by Ray Garton
Keoph handed the submachine gun to him and he climbed carefully back up the rungs. He aimed the gun at the center of the front edge of the door, where the lock was, turned his head away, and fired, almost at point-blank range. Wood splintered and bits of it dropped down from the door. He stopped firing and pushed up on the door. It opened all the way up and flipped over, slammed against the floor.
"Okay, let's go, fast," Davey said. He pointed his gun downward and climbed up behind Norman. He climbed slowly and awkwardly because of the shotgun strapped to him, the purse slung over his right shoulder.
The others climbed the rungs awkwardly, too, with guns in hand, satchels hanging from their shoulders, Keoph behind Davey, and Neil and Darin behind them.
Keoph found himself in a small dark room with an enormous water heater to the right and a closed door directly in front of them. Light came through the window in the top half of the door.
A figure appeared in the window, someone on the other side of the door. Neil saw it first and opened fire on the window. The glass shattered and the figure dropped. Davey went to the door and opened it inward.
The figure on the floor was a man in a yellow T-shirt and blue sweatpants. He started to get up again, but both Norman and Neil fired their guns at him.
The man on the floor convulsed as the bullets entered his abdomen. The T-shirt was torn up and blood spattered in all directions.
Norman stopped firing first, then Neil. The man lay still on the floor, his abdomen torn open by the bullets.
"What about the sub-basement?" Keoph said. "Should we close that door?"
Standing in the doorway, Davey shook his head. "Leave it open. Let them out. It'll take attention off of us."
Seven feet to their left was a wall at the end of the corridor. To their right, it made a T-intersection with another corridor.
"Come on," Davey whispered. "Let's find the elevator." He led them to the intersection and carefully peered around the corner to his right, then to the left. "Okay." The others followed him to the left, down the corridor to the elevator, where Davey punched the button.
Twenty seconds later, the elevator opened, and the five of them got inside. Davey pushed buttons two, three, four, and five.
"Okay, things have changed," Davey said as the elevator door closed. "Norman, I want you on the second floor, Darin on the third, and Neil on the fourth. Gavin and I will take the fifth floor. Is that clear?"
They all answered in the affirmative.
The elevator stopped on the second floor.
"What's her name again?" Norman said.
"Karen Moffett," Keoph said.
Davey said, "If you don't find her once you've gone through the whole floor, go back down to the basement and go out the way we came in. Go back to the manhole. We'll all meet there afterward."
Norman muttered Karen's name a few times. The elevator door opened and he bent forward to look in both directions. He stepped out of the elevator, gun held at the ready.
Davey hit the button to close the door. The elevator began to ascend again.
"Karen Moffett!" Norman shouted. He kept calling the name as he went down the corridor. There were doors on each side, all numbered. He continued calling her name until a door opened on the left up ahead and a tall woman in a smart blue-and-white suit with short dark hair stepped out and faced him.
"Who the hell are—" she said.
Norman started firing before she finished her question. She stumbled backward as bullets entered her chest, bumped into the wall, and went down, smearing blood on it. Norman rushed to her side, aimed the gun at her face, and squeezed the trigger. The shell casings fell silently to the carpeted floor as the woman's face disappeared in a mass of blood and torn flesh.
"Karen Moffett!" Norman shouted again when he stopped firing. He turned around to look down the corridor and saw a man come out of the stairwell. He was tall, with dark hair, and wore a longsleeve white shirt, a red tie, and black slacks. He wore a shoulder holster and immediately drew his gun, and fired.
Norman grunted when he felt a bullet enter his belly. He opened fire as he walked toward the man, who went down fast and dropped his gun. Norman went to him and kept firing into his chest.
The man turned grey and started to decay almost immediately.
"Karen Moffett!" Norman shouted again and again as he went down the corridor.
The wound in his belly ejected the bullet, which fell out through the hole in his shirt, and the wound quickly healed over.
The elevator door opened on the third floor and Darin leaned out to look in both directions. He pulled back in immediately and said, "Shit, there's a whole crowd just a little ways to the right."
"How many?" Davey said.
He peered around the edge of the elevator door, then pulled back. "Four men, two women." He reached into his satchel with his left hand and removed a stun grenade. He pulled the pin with his teeth, stepped out of the elevator, and tossed the grenade toward the small group in the corridor, then went back into the elevator and winced as he waited for the explosion.
When it came, it was loud. Afterward, Darin said, "Okay, I'll see you at the manhole later." He hurried out of the elevator and ran down the hall to the six vampires, who were now lying on the floor in a stunned state.
He stood over them and filled them with bullets, one after another. They began to decay quickly. He had to change magazines midway through the task of killing all of them.
As he hurried down the corridor, Darin repeatedly called, "Karen Moffett! Karen Moffett!"
After Neil left the elevator on the fourth floor, Keoph and Davey went up to the fifth.
"You ready for this?" Davey said.
Keoph's hands trembled and he licked his dry lips. "As ready as I'll ever be," he said. "You've got an advantage over me. I die a lot easier than you do."
"Don't worry," Davey said. "They're not going to be ready for us."
The elevator stopped. The door opened.
Davey peered out. "All clear." He pointed left and said, "You go that way." He pointed right. "I'll go this way."
They parted outside the elevator, and both began to shout, "Karen Moffett! Karen Moffett!"
Keoph stopped when a door opened in front of him. A short, dowdy, middle-aged woman with short brown hair and glasses stepped out into the corridor. She stood looking at him a moment, her mouth open in surprise.
She wore a green-and-yellow dress and squinted slightly as she looked at him. "Who're you?" she said.
She looked so .. . normal, that the idea of shooting her did not occur to Keoph right away. He said nothing and just stared at her.
She looked at his gun for a moment, then pulled her lips back and bared her fangs.
Keoph opened fire.
At the other end of the corridor, Davey heard the gunfire, but did not look back.
"Karen Moffett!" he shouted again and again, gun held ready to fire.
A door opened to his left and Davey turned to face it.
A tall woman with long dark hair stood in the doorway wearing a cream-colored nightgown. Davey was about to squeeze the trigger, but he suddenly recognized her.
It was Anya.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Anya?" he said.
She smiled. "Davey Owen. With a shotgun. Why am I not surprised?"
Davey felt a clutching at his heart. A storm of feelings moved through him.
"This is all your fault," he said, barely above a whisper. "You made me what I am, you... you started all this."
"You wanted me, Davey. Remember? You wanted me, you had to have me."
"Yeah. Well. Suck on this, you cunt." He fired the gun.
Blood exploded from Anya's chest and she was knocked backward. She fell to the floor on her back, eyes and mouth open in shock. She immediately began to get up again, moving quickly but clumsily. She dropped back to the floor, mouth open, and grunted as she tried again.
Davey hurriedly moved forward. Using his left arm in
the Velcro strap, he lowered the gun until the muzzle was just a couple inches from her face. He fired again.
Anya's skull opened up in an explosion of red, black, and grey. Teeth and bone scattered. Davey found himself smiling as he fired again and destroyed what was left of Anya's head. He stared down at her bloody body as she began to rapidly decay. A foul stench rose from her as her skin sloughed and peeled. She seemed to melt before his eyes. Every sinew rotted away, leaving behind clothed bones, some of which cracked and crumbled.
Davey watched her decay with wide eyes. He thought she had burned in Live Girls when it exploded and went up in flames. There was something unreal about the experience of watching her decay. He had not even thought about shooting her, he'd simply done it, as if he had been ready to kill her all along. He had been—he'd wanted to kill her for eighteen years, and had always regretted that she'd burned in the fire and robbed him of the chance.
Davey vaguely noticed a thumping sound coming from nearby, but he paid no attention to it. He wondered how long Anya had been in Los Angeles, how long she had been working for Victor Barna. He assumed she was there because she worked there. He knew how much Anya enjoyed her work.
The thumping continued, and something else—a muffled voice. But he heard them only peripherally. His mind was on Anya, and the fact that he had actually killed her after all these years.
He tore his eyes away from Anya's remains. He stood in the doorway of what appeared to be an office.
"Karen Moffett!" he shouted as he turned to continue down the corridor.
It got his attention, then—the pounding and the voice.
Davey frowned as he walked into the office. It was spacious, and not very feminine—he assumed it was Anya's office—with lots of dark wood paneling and antiques. There was a painted portrait of Anya on the wall behind the large antique desk.
The sounds came from his left. He turned and saw a door with a deadbolt lock.
"Karen?" he called.
"Yes!" the voice on the other side of the heavy wooden door shouted. "Yes!"
He turned the doorknob. It wasn't locked, but the deadbolt kept him from opening the door. He turned the deadbolt latch and pushed the door open.
Karen Moffett stumbled out of the room in a nightgown and slippers. Her face was pale and swollen and bruised, as were her bare arms.
"Oh, my god," she said, her voice trembling. "You found me."
"Yeah, but we haven't gotten out of here yet. Come on." He quickly led her through the office and to the door. Davey poked his head out the door and looked around. He saw no one but Keoph down the corridor a distance, calling Karen's name. He led her out into the corridor and hurried back to the elevator.
Keoph had emptied the submachine gun into the frumpy woman with glasses, and had to change magazines.
"Gavin!" Davey shouted from the other end of the corridor. "I've got her, let's go!"
Keoph jogged back down the corridor toward them. They hurried to the elevator.
Karen moved as fast as she could, but she limped along. She looked terrible. He flinched a little at the bruises on her face and arms. She had a black eye.
In the elevator, Keoph turned to her and said, "I'm sorry it took us so long, Karen. We did the best we could."
She nearly fell on him, and he put his arms around her as she fought back sobs.
The elevator went down to the fourth floor and opened up.
"You two stay here," Davey said. "I'm going to get Neil." He stepped out of the elevator and started to go left, but stopped, mouth open. He said, "Oh, my god."
Keoph stepped out of the elevator to see what Davey was seeing, and Karen grabbed his left arm and went with him.
Fifteen feet away, Neil was sprawled on the floor on his back. A white-haired figure in black clothes straddled Neil and sucked loudly on his neck, long fingers clutching at Neil's shirt. Neil's gun lay on the floor a few feet away.
Neil's skin had turned the telltale yellowish-grey of a decaying corpse.
The elevator door closed.
The figure sat up and looked at them. His skin was pale as death, his eyes pink. He stood as Keoph and Davey raised their guns, blood smeared around his mouth, vivid against his white skin. The albino became a blur, and was gone.
Karen cried out, and Keoph and Davey turned as the albino pulled her away from them from behind. He jerked her back with him, left arm across her waist. He raised his right hand, which held a closed knife. The silver stiletto blade appeared with a sharp click. He put the knife to Karen's throat. Then he smiled around his bloody fangs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Martin Burgess sat beside his wife's bed in her hospital room. She had been given stitches and something for pain, and she was sleeping fitfully. There was another bed over by the window, but it was unoccupied.
The police had left him alone for awhile, but they would be back. Burgess expected them anytime and had to make sure Denise had something sane to tell them. He waited for her to wake up.
The vampire story wasn't going to fly. Officer Keaton hadn't bought it, even though Davey Owen had, if only for a moment, turned himself into something about which Burgess expected to have nightmares. It had happened right in front of the cop, and he'd managed to convince himself he hadn't seen it, that it was some kind of trick.
Denise stirred. She awoke with a gasp.
"Honey?" Burgess said as he stood and put his hands on the bed's rail.
"Muh-Martin?" she whispered.
"Oh, baby," he said as he lightly touched her hand. She had been so brutalized, he was afraid to touch her for fear of hurting her.
"Vam ... vampires, Martin, they were vampires," she breathed.
"Yes, I know, honey, but listen to me, okay?" He bent down close to her. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"You can't tell the police they were vampires. Do you understand me?"
"Whuh-what?"
He repeated himself slowly: "You can't tell the police they were vampires, Denise. Just tell them you don't remember much, okay? Tell them the last thing you remember is being in your car in the garage, and then they had you. Are you hearing me, Denise? This is very important."
"No ... vampires?"
"No vampires."
"But... thuh-they were vampires."
"Yes, sweetheart, I know that. Remember? I tried to tell you about them."
"Yes, I re . . . member. I... I'm . .. sorry, Marty, I'm so sorry."
"No, no, you've got nothing to be sorry for. Just remember what I said, okay? Don't say anything to the police about vampires. Say you don't remember much. You were badly beaten, honey, so it's perfectly believable that you don't remember much."
"But... I do. I do remember. Marty, I was .. . I-I was ..." Tears welled up in her eyes as she silently mouthed the word raped.
"Oh, baby, please, just relax now, you're safe. Nobody's going to hurt you again. Nobody."
"We're not safe, Marty," she said, just above a whisper. "Nobody is. They're ... thuh-they're horrible, Marty, they're awful. They enjoyed every second of it. They enjoyed it," she said aloud. She shifted her position under the covers and winced in pain. Her voice dropped again as she said, "They loved it. They told me they loved it. The bloodier, the better, they said. They beat me while they raped me. They beat me till I bled, then they sucked on my wounds." She sniffled as a couple tears fell. She talked gradually faster. "They were monsters, Marty. Not... not the kind of people we usually think of as monsters, like, like rapists or child molesters, but, but these things, they, they were ... real... monsters. The kind we were afraid of as kids, Marty, the kind of monsters we used to have nightmares about after watching a horror movie." She tried to sit up and groaned in pain.
"Calm down, honey, please," Burgess said. "Don't try to sit up. I'll raise the bed, okay?"
"No, no. Not now."
"Okay, whatever you—"
"We're not safe anymore, Marty. Do you realize that?"
"That's not true,
Denise. You're safe now. Please, relax."
"None of us," she breathed. "None of us is safe."
"Would you like me to ask the nurse to give you something to relax you?"
"No. No. I'll be fine." A laugh escaped her like a cough. "What am I saying? I'll never be fine again. Never."
"Don't say that, sweetheart."
She took in a deep breath. "If you call me sweetheart ... or baby ... one more time ... I'll pull this needle out of my arm and stick it in your eye."
Burgess's eyebrows popped up a moment, then leveled out. "I'm sorry," he said.
There was a long silence between them, then Denise said, "No. I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said that. I'm not thinking clearly, this medicine they're giving me ... I feel all mixed up."
"Why don't you go back to sleep," he said.
She closed her good eye and whispered, "Yeah ... yeah."
He watched her drift off again. He hoped she would remember what he'd told her.
About twenty minutes later, the door opened and Officer Keaton leaned into the room. "Can I see you?"
Burgess got up from the chair and went out into the corridor with Keaton.
"The nurse tells me she's talking," Keaton said.
"Now and then. The painkiller is pretty strong. She's not herself when she's awake."
"Have you talked to her about what happened?" Keaton said.
"She says she doesn't remember much. She remembers being beaten, and raped. But not much more."
"Does she remember being taken?"
"She said the last thing she remembers well is being in her car in the garage."
"She was taken from her car?"
"Yes."
"And you ... what, didn't notice?"