by Unknown
Not for the first time since we’d started our walk did I think of Maximus. He’d been the only one to supply me with answers. The only one who seemed to know what was going on. I’d looked for him as we walked through town but if he was still around he didn’t want anyone else to know.
There was something else that was bothering me. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on until I saw Dad stumble and caught a glimpse of his face, pale and slick with sweat.
I glanced down at the watch I’d slipped off the wrist of a dead woman and cursed under my breath. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.
It was fifteen minutes to six. For the past year Dad had come home (who was I kidding, most of the time he’d never left home), settled himself on the sofa, and cracked open a cold one. That beer was followed by another, and another, and another until he drank himself into a comfortable stupor.
But we hadn’t passed the beer store during our scavenger hunt for supplies, and I knew the fine line of perspiration gleaming high on his forehead wasn’t only from walking.
He’d tried to stop drinking a few months ago. I still vividly remembered the shakiness, the temper, and the seizure that made him bite through his own tongue and left blood all over the bathroom floor.
I know what you’re thinking. All that happened after a couple days, right?
Try a couple hours.
Don’t become an alcoholic, kids. It really, really sucks when you decide you don’t want to be one anymore.
“I have to go back,” I said abruptly. “I forgot something.”
“What?” Travis dropped the wheelbarrow stacked high with supplies he’d been pushing. Shading his eyes against the sun he scowled at me. “It’s going to start getting dark in little over an hour. We have everything we need to get through tonight. There’s no way you can go back.”
I set my jaw. “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do, Travis Henderson.”
“Travis is right.” Dad set the down the duffel bag he’d been carrying and exhaled loudly. The Renner Hotel loomed behind him, mocking in its nearness.
More Southern Plantation than Holiday Inn, the five-story hotel with its sweeping lines and columns had been a thing of beauty in its hey day, but age and ruin had sunken it into a state of gross disrepair. Most of the windows were either boarded up or broken. Tall stalks of grass shot up through the parking lot and the circular part of the drive that had once designated valet parking was long overgrown. There was an eerie quality to it. A sense of something plucked out of time. It certainly wasn’t where I would have chosen to spend the night, but then again I wasn’t in the one in charge. Although, come to think of it, I didn’t really know who was.
“We have everything we need,” Dad continued.
I met his eyes. “Not everything,” I said quietly.
Travis looked back and forth between us, picking up on the tension but unable to track its source. “You can’t be serious,” he said slowly. “Lola this is a really dumb idea, even for you.”
Dad opened his mouth. I waited for him to tell me not to go. Waited for him to volunteer for the job himself. But he didn’t and I couldn’t even hate him for it, because the same weakness I saw in him I also recognized in myself.
“I’ll be quick,” I said, keeping my tone light, as though I was just going out to pick up some milk at the grocery store instead of sneaking back into a town crawling with bloodsucking monsters to get my alcoholic father his beer.
If you ever want to see what I look like, look up ‘dysfunctional’ in the dictionary. My picture will be there.
“Be careful.” Dad’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Be safe.”
“Mr. Sanchez, you can’t let her do this.”
I punched my best friend in the arm. “Shut up.”
“Ow,” he exclaimed, rubbing his flimsy excuse for a bicep. “Why do you always do that?”
“Because I can. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” I hope. “Way before sunset. Where will you be?”
Dad scuffed his shoe into the dirt. “Room thirty-two. Your, ah, mother and I stayed there. Once. It’s a nice room.”
Surprise lifted my eyebrows straight up. “You did? When?”
“A long time ago. Before you and your sister were born.”
When we were happy.
He didn’t say the words out loud, but I heard them all the same. I managed a tight smile. “Room thirty-two. Got it. Here, take this.” I dropped my duffel bag on the ground between us. It hit with a loud thud, the water bottles inside crinkling. Travis grabbed my arm above the wrist and tugged me to the side. A cornstalk caught me in the side of the face and I slapped it away.
“Lola, this isn’t a good idea,” he said urgently. “Whatever you need to get for your dad… It can wait until tomorrow.”
While I appreciated his concern for my safety, there was no talking me out of something once my mind was made up. I twisted easily out of his grasp. “I’ll be fine. Back before you know it.” And then, in a quieter voice only he could hear I said, “Look after my dad, okay?”
I could tell he didn’t like it by the way his eyebrows clenched together over the bridge of his nose, but he knew better than to argue. “Okay,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I will.”
Good old dependable Travis. Impulsively I leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. His face burned and his eyes widened, but by the time he managed to stutter out a response I was already gone.
The only beer store in town was tucked in between a pharmacy and a grocery store on the west side, about as far from the hotel as you could get. I walked briskly, splitting my attention between the sidewalk and the sun hovering above a tidy row of townhouses off to the left.
The lower it sank the higher my pulse rate went up until it felt like my heart was as loud as the slap of my sneakers on the sidewalk.
I numbed myself to the bodies; not looking at them, but not looking away either. They were simply there, the way telephone poles are there on every road you drive down. You never notice them until you go out of your way to look and then they’re all you can see and you wonder how you ever missed them in the first place.
I reached Main Street and turned left, skirting the bumper of a minivan someone had crashed into a tree. My fingers glanced off the metal. It felt cool to the touch, another sign the sun was quickly fading.
When I reached Bub’s Beer Store it was almost dark. The walk had taken almost twice as long as I’d anticipated and I fairly flew between the rows, searching frantically for Dad’s beverage of choice. I found a twenty-four pack of his favorite beer wedged tightly between a case of Guinness and two twelve packs of Bud Light. Wrestling it free with a loud grunt of effort, I tucked it up and under my right arm like some sort of awkwardly shaped football before I sprinted for the exit.
I hit the sidewalk at a dead run. The sun was gone, swallowed up by the horizon. Red and orange streaked across the sky in bright slashes of color as though some crazy toddler had gotten his hands in finger paint and gone crazy.
It wasn’t quite dark. Not yet. But it was going to be.
I cut across the street, hurdling over a man laying facedown with his arms splayed out to the side. All the fingers on his left hand were chewed off at the knuckle.
Unable to maintain my helter-skelter pace I slowed to a jog, then a fast walk. There was a stitch in my side and blisters burned on the back of my heels. I knew they would most likely heal within minutes, but that didn’t stop them from hurting like a bitch right now.
The pain dulled in comparison to the relief that was growing with every step I took, though. Nothing stirred in the shadows. No screams echoed in the night. It was strangely silent, but I would take the silence over gurgling cries of horror any day of the week.
Travis had been wrong and I couldn’t wait to rub it in his face. The vampires were either gone all together, or they couldn’t come out until it was completely dark. Either way I was going to make it. I was going to be
safe.
I was still thinking that when someone wrapped their hand in the tangled ends of my hair and yanked me off my feet.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Real Damsels Rescue Themselves
I saw the eyes first.
They swam above me, bright and blue and chillingly delighted. The voice came next. Soft. Crooning.
Gloating.
“Pretty girl. Pretty, pretty girl. You ran too slow, pretty girl.”
A cold finger trailed across my cheek. I struck it away, and giggles filled the air.
“A fighter, eh? Here, pretty girl, let me help you up.”
Strong hands dug into my shoulders and hauled me to my feet so fast my head spun. As quickly as I’d been propped up I was let go and I stumbled forward, catching myself on a streetlamp. Looping one arm around the thick metal post I turned to face my attacker as the familiar taste of bile and fear curdled in my throat.
Not again, I thought helplessly. Please, please, please not again. It isn’t night yet! It isn’t completely dark.
Guess Travis was right after all.
This vampire – or drinker, as Maximus called them – was a young man not much older than me. He was slender and tall, with pale blond hair cut short enough to outline the angled edges of his skull. His black t-shirt and jeans hung off him, both too big for his wiry frame. Eyes the same color as Angelique’s stared me down. Grinning, he held out a closed fist and slowly peeled back one finger after another to reveal what he had clutched in his palm.
A ball of my hair.
The bastard had ripped my hair right out of my head.
While I watched he lifted the hair to his nostrils and inhaled deeply, his eyes flickering closed. When his tongue darted out, dark red against his pale white skin, I made a sound of disgust and twisted my head to the side.
He laughed again, the high-pitched giggle of a young girl trapped in the body of a teenage boy.
“I know what you are,” I bit out. “And I’m not afraid of you.” If I were going to die, at least I’d go down sounding like a badass. No need for anyone to know I was about two seconds away from pissing my pants and throwing up the handful of crackers I’d eaten for lunch.
The drinker darted forward, light and lithe as a cat. His pointer finger slid down my arm, leading with a nail that was filed to a sharp point. I didn’t even realize he’d sliced my skin open until he danced away and sucked the blood from his fingertip. “Mmmm,” he groaned, slurping at his finger. “Tastes like strawberries.”
I tried (and failed) not to gag.
He stared at me expectantly, his eyes feverishly bright, no doubt waiting for me to start crying or fall to my knees begging for mercy. I did neither. My blood made a faint drip drip drip sound as it ran past my wrist and fell to the sidewalk. The drinker licked his bloody lips and began to circle the streetlamp, a predator closing in on its prey, exactly as Angelique had done the night before. I knew this dance. Too bad I didn’t have a weapon. We’d been unable to find Maximus’ gun in the car wreckage and I hadn’t thought to bring anything with me. Although, to be fair, what could I use to fend off a supernatural creature with silver fangs? A freaking stick?
I turned as he turned, never giving him my back. I spied the case of beer tipped on its side in the middle of the street. I must have pitched it sideways when the drinker flipped me.
Asshole.
“Where have you been hiding, pretty girl?” The corner of his mouth curled up. “Clever, clever girl to have lasted this long.”
I ignored his question. I didn’t want to say anything that could possibly give Dad and Travis away. Not when they still had a chance. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Oh pretty girl, the things I am going to do to you…” The drinker all but quivered in delight. “Best not think about that now. I don’t want to give you nightmares.” One blue eye squinted closed in a mocking wink. “I know how delicate you humans can be.”
“Yeah, I guess we don’t hold up real well to having our throats torn open and limbs ripped off.”
“You are going to be so much fun to break. I have – what do you humans say? – oh yes.” Another giggle. “I have won the lottery.”
And I’d definitely lost. I looked past the drinker, searching the growing shadows. Without electricity the town was going to be darker than I’d ever seen it. Were there others out there like him, biding their time? Was Angelique out there? Was she watching, even now?
“Aren’t you going to cry?” the drinker asked. He stood perched on his toes in the middle of the sidewalk, his hands at his hips and his head cocked to the side. With his blond hair and blue eyes he would have been pretty cute, if not for the whole I-want-to-torture-and-kill-you act he had going on.
I met him stare for stare. “I guess I’m not the crying type.”
He liked that. I could tell by the way he sucked in a breath and his nostrils flared. I was a novelty to him. An exciting distraction from all his other victims who begged and pleaded for their lives. Did that make me better, or stupider? I had the feeling I’d be finding out very shortly.
“What’s your endgame here?” I asked.
“My endgame?” He began circling me again. His movements were jerkier this time, as though something was putting him on edge. He kept glancing over his shoulder and snapping his teeth at the shadows. Moonlight reflected off his fangs, glinting on the razor sharp points. I imagined them sinking into my flesh the way a knife slid through soft butter and barely managed not to cringe. I glanced down at my hand and saw my fingers were wrapped around the metal pole so tight all the blood had leeched from my knuckles. I forced myself to loosen my grip, but there was nothing I could do to slow down the rapid beating of my heart.
“Yeah, your endgame,” I repeated, trying to sound nonchalant. “Your purpose. Your reason for doing all this.” I’d asked Angelique similar questions; I hoped this drinker’s answers were a little more satisfactory. If I was going to die – and this time I was pretty confidant there was no getting around it – at least I wanted to know why.
“You’re calmer than the others. Stronger. Braver.” He sighed and for a moment so quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it, a hint of compassion shimmered in his piercing blue eyes. “But that won’t save you. Nothing will, pretty girl. Nothing can. Death will come to you, the same as it has to all the others. I could promise to make it painless... but what would be the fun in that?”
“You have to have a reason,” I insisted. Keep him talking, a little voice whispered inside my head. Keep him busy. The longer he talks, the longer you live. “You can’t kill an entire town without one.” I ran my fingers through my hair. Tipped one hip out. Attempted a coaxing smile. “Come on, you can tell me. What am I going to do, tell someone? Look around.” I gestured out to the empty street with a careless sweep of my arm. “There’s no one left.”
The drinker leered at me. “The meat you devoured from the last cheeseburger you ate. Where did the cow come from? What happened to it? How did it die? What was your endgame, pretty girl?”
“I don’t understand.”
The leer transformed into a boyish grin. “Precisely. You ate what was put out in front of you, not caring that you were nibbling on the rotting insides of another creature. Your concern for that cow is the same concern I have for you. Which is to say, of course, none at all. Endgame?” His eyes narrowed. “There is no endgame. There is only death and destruction and survival of the fittest. Humans had their time while we bided ours. Once survival was had by those who deserved it, but humans have grown arrogant, and in your arrogance you’ve bred weakness.”
I held up my hand. “Let me stop you right there, buddy. I’ve watched Teen Mom. I know what happens when you have unprotected sex. I haven’t bred anything, so how about we slow down a second.”
“Oh, I do like you pretty girl. It’s a shame I am going to have to slice out your – what is happening to your arm?” he hissed before he crouched low, blue eyes darting left and ri
ght. “You didn’t tell me you were already claimed.” His teeth snapped together with a metallic click. “Sneaky little bitch.”
I glanced down and saw instantly what had turned him from charming sociopath to snarling monster. The cut on my arm, courtesy of his fingernail, was healing. I stared in morbid fascination as my skin knitted itself together, like a zipper being pulled up, leaving the wound pink and shiny and new.
“Who bit you?” he demanded, still resting on his haunches, his fingers braced against the ground. There was nothing cute about him now. Nothing redeeming. Nothing human. He would rip me limb from limb as soon as look at me, and in the face of such violent madness I didn’t think to lie.
“A-Angelique.” I hated the stutter in my voice. Hated the fear that closed like a vice around my heart. Hated that when it came down to it, no amount of talking would save me. If the drinker wanted me dead I would be dead. He was stronger, faster, smarter, older. He was everything I was not, and there was nothing I could do to save myself. Nothing but stand my ground, close my eyes, and hope it would be quick.
“But her pet ran away…” he said slowly. Tilting his head, he studied me under a fringe of delicate white lashes. “Unless…” Quicker than my eye could follow he was on his feet and had my jaw pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He forced my head up, stretching it until the muscles cried in protest, leaving my throat completely defenseless. “Unless the little lost lamb has returned to her flock,” he purred.
“Did I say Angelique?” I gasped. “I m-meant Angela.”
“No.” He rubbed his cheek against mine. “I don’t think you did.”
“Let her go.”
I’d never heard three sweeter words.
“Maximus!” I cried out his name as he stepped into view. His face was obscured by shadow, but there was no mistaking him for anyone else. He still wore all black. His hair was disheveled, one dark curl hung low over his left eye. He crossed the street with long, languid strides and stepped up over the curb, never taking his intense gaze off the drinker who held me captive. I could have wept when I saw the gun in his hand. “Maximus, he’s going to—”