Make that a lot louder than I should have. There came a screech from the main room. I looked around the corner to see one of the females sitting upright and looking in our direction. She screamed again, rousing all of the tent’s occupants.
Sally and I were covered from head to toe in Bigfoot excrement, but that didn’t even begin to describe just how deep in shit we were.
The Great White North
I turned to tell Sally to run but, low and behold, she was already making her way back toward where we’d come in. I took a split second to think bad thoughts in her direction before following her lead.
I emerged from the back of Turd’s abode to find her standing with Grulg.
“Go!” he whispered.
“What about you...” I started to ask, but apparently he was way ahead of me there.
“T’LUNTA SPIES!” he screeched and then swung a meaty fist. It purposely went over my head and smashed into the closest tree, sending splinters flying.
I turned to run, but Sally hesitated for a moment. “Thanks, and sorry about this,” she quietly said to him. Without further warning, she swung an uppercut, connecting squarely with Grulg’s groin. Eight feet of solid muscle or not, you get your nuts turned into mashed potatoes and you’re going down. Grulg was no exception. A high pitched keen came out of his mouth as he dropped to his knees, his hands cradling his pulverized privates. Once down, Sally grabbed his head and brought her knee up into it like a pint-sized pile driver. Grulg flew backwards and landed on his back, stunned.
“Now we go,” Sally said, then took off running.
“What the hell was that for?!” I yelled as I caught up to her.
“Keep your fucking voice down,” she hissed, running as quickly as the dense foliage would allow. “Just because they can’t smell us, doesn’t mean they’re deaf.”
“Fine,” I replied, lowering my tone. “Why’d you take down Grulg?”
“Don’t be an idiot your entire life. He’s one of their warriors. There’s no way they’d let him get away with just pointing and saying they went that-a-way. I saved his life by kicking his ass and I’m sure he knows it.
“Did you really have to nail him in the balls? I mean ... ouch.”
“I do whatever works, and that was the fastest, most believable way to knock him down. Now shut up and keep running.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Some days I really didn’t mind being a vampire. Don’t get me wrong – if I wasn’t an undead freak, I wouldn’t be drenched in shit and running for my life in a frozen foreign wasteland from a pack of giant monkeys. Since I was, though, at least there were some perks to the job. Superhuman speed, strength, and especially endurance were really awesome things to have when being pursued by angry monsters.
Sally and I ran aimlessly for what felt like miles. Hell, for all I knew, it was miles. It’s hard to tell when the only things you could see in any direction were trees and more trees. All I know is that eventually, Sally slowed down. She motioned for me to zip it, then stood there listening for a few moments. Since her senses were more acute than mine, I was happy to let her do the honors. Besides, if she made a mistake and we got caught, then at least I’d get to blame her before we were torn limb from limb. Sometimes it’s the little victories that make life worth living.
“I don’t hear anything,” she finally said.
“Awesome. Think we lost them?”
“Hard to say. These guys can be pretty quiet when they want to be. This is their backyard, after all. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure they were ever actually following us.”
“Grulg?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Makes sense. It doesn’t help him if we’re caught.”
“Not to mention, we might rat him out to save our own asses.”
“No we wouldn’t.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said matter of factly. Say what you will about Sally, but she’s a survivor. At the very least, if she’s going down she’s taking everyone else with her.
I took a moment to look around. Endless forest stretched in all directions. I found myself wishing I had joined the boy scouts that one summer like my parents had wanted, rather than just sitting in my bedroom playing Nintendo for two months straight. “Where are we?”
“The woods,” Sally blithely answered. Yep, ask a stupid question...
“I meant do you have any idea where we are compared to, say, our camp?”
“Do I look like a fucking GPS to you?”
“Only if it stands for ‘gives people syphilis,’” I snapped. “Seriously, can’t you smell where the other vampires are or something?”
“All I can smell is shit, and since we’re covered with it that doesn’t exactly help us.”
“Speaking of which...” I pulled off my ski mask again. Gah! It was getting kind of hard to breathe in that thing. Thank God for short Canadian days. The sky was already starting to darken, so we were probably okay. “Ah! That’s a bit better.”
“For you, maybe. Now I have to look at your face.”
“Hey, at least they didn’t see ours. Good thing we were covered up back there. Although you might want to ditch the hoodie. There’s still enough pink showing where it’d probably be easy to ID you.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s not like dry cleaning is really going to help it at this point.” She stripped it off, sadly revealing herself to be wearing a shirt underneath, and tossed it into the bushes. “At least I can’t freeze to death.”
She did have a point. A human lost in the wilderness would be toast. A vampire, well, the worst we’d probably have to deal with would be an extended walk ... assuming, of course, we didn’t meet up with another angry moose.
♦ ♦ ♦
And walk we did. Hours passed, or I assumed they did. I had left my cell phone back at the hut. It wasn’t much good out here in the land of zero bars. As for my watch, while supposedly waterproof, it was apparently not shitproof. It had stopped working not too long after we took a nosedive into the Bigfoot latrine.
We tried mostly to go in a straight line. Doubling back wouldn’t help us, especially if we ran into any of Turd’s group. We wound up changing direction only once or twice after Sally caught a few promising scents. It was kinda like hiking with the world’s cutest bloodhound. Unfortunately, they were all false alarms. The stench coming off of us was wreaking havoc with both of our noses. Fortunately, though, smell wasn’t the only enhanced vampire sense.
As we walked in full darkness, Sally suddenly cocked her head to the side. “Hear that?”
I listened. For a moment, there was only silence, but then my ears picked up a sound. It was distant, but definitely there.
“What is it?” I asked.
Of course, I got an eye-roll in return. “Did you spend your entire life indoors?”
“Oh, like you didn’t,” I countered.
“No, actually.”
“Dressing up like Sheena: Queen up the Jungle for clients doesn’t count.”
“Hey, at least I’ve been camping before.”
“Oh, yeah, when?” I demanded.
She opened her mouth to answer, but then hesitated. “Never mind,” she snapped.
“Hold on. Spill! When were you camping?”
“It’s not important...”
“Then I’ll just assume you’re full of shit.”
“Fine!” She rounded on me, causing me to back up a step. “I was a ... Girl Scout, okay?”
That being answered, we continued on our way in respectful silence.
Oh, who am I kidding? I immediately started laughing my ass off.
“Sally the Girl Scout. That’s great.”
“It’s not that funny, asshole.”
“So did you go door to door selling your cookies?”
“Ignoring you now,” she replied and trudged ahead.
“Tell me, do they give out merit badges for lap dancing?” I was just about to let loose with a tirade of Girl Scout jokes when the sound became noticeabl
y louder. I finally realized what it was.
I caught up to Sally just as she stopped at the edge of a drop off. About twenty feet below us, a river roared past. It wasn’t particularly wide, but it was moving quickly.
“This’ll do,” she said.
“For what?”
“Bath time,” was all the answer I heard before being shoved forward into empty space.
♦ ♦ ♦
FUCK ME! The water was cold, as in just a few degrees above freezing. I surfaced and immediately began screaming every obscenity in my arsenal (a not insignificant amount). There came a loud splash in response. I turned back and saw Sally surface about thirty feet behind me. I opened my mouth to voice my opinion on things, when I slammed into a rock. It felt about as good as it sounds. Unfortunately, before I could do much more than ponder my newly smashed skull, the current carried me into another rock, then another.
This went on for about five minutes or so, the river playing human pinball with my body. Fortunately, it’s very hard for vampires to drown, that whole being dead thing coming into play. Sadly, there’s nothing wrong with my nerve endings. The only good part was that I was soon too numb from the cold to feel myself being pummeled.
At last, the river became both wider and deeper. The pace of the current slackened and, within a few more minutes, I found myself treading water. The sound of the roaring rapids started to fade and silence settled in. I looked around to get my bearings and saw the shore about ten yards away. Teeth chattering, I began to paddle for it when something touched my leg.
I stopped and looked around. Nothing but quiet ... well that and a whole lot of freezing water. Must have been a...
It did it again. What the hell? Was there some hungry fish debating whether I’d make a good meal? Did they have alligators in Canada? I decided that it was best not to stick around to find out. I began to swim for the shore ... and that was when something grabbed my leg and pulled me under.
Frozen Wasteland
“Gee, Bill, I had no idea you could sound so much like a little girl,” Sally said, standing at the edge of the water wringing out her hair.
“That wasn’t funny,” I replied, teeth still chattering.
“And yet here I am laughing. Who did you think it was?”
“I don’t know, but when you’ve seen Jaws as many times as I have, you get a little nervous about things in the water.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Fine, so you got your little payback from earlier. Happy now?”
“You think I shoved you into that river just for some petty revenge?”
“You didn’t?”
“Well, okay, I kind of did,” she said with a smile. Thank God she looked really cute wet. Otherwise, I might’ve been tempted to slug her. “But, it was also necessary.”
“Define necessary.”
“Take a breath, genius. Notice how we don’t smell like a pig pen anymore? Now I might have a chance in hell of catching a scent and getting us back.”
“Hopefully you can do it before I freeze solid. Aren’t you cold?”
“Freezing,” she replied. “But, unlike you, I’m not a wuss.”
“Good for you, ice queen.”
We began to walk again. The river had completely turned me around. As far as I was concerned, we were hopelessly lost. Sally, though, didn’t waver for a second before picking a direction and setting off in it. Who knows? Maybe she really had been a Girl Scout after all. Of course, it was possible she had as little clue as I did and was just faking it. Still, it beat standing there on the riverbank like two lost idiots.
“Think they started without us?” I asked, catching up to her.
“No doubt. Hell, François’s men probably broke open the champagne when they saw that you weren’t there to stop them from selling us out.”
“Maybe Ed and...”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” she said. “They’re humans. Without you around, they’ll be given about as much consideration as two burritos. I’m hoping Nergui didn’t even let them go. It’ll be safer for them.”
“Ooh, is that worry I hear in your voice? Sally and Eddie sitting in a tree ... F U C...”
“Finishing that thought would be detrimental to your health,” she growled. Suddenly she stopped, so abruptly that I almost walked into her.
“Relax, Sally. I was just joking.”
She turned and gave me a condescending look. “You need to try better than that if you want to ruffle my feathers.”
“Then why...”
“A scent, two of them actually.”
“What is it?”
“You want the good news or the bad news?”
“I’m an optimist at heart. What’s the good?”
“I’m pretty sure I smell vampires.”
“And the bad?”
“We’d better start walking a little faster. I think it’s about to snow.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Snow was an understatement. One minute, nothing, and the next we were walking in a winter wonderland. If you’re thinking it did little to help warm me up, you’re correct. Fuck this shit! Once I got back to New York, I was locking myself away in my office with a week’s supply of blood and a space heater.
We doubled our pace. The way it was coming down, it wouldn’t be too long before we were wishing for snowshoes. Considering that Sally was unlikely to want to share body heat any time soon, that meant we had best track down the vamps she had smelled. I just hoped they turned out to be friendly.
♦ ♦ ♦
“We’re close. Just up ahead,” Sally said.
I still couldn’t tell the scent of other vampires for shit, but there was nothing wrong with my nose. I took a whiff. “I think I smell...”
“Diesel,” she finished for me. “They might have a truck.”
“As long as the heater is working, I don’t care if it’s a fucking Smart Car.”
We moved more quickly, eventually breaking out into a full run – slippery ground be damned.
After a minute or two at that pace, Sally hit the brakes. She came to a halt and I followed her lead.
“What is it?”
“They should be here.”
“Who?”
“The other vampires, idiot.”
“Doesn’t look like anyone is here to me.” I cupped my hands over my mouth and shouted, “Hello!”
“I’m pretty sure if we can smell them, they can smell us.”
“Well then, where are they? Don’t tell me you led us into an encampment of the world’s stupidest vampires.”
“If so, they could crown you king,” she quipped, taking another breath. “Oh no.”
“I’m going to assume that’s not a good ‘oh no.’”
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill Book 3) Page 24
