My screams for help followed me into the waking world. When my eyes shot open I found myself wrapped in a thick blanket. I was on a cot in a candlelit alcove. Kicking the blanket aside, I sprung to my feet.
“Who’s Halloween?” A smooth voice asked from somewhere nearby. I turned around and saw the branded vampire with the hypnotic eyes sitting crossed-legged on the cement floor.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. What the hell happened?
When I didn’t answer right away, he gradually untied his long limbs and stood. “Did you hear me? Who’s Halloween?”
Run.
When instincts tell me to run, I run. Only I didn’t get far. Two heavy arms encased me against a cold, hard body. In a panic I struck out with flailing arms and legs in a poor attempt to free myself from the vampire’s grasp.
“I’m Halloween.”
A thunderous roll of laughter reverberated through the vampire holding me, and then released me. I stumbled forward unsure of what to do next.
Just because Halloween’s here doesn’t mean I’m safe.
“Really? You’re Halloween? Orrin, do tell how this came to be.” The branded vampire threw his head back and laughed again.
Halloween extended a heavily muscled arm in my direction, motioning me to move. “Perhaps another time, Kuro. Leo, I need you to come with me.”
Halloween let them inside the bunker!
The realization was like a sharp iron impaling my gut. Halloween wasn’t playing by the rules to which we agreed.
Ignoring Halloween’s summons, I inched my way into the open corridor. For the time being the corridor would serve as neutral territory. “Why is he inside? What happened?”
My recollection of events was blurred, muddled by… I wasn’t sure why. I couldn’t remember anything past the vampire trio confronting us outside the courtyard entrance.
Halloween lowered his arm. “I let him inside, along with Dagon and Anouk, who, in case you’re wondering, are also like me.”
The branded vampire he called Kuro wasn’t laughing anymore. Instead his incandescent eyes sharpened to pinpoints as he blatantly assessed me from head to toe.
“Why?” I said, taking a few steps backward.
Halloween matched my moves with one giant step forward. “It’s time for us to leave.”
Goodbye.
I raced down the corridor, knowing full well they wouldn’t let me get far. Defiance was in my nature. My whole life I’d been taught to survive, and I wasn’t about to give up just because the odds were against me.
I’ll fight until I die.
I’d made it all the way to the turn at level two when I realized no one was following me, but I refused to slow my speed and practically slammed into a brick column when I cut the sharp corner too fast.
Three feet from the flat iron door that led to the panic room was where I stopped. Halloween appeared out of nowhere to block my path. “We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” I would stand my ground for as long as he’d allow it.
“That’s a lie. You have plenty to say to me.” His rough gravelly voice was like rusty barbwire against my bare skin.
“Get out of my way, Orrin.”
Halloween winced, and then he dipped his head. Long strands of silken black fell forward, briefly hiding his expression before he swiped his hair back with both hands. It appeared that he actually liked that I called him Halloween, and I realized that he must have come to think of the nickname as an endearment. I celebrated my small victory, celebrated how easily I could hurt him—with a smile.
“Are you so anxious to reunite with your father?” He appeared to disguise his disappointment with a flip of his hand and a casual roll of his thick shoulder.
“Is my father even alive? You fucking bastard, is anyone in my family left, or did you eat them all!?” I reached back for the knife that should have been attached to my belt but came up empty handed.
“Thanks to me, most of your family survived, including your father.” Halloween spat his words as if he were trying to clear a bad taste from his mouth.
“Then get out of my way so I can see them.” I fought against the rush of tears that wanted to break free. I wasn’t even sure why they were there. No point in crying anymore.
“Tenacious little thing, isn’t she?” A screechy voice echoed from the top of the passageway. I turned to see the pixie-sized vampire and her much bigger escort converge on the only escape route I had. This must be Dagon and Anouk.
“That she is,” Halloween said just before he hauled me off my feet. Cradling me against his chest, he strolled into the bunker corridor. I remained very still, gritting my teeth while resisting the urge to crack his perfectly straight nose.
“Why is this one so important?” the bald vampire growled as he and the grey pixie followed us.
I looked at Halloween, curious as to what his answer would be. We stared at each other a second too long, our gazes touching too closely before he quickly turned his head, his bright-orange eyes darting away. He chose to look anywhere but at me. “She can save us from extinction.”
“You’re joking, right?” The vampires behind us squawked in unison.
“Do you hear me laughing?” Halloween ground out through his fangs.
I wanted to laugh, too, but Halloween was dead serious. Save them from extinction? So not happening. My family and I survived because we prepared years before Mother Nature went on the warpath. We stuck together and worked hard. Other than being a food source for the vampires, there was nothing I could do, or would want to do, to stop them from going extinct.
I’m becoming one of them, and the human race is dying out… We’re all as good as dead.
With everyone locked away, the bunker was graveyard quiet. When we arrived back at the small closet, the branded vampire, Kuro, greeted Halloween with a stiff nod. The closet was now outfitted with a cot, blankets, pillows, and a survival pack. The scorching thirst in the back of my throat had me eyeing the bottle of water that sat precariously upright on a side bulge of the overstuffed army pack.
As soon as my feet hit the floor, I snatched the bottle of water and drained the contents, but my thirst couldn’t be sated. Neither could my temper. “What is it with you and this stupid closet?”
“It reminds me of you.”
I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm and then began searching the contents of the pack for another water bottle, refusing to acknowledge the bloody wrist Halloween thrust in front of me.
“You’re craving my blood, not water.”
I threw the empty bottle, and he let it bounce off his forehead. “I don’t want your blood.”
“But you need it. The baby needs it to survive.”
I froze. “Baby? What fucking baby?”
Halloween moved closer. “You’re pregnant, Leo.”
No way! Impossible…
“So what? Humans have babies all the time.” The branded vampire leaned against the doorframe, drilling me with his iridescent, inhuman eyes.
Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. I couldn’t breathe. My entire body shook, and then my knees buckled, slamming painfully to the concrete floor.
“Kuro, make sure the humans are secured for the day,” Halloween said as he crouched beside me, his hand gently stroking my hair as I choked on every intake of air. “You said you knew.”
“I thought… I thought I was becoming a vampire, not giving birth to one," I said, finally getting my breathing back under control. “How is it possible? We never slept together!”
How can this be?
In the past two years, I’d only had sex once, but there had been more than one occasion where I was unconscious in Halloween’s presence. Who’s to say he didn’t have his way with me.
Then I thought of Jack.
Halloween kept Jack from raping me, and Halloween himself was a product of rape. Deep inside, I knew he hadn’t taken advantage of me. He might drink my blood, and he might have betrayed his promise,
but he’d never take me against my will. I had many doubts about Halloween but that wasn’t one of them.
Ben! No wonder he’s so sorry. He did this to me. But it’s only been days since…
“You told me before that you saw this in my future. How can you be so sure it’s happening right now?”
Halloween kept his hands on my shoulders, a cooling touch that usually offered relief. “I can hear the heartbeat.”
The closet spun several times with familiar white specks invading my peripheral vision. I planted my hands on the floor in hopes of making it stop. “No! That’s impossible.”
“I assure you it’s quite possible. My blood hasn’t just healed you, Leo. It’s altered the fetus. He’s changing. The baby is yours and Ben’s, but now he also belongs to me.”
Halloween tried to soothe my panic with a drink from his wrist, but even that couldn’t stop me from shaking. He placed me on the cot and wrapped a blanket around my trembling shoulders.
I’m going to be a mother…to what?
“I need answers.” I couldn’t calm down until I knew what was happening. “Who died tonight? How long was I unconscious? Why do you think I can save you from extinction?”
Halloween paced back and forth around the closet much like I had when I thought I was turning into a vampire. Who knew it could get worse than that.
“Two young men and an older woman perished tonight. Sorry, but I don’t know their names. Your father, Ben, Tilly, Duncan, Lincoln and the rest of the children are fine. There will be no more attacks on the bunker. Your family is safe from the horde.”
Halloween didn’t betray me. He kept his word. And now I have to keep mine.
I breathed an audible sigh, and Halloween stopped his pacing.
Robert! What happened to him?
I wrung the blanket between my hands. “What about Robert? Halloween, I gutted him back in the outlook room, but then I saw him running when we were outside. He was fine.”
Two dark brows hitched over sparking orange eyes. “Which one is Robert?”
“The tall, thin, dark-skinned man, the one who suggested I’d allow the horde to use them as cattle.”
“Ah, he’s alive and well.”
“But he shouldn’t be. What I did should have killed him.”
My father had decorated the entire outlook room in Halloween’s blue blood. Had Robert simply healed from being in contact with it? Or was there something else happening to him?
“I will check Robert for possession before we leave.”
Halloween settled on the floor in front of the cot. His eyes held a softer orange gleam, a faint, sadder light that I’d not seen before.
“You’ve been in and out of consciousness for a couple days. I’d hoped you’d be feeling well enough to leave tonight, but it looks like you need more time.”
Halloween reclined with his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I told you how our kind came to be, about the war that birthed us.”
“But not in great detail,” I reminded him, throwing the twisted blanket aside.
Halloween glanced at me before returning his attention to the ceiling. “What I should have told you is how our existence has put your world in peril. We are the only creatures on earth that cannot die or reproduce. We represent a rift in nature that God has been working to correct. Diseases were created, even cancer and HIV were initially brought into existence to poison us; but when all else failed, both sides agreed that the best way to get rid of us would be to purge our only food source. The reason the world’s gone haywire is because Heaven and Hell want their biggest mistake eradicated.”
“God would rather destroy everything on Earth than live with his mistake.”
“Yes. God cannot appear to be fallible.”
Answers, even as disturbing as these, had me feeling more relaxed. I fluffed a pillow and sunk down on the heavily padded cot. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not fair. God doesn’t get a do-over.”
“That’s why your baby is so important. He will prove we’re capable of producing life.”
“You keep saying he.”
“It’s a boy.” His words were congratulatory, but I didn’t feel anything but dread. I never wanted a child, even if it would be able to survive the end of the world as this child, according to Halloween, could. I also didn’t want to picture the sharp teeth and claws that were forming inside me or feel the pain when it was ready to be born.
Halloween turned on his side to face me. We watched each other in silence for a long time. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me even as I worried if I could really go through with this pregnancy. The thought of having a strange vampire baby was now my biggest fear. But it meant something important to him and his kind, a way to prove their race wasn’t a mistake. After what he did for me by saving my family, could I really deny him that chance?
Do I have a choice?
Vampires had lived among humans for centuries, mostly without our knowledge. What harm had they really done? No more than we have. I’ve probably ended more lives than Halloween.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor.” I rolled on my side and scooted over as far as I could on the narrow cot, making just enough room for Halloween to slide up next to me. He didn’t hesitate. With his size, there wasn’t much room, but after a few awkward maneuvers we managed to get comfortable. He lay on his back with me nestled on top of his hard body, his velvety cool skin mildly comforting once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I stood outside the bunker entrance, beneath where my mother’s remains once hung, with Anouk, the tiny female vampire with white streaked hair and intense amethyst eyes. My mother had been removed from the doorway, but the smell continued to linger and rancid, slithering drops from her rotting flesh had left long sticky stains that attracted hungry flies.
“So, how long have you and Orrin been sleeping together?” Anouk whispered through barely moving lips as she captured a fly midflight between her grey-black fingertips.
Anouk and the other vampires had questioned Halloween about his comment the day before, his comment that I could save their species from extinction. But for whatever reason, he refused to discuss it with them, which was probably why Anouk decided she and I were going to be the best of girlfriends. Too bad I’d never been one for sharing.
Or maybe there’s another reason she wants to get close to me.
I eyed the dead fly she flicked to the ground and wondered how quickly she could kill me. She’d be doing me a favor.
“We’re not sleeping together," I said, mimicking her whispery speech. Solid roots of indifference regarding my own well-being had apparently taken hold. I’d thought of my own mortality more in the last few days than I had my entire life.
Do I really have a death wish?
A quick tilt of her head and Anouk’s intrepid eyes had already raked the entire length of my body. “Oh, not like that. I mean resting, asleep in the same space, bed, whatever. We don’t normally bunk with our food.”
I met her wicked gaze and boldly licked my lips. “Yeah, it’s a first for me, too.”
Anouk’s eyes narrowed and her hands twitched with what I’m sure was her desire to strike, but then her head snapped in the direction of the turning door handle. We watched in silence as Kuro and Dagon herded my somber family out into the open evening air of the courtyard. The two male vampires were pointing for them to sit on the logs and benches that surrounded the large campfire. I realized this would probably be the last night I’d spend with my family.
I scanned their faces and smiled in surprise when Tilly’s barely seeing eyes met mine. Duncan gave me a twisted kind of wink that I had no time to decipher. Ben walked next to my father, and neither looked in my direction. It pained me to think that Ben would have forgiven my father for all he’d done—and what he’d attempted to do—and not me. I comforted myself with the thought that my decisions would save them all.
The rest of my family members were doing an excell
ent job of keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. Still sheep. But there was no sign of Robert. I was about to ask about him when, at the end of the line, I saw Lincoln and Zoe huddled close together. Their eyes were rimmed in red from crying. But that wasn’t the reason I ran over and snatched Lincoln away from the group.
The instant I touched his arm, Lincoln attached himself to me, his body shaking so badly I thought he might break in two. I set him aside, my hands ghosting over the purplish bruises that marred his delicate face. A strong feeling in my gut told me this was my fault.
“Linc, what happened? Are you okay?”
“He fell into a shelf,” my father chimed in too quickly.
Liar.
I refused to take my eyes off Lincoln. His eyes had sprung another leak. “Is that what happened?”
“Of course that’s what happened. We were all in a panic. Being shoved, poked, and prodded by your new friends over there. They locked us up, Leo, in our own home for days while you slept.” My father spat each word.
I knew Lincoln lied when he nodded his head because I saw the fear in his eyes. My father did this to him, certainly a punishment for his assistance in helping me free Halloween.
I swung around a little faster than I should’ve been able to move and pulled my six-foot-five father down by his shirt collar. His pinkish-red eyes bulged. “Next time you feel like hitting someone, hit me.”
I released his shirt with a heavy shove that threw him back off his feet. Duncan and Ben reacted swiftly, catching him before he hit the ground. When Ben lifted his head, I avoided his stare and turned to my brother.
“No one touches anyone!” Dagon shouted.
Everyone parted, hustling to take seats near the fire to make room for the navy-blue hulk that rapidly closed the distance between us.
I put Lincoln behind me, and his small hands grabbed hold of the empty sheath on my belt. “No one touches my little brother ever again.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to, girl?” The hairless beast kept coming. I was prepared to be mauled, but Dagon stopped abruptly. He flashed his thick menacing fangs before retreating a few steps.
The Dead Days Journal: Volume 1 Page 17
