The knowledge made Julia think of her sister trapped in that cage like some wild animal. Like a rabid dog. She couldn’t believe that her sister could’ve been one of those things. Ginny was the kindest, most gentle person she knew. The thought made her back go rigid with anger. And when I catch the bastards that put her in that cage. She thought. God help them.
Chapter 19
Tiny dowels of daylight crept into the room through the peepholes Charlie had put in the center of the plywood he used to cover the windows. He opened the window with the removable wood panel and looked out onto the street. Another ghost town morning. He thought. The street below was quiet as usual. They had heard very little throughout the night. There was some movement from the kennel area but the apartment was well insulated and noise didn’t carry up to the living quarters very well. He chalked it up to Virginia testing the limits of her cage again. He looked over to where Philip was sleeping on the love seat and cringed a little. He was more worried than ever about what to do with Virginia. The experiments had been informative, but Charlie wasn’t sure if the risk to their safety was really worth it in the long run.
Everything in the little apartment was eerily still. He went to the refrigerator and wasn’t at all surprised to find that the electricity had gone out sometime during the night. The food inside was still cool so he brought out the milk and closed the door to try and maintain the temperature for as long as possible. He made himself a bowl of cereal and was chomping away at it when Philip got up and came into the kitchen.
He took one look at the digital clock on the microwave and paused. “Power out?” He asked.
“MmHm.” Charlie mumbled with his mouth full of corn flakes. “The milk’s a week and a half past the fresh date, so you might want to have some before it goes bad. Somehow, it’s still okay.”
Philip’s lip curled back a little. “I think I’ll pass, but thanks for offering.” He turned and walked to the fire door that led down to the vet’s office, then stopped and turned. “You know, Charlie, I’ve got a good feeling about today. I think we made some real headway yesterday. I’ve got some interesting thoughts on our data. I want to check a few more variables, but I’m pretty sure I’m onto something. I’ll tell you both more after I’ve cemented my thoughts.”
“Sounds good.” Charlie mumbled, his mouth full of a fresh bite of cereal.
Philip smiled and turned back to the door, reaching for the handle. Charlie swallowed his mouthful quickly so he could talk to him. “Philip!” He blurted. The old man stopped and turned around, waiting for Charlie to speak. “Listen, I’m sorry for being so harsh in the beginning. I don’t blame you… That is, I can understand how you feel.”
Charlie waited for a long moment for a response.
“I accept your apology, Charlie. But though I appreciate your candor, I’m quite certain you don’t know how I feel.”
Charlie sat back in his chair, dejected. “You know, you might think I’m some dumb, headstrong soldier, but I think you’d be surprised by how much I’ve seen. I’ve never lost a child.” His thoughts shot back to a screaming Rafi, just before the bomb exploded, then jumped to David’s lifeless body sagging in his arms. He had to swallow the pain to continue. “But I’ve lost.” He paused again to regain control of the tears that threatened to come forth. “I’ve lost in more ways than you know. We’ve all lost people.”
Philip hesitated. He inhaled as though he would say something more, then nodded and turned back to the door. He twisted the knob, and opened it.
As the door slid open, an inhuman screech ripped into Charlie’s ears and Philip was immediately thrown to the ground, screaming. A vampire had sprung through the door and was straddling a screaming Philip, taking giant swipes with its dagger-like fingers. Charlie stood so quickly that the chair he was sitting on rattled across the kitchen floor behind him. He threw himself at the vampire attacking Philip just as it looked up with its awful red eyes and lunged at Charlie. The thing collided with him at full speed and knocked Charlie backwards on top of the kitchen table. Its claws groped for a hold while they wrestled on the table. Charlie realized his breakfast spoon was still in his hand and flipped it around so the bulbous end rested in the palm of his hand with the handle jutting out between his fingers. Maggie screamed from somewhere on the other side of the apartment. The dog barked and a shotgun blast rang out. Charlie could only pray that Maggie and Tank were okay as he had his own problems. Luckily for him, the shotgun blast distracted the thing for a moment. Long enough for him to force the monster out to arms length with the palm of his right hand and thrust the handle of the spoon into its eye. Charlie’s attack seemed only to infuriate the thing more because it let out a ghastly roar and wrapped its hands around his throat and began to choke him. Charlie let out a roar of his own and gave the spoon another great shove. The handle of the spoon broke through the thin bit of skull behind the eyeball and the monster’s body went suddenly limp. He rolled the body off of him and it thudded to the kitchen floor.
“Charlie!” Came a cry from Maggie. He looked over to see the body of the vampire she had shot lying in the middle of the living room, but the sunlight from the window had ignited it and the couch had become its funeral pyre. “Maggie! Get out! The fire escape!” He yelled as Tank barked at something over his shoulder. He was too late to react. A third vampire jumped onto his back and sank its teeth into his shoulder. Charlie ran backwards as fast as he could, slamming the monster into the wall behind them. Air hissed out past its lips and it loosened its grip. He grabbed its head with both of his hands and heaved; throwing it over his shoulder and turning just enough to send it flying down the stairs on the other side of the door. He slammed the door shut just as two more pairs of red eyes became visible in the darkness. Philip was still lying on the floor. Charlie heaved him up onto his shoulder and ran towards the window with the fire escape. The smoke was thickening as he stepped out through the window and ran down the stairs to the street level where Maggie and Tank were waiting.
He laid Philip on the ground to examine his condition but it was a useless effort. Philip stared into the sky with glassy, blank eyes. He was gone. His throat was torn so badly, it was one big, gory mess. As they watched, Philip’s body began to smolder in the sunlight and eventually began to burn. They backed away from his body as the heat and the smell became too intense.
Suddenly, a bout of pain racked Charlie’s body and he dropped to one knee. It felt like a hot poker had been thrust into his shoulder. He grabbed at it, trying to keep the pain in check but even as he did he could feel it spreading into his chest and down his back.
“My God, Charlie! Your shoulder!” Maggie was pulling his shirt off before he could react. He could see black lines lengthening down the front of his chest like tendrils as the venom of the vampire spread through his shoulder.
His body tensed and the spreading began to stop. He grunted with the pain, trying to breathe through it. He could smell burning flesh as the black lines receded. The black substance oozed out of the wound on his shoulder and as it did, it ignited. Maggie screamed and patted at the flames with Charlie’s shirt. As the venom leeched from his body it burned and rose into the air. He held his head to the side trying to avoid the flames but it was intense. He yelled and tried to sweep the burning fluid from his shoulder but it simply spread and stuck to his hand. He beat his palm on the ground to put out the flames and was able to keep his calm long enough for the flames to burn out on his shoulder, but the damage had already been done. The palm of his left hand and his right chest and shoulder were badly burned. He even had burns down his right arm where he had tried to sweep the sticky fluid off of him. The right side of his head felt hot and he could feel singed hairs when he checked with his hand.
Maggie was already running towards the vet’s office. “I have burn compresses in the ER!”
“Maggie, No!” But he was too late. She pulled at the front door to the vet’s office and two vampires burst out in flames. She screamed and
fell backwards, scrambling along the ground to get away from them. They were preoccupied with the flames they were engulfed in, so they paid her no mind. He heard more screams from inside the building and smoke began to emanate from the lower portion of the building a few seconds later. Maggie was able to get away from the vampires easily as Charlie struggled to pull the keys to the police truck from his pocket. “Let’s get out of here!” He opened the rear door of the truck and Tank jumped inside. “You’ve got to drive!” He grunted and threw the keys to Maggie as pain tore at his arm and shoulder again. A few seconds later they were both in the vehicle and tearing down the road.
“We’ve got to get some ice for your burns!” Maggie said. Charlie pulled a revolver from the glove box and placed it in Maggie’s hand. She looked at him accusingly. “What the hell are you doing?” She asked.
“You know what you have to do if I turn into one of them. You know what you have to do!” He screamed while he rocked back and forth with the pain. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He felt as though every inch of him was still burning. He grunted and squirmed in his seat with no relief in sight.
“Stop talking like that! You’re fine. You’ll be fine! Don’t say that!” He could see tears rimming her eyes. His vision blurred and his head began to swim. His head snapped down and then back up as he almost passed out from the pain. He shook his head to try and stay awake and rolled down the window for some air. His head swung as Maggie turned wildly into a gas station parking lot and threw the vehicle in park. She ran to the ice cooler and pulled on the handles, but they were padlocked. She lifted the gun Charlie had given her and one shot ripped the padlock from the handle. She came back to the car with a bag of ice and opened the passenger door and placed it on his shoulder. The bag was half melted, but the icy water trickled down his back and his face. He sighed as the relief set in. The cold hurt almost as much as the burn did until he allowed it time to sink into his flesh.
“How bad is it? The burn, I mean.”
“Bad.” Was all Maggie could bring herself to say. Her eyes focused decidedly on the ground as though she were afraid that looking at him would prompt some type of horrible reaction. “I need to get you to a hospital or something. I… I can’t do this on my own.”
“Excuse me!” Two men emerged from somewhere behind the gas station. One pointed at the ice cooler with a questioning look on his face. “You just go around shooting people’s locks off of their coolers? I’m afraid you’ll need to pay for that.” He looked at Charlie. “And the bag of ice, too.” The man was wearing an oily baseball cap and washed out green fatigues. His buddy stood near him with a smirk on his face and a shotgun thrown over his shoulder. “With things the way they are lately, though, money ain’t no good. But I can think of some other arrangement we could make.” He smiled a smile of pure evil.
“Listen.” Charlie said with as much force as he could muster. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through.”
The man sighed and walked over to look Charlie over. Charlie got out of the truck and pushed Maggie behind him, trying not to show how much effort it took him to stand. “Damn, boy.” The man said. “You ain’t lookin’ so good. But your girl is.” He nodded towards Maggie hiding behind Charlie. “Why, I can’t quite place her. She looks like she’s a little sand nigger or maybe just plain old nigger nigger. But I’d like to get me some of that!” He licked his lips for good measure.
But Charlie had heard enough. No talking would dissuade these scumbags. He swung the bag of ice with enough force to knock the first man off balance and caught him in the ribs with a powerful front kick that sent him flying to the pavement a few feet away. The second man had already closed the gap, however, and Charlie heard a thud as the butt of the shotgun plastered into his skull. His vision went to black and the ground rose to meet him. He rolled onto all fours and tried to clear his head but his midsection was instantly met with the full force of a kick to the ribs. He was gasping for air and trying to stand when a second kick knocked him down again. “You wanna get frisky boy?” The man yelled at him as Maggie began to scream. “You just made things a lot harder on your girl! We won’t be so nice no more!” He could vaguely see two figures on the ground. One was on top of the other and the one on the bottom was struggling to get free. He could hear the tearing of fabric as the man tried to remove Maggie’s clothes. But the man ceased his movement shortly after the gun shot rang out.
“Dell? Dell?” The man with the shotgun was calling for his friend. The man on top of Maggie rolled over in a heap and she sat up with the snub nose .38 pointed at the man with the shotgun. Two shots came from Maggie before the man with the shotgun could even raise it to his shoulder. He staggered and tried to raise the shotgun again. Maggie fired two more rounds into him and the man fell.
“Charlie?” He heard her quick footsteps as she ran to his side. “Are you okay?” His vision was returning but she still looked like a fuzzy shape with the morning sun illuminating her profile like a halo.
“Thank God.” He couldn’t say much more. The strain was simply too great. He raised his right hand and cupped her cheek. The smooth softness of her skin was a stark contrast to the pain that ravaged his body. She took his arm and helped him up while his entire body screamed in pain. It was all he could do to get back into the truck. He felt the bag of ice on his shoulder again and heard the heavy breathing of Tank in the back seat who had whipped himself into a frenzy during the commotion.
“Don’t worry, Charlie. I’m going to get you someplace safe.” Maggie sounded like she was crying. The truck started moving down the road again and he could see her hands shaking on the steering wheel. He felt awful that he couldn’t console her. He was sure she was feeling the trauma of her attempted rape. Or she might be upset because she had taken a human life, two of them, to be exact. Just days before, she had been in the business of healing animals, now she had taken two lives. Scumbags or not, she had killed. And he knew killing well enough to know that it wasn’t something taken lightly, especially without any training in the art. “Maggie, listen.” He felt drunk, like his words came out in a slur. “You gotta put that in a separate place. The killing, I mean. Someplace else. It wasn’t you. It was someone else killed those men.” He swallowed, knowing he wasn’t making much sense. “Don’t carry them with you. The burden is too much.”
His consciousness began to wane but he felt her take his hand and give it a squeeze. One moment he was watching the road pass underneath them and the next everything went black. He regained consciousness briefly as she dragged him from the truck and helped him into a house. His body flopped onto something soft and his shoulder burned. The pain almost made him cry out, but the ice was applied quickly once he was settled.
The last thing he heard was an angelic whisper in his ear. “Don’t die on me, Charlie. Not now. Not after all of this. Please.” Soft, tender lips pressed against his and his mind slipped into dream.
Chapter 20
The house she had found for them was far enough from the city that she hoped they would be safe. With any luck, the roving vampires would seek a more populated hunting ground. Thankfully, Charlie had been able to help her walk him to the bedroom. If he hadn’t been able to, she would’ve had to spend the night guarding him in the police truck.
She was surprising herself a little more each day. Things as simple as scrounging up a bunch of wood to bar the windows and nailing them in place would’ve seemed alien to her only a couple of weeks ago. Charlie had already taught her how to fortify their lodgings so they could better defend themselves.
The sun was beginning to sink into the horizon when she closed the door to the bedroom and pushed the heavy dresser in front of it. The weapons were loaded and cleaned the way Charlie had shown her. She had them resting in convenient areas around the room, should she need to move quickly from place to place. She left small slits between the boards so she could monitor what was happening outside. When nothing outside seemed to be amiss, s
he went to the bed to check on Charlie.
To her horror, he was burning up. His forehead was hot to the touch and he was sweating. She poured some water onto a rag and put it on his forehead. His burns didn’t seem as bad as before, but he was probably fighting some kind of infection from being bitten. Tank mirrored her concern and hopped up on the bed, lying down next to Charlie. He let out a huff of air and rested his head on Charlie’s leg.
“I know, big guy. I’m worried, too.” She said to the dog. A few minutes later and Charlie’s skin was cool and he was shivering. She pulled the covers over him and snuggled up next to him hoping her body heat would help him get through the fever. She rested her head near his shoulder and whispered softly, “Don’t die on me, Charlie. Not now. Not after all of this. Please.” She gave him a soft peck on the lips and laid her head on the pillow next to him.
Her Father’s voice echoed in her head. Remember, my little Maggie May. No matter how scared or alone you might feel, I am always with you; He is always with you. Her father would point to the heavens and look up as though he could really see God looking down on them. She knew she could make it through whatever the world had in store for her. And no matter what happened, she would bring Charlie through this, too.
She closed her eyes and whispered a little prayer. But as soon as her head hit the pillow, the morning light was streaming into the room. She sat up quickly, startled by the deepness she had slept under and suddenly worried that something could have gone terribly wrong while she was lost in slumber, but everything in the room was fine. The weapons were where she had left them. The room was silent. She felt Charlie’s head and his temperature seemed close to normal. His fever must have broken sometime during the night. She breathed a sigh of relief.
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