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Deadrise (Book 7): Bloodlust

Page 5

by Brandt, Siara


  He didn’t get an argument this time, not even from Kyn.

  “What about- ”

  They all looked at the closed door.

  “We did hear two animals fighting,” Ren reminded them. “That means something is still out there.”

  If it had not occurred to them already that there could be more out there like the woman in the bedroom, it occurred to them now, every last one of them.

  “We’ll hope to God that she’s the only one,” Kyn said. “Because I think we can all agree that we’re in some serious trouble if there are more. Hopefully by daylight we’ll have our answer.”

  “In the morning we can send someone back who’s got experience dealing with this sort of thing,” Gaut said.

  “What sort of thing?” Ren asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Gaut answered him. “But we’re certainly not equipped to deal with it. Rafe’s seen years of combat overseas, but even he’s never seen anything like this.”

  Rafe was preoccupied by his own thoughts and worries. Hell, Lauryn, are you all right? he asked silently. There was no answer, of course, but he knew one thing. It was going to be a very, very long night as another god-awful screech sounded from behind that bedroom door.

  “Is she dead?”

  The voice pulled Lauryn out of the oblivion of darkness that she had been drifting in.

  “No, she just moved.”

  “Is she- ?”

  Lauryn opened her eyes but everything was still fuzzy. She was still unable to comprehend what had happened to her. She registered that her car door was open at the same moment that a police officer slowly came into focus.

  “You awake now?” she heard as he leaned closer to her.

  “What happened?” she asked in a voice that was so weak it was barely above a whisper. She still felt maddeningly disoriented. Where was she? She wasn’t even sure about that.

  “You were in a car accident,” the officer told her. “Another car ran a red light and hit yours in an intersection. I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

  Was she hurt badly? She didn’t know. Even though she couldn’t feel any pain anywhere, she was almost afraid to move.

  She could see the front of the other car through the passenger window now. The metal bumper was crumpled like an accordion. Both headlights were shattered.

  “I think I’m all right,” she said, frowning at how shaky her voice still sounded.

  The officer’s eyes narrowed as they stayed focused on her face. “You should go to the hospital to be checked out. Just in case.”

  Someone shouted and the officer’s brow creased into a deep, worried frown as he shifted his gaze away from her.

  Lauryn heard more yelling. The door of the other car was open, too, but people were backing away from the car instead of helping whoever might be inside. She couldn’t see the other driver at all because the overhanging, shifting tree leaves cast shadows over the windshield. From the corner of her eye, she could see the patrol car with its flashing lights.

  The officer left her abruptly. She could hear him ordering the people, “Stay back!”

  Lauryn watched him draw his weapon. She saw him hold it out before him in both hands. She could see movement inside the other car now. Someone was struggling frantically in the driver’s seat. Shouldn’t they be helping whoever it was?

  “It’s belted in,” she heard.

  It?

  There were shocked exclamations. None of them made sense to her. There was more yelling. More orders from the officer to stay back. Lauryn heard a sound like a dog viciously growling. Had there been a dog in the other car, she wondered? Was it wounded?

  No, not a dog, she realized. It sounded like some other animal she couldn’t place.

  The people that were gathered around the other vehicle fell back in unison. The officer was aiming. Shooting.

  Shooting!

  His gun echoed loudly, shattering the morning stillness.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  A hush had fallen over the crowd by the time the reverberating echoes stopped. The growling had stopped as well.

  Lauryn closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. None of this made any sense. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong . . .

  The officer put his weapon away and made his way back to her car. Lauryn looked up at him with a sick feeling of dread inside. Was he going to shoot her, too? As he stared down at her, her heart was frozen with unreasonable fear. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.

  “Why?” she finally whispered.

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” he told her. “Let’s just get you out of there.”

  Before he could do anything, he looked over his shoulder as sirens wailed in the distance. He talked into the microphone on his shoulder, trying to reach someone who wasn’t answering.

  She reached up with her hand to push the hair out of her face, still trying to make sense out of it all. That’s when she saw the blood. Her hand was bleeding, probably from the broken window beside her. Shards of glass were scattered all over her clothing and on her seat. The blood had stained the lower part of her sleeve and the front of her new white blouse.

  “The ambulance is here,” she heard someone call out.

  The sirens were deafening. And then they stopped. Another set of lights was flashing off the windshield of the other car.

  The two paramedics who approached Lauryn’s car looked more panicked than she felt, which alarmed her. “We hear it’s happening everywhere,” she heard one of them say to the officer. “ . . . chaos in the emergency rooms. An ambulance was even stolen in the confusion.”

  What was happening? Lauryn wondered.

  “Don’t worry about that one,” she heard the officer tell the paramedics as he indicated the other car with a glance. “Let’s just get this one out of there,” he repeated, his voice a little more urgent this time.

  Someone called out for help and the officer jerked his head around. Someone else, a woman, screamed on a rising note of terror.

  With a muttered oath, the officer stepped away from Lauryn and stood with his back to her. He was aiming and firing again. There were more screams.

  “Who is he shooting at?” Lauryn asked one of the paramedics who was frantically trying to undo her seatbelt.

  “You need to get out of here,” was all he said to her.

  In spite of the man telling her to stay still, she shifted her body slightly, trying to see what was happening. She heard more growling sounds. The paramedic finally pulled her free, or tried to. He swore as he jerked her halfway out of the car and then went to his knees, pulling her down with him.

  Why were they in such a hurry? Lauryn wondered in a confused daze. Unless they were worried about gas exploding.

  After the paramedic got back to his feet, he helped hold Lauryn up and together they staggered away from the car.

  “Can you walk?” he asked, puffing out each breath, not slowing down.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “If you want to live, then you’re going to have to try.”

  That alarmed her even further. She took a step and felt a sharp pain shooting up her leg. But, whatever was going on, if it meant surviving, she could walk. She would walk. Thinking they needed to get away from the vehicle as fast as possible before it exploded in a ball of fire, things became even more confusing when the officer was suddenly attacked.

  Lauryn could see it from the corner of her eye. There was more savage growling. Blood. Screaming.

  She couldn’t see everything that was happening because the paramedic was partially blocking her view. That’s when she heard the city’s sirens go off. That’s when she knew that whatever was happening was worse than she had thought. Panic shot thru her, almost paralyzing her with fear for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to do or where to go. She heard the turmoil all around her, but still couldn’t see what was causing it. Was she hurt worse than she had thought, or was it fear that w
as suddenly making it hard for her to draw air into her lungs?

  The paramedic was trying to support her the best he could, but for some reason he suddenly let go and half dropped her again. She collapsed to her knees on the concrete.

  “My purse,” she gasped. She couldn’t leave it behind. All her money and all her information was in there.

  “Leave it,” the man gritted as he helped her get back to her feet. He glanced back over his shoulder. Lauryn couldn’t see what was behind him, but when he looked back, she had never seen such a look of stark terror on anyone’s face.

  Operating on pure adrenaline now, she demanded to know, “What is going on?”

  His answer could not have shocked her more. “The gates of hell have opened up.”

  She didn’t understand what he was talking about. “What- ” she began.

  “The dead, lady. They’re coming back to life. Run if you want to save yourself. Run!”

  She turned her face and got a glimpse of what he had been looking at. That was the moment that Lauryn knew real terror.

  Chapter 5

  “You were pretty easy on him, you know,” Selia said as she poured a dark stream of steaming coffee into her favorite mug, the one with the peacock on it. It had been a gift from Caleb and so it was one that she cherished.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Caleb said as he spooned sugar into his own mug. “I feel sorry for the man.”

  He glanced back at the kitchen TV and frowned as a new red warning box flashed across the bottom of the screen that said: SPECIAL NEWS ALERT. Apparently there was a lot going on everywhere, even in other countries around the world. The alarming news reports had started last night and things were just getting worse as the morning progressed. Caleb had turned the TV on in hopes of hearing something about the explosion last night, but there was nothing so far. There was a lot of confusion, however, and some of the reports didn’t even make sense. He lifted his mug and took a sip of hot, sweetened coffee. “He’s sentencing himself to a lonely life,” Caleb went on after he lowered the mug. “If he keeps going the way he’s going and nothing changes. I think that’s a shame because it doesn’t have to be that way. Underneath it all, he’s probably a really nice guy.”

  Caleb would feel sorry for Eymann Buckminster, Selia thought. As he had felt sorry for her when he had first met her. When she had been alone in the world and lost in a deep depression that nothing could lift after the death of her first husband. But that was just like Caleb. He had an unending supply of compassion and sympathy for everyone, even someone like Eymann Buckminster. Of course, that was one of the reasons why she loved him so much.

  “As far as I can see, he doesn’t have a lot of friends,” Caleb went on. “Not too many people visit them, and we both know that he’s made a lot of enemies in the neighborhood. The question is, does he know it?” His frown deepened as he continued to watch the TV screen. “You see this?”

  “No, I haven’t looked at the TV yet,” she told him.

  “There’s some weird stuff going on. Everywhere.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Yeah, there’s even been some kind of an accident at a nuclear power plant in France.”

  “That sounds bad. Have they said what that explosion here was?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m sure we’re going to find out soon. Everyone will be talking about it. Knowing our neighbors, the gossip has already begun making the rounds.”

  She yawned. “You’re a lot more generous with our next-door neighbors than I am,” she said. “But after being woken up in the middle of the night, I can’t help but feel a little grumpy. I didn’t get back to sleep until sometime after three o’clock.” She gave another prolonged yawn. “I try to be forgiving, but sometimes I just can’t find it in me,” she confessed. “Eymann’s bad enough, but if you ask me, she’s worse than he is.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know she’s behind half of the crazy shit that comes out of his mouth,” Caleb said as he pointed the remote at the screen and changed the channel. “I was thinking that maybe we should invite them to the karaoke party,” he said, changing the subject.

  “We always invite them,” Selia reminded him. “They don’t come.”

  “I was thinking that maybe I should give him a personal invitation.”

  Selia shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do. But I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  Otis was stretched out on the rug by the back door, enjoying the warmth of the morning sunshine where it fell through the windows. He gave a long, groaning sigh in his sleep as if he agreed with her sentiment.

  “It might be a good ice breaker if they would come,” Caleb said, hopeful as always.

  “But how would our other guests feel with them here?” Selia asked. “You don’t think that their verbal jabs and their sour faces would make everyone uncomfortable? And would they even enjoy themselves if they showed up? I don’t think Eymann Buckminster was born with a sense of humor. At least I haven’t seen any signs of it since we moved in here. How many times have you tried to joke with him and he just stares at you like you’re talking in a different language? And I don’t believe I have seen Helice smile since we moved in here. I mean really smile. She smirks as if she is waiting for you to confirm her nasty opinion about you. She’s sarcastic, condescending and she thinks she knows everything.”

  It was Caleb’s turn to shrug. “Something made her like that.”

  “So you’re saying I should feel sorry for her?”

  “No, that wouldn’t do her any good,” he said. “But if we could understand what- ”

  He had crossed over to the window and now he stopped with his mug held halfway to his mouth and just stood there. “Holy crapoly, Selia. Come over here and look at this.”

  Selia joined him at the window and was just as astonished as he was to see that the Buckminster’s entire front yard was draped in long, flowing streamers of toilet paper. The Buckminster’s yard had been tp’d, royally.

  “Oh, shit,” Caleb whispered as he continued to stare in stunned disbelief. “Buckminster is going to be pissed big time when he sees that. Whoever did that, they did one hell of a job.”

  Selia followed Caleb onto the front porch. They saw Betris Dillwyn across the street also come out onto her front porch with a cup of coffee in her hand. Betris froze when she looked across the street, and then immediately called something through the screen door behind her. Her husband and one of their kids soon joined her.

  Dunstan Kester was out walking his dog. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the festoons of white floating gently in the breeze. Then both he and his dog just stood there staring with similar expressions that bordered somewhere between disbelief and fascination.

  That’s when Eymann came out onto his porch. He was wearing long khaki shorts that were crisply pressed, brown shoes, white ankle socks, and a subdued, island-print flowered shirt. The long shorts covered the scabs that were already forming on his knees. And the bandages. At first he stared at the white streamers hanging from every tree and every shrub like he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. And then he pressed his lips tightly together as he stomped down his porch steps and headed right over to Caleb Lydon’s front porch.

  It took a few moments for Caleb to register what was behind the look on Eymann’s face. As realization dawned even further, Caleb asked, “You don’t think I did that, do you?”

  Eymann didn’t answer. It didn’t look like he was capable of uttering a word right then. But it was more than clear that he had already made up his mind about what had happened and that he thought that Caleb was guilty of the vandalism to his yard. Before he could even open his mouth, Eymann and every other person on the street heard the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Distracted momentarily, Eymann turned in the direction of the sirens. But he quickly refocused and turned back to Caleb. He only got one word out, however. “You- ”

  Caleb wasn’t paying attention to him. He wa
s still staring in the direction of the sirens that were growing louder by the second. Caleb waved one arm, automatically silencing Eymann before he could finish what he had been about to say. “That’s not what’s important right now,” Caleb said.

  “What’s more important than this?” Eymann swung his own arm in a wide arc, indicating his defaced yard, only then noticing that even his mailbox was stuffed full of toilet paper. As he continued to survey the vast extent of the vandalism, he felt his anger growing. He had been violated. In front of the whole neighborhood.

  “Haven’t you been watching the news?” Caleb asked him.

  Eymann didn’t watch television on Saturday. Saturday was for working on his yard, maintaining, trimming, mowing, weeding, making sure every blade of grass was perfect.

  “No,” Eymann whispered in a voice that was now trembling with barely suppressed emotion. He was still trying to process the scene before him and he was growing angrier by the second. Was that toilet paper wound around his flag pole? It was. Someone was going to have to clean that mess up. If Caleb Lydon was the guilty party, then-

  That’s when Eymann noticed the neighbors up and down the block looking and pointing. Some were even laughing. He took a mental note of which ones they were.

  “Something bad is going on, Eymann,” he heard Caleb say. “Do you even know that the phones aren’t working?”

  That Eymann did know. Helice had been complaining about her phone service being out. She had tried calling Lauryn four times already this morning.

  “We may be in the middle of terrorist attacks, Eymann. That’s important.”

  “You said we would talk this morning,” Eymann reminded him.

  Caleb sighed deeply. Seeing that the man had only one thing on his mind, he said, “Okay, maybe Otis did his business once in your yard but- ”

  “In my garden. And it wasn’t just once.”

  “All right, in your garden. But I think we should both try to find out what’s going on right now.”

  His words made Eymann see red. What was going on was that his yard, his pride and joy, had been vandalized in the middle of the night, and people were laughing about it. Laughing. Worse, he felt like he was being put off again about the poop matter. And that just wasn’t going to happen. Not this time. He would show Caleb Lydon, once and for all, that he did have a backbone.

 

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