Chance in Hell

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  Had we known how many there were, we would have just torched the place from the safety of sunlight and mopped up anything that came out. But we didn’t, which was how we walked into the ambush. Robert had told us vampires slept during the day. So that’s what we were expecting: one vampire asleep somewhere in the house. There were a lot more than one, and they were wide awake, waiting for us.

  Gabe went in first. He had a sawed-off Mossberg 500 shotgun loaded with Dragon’s Breath rounds. Vampires didn’t like fire, and each of these rounds belched out a twelve-foot-long column of flame for about five seconds. Robert was next, carrying a crossbow. I was right behind him with a crossbow of my own, followed bye Katy with her fire ax. John brought up the rear, lugging a fully automatic AK-47 with a 100-round drum. Bullets wouldn’t kill a vampire, but Robert assured us that enough of them would sure as heck slow it down, and John was a really good shot. He served as Special Forces in the Air Force. I didn’t even know they had Special Forces, but his unit did some crazy stuff, like rescuing downed pilots behind enemy lines.

  We were in a huge great room. The ceilings were at least twenty feet tall, a genuine bearskin rug lay near the fireplace, and a row of animal heads hung along one wall. The place was a shambles, and old blood stains spattered the tan tile floor.

  Gabe was staring at the back of the room. “Yo, why are the windows boarded up? Did the family try to keep them out or something?” The back of the house should have held large glass windows; instead, we were looking at a wall of plywood.

  Robert realized something was wrong a second before I felt them coming.

  “Get out!” he roared, but it was too late. One leapt over the bar from the kitchen. John saw it and his AK roared, deafening in the great room. Another came running down a hall, and Gabe fired into it, a gout of flame engulfing its chest and head. It shrieked but kept running right for him.

  I felt the cold come from above me, and looked up to see three dropping down from a second-floor balcony. I fired.

  “Heads up!” Blind luck sent the crossbow bolt right through the chest of one. It fell to the ground, still.

  Robert spun and fired as they fell, his bolt hitting another in the shoulder. Katy dived to one side and the third landed where she had just been standing. She swung her axe but was blocked with a forearm that the axe cleaved nearly in two.

  ”Crap! Bitch broke my arm.” It was the first time any of us, besides Robert, had heard a vampire speak.

  I reloaded and looked to see Gabe stumbling back, firing one last time point-blank into the thing’s chest, before the flaming vampire was on top of him.

  The thundering continued as John moved the rounds up the body of the oncoming vamp until half a dozen 7.62 bullets exploded its head. The body fell twitching at John’s feet.

  The vamp with the bolt in its shoulder went for Robert, who had abandoned his crossbow for a KA BAR knife and a Browning Hi-Power. I fired, but it was moving, and I put the bolt through its side. Robert shot it twice, then they were both down rolling on the ground, all knife and teeth and claws.

  Katy, facing the vamp with the ruined arm, backed up, then swung her ax down and to the side, chopping off the head of the one lying on the floor that I had hit in the heart, killing it.

  I looked at Gabe, who was rolling around with a vampire. They were both on fire, screaming. The vamp was biting him in the neck, and Gabe had pulled out the SOG Navy SEAL knife he was so proud of and was stabbing the thing over and over in the back of the neck and head.

  I felt another chill. Somehow this one filled me with dread. It was different; bigger than what I had felt before. I looked around. Katy and the one-armed vamp were circling each other. John had run over to Gabe, dropped his AK and was trying to pull the vamp off him. Robert had pulled the bolt out of the vampire’s side and impaled it in the heart. He sat on top of it and was sawing off its head with his knife.

  Then there was movement—just a flash, too fast for me to really register—and Katy went flying to the side, smashing against the bar. Her ax clattered on the tile floor. A vampire stood in the empty space. He wore a tailored suit. His skin was light, even for a vampire, and his features were Nordic or Germanic. Long blond hair flowed freely. “Robert,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Christian,” said Robert, shocked recognition on his face. He dropped the head of the vamp he was sitting on, which rolled a few feet until coming to rest, face up. Robert’s hand came up and he fired, emptying his thirteen-round clip. The vamp dodged, moving to the side faster than I had ever seen anyone move, and then came toward me. I clip-dumped my Kimber .45 into it. Seven rounds of hot load hollow-point tore into its side. It howled and charged. My training paid off enough to sidestep the brunt of it. The thing flew by, sending me crashing to the ground.

  I scrambled toward Katy’s axe. John ran to retrieve his AK. Gabe lay in a pool of blood too big to be anything but fatal.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Robert’s voice echoed in the room.

  I was about to head for the door, but I had forgotten all about one-arm. By the time I felt the tell-tale chill it was on me. We both went down. Then Robert was at my side. His Browning barked into the side of the thing’s head while he tore the thing off me.

  He pulled me up, and I heard the rat-tat-tat of the AK. The vamp that Robert had called Christian came for John. He had opened up, and I think he must have hit it, but it kept coming, grabbing him by the neck and running right up the plywood, using its speed and the claws of one hand. It reached the twelve-point buck almost fifteen feet up and thrust John’s body onto it, the antlers jutting out from his chest.

  The vampire looked down at us. “Now that’s a trophy!”

  Robert and I were standing above one-arm. “Get out, Chance—now!” hissed Robert.

  “Yes, Chance, by all means. Flee! Not that it will do you any good. I told you I would find you and kill you, Robert, and that goes for your friends as well. I am a patient man. But I’ve been waiting a long time for this, ever since you killed my family. I think it’s time we end it.”

  “You’re no man, and those abominations were no family,” Robert said, backing up as he ejected a clip from the Hi-Power and slammed a new one home.

  One-arm was crawling toward Katy, who lay crumpled on the ground. I brought the ax down on its neck. I heard Robert fire as he ran over, grabbed my arm, and hauled me back toward the front door. I dropped the ax and pulled out my Kimber, reloading as we backpedaled toward the door.

  “Katy!” I yelled.

  “She’s dead. Move!” I was almost to the front door.

  “No,” said the vampire, looking over Robert’s shoulder and into my eyes. “You want to stay.” I think it was trying its vampire mind trick on me. Robert said they could do that. It didn’t seem to work, though, because I kept going.

  Robert shoved me back as the thing attacked. My back hit the door, and I reached behind me, opening it, light streaming in. The thing had Robert, who emptied his gun into it, uselessly. It slowly twisted off Robert’s head as I backed out of the door. It looked confused that I was leaving.

  “I said, stay.”

  I kept backing up until I was well outside.

  Robert’s body landed across the threshold. The head followed a moment later, rolling down the steps, resting open-eyed on the dirt driveway. The thing and I stared at each other for a time. He was frowning, like he had found a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. I moved forward, careful to stay in the sunlight. I reached in Robert’s jacket pocket and grabbed his phone. Then I picked up his KA BAR, which had ended up outside next to his body, and scrambled back towards the van. The thing’s voice called out to me.

  “I’ll be seeing you again, boy! You can count on it!”

  I raised my gun and fired at the monster as it laughed.

  I jolted awake, breathing heavily. It was dark and I was disoriented. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I had shouted. Suddenly someone was there, crouched down beside me.
/>   “Shhhhh,” came a soothing voice. I looked up to see the outline of a face. Then the scent of lavender hit me, and I remembered where I was and began to calm down.

  “Nightmare,” I murmured, closing my eyes as she reached over to stroke my temple. It had only been a matter of time before my subconscious decided to relive that day.

  “Go back to sleep,” said Megan. She stayed there for a little while, the cool touch of her fingers across my brow helping my heartbeat slowly return to normal. I felt something soft on my cheek; then I heard her rise and move away. Feeling safe, I drifted back to sleep, only half-aware of the irony.

  Chapter 19

  I woke up to the banging of cupboards and dishes. Lacey was in the kitchen, and I was pretty sure she was being intentionally loud.

  “Oh, hey, Chance—you’re awake! I was just getting out everything I thought you might need to cook breakfast.”

  I grabbed my phone from the coffee table. 6:54. Jesus, I hate morning people.

  I shambled into the kitchen, and Lacey looked over from the sink where she was filling the coffee pot. She looked at me and burst into a very large grin. “So, um, you want coffee?” She was wearing an oversized t-shirt, and as near as I could tell, that was it. I guess after three nights my presence no longer warranted any sense of propriety.

  I nodded. She giggled a little. One thing worse than morning people was morning people who thought non-morning people were funny.

  “Sleep well?” At least now she was trying to stifle her grin. I just wasn’t getting the joke.

  I mumbled something noncommittal and sat down on a chair for a few minutes, willing away the spiderwebs. It had taken a while, but at least once I had finally gotten to sleep, I had stayed there.

  Once the smell of coffee hit the air, I was able to get up and start moving. It had been a while since I had cooked a big breakfast, but it was like riding a bike. My mom had failed us in a lot of ways, but one thing she had done right was show her boys how to cook a good breakfast. I made enough to feed four, figuring that should be enough for Lacey and me. Which, as it turned out, was a good thing.

  I was just about to take my first bite when there was a pounding on the door. I looked at the microwave; the clock read 7:42. I looked at Lacey, who, mouth full of biscuits, could only shrug. I sighed and got up, heading for the door. I was about to open it, then remembered all the people who wanted me for unkind reasons. I looked through the peephole and swore.

  Lacey was up and into the family room fast, a kitchen knife in one hand. “Powers?”

  “No. Worse,” I said, and opened the door.

  “Dude, special delivery!” Bryan looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Nice lips, dude,” then looked around and said “Fuck, nice place.” And then, spotting Lacey: “Holy shit, Chance! No wonder you’re staying in California! Damn, that girl is fine!”

  He strode in with me tagging along behind, trying to figure out what to do. “Is that breakfast? She cooks for you, too? Hey, lady, you got a sister?”

  Lacey glanced at her knife.

  “That’s Lacey, and I cooked the breakfast.”

  “Dumped that Megan chick, huh?” He looked back at Lacey. “Man, I don’t blame you, dude. I mean, that chick sounded cute, but this one is beyond, you know?”

  I really didn’t. So I said, “Lacey, this is my brother Bryan; Bryan, this is my friend Lacey. Megan is asleep in her room.” Before Bryan could even start with whatever inappropriate comment he was going to make, I added, “I’m still seeing Megan.” Okay, it was a white lie, but I hoped it would calm him down a bit.

  I was delusional.

  Lacey took one last longing look at her knife, then switched it to her left hand and slowly extended her right, like you might do to an angry-looking dog you just met, but whose owner insisted didn’t bite. Bryan took it and, to my horror, kissed it.

  “So, you’re single. Nice.” Then he saw the food. “But we’ll hook up later. Let’s eat, man. I’ve been driving for hours.”

  By eight o’clock, the meal I’d spent forty-five minutes making was gone. I was glad I’d made the extra food, because Bryan was a teenage boy, and Lacey ate like one. When the carnage was over, there wasn’t a leftover to be found. I sighed and started cleaning the dishes. I was glad I only knew how to cook breakfast, because the effort just wasn’t worth it.

  “Damn, that was good, bro!”

  “Yeah,” said Lacey. “Almost makes me hope Megan keeps you around.” Okay, maybe the effort was worth it just a little.

  “So,” said Bryan, “you a vampire?”

  “He knows?” She didn’t sound pleased.

  “They kind of burnt down his house.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Bryan, they didn’t follow you, did they?”

  “No one followed me, man.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure.”

  I must have looked like I didn’t believe him, because he said, “So, vampires—don’t they get engulfed in fire or something when sunlight hits them?”

  “I think so.” We had made all of our kills inside or at night. We hadn’t used sunlight to do our dirty work, not that we wouldn’t have if given the opportunity. But Robert had said sunlight would kill them. I looked to Lacey for confirmation; she nodded.

  “Well then, bro, no one followed me, ‘cause I’m sure I would have noticed a car full of flaming vampires in my rearview mirror. I drove most of the trip during the day, Chance.”

  “Oh. Okay, yeah, then you’re probably right.”

  “So she’s a vamp?” he said, admiring Lacey.

  “No, she’s a witch.”

  “Damn, dude—that’s cold. She seems all right! Sorry, babe. My brother’s a dick. Don’t listen to him.”

  “I am a witch,” said Lacey.

  “Oh, shit, seriously? You too? Oh, c’mon, Chance—the hottest chick I’ve met in years and she’s all into the live action role-playing shit like you. Dude. I am not dressing up in armor just to bang her.” He looked at Lacey. “I mean, you’re fine, but no.”

  “Bryan, you watched them burn down your house, for Christ’s sake! How could you not believe these things exist?”

  “Dude, I watched a group of ‘roided-out jerks burn down my house. There’s a difference.”

  At that point, I heard a door open from the hallway and Megan’s voice call out, “Is it safe?”

  Lacey closed the heavy kitchen blinds, then the curtains over them and said, “Yeah.”

  It must have been t-shirt night, because Megan shuffled in wearing one of mine. I thought it was the one I’d been wearing yesterday. She went to a cupboard, opened it, took out a bottle of Advil, dumped a pile into her hand and replaced the bottle. She looked at Lacey and smiled; looked at Bryan and frowned; walked up to me, smiled, and touched a finger to my cheek; and then she turned around and shuffled back down the hall. I heard her door shut.

  “Do those even work on her?” I asked.

  Lacey shrugged. “No idea. I doubt it.”

  “Damn, dude,” said Bryan in a thankfully quieter tone. “You’re doing all right! You grabbed the second-hottest chick in California.” He looked over at Lacey in case she missed it. Her smile said that she hadn’t. To my dismay, I thought he was wearing her down. At least she had put the knife back in the butcher’s block.

  “Oh, hey,” said Bryan, “I got your stuff in the truck. Man, I am so glad I wasn’t pulled over! I had to do the speed limit for the last sixteen hundred miles for you, dude.”

  “Bryan, don’t blame that on me. If your truck could even make it up to the speed limit, I would be shocked.”

  “Hey, it ain’t that bad; it got me here.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Now that’s cold.”

  We went outside and grabbed two large duffel bags from the bed of his pickup. I could barely lift the one I grabbed. We got inside and set them down.

  “That’s the stuff from the van,” he said, nodding
at the bag I had just set down. “Good thing I got that shit out of it, ‘cause otherwise when the cops got around to towing that van, they were going to be all bent out of shape when they looked inside.”

  “So what’s in it?” asked Lacey.

  “Mostly guns,” said Bryan.

  “What’s in that one?” asked Lacey, looking at the one Bryan had.

  “My tools.”

  “Where are your clothes?” I asked, looking around for another bag.

  “They burned up in the house, man, along with everything else.”

  “Sorry. Yeah, I guess they would have. I have some you can borrow today. We can go pick up some for you later on.”

  I opened up the duffel bag in front of me. Bryan had stuffed every weapon from the van that he could find in there, leaving all of the clothes and personal effects that we had packed for California back in the van. There were two AKs, a Bushmaster ACR, two crossbows, Katy’s extra fire axe, a .44 Magnum, Robert’s spare Browning Hi-Power, a dozen wooden stakes, some road flares, and a ton of ammo, some of it silver. There was no holy water, garlic or crosses, because they didn’t work.

  “Wow,” said Lacey. “You guys are like your own little separatist movement.”

  I headed in to use Lacey’s bathroom to shave and shower. That’s when I saw the set of bright red lips on my cheek that had apparently been there all morning.

  Chapter 20

  Despite having spent far more time than necessary at the mall having to listen to Lacey and Bryan arguing about what clothes he should be buying, we managed to arrive at Midnight Cycle right at noon. We would have been early, but it took an act of Congress to get Lacey out of the mall.

  I had expected Midnight Cycle to be a bar. I was half right. It was a long rectangular building to the south of town, just outside of the subdivisions and strip malls, though by the looks of the construction I didn’t know if that would last. Half of it had been converted into a bar with corrugated metal walls, worn tables and benches, and a concrete floor. The other half was a mechanic’s shop and motorcycle-parts store that stayed open until midnight.