A Special Gift

by Alice Brown

  “I was thinking more on the lines of, ‘If you want to stay alive, we will get this settled once and for all: when I am home, she’s mine. You can have whatever time is left over,’” Marshall told Erica.

  “Just let me know when the two of you are going to have this little discussion, dear. I want to be around to witness it,” Erica laughed.

  Stephanie was betting that she would play referee between her husband and her cat for at least the first year of marriage. Maybe she should start talking to the cat now and work with him slowly to try to change his attitude. Maybe she could make a difference in his attitude before they moved. Then she remembered this was Wild-man they were talking about. His personality hadn’t changed since he was a kitten. No amount of work is going to change that cat, but that won’t stop me from trying.

  “Marshall, let me put it to you this way,” Kevin said as he poked his head out the door around his wife. “You can have the land, just take the damn cat.”

  “Well, even as ornery as that cat can be, that is a deal I simply can’t refuse,” Marshall replied.

  Kevin and Erica disappeared back into the house, and Marshall sat back in the swing. “Well, we have the land. Now all we need to do is figure out what kind of house we want. Any thoughts, as in one story or two stories? Do you have anything particular in mind that you want?”

  She frowned a bit before replying. They seemed to have discussed every subject in the world at this point, except one. She had no idea where he stood financially. It didn’t matter to her whether he had money saved up, or was dead broke, although, considering the jewelry he had given her over the last year, she didn’t think that was the case. She had her own money saved up and was adding more with every paycheck now that she was working for the VCTF.

  “I would like a two-story, if it isn’t too expensive. And a large wraparound porch; this is my favorite spot in the entire house.”

  Marshall chuckled. “We can do a two story house with no problem. But you do realize the porch is technically outside the house, not in.”

  She huffed in pretended annoyance. “Yes, but you know what I mean.”

  “Why don’t I pull some two-story floor plans from the internet this week and we can go over them and see what you like and don’t like?” he asked solicitously.

  “How do you feel about a gazebo in the backyard?” he inquired. “We could have bench seats built along the sides, but I want it big enough that we can dance in it.”

  Stephanie reached up to run her fingers down his cheek. “Aww, I think that is an awesome idea. You are such a romantic.”

  She leaned over to kiss him. He let her control the kiss for the first thirty seconds before he smoothly took over. Snaking his hand around to her neck, he tilted her head so her mouth was angled just how he wanted it. He lightly nipped her lower lip, and she opened on a gasp. He took the opportunity to plunge his tongue inside, gliding over her teeth, palate, and tongue. She brought her tongue out to tangle with his, dueling before she nipped his bottom lip. He chuckled. It was so good to see her coming out of her shell. Just the thought of them in their new home, in their new bed, brought his dick to full attention. Pity she couldn’t do anything about it now.

  He broke the kiss off, but kept her wrapped tightly in his arms. “So, what are your plans for tomorrow, baby?”

  “I am planning on spending tomorrow morning down at the elderly center. I’ll probably help mom in the office tomorrow afternoon.”

  Her answer came as no surprise to Marshall. She usually spent at least one day a week at the underground elderly center. She loved listening to the life stories of some of their elderly vamps. Truth be told, she had learned more history that way than she had ever learned from books.

  He gave her another hug before releasing her and stood. “Well, have fun tomorrow, and I’ll see you tomorrow evening, after work.”

  As he drove home, he felt that something wasn’t quite right. Everything seemed fine with Kevin and Erica. And he knew everything was fine between him and Stephanie. So where was this feeling of impending doom coming from?

  Had he known then what was in store for them in the next day, he would have turned the car around and gone back to Stephanie, embracing her and never letting go. But he had no idea how thoroughly their lives would be turned upside down in the next twenty-four hours.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stephanie took the elevator down to the underground center and proceeded straight for the retirement village. She found her Pop Atkins and Mrs. Jenkins sitting in the game room, playing chess. She greeted both with a hug before grabbing an empty chair to watch the game.

  Ten minutes later, the game was finished, with Pop Atkins declared the winner. He stood and looked at his adopted granddaughter. “Stephanie, would you like to accompany me on a short walk? My bones are feeling awful stiff these days.”

  “Sure,” she replied with a smile. She could never turn down Pop Atkins. “Where did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I thought we would just go for a walk through the garden area,” he replied. She noticed he sounded tired, not sounding like himself at all.

  “Pops, are you feeling okay today?” she inquired, all the while wondering if he would tell her the truth. Still, she was concerned about him.

  “Fit as a fiddle, my little lady!” he replied. Yep, just as I thought, I bet he doesn’t want me worrying over him. I’ll need to mention this to mom and dad when I get back home.

  They had just left the game room and were walking into the main hallway when everything started shaking violently. Stephanie found herself grasping for something, anything, to hold onto.

  She couldn’t find anything to grab onto but the smooth walls, and even they were shuddering and shaking. A second later both ceiling and walls started cracking and crumbling; debris rained down on both of them.

  Stephanie felt Pop Atkins grab hold of her hand, right before he shouted, “We’ve got to get out of here!” But it was already too late, the last word had barely left his mouth when a huge boulder hit both of them full force. It sent them crumpling to the ground, as the weight of what felt like tons of concrete just kept piling on top of them.

  *****

  Kevin and Marshall were sitting in the office, Kevin had his foot up on his desk, reading the morning paper. It had been a quiet Monday morning so far, allowing a few other team members to catch up on paperwork.

  At nine thirty-five exactly, the earth started shaking and trembling violently; everyone in the office grabbed the computers that were swaying precariously close to the edge of the desks. A cracking noise toward the front of the building drew their attention, and they turned just in time to watch all of the windows smash to pieces from the earthquake. Kevin jumped up and hit the emergency button; everyone seemed to be dazed. The second the emergency button was hit, a huge steel wall came crashing down across the inside of their building.

  The metal wall had been installed by Charles years ago as a safety precaution. It was installed so, in the event of an emergency, the VCTF could go into “hiding” if needed. There were no other windows in the entire building other than the front, so once the steel wall came down, no one would ever know what was going on in there. He had also reasoned when it was installed that it would be a safe way of getting their kind underground without anyone being the wiser.

  The earthquake stopped just as abruptly as it had started, and by the looks of the VCTF office alone, it had been a major one. The walls all had deep cracks running from ceiling to floor. They had been able to save the computers from hitting the floor, but desks were thrown about and papers were scattered everywhere. The electricity had gone out about midway through the earthquake. Kevin tried to reach someone through the earpieces, hoping the damage wasn’t this substantial throughout the city.

  “Charles, are you out there?” he called out. He waited just a few seconds and then tried, “Erica, can you hear me?”

  The earpieces were dead. He glanced over to Marshall. “If the
earpieces are down, chances are Charles’s and my house both took damage.” He then turned to Tom and Alec, taking charge of the situation. “Here is what we are going to do. Tom and Alec, I want the two of you to go find the remaining team and get them back to this office, now! If you run into any of the Community Watchmen crew, tell them we are going to need their help, too. Marshall and I are going to run and check on Charles and Erica, and see if we can get some of the equipment back up and running. In the meantime, if we happen to get phone lines back up, do not, I repeat do not answer the phones! I have a feeling we are going to have our hands full with our own first; if there’s this kind of damage above ground, I don’t even want to think about what our underground society looks like!”

  Marshall’s heart slammed into his chest as he remembered Stephanie telling him last night she was going there this morning. It took him a moment just to find his voice, his chest hurting so badly that if it were possible for a vampire to have a heart attack, he felt sure he was having one. “Kevin, Stephanie went underground this morning.” He rubbed his chest, willing at least a little of the pain to dissipate, and also realizing there was a sudden hollow spot in his chest. He couldn’t feel her presence! He glanced back up to Kevin to see the other man had just locked down, standing absolutely motionless; it was as if someone transformed him into a mummy. Suddenly, Kevin seemed to snap out of it, and started barking orders. “Okay guys, let’s go!”

  As they walked out the back door of the office, they were stunned at the complete and utter devastation everywhere they looked. People were walking around dazed, not sure what to do, or where to go. The men heard sirens off in the distance, and there were three large empty spots where tall buildings had once stood.

  “Do you think we could get the bikes through this?” Marshall asked.

  Kevin shook his head. “Not a chance. You know, the fastest way to get to my house without using transportation is probably to use the elevator and go through underground. I know the electricity is out, but they can still be used manually.”

  “Okay, then let’s go,” Marshall replied. The quicker he could get to the underground area and find Stephanie, the better he would feel. Because something was wrong, very wrong—he just knew it. He couldn’t feel her anymore, and that was what worried him the most.

  As they approached the elevator, Kevin reached around the wall that held the palm identification system. The manual override switch was hidden behind the wall. As the manual override switch was hit, the elevator doors slowly opened. They entered, and Kevin jumped up and punched a hole in the elevator’s ceiling. He reached for the cables and started manually lowering the elevator underground. They had reached about the midway point, when the elevator hit something below and stopped. Marshall pried the doors open to see what was stopping them only to discover they were sitting on top of a pile of concrete and rock. The elevator would go no further.

  “We can jump from here,” Marshall said, jumping practically before the words had left his mouth.

  The total devastation that greeted them was mind-numbing. Marshall’s heart broke as he surveyed the damage. Even though just about everyone down there was a vampire, it would be a miracle if everyone had survived the massive hit.

  “Marshall, take the elevator back up and leave a note for the rest of the team to get down here immediately! I know we have trapped vamps under here; we are going to need all the manpower we can get. I am going on ahead to see if I can get to the elevator at my house, and check on things. I will be back down here shortly,” Kevin ordered, and then took off in a dead run as soon as he was finished.

  *****

  Trapped on her back, the weight of the concrete alone was slowly crushing Stephanie. Only the feel of Pop Atkins’s cool hand still wrapped around hers helped to settle her and keep her calm. She lay there for a moment, trying to muster up the strength to call out to him, to check on him.

  After a moment, she heard the faintest whisper, but knew for certain it was her Pop Atkins. “Never give up, my child.” Then, suddenly, his hand was no longer holding hers; it seemed to have simply disappeared. A gritty feeling of sand could be felt where his hand had been just moments before. At that moment, she knew she had lost her beloved Pop Atkins. The crushing despair and agony that tore through her made it even more difficult to breathe. Stephanie listened around her, but heard nothing. The eerie silence brought on even more despair and panic. It was dark; she was buried under a ton of concrete, and she had difficulty breathing. How long would it take for anyone to get down there to search for survivors? And if the devastation had been bad underground, what shape was above ground? Could anyone even get down there to help?

  She couldn’t stop the panic attack, even though it made breathing more difficult. She lay there, both her spirit and her body crushed. Most of her body was numb by this point, and she was at least thankful that she didn’t feel any pain. At least, none on the outside. On the inside, her heart was broken, and she wondered if it would ever be the same again. What little bit of energy she may have had was now gone, zapped by the panic attack. She didn’t even have the energy to cry over her loss. Suddenly feeling very sleepy, she fought to stay awake for as long as she could, but the sleepiness only persisted. Not knowing how injured she was, or how long she would be stuck under the pile of rubble, she finally succumbed to a deep, dark sleep. Her last thoughts as she drifted off were that she hoped her family was okay, and she hoped that she woke back up.

  *****

  Marshall jumped back up to the elevator and manually pulled himself up into the office. Scott, Julietta, Nicholas, and Tom all greeted him in the office. “Guys, the underground society is in total devastation. We need all the help we can get down there, right now. We’ve got a lot of trapped vamps under tons of rubble; we’ve got to get moving!”

  Tom ran back to the spare room and dug out two shovels and a pick ax. Julietta scribbled a note stating where they were, and instructing anyone else who came in to come straight underground. Once Tom returned with the tools, everyone loaded into the elevator as Scott and Marshall lowered it back down to the concrete barrier.

  They jumped the remaining way; each of their faces showing the shock that Marshall had felt when he first arrived. The same question was on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Where do you even start?

  As second-in-command of the VCTF, Marshall took charge. “Let’s get to the area where the retirement village was.” He hoped they would find only injured vampires, and nothing worse. The team members made their way over to what they thought was the beginning of the village. It was difficult knowing where anything was supposed to be with the entire community leveled.

  As everyone pulled together to begin lifting the heavy chunks of concrete and debris, they had to be even more careful as to where they were putting it. The last thing they wanted was to bury someone even further down by stacking concrete on them. An open area was spotted, and they moved the large chunks over to the spot, one at a time, while looking for anything that would signal life. After about ten minutes, they had not come across anything yet, but Marshall yelled, “Stop!”

  Everyone immediately stopped working and went dead still. “Listen,” he instructed. “If there is anyone still alive, and they are able to call out to us, we should be able to hear them.”

  Everyone remained silent for a few seconds and then Marshall yelled, “Hello…anyone down there?” He then started calling some of the names of the elderly and Kevin’s sister. “Mrs. Jenkins, Mr. Atkins, Kate, Mrs. Yates, Ms. Rita, Stephanie.” His voice broke when he called his beloved’s name, and Julietta quickly stepped to his side.

  “We will find her,” she stated firmly, as she put her hand on his shoulder.

  Marshall heard someone approaching from behind them, and quickly spun around. “Who goes there?”

  “It’s me, Marshall,” Kevin said as he came into view with Erica by his side.

  The misery and anguish she felt showed plainly on her face. Marshall sighed. It was
bad enough that Stephanie was his mate, but he couldn’t imagine going through this as a parent knowing your child was trapped and buried under tons of concrete.

  “Is Charles okay?” Marshall inquired.

  “Yes, all systems are down, but he is working on getting the generator going and then bringing up the systems. He is sending out an emergency call for help to our other societies. We are going to need all the help we can get. He is hoping to get some of the generator power down here in a little while; that will make it easier to see,” Kevin replied as he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. It did knock some of the grey powder loose, allowing his natural color to come through. Marshall would have loved to tease him about it, but couldn’t. Not now.

  Erica immediately picked a spot and was carefully moving large chunks of concrete, all the while calling Stephanie’s name. Julietta went over to join her, and the rest of the team spread out a little and started moving the massive amount of debris one piece at a time to try to find their missing.

  They suddenly heard a noise, like a female trying to yell. Zeroing in on that area, they were able to locate and retrieve Kate in about ten minutes. They helped her out of the cave of concrete she was in, and she looked uninjured other than a gash on her forehead.

  Erica had stopped and immediately ran over to hug Kate. “I am so glad to see you!” she cried, emotion pouring off her in waves. Kate looked around and asked, “Has anyone else been located?”

  “No,” Erica replied with a worried frown. “And Stephanie was visiting down here this morning.”

  Kate hugged Erica tight. “We will find her. Come on,” she leaned over and started picking up chunks of concrete, helping them search.

  Scott yelled a few minutes later that he had found something. It was a hand, and they carefully moved the surrounding rocks and concrete to reveal an arm, and within minutes, they had pulled Dr. Carlson from the debris. He too, was in a bit of shock; he looked dazed, but nothing serious. He had been at the retirement village that morning checking on a few of the elderly when the quake hit. He joined their group to search for others who had survived, as more of the team showed up and joined in. Soon, they had a total of seventeen vampires digging their way down to find survivors.