At least ten people were out there, attacking his cows. There might have been more, but they were moving too damned fast for him to make any sense of it. As he watched, three of the people took down a steer and when it was on the ground another one tore into its stomach with hands and teeth.
“What the bleeding hell?” Deke said. The sight itself made him queasy and horrified. What sort of person would kill a cow in such a way?
His terror and anger combined in an explosive way. He took aim at the person that was feasting on his cow’s innards. He wasn’t thinking of the repercussions; he was still seeing the image of a man’s face buried in his cow’s guts, feasting like some deranged animal.
Deke pulled the trigger. The shot landed true, taking the bastard directly in the base of his skull. The man toppled over onto the shuddering steer—and started scrambling to his feet. The man wheeled around in Deke’s direction, as did the rest of the people. Now that they were standing still, Deke saw that there were eleven of them.
The gunshot had gotten their attention and they were suddenly not interested in Deke’s cows. Working as a single unit, they all started sprinting towards the house. Deke started taking steps backward, his gun still raised. He watched in disbelief as the people—there were women among their number as well as men—leaped over the barbed wire fence with little effort.
Are they stoned on something? This was Deke’s first thought. Watching them, he was nearly hypnotized. He could not take his eyes away from them as he slowly backed into his house. When he saw all of them reach the bottom of his porch steps, his daze broke and he turned for the door. He jumped back inside, but when he wheeled around to close it, a face was already pushing its way through the doorway. Deke screamed, threw his Winchester’s barrel up and fired a shot directly into the man’s face.
No…not a man, Deke thought, terrified. Something’s not right, something is wrong with these people and—
As the first intruder flailed backwards from the shot, Deke saw a woman behind its body. She opened her mouth and howled demonically at him. He saw her teeth, the pointing shards to either side, and then the blankness in her eyes.
“What the—,” he breathed.
He raised the Winchester again but it was batted from his hands. As he turned to scramble for it, he felt the first hand land on his shoulder and then another on the back of his head. He went sprawling to the floor and even as he hit the linoleum floor of his kitchen, he heard their footsteps behind him.
They were in his house now. Then they were on top of him. The first bite sank into his calf and the next was just below his neck, popping through his shoulder.
Deke screamed but did not finish voicing his terror. Another mouth clamped tight around his throat and the last thing Deke Goode felt as a human was a warm stream of his own blood erupting from his neck as the vampires fed on him.
7
At roughly the same time Deke Goode was being pushed to the floor and feasted upon, a painful wail made its way out of a small cave in the woods of Red Creek. It went unheard by anyone in town but was enough to startle nearby woodland creatures. A deer scampered off deeper into the woods and a raccoon burrowed into its hole.
In the same cave that Nikki Galimore had climbed into a little over seventeen hours ago, something started to move. Then another object started to tremble and slither along the slick cavern floor.
Another wail seeped out of the small cave opening, lingering in the night air. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren sounded out. Several miles to the east, Deke Goode was beginning to pick himself up from his kitchen floor, no longer human but something else entirely.
And all the while, a single white and slightly decayed hand reached out of that cave opening. A human form pulled itself through the crack and stepped out onto the forest floor.
Jason Eastman glanced around at his surroundings and screamed. Behind him, Lester Dobbs emerged from the cave’s mouth, followed by the unwary fisherman that Leibald Greely had killed.
They looked to one another with very little interest and then started walking towards the center of Red Creek. Jason let out one more hellish scream, opening his mouth so wide with the effort that his new pointed fangs caught the moonlight and gleamed sickly.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
Kara was too shaky to drive after what had happened in her bathroom, so Nikki took the wheel. She drove the police cruiser down the back roads of Red Creek with reckless speed, but Kara didn’t bother to say anything about it. There were other, much larger issues to confront.
“So, Saul…” she said. “Is he one?”
“One what?” Nikki asked, seemingly annoyed.
“A vampire,” Kara said, the word sounding sinister on her tongue.
Nikki didn’t answer. Instead, she took a hard right turn that took them onto the road the led to Saul’s cabin.
“Well then, are you two an item or something?” Kara asked. “I hate to pry but I have no fucking clue what is going on in this town and I really would like to know something.”
“The dude you saw attack me at the B&B was named Leibald Greely. He killed Jason, Lester Dobbs, and someone I have never seen before. The reason he didn’t go down when you shot him is because he’s a vampire. A nasty one, too.”
“How do you know he killed them?” Kara asked.
“Because I saw their bodies in a cave when I killed the bastard.”
“Yeah… that,” Kara said. “You destroyed the two in my bathroom. How the hell did you do that?”
Nikki answered as she pulled the patrol car into Saul’s driveway. “Leibald tried attacking me. He almost got me… barely nicked the skin. Apparently, it was enough to give me some of his powers but not enough to totally turn me.”
Kara let out a shaky laugh as Nikki brought the car to a stop, kicking up gravel and dust in Saul’s driveway.
They stepped out of the car and within three steps towards Saul’s house could hear the sounds of Red Creek going to hell all around them. A series of gunshots was followed by a guttural scream. Then, from a totally opposite direction came the muffled moans of a woman.
“Nikki, what the hell is going on?”
“When I killed Leibald, he said he had a back-up plan. I guess this was it. He must have bitten others… turned them so they’d attack if he died. I don’t know how it works. Saul can probably tell us, though.”
As they went up the porch stairs, the front door opened. Saul and Jill stood there with looks of worry on their faces.
“Tell you what?” Saul asked.
“What’s going on in town?” Kara asked.
“There are vampires everywhere,” Nikki said. “I am guessing this was the backup plan Leibald mentioned. But could he attack someone and make then wait to turn in the event of his death?”
“It’s possible,” Saul said, ushering the women inside and closing the door behind him.
“The Greelys have always been an odd bunch,” Jill added. “I have heard of certain tribes being able to bite a victim and then control the rate of their victims’ turning. I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Greelys, that’s for sure.”
“I guess I can see why you guys were so upset,” Nikki said. She stepped over towards Saul and placed her hand on his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven,” he said, kissing the top of her head.
Kara watched on, relieved that she could not care less about their little tryst. She had a town to worry about—and from the sounds of it, there might not be much of it left come sunrise.
“What I’m worried about more than anything,” Saul said, looking over Nikki’s head and to Kara, “is how you’ll react to all of this. What have you seen? What do you know?”
Kara realized in that moment that she was terrified. Despite her erotic tendencies towards Saul these last few days, she was terrified of him in that moment.
“Well,” she answered tentatively. “I saw Nikki kill two of what I can only assume were vampires pretty swi
ftly. And I have heard what sounds like Red Creek going to hell in the last hour or so. And through my own deductions, I’m assuming you’re a vampire…only not the kind that broke into my house to attack me.”
“All correct,” Saul said. “And this,” he said, indicating Jill, “is my sister Jill. She was smart enough to leave this town a few years back.”
“Came back at a hell of a time, huh?” Kara asked.
“Tell me about it.”
“I care deeply for my sister,” Saul went on. “The fact that you know what we are has the potential to cause problems. Will you cause such problems?”
“No,” Kara said without hesitating. “Right now my only concern is for my town. I’m technically the sheriff at the moment and I need to know what I can do to protect my town. The fact that none of you have tried to kill me yet is proof enough for me that you guys aren’t like them.”
“Okay,” Nikki said. “So what the hell do we do now?”
“I saw you take two down like it was no problem,” Kara said. “Is there any chance the three of you could stop a solid number of them?”
Saul seemed to consider this for a moment. “It’s hard to say. If this is the doing of Leibald, then I feel as if I must help. But to go out there without any sort of information is suicide.”
“Well, I’m going no matter what,” Kara said. “I have to; it’s my job.”
“Then give me your number,” Nikki said. “I’ll text you so you’ll have mine. When you get out there and get a better idea of just what is going on, call me and let us know.”
Kara began to give Nikki her number, but Saul interrupted. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Nikki, you can’t take part in this. You can’t—”
“The hell I can’t,” she said. “You said something like this might happen if I killed Leibald and now it has. I have to help.”
“And if I might add,” Kara said, “I saw her in action earlier. She’s very capable of handling things.”
Saul, realizing that he was in the company of three strong-willed women, sighed. He knew that arguing was useless.
The women exchanged numbers. As they did, Jill very subtly placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder. Kara caught this out of the corner of her eye and tried to ignore the feeling she got deep in her stomach: even vampires were deeply worried about what was happening. What chance did she have to remain calm and do something of use?
Kara took one final look around the room, her eyes landing on Saul Benton. Has she seriously been feverishly attracted to him? Had she really had those obscene dreams about him slamming her down onto her bed and doing ungodly things to her? It suddenly seemed silly.
“I’ll keep in touch,” she said.
“If the town seems as if it is literally being destroyed, let us know,” Saul said.
“I will,” she said.
Kara left as sedately as she could and was proud of herself for handling things as well as she did. But by the time she was back behind the wheel of her car, her hands were trembling and she felt like she might start crying and wasn’t really sure why.
She grabbed the car’s CB radio and dialed in to dispatch. “Dispatch, how are we doing tonight?”
There was a moment or two before dispatch picked up. The voice of Nadine Barkley chirped in and her normally cheerful voice seemed flat.
“Thank God, Kara,” Nadine said. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“I’m about to find out,” she said, just as she pulled out of Saul’s driveway and onto the road that led back into town.
2
Within an hour and a half, Kara and the five officers on the Red Creek police force had gotten eighteen calls that all reported violent acts. Six people had been killed (that they knew of) and three others had been seriously injured.
The peculiar thing was that the violence seemed to come in one bloody burst that had lasted just under two hours. The first call had come in shortly after ten o’ clock and the last had come in a bit after midnight. The sounds of screams and gunfire no longer echoed throughout the woods. Still, Kara had the stories that she had accumulated over the night to sift through as she sat behind her desk with a steaming cup of coffee. She had deputies and even rookie officers out conducting interviews and surveying scenes. She needed to get out there to help—she knew this and would certainly do it just as soon as the world stopped spinning around her.
Kara eyed the phone and considered calling Sheriff Morel. Had he caught on to what had happened in Red Creek? Did he know the stories?
Had he heard about Mike Humbolt and how he had been killed by having his throat torn out? Had he heard about poor old Gladys Zimmerman, eighty-one years old, who had been thrown through her living room window and died after colliding into the side of her car?
Or how about Blair Hemings, a father of two who had been literally disemboweled in his driveway when he had stepped outside to confront the two monsters that had killed the family dog? Had Morel heard about that?
And had he heard about Deke and how he had died? Had Morel heard about how all of Deke’s cows had been gruesomely butchered?
Kara almost hated Sheriff Morel in that moment. Who the hell was she to handle this? She literally felt like her mind was being torn apart. She looked at all of the notes she had written down and the times and notes that Nadine had written down, indicating the timeline of events.
Kara noticed that the two-hour window of violence had come to a stop not too long after she had left Saul’s cabin. She wondered if there was any connection, no matter how thin, there. It certainly felt like an idea that needed to be dug into, but she simply couldn’t muster up the mental fortitude to do so.
“Shit,” Kara moaned, burying her head in her hands and taking several deep breaths.
Kara looked at the clock on the office wall. Seeing that it was 1:50 in the morning made her feel more tired. She left her office, went by the small coffee nook and grabbed a cup of bitter coffee, and then headed outside for her car.
As Kara walked to her car, she took in the quiet of the night. It was hard to believe that Red Creek has been engulfed in screams and gunfire earlier. More than that, she still couldn’t believe the events that had transpired in her bathroom. She found it odd that the reports from people that had been involved in altercations during those two hours of violence had not reported similar creatures. The most bizarre account she had read of the people that had wreaked havoc was from a twelve-year-old boy. The man that tried to kill my mom looked like my dad but it wasn’t him. He was different. He was mean…and dad is never really mean.
That boy’s father was currently missing, just like an additional eighteen other Red Creek residents.
Kara got into her patrol car and headed out. She picked up the radio and checked in with her deputies to see where her help would be most needed. She gathered the information she needed and did her best to plan the rest of the night in her head. She’d need to stop by at least eight residences and none of them would be pretty.
The streets of Red Creek were dead and quiet. As she headed for the first home, the residence of Stan and Harriet Smith—Stan having been stabbed repeatedly with a shard of his front window’s glass less than three hours ago—she again felt the need to weep uncontrollably. She fought the tears back, knowing that if she lost control right now she may never get it back. She could feel that helplessness at the very core of her, inviting her to just give in and collapse.
Kara was so preoccupied by trying to rein her emotions in that she almost didn’t see the person standing in the center of the road. She hit her brakes, her headlights shining on the figure of a man that was walking slowly down the road. He walked as if he were drunk or drugged. As she eyed him through her windshield, she also saw that he was covered in blood.
Kara’s right hand went to her service weapon as her left slowly opened the car door. She stepped out into the night and felt a surge of fear and adrenaline spike through her. Every tired muscle in her body was suddenly re-energized
.
She realized two things at once that made her want to scream. The first was that there were two other men walking behind this first man, ambling along and flanking him to either side.
The second was that the man in front of her was Jason Eastman.
She nearly dropped her gun in surprise. Even in the poor light provided by the headlights, she could see that Jason was deathly pale. He looked at her with an expression that was impossible to decipher. He looked blank; he looked dead.
Which made perfect sense, seeing as how he was supposed to be dead.
“Jason?” she said, her voice little more than a squeak. “Jason Eastman?”
He grunted in response and stopped for a moment, considering her.
She looked past him and saw that one of the other men was Lester Dobbs. A small shriek collected in her throat but she managed to keep it down. Instead, she raised her arms, pointing her pistol at the approaching men.
“Jason..Lester…and whoever you are back there,” she said, almost in a shout. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but stop.”
Jason considered this for a moment and then proceeded forward. His mouth opened and when he spoke, his voice was like rocks on glass.
“Help,” he said, and then fell to the ground.
3
Saul noticed how closely Nikki sat beside him on the couch. They both looked towards Jill, staring at one another in an awkward sort of circle. Saul could tell that Jill was dying to get out into the town to see what she could do to help. He felt the same urge but knew that he’d have to keep those urges suppressed if he hoped for any sort of escape from the plans that were currently set against himself and Jill.
“I can’t do this,” Jill said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, big brother…but I didn’t come back to this hellhole to just sit around and let Leibald Greely’s little plans tear this town apart.”
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