One Foot in the Grave - The Halflife Trilogy Book I

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  “What happened to you?” She flung my arm over her shoulder. Lupé did the same.

  “Thespians,” I whispered, “outstanding in their field.”

  “What? What was out, standing in the field?”

  “Repertory cast for Steinbeck’s ‘Mice and Men’. . . .” I murmured. My knees started to buckle and they caught me.

  “We’d better hurry,” Suki told Lupé. “I’d like to get this thing in a body bag and put it on ice for later study.”

  “If we don’t get some whole blood into Csejthe,” I heard Lupé say, “we’ll be needing two body bags and twice the ice.”

  Both women were surprisingly strong: I was totally dead weight now and they were practically carrying me.

  Then they dropped me.

  Under the circumstances, I could hardly blame them: the creature was moving.

  It was still pinned to the ground by the broken tree trunk. But its arms were coming up and a pair of spidery hands grabbed at the wooden beam that transfixed its chest. It pulled and the tree came up out its body with a wet, sucking sound.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, as it tossed the tree aside and fumbled for its head. It rolled to its feet, clutching its head like a wide receiver looking for open yardage.

  >KiLL YoU aLl!<< the creature thought. And then the misshapen monstrosity was loping away, vanishing into the night’s heart of darkness.

  “We’ve got to stop it,” Lupé whispered in a shocked voice.

  “And how are we going to do that?” Suki asked.

  “It’s getting away! We’ve got to—”

  “What? Chase it? And then do what if we catch it?” She shook her head. “You put a heart-sized hole right in the middle of that nightmare’s chest, Lupé! That tree had to have sundered the spinal cord where it came out! Then we took its head clean off! How you gonna stop a thing that can get up and run away with that kind of damage?” She shook her head again and grabbed my arm. “It’s time to get the hell out of here and rethink our plans. And try to keep Einstein here alive, because we’re going to need all the help we can get when we catch up with that thing again!”

  “Einstein?” I queried as Lupé grabbed my other arm and leg.

  “Einstein,” she agreed, matching Lupé’s sarcasm. They began dragging me back toward the road and the haven of the bus. It would have been better if they had been taller or I had been shorter: my feet dragged the ground and I was losing my shoes.

  “What a mess!” Suki’s eyes were glistening in the moonlight. “Perimeter guards, everyone armed: it was as if they were expecting us.”

  “They were,” I said, trying to think coherently and get my mouth to cooperate at the same time. “We were set up.”

  “Is he serious, or is this just more of the same?”

  “I’m not sure. The big one put a pitchfork through him and instead of tearing their throats out he was just sitting around and talking to them when I arrived.”

  “Worries me. The boy just doesn’t seem to have the instincts necessary for his new lifestyle.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He certainly seemed to know what to do with Deirdre. . . .”

  “My, my, I think someone has their muzzle out of joint.”

  “Suki, why don’t you just shut up and carry your half—oh, shit!”

  “What is it?”

  “Isn’t that where we left the bus?”

  I raised my leaden head and looked where Lupé was pointing. Even though we were some distance away, there was little room for doubt: the bus was on fire.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I was just sitting there with my pistol holstered,” Mooncloud said, “when they yanked open the door and tossed a couple of Molotov cocktails inside.” Equal portions of pain and disgust drew down her mouth and etched new lines in her face. “Never heard them coming.”

  “Neither did I,” I mumbled. No one heard me over the crackling backdrop of the fire.

  “By the time I had the fire extinguisher out, they’d thrown three or four more against the outside of the bus. At that point it was a lost cause: all I could do was grab essential items and abandon ship.”

  “You were lucky,” Suki said.

  “Yeah, I was lucky.” Shimmering light from the burning bus bronzed the bitterness in Mooncloud’s face. “I lost our transportation, our equipment, weapons, our medical supplies. I think I rebroke my leg getting out of that firetrap.”

  “You saved our database,” Suki said, brushing off the laptop’s carrying case, “and you could have been shot. You could have been killed.”

  “And richly deserved it,” Mooncloud said. “I was careless. I was sloppy—”

  “We all were.” Lupé finished tying off the makeshift splint around the remains of the cast on Mooncloud’s leg. “But this isn’t like other retrievals. We’ve always hunted the newborns: inexperienced, confused, almost always alone. This time we’re chasing someone who’s had time to acclimate. And he’s in the company of professionals. The people we’re hunting are hunters themselves, so maybe we’re luckier than we think.”

  “Lucky. . . .” Mooncloud bowed her head. “Neither Chris nor I are in any condition to travel. The blood supplies, the medical kit, and my other crutch are all burned up. So are Lupé’s clothes. In a few hours the sun will be coming up. Suki, you and Chris won’t have anyplace to hide, to sleep—”

  “We’re halfway between Somerset and New Lancaster,” she said. “Enough time to reach either at a brisk walk and find some sort of shelter before dawn.”

  “But not for Chris,” Lupé pointed out.

  “Hey,” I said, finally stirring a bit. “Maybe I’ve given up on a daytime lifestyle, but I don’t think a few hours of sunshine are gonna smoke me.”

  “Maybe,” Mooncloud said, “but we shouldn’t take the chance.”

  “I’m no weenie,” I grumbled.

  “You’re a delirious weenie,” Lupé said. “Shut up and let the rational folk make the decisions.”

  “He’s probably right, though,” Mooncloud said. “He hasn’t progressed much since we brought him in.” She turned to me. “You could probably manage a fair amount of daytime, if you were wearing a good sunblock.”

  “Jeepers, I could start a new trend: vampires with tan lines.” I realized I was babbling and shut up.

  “Suki, you hit the road now and find a place to hole up for the day,” Garou said. “I’ll stay here and see that these two find some shade.”

  Mooncloud produced the cellular phone, the other item she’d managed to grab on the way out. “I called the Doman and he’s sending a helicopter and cleanup crew. Trouble is, they won’t be here before midmorning. We’ll have to cross our fingers that the local constabulary doesn’t show up first. A close examination of the fire scene could prove embarrassing.”

  A cache of ammo in the burning bus suddenly went off, punctuating her last words with random tracers of sizzling lead. I was already lying down; everyone else threw themselves flat.

  “What about our allies from Chicago?” Suki asked once the snap, crackle, and pop became sounds of cooling metal.

  “I’ve tried them repeatedly. They’re either out of the car or the phone has been switched off. I’ll keep trying, but we can’t take any chances. Suki, you hit the road now and we’ll meet you back here—mmm, better make that a mile south of here, as soon as you can make it after sunset.”

  “I’ll meet you,” Lupé amended. “Dr. Mooncloud and Mr. Csejthe are going to be airlifted out of here for medical treatment just as soon as the cavalry arrives.”

  Suki stood reluctantly. “I don’t like leaving you.”

  “There’s no other sensible choice,” Mooncloud said. “Take cover and come back tonight.”

  “All right. Be careful!” She turned to go and took a couple of steps. “Wait. I don’t know if this is important, but I noticed that all the vehicles belonging to our little Kansas cabal had Arkansas license plates.”

  Lupé whistled. “Bubba’s a long ways from hom
e.”

  “Perhaps it’s a ruse,” Mooncloud pondered as Suki jogged into the darkness, “using false plates to misdirect us. . . .”

  “I don’t think they’re that clever,” I said, remembering Rancher Cantrell’s tale of midnight trespassers.

  “What difference does it make?”

  I turned toward Lupé. “It means we’re now looking for a Chevy van with Arkansas plates.”

  “Why?” Mooncloud asked.

  “And what are Satanists from Arkansas doing here?” Lupé pondered.

  “Don’t know what brought them here,” I said, trying to lever myself up on one elbow, “but I think they’re legit. This part of the country has a history of arcane events—spook lights and hauntings that predate even the white man’s arrival here. Maybe they think it’s a place of power, a nexus or focal point. . . .”

  “Or maybe they just figure they’re less likely to have their reputations ruined back home if they’re caught out of state,” Mooncloud mused.

  “Whatever the reason, our quarry apparently ran into this traveling circus last night.”

  Lupé came over and eased me into a sitting position against a large rock. “Maybe somebody stuck a pitchfork in one of them,” I continued. “Somehow, the New York group convinced these jokers that they were demons or minions of Satan, or some sort of folderol, and got some cooperation. First they swapped their limo for somebody’s van. Then they told them to be on the lookout for us—promised some sort of reward for killing us. So while we were being oh-so-clever in sneaking up on them, they were already waiting for us.”

  Lupé’s face was skeptical. “They told you all this?”

  “They inferred as much.”

  “Inferred?”

  I glared right back at her. “Inferred.”

  “Great! While they were at it, did they infer what happened to Luath?”

  “What happened to Luath?”

  “Um, I think,” said Mooncloud, “that Lupé just asked that question.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I don’t know what happened to Luath. You’re the only one who heard him tonight.”

  “Stop it!” Mooncloud hissed. “Stop it, the both of you!”

  We both looked at her. The flicker of firelight made trenches out of the fresh lines in her face.

  “We can’t afford this. We already have enough problems, enough enemies, without turning on each other. Lupé, I’m surprised at you, baiting Chris when he’s in shock.”

  “Actually, I was baiting him out of it,” she said with a half smile. “Got his adrenaline pumping and I do believe he is more alert.”

  Mooncloud peered at me. “His color is a little better. But he still has a serious need for blood. And we also have to find him some shelter from the sun before it rises. Something better than tree shade, if possible.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Lupé said, crouching down on all fours. She metamorphosized into wolf form and loped off down the road.

  “Strange girl,” I murmured.

  “She’s had a very difficult life.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “You can’t even begin to imagine,” she snapped. “And you’re complicating things for her.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask to be run through with a pitchfork! And it’s not my fault the blood supplies got crisped!”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about!”

  “Well, what are you talking about?”

  Mooncloud stared at me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  I stared back. “What?”

  She sighed and settled back against the tree trunk. “Never mind.”

  “I hardly do, anymore.” I lowered my head back to the ground and stared up through the tree branches at the night sky. The stars glistened like chips of crushed ice in the moon’s absence. Glowing red embers swarmed in their midst like a host of demonic fireflies. The breeze began to freshen, sweeping the sparks away to the west, along with most of the heat from the smoldering wreckage. My undead flesh, lacking even its basal blood supply, felt the night breeze as a chill wind.

  “You’re not like other vampires, Chris,” Mooncloud said quietly.

  “Yeah, no fangs.”

  “I don’t mean in that way. There’s a coldness that sets in. . . .”

  “I think I’m feeling it right now.” I repressed a shiver.

  “I don’t mean temperature, either.”

  “Well, I imagine it takes a certain kind of mindset to hunt human beings for food.”

  She nodded. “That and, as I mentioned before, there are biochemical changes in the brain. I wonder if you’ll eventually lose touch with your own humanity as the others have done, take on their arrogance. . . .”

  “I don’t need anybody else’s arrogance; I brought my own, thank you.” I thought back to the Doman, Suki, Damien, and Dr. Burton. “But, so far, everyone’s been pretty friendly.” Not counting New York’s involvement. Or Lupé, of late.

  “Perhaps you are mistaking curiosity and interest for warmth. Don’t get me wrong, Chris; Pagelovitch is a good Doman. Fair, never unnecessarily cruel, and he looks after those he considers his own.

  “But you have been treated particularly well because of your intrinsic value on the Underworld market: your condition may be the key that unlocks a number of secrets that have eluded the wampyr for centuries.

  “It also is a matter of your transition. There is a caste system in which the rules of behavior are very strong and compelling. Mutual respect is de rigueur among vampires. But only among their own kind. To the Doman and the other vampires of his demesne, Lupé and I are valued servants, serfs—possessions even. We are not now nor ever can be ‘equals.’ Vampires are ‘the Masters.’ ”

  I remembered Bachman’s words in my room just before I got my first swimming lesson as one of the newly undead.

  “And it’s worse for us than most of the others,” she continued. “It’s our job as part-time enforcers to go after other members of this Master Race. And put them down, if necessary. You see the problem?”

  Yeah, it was starting to come into focus. Given the mindset, Mooncloud and Garou were the equivalent of a couple of uppity niggers to this cold-blooded “Massa” Race. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. And don’t try. You won’t make anyone happy and you’ll just get Lupé all the more confused. Was there any sign of Luath while you were out there?”

  It took me a moment to mentally shift gears. “No. Why? Do you think Lupé is imagining things?”

  “Maybe. But it’s more likely that the cu sith wasn’t fully banished.”

  “Fully what?”

  “He may have only been pushed into an overlapping dimension. Maybe partially phased.”

  “Partially phased,” I said.

  “Right. In which case it might be possible that he’s still around. In a phased sense, you understand.”

  “Me? Understand?”

  “So it would still be possible to track our quarry as long as Lupé can hear him.”

  I was tired and cold and even more confused than I had been five minutes before, so I didn’t waste my energy trying to point out that we had no weapons, no transportation, and no means of tracking the cu sith through the transponder anymore.

  “Found something!” Lupé said, loping up out of the darkness. Unnerving enough that we didn’t hear her returning, but it always gave me a turn when she spoke while still in wolf form.

  “How far?” Mooncloud wanted to know.

  “Not far. A short walk.” Her muzzle swung over to consider me. “For a healthy man.”

  “How about if I crawl?” I asked.

  “I’ll help you.” Lupé’s shape shifted back along human lines as she came and leaned over me. “Can you sit up?”

  I decided I needed proper motivation when I failed at my first attempt. Maybe I’d do better if someone placed a TV remote between my feet. . . .

  She hoisted me to my feet on the second attempt and then had to hold onto me to ke
ep me from falling over. “Friends don’t let friends walk drunk,” I chided.

  “Tell the Doman,” Lupé told Mooncloud over her shoulder, “that he owes me big time for this.”

  “Good luck,” Taj called as we lurched off down the road.

  It was worse than embarrassing, it was humiliating: not just in that I had all the stamina of Raggedy Andy on Percodan, but as lucidity came and went like a bungee jumper, I found myself draped over my human crutch in a variety of positions. Bad enough had she been wearing clothes, but under the present circumstances. . .

  When she slapped my face to bring me around, I awoke thinking I had just been called on an “out of bounds” penalty. Slowly I discovered that I was lying down and sitting up at the same time. And that we seemed to be in a tunnel.

  “We’re in a dry culvert that runs under the road,” she said, the corrugated metal tube echoing her words into a distorted booming sound. She put her hand to my forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Thanks for not saying ‘we.’ ” My teeth were starting to chatter.

  “You’re not running a fever. You’re cold. Is that good or bad?”

  “Doesn’t feel so good. But then again I’m feeling surprisingly well for a guy who got run through with a pitchfork.”

  She frowned. “Yes, and we have an account to settle on that matter.” She reached out and began unfastening the buttons on my shirt. “But for now we’ll do what we can about keeping you alive. Let’s see if we can get you warmed up.” My shirt, still damp but turning crusty with blood, came off, and she used it to sponge the area around my wounds. Then she pulled me against her and down to the ground.

  Her skin was covered with short, downy hairs like peach fuzz, and the feel of her was like warm velvet. She wrapped her arms around me and slowly slid her hands up and down my back, trying to pull the chill out of my semidead flesh. The pain receded as I basked in the warmth that poured out of her like secret sunlight.

  It wasn’t long before I felt a familiar stirring. A hunger was awakening. Not now, I thought.

  But I needed blood. And that need was inescapable.

  Undeniable. . . .

  Except, as the feeling grew in intensity, it didn’t feel like the bloodlust that had become increasingly familiar of late. It was a different kind of hunger, of need.