by M. Lorrox
Charlie is back on his feet. He extends a hand in her direction. “June! Take it easy! We’re here for you. It’s okay.”
She jolts her head toward Eddy, her eyes pleading and searching for release from what grips her. She wants to scream for help and yell for them to run before she hurts them. She wants to scream that nothing is okay right now, and that she wants the weird pains that torment her insides to go away. She wants to explode, and she wishes she could somehow stop what’s happening to her, but she can’t. She can’t speak; she can barely breathe.
She jolts her head to the door. Gerard and the nurse cower behind Vincent’s bed as she shoots past them. She has no time to pause and open the door properly; instead, she crashes her hands against it as she approaches, and it snaps out of the frame and blasts into the hall.
June is halfway down the hall by the time Charlie and Eddy exit the hospital room. Sadie hands a shaking Minnie to Gerard. “Watch her.” Then, she blasts out the door and after her family.
Ahead of June, on the side, is the fire escape that she took earlier when she chased Li Chen and Steve. Instead, she leaps and smashes through the window at the end of the hall.
She howls as she falls, and the animals in the night fall silent.
When she lands three stories below onto the same grass that she bled on earlier, she doesn’t crumple against the ground or slam and squish against it, she seizes it and digs her hands and feet into the dirt. On all fours, she screams again and finally allows the explosion inside of her to release. She thrusts against the ground and blasts the hot energy through her and into the earth.
Either by coincidence or as a direct result, the trees near the hospital quiver in a sudden shifting of the wind. Ten miles away at Gravelly Point, an old tree splits in two.
When the Costanzas reach the window and look down to where she landed, they see her on all fours, far below. Charlie turns and slams open the fire escape door to his side, then he cascades down the steps as fast as his weary legs can carry him. Sadie follows him, but Eddy takes the window.
He lands ten feet to June’s side and lets his legs and hands slow his rapid attack on the ground. When his torso is about to hit the dirt, he puts his extra momentum into a roll down the hill. After a few spins, he regains control and stops a few yards away from June. He gets to his knees, looks at her, and freezes.
June continues screaming, and her body vibrates in the brisk air.
She imagines feeling a pulse running through her arms and legs. The backs of her hands raise off the ground while her fingers claw deeper into the earth. She snaps her head down to her chest between breaths, and when she flicks it back up, her face is throbbing. She extends her lower jaw forward, and she imagines her skull changing shape. She pulls her eyelids wide open, and she feels her ears burn. She pushes her tongue against the back of her teeth, feeling how sharp they are. She imagines how long her canine teeth grow, and then, she feels a moment of clarity.
Wolf—my spirit animal and I are one—I am a wolf.
Charlie and Sadie reach Eddy, who still kneels on the ground, and they freeze alongside him in the shock of what they see. June rears up on her knees and claws at nothing in the night. Dirt falls from her fingertips as she snarls and barks like an animal. Her thin, tense arms, shaved scalp, and white teeth make her look like a skeleton rising from the grave.
June feels an itch all over her body that in her mind can only be the thousands of follicles forcing fur through her skin. She screams again and claws at the burning itch coming from within her hospital gown, and she tears the gown off—revealing her blood-soaked underwear and bare, scarred belly. She inhales a huge breath through her mouth as she slams her hands back into the earth.
Sadie squeezes Eddy’s shoulder. She watches June with wide eyes afraid to blink—afraid of what’s happening in the girl’s mind.
June throws her head back and howls into the empty night—finally feeling like her change is complete. When she runs out of air, she turns her head to face the Costanzas.
Eddy tries to shake the crazy away and see June acting normal, but he can’t, because she’s not.
She starts out on all fours as she bear-crawls toward them, but midway, she pushes up with her hands, stands, and walks the rest of the way. She pauses in front of them, tilts her head, and studies the strange fear in their eyes. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.
“June? Are you okay?” Eddy reaches his hand out to her.
Of course. I’m still me, just I’m a wolf now. She leans in toward him, pushes his hand up to her face with the top of her arm, and nuzzles her flushed cheek against his hand.
Eddy turns and looks at his parents. He swallows. “Uhhh?”
Charlie pushes Eddy’s hand down and away from June’s face.
She growls at him—at the man who let her father die. The man who turned her into a vampire and made her into a target. She tightens her muscles and curves her fingers into claws. “AAAHHHHHHH! YOU LEFT HIM! HOW COULD YOU? HOOWW CCOUULD YOOUUU LEEAVVE MYY DAAADDD?”
At the end of her scream, at the bottom of her breath, she quivers and looks down. She shakes her head. I’m changing back. Her body quakes again, and she drops to all fours. She collapses onto her side and sets her head down against the cool grass, and in the calm that the ground grants her, she finally takes a breath in.
Charlie, feeling dizzy and fighting down a wave of nausea, steadies himself against Eddy. “I couldn’t... I couldn’t save him.” …I failed.
Sadie brushes past her husband and son and drops to the ground next to June. “Hey... June? Can you hear me?”
June sits up and grabs Sadie in a hug. When she feels the warmth of Sadie’s arms soak into her, she sobs.
Eddy turns to his dad and watches as tears flow from his eyes. Charlie pulls his arm off him and motions with his head. “Go to her.”
Eddy moves to the other side of June and hugs onto her. Sadie frees one of her arms to place it around him as well.
June feels an enveloping warmth from both Eddy and Sadie that soothes her. She slows her sobs and just lets them hold her. After a moment, she relaxes and drops her arms.
Sadie and Eddy both let go of her, then Eddy scoots around to June’s front and kneels beside his mom.
June wipes her face. “I’m... I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I hope you didn’t think I’d hurt you.”
Eddy flicks his eyes to his mom, then back to June. “Naaah… Are you feeling better?”
She raises up her hand and checks that it’s human. “Yeah, I think I’m back to my old self.”
Sadie places a hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad to hear it. Let me help you put your gown back on.” Sadie stands to retrieve it, and realizing that she’s only wearing underwear, June turns away from Eddy, crouching in modesty. She now faces toward Charlie. The silver streaks in her eyes reflect the hospital’s floodlights.
The shining eyes seem to glow, and Charlie is drawn to them. There’s nothing I can ever do to fix this, is there?
She curls her lip at him while she’s crouched down, and then in a flash she stands up and throws a finger in his face. “You go get my dad! I don’t care what it takes. If he’s alive, or if he’s dead, you’re going to go and get him! Do you hear me? You will GO, and you will GET HIM!”
Charlie is shocked: not by her words, but by a memory. That wildness in her eyes! I’ve seen that before…in Rusty’s eyes. He nods slowly, not breaking her gaze. “June, you have my word. I’ll not rest until I bring him back.”
She nods and starts to snarl, then she hears Sadie walk up behind her. She turns around to accept the gown.
As Sadie wraps it around her, she presses the gown’s thin fabric to June’s skin, almost like in a hug. “June, dear, I wanted to ask you. Where’d that blood on your bra come from? That wasn’t there when we found you in the lab.”
June sniffs and recalls being stabbed after she ripped the scalp off that one guy, eating part of his arm, and burying
her wolf-claws into his stomach. She decides to lie. “I don’t remember.”
At Gravelly Point, the tree that once held Rusty’s charred body has split in two from a mighty explosion of energy. As the pieces of the now dead tree crash back to the earth, something large and gray flies out.
In the soft glow from the suburb’s lights below him, Rusty beats his bat-like wings and flies west.
Sadie guides June back to her room while Eddy goes to visit Enrique. Back in his own room, Charlie collects Minnie from Elder Gerard Dziedzic, and he holds his daughter tight in his arms. “I’m very sorry, sir. Thank you for watching her.”
Gerard nods. “Is June alright?”
Charlie sighs. “No, I don’t think so… Sir? I’m very sorry about your wife.”
Gerard bows and shakes his head. “This world…it is full of death.”
Charlie nods, then his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. He switches hands on Minnie so he can check it. As he reaches into his pocket, the raw skin on the back of his hand rubs against the fabric of his pants, and he grimaces.
He has a new text. From Skip. Oh god, it’s probably from before and is just coming through like his earlier ones. With a great sigh, he taps to read the message from his dead friend.
Ouch. A desk on fire broke my fall. My leg really hurts... When you come back for me, bring beer.
Charlie’s spirit rushes back into him and brings with it renewed vitality. He starts to write a response. When another text comes in, Charlie’s excitement only grows. Then he reads the new message.
Can’t reach June, she ok?
He erases the message he started, and he considers what he should say instead. He stares for a moment. There’s just way too much to say… I can’t lie to him… He sighs, then he types and sends him a message:
She wants me to go and get you! I’m so sorry we left without you. Stay safe. I’m coming.
An hour later, Danny and Lieutenant Colonel Schermer fly the Chinook back to DC. Charlie happily rides alone in the back. Instead of performing a pinnacle maneuver on a collapsing roof that has taken an RPG hit—on a building whose walls and rafters have been on fire for the past few hours—Schermer claims to have a better idea.
Skip is leaned against a wall. He’s cradled by broken furniture, and he looks out into the night sky. A large cabinet lays across one leg, he holds a broken board in one hand, and a dead zombie lies beside him. Charred wood lies around him, and thin pieces of black ash coat him in a dusting. When he sees Charlie climbing down a rope ladder into the room, he smiles. “Like an angel from the heavens.”
Charlie jumps down and turns around to face him.
“Jesus, you look awful.”
Charlie has bandages wrapped all over his body and half his face. “Thanks. You look just lovely yourself. Are you stuck?”
He nods.
Charlie lifts the cabinet off Skip’s leg, revealing a small bullet hole and a compound fracture. Shards of Skip’s femur stab through his thigh. “Jeez buddy…”
“I’m afraid to look. I used my belt as a tourniquet when I started feeling blood dripping down my leg.”
“You’ll be alright...” He bends down and crawls under Skip’s arm, then stands with him.
“Sheee-iiit! That really hurts…” Skip feels dizzy, then he hurls on the shredded remnants of Charlie’s pants.
Charlie sighs. “Just focus on breathing, good buddy.”
He wipes his mouth. “Sorry… I’m glad you came for us, man. And again, back for me. Thank you.”
Charlie sets Skip in front of the ladder. “You and the others that protected those kids are the ones deserving of thanks. But I’m not gonna kiss your ass here; we gotta go. Can you climb?”
Skip nods, tries to lift himself up with his arms onto the rope ladder, but fails and collapses into it instead. “Or not.”
“Can you hold on tight enough to be pulled up?”
Skip wraps the rope around his arms. “Yeah, that’ll work. But can you do me a favor?”
Charlie smiles. “Always.”
“I think the rifle I was using is up on the edge of the roof. If it’s not too much trouble, can you grab it for me? I kinda want to hold onto it.”
Charlie nods. I have to collect something I left up there, too. “I’ll get it. Just do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t leave without me.”
“Ha! Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, bud?”
Charlie swallows, thinking of Dr. Melgaard. “Always.” He cups his hands to his mouth and yells up to the helicopter, “SCHERMER! PULL HIM UP!”
Schermer pats Danny on the arm. “I’ll be right back, hold her steady.”
Danny smiles, thinking of the cute old nurse, Betty, he met at the hospital.
She swooned when he told her how he stole and single-handedly flew a military helicopter he had no business flying. Then, he got word that he was needed again. When he told Betty he was going back into the quarantine zone to save an injured hero from a burning building, she double-swooned.
Danny calls over his shoulder to Schermer, “Take your time, boss, I got this.”
Schermer gives the rope ladder a tug and looks down. She sees a thumbs-up, and she begins pulling Skip up.
Charlie hollers at Skip as he is lifted into the air. “Don’t forget to send the ladder back down!”
Skip laughs. “I’ll think about it.”
Charlie smiles, then he crouches down and leaps into the air, landing on top of a pile of broken furniture. He leapfrogs off it and onto a section of half-collapsed roof, then off it and onto the main building’s roof. He lands cautiously, ready to jump again in case the roof starts to fall, but it holds.
He looks around for zombies. There aren’t any up there; they’ve long since moved on to richer hunting grounds. He finds the rifle, and he slings it across his back. He walks over to where he was beaten and held down by the zombies, and he finds the sword made for him over three hundred years ago by Muramasa Sengo.
He stares at it while the Chinook hovers fifty yards away. “I should have destroyed you. By all rights, I still should. I should toss you into the river on the way back to the hospital. I should bury you, under the hottest desert sands, in the deepest, darkest cave, or in the ice of the coldest tundra.”
He looks down at the blood that coats the blade.
“I vowed to protect and guard you, and I will honor my vow.” He reaches up and touches the bandage on his face that stretches from his cheek, across one eye, and to his brow. “But today you tasted my blood, in battle… And now, I know that someday, you will be the death of me. I know you, you devil, and you will crave to taste my blood again. I know that someday, you will succeed.” He sighs.
“I can feel you calling to me now—begging me to bury your blade into my heart.” Charlie takes a deep breath through his nose as he clenches his teeth. “I’ll make a deal with you, you blood demon… Let me use you to satiate my vengeance, before you use me to quench your thirst.”
Charlie picks up the sword, and he slices it across his palm. He wipes his blood on both sides of the blade, and as if a weight is lifted off him, he breathes easier. He turns the blade in his hand, inspecting it in the dim light, then he wipes the blood clean from the ancient steel.
He returns to the rope ladder, jumps onto it, and with Skip’s rifle across his back and his sword stuck through his belt, Charlie climbs up to the helicopter’s cabin.
In the G-650 luxury jet, Dr. Lars Melgaard stretches his thin legs out and lifts them onto an ottoman with his hands. He grimaces at their constant pain, then notices the scar on his ankle and can’t help but remember back to the injury that changed his life.
It was 1929, and he was only eleven years old. He was born with a limp, and he was the smallest kid in the neighborhood. They constantly teased him and picked on him, calling him Kyllingelår—Chicken Legs. One day at school, his teacher praised him for having the highest score in the class. Little Lars immedi
ately knew that later, he would pay the price. The other kids chased him from the school, toward his home, then surrounded him near some chicken coops. They limped like him to mock him and sang a song they made up to taunt him.
They laughed when I fell… I wonder where the virus was. The broken glass that cut me, or the filth that I stuffed the wound with—that newspaper and the straw. He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter.
It never matters.
I wonder if turning vampire sooner could have stopped the disease before it ruined my legs. At least I got them back… I never want to sit in another wheelchair the rest of my life.
He takes a sip of scotch and savors the smoky and earthy flavor. He watches the legs of the liquor stretch back down the side of the glass and disappear into the golden pool below.
He takes another sip. For the first instant, the burn of the alcohol singes, then the beauty of the flavor is released. He smiles. It has begun, and it will hurt. But what remains of the world after…will be glorious.
They will thank me.
“I bet you thought that I would lay down and die, oh no.”
—Goodbye June
When it was time to write MAELSTROM, I knew that it was going to be intense. After all, the events in this book take place over only eight hours! I had a lot of plans for my characters, a lot of awesome ideas, and a lot of energy to spend. When it was time to write, I turned on the treadmill below my standing/walking desk, and I turned up my rock music. 80k adrenaline-soaked words later, I had created something so insane that it was pretty much unreadable.
I turned down the rock music and started editing.
For weeks, I slashed and burned some passages, and then I added a lot more new ones. Now, MAELSTROM is 108k adrenaline-tinged words. It wasn’t an easy process, and this book would never had come to life if it wasn’t for Lily: my primo alpha reader, beta reader, double-beta reader, marketing research assistant, and partner. I couldn’t have done it without her.