Mark looked back at the door Lea had left lying against the wall, and his unease flared into outright alarm.
“Lea, I don’t think you should–”
Below them, Promise said, “I think I hear something.”
Mark’s stomach tightened, and his hands gripped the door convulsively. He looked at Lea and Peter, who were tensed over the hole. For a brief moment, everything seemed frozen as they all held their breath.
Then Promise screamed.
Peter looked at Mark, his face convulsing into lines of panic. “Drop the door! Drop the door!”
Mark hesitated, unsure. Everything in his mind cautioned him against dropping a heavy door into an area he couldn’t see. He didn’t want it to land on Promise.
Peter yelled at him again. “Mark! Drop it now!” He looked back into the hole. “Promise, grab the straps! I’m pulling you out!”
Promise screamed again.
Mark shuffled the board forward into the slit, and it jammed, half of the door in the slit, the other half caught on the edge. “Shit!” he yelled and repositioned it, lifting it, not feeling the strain across his back.
Promise screamed again, and under her scream, separate from it, Mark heard a hissing pant, almost a chuckle. It seemed to rise through the openings in the floor like clouds of evil, oily smoke. It made his blood run cold.
“Here it comes!” Mark yelled. “Promise, MOVE!”
The door sunk almost out of sight and thunked onto the floor below, but Promise screamed on and on, and Lea, watching from above, began to scream with her. Six inches of board stuck up above the floor, and Mark watched in horror as the door he’d just dropped into place began to vibrate and shimmy; something was beating itself against it. The frustrated buzzing whine of a vampire came ululating through the floorboards, and the strength ran out of his legs. The door shimmied again and again and then started to tilt. Mark realized that they’d made no provision to hold it in place at the bottom. Whatever was down there would be able to kick or push its way right through to Promise.
“Pull her out! Pull her out of there! I thought you were supposed to be strong!” Lea screamed at Peter, crazed with fear.
“She’s too panicked! She won’t grab the straps!” Peter yelled, his voice desperate. “Promise! Grab the straps!”
Mark scrambled to where Peter and Lea knelt, struggling with the straps over the hole. Peter’s face was red with a mixture of fury and fear. As Mark approached, Peter glanced up and Mark thought he caught a flash of vampire fire in Peter’s eyes. It stopped him in his tracks.
“Help us!” Peter said, his voice a rising growl.
Mark scrambled the rest of the way across, almost knocking Lea into the opening. He lifted her aside, tumbling her halfway across the room, once again unaware of the tearing sensation across his shoulders. He grabbed the straps that had fallen from her slackening fingers.
Then he looked into the hole. It was like looking into dark hell.
Promise had her back against the wall and was struggling to hold the mesh door in place with her foot. A long arm, tipped with ragged, dirty fingernails, swiped at her face: the vampire must have broken through at least part of the mesh. Promise’s head was turned, and she screamed again as the claws raked her cheek, drawing thin lines of blood. The vampire thumped against the door and thumped again, pushing the door further back into the space as it screamed and gurgled, maddened by prey so close.
Its next strike would take her jugular if they didn’t get her out of there.
Then the vampire’s hand disappeared, and Mark heard another sound from somewhere closer to the laundry room door opening. A shriek of triumph battered his eardrums…another vampire had found its way into the laundry room. Mark’s stomach clenched as the walls and floor below them began to vibrate as though an earthquake had decided to hit. Then came the meaty, viscous sound of skin being torn as the vampires growled and hissed out of sight.
They were fighting each other.
Promise had a chance.
“Promise! Grab the straps!” Mark yelled, bellowing, and he felt something catch in his throat.
In the extremity of her fear, Promise did not hear him. He dug desperately in his memory and then tried one more time, “Destiny! Destiny, grab the straps!”
Hearing her name–her birth name–seemed to clear the channels in her terrified mind.
She looked up, still screaming, and finally saw the dangling straps. She grabbed them and wound them tight around her forearms. Peter and Mark yanked, falling back into the room. Promise appeared in the opening and scrambled the rest of the way up, her sneakers digging at the edge of the opening. Still screaming, she crashed into Mark and Peter. The three toppled to the floor in a heap, tangled in the straps and each other.
Below them came a wall-shaking bang as the struggling vampires burst through the mesh door and slammed into the back wall of the laundry room. Now they were directly under the hole with access to the room.
From his spot next to the opening, Mark saw a hand appear at the edge, the white fingers straining as it began to pull itself up and into the room. Even in the gloom, Mark could see the black stains on its knuckles; the accumulation of blood and dirt caked under its nails. But Promise was on his chest, and his legs were twisted beneath him. He shifted and struggled to rise but realized all at once that he’d never be able to get to the opening in time to keep the vampire from pulling itself through.
Despair filled him like cold, muddy water, and he couldn’t draw a breath. Even his throat seemed choked with gritty silt.
Then Lea dropped the weighted board over the hole, and the vampire screeched again, its hand pinched between the board and the floor. Lea stomped on the hand, bringing her sneaker down as hard as she could. It slipped out of sight, and the board slammed into place. Lea collapsed onto it, cross-legged. She looked across the room to the other three toppled in a heap, her eyes huge in her face.
She burst into tears.
They huddled together through the night like terrified, exhausted puppies in the small, reinforced bedroom above the laundry room. They listened as the vampires, emboldened by the freshly spilled blood, battered themselves against the walls and ceiling of the room below. The house shook with the force of their bloodlust.
They waited for morning to come.
~ ~ ~
Peter and Mark stood shoulder to shoulder and watched Promise in the yard of the safe house. She leaned against Ash, eyes closed, her arms around his neck. He stood, patient and steadfast, breathing gently.
Through the previous night, the small bedroom they were in had become cloying and fetid with their close-held, twice-breathed fear. This morning, the four of them had emerged, pale and shaken, into the dawn light. There were no whoops of happiness, only a feeling of exhausted relief. They hadn’t talked on their walk back to the safe house, but at one point, Lea had taken Promise’s hand and held it for two blocks.
Without consultation, they’d each dropped into their respective beds. Promise had called out once in her sleep, some time around mid-morning. Peter had gone to her, but found that she was up and leading the horses out into the yard. She’d barely spared him a glance. Her face was paler even than when they’d left the safe house, and he wondered how bad a nightmare had to be to make you lose your color.
He had pulled together food, obviously expecting her to come back in, but by the time Lea and Mark came down, Promise was still outside with the horses and the dog. Lea started to make coffee, and first Peter and then Mark had gone to stand at the back door and stare out at Promise.
Mark cleared his throat. “Well…that was kind of a fuck-up.”
It was the first any of them had spoken since the catastrophe the night before.
Peter nodded and, not taking his eyes from Promise, said, “I’d say so.”
“We’re all okay, though. So there’s that,” Mark said. “Promise has those scratches on her face, and my shoulders feel like someone’s been chewing on them, b
ut other than that…”
“Yeah,” Peter said, after another pause, “It could have been worse.”
“I don’t know how,” Lea said from the kitchen. “That was pretty damn bad. I peed my pants, even. What could have made it worse? Pooping in them?” Her voice was disgusted and also somehow harsher, older.
“That’s…that’s gross, Lea,” Mark said, his voice registering surprise and also an indecisiveness as to whether she was joking or not.
“Yeah, well,” she said and sat to drink her coffee. She glanced at Peter and Mark and could see Promise in the yard beyond outside the door. “It’s about the only thing that could have made it worse. Outside of death, I mean. Or getting bit.” Then, shockingly, she giggled, and it was her same old breathy, helpless giggle. “I guess I better wear a diaper tonight.”
Peter and Mark looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and then looked at Lea.
“What’s that mean?” Mark asked.
“When we go back tonight. When we try again. I’ll wear a diaper this time,” she said slowly, as if explaining to children. “In case I get the you-know-what scared out of me.”
Mark snorted, and Peter shook his head.
“I don’t think Promise is going to want to try that again. She was terrified and almost killed,” Peter said, and Mark nodded his assent.
Lea took another sip of coffee and considered them over the rim of her mug. She shrugged. “We’ll see,” she said and smiled to herself. Peter liked Promise–he might even be halfway in love with her–but he didn’t know her yet. Neither did Mark, not really. Not the way Lea knew her. Boys get a set image in their heads about girls–the way they should act and react to certain things–it was hard to shake loose. Lea thought to herself that they both had a lot to learn, especially when it came to Promise.
The heavy glass door trundled back on its track, gritting with years of dirt and sand, and Mark and Peter stepped back. Promise let herself in, and Lady ran to the kitchen to jump in Lea’s lap.
Promise smiled at Peter. “I’m going to leave the horses out. The yard is fenced, so they can’t go anywhere, and after being cooped up all night…they need some air and space.” She squeezed Peter’s arm and directed her smile to Mark, then turned to the kitchen. “That coffee smells good. You made it, didn’t you, Lea? Is there any left?”
“I just made it; there’s plenty,” Lea said. She poured Promise a cup and sat it in front of her at the table.
Promise held the warm mug in both hands and bent her face to the aromatic steam, breathing deeply. “I don’t know how you make such good coffee. It’s the best. It really is.” She sipped. “Hey, you know what? We should bring some with us tonight! How did I not think of that before?” She smiled at Lea and took another sip. Lea let her gaze drift to Mark and Peter in the family room. She raised her eyebrows at Mark’s gaping mouth.
“Tonight?” Peter said and stepped into the kitchen. He stood across the table from Promise. “What do you mean?”
“When we try and trap Chance. At my old house?” She smiled at Peter, but it was quizzical, as if the answer were obvious. Then she turned her attention back to her coffee.
“Promise, listen,” Mark said from the doorway. “We weren’t even sure if you’d want to go back there. That was…last night was bad. Really, really bad. We need to give it some more thought and–”
“Why?” Promise said, turning to him. “I think we learned a lot. We know how to do it now. Right? After messing everything up, we know what to expect.” She laughed. “It was scary though, I’ll give you that. My throat still hurts! All that screaming!” She shook her head, still smiling. Then she caught Peter’s gaze and sobered. “Listen…I know it was bad. And now I see that we didn’t really know what we were doing, but Peter, we learned from it. Now we know what to expect!”
“No, we don’t. Not really,” Peter said, and his voice held a note of scolding caution. “We could do it again tonight, and something else could go wrong. Something new that we didn’t think of! We can’t think of everything, that’s the problem. We can’t plan for every mishap.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the kitchen wall.
Promise took a deep breath and seemed about to say something, then reconsidered. She looked into her coffee cup, scowling in thought. After a moment, she spoke. “No, we can’t. You’re right about that, Peter. But that’s true for everything,” she said and looked up at him. “Don’t you see that? The world is dangerous now, but it was dangerous before, too…just in a different way. Crime and car accidents and little kids drowning in swimming pools…everything is dangerous in some way. Not doing anything doesn’t make us any safer.” She looked from Peter to Mark to Lea. “I’m going to save my little brother. Or I’m going to die trying. That’s all there is to it.”
Peter put his hands on the table and leaned over, dropping his head. His fingers gripped the table edge, knuckles whitening, and Lea almost smiled at his obvious mix of agitation and admiration.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in. Again.”
Promise looked at Lea.
“Hey, I was never out,” Lea said and laughed.
“I’m in if my girl’s in,” Mark said and came around to stand behind Lea’s chair. He put one hand on her shoulder, and she reached up to put her hand over his. She blushed as Promise gave her a sharp, questioning look. Lea met Promise’s eyes and gave her a bashful, boastful smile. Promise raised her eyebrows, and a slow, astonished smile spread across her lips. Lea felt absurdly pleased both by Mark’s attention and Promise’s obvious happiness for her, but still overwhelmed.
She lowered her eyes and said, “Let’s eat, okay? We can discuss strategy after.” She sighed in relief when the attention turned from her to food, but the feeling of Mark’s hand resting on her shoulder stayed with her.
“We need to do a few things. First, reinforce the doors we drop down; make them even heavier. And they need to drop into a brace of some kind on the floor so the bottom can’t be pushed out again. Second, I need a sightline to the glass doors…that vampire was in before I knew it. If I can keep an eye on the backyard, then we won’t have another nasty surprise. Third, we have to reduce the size of the access. We have to keep the sliders most of the way closed and blocked. It has to be just wide enough for a little kid to get in…for Chance to get in.”
“Something else, too,” Lea said. “And this one sucks, kind of. But the guys each need to take a door. I can’t maneuver them fast enough, especially if they’re going to be heavier. That’s going to leave you in the hole even longer, Promise.”
Promise nodded. “Okay. That’s okay. With the reinforced doors, it shouldn’t be a problem. And it still won’t be as long as I was in there yesterday.” She swallowed. “And anyway, I can start pulling myself up right away. We’ll anchor the straps somehow. Tie them or nail them down. What do you guys think? Does that cover everything?”
“It sounds like it. But I still don’t…Promise, there are still a million things that could go wrong,” Peter said. “Are you really sure this is the only way?”
She looked into his eyes, searching for a way to explain. “I could wait for a vaccine or a cure to come here, but we’d still have to catch him, even then. It doesn’t change anything, and it only makes it worse that if and when a cure does come, he might have migrated or moved on in some fashion. Or been killed. I can’t stand the thought of that, Peter. To be so close…that’s what I feel I am–we are–to be so close to having him somewhere safe. I can’t give up on that. You wouldn’t either, would you?” she said. “You went in that mall, and when you saw how bad it was, you could have left. You could have run out and called the police and let them handle it. But you kept going. And that was even more dangerous than this–you were surrounded by vampires. But you did it anyway,” she said and then paused. His eyes on hers were almost intense enough to burn. She felt she was pushing some thin, potentially volatile limit. She pressed on anyway. “You did it because she was your wife. I’m d
oing this because he’s my little brother. It’s for love, Peter. It’s all for love.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared at her intently. She thought she’d pushed too hard, but then he nodded, softening. “Yes, I understand.” His face suffused with grief, and he dropped his eyes.
She wanted so badly to lean forward and kiss him. If Lea and Mark weren’t here, she might have done it. But they were here, and she…she was only eighteen. And still unsure of a twenty-five-year-old man who had had a whole life before this that had included all the things an adult’s life consists of: a real job, a house, marriage, and–
A sudden suspicion burst across her consciousness, a realization about Peter and his motivations. But it was too big, too big for her to handle, and she put the thought aside. It was almost a physical sensation, like pushing a crate under an eave…hiding a disturbing artifact to be dug out and worried over later.
She smiled, instead, and put her hand on his.
~ ~ ~
The destruction at Promise’s old house gave them all pause. The vampires that had let themselves in last night had gone away missing some skin, blood, and hair–the laundry room looked like the inside of a slaughterhouse.
The trap door’s wooden frame had been cracked in four places, broken clean through in two, and the wire screening had been ripped out of three sides. It was crumpled at the back of the space. Mark had to fold it back against itself, tugging and crushing it with his feet, in order to get it out of the room.
Promise stood at the entrance to the laundry room, her hands tucked into her back pockets. “Boy, they did a number on this place,” she said and shook her head. She was shaken by the fury of the damage, by the sheer desperation that forced the vampires to batter themselves that way. What would it be like for Chance if they were able to trap him in here? Wouldn’t he just beat himself to death on the walls?
Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance Page 11