“And do you have any ideas?”
Saul stared out into those dark woods, thinking about the fact that Leibald’s dead body was out there somewhere and what that could mean.
“None,” he admitted.
“You know what dad would have done?” Jill said with a reluctant smile.
“Gotten pissed and tried to fight them all off, tooth and nail. Tough, stubborn old bastard.”
“That’s right. And I think that’s what we have to do. You up for a fight?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “Always. How about you?”
“Of course. Otherwise, why show up?”
“I thought you said it was so we could die together.”
“I say a lot of cheesy crap sometimes.”
They laughed softly together on the back porch as they had done before their father had been killed and Jill had run away. It was the first time in a long time that Saul felt like he was actually a part of a real family.
3
Kara’s day felt as if it might never end. She’d gone out to Deke’s after seeing the horrifying footage on Jason Eastman’s camera. She had not spoken a word about the footage to Deke, not anyone else for that matter. She had called Sheriff Morel to share it with him, but he was out for the day, headed out for another doctor’s visit.
She’d found nothing of worth during her initial investigation of Deke’s property. There were no footprints, no signs of the attacker having returned recently. She had also checked the trees along the edge of the pasture for any traces of other cameras having been set up and saw nothing.
Kara had wrapped her day up by trying Sheriff Morel on the phone (still no answer), and going over Jason’s footage again. She then did the day’s paperwork, followed up on a handful of other smalltime cases, and finally left the office at nine o’clock that night.
Back at home, Kara ate a meager dinner of microwaved mac and cheese and a hot dog. She tried to find something worth watching on TV; when that proved useless, she thought she might take a hot bath and get to be early.
She ran her bath, just as hot as she could stand it, and threw in her usual bubble bath and body gel. She stripped down and slipped into the tub, saddened by the fact that being submerged in the hot water was the most sensual thing she had experienced in almost two years.
Kara sat there, a beer within reach on the floor. She closed her eyes and let the steam and salts do their work. She felt her mind trying to drift back towards those fantasies of Saul Benton but wouldn’t allow it to happen. Instead, she focused on the video she had found on Jason Eastman’s computer and tried to decipher what it meant.
Had it been a monster of some sort or maybe some sort of mutated bear? Or maybe it was even—
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shattering glass from elsewhere in her house. It sounded huge and clamorous, as if the living room window had caved in. She sat up straight, her nerves on edge. Suddenly, her warm relaxing bath felt like a small bubbly prison.
As she truly began to understand what this noise was, another noise filled her house and it nearly made her scream. A hellish shriek, like something from a haunted house prop at the fair, resounded through her house, into the bathroom and made her jump.
What the hell?
Then she heard the footfalls. They were fast and, if her instinct was correct, there was more than one set.
She stood up, bubbles sliding down her naked frame, and started to get out of the bathtub as quickly as she could without slipping on the floor.
But she wasn’t quick enough. As she placed her right foot on the floor, two men came sprinting through her bathroom door. She reflexively turned away from them to run, not realizing that there was really nowhere to run.
She had only seen them for two seconds before acting, but had seen something peculiar about them right away. There was something very wrong with these men; their faces were distended somehow, distorted. They looked pale and almost dead.
As she turned away, her foot slipped on the floor and she went to the ground hard. She knocked over her beer and scrambled against the wall. She was very aware that she was naked, but the stares of the intruders made her think that they didn’t care about that. They looked possessed, like something—
The man closest to her opened his mouth and hissed at her. Kara saw two teeth sprouting down like fangs.
Vampire, she thought. Seriously…what the—
The lead vampire hurled himself at her. Acting purely on survival instinct and adrenaline, Kara grabbed the fallen beer bottle and swung it hard. The bottle hit the vampire (no, no, just a man, it has to be a man because vampires don’t exist, her mind begged frantically) in the face and exploded. He shrieked and hit the floor.
Kara took advantage of this small window and got to her sudsy feet before the second man had a chance to advance on her. She nearly lost her footing again as she raced for the back of her bathroom where there was a modest-sized closet where she kept towels, robes, and toiletries.
Behind her, the two men gave chase. Kara dared to look back only once. All she saw were two gaping mouths, one streaked with its own blood and studded with bits of beer bottle, and both with long pointed teeth.
Kara screamed at the unreality of it all as she made it to the closet. She thanked her lucky stars that it was open; had it been closed, she would have been caught in the time it took her to grab the knob and open it.
She threw herself into the closet and slammed the door hard. She fumbled with the lock as the knob began to wiggle, being tugged from the other side. The lock engaged and Kara let out another scream. She fell against the closet wall and realized that she barely had enough room to sit in the space between the floor and the closet’s bottom shelf.
“Oh my God, what the hell, what the hell,” she breathed as she felt another scream building up in her chest.
She sat there, huddled in the darkness with toilet paper and towels, as two creatures that had no business existing started hammering violently at the door.
4
Saul and Jill stayed out on the back porch as night fell. The bottle of red wine sat empty between them as they caught up on the past and shared stories about their father. On occasion, Saul would look out to the forests, towards the area where their father had been mysteriously killed. There were several questions he still wanted answered about his father’s death, but he had not had the courage to ask Benali on the few occasions they had spoken in the past few days. Besides that, there had been other issues at hand.
“So…” Jill said as they steered the conversation away from their father. “Tell me about Nikki. How the hell did you end up with a mortal?”
“It’s tricky,” Saul said. He went on to explain how Nikki had ended up coming to his cabin unannounced. The self-assured way in which she had made her way into his life was the easy part to tell. The hard part was trying to explain what might be going on between them.
“So what is she to you?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“Ha…you’ve even starting talking like a human. You’ve been blending in well, I see.”
“Not funny.”
“All jokes aside,” Jill said. “Have you slept with her?”
Saul nodded. “Yes.”
“So then you two are linked. Even if Leibald only gave her the most minimal of powers, you’d now be linked to her.”
“Yeah, but what concerns me is that she apparently got a significant amount of power. If she was able to best Leibald, she’s incredibly powerful, especially for a fledging.”
“Do you think she realizes that yet?”
Saul shook his head. “Doubtful.”
Jill thought on this for a moment. “So with these other families potentially coming for us, we could have a situation on our hands, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I think the question becomes whether or not we let her fight with us.”
“Hell no,” Saul said. “I would ask her not to
.”
“But do you think she’ll be able to stay away? Do you think she’ll sit the fight out, especially now that you two are linked?”
Saul knew Jill had a point and said nothing.
“So,” Jill said, “do we let her fight?”
“It depends on how comfortable she is with her new power.”
“You know,” Jill said. “Even with her powers, I don’t even know how she’d help. I am very afraid that we’re going to die. We have no chance of fighting the Greelys, much less several other families at the same time. I came here not because I had any hope of winning. I came because I wanted to see my brother before I died. To die together, if it came to that.”
Again, Saul was silent. He reached out and took his sister’s hand for the first time in a very long time.
“Do you want me to go get her for you?” Jill asked.
“How? I don’t even know where she lives.”
“It doesn’t matter. Leibald nibbled on her. All I have to do is follow that stink.”
“I’ll go get her,” Saul said.
“No. Let me. No matter how much you deny it, your heart is already too involved in this. I’m an impartial party. I’ll get her for you.”
Saul thought for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you,” he said.
Jill smiled and, with a nod of her own, got up and headed inside. Saul sat on the back porch, his thoughts on Nikki and what a future with her as part of their clan might be like. When he heard Jill’s car crank to life from the driveway, he started to wonder if maybe they would be able to survive the coming battle.
It was unlikely, but he was going to give it a hell of a try.
5
There was no light in the closet. The only way Kara was able to see anything was from the tiny shaft of light that came in through the crack along the bottom of the door. That light seemed to tremble every five seconds or so as the vampires on the other side continued slamming against the wood. It had begun cracking beneath their power. They had been attacking the door for at least ten minutes and every time the door trembled in its frame, it seemed to get weaker.
It was easy to think of her options; she had none. Kara had no alarm that would have been set off when the creatures came in through her living room window. Her cell phone was in the bedroom. All she had in this closet for a weapon was a plunger.
Another thud came against the door. She heard the hinges jingle and saw another split in the wood. And was it her imagination, or was the top of the door beginning to give?
There was simply too much to think about. The situation itself was so otherworldly it made her feel like she was in some horrible dream. The very notion of vampires—actual real-life vampires—on the other side of the door was mind-boggling. Then there was the almost comical fact that she had stupidly closed herself in her linen closet, naked and defenseless. When the vampires broke through the door, they’d have her easily. She seriously thought about breaking the handle of the plunger and using it as a stake; the idea only served to send her mind ever close to the edges of lunacy.
Another bang against the door. And then another.
Kara could actually see the door bucking now. The slant of light on the floor grew bigger. Above her, at the height of the door knob, she saw a set of fingers prying between the door and the frame. The fingers gripped and then pulled. The door groaned.
Kara began to scream. Police training and tough girl exterior be damned, she screamed in terror. She screamed for her life.
The door groaned again, gave one final deafening crack of wood, and then it was torn from the frame. The vampire in front tossed the door across the bathroom where it broke her mirror above the sink.
In a flurry of panicked motion, Kara did her best to sprint out of her crouched position in the closet. She stayed low, hoping to knock the first vampire down and somehow dodge the second. If she could just get out of the bathroom, she might have a chance.
But she didn’t even make it by the first one. She struck his leg with her shoulder and was surprised to find that it felt as solid as oak. She felt a hand like a vice clamp down on the back of her neck. She was lifted from the ground, again terrifyingly aware of her nakedness. Even with her back arched for escape and her breasts no more than six inches from the creature’s face, he showed no interest.
She then saw the fangs as the second vampire came closer to them. They both eyed her like meat about to be devoured. Kara couldn’t stop the tears from coming, nor the scream that rose in her throat.
The scream stopped short, though.
A sound, wet and somehow disgusting, broke the horrifying moment. The second vampire looked quizzically skyward. Kara saw that something had come through its chest, directly where its heart was. It stumbled and then dropped to the floor with a shriek.
The vampire holding her let her go and wheeled around to see what had happened. When Karta hit the floor, she was sure she must have hit her head because what she saw made no sense at all.
Nikki Galimore stood there with the fire poker from Kara’s fireplace. It was streaked with gore from having just passed through the chest of the second vampire. They shared a quick and awkward glance as the remaining vampire barreled towards Nikki.
Kara watched the scene unfold like some weird stage play. The bathroom seemed to spin all around her. This familiar room was more like a funhouse now.
The vampire lunged at Nikki and she was able to dodge him easily. She moved much faster and when she sidestepped his advance, she swung the fire poker around hard and smashed him in the back of the head. There was a meaty thud as the creature’s skull caved in but the moment he hit the floor, he started to get back to his feet.
Of course, Kara thought. It’s a vampire. You can only kill it by impaling its heart.
This was followed by another inner voice: Christ that sounds stupid. Are you being serious right now?
But despite her logical objections, Kara watched as Nikki leveled the vampire with a solid kick to the stomach. When it fell on its back, Nikki gave it no time to recover. She raised the poker over her head and brought it down with a vengeance. She plunged the weapon into the thing’s heart. Blood pooled up instantly and started running onto Kara’s bathroom floor.
Kara again felt that traitorous scream rising in her throat. It was just too much. It was insane.
Nikki dropped the fire poker to the floor and seemed to concentrate on something. She then went to Nikki and offered her hand. Kara took it and let Nikki help her to her feet, dazed.
“You should get dressed,” Nikki said. “Quick.”
Kara nodded, walking shakily into her adjoined bedroom. She cast a glance back to Nikki and, in a trembling voice, asked: “Vampires? Right? Those were—”
“Yeah.”
“But how—”
“Have you seen any other ones tonight?” Nikki asked.
“No,” Kara said as she quickly slid on a tee shirt and jeans. “Should I have?”
Nikki shrugged. “There are more out there. I can smell them.”
Kara walked directly to Nikki and got in her face. “What the fuck is going on?” It almost came out in a scream but lost some of its strength near the end.
“The simple answer is that there are vampires in Red Creek. And it might be my fault.”
“There’s no way this is real, no way this is—”
Nikki pointed to the dead vampires in the bathroom. “They look pretty real to me. I know it’s hard to accept. But if you are the acting sheriff of this shithole, you need to accept it real quick.”
“What’s happening?” Again, lunacy was threatening to overtake her. Somehow, the sight of blood on her bathroom floor managed to thwart it.
“I can tell you what I know. You won’t like most of it and might not even believe me. But I can take you somewhere…to someone that has the answers.”
For some reason, something clicked in Kara’s head. The thought itself made no sense but when she verbalized it, it sounded like fact.
“I’ll tell you everything,” Nikki said, urgently now. “But for now we need to get in your car and haul ass out of here. I’m sure there are more on the way. They apparently don’t like it when you kill their kind.”
Kara had a million questions but she let them rest for the moment. She grabbed her keys from her nightstand and led Nikki back to the living room where, as she expected, the window had been shattered to allow the vampires entrance.
When they stepped outside, Kara instantly heard shrieks and screams in the distance. Some sounded like the dead creatures in her bathroom, but others were unmistakably human.
Nikki and Kara got into Kara’s car and headed straight for the heart of town.
Where Red Creek was currently being torn apart by Leibald’s back-up plan.
6
As Nikki and Kara headed toward the small cabin that had been a source of fear and gossip in Red Creek, the town itself was slowly starting to unravel into chaotic darkness. As Nikki had guessed, the vampires that had come smashing through Kara’s living room window were not the only ones running rampant.
They drove to Saul’s cabin by a turn-off that wound back into the woods and sloped up into the large expanse of open land that Deke Goode’s farm sat on. Had they turned down this road instead of speeding further into the woods of Red Creek, they might have seen Deke’s pasture turned into a bloodbath as the remainder of his cattle were slaughtered.
Deke was watching a rerun of CSI when he heard the first squealing noises from the pasture. He angrily sat his glass of sweet tea down onto the coffee table and went to his coat closet where he kept his Winchester rifle. He grabbed the rifle and stormed out onto his back porch. The flood lights on the back porch kicked on when they picked up his motion and it was by that light that Deke saw the scene of horror out in his pasture.
At least ten people were out there, attacking his cows. There might have been more, but they were moving too damned fast for him to make any sense of it. As he watched, three of the people took down a steer and when it was on the ground another one tore into its stomach with hands and teeth.
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