver the van to avoid it.

  And then there were the bodies.

  They had seen five dead bodies float past them in the last twenty minutes, twisting slowly in the swell of the rushing water.

  "At least they're dead," Genie had muttered. The three others said nothing.

  Still a couple of hours or so until dawn, Collins thought, watching the road over Genie's shoulder. A couple more hours until he would finally have an answer to a question that he was sure had been on all their minds, but no one had voiced yet. He leaned back against the bench, "Given their aversion to the flashlights, do you think the movies and stories are right about vampires being unable to move around in daylight?" he asked. He had to speak loudly to ensure everyone would hear him over the noise of the engine and the constant shush of water beneath the tires.

  "Makes sense," said Tyreese after a few moments consideration on the question. "The fables and old wives' tales usually have some kind of truth at their root. And they sure as hell don't seem to like the flashlights."

  "Or the headlights," Birdy chimed in.

  "Well, come daybreak, I guess we'll find out," Collins said.

  "I sure as shit hope we're not going to still be here to find out," Tyreese returned.

  "Hey!" said Genie, "sorry to interrupt you boys' chit-chat, but I think we're here."

  Collins got up and carefully made his way to the front of the truck. Genie was right. Off to the right he could see the razor-wire topped chain link fence that ran around the perimeter of the airport.

  "It's a few hundred feet farther," he said.

  Gradually, the dim outline of buildings emerged from the darkness beyond the security fence.

  "Pull into the parking lot over there," Collins instructed Genie. He pointed off to the right toward a large modern-looking multi-story building made from huge panes of glass and aluminum, flanked on either side by two more-conventional looking office buildings.