“Nope,” Demi said. “I need it more than you.”
“You realize I sat here all night eating trail mix and stale coffee waiting for you,” he said.
“All night, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “All night.”
“Nothing but trail mix, huh?”
“That’s right. I practically starved.”
“Is that right? That’s just awful.”
“It was, it was,” he agreed. Demi turned to face him in the backseat. He reached for her food expectantly, but Demi smacked his forehead. “Ow! What was that for?”
“I left two boxes of pizza here last night, and you ate them both, jerk,” she said, straightening up and returning her attention to her breakfast. When she was done, they drove to a diner just a block down from the bar and had a second breakfast, this time enough to share with Doug, and even Vera, who finally awoke from her stupor, the black bags under her eyes rivalling Demi’s own.
“You don’t have to eat those hash browns like they’re going out of style,” Doug said. Their waitress set Demi’s third plate of the morning down in front of her. “We’re in Idaho. If there’s one thing they’re not running out of, it’s potatoes.”
“That’s why I’m eating them,” Demi mumbled through a mouthful of spuds. “Fresh from the source. You go to Maine, you eat lobster. You come to Idaho, you eat potatoes.” Her phone rang, and she nearly choked on her food while she fumbled for the disposable prepaid flip-phone. “Agent Mondaine,” she answered, her mouth still full of potato.
“So you’re still alive, agent?” a woman’s voice asked—it was Cara. Demi abruptly swallowed her food and reached for her coffee to wash it down.
“Any reason I shouldn’t be?” Demi asked, silently waving down the waitress for the check.
“I tried to save your life,” Cara said. There was something in her voice, a roughness that Demi had heard many times before, the hoarseness that came after hours of screaming.
“Should I thank you?” Demi asked. There was a long silence, and for a moment she thought the line had gone dead. “Hello?”
“Meet me at the cemetery,” Cara said at last. “Bring those silver bullets.”
***
It was still morning by the time they arrived at the cemetery, but the sky was darkened by the towering thunderhead rolling in over the mountains, an anvil-shaped mass of cloud crowned with a brilliant white gleam, its lower depths a grim midnight black dancing with lightning. The air was calm and cold and smelled wet.
Demi stepped out from around the car, Doug and Vera hanging back to cover her. She rushed past crumbling tombstones and overgrown grave markers. Cara and Vath stood on opposite sides of an open grave at the foot of the towering angel where the last girl’s body had been. Demi made her way towards them, her shoulders tight as she tried to make sense of the situation. If Cara was a monster, why would she call them?
“Get away from him,” Demi ordered, leveling her gun at Cara. She nodded to Vath. “Thanks for the eggs, dude, but time for you to beat it. You don’t want any part of what’s coming.”
“You stupid girl,” Cara said, halfway between a laugh and a curse. “You think I’m the thing you’ve been hunting?”
“Aren’t you?” Demi asked, her finger resting against the trigger. Cara sneered, her skin growing tight and mottled. She hunched forward, and uneven fangs sprouted from her mouth.
“I knew it was a ghoul,” Doug muttered from behind her. Cynthia had told them about the twisted creatures that lurked around graveyards and slaughterhouses, gnawing on bones and rotten flesh. While occasionally violent when defending their feeding grounds, they were generally considered to be more of a nuisance that a real threat to humanity, since they were supposed to only feed on the dead. Then again, they were also supposed to be rare in the US in modern times, preferring instead to migrate towards locales ravaged by war or disease.
Demi inched forward, toeing the edge of the grave. It was deep, far deeper than it needed to be, and the bouncy bartender lay at the bottom, her body limp and bloody. “Go on,” Demi said, the barrel of her gun twitching slightly. She glared at Cara, waiting for an explanation. “Start talking before I start shooting.”
“I never wanted any of this,” Cara said, her hollow yellow eyes brimming with tears. “I just wanted to live a quiet life.”
“You’re a monster,” Demi said. “There’s only one way that ends.”
“A monster?” Cara scoffed. “I came here to tend the sick. I kept them alive and nursed them back to health. The ones I couldn’t save, they nourished me. I never asked for my affliction, but I made the most of it.”
“Tend the sick?” Demi asked, remembering that the funeral home had once been a sanitorium. “Your grandmother?”
“It was me,” Cara said. “It was always me.”
“I didn’t know ghouls were immortal,” Demi said, shrugging. “We’ll see if silver fixes that.”
“If only I were just a ghoul,” Cara said. “I’m the Umm Ghulah, the mother of all ghouls, a daughter of Cain. I’ve been lost in this world for a long, long time.”
“I can solve that for you,” Demi said, her finger tightening against the trigger. Something struck her hard, and the gun went off. She fell into the open grave, her face striking loose dirt next to the bartender’s body. She groaned and rolled onto her back, just in time to see Vath leap down into the pit with her. He stood hunched over, his skin becoming rotten and pale as his mouth filled with fangs and his fingers extended into claws.
“You too?” Demi asked, rising wearily to her feet. Her eyes danced around in search of her gun, and she spotted it in the dirt between her and Vath. “I thought you were boning Cara. Is she your mom or what?”
“Not literally,” Vath said, hissing through his fangs. “The Umm Ghulah was the first of our kind, our Eve. But eventually someone like you killed her, and another ghoul ate her heart and gained her powers. But being the Umm Ghulah means living with a target on your back. That’s why Cara hid here, away from all her children that want to eat her and become her.”
“Little weird, but okay,” Demi said, eyeing the gun right next to the bartender’s hand. She’d assumed the girl was dead from the bloody gash on her chest, but when a finger twitched Demi realized the girl’s chest was still rising and falling, however faintly. “I thought ghouls liked their food cold and rank.”
“I have a taste for warm things,” Vath said, spittle flying between his finger-length teeth. “And Cara would too if she gave it a chance.” He lunged towards her, and Demi lurched back, just barely missing being slashed by his claws. She drove her fist into his solar plexus, stunning him long enough to land a second blow against his jaw. He howled in pain and struck her with the back of his hand, sending her tumbling over the unconscious bartender. She caught herself on the opposite wall of the grave, but Vath appeared right in front of her, his fanged mouth opened wide.
She braced herself to feel those teeth rip into her flesh, to feel his claws rake her body to shreds. Instead, Vath froze, gasping for breath and slumping to his knees. Cara stood behind him, gripping a silver dagger that dripped with blood. Vath collapsed onto his back, and Cara threw herself on him, burying her knife into him again and again until he was still. She bent forward as if to kiss him, her fangs sinking into the flesh of his throat. Demi moved away, inching her way along the perimeter of the grave while thunder clapped overhead.
“Are you okay?” Doug called down. He and Vera stood at the edge of the grave, their guns held uncertainly.
“I’m fine,” Demi said, and Cara stood back up, her mouth slick with Vath’s blood.
“He wanted to tempt me into becoming like him,” Cara explained, looking down at her lover’s mangled corpse, her body returning to a human form. “He thought… I don’t know what he thought. I should have killed him after he hurt that first girl.”
“Why didn’t you?” Demi asked, bending down to retrieve her gun.
“I don’t k
now,” Cara admitted. “I was lonely. I—” Demi spun towards Cara, firing a single shot through the ghoul’s forehead. A spray of blood coated the wall of the grave behind Cara, and she tumbled lifelessly into the dirt.
“What the hell did you do?” Doug asked, staring down at her. Demi stood silently in the grave, asking herself the same question. She didn’t want to look up and see Doug and Vera’s faces. She could already imagine their expressions, the same one her comrades had worn back in Khost when they’d seen her leaving an interrogation room, a dead soldier sitting tied to a chair behind her, his eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. They never looked at her the same again. After that, she was a monster in their eyes—she couldn’t say they were wrong. She blinked the past away, plucking up the bloody dagger from Cara’s hands.
“What does it look like, Man o’ War?” she said, kneeling down next to the unconscious bartender and hefting her upright. “I killed a freaking monster.”
***
A woman limped through the graveyard while lightning arced overhead. The bartender’s hair was a tangled mess, her face smeared with grave dirt and her clothes torn and bloody from the gash Vath had carved into her chest. The hunters had pulled her from the grave and offered to drop her off at the county hospital, but the bartender had dismissed their concerns and asked to be left at her apartment. She’d immediately driven back to the cemetery, hoping to beat the rain.
The first droplets had just begun to fall by the time she reached the open grave where Vath and Cara lay dead. She had gone through so much to get here, seducing Vath while playing the part of a human, all the while angling for her shot at Cara, at the Umm Ghulah. She wasn’t as bold as Vath, but she had been more patient. Now he was dead, and she was left to claim his prize.
She leapt into the pit, her fingers elongating into claws and fangs protruding from her mouth. She straddled Cara’s corpse, burying her face in the dead woman’s chest. Blood, cooling, but still warm, burst in her mouth as she ate Cara’s heart and become the new Umm Ghulah.
Cross-Country
California, May 2014
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Bailey asked, leaning forward against the front seat. The large SUV rattled down a steep mountain road somewhere northeast of Bakersfield. There were six of them cramped into Chad’s new ride, a gift from his parents for his first year of dental school. They came from a variety of places, but they’d all found each other at school in Topeka, and they’d decided to pool their resources and drive across the country, with three rules—no GPS, no phones, and no interstates. Oh, there would be a flurry of posting once they got home to the studio apartment Bailey and the other girls shared back in Topeka and uploaded the contents of their digital cameras, but until then, they were on a good, old-fashioned road trip.
Bailey’s dyed-blonde hair hung in a loose tangle and shook with every bump in the road. Kimmy turned back from the passenger seat, looking away from the old paper roadmap she held sprawled across her lap. Kimmy was twenty, just a year younger than Bailey, her shoulder-length brunette hair streaked with highlights. Her boyfriend, Chad, sat in the driver’s seat, squinting in search of a road-marker of any kind, but finding nothing except featureless patches of trees lining the old back road.
“Of course,” Kimmy said uncertainly, holding a finger to the map. Chad hit a sharp carve with a little too much force, sending them all sliding in their seats. “We’re right… oh, who am I kidding? I have no clue.”
“Relax,” Nia said, sliding up from the back seat and kneeling on the floor next to Bailey. Nineteen and just finished with her freshman year, Nia was dark-skinned with vaguely Asiatic features, her long hair worn in elaborate braids that hung down to her waist. “That’s what this trip is all about, getting lost in the moment.”
“Having yourself a little moment back there?” Bailey asked, cocking an eyebrow. Nia adjusted her blouse.
“Just watching,” Nia said. “Mostly,” she added with a wink. Two more heads popped up from the backseat—Mia and Rich. Another faux blonde, Mia was the youngest of their group, an incoming freshman the others had scoped out to fill the vacancy in their lease. It had been a tradition going on ten years now—four young women: a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and a senior, living and learning together, a sort of unofficial mini-sorority. Last year, Bailey had been the junior, but now she was the senior—the den-mother, so to speak. The road trip was their little sisterhood’s annual tradition, and it was Mia’s introduction to their family. Her boyfriend, Rich, was along for the ride—nineteen and strongly-built with extensive tattoos, he was certainly eye candy, and Mia didn’t seem to mind sharing her toys.
“Don’t think I missed all the fireworks this morning,” Nia said, sticking her tongue out at Bailey. “Girl knows how to work it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bailey said, chuckling proudly. “But it’s getting dark. You see any hotels nearby, Kimmy?”
“It would help if I knew where we were,” Kimmy said, crumpling up the map in frustration. “I say we just stop at the nearest gas station and fill up on burritos.”
“Woman cannot live on microwave burritos alone,” Bailey said sagely, eliciting giggles from Nia and Mia.
“True,” Kimmy agreed. “But I’m not sure what choice we have up here. I haven’t seen anything except a few old sheds since we got into the mountains.
“We’re running on empty too,” Chad said, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “I’ve been driving with a low-fuel warning for half an hour now.”
“I told you we should have stopped at that shady little station we passed two hours ago!” Kimmy said.
“Come on, four bucks a gallon?” Chad said. “What a rip-off.”
“Better a rip-off than running out of gas in the middle of nowhere,” Kimmy huffed.
“Cool it, guys,” Bailey said, kissing Kimmy on the cheek, and then Chad. “That’s what this trip is all about, going wherever the road takes us. When I was a sophomore we ran out of gas in the middle of North Dakota and we all ran around in bikinis in this giant field. We just camped there for a few days until some creepy trucker gave us a tank of gas. That was a great summer.”
“That was my first trip,” Kimmy said. “You guys tricked me into skinny-dipping in front of that old-folks home and stole all my clothes.”
“Lot of heart attacks that day,” Bailey said, giving Kimmy’s arm a squeeze. Next year it would be Kim’s turn to be the guiding hand of their group, and Nia would get to be navigator while Mia leveled-up to professional troublemaker. And Bailey… well, she would have to become an adult, and that was not something she was looking forward to. Running out of gas in the middle of nowhere was the least of her worries.
“Looks like you guys are gonna get your wish,” Chad said, and the car began to shudder. “We’ve only got a couple miles left on fumes before we’re dead in the road.” They somehow made it another few minutes before the car gave out, but it was all they needed.
“There!” Bailey said, pointing to a building just another mile or so ahead. They slowed to a crawl, and the engine bucked up beneath their feet. Miraculously, the car made it most of the way, sputtering and shaking with every foot they traveled, until Chad pulled into a gravel parking lot in front of a derelict wooden structure that boasted a neon sign advertising hot food and live bait.
“Hey, at least it’s better than microwave burritos,” Bailey said with a shrug. They climbed out of the car, Bailey and Nia hopping around the gravel hand-in-hand, while Kimmy pulled out her camera and started snapping pictures of them leaping into the air.
“Come on, I’m starving,” Mia said, taking both Chad and Rich by the hand and dragging them towards the diner. Bailey and the other girls stopped to get one last group selfie before rushing in after them. It was a dimly-lit establishment, a lunch-counter with a small dining area adjacent to a rudimentary convenience store. A bell rang to announce their entrance, but no one seemed to be minding the shop.
“Hello?” Bailey s
aid, leaning over the counter to get a glimpse into the kitchen beyond. “Anybody home?”
“Oh wow,” a voice said, and a thin man with graying hair rushed out of the back, carrying with him the strong scent of cheap tobacco. He smiled nervously, exposing yellowed teeth. “Uh… menus, of course! Where are my manners? It’s just you pretty ladies are the first customers I’ve had all week.”
He slid simple, one-page laminated menus in front of each of them. “I’ll have one of everything,” Bailey said without reading the menu, which only seemed to have six items, each printed in plain font. “It usually this slow?”
“Well, I ain’t no Shoney’s,” the man said. “But I usually do okay. But ever since those freaks moved in a few weeks back my business all dried up.”
“Freaks?” Nia asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” the man said. “Real hippie-types. They stick to themselves, always whispering under their breath, almost like they’re praying. I don’t know what they’re smoking up there in their cabin, but it must be good, because they got the whole town hooked. People I’ve known all my life went up to take a look, and they come back acting just like the rest of them. Not me though. I’m fine right where I am.”
“You know where we could find the nearest gas station?” Rich asked.
“Sure,” the cook said. “Bobby’s. It’s about three miles up the road. They’re not open though—the owner closed up shop and joined the rest of the hippies. Next place is about thirty miles farther. It’s a cryin’ shame—I’ve gotta burn half a tank just to fill ‘er up these days. Who knows though, maybe you girls can sweet-talk old Bobby into sparing you a few gallons?”
He took the rest of their orders, then retreated back to the kitchen to prepare their food, and Bailey and the others reconvened. “This town sucks,” Mia said. “There’s not much here.”
“And what little there is creeps me out,” Nia agreed. “Let’s eat, get the gas, and get out of here.”
Demi Mondaine: Volume One Page 10