by Alan Ryker
Dennis dragged him down the aisle of stalls. Through squinted, tear-filled eyes, Wheeler saw Dennis's prisoners, bound and bleeding. They watched him with wide eyes.
"My God…" he said, just before Dennis flung him into a stall. His head smacked the concrete and everything went black.
Chapter 16
Keith lay snoring on top of the comforters, still wearing the same, dirty clothes. Beer cans littered the floor. The dogs began barking from the utility room, but it wasn't enough to wake Keith. Besides, it was only a second later that Dennis leapt through Keith's bedroom door and onto the bed, pinning Keith's shoulders with his knees.
Keith jerked his head up and struggled to move. "What? What the…?"
Dennis smiled down at him and let him struggle. Eventually, Keith understood what was happening and stopped. It wasn't doing any good, only giving Dennis satisfaction.
Dennis leaned over and flipped on the bedside lamp. His knee crushed Keith's shoulder. Keith worked to conceal the grimace.
"You're not looking good, Keith. I think you're losing it."
"You don't look so great yourself."
Dennis ran his clawed, blood coated hands down his shirt. The stiff fabric didn't respond to the tidying movement. "You don't seem surprised to see me." He smiled, displaying his fangs.
"I figured the vampires got you, being a scrawny little cripple. Knew it was you must have killed Brandon. You always seemed jealous of him."
Dennis stopped smiling. "That's not true. He couldn't go on after what you'd done to him, you sick bastard." Dennis regained his composure and smiled again. "Things kinda got flipped, now. You made me a cripple, but I ain't crippled anymore. And look at you. The big tough rancher pinned like a bug."
Dennis grabbed Keith's face and leaned forward, baring his fangs. He moved Keith's head around, making him examine the changes he'd undergone.
Dennis was acting like a big man, like he'd always tried to do.
While he fooled around, Keith worked his right hand down into his pocket. Dennis had his arm pinned down by his side, but he managed to pull out his pocketknife.
"Don't worry," Dennis said. "I'm not gonna kill you yet. Before I'm done with you, you'll beg for my fangs."
"Course you're not gonna kill me." Keith flicked the knife open and jammed it into the back of Dennis's thigh. Dennis screamed and fell backwards off Keith's chest, onto his butt on the bed. Keith sat up, slammed the knife into Dennis's throat and pulled it from ear to ear.
Black, clotted blood poured from the huge wound. Dennis held it with both hands and rolled off the bed. He stumbled for the door, but Keith followed after him, stabbing him in the back over and over, aiming for the lungs and kidneys with the stout blade.
Dennis fell to his knees and crawled for the stairs, still gripping his slit throat with one hand.
"I thought you were some kind of badass now," Keith said. He kicked Dennis, sending him rolling down the stairs.
At the landing, Dennis managed to get to his hands and knees.
"No," he croaked. He turned and faced Keith, and rose up from his hands into a kneeling position. Keith watched the wound in Dennis's throat seal itself up, closing from the outside edges to the center, until it was completely healed. Dennis shouted, "No!"
From the top of the stairs, Keith whipped the knife. It thunked solidly into Dennis's forehead. Dennis fell backward with his legs twisted awkwardly beneath him and stared blankly up at the ceiling. He was motionless except for his hands, which fluttered on his limp wrists like wounded birds.
Keith snorted and sat on the top step, breathing hard.
Then Dennis reached up and pulled the knife from his skull.
"Goddamn it," Keith said.
Dennis rolled over and got to his hands and knees. Keith ran down the stairs and kicked him in the stomach several times, but Dennis rose shakily. Keith hit Dennis in the jaw as he got to his feet, until Dennis stood before him. Keith stopped hitting him when he saw that Dennis was letting him do it.
Dennis flexed his jaw and wiggled it in his hand. Then he smiled and nodded. "You ever box?"
Keith glowered at him.
Dennis shoved Keith with both hands, sending him flying. His back hit the wall, then his head, and for a second his vision went black. He felt Dennis lift him and pin him to the wall by his wrists. He'd apparently learned his lesson about leaving Keith's hands free.
Dennis's twisted face came back into focus. He waited. Keith knew that he wanted him to struggle, so he didn't.
"Tough old man. But the world is moving on. You're an antique. You're obsolete. You're the old model monster, and there's not room for both of us."
Dennis paused. Keith didn't reply. So Dennis continued. "But like I said, I'm not going to kill you yet. First, I'm going to take everything you have that's good and make it bad. Everything you haven't managed to ruin yourself, I'm going to ruin. Now that doesn't leave much to work with," Dennis laughed, "but I've done what I could. I just paid a visit to your brother."
Finally Keith struggled. He could ignore threats to himself, but Dennis had known where to strike. He yanked at the cold hands that clamped his wrists to the wall. He let his legs go loose and tried to drop from Dennis's grip. Dennis had gotten so strong. Panting, Keith finally stopped.
Dennis said, "The first thing you'll want to do is go over there and finish them off. Because I left them alive. So Roy and Sheila are gonna turn soon. And they won't be like me. They'll be mindless, stinking, slobbering beasts."
Keith ground his teeth, but didn't move. Dennis shrugged. "See, I'm unique. It's a lonely existence. So tonight I'm going to make a companion. I'm going to turn Jessica."
Keith snapped again, thrashing and bellowing. "I'll kill you. I swear to God and the Devil that I will hunt you down and gut you."
"Shhh. Hush. We both know that's not gonna happen. But you can sure give it a shot, tough guy. After you take care of Roy and Sheila, you'd better find me before sunrise, because that's when I make Jessica the second true vampire."
Dennis pulled Keith back and slammed him into the wall. Slowly at first. Casually. As if to show him how easy it was. But then harder and harder, until Keith felt his back smash through the sheetrock and bounce between exposed studs. He was nearly unconscious when Dennis dropped him. He could only just make out Dennis's face and the fangs that seemed to have grown with his excitement.
"But if you find me," Dennis said, "I'm just gonna make you watch as I turn her, and then I'm gonna feed you to her."
Dennis stood. He retracted his fangs. He turned to leave, and as he walked out the front door, he said, "But you do as your conscious tells you."
Keith got shakily to his feet. In his bedroom, he pulled his boots on. He took a small revolver from his night stand and slid it into the top of his right boot. He took his Ruger .45 semi-automatic from the top of his closet and stuck it in the back of his jeans.
As thoughts entered his brain, he pushed them away; he focused on his anger.
Down in the living room he picked up his gore-covered pocketknife. He wiped it on the leg of his jeans. Not much of the mess came away but he folded it and slipped it into his pocket. He took his hatchet and hunting knife from the hall closet and clipped them to his belt. He grabbed his hat and his shotgun and started out the door.
He paused and turned back, looking around the living room. Irene's living room.
He pushed his thoughts away, put his hat on his head, and walked out the door.
In his truck, Keith tore down the short stretch of dirt road to Roy's house. Two of his hounds barked and bounced excitedly in the back. They always picked up Keith's mood.
Roy's house loomed close when something hit Keith's door hard enough to knock the truck up off its driver's-side tires for a moment. Keith turned his head away from the road and saw Dennis's fanged face smiling at him from only inches away. Latched onto the side of the moving truck, Dennis ripped Keith's door off and tossed it into the night. Then he did the s
ame to Keith.
When Keith rolled to a stop in the ditch, Dennis was standing over him. "Hurry, Keith. Sheila's turned."
Keith's dogs jumped from the back of the truck and ran at the pair, but Dennis sprinted away. The dogs turned to follow until Keith called them back.
The truck choked and stalled and Keith got his shotgun out of it before running up to Roy's house. The dogs ran at his heels.
"Stay."
They whimpered but didn't follow him up and into the dark house.
The front door lay in splintered chunks. Keith walked carefully through the doorway with his shotgun to his shoulder. Glass crunched under his boot heels. There was no point in being quiet anyway.
He walked slowly across the foyer and until he could see down the short hallway to the kitchen. The kitchen light was on, and there, framed in the doorway, stood Sheila and Roy. Sheila had Roy grasped in a bear hug, her face buried in his neck. As Keith stepped into the hallway, she saw him and shrieked but still held Roy to her chest.
Keith slung the shotgun and drew his .45. Sheila didn't even seem to recognize what he was doing. She stared at him, fangs bared, as he aimed and fired.
Her head snapped back, its contents hitting the far wall, and she dropped to the floor. Roy turned to Keith and clutched his throat. Blood poured from around his fingers and from his mouth. Silent, he dropped.
Keith sat on the kitchen floor, Roy's head in his lap. Roy clutched at Keith at first, but soon he faded.
"You were such a sweet kid. Always wanting to do whatever I did. In some ways you're still that kid. But you should have stopped following me. I should have stopped letting you.
"I don't think you were cut out for this life. It seems like out here you can work hard, take care of your family, go to church every Sunday, and there's still some decision to be made that'll make you question the sort of man you are. You talked about our burden of sin, but what did you ever know about it? I figured I already knew the sort of man I was, so I was always willing to take on your share. Now I guess I will again. After Irene died, you and Sheila and Jessica managed to keep that small part of me that was still human alive. But I think this is too much, Roy."
Roy's hand had fallen away from his throat. Blood no longer spurted out, but leaked out slowly.
"I can do this. I can keep you from becoming one of them. But a man can only take on so much sin before losing himself. I think this is going to be it."
Keith stood and Roy's head thumped on the floor.
"But I suppose I deserve it. Goodbye, Roy."
Keith shouted for Jessica. He searched the house but he knew he wouldn't find her. Keith didn't consider Dennis at all trustworthy on average, but when it came to taking his revenge he'd been honest up to that point. Dennis had taken her, and Keith would have to find her—quickly.
Keith walked out of the kitchen door to Roy's tool shed. He grabbed the gas can from beside the lawnmower.
Walking back, he noticed a pinprick of light beaming out from the house. He was confused for a moment. Then he realized that the bullet he'd shot Sheila with had gone through her skull and then straight through the wall.
Back in the house, Keith splashed gasoline all around the first floor, ending in the kitchen. He drenched the corpses of his brother and sister-in-law, then realized he had no matches. He knew there'd be some in the junk drawer, but the fumes were making him sick to his stomach by the time he found them.
When he flicked a match through the door, the house erupted immediately.
Keith stood and watched it burn. But in his head he was damning himself. In his head, he was knocking at Dennis's trailer door.
"What the Hell do you want?" Dennis had asked.
"I want to buy some morphine."
Dennis stuck his head out the door and looked around. "Is this some kind of joke?"
Keith didn't respond.
"No, you don't make jokes, do you? Why do you want morphine?"
"Why do you care?"
Dennis nodded. "I guess I don't." He stepped aside and with a sweep of his arm said, "Welcome to my abode."
"Just bring it out."
Dennis shrugged. "Whatever."
He closed the door. A minute later, he opened it.
"You're lucky. I don't usually have morphine, but I just traded some off a vet."
"A veteran?"
"A veterinarian."
"This is for animals?"
"It's all the same."
"How much?"
Dennis smiled.
At the hospital, Keith had sat the vial of morphine and the hypodermic needle on Irene's tray.
"He said that's enough?" she asked.
"I asked him for enough for ten times. I figure that even with your tolerance, that's enough."
"You don't think he cheated you?"
Keith raised an eyebrow.
"No, I suppose he didn't," she said.
Irene picked up the needle and tried to stick it into the vial. Her hands shook too badly. Keith watched until she jabbed herself in the thumb and dropped the vial.
"Here," he said. He drew all the morphine up into the syringe. Irene tried to take it from him, but he shook his head and stuck the needle into the IV.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I love you."
"I love you too."
Eventually she said, "I'm ready."
Keith pressed the plunger. Irene's breathing slowed immediately. He pulled her into his arms and held her until she died.
The kitchen door exploded out. Flames erupted from the opening as something tumbled down the short flight of stairs. It dragged itself along the ground, away from the burning house. The flames covering its body began to go out. It was Roy.
Keith watched him for a moment, then walked over. Roy didn't react, didn't acknowledge Keith's presence. He continued to crawl away. His skin was a mottled blend of wet red and flaky black. He wouldn't have wanted to be a vampire. So with his hatchet, Keith took another burden upon himself.
He dragged Roy's body back up the short set of concrete stairs. He instinctively held his breath as he felt the heat from the fire. He pushed Roy back inside the door, then tossed Roy's head in after the body.
Keith watched the house burn for a few more minutes. As it started to collapse, he took his dogs and followed them into the night.
Chapter 17
Dennis slipped quietly into the barn. At the far end, his herd had mostly settled in for the night. The addition of Sheriff Wheeler had caused some commotion, but soon they sank back into their own personal misery. Someone was whimpering. It sounded like Patty, with the smashed face and the broken bones. He felt a bit bad for her, but he was surprised that he didn't feel worse. They'd been pretty friendly before. But he was of a different species now, a more advanced species. He felt no real moral bonds to her. He was predator; she was prey. He didn't want her to suffer though. Keith would be there soon, and once he finished with him he'd end her suffering.
He turned his ears up to the loft overhead, heard frustrated grunts and weight shifting. Sounded like Jessica was trying to get out of her ropes. He walked further into the barn, then turned and jumped up to the loft.
Squatted in her nightshirt, Jessica looked at him like a guilty animal, then set her jaw in that Harris way.
"Cut that out, now," Dennis said. "I left them loose so they wouldn't hurt. You don't want me to tie you up like I did them down there." He gestured towards the milking stalls at the other end of the barn.
"What in the Hell is wrong with you?"
He ignored the question and came forward with his offering. "I thought you might be thirsty. I snagged you a beer." He opened it and tried to hold it to her mouth, but she turned away, whipping her hair over his hands. He wasn't hungry, but he still struggled. He'd have to control himself very carefully when the time came to turn her. If the smell of her hair alone excited him, the taste of her blood would be even worse.
He said, "Enjoy it while you can. Soon you'll only drink blood."<
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"What did you do to my parents?"
"They're fine." He didn't want to lie to her. He didn't mind lying that much, but he didn't feel it was the right way to start a relationship that could last for a very, very long time. But he thought it would be more than she could handle right then. She'd understand after she changed. She'd see that they'd been only cattle. "I wouldn't hurt your family."
"Well, my family will hurt you. My uncle Keith will hunt you down. You have got to be the single dumbest asshole I've ever known. Do you know what he's gonna do to you, Dennis? Do you? I've already been trying to keep him from killing you."
That respect. Keith was nothing but a mean redneck, and everyone gave him that respect. But he'd break him down right in front of her. He'd show her that it was all show, that behind the front Keith put up hid a weak, scared man. Once he'd done that, he'd finally get the respect he deserved. "I know what your uncle is gonna do. He's gonna follow the trail I left his dogs and come right through that door. But he won't save you. I'll save you."
Jessica scoffed and almost spoke, but Dennis wasn't going to let her scorn him anymore. "I'll save you from a boring, normal life, and I'll save you from him.
"From who?" He could see real confusion on her face, but he was going to straighten her out.
"See this?" Dennis extended his arm.
"Your bad arm. It works."
"You didn't say anything earlier."
"It wasn't my first concern."
"You know how it got bad?"
"I heard rumors."
"You heard rumors that your uncle did it?"
"Yeah. Rumors."
"He's not the man you think he is. I helped him—"
Jessica barked out a laugh. "How could you ever help him?"
"I helped him! And in return he crippled me. Wrecked my shoulder so bad that the broken bones cut up all the nerves and they never healed. He's not the man you think. He's a lunatic. You want to know how I helped him?"
"Yeah, sure." Jessica rolled her eyes.