by P. J. Burgy
Lizzie saw more figures shambling toward the hardware store. She recognized Danno by his thick black mustache, his mouth hanging open under it. He staggered from the left, one eye a bloody red pit and the other creamy and glazed. Mr. and Mrs. Fripp were out there too, their gait awkward and stiff as they stumbled down the street from the right.
“We’ve got ghouls!” Lizzie hollered.
Margo shrieked in laughter, snapping straight up again. “BREAKING IN. BREAKING IN. THEN YOUR FRIENDS WILL BE DEAD TOO. DEAD LIKE ME. ALL YOUR FRIENDS WILL BE DEAD DEAD DEAD-…”
Danno reached the glass first and began to smash his fists into the storefront. He moaned in agony, head rolling around on his shoulders, his neck red and purple where it had been snapped from a powerful bite.
Helena sprinted up to the door and shined the UV light right at Margo. That pale skin blistered and set ablaze as soon as the violet beam met her and she shrieked, falling backward on fire, twisting around and batting herself with flailing hands.
“It works!” Helena cried. She caught Lizzie’s horrified expression and winced. “Sorry about your friend!”
Danno broke the window and spilled into the store. Mr. and Mrs. Fripp joined him, pawing inside, groaning in anguish as they reached for Lizzie. They gashed themselves open on the broken glass even as they forced their way deeper in, the bottom portion blocked by bags of mulch and water softener salt. Thick ropes of slippery intestines fell out of Danno’s cut open gut, the fabric of his torn apron turning bright red.
The stink of raw sewage burned Lizzie’s nose.
“Get outta the way, girly!”
Lizzie struggled to speak, pivoting to see Bill appear with his new creation – a long cylinder with a pull handle and an eight-inch fuel tank welded to the side. He pumped it and then let out a spray of fire, the straight line of flame landing directly on Danno and the Fripps. Despite being on fire, they kept trying to crawl in through the growing hole in the glass, flesh sizzling as black smoke poured off them.
“Zombies!” Bill exclaimed. “Well, shit on me!”
“Ghouls!” Teddy corrected him, running up from behind.
“Huh, okay.” Bill shrugged, handing the flamethrower to Teddy. “Hold this, son.” He pulled his shotgun from the holster on his back. His cheek to the stock and the butt of the gun to his shoulder, he unloaded point blank into Danno, blowing his head apart. Brains and viscera splattered across the glass and floor.
Lizzie shrieked, shielding herself from the spray.
Bill blew away the Fripps next, husband first, and then the wife. Nodding at the three dripping corpses hanging through the hole in the glass, he reloaded. “And two and three. Ghouls or zombies, head shots seem t’work just fine.”
“Apparently so…” Teddy mused.
Bill holstered his shotgun again and took the flamethrower from Teddy, who had been juggling both that and his crossbow.
Lizzie pointed at more shambling figures coming their way, the moonlight casting an eerie glow on their broken, distorted bodies. “There’s more coming!”
“Hey, it’s the Petersons and their boy Lyle,” Bill said. “And that there’s Mrs. Delany from the bakery. Well, shit on me.”
Lizzie searched the street, no longer seeing the flames that had been dancing madly outside the store. “Margo’s gone…”
“Probably fled back to her master,” Teddy said.
“We can’t hold this location,” Helena hissed. “Mr. Hanson, where’s your truck parked?”
“Out back. Come on, let’s go!” He patted her shoulder and nodded toward the rear of the store.
Bill Hanson owned a big, black Ford F-250. He pulled out his key fob and unlocked it from the back door of the shop before they’d even stepped into the lot behind the store.
“I’m just sayin’, ya’ll are lucky I cleaned her off this afternoon, ‘cause I wasn’t gonna. Had nowhere to go but somethin’ told me to do it,” he said. “Glad I listened.”
Helena pushed past him, a paint marker in her hand. “I gotta seal the doors!”
“Yah better not paint on my lady!”
“It’s important!” the girl exclaimed. “It’ll keep the vampires from opening the doors and pulling you out. Also works against their glamour ability!”
“Ah, shoot, now we got glamorous monsters,” Bill muttered.
“No, it’s like mind control.” Helena reached his truck and opened the front passenger side door, shaking the paint marker and drawing swirling runes on the inside of the window. “Won’t take long…”
“What did I just say, girl?”
“Cover me while I seal the cabin!” Helena cried.
Teddy came around into the lot, crossbow at the ready while Lizzie flanked him, flashlight in one hand and water pistol in the other. Bill stopped to gawk, his flamethrower at his side.
“That better wash off,” he mumbled.
Lizzie heard a rustle behind her and pivoted slowly. A wide, toothy smile greeted her, the lips red and the skin white. Margo’s blonde hair had been burnt short on one side, her cheek still blistered and oozing. Those black eyes focused on her, the pupils white pinpricks in the very center.
“Lizzieeee!” Margo leapt at her.
Without thinking, Lizzie pointed the pistol up and fired it several times, her mind reeling at the pathetic feel of the trigger as she squirted the corpse of her best friend with water.
Pitiful as the water pistol was, Margo shrieked as soon as she’d been hit, her skin smoking and bursting into flame once more. She thrashed and screamed.
‘KA-THUK’. An arrow appeared jutting from her shoulder. Margo shrieked, still ablaze, and rolled on the pavement. ‘KA-THUK’. An arrow pierced her skull and she writhed on her back, mouth open and fangs bared. She stopped moving. The flames retreated into her body, turning to low burning embers before disappearing entirely. Her fangs shrank away. Her eyes, glassy with death, returned to their normal hazel.
“Margo…” Lizzie stammered.
“She’s at peace,” Teddy whispered beside her. “Come on, Helena’s almost done. We gotta get in the truck before those ghouls get to the back lot.”
Tremors ran up Lizzie’s spine as she nodded and forced herself to look away from Margo’s vacant expression. At least the burn wounds had faded, her skin pale but smooth once more. It took everything in her to shut her eyes and walk away.
They piled into Bill’s truck, and he pulled out onto the street, his headlights catching the figures staggering around like lost souls in front of his store. They hadn’t figured out that their prey wasn’t there anymore apparently. As soon as the truck drove by, the ghouls swiveled about and slowly gave chase.
Bill squinted at his rearview at the things as they shrank in the distance. “Least they ain’t the fast ones from that one movie. You ‘member that one, right? Eff’n O-lympic runners, those ones.”
“I remember,” Helena said. “Luckily, ghouls are slow.”
“But persistent,” Teddy added.
Lizzie sighed from the back seat, gripping her water pistol, and staring the contents. “He turned her… Martin turned her into a vampire to get back at me. And we killed her.”
“He’s been a busy little beaver!” Helena stated. “By this rate, there’ll be no one left alive in Puhtipstie.”
“All this in just a few hours,” Lizzie muttered. “Because of me. I did this. I’m to blame…”
“Knock it off,” the girl scolded her, staring at her from the seat beside her. “It isn’t your fault. Martin’s evil incarnate. He’s the one to blame for all this. You’re just stupid.”
Her brows knit. “Hey…”
“Sorry, but it was kinda dumb to trust him in the first place.”
“Margo died today because of me. I don’t need to hear about how stupid I am right now…”
“When did you last talk to her?” Teddy asked from the front passenger seat, straining to glance back at her.
“Uh, Margo? The other evening. I called he
r.”
“Then actually, she died last night.”
“Huh?” Lizzie eyed him.
“Ghouls rise after death,” he said. “Vampires rise the next sunset. She woke up tonight. That means he turned her after your call, sometime between then and dawn this morning.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “He said he… wouldn’t…”
Helena shook her head. “Again, you trusted him?”
Red and blue lights began to swirl behind them, and Bill let out a low, exasperated groan when he glanced at the rearview mirror. “Shit on me. You gotta be eff’n kiddin’.”
Lizzie strained to look back and saw the police car flashing its lights at them. “It’s a cop…”
“We can’t pull over! Keep driving!” Helena barked.
“It’s that kid Daniels. I’m pullin’ over. I don’t want a ticket on my record – vampires and ghouls be damned!” Bill grumbled and braked, slowing to a halt by the side of the road.
Helena cried out in frustration, shaking her head. “We’re almost there! Just a few more miles!”
“Shush now, girly. Let’s see what he wants.” Bill sighed and lowered his car window.
“Ugh, the seal!” Helena wailed.
“Mr. Hanson, uh, we don’t have time for this,” Teddy said.
“Maybe he can help. He’s got a gun, don’t he?”
The police car had stopped behind them and the door opened. Officer Daniels got out, jogged over to the driver’s side door, and looked up at Bill Hanson with wide, incredulous eyes.
“Bill!” Officer Daniels shouted, teeth chattering. “You gotta get outta here! There’s… there’s zombies…”
“Ghouls, son. They’re ghouls. And yeah, we seen’t ‘em. You stop me for that? Shit. Get back in your car and get the hell outta here yourself, y’dang idiot,” Bill muttered at him.
Helena thrashed, banging her fists against the back of Bill’s seat. “We don’t have time for this!”
“Where are you going?” Officer Daniels asked.
“The church. Maybe you should go there too,” Bill replied. “Probably the safest place t’be at this point.”
“What’s going on here?” The young officer grimaced, throat convulsing as he pushed words out. “Bill, what in the hell is happening?”
Teddy leaned over toward the driver’s side. “This town has one hell of a vampire problem, Officer, that’s what’s happening. We don’t have a lot of time, so either you get back in your car and follow us, or you let us leave right now. Either way, we’ve gotta go.”
Officer Daniels swallowed, his lump of an Adam’s apple bobbing. He nodded quickly and ran back to his car, skidding to a halt and falling into a snowbank near the curb. He yelped at the sight of the man standing on top of the car and drew his gun, struggling to get back on his feet.
At the officer’s cry, Bill leapt out of the truck, slamming the door shut after him, and signaled to Teddy. “We’ve got company!”
Lizzie’s blood went cold. In the rearview mirror, she saw Martin eyeing up Officer Daniels from atop his car, his head canted oddly to the side. In her panic, she dropped the water pistol and it slid under the front seat. Ducking down, she scrambled to find it, fingers blindly searching.
Teddy jumped out into the street, aiming his crossbow at Martin, and firing off a shot. ‘KA-THUK’. Martin casually dodged to the right, and an arrow whizzed past his face.
“Rude,” Martin said.
Officer Daniels pulled the trigger and shot Martin in the chest, then staggered back in fear and confusion.
Those black eyes narrowed, and he looked down at the hole in his shirt. Grimacing, he made a low, unhappy sound in the back of his throat. “Now was that necessary?”
“Get in the truck!” Teddy called out. “Officer! Get over here!”
Martin grinned, his teeth sharp and long. His form blurred at the edges, a black mist curling off his shoulders and arms. All at once, he disintegrated, a swirling mass of shadow not just enveloping him but becoming his new shape. It writhed, churning with eagerness, and funneled toward Officer Daniels like a swarm of tiny insects.
That black cloud wrapped around the officer, twisting around and coating him in its living darkness, and his desperate scream pierced the cold air. He flailed about, kicking and shrieking.
Bill ran back to the truck cab to grab the flamethrower as Teddy stood transfixed, his crossbow lowered.
Blood burst from Officer Daniels, first from his eyes and then from his mouth, merging with the black mist as it pulled him apart in the snow. He appeared to shrink, thinning, paling, his flesh growing leathery and dry. His screams went silent, but his body continued to thrash, now held up by the mist itself.
Flamethrower lifted, Bill grunted and pulled the lever on the side, a line of blazing heat headed directly from the afflicted officer. The mist retreated immediately, avoiding the brunt of the flames, but the officer was set violently ablaze, dried out like old kindling. His desiccated corpse lay burning in the snow.
Martin reformed near the truck. He licked his lips, smiling, and crouched low. “Not my usual fare, but still satisfying.”
Lizzie lowered her window. “Get back in! Hurry up!”
Martin’s head turned, snapping toward her direction, his teeth bared. In a flash, he appeared on the roof of the truck and reached a clawed hand into the cabin through her open window, grabbing her by her hair. He laughed, victorious, even as his fingers burned, the flesh bubbling and smoking. Her silver necklaces grew warm against her skin.
Through the searing pain of his grip, her scalp threatening to detach before he managed to pull her out, she wrapped her fingers around the taser in her pocket, pulled it out and shoved it against his forearm. An explosive crackle of electricity flowed into him and he screamed, releasing her and disappearing.
Lizzie rolled her window back up, panting hard.
Bill and Teddy flew back into the truck, shutting their doors.
They took off down the road leaving town.
“What are we gonna do once we get to the church?” Bill asked, one hand on the wheel.
“Wait it out ‘til dawn.” Helena ran her fingers over a crucifix. “Then go to his house and stake him.”
“Will killing him bring the townsfolk back?” Lizzie asked.
“No. They’re dead. There’s no bringing them back,” the girl replied.
“Would it have saved Margo?”
“In theory. Too late now though.”
Lizzie frowned at Helena’s words.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, the town behind them. The forests surrounding Puhtipstie grew wild and thick, the road cut into the land long ago. As they neared the church, the trees loomed taller and taller on both sides.
Lizzie exhaled. “What will I tell her parents?”
Teddy cleared his throat. “The truth?”
“The truth? I can’t do that.”
“It’s what they deserve,” he said, voice low.
“Are you okay, Teddy?” Helena asked.
He leaned forward in the seat. “I missed. I missed and he killed that man.”
His sister frowned. “It wasn’t your fault…”
“I can’t stop seeing it when I close my eyes.” Teddy shook his head. “What happened to that officer…”
Bill huffed, glaring at the snowy road, and tapping on the brakes as they approached something massive and dark blocking the way. “No use feelin’ bad now. Got bigger problems.”
One of the bigger oak trees lining the road lay directly in their path, crashed right down across both lanes. To the right, the thick trunk had been snapped roughly, jagged wood shards still glistening with cold sap in the night air.
“Martin…” Lizzie breathed.
“Can’t go anywhere until we move that,” Bill grumbled. He did a tight u-turn on the road, peering over his shoulder as he backed up, pulled forward, backed up a little again, and pointed the rear of the truck toward the tree. He parked and faced the youn
g man beside him. “I got some chains in the bed. Teddy, you wanna help me?”
“That’s what he wants. He’s out there,” Lizzie said.
“Then you better be ready.” Bill twisted in his seat, sending her a look before he motioned for his shotgun holster. It sat between Lizzie and Helena. “I know I’ll be.” Lizzie handed it to him, and he got out, Teddy following a moment later with his crossbow held high.
Helena opened her car door and Bill pushed it shut again.
“No, you two stay in here,” he said.
She lowered the window. “I need to guard you!”
“Don’t you fret, little lady,” Bill stated, smiling. “We’ll be back before you know it. Just stay in the truck.”
Teddy and Bill jogged around to the truck bed and Bill lowered the tailgate, instructing Teddy to get something from within it. Lizzie and Helena watched with wide eyes and bated breath as Teddy crawled up in and pushed a container back to Bill. The two men spoke too quietly to hear.
Bill set up some flares on the ground and Teddy brought the chain and hook to him. They worked together to tie it around the tree. Their movements were quick but sure as Bill barked orders at Teddy. Lizzie narrowed her eyes, her heart racing.
“They’re sitting ducks out there without me,” Helena whispered, facing the rear of the truck. She kneeled on the back seat, clutching her crucifix. “I need to go out there.”
“He said to stay put…”
“They need me to keep him back.”
“Helena…”
“Flamethrower would’ve been better to take than the gun. The gun won’t do much to a vampire. Just piss him off.”
“Look, they’re almost done,” Lizzie said, pointing back at the two men. Teddy appeared to be connecting the chain to the back of the truck while Bill kept an eye out behind him.
When Bill saw Lizzie and Helena’s faces through the sliding rear window, he offered a thumbs up, smiling. Teddy slapped his palms together, standing from a crouch, and mouthed silent words to Bill. Then, Teddy lifted into the air, legs kicking as he let out a tremendous shriek.
“TEDDY!” Helena pushed her door open and spilled out into the night, nearly falling on her face.
