by J. Thorn
Howling soon filled the air as Screamers pulled terrified humans out into the streets. Bronwyn smiled as men, women, and children had their fates decided. Several hit the pavement, and the blood flowed into the sewers. Others stood frozen, their eyes slowly turning. Bronwyn closed her own eyes and absorbed the mounting power from the newly turned.
Eventually, the screams died down. Dozens of humans lay dead in the street while dozens more had been absorbed into the armies of the undead.
“It’s time to move on,” Jing said.
“Yes,” Bronwyn said. “Let us go.”
As they headed down the highway, Bronwyn pointed a finger to her right, then her left, and then behind the marching armies. Every time she pointed, a different building caught fire. The few whimpering survivors screamed as loud as they could. Many choked to death on the toxic, suffocating smoke.
Rolling her eyes, Bronwyn raised both hands. Flames shot up into the air, and what was left of the town burned to the ground.
Every town they marched past, they left in ruins, leaving nothing behind except scorched earth. Bronwyn could almost smell the scent of the human they pursued. She could almost taste him. She allowed Ambrose to lead, though—letting him believe he was the one in charge of this new and unholy alliance. He barked commands and strutted down the middle of the highway with his nose in the air. She snickered and cast insincere smiles at him as they walked, realizing that the higher she let him rise, the harder he would fall.
By the time they reached the next town, Bronwyn had become bored with letting their soldiers do all of their bidding. As the other three Masters unleashed their vampires, Bronwyn ordered hers to stay in their formation on the highway.
“What are you doing?” Jaraca asked her.
“Having some fun,” Bronwyn replied without turning around.
She approached a building where she sensed several humans hiding. She sauntered up to the front door, swinging her hips as if listening to music nobody else could hear. When she reached the threshold, she opened the door without touching it.
A group of humans sat in the corner, holding onto each other. They gasped and screamed as she stood in the doorway, the wind lifting the edges of her dress. Her glowing eyes illuminated the space.
“Please, don’t hurt us,” a man said.
“And what would be the fun in that?” Bronwyn asked.
She reached out and clenched her fist. A crunch split the air as she snapped the man’s neck. He crumbled onto the woman next to him and everyone else screamed—two other men, four women, and two children.
One of the men drew a gun and shot at her from five feet away. Bronwyn held up her hand, stopping the bullet in mid-air. She then tilted her head, staring at the bullet as it spun in place. She turned it back around, so that the tip faced the man who had shot at her. And when she pushed her hand forward, the bullet sailed back toward the man at the same speed it had come out of the gun. It exploded through his right eye, spraying blood and gray matter onto the wall behind him.
“Anyone else wanna take a shot?” the Master asked.
“Please, let the children go at least,” a woman said. “They’re innocent.”
Bronwyn approached the woman and kneeled in front of her. She shivered, and her little boy shook uncontrollably. Piss ran down his leg. The woman trembled as Bronwyn reached out and touched her face.
“Do not fear. They will be much happier with me. In fact, you can go with them.”
Her eyes glowed bright, and she absorbed the woman’s every thought. With Bronwyn’s ancient and advanced powers, it only took moments for her to turn a human. Bronwyn stood and told the newly-turned woman to rise. She did, and Bronwyn whispered into her ear.
“Take them.”
The other humans in the room cried out as the new Screamer turned each one of them, expanding Bronwyn’s army one by one.
Bronwyn had already turned to rejoin the other Masters when she stopped and sniffed the air. She stepped to her right and moved toward a truck. Inside, she could smell a human hiding. She ripped the door off the vehicle and yanked the man out of the vehicle.
He groaned as he hit the ground, landing on all fours. Bronwyn forced him to stand without touching him and pulled the old man to within inches of her face.
She studied his eyes.
“You know him.”
His eyes went wide. “Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bronwyn choked him, again without touching the man. He gasped and tried reaching for his throat, but she didn’t let his hands get there.
“You know exactly who I’m talking about, Calvin.”
She let up enough for him to breathe, but kept pressure on his windpipe.
“How do you know my name?” Calvin asked.
Bronwyn rolled her eyes back into her head, showing whites that had begun to glow with the intensity of a West Coast sunset. She stared into the old man’s eyes and searched his thoughts. She didn’t have to go back far to find what she was looking for.
There he was. The “special” human they had been hunting. This man, Calvin, had found him. They had shared a meal together, and then the man had fled the following morning in a truck. The same truck Bronwyn had just pulled the man out of.
She saw his face. Dax’s face. As much as he tried to hide it, she could see his fear. She couldn’t wait to find him and drain his mind. She could feel a tortured past behind his eyes, and she looked forward to making him relive those moments as her slave.
Bronwyn withdrew from Calvin’s mind and his eyes flashed—wet and jittery. She pursed her lips and ran her hand through his hair.
“Shh. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She let go finally, and he seemed to smile. Then she gave a quick nod of her head, and his neck snapped. The old man tumbled to the ground, and Bronwyn looked down at him. She grinned and turned around.
“I’m coming for you, Dax.”
33
I’m coming for you, Dax.
Sweat dripped down his face, dark circles blossoming underneath his arms. He buried his head in his hands and fought to shake off the visions and the voices. The air smelled peculiar the further north they drove—a strange mix of smoke and lavender. Dax could feel the energy shifting, and he supposed it would intensify the closer he got to finding the Angel.
“Am I supposed to keep driving north?” Zoe asked Alex.
“Yes. We only stop if he asks us to.”
Their voices sounded warbled to Dax, so he stopped trying to listen to them. If the girls had a question, they’d repeat it. The Masters were coming for him. With every passing moment, he felt their pursuit. All four wielded an army of undead creatures—the things he had originally called Screamers. Also, the Masters had added to their armies as they chased him north through Mississippi.
In the visions, Dax had seen fire. Buildings in flames. People burning, running aimlessly as they tried to extinguish themselves. Dozens of glowing eyes and others turning as human survivors became vampire slaves. All of the information filtered into his head like real-time memories. Dax didn’t want to put too much pressure on the Casket Girls, however, so he only shared what they absolutely needed to know.
I’m coming for you, Dax.
The female voice came to him drenched in reverb, like a shadow passing over his mind.
The Masters were marching down the highway—the same road he’d taken out of New Orleans. They tracked him as if he were a wild animal—a trophy kill. As Papa Midnight had warned, they left a “scorched earth” in their wake. Every town burned, every human murdered or turned.
Through the fire burning in his mind’s eye, he saw the red-headed Master again. She had the same crooked smile on her face, and was now wearing a tightly fitted black dress. Her milky skin glowed as she passed through the flames, basking in the destruction like a sun bather on a California beach. Although he had been introduced to four Masters, it was clear to Dax that she wielded the most power. She was the on
e systematically and violently destroying the world—the others subordinate and fearful of her. And although Dax had a personal score to settle with Serafino’s Master, defeating the redhead would be his toughest challenge.
I’m coming for you, Dax.
Another vision flashed before him.
Bronwyn was still standing tall amongst the flames, reveling in the chaos. She walked to a nearby truck and pulled out a man—a familiar man.
Calvin, the lone traveler Dax had met along the highway.
The glow from her eyes reflected off of his, and his face went blank. The Master ripped open his mind, and when she was done, he looked like a corpse on two feet.
I’m coming for you, Dax.
The Master snapped the innocent old man’s neck like a twig.
“No, no,” Dax said, shaking.
“We really should stop,” Zoe said. “I’m going to pull over.”
“Don’t!” Dax said. He pulled his head out of his hands and turned to the girl driving.
Zoe opened her mouth but then bit down on her bottom lip as she stared at him. He hadn’t meant to snap at her. The girls had no idea what he was going through. In truth, he didn’t understand it either. But he did know that they needed to keep moving.
Dax exhaled as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Look out!” Alex yelled, pointing ahead.
Before Dax could look up, Zoe cut the wheel to avoid hitting a possum. The truck skidded and slid off the road. In the dirt on the side of the road, the truck spun all the way around as Zoe two-handed the wheel and brought the vehicle to a complete stop just before it could slam into a tree.
Dax continued to fight through his mental fog, but the adrenaline from the near miss had temporarily pushed the visions out of his mind. He saw his surroundings more clearly than he had in hours.
“Is everyone all right?” Dax asked.
“I’m all right,” Alex said. “I—”
Her face fell, and she spun around to look at the bed of the truck through the middle window.
Saw.
Dax threw the door open and jumped outside. He ran to the back of the truck.
Saw wasn’t there.
Alex followed him out of the cab and looked around.
“Over here!” Zoe yelled.
Dax and Alex ran around the side of the truck and saw Zoe kneeling at the other side of the highway. They rushed over to her.
Saw lay on the ground, blood on her cheeks and trickling from above her ear, clearly visible on the side of her clean-shaven head. She had closed her eyes and was groaning, but she was alive.
“Motherfucker,” she said, trying to sit up.
“No,” Alex said. “Don’t move.”
“Oh my God,” Zoe said. “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.”
“I’m alive.”
In addition to the cut on her head, her tank top had been torn at her midsection. A splattering of blood covered some of her ribs.
“We’ve got to get you to the truck and take you somewhere where you can rest,” Zoe said.
“No,” Alex said. “We have to keep moving.”
“She just got thrown out of a fucking truck, Alex.” It was the first time Dax had heard Zoe curse, but having been responsible for Saw’s injury, she’d apparently decided to emphasize her concern with some rare profanity.
“I’m fine,” Saw said. She pointed to something in the road. “That car braced my fall. I got knocked around—a few bruises and abrasions, but nothing that requires stitches.”
There was a dent in the hood where the steel panel had broken Zoe’s fall.
“You probably have a concussion.” Zoe looked over at Alex. “We can’t keep going.”
“But we have to,” Alex said. “The Masters will—”
“She’s right.”
Alex and Zoe looked at Dax. He shook his head.
“We can’t keep going until we know she’s not concussed or seriously hurt. Zoe’s right—we need to stop for a little bit.”
Alex slightly shook her head at Dax, her shoulders slumped.
“They are coming. I know, Alex. But we’ve got a lead on them. I’ve seen it. As Papa Midnight told me, they’re burning down every town they pass through as they chase us. We will know when they’re getting close.”
Alex’s eyes watered up, but she nodded in agreement.
“You pussies,” Saw said. “I’m telling you, I’m—”
She groaned as she tried to get up, grabbing at her ribs.
“Yeah, right,” Dax said. He kneeled next to the injured girl’s head. “Help me peel Ripley here off the pavement.”
Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Who’s Ripley?”
Dax laughed as he shook his head. Damn kids.
“Never mind,” he said. “Help me pick her up and get her in the truck.”
34
After several miles of nothing but cotton fields and flying insects, they finally came across a catfish farm with a single house sitting on the land. Even from the highway, though, Dax noticed vehicles parked in front of the house.
“Should we try there?” Alex asked. “It looks like there might be people living in that house.”
“Might as well.”
“They might not take too kindly to us stopping by.”
“Won’t know until we try,” Dax said. “With this truck’s shitty suspension, it can’t be feeling too good on Saw’s back.”
With her eyes on the road, Alex aimed her words at the middle window. “We’re stopping here.”
Zoe was in the bed of the truck tending to Saw, holding a towel on her ribs while Saw pressed one against the wound on her head.
“Thank God,” Saw said. “You drive like shit. See if you can hit more bumps.”
Alex smiled and shook her head. She mumbled, “Bitch.”
They turned into the driveway, and Alex steered the truck onto the gravel path. She stopped next to the mailbox.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Alex said. “There are people here. I can feel it.”
The wood shake siding had been recently painted a glossy white, the red shutters an accent like the ruby lips of a supermodel. Sunflowers danced along the southern wall, and luscious vines crept up the lattice work beneath a front porch that ran the length of the house.
“Even if there are, nothing says that they’re bad,” Dax said.
“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried that they’re going to be scared. Fear can be more harmful than evil.”
Dax shrugged. “Sure. But if we’re going to live in fear of others, then why are we wasting our time trying to defeat the enemy? If the enemy is each other, then what’s the point? We’ve got to try to save what humanity we have left.”
He could still see the concern on Alex’s face, but she didn’t say anything as she put the truck into gear and pulled forward. She pulled to the middle of the driveway, near the other vehicles, and stopped.
The front door of the house burst open then and two men stumbled down the steps off the front porch, each armed with a shotgun. They kneeled behind half sheets of plywood that had been nailed to the porch’s banister and aimed the barrels at the truck.
“Get on out of here right now. You hear?” one of the men said.
“Shit,” Dax said.
“I told you,” Alex said. “This was a mistake.”
“You hear what he said?” the other man said. “Get the hell out of here!”
“No,” Dax said to Alex. “We gotta try to talk them down.”
“We should leave. There’ll be another house down the road.”
Dax looked at her and shook his head. “We gotta save our humanity. Remember? We can’t live like this.”
“Listen to them, Alex,” Zoe said. “Get us the hell out of here.”
The leather steering wheel cover squealed as Alex wrapped her hand tightly around it.
“You all deaf in there?” a man shouted from the porch.
Dax reached over and put
his hand over Alex’s. “It’ll be all right.”
He opened the door slowly, then raised his hands. When he set his first foot on the dirt, the two men pumped the actions on their shotguns.
“I’m coming out!” Dax yelled to the men. “My hands are up, and I’m unarmed.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, fella,” one of the men shouted.
“One of us is badly injured. Please.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it. We got our own people in here to protect. How are we supposed to know that you’re not going to robe and kill us?”
Dax looked over at Alex. She was shaking her head and nearly crying.
“I guess you’re just gonna have to trust me. Now look, I’m stepping all the way out where you can see me.”
“Don’t do it,” the man said.
Dax didn’t stop. He got out of the truck and slowly walked to the front. He kept his hands raised and his eyes on the two men. He stopped at the front bumper. They hadn’t shot him yet. Progress.
“If you’ve seen Screamers, then you know I’m not one of them. Look into my eyes. They’re not glowing, are they?”
It was a gamble for Dax to bring that up. He’d had the encounter with the biker gang. They’d been able to fool him not only because they were in the daylight with little to cover their skin, but also because their eyes hadn’t glowed.
The two men looked at each other and mumbled so that Dax couldn’t hear what they were saying.
One of the men said, “We don’t know what no Screamers are. Come closer, so we can make sure you’re not armed.”
Keeping his hands in the air, Dax stepped forward. He’d made it almost to the stairs when one of the men ordered him to stop. The same man then stood up.
“What are you doing, Cliff?” the other man asked.
“Sam, you just keep that gun aimed at him. You hear me?”