A Shot in the Dark

by K. A. Stewart

  No sooner did the creature stand fully upright than bone chips exploded out the left side of its skull. Something shiny and silver dropped out of the open mouth, and the scream was cut off abruptly. It dropped like a puppet with the strings cut.

  Nothing else immediately tried to rearrange my bodily organs, and I sagged a bit, only then noticing how Cam’s knee was digging into the small of my back. He squirmed uncomfortably too, and with some effort, we managed to thrash our way clear of the dead branches.

  The silver object from the now dead creature (I know it was dead, ’cause I stomped the skull to gooey bits, just to be sure) turned out to be a quarter. I fished it out of the tall grass and stuffed it in my pocket. Guess I really wouldn’t be able to give Marty any crap about his slingshot now.

  The other gleam I retrieved from the foliage was Cam’s delicate gold chain, sporting a very plain gold cross. I handed it back to him, and he nodded his thanks.

  We won that one, mostly. Aside from some nasty cuts and scratches—mostly mine and Cam’s—the tree had done little damage to us other than scattering our forces. There were four dead creatures, three of them splattered with colorful neon paint. I could see where the blessed paintballs had blistered the skin beneath, no doubt distracting them long enough for my brother to deliver the coup de grace with his gun.

  One of the corpses was in several pieces, and Duke refused to relinquish the severed foot he was proudly carrying in his massive jaws. His brindle fur was as colorful as the things we’d just killed, and his muzzle was almost entirely neon pink.

  I grimaced and swallowed hard. “Take that away from him.”

  Marty looked at the big dog—who outweighed me by a good fifty pounds—and back at me. “You go ahead and try.” I didn’t.

  None of the bodies was female. I checked twice. Handless was still out there, and we had no way of knowing where, or how many friends she had with her. It. Think of it as an it. If I started thinking of it as a person, even a former person, I was afraid I might go completely bonkers.

  As we gathered ourselves to move on again, I cornered Marty. “How far do you think we still have to go?”

  He glanced up and down the trail like he could chart our position just from looking. I don’t know, maybe he could. “Another half an hour, if we don’t get stopped. We should be in sight of Ericson’s by then.”

  Our departure was delayed further when Will had to check Zane over. The black streaks were almost to his elbow by now, and even from a few yards away, I could see how fever bright his eyes were. Will had him dry swallow some painkillers, but it was just over-the-counter stuff. It wasn’t going to do much. He didn’t make a peep about how much pain he had to be in, but believe me, I knew, and my heart went out to the kid.

  When we finally got moving, Oscar was supporting his son with one arm, but at least Cameron was managing on his own again. Somehow, our ragtag and wounded bunch managed to make it down the mountain.

  I swear, I have never been so happy to see asphalt in my life, and only dignity kept me from dropping down and kissing the parking lot as we stepped out of the trees.

  I’d had visions of the Suburban sitting there with four slashed tires, but luckily it seemed intact. While Will and Cole got the walking wounded loaded into the big truck, Marty went to retrieve the keys from the clerk. Me? I stood nervous guard on the side of the truck not visible to the store. Didn’t think I wanted to explain to the customers why I was running around the parking lot with a bared blade.

  It was hard getting everyone into the truck when we had two more people than we started with. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to us to have Oscar get his own vehicle, but no one thought of that until hours later. Jackasses (me included).

  Once we were all wedged in (and sadly, the sword had to be stowed for safety’s sake), Will started passing out cell phones from the glove compartment. Mine, of course, was dead. “Fuck!” I had Ivan’s number. I had Viljo’s. Neither of which could I get to in a dead phone. If someone was making a move on the rest of the champions, I had to warn them, and the stupid battery was fucking dead!

  “Don’t you know the numbers?” Cole asked.

  “No, I don’t know the numbers! I put them in the phone so I wouldn’t have to know the numbers!” I thumped my now useless piece of plastic and circuitry against his forehead.

  Thankfully, Cole’s phone was still just fine, and he started trying to track down my wife to get her miracle poisoning cure for Zane. Not so thankfully, Mira seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet. She wasn’t answering the home phone or her cell and though Cole was set on going through his entire contact list, no one else seemed to know where she was either.

  Please . . . please let her be okay . . . She was at the movies. Or . . . getting her hair done, or . . . I pressed my head to the back of Marty’s seat and forced a few deep breaths. There were a couple of dozen explanations for her not answering the phone, all of them perfectly mundane and safe.

  Focus, Jesse. One thing at a time. First, Zane had to get to a hospital.

  Marty didn’t exactly squall tires getting out of the parking lot, but only because I’m not sure the Suburban was capable of such a feat. Next to me, Oscar was turned around in his seat, keeping an eye on Cameron and Zane, stuffed into the back with Duke. The big mutt had curled up next to the injured boy, as if his mere massive presence could make things all right.

  Turned around as I was, also checking on the invalids, the first sign I had that something was wrong was the enormous “THUMP” and Marty spewing out more curse words than I even knew. The vehicle swerved hard, throwing me against the door, and something heavy dented in the roof, almost smacking Oscar in the back of the head.

  “It’s on the roof!” Well, no shit, Will. Before any of us could do anything, the window next to Cole shattered inward, and a skeletal arm reached in, snagging his shirt with filthy, grasping fingers.

  A grotesque head hung upside down in the window, and through the shouting and the broken glass and the careening truck, I recognized it as Handless. I couldn’t even imagine how she was hanging on with her stub of an arm, grappling my brother with the only hand she still possessed.

  Cole had the heel of one palm jammed against her chin, trying to keep her snapping, snarling mouth away from his face, while the other pried at her fingers, her rotten skin coming away under his nails. “Somebody get this bitch off of me!”

  I snatched Oscar by the belt and pitched him over the back of the seat, not caring if he landed on Cameron. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver in the cramped backseat, but I managed to swing my legs around and aimed a few vicious kicks at Handless. Bone crunched under the first, and the second caused her to lose her grip. The filthy thing didn’t fall, though, using her hold on Cole to flip right side up, her clawed feet scratching loudly down the door as she looked for purchase.

  Cole couldn’t get to his gun, and my sword was useless. But the truck was still moving, and I braced myself against my own door. “Cole! Door! Marty, tree!”

  The Suburban swerved, and tree branches whipped through the broken window, spattering us with shredded leaves. Cole let go of Handless long enough to grab the door handle, and I kicked outward with all my might. The door went flying open, taking Handless with it, then slammed back shut with a crunch as it impacted the next tree we passed. Black goo splattered over Cole, and Handless’s now severed arm (the one with the hand) flopped into his lap, twitching feebly for a moment. And Handless was gone.

  With a disgusted exclamation, Cole flung the arm out of the window, trying to scrub his hands off on his gore-splattered jeans.

  “Did it kill her?” I crawled across Cole despite his protests, sticking my head as far out the window as I dared. I couldn’t find her.

  “Sweet cartwheeling Jesus,” Cameron breathed, and I was inclined to agree with him despite the blasphemy. Only he wasn’t worried about Handless and her missing appendages. “Look.” He yanked on my shirt until I turned to look o
ut the front window.

  The road, about a hundred yards in front of the truck, was full of Yeti. Okay, there was just one Yeti, but damn he was huge. And very obviously pissed off.

  “Jess, what do I do?” Marty asked, the truck slowing as he took his foot off the gas.

  I leaned over the front seat to get a good look, locking eyes with the white-furred demon. “Punch it.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Hit him.”

  Without hesitation, Marty put his foot in it, and the Suburban lurched forward, diesel engine roaring as we barreled toward the massive creature. The Yeti bellowed back, standing his ground as we came on, and I started to wonder if maybe I’d made a huge mistake.

  Just as I tensed for impact, and Will braced his arms against the dash, muttering, “Oh shit,” the demon vanished, and we passed harmlessly through a cloud of quickly dispersing blight. When I turned to look out our back window, the road was empty.

  I think every person in that truck deflated, letting out the breaths we’d collectively been holding. I clapped Marty on the shoulder, noting that only now was he flexing his white-knuckled hands on his steering wheel. “To Fort Collins, Jeeves. And don’t spare the horses.”

  I collapsed into my seat, feeling broken glass grind against my legs, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

  16

  The nearest hospital was in Fort Collins, more than an hour away, but through some miracle we made it there in record time and unmolested.

  There was no way the ER staff was ready for us. We came in like a herd of drunk buffalo, so many of us covered in blood and unidentifiable goo that they finally just herded us all into the back to let the actual docs sort us out. Even Duke managed to slip by, and he made camp next to Zane’s bed, doing a pretty damn good disappearing act for something the size of a small horse.

  I tried to disappear. My injuries were superficial at worst, and after spending so much time in them, hospitals in general give me the heebie-jeebies. I found an out-of-the-way corner and pretended that I was invisible, lost in the scent of bleach and the monotonous beep of a dozen different monitors. Maybe if I held really still, no one would notice me.

  I know you’re not supposed to use phones in hospitals, but I was desperate to get word to Mira, Ivan, anybody. I filched Cole’s phone while he was having some glass shards removed from his neck, and kept trying to get my wife on the phone. Nothing. Nada. Bubkes.

  A passing nurse paused briefly, thinking to chastise me over the phone I’m sure, but she took one look at my face and thought better of it. Instead, she grabbed some antiseptic swabs and started working at the cuts and scrapes, holding my chin in an iron grip no matter how I tried to pull away. We took turns glaring at each other as I dialed and redialed the phone, but by the end, I think we’d found some kind of happy truce. Neither of us liked the other, and we were okay with that.

  Cameron, despite the fact that he looked like the walking dead himself, was trying to explain Zane’s condition to the doctors. “I’m telling you, he was attacked by an animal, and the wound went all nasty like this in just a day. We got him here as fast as we could.” They obviously didn’t believe him, which was logical since he was lying out his ass. I wondered if he’d have to mention that in confession later. “No, we don’t know what kind of animal.”

  The bite on Zane’s hand was fairly obscured by his demon mark and the insidious infection. The others, however, over his arms and shoulders . . . well, those couldn’t be anything but human. Even I could see that, and I wasn’t a medical professional. Cameron was going to have to work on his song and dance skills if he wanted to explain that away.

  Will could have backed him up, but my buddy hung back, his normally chattering self uncharacteristically quiet. He didn’t like lying about medical stuff. It went against his own personal code of helping people. But when you can’t exactly run around telling people that a zombie bit your friend, you either lie, or you shut the hell up. He was doing the only thing he could, and still live with himself.

  Oscar could have backed Cam up too, or at least nodded along or something, but I think he’d finally spent the last of the energy that had sustained him throughout his introduction to this terrifying new world. He took up a chair next to Zane’s bed, holding his son’s good hand while the staff rushed to get IVs and other medical paraphernalia in place. Already, I could see the powerful painkillers taking effect, and the tension in the teenager’s face easing. The best they could do for him was let him sleep through this. Their medicine wasn’t going to do a damn thing beyond that.

  “Any luck?” A bandaged Cole found me pacing through the ER. It looked like he’d gotten away without any stitches. “I see that Nurse Ratched got her hands on you too.” He nodded toward my own lovely collection of gauze and tape.

  “Mmph.” Cole’s wife wasn’t answering either. Oddly, that made me feel better. Steph and Mira were probably out together, doing some girl-bonding thing now that the kids were all in school during the day. They were . . . getting their hair done. Or . . . maybe catching a movie. What do women do when we’re gone? Hell, they could be having an orgy with oiled-up cabana boys, and I don’t think I’d care so long as they were safe.

  All I was doing was running Cole’s battery down too, and I finally forced myself to give up, flopping in the nearest chair. I yanked the hair tie out of my ponytail in sheer frustration, and grimaced when I realized how much foulness I had in my formerly blond hair. This vacation had most definitely not gone as planned.

  “So. Wanna bet this is the last official Colorado paintball trip?” My little brother flopped beside me, the pair of us looking like matching bookends.

  I snorted. “Ya think? I’ll be lucky if anyone on this trip speaks to me at all after we get home.”

  “It’s not that bad, big brother.” I gave him a look, and he shrugged. “Nobody died.”

  “Day’s not over yet.” Even if we could get Mira on the phone, I had to wonder if Cam would survive casting the spell to save Zane. This still had the potential to turn out all kinds of bad.

  “Listen.” Cole leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “None of this is your fault.”

  “Um . . . every single bit of this is my fault. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened.” I gestured to the entire ER, more than half the beds currently occupied by people who arrived with me. “Zane wouldn’t have been targeted. Cam wouldn’t be hurt. Marty . . . Christ, he didn’t sign up for any of this. Will either.”

  My brother blew a long breath out his nose and shook his head. “Jess . . . Why did you tell Will and Marty about all this in the first place? Way back when, what made you confide in them, when you’ve hidden it from almost everyone else?”

  What the hell kind of question was that? I blinked at him, perplexed.

  “Humor me. Why’d you bring them into this?”

  “Um . . . I guess, because I needed their help. I couldn’t do it alone.”

  “Yeah, but you could have found someone else. You could have found armor and weapons somewhere, especially after Ivan surfaced. You could have found another doctor type. So why them?”

  I had to really think about it. I didn’t recall consciously making the decision to tell my two best friends about my new calling in life. It just . . . happened. It never occurred to me not to. “I guess because they’re my friends. My best friends. Why wouldn’t I tell them?”

  Cole nodded with a satisfied smirk. “Exactly. They’re your best friends. They’re not gonna ditch you over this.”

  I just shrugged. Only time would tell, and honestly, I wouldn’t think ill of Marty and Will if they ran the other way screaming. If they were smart, they would.

  “So what do we do now?” My brother leaned back in his chair again, stretching out his long legs.

  “I don’t know. We need Mira to help Zane. Until then, there isn’t a lot we can do.” And I needed to get to the numbers in my phone. Viljo had to get the word out, warn people
if it wasn’t already too late.

  Viljo . . .

  “Oh holy fuck.” I scrambled up out of the hard plastic chair, sending it across the sterile tile floor with an obnoxious screech. “Marty, I need your keys! Cole, can I steal your phone? I need the GPS.”

  Marty handed over his keys, but not without looking to my brother for confirmation first. That hurt a bit. Hurt even more when Cole held his phone just out of my reach. “Where are you going?”

  “Can’t tell you, but I’ll be back in like five hours.” Hopefully. “If you guys manage to get Mira on the phone, have her call me on yours.”

  “Why the hell can’t you tell me?” Unspoken in Cole’s question was the fact that, after all of this, I was keeping even more secrets? Really?

  But what I’d managed to remember, slow study that I was, was that Viljo, dear, geeky Viljo, lived near Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak, which was barely two hours from where I stood at that very moment. And at all costs, no one else could know where the über-dork was, ’cause if they found him, they’d find Grapevine. And then they’d find all of Ivan’s champions, if they didn’t already know.

  “Because anything I tell you, someone can take from you, probably involving horrific torture and a lovely vacation somewhere very hot. Glare at me all you want, little brother, but I’m not budging on this one.” The whole champion game had changed in the last year. I felt this to the core of my being. We—all of us champions—had tried to pretend like it hadn’t, tried to go on with business as usual. But it was the thing we never talked about, the demonic elephant in the room. Somehow, we puny humans had stumbled into something much bigger, and even if I didn’t know what it was yet, I could feel it looming near, like a rabbit in a hawk’s shadow. We had to take precautions, things we’d never dreamed of before. We had to cover our asses, which meant first and foremost protecting Grapevine.