Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles

by Celis T. Rono

  Her stained hands smelled putrid. The little lapse of morality shook whatever foundations she’d cemented the past twenty years. It left craggy, seismic veins in the concrete. She felt cracked and shaken.

  She only had to look at Maclemar’s tortured face to know that she had appalled him.

  I compelled him to murder.

  He refused to look at her as they walked the edge of the clearing to reach an exchange of gunshots.

  All his tough words about hating human traitors and vampires were just words.

  The scholar was a romantic, after all, who ultimately believed in the effervescent soul and its ability to transcend filth and injustice. He had never lost faith in the Joads, the Prynnes, or the Huckleberrys of the world. But with three shots of 105

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  the Beretta, Maclemar’s humanity was suddenly compromised.

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  CHAPTER 5

  “DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW to drive stick?” asked Maple as she set a groggy Jorge in the middle row of the roomy van.

  “I can drive a Vespa,” Poe said. She cringed for voicing her unhelpful thoughts out loud.

  “That’s nice, Poe, but we need a driver. I can’t do it. I have to attend to Jorge.”

  “I know how,” answered the bike enthusiast, his speech slurred from the anesthetic he’d been injected with earlier.

  “Anyone else besides Jorge here?” Maple asked urgently.

  “Aye, me,” volunteered Maclemar who cradled the injured piglet in his arms. He set the shivering pig on the floor of the vehicle nearest the front where she was joined by a concerned Penny who immediately began licking Chops’ wound. “Cars with automatic transmissions are scoffed at where I come from.”

  “Good. You better get started, Maclemar. I hear coyote baying out there,” Maple nodded distractedly, tearing off Jorge’s No. 94 cycling jersey. “Romulo will guide you to the safe route. And this might help.” She handed Poe night vision goggles to pass on to Maclemar.

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  “You’ll have to drive with those things on, I’m afraid. We don’t want headlights to attract any hostiles this evening.”

  “Right,” Maclemar said as if stunned. “This is a new driving experience for me, I guess. At least I can drive the British side of the road if I want. Traffic willing, of course.”

  “Poe, kneel here with me. You’re going to clean Jorge’s shoulder wound, and I’ll handle the stomach.

  Let me know if bullet fragments are in there.”

  “But my hands are filthy,” protested Poe.

  Patching up another human after torturing another didn’t feel right.

  “Then use gloves, dammit!” Maple burst her façade of calm. “Listen, just do the best you can.”

  “Alright, Maple,” Poe said. She scrubbed her hands with rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide and put on latex gloves from the emergency kit.

  Placing a tiny flashlight between her teeth, Poe cleaned the wound as best she could. She inspected the hole. A probe with tweezers located the bullet lodged near the solar plexus. The copper bullet containing no lead expanded upon impact into four petals with sharp edges. With much difficulty as it was dark and the road bumpy, Poe succeeded in extracting the bullet. Poe swabbed and dressed the wound for the last time, and she shined her light at the cavernous wound Maple labored to patch up.

  Poe’s back was damp. Little beads of sweat appeared on the tip of her nose like clear glue.

  Breathing deeply, she tried her hardest not to throw up. Maclemar’s driving was making her carsick.

  Maple, still looking for the missing bullet that stretched into a flower with lethal edges, kept on 108

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  delving with unstinting focus. Poe averted her eyes from the surgery happening right under her nose. She breathed through her mouth.

  When Poe and Maclemar had reached the others, everyone was still standing. Maple and Romulo had flushed and destroyed the mercenaries that had fired on them in hope of claiming a reward. It was Jorge who shot the last of the vampire snipers in the head.

  No one could have expected that the undead would raise himself up and retaliate because he had merely been grazed in the head.

  The scummy vampire whizzed Romulo in the temple from where he lay dying and hit Maple’s powerful forearm which spit out the bullet seconds later. He fired a few more shots before Poe shot him in the heart. She thought Jorge was simply resting on a log. The junkyard smell of blood alerted her differently.

  “Jorge’s a goner,” said Romulo sitting shotgun with Maclemar and swigging cheap whiskey in a flask. He didn’t bother lowering his voice. “It’s that damn faggoty outfit of his that did him in. No. 94, my ass!”

  “He said it was his lucky number,” Maclemar said defensively. He hadn’t even met Jorge before that day, but he felt compelled to defend the quirky man fighting for his life. “I know the world’s wasted and fucked, but we should really try to keep homophobic slurs to a minimum.”

  “Sure, it’s his lucky number alright,” Romulo snorted. He took a swig of whiskey from a small container. “And what are you about with this PC

  crap? Wake up, man. This is the Apocalypse.

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  Anything goes. What’re ya anyway, an English fruit?” He corked his flask.

  “No, I’m not a poof. Nor am I English,”

  Maclemar corrected, squinting at the indelibly black road ahead of him. It was like driving through the insides of a Ding Dong. “But my dad was.”

  “Was what?’

  “Gay,” Maclemar said matter-of-factly. “He came out when I was in primary school.”

  “So that’s why you’re so bleeding heart about that fashion disaster fender bender back there?”

  “Jorge is not homosexual,” Maple interjected.

  “He had a wife and two children before all this Armageddon madness happened.”

  “When does being married ever stop a queer from getting it from behind? C’mon,” Romulo laughed with derision. “I mean look at this for chrissake,” he said. He tapped a cassette into the tape player and the lively “Oh L'amour” rang out.

  “Fucking Erasure! I rest my case.”

  “This is Megan’s van, Romulo,” Maple said testily, meticulously feeling for projectiles in Jorge’s stomach with only the light held by Poe and by the overhead light of the van. “That’s her music.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Romulo said insolently.

  “Either way, that bootie pirate’s outfit speaks for itself.”

  “Oh fuck off, you alcoholic son of a bitch,”

  Maple carped, startling Poe who’d never seen the gracious and normally tranquil woman unravel. “I’m trying to concentrate here. If you want to insult anyone for their sexual orientation, pick on me.”

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  “I have nothing against lesbians,” Romulo shrugged, “I rather encourage them, especially if the ladies are young. No offense.”

  Maple ignored him. She found a small piece of cartridge. She sighed with relief.

  “Romulo, you’re a vampire,” began Maclemar, changing the subject. “Why are you still downing that stuff?”

  “I like the taste of whiskey, still do. Reminds me I was human once.”

  Poe cleared her throat and asked, “Is Megan gonna be where we’re going?”

  “Yes, she is,” Maple said curtly as she concentrated on her task. “They’ll have to suture the ruptured intestines at the HQ. I can’t see very well here.”

  “Megan ain’t going nowhere,” Romulo snickered, twisting to look at Poe. “She’s about to burst.”

  “What?”

  “He means she’s pregnant,” explained Maple.

  “She’s due in a week’s time.”

  “She’s Sainvire’s grandniece,” explained the vampire with whiskey breath to Maclemar. “The two of them will get us all permanently kille
d.”

  “What are you talking about?” Maple asked, frowning.

  “We’re getting hunted like criminals. And like criminals we move from place to place like goddamn gypsies,” he fumed. “We ought to wage war and kill Trench’s henchmen and Newbitt’s people instead of running away all the time.”

  “There aren’t enough of us,” Maple explained tiredly. “And we have the ex-cattle to think about.”

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  “I say we ditch them. They’re all cured. They can fend for themselves, by damn!”

  “They are our people now. We’ve got to take care of each other. Besides, more than half have already been placed into their new communities.”

  “Bullshit!” he spat, and he hit the dashboard with a fist. “They’re liabilities. And whatever cows we have left are weak and useless to us. If Newbitt ever gets a whiff of where we’re hiding those fuckers, we’re all everlastingly dead. I’m hopping on the next ride outta this shithole when we get back.”

  “They’re needed more than you think, Romulo,”

  said Maclemar, winding his way out of a maze of trucks and cars. Some vehicles had been deliberately pushed onto the opposing lane to clear the road, but some remained to give Maclemar a solid pain in the ass. “There aren’t many daywalkers in your outfit, I hear. There’re the two of you and a handful of others, but the rest haven’t developed the ‘skill’ yet. The humans who guard these vampires during the day are in essence part of a symbiotic relationship, integral to the group’s survival.”

  “That’s crap,” dismissed the vampire. He shooed Penny who’d stuck her head where the emergency brake poked up between the front seats. “Sainvire’s gone soft. Every time some dick gets recaptured, the master vampire falls into a depression. Well I say,

  ‘don’t cry over spilt milk.’”

  “If you’re so gung ho about this, Romulo, how come I never hear you voice your concerns to Sainvire directly?” Maple asked tensely while disinfecting Jorge’s wound with fizzy oxygen peroxide. “You always rant at people who can’t do 112

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  anything about the state of things. He’s an easy one to talk to and even easier man to find.”

  “Maybe I will tell him. One of these days,”

  Romulo muttered, clearly displeased at being called out. To change the subject he turned to the van’s driver. “Why did you decide to come ashore, Maclemar? I thought you were strictly drop and go, even with your cargo of fish.” Maclemar’s fresh and dried fish were usually kept inside five-gallon plastic drums and left along docks or attached to buoys.

  Gasoline, clean water, and produce were left as payment for the seafood.

  Poe narrowed her eyes. Maclemar didn’t have to come ashore with her.

  “Figured it was time to look around,” he answered. He looked at the rear view mirror through his goggles.

  “Look around, my aromatic asshole,” muttered Romulo. “You did it for a piece of ass!”

  Maclemar’s brows connected in vehemence, but he waited a few seconds to compose himself. “Maple, does this guy have Tourettes or something?”

  “Never thought of that, but your theory would explain a lot of things,” said the vampire who finally settled in the seat behind Jorge’s.

  “Whatever Tourettes is, I still think you’ve got the hots for Sainvire’s girlfriend. That’s why you’re following her to Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world, where every new sock ends up smelling like last month’s moldy cheese,” Romulo said, throwing in his two cents. “Can’t wait for you to meet Sainvire.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation of conflict.

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  “Nice one, pal,” Maclemar said. He scratched his closely cropped Roman hair. “However, I’ve already met the bloke. He asked me to guard cattle and sleeping vampires who couldn’t take the sun.”

  “What did you say?” Poe asked from the back.

  “I said that after eight years of incarceration, I preferred to go fishing,” he answered in a deadpan voice.

  “Well then I can’t wait for the little girl to meet Sainvire’s honey. She’s a pretty master vamp from Nevada with the heart of Mother Teresa that melds perfectly with Sainvire’s missionary ego. The broad left her position to proselytize about Plasmacore to anyone with an ear. She’s a cute blonde with legs up to my neck, little girl. She’s going to break your heart.”

  “Romulo,” said Maclemar in a threatening way as he looked at Poe’s tense face in the rear view mirror. “Shut the fuck up!”

  

  It was a tiring ride that seemed to go on forever.

  Because of the congested streets clogged with stranded automobiles and over a decade worth of waste, the journey east to Gilroy proved to be a creeping one. Hours had passed, and they’d yet to hit the land of the potent bulb. And through it all, Poe and Maclemar held their hunger at bay by eating energy bars replete with squirmy weevil and the last of the cotton candy batch she had been saving for a rainy day.

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  “I don’t know about you lot, but my bladder’s engorged,” announced Maclemar. I need to stop and whish the plants.”

  “That’s a good idea,” noted Maple who was checking Jorge’s vital statistics once more. Even under the deficient light Poe could tell that the man had a waxy look about him. The van smelled of body leakage and rot. The middle-aged vampire peeled open a new syringe and filled it with morphine. Poe took the opportunity to go outside with the dog.

  Maclemar had carried the piglet with him for a “wee”

  as he called it. She left Penny to her own devices and searched for a place to relieve her own bladder.

  “Jorge’s going to die,” Poe whispered to herself as she did her business behind an upturned truck.

  “The poor man. Seemed like a nice guy, too.”

  A twig snap followed by a loud thump jarred Poe to finish sooner than expected.

  “Who’s there?”

  “The moon is fickle,” somebody said startlingly near. “It shows itself once in a while, but mostly it hides behind the clouds. Don’t worry. It’s well veiled now. I can’t see a thing.”

  “Romulo, you fucking pervert!” she hissed. Her hands shook. She had no love for night, but she respected it enough for the privacy it offered.

  “Just making sure nothing creepy jumps out at you,” he drawled. “I’ve seen creatures weirder than Revs around here.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t see your own reflection, asshole?”

  “Nope. This is what I saw, pretty girl,” he said.

  He threw something creaky her way.

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  Poe stepped back and shone a small penlight on the crumpled bones before her. They were no bigger than a small dog.

  “Not exactly a Rev, but it’s close enough. Better turn that light off before you attract any more of

  ’em.”

  Poe could almost see the shit-for-fangs smiling.

  The bones of baby vamps replete with teeth and pointy hands definitely gave her the creeps.

  “Now aren’t you glad I peeked?” he said, rubbing it in.

  In her haste to reach the van, she nearly mowed down Maclemar.

  “Whoa there,” he said, placing a restraining hand on her arm. “You alright?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She brushed away his concern and ducked inside the van with the dog following closely behind. She filled Penny’s Tupperware from her pack with water. She gave the dog and pig some jerky. “Maple, am I allowed to blow Romulo’s brains out for being a pervert?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Maple answered after two seconds of deliberation. “Seeing that he’s the most annoying person here, I’d say it’s a good idea.”

  “Hilarious,” said Romulo who strapped in his seatbelt in imitation of Maclemar. He fluffed his flaxen hair and tried to part it in the middle. The jungle
of hair stayed shrub-like and unmanageable.

  “I’m indispensable. You said so yourself, Maple. I’m one of the few left who can sunbathe during the day.

  It’s not my fault enemy combatants have weeded the rest.”

  Half an hour into the drive, Jorge’s heart gave out.

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  were shocked into silence when Maple broke the news. Wracked with guilt at the torture she’d committed that afternoon on a leech, Poe bit her lip to keep from bawling. The man with the shiny head had died from the same stomach wound as Jorge.

  I shouldn’t have pulled his intestines out. I shouldn’t have made it personal. Bad karma.

  All traces of grief ended when the van hit something bulky. Maclemar brought the van to a stop.

  “What was that?” asked Maple.

  “An animal maybe?” supplied Poe hopefully.

  “No animal, girlie,” said Romulo Gutierrez. “My little eyes see a very hungry wilderness vampire brushing dirt off himself. And he has tag-along friends, so I suggest you drive as fast as you can, Maclemar.”

  The Welshman didn’t need to be told twice. He revved the old van and swerved whenever he encountered automobiles. Poe put on her night vision goggles and saw five undernourished undead running next to the van and banging on its sides. She pulled an Astra automatic from her pack. Before she could crack the window open, Maple stayed her hand.

  “No, Poe. Use a gun with a silencer. We don’t want any more of them following us.”

  Poe nodded and rummaged through her bag. She found a silencer for her Beretta, but before she could screw it on, a hand punched through the driver’s side window and grabbed Maclemar’s shirt.

  “Fer fuck’s sake!” he yelled, his accent deepening. “Geteroffme!” The van banked left and banged into a car. Maclemar did his best to straighten the van and keep driving.

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  Poe screwed in the silencer, leaned close to Maclemar’s head, and fired at the undead. She adjusted the Star Wars-like goggles and with her green sight pulverized the vampire in the head. Maple rolled her window down a few inches and fired at a leathery undead, insane from lack of food. She hit him in the stomach. The creature fell on the ground screaming like he was getting autopsied alive.