The Scourge (Book 5): The Eyes of Darkness

by Maxey, Phil

  He looked back through the window at the shadowy curves of a woman in the backseat and smiled.

  She’s real.

  He wasn’t sure what had come over him hours before. Why he felt the need to be with her. It was the first time he had felt anything remotely like that since the start. Those kinds of feelings he thought had been put on permanent hold. Locked away never to be seen again. But being alone with Anna in that moment, he wanted her more than he had wanted anything in his life.

  Now you can have a vamp marriage.

  He briefly let out a laugh, then sighed as more serious thoughts returned.

  Need to convince the kid.

  He guessed Corine was early twenties. But had an innocence which could have only come from being from a good family. Her bravado was an attempt to hide that, but to anyone who bothered paying attention, it was obvious she was terrified.

  Need to get her to trust me.

  He looked at the store, then to the similar places either side of it, but was unable to get a read on where she was.

  He walked to the entrance, crunching the glass remains of the doors beneath his boots, and peered inside an icebox which was empty. Moonlight pushed the shadows back from the inside, near the front, where most of the shelves were empty, but the occasional item still lived on the rest of them. He walked into the gloom being able to see adequately and spotted a door to the back. Pushing it slowly open he walked into the narrow corridor, then stopped. The sound of drips told him the door nearby was where he needed to go. He moved into the restroom, wishing there was even the slightest of light sources to enable him to see, removed some of his clothes, then fumbled for the faucet. Quickly washing, he used his clothes to dry, then put them back on and walked back into the corridor.

  A distant noise came from somewhere to his left. Maybe a vamp had picked up on their scent and wondered towards them from afar.

  He walked to the end and listened beyond the door, but only received silence. He went to walk away when the noise happened again, but this time it definitely sounded like crying. He pulled the door open to another part of the lot.

  Sniffling with mumbled words was coming from inside the pharmacy to his left. He crept forward and immediately saw Corine beyond the large glass windows. A flashlight was on a nearby shelf, illuminating a display stand of some kind in front of her. She hadn’t seen him being more interested in what was in her hands.

  He thought about backtracking, but then her head whipped around, her red eyes just visible. She wiped her face and placed a card back on the stand.

  He pushed the door open, seeing that the display near the window contained birthday cards. “Hey…”

  She sniffed again, wiping her nose with her cuff. “Hi…”

  “Someone’s birthday?”

  She briefly smiled. “My mothers… was I mean… yesterday. I always got her a card. But this time I completely forgot… I… can’t forget.”

  Joel took a few steps closer to the stand, picking up a card which had a large picture of a dog on the front. “Does she like dogs?”

  Corine laughed. “She hates dogs!”

  Joel smiled. “Hates dogs? Who hates dogs!”

  She continued laughing. “My mom!” Her humor filled expression dissolved back into sadness, and she sighed. “I know it’s dumb.”

  Joel looked at the young woman. “Nothing dumb about getting a birthday card for your mom.”

  He looked back to the display. “How about—”

  He smelled the vamps before his brain spotted them across the parking lot. Three things which used to be people but were now images of a desperate lust for blood, scampered towards the front of the store.

  Just as he started to move to the door, he heard a high pitch ping then snap and watched amazed as metal cabling from a nearby pylon flashed across the back of the lot, slicing the three vamps in half. The cable then fell to the ground. “Damn, we could have done with you before,” he said still looking outside.

  “I’m not a soldier. Just a girl who should be in art school right about now.”

  Joel turned to her. “I don’t need you to be a soldier, but do I need you if… I’m going to be able to save my friends…”

  Her expression became angry. “What? I thought you knew of a place where we would be safe? That’s what the whole go ‘north’ thing was about!”

  “There is a place… I think…” He briefly looked down. “Maybe the island.”

  “Puerto Rico?”

  “Maybe, but I can’t go there until I find the people the corporation took. I have to try…”

  She looked away, her arms folded across her chest. “And how can I help? All I can do is move metal shit with my mind. I don’t even know how I do it!”

  “I’ve seen what you can do. You’re the most powerful Alkron I’ve come across. You took out the platoon. They didn’t know what hit them.”

  “I hid in one of the buildings, and waved some cars through the air. That’s it. They didn’t know where I was, no one was shooting at me! And anyway, how we going to even find your people? They could be anywhere across the country by now!”

  “That is what going north was all about… There’s a town run by the corporation.” Joel noticed the fear growing in her eyes. He held up a hand. “I don’t need you to go into the town. You won’t be in any danger. You can sit on top of a hill, some miles out, and keep watch. What’s the range on your abilities?”

  “I… don’t know…”

  Joel smiled. “Maybe it’s time we found out…”

  After a brisk walk back to the freeway, which dissected the small town, they both stood in the center of the four lanes. Anna sat in the SUV behind, the headlights turned on. Light glinted off vehicles sat in the center on the road at various distances.

  “Three small cars.”

  Corine leaned forward. “How far away is the last one? I can hardly see it.”

  “Maybe a mile.”

  She looked at him shocked. “A mile?”

  He looked back to the road. “Lets just start with the f—” He paused his words because the pale blue compact, roughly forty feet away was floating above the ground. It dropped with a clang and a scrape back to the concrete. “Okay too easy, I get it. Now the next.”

  She squinted, holding her hand out in front. Joel could easily see the nearest vehicles, and the second was bouncing up and down, until it broke free of the ground and surged upwards ten feet. Corine’s hand was shaking, strain across her face.

  “When… can I… let… it—”

  “Drop it.”

  The silver coupe slammed back to the freeway.

  She blew out her checks, her hands on her hips. “I don’t know if I can do the next one. How far was the second?”

  “About half a mile.”

  “Hmm it was far. I could feel the… weight.”

  “Time for the final one.”

  “Okay… I’ll try…” She turned to face along the highway once more, now holding both hands outstretched, her face becoming contorted in effort.

  Joel squinted to better see the sedan. Just a red smear in the gloom. It wasn’t moving.

  She let out a large breath. “I can’t do it… It’s too far.”

  “You only think you can’t do it, because you haven’t done it before.”

  She half frowned in response, then took a step forward and raised her arms again.

  “Focus on it, imagine it. Think about the corporation, think about what they did to you and your fam—”

  There was a screeching, then a pop as the car flew apart, an explosive energy tearing it into small pieces and sending them spiraling into the night sky, until they landed with a clatter back on the freeway.

  Joel and Corine leaned forward trying to better see what was left of the vehicle, while Anna punched the air and cheered from behind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Shirl was sat up on the sofa looking twice as old as she was. “I need coffee. Think of it as my blood.” />
  She and the others were in the dollar store staff room.

  Anna pushed and pulled buttons on a coffee maker.

  “Don’t have to be hot, young lady,” continued Shirl.

  “Agh, I don’t know how this thing works. Wait here, I’ll see what I can find outside.”

  “Be quick or I might start biting someone.”

  Anna quickly left.

  Shirl looked back to Joel who was leaning against a soft drinks dispenser and Corine who was seated at a small round table. “So you want us. Us meaning me and Corine to go on some suicide mission to a corporation town to rescue people who are probably dead. Is that long and short of it?”

  Corine stayed quiet, her eyes not meeting the older woman’s.

  “This first part is not a rescue, unless they are there which… well we won’t be that lucky. No, this is purely for intel. We find out what we need to know. Then we get out. No one gets seen or caught.”

  The old woman scrunched her face. “Sounds like the kind of thing you could do with your vamp girlfriend. No need for us to tag along.”

  Joel went to respond when the door flew open and Anna appeared, joy on her face and two cans in her hand, both proudly displaying the word ‘Cappuccino’ on their sides.

  “Good going girl. Usually I wouldn’t drink that shit, but beggars and choosers and all that.” Anna handed them to Shirl who opened the first, took a long drink then promptly burped. She looked back at Joel. “You was about to tell me why it’s so damn important that we risk our lives for people we don’t know?”

  “Umm—”

  “Do you want to live in a town run by the corporation?” said Anna.

  “Of course I don’t! But—”

  Anna continued. “Shirl. We are hanging on by our fingertips. The corporation might have complete control of this country by now. There might be no more camps left. The people that got taken… they’re good people—”

  “Hybrids.”

  “I’m a hybrid,” said Corine. Shirl frowned.

  “— And with their help, and others, maybe we can… I don’t know. Find a way to stop the end of everything. And every good person who is willing to help make that happen, we need. That’s why we need to save them.”

  Joel looked on, proud.

  Shirl frowned again, then caught Corine nodding at her. She let out a sigh. “Well… shit.”

  *****

  After salvaging what they could from the stores around them, and refueling the SUV, they were back on the four-lane freeway, heading north under a blanket of gray cloud. Joel offered to drive but Shirl’s expression left him in no doubt of what her answer would be.

  Rich green and brown trees slid by on both sides of the road.

  “If the road continues through forests like this, we can stay on it,” said Joel. “But if it opens up then we need to find other roads.”

  Shirl frowned.

  Joel looked back down to his road map of the southern states. “We just passed into Tennessee. After another hour’s drive we need to be thinking of a route around Nashville.”

  “Won’t the vamps be sleeping during the day?” said Corine.

  “Unless disturbed. They will pick up the vibrations and our scent from a mile out. And where one goes, others follow like a herd.”

  Corine sighed and looked back at the wall of leaves and branches passing by. “Why couldn’t it have been zombies. At least they’re dumb.”

  Shirl looked at her passenger. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  They continued north, the forests beginning to spread between fields and farmland, each acre a sea of unreaped stems.

  “Guess there’s no need for food anymore,” said Corine.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Shirl. She glanced at the landscape they were driving through. “But yeah, it’s a crying shame all these crops are going to waste. There must be some folks who could do with them somewhere.”

  Anna thought about Westlands, while Joel thought about Donnie. He wondered how the young man was getting on in the werewolf community, or if the corporation had discovered them.

  Probably have… move slaves.

  They slowed to move around a jackknifed truck.

  “Stop!” shouted Anna, causing Shirl to slam on the brakes.

  The older woman looked over her shoulder. “Has your vamp brain gone crazy girl? Why…” Shirl followed Anna’s gaze to the overpass, which crossed the road they were on about a mile further ahead. “What is it? I can’t see that far.”

  “I can’t see anything either,” said Corine straining her eyes.

  Joel could though. A black pickup was on the raised section of the freeway, and two people, of what gender he couldn’t make out, were standing… watching. “Back us up, behind the truck.”

  “Uh?” said Shirl, looking between him and the distance location.

  “Quickly!”

  “Fine! Don’t get your panties in a twist.” She put the SUV into reverse and they jolted then drove backwards until the trailer blocked any view of them.

  Anna looked at him. “You think they’re corporation?”

  He nodded. “Have to be. Who else would be watching the roads?”

  “So what do we do?” said Corine. “Do you think they saw us?”

  “We can’t stay here to find out. Turn us around, Shirl. It’s time we got onto smaller roads again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Redundant traffic lights swung from their cables above a junction. A pickup sat in the center, the driver’s door open, and as Joel noticed when they drove past, a dark brown mark on the ground that he knew not to be oil.

  He had sensed the sleeping biters as Shirl would call them in Nashville, when they drove at haste down minor roads, keeping their distance from the center of the city, but was still relieved when the buzzing in his brain started to decline. So far the journey had been reasonably pain free, but the occasional stabbing sensation down the side of his face reminded him that he wasn’t in any shape to face off against vamps. Not in the number that Nashville contained. He wondered if the corporation was keeping them there, like a kind of vamp zoo. After hearing about the blood farms, anything was possible.

  A canopy of browns, oranges and yellow passed them by as they progressed north, moving through a seemingly never ending fall forest. Farm houses with overgrown fields beyond came and went, each one taking with it a fantasy from Anna of what she and Joel might have one day. When she looked at her missing hand, or thought about what the ‘powder man’ did to her before she lost consciousness, a quick recall of the night before in the back of the SUV would wipe it away. Bringing a smile to her face and moisture to her eyes. She had no idea how Joel felt about her, she didn’t even know how she felt about him, she just knew it felt right.

  But the task ahead filled her with dread. Not that she could let anyone know that. She was a hybrid, and more than that a doctor. Doctors see things, then have to act on it when no one else can. People looked up to doctors, like how Corine looked at her. Shirl though always stared with judging eyes. There was no fooling the old bird.

  She sighed while watching the old trees and forgotten wooden buildings pass by, then felt a hand touch hers. She turned to see Joel smiling and smiled back.

  Towns that contained a handful of residences even before the scourge took hold, came and went, including equally quaint bridges. Passing over one, Joel informed everyone that they were now in Indiana, and everyone knew what that meant.

  The sun was almost at its zenith, but still blocked by the blanket of gray, and with each mile they grew closer to their destination, the conversation decreased until each person was lost within their own fear.

  Despite the forests now being reduced to the occasional copse, the fields of wheat and other crops almost reached the roof of the SUV, providing ample cover.

  As the wall of beige and yellow stalks flashed by, Joel stretched his senses as far as he could, trying to detect any sign of vamps or Alkrons, but was finding not
hing.

  “Not sensing anything yet,” he said. “But we’re still ten or so miles from the town.”

  They passed over a bridge. The river was cold and dark, twenty feet below.

  “Do you think they could have left the town?” said Corine.

  Joel was about to respond when they all heard the distant sound of an engine. Shirl pulled the SUV over to the side, alongside a small dirt bank, with trees overhanging above.

  Joel looked to their left. “It’s coming from the freeway… moving towards the town.”

  “Someones still there then,” said Shirl.

  He looked back at the roadmap. “There’s a track coming up on our right. Take that.”

  The SUV drove back onto the two-lane road, then shortly after took the turnoff which moved up an increasingly steep road.

  The landscape became familiar to Joel and they moved back inside the spindly branches of a forest. “There are some buildings at the top of the hill to our left. That’s where we were based before. The town is a few miles away on the other side to the northwest.”

  “Is that where we are going?” said Corine. He felt even if he had been fully human he could have heard her accelerated heartbeat.

  “Yup. Take this path coming up on our left. It will take us deeper into the trees and then we walk from there.”

  Soon the SUV was bumping across deeply uneven dry mud ground, along a track hardly wider than the vehicle. They slowly approached a white cabin.

  “Pull in here.”

  A field of long grass lay ahead of them, bordered by the forest.

  “I could stay here,” said Corine looking at the block-like structure.

  “I’ll need you in one of the buildings at the top of the hill so you can keep an eye on things.” He looked at a bag of unopened walkie-talkies. “Says on the packaging, range is a few miles, so we should be able to keep in touch.”

  “Okay…”

  Anna placed her hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Don’t worry you’ll be safe. Shirl will be with you.”