by Alan Ryker
The sun hadn't risen yet, but it would soon. Sitting on the weatherproof futon mattress that was the only furniture in his room, Willie’s systems began to wind down. When the sun rose, his mind slowed. He didn't sleep. None of them slept. But he felt compelled to remain still and silent, and the flow of his thoughts slowed to a trickle.
The drowsiness was one of the few things Willie still enjoyed. It reminded him of the pain pills he used to take sometimes back when he was alive. But then panic hit him.
Another vampire was close, and drawing closer.
He leapt to his feet and opened his door. A fraction of a second later, Douglas's door opened, too. He looked at Willie with confusion on his blood-covered face. He'd dragged his junkie's corpse out behind him, her veins all collapsed.
The solid steel door that separated the bunker from the stone basement shook in its concrete moorings as something hit it from the other side like a battering ram. The something shrieked.
Douglas's eyes went wide and his jaw expanded as his fangs sprouted. Willie felt the same thing happen to his own face.
They had a vampire at their door. It hit again. Concrete dust puffed from around the edges.
Amy finally looked out of her room at the two of them.
Willie was unable to take the stupidity of the scene any longer and went for the door.
“Wait,” Amy said. She was weak and timid, kept purposefully so, important only for whom she was.
Willie pulled the door open.
A filthy little feral vampire roared and punched its claws into Willie's chest.
Willie felt its fingers slide through his muscle and between his ribs into his chest cavity, then flex and close. He quickly grabbed the vampire's wrist, just before it wrenched its arm, trying to pull Willie apart. Willie yanked back and put the vampire against the wall, and the idiot confidence in the vampire's idiot face faded. It closed its hand tighter, and Willie’s ribs snapped and ground together in the creature's fist. He planted his foot in the vampire's armpit and pinned it to the wall. Then he pulled on the wrist.
For a moment the feral vampire's strength held. Then things in its already loose shoulder began to snap and slide. Muscles and tendons popped beneath the skin. Willie felt the arm slip out of the socket. The muscle gave completely, then the skin, and Willie fell over. The hand still clenched his ribs and pectoral muscle, but the dismembered arm dangled.
The feral vampire shrieked and ran back the way it had come. Willie looked over at Douglas and Amy, where they stood frozen in place, slack-jawed and literally drooling. The fingers in his chest released their grip and he yanked the arm free, then scrambled up to his feet to pursue the vampire. Their dogs whined as he charged past them and up the stairs.
The vampire was fast, but Willie was faster. He dug his claws into the plaster walls and hurled himself forward and finally out through the front door that hung loose on its splintered frame. Despite its speed, the enemy vampire ran awkwardly, holding the armless shoulder with its remaining hand. Willie leapt from the top step and tackled it to the ground. It attempted to roll to its back, but Willie yanked its head sideways and bit down with a mouth so distended in rage and pain that it wrapped halfway around the thin, pale neck. He crunched down and sucked out the nearly coagulated blood.
The feral vampire only struggled for a moment before it went limp, and Willie drained the body in peace.
When he looked up, Amy and Douglas stood in the grass beside him, watching. Muscular little Gabe watched from the stoop. Willie felt such anger that the image of tearing them apart nearly became action. But he calmed himself. He closed his eyes and willed his face to become human again. He rolled his shoulders back into place and unclenched his claws. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Charlie run up to the open door in his boxers, nearly knocking Gabe down the stairs with his big belly.
Willie quieted his rage and rubbed his chest.
“What the fuck was that?” Charlie asked.
“A vampire,” Willie said.
Douglas roared in echo. He paced savagely. Willie could tell that he wanted to approach the corpse, but wouldn't with Willie standing over it.
Willie saw no advantage to showing his anger, so he didn't glare, didn't yell or accuse. “We need to see what he's done. If he's caused trouble, it could come back to us.”
“Where did it come from?” Amy asked.
The blood from the vampire had been potent. It had fed on other vampires. A drunkenness washed over Willie's brain. Douglas smirked at him, and Willie knew it was because of the slight stagger, the slurred words, the struggle to focus his eyes.
“That's what we're going to try to find out. But we don't got much dark left. Let's go.”
“Ummm…” Gabe tried to speak.
Douglas turned and growled.
“Not you two,” Willie said to Charlie and Gabe. “You fix the door.”
Despite his wound and his swimming head, Willie led them east across the pastures and fields. In just a few minutes they were south of Krendel, looking at a house that the vampire had run straight through.
“That's no good,” Douglas said. The run had apparently calmed him.
“We have to clean this up, then call the sheriff.” Willie glanced at Amy to see if the mention of her father got a response. It didn't. It never did. He didn't like that. She was more human than him. Maybe she didn't feel all the old human attachments, but to show nothing was phony. It was conscious. And that meant she was thinking things she didn't want to let on.
The feral vampire had burst in the front door and out the back door, and in between had drained the elderly couple who'd been sleeping in their bed. Willie and Douglas each took a corpse and set off back to the house, barely beating the rising sun.
“Call the sheriff and tell him that a feral vamp killed the Hopewells, and that we took care of the bodies and the vampire. Tell him we'll talk about it tonight.” Though both Charlie and Gabe listened, Willie spoke to Charlie, who had at least a little common sense.
“What do I say when he—” Charlie started. Willie cut him off.
“Tell him we'll talk tonight.” The vampires descended into the basement. It was getting harder to think of anything but shelter with every passing second. Getting harder to think at all.
The dogs milled nervously around the old stone cellar. They worried they had done something wrong, though they weren't sure what. Willie didn't blame them. They were trained to attack humans, not vampires.
Willie tossed Mr. Hopewell on the ground. “Chop them up and freeze them. The dogs have already eaten,” he said to no one in particular. He walked into the bunker and into his room and shut the door.
Sitting in the dark, Willie felt the vampire blood work at him, making him stronger, making him stranger. It had only been a year since the change, but the distance between himself and the humans and the other vampires had grown immense. At first, he'd imagined he'd want to rule over them. Now he was bored of them. They couldn't have interested him less.
He pressed at his ribs. The holes had already closed, but beneath, his ribs and muscles shifted as they repaired themselves.
Willie wondered about the vampire. Feral vampires avoided each other. This one obviously didn't. It had been feeding on other vampires, and it had headed straight for them. In following its trail back to Krendel, he noticed that it had purposefully altered its path to get to their house. The vampire had gone out of its way to attack him.
His brain reeled as much at the vampire's actions as its blood. This was the first real interest he'd felt in anything for some months.
But it was bad. If vampires were becoming aggressive, then their little group wouldn't be able to hide. They wouldn't be able to protect the county, and attention would come to them.
Willie lay back on his outdoor futon mattress. He liked it because it could be easily hosed off. It would need to be. He liked the smell of blood and even he thought he stank.
There was a knock at the front door upst
airs and the dogs started barking.
The dogs hadn't barked at the vampire because the dogs were trained to protect vampires. They'd been confused by the appearance of a new one.
Willie could just make out a young woman's voice over the barking. One of the humans shocked the dogs to shut them up. Charlie and Gabe feared and disliked them, which was smart, because the dogs would have enjoyed eating them.
Once the dogs quieted, Willie could hear the girl asking for water.
Willie rubbed his chest and remembered the feeling of claws sliding through his muscle and between his ribs. There had been no fear on the vampire's face at that moment. How had it gotten like that?
He lost time in dream-like thought. And then he understood.
Willie ran from his room, from the bunker and into the cellar.
The dogs milled around him, whimpering. Willie shouted for Charlie.
“What's up?” he asked from the top of the stairs. He didn't like going into the cellar.
“Describe the girl.”
Amy and Douglas stepped out into the cellar behind Willie.
“Tall. Bruises on her face. Long, brown hair.”
“How old?”
The understanding dawned in Big Charlie's eyes as he said, “Older teen.”
Willie turned to Douglas and Amy. Their faces showed confusion.
“Jessica Harris.”
“Holy shit,” Douglas said.
“She just walked away?” Willie asked.
“Yeah.” Charlie still looked dazed, his eyes glazed over remembering back. Willie imagined he was trying to figure out how to avoid blame.
“How long ago?”
“Maybe twenty minutes. I'm sorry, Willie. I didn't realize… I thought someone was supposed to take care of her. And I'd been sleeping and was still hung over…”
Willie nodded and looked at his watch. It was only 6:30 p.m., and the sun set late in Kansas in June. “Call the sheriff. Tell him to take care of this now if he doesn't want a war.”
Chapter 7
Jack took Jessica along gravel roads. The law might have blocked the county roads, but the gravel roads were a grid set at mile intervals that could take you anywhere a paved road could, if you were patient enough. They were hidden by hedge rows and the falling night.
Once Jack understood that Jessica knew nothing of the situation in Krendel, he began to explain it as he drove.
“The vampires” were three: Willie, Douglas and Amy. Jack explained that Willie and Douglas had been serious speed freaks. Big time tweakers. Rob's best customers.
Rob typically only sold to dealers. Willie and Douglas dealt a little, just enough to keep them in meth, but they personally consumed so much that they bought in the bulk Rob required.
They had parties, out there in their house. Jack had been a regular attendee. A dozen people locked themselves away from the light for days until they eventually crashed.
That much meth cost a lot. So about a year back Willie and Douglas decided to make it themselves. They put together a lab in an old RV way back on their property. Then they blew themselves up.
People were partying in their house at the time. Jack was one of them. But no one heard the explosion. They were all tweaked out of their minds, blasting metal on the big stereo system. The party ended a few days later. Jack remembered that Douglas and Willie were supposed to have been cooking in their RV. He went to check on them and found nothing but cold ashes.
“I couldn't see any bodies. If there had been bodies, I thought I probably would have seen them because the RV was blasted open like a Jiffy Pop, but we were too afraid of the fumes to do much searching.”
He explained that they didn't call the Sheriff, because no one wanted to deal with that.
So they were all surprised when Willie and Douglas walked in on one of their regular Tuesday night parties.
They were welcomed back. Jack had enough of his senses about him to be a bit ashamed of partying in their house when they were assumed dead. Most of the tweakers were way beyond such rational thought.
“You have no idea how weird that was. They didn't make a big deal about it at all. They didn't talk about the explosion, shrugged it off. They didn't give any answers about where they had been. They just dropped into their big recliners like they'd never left and watched the party.
“I thought maybe they'd been partying themselves, because their pupils were dilated like I'd never seen. Like, totally black. You know. You've seen it. They stank. They always stank, but they stank different. Not like B.O. and chemicals, but like meat just starting to go bad. They flopped into their chairs, their arms covered in black crust up to their elbows, the same black crust covering their faces and shirts, and they just sat there watching us. Most everyone else was oblivious, like the two had been there the whole time. I wasn't so far gone. I didn't guess what they were, but I was creeped out for sure.
“A couple of days later they called me over. I'd been staying away from their place. When I got there, Charlie and Gabe were already there. Willie explained that they'd chosen us to be their inner circle. They chose Charlie and Gabe because they'd been close with them, and they knew those two would keep quiet. They chose me because I was smart enough to be scared.
“I asked what they were talking about. They said they were vampires, and they needed us to guard them and handle people for them during the day.
“I laughed. Then they showed me their fangs.
“It was weird. They promised that they wouldn't eat us. They promised us a share of their power. And they promised that eventually, if we wanted, they would make us vampires, too.”
Jessica snorted. “You want to be a vampire?”
Jack looked at her for a moment. “No. But I didn't want to be dead. So I helped them.”
Jessica nodded. She barely managed to keep a stony face against the contempt that roiled inside her. She knew that most people couldn't do what she did, but to help them was too much. “You said there were three. A girl.”
“Amy. Amy Yoder.”
“Yoder, as in—”
“Yeah. Sheriff Yoder's daughter. She'd always been a bit of a party girl. I'd seen her at the house a few times. She'd caused problems for Willie and Douglas before, putting them on the sheriff's radar. He couldn't keep getting elected with a drugged-out daughter. Which of course only made her behave worse. Anyway, before they changed, Willie and Douglas had always tried to keep her away. After, though, they encouraged her. They got her hooked on meth so bad she was totally gone. Then they changed her.”
“So now they control the Sheriff,” Jessica said.
“Yep. They don't kill anyone from his county, and he turns a blind eye. Even helps them out sometimes, like with you.”
“What do I have to do with this?”
“They knew you'd come their way eventually. So they told Rob to get rid of you. This was awhile back. When I saw you, I assumed you'd come for revenge.”
“But you help them.”
“Not anymore. I couldn't handle it anymore. I ran. But I don't want to run anymore. So when my cousin called me from the café, I knew I had to help you. I figured you couldn't know what you were walking into, with the Sheriff and all. I want to help you kill those vampires.
“So now you know the situation. Let me ask you: why are you here?” Jack asked.
“I was hunting a vampire.” That's all he needed to know.
Jack nodded. He looked at her and kept one eye on the road. “I can see it. I heard that this teenage girl is the most badass vampire hunter around, and I couldn't imagine it. But now I can see it.”
Jessica nodded. All the human interaction overwhelmed and over-stimulated her. “Where are we going?”
“I rent a room from this old couple who live outside Trenton. They don't even know my real name.”
“Why do you hang around here? Why not just leave?”
“My family still lives in Krendel. I can't abandon them. Up until now, I didn't know what to do about
the situation. I just had to stay close.”
Jessica shook her head. She'd learned at the beginning that family was a liability. They'd get caught in the middle eventually.
“You don't have to say anything,” Jack said. “I know how much danger I just put them in.”
“We have to end this quickly. I need you to take me to my place.”
“It's too dangerous.”
“I need my guns.” Jessica looked at the sinking sun. They still had a little time. “We've got a head start on them if we go now. So go.”
Jessica had Jack pull onto what had been her parents' property. The house had burned to the ground. There was no chance of excavating anything, so the pile of ashes remained. It had been reduced in the past year by frequent soakings and dryings until it resembled mottled, cracked cement.
Jessica got out of the car, leaving her pack but taking the machete. “I'm going that way.” She pointed to the house she still thought of as her uncle Keith's. “I'll be back within an hour. If I'm not, leave.”
Jack nodded. Jessica could see something working in his head. She imagined his desire to be brave tangling with his natural cowardice. She jogged away with Fatty before he could suggest that he come, too.
The sun had set, but the sky hadn't gone completely dark. Jessica ran through the pastures as she had since her first memories. As she approached, she adjusted her grip on her machete.
She sprinted across the open lawn, leapt up the porch and quickly went inside.
She stopped, crouched and listened. Nothing. She looked at Fatty, and he didn't smell or hear anything wrong.
She didn't think anyone would be there. Once they'd crossed the county line, it was safe to take the paved roads, and they'd made good time. But who knew? Rob could have sent more people to murder her.
A lot of people seemed to want her dead. She thought of Dennis's cousin Randall, now a vampire, out in the grain silo. She'd deal with him later.
The first thing Jessica did was put on her high-necked, stab-proof vest. Something in her chest immediately loosened a bit. She recognized that the vest provided her with more mental comfort than it should. She put the western shirt on over it. Yeah, it looked weird, but at a distance not as weird as the vest by itself. She grabbed one of her extra paintball masks, though she didn't know if she'd use it.
