The Darkening

  "That's not my mom," Birdy insisted almost nonchalantly, her chin thrust up as the group walked past Elizabeth Finch's body. But despite her bravado, the girl refused to look at the remains of her mother.

  "I know sweetheart."

  "Birdy, my name is Birdy," the girl insisted.

  "Sure thing, Anna... Birdy."

  Mulroney's flashlight momentarily illuminated the face of the dead woman, long enough for the cop to finally see what Collins had seen. Mulroney jumped like she'd been stung, her light swinging back to the body. "Holy shit. Holy. Fucking. Sh—"

  "For Christ's sake Mulroney!" Collins snapped.

  "But... Jesus Christ do you see her mouth? The teeth?"

  "Yeah, I see it just fine, and so does the kid, so why don't you do your goddamn job and help me get these people out of here?"

  "I told you it wasn't my mom," Birdy repeated when they started moving again. She quickly took the steps down to the next landing.

  "Stay close, Birdy," the detective said. Tyreese had to edge his way down the stairs sideways, taking each step one at a time, and the detective didn't want anyone getting ahead of them. Not because he was concerned that he might be wrong about Tyreese, but because there might be more of whatever Elizabeth Finch had become. He hadn't said it aloud but he knew by the look of relief Tyreese had given him when he suggested they all leave that he was thinking the same thing too. And although the detective was having a hard time believing it, if Tyreese's account of the events on the stairwell were to be believed, their pistols would not be much help to them.

  Detective Collins doubted that was the case. Over the course of his career he'd fired his weapon a total of three times in the line of duty, and each time he'd hit what he was aiming at. Twice the perp on the receiving end had never gotten back up.

  Beyond the stairwell the wind had grown unrulier, rising in powerful gusts that rattled windows and shook the walls, the rain pummeled the sides of the building so hard it sounded to Collins like someone was outside throwing handfuls of gravel at it. The building creaked and groaned in the onslaught, driving home how unnaturally quiet it was in here.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, Mulroney and Birdy waited while Collins and Tyreese caught up. Collins pushed open the door to the foyer, holding it for the rest to exit. The hinges shrieked as the door swung closed. All four froze, the sound like fingernails down a chalkboard.

  "The car's parked right outside. Single file now," Collins whispered.

  They were almost in the middle of the foyer when Mulroney, at the head of the line, let out a gasp of surprise. Her flashlight illuminated a shape that had been hidden by the darkness: an old woman standing silently in front of the double doors leading out to the street. She stared out through the glass, seemingly enthralled by the storm ripping through the night.

  Collins guessed the woman must be in her late seventies, with thinning gray hair and loose folds of pale, wrinkled skin. Her spine was slightly crooked, stooped with age. She stood perfectly still, her back to the room, staring out through the glass into the night beyond. She wore a single pink slipper on her left foot and was dressed only in an ancient brown nightgown that had helped merge her with the shadows. This close, Collins could clearly make out the individual vertebrae of her spine against the thin material of the nightgown.

  Mulroney glanced back at the detective. He nodded and the female officer took a step closer to the woman, her pistol half out of its holster.

  "Ma'am? I'm a police officer, are you okay?"

  The old woman's head tilted slightly at the sound of Mulroney's words but she showed no other sign of being aware of their presence.

  Mulroney raised her voice, "Ma'am, can you step back from the door please." She moved in slightly closer to the woman.

  "It's beautiful, isn't it?" The woman's voice froze the cop in her tracks. Collins felt an icy fist of fear squeeze his spine. He had expected a feeble voice relative to the woman's obviously advanced years. Instead what he heard was a strong, powerful tone, ringing with a sibilant edge that sounded as though the woman had a very slight lisp.

  "Ma'am?" Mulroney took another step closer.

  "The night, I never noticed before, just how beautiful it is. Now I see it as it truly is." The old woman sounded wistful, as though she was critiquing a wonderful piece of art that she had passed by many times before but whose beauty she only now recognized. The woman straightened suddenly, her crooked spine snapping back into place with six audible pops until she stood perfectly upright, shoulders pushed back. She gave a sinuous shake that started at her shoulders and migrated south to her feet, then the old woman let out a long sigh of contentment.

  "That's so much better." She turned, slowly, her eyes blazing yellow, mouth open wide in a predatory smile that exposed the upper and lower fangs, black and glistening, protruding from her jaw. Her tongue, red and shot-through with thick black veins, caressed each tooth slowly, almost obscenely.

  "What in God's good—" Mulroney's words were cut short as the old woman suddenly ran toward her, screeching like a banshee.

  The cops' training overcame their shock, even as the woman launched herself into the air. Both drew their weapons and began firing almost simultaneously. Muzzle flashes turned the darkness into a flip-book movie of frozen moments that, while only lasting a matter of seconds, seemed to stretch to far more.

  The old woman staggered backward under the hail of bullets, as round after round tore at her body, sending pieces of flesh flying through the air. The foyer suddenly filled with the sound of the storm beyond as the glass doors behind the old woman shattered into a million pieces.

  Collins's mind registered all of this, even as he recognized that no blood flew from the impact of his bullets, despite using hollow-point rounds. Each hit knocked the woman backward, staggering her, until finally, the woman fell, collapsing to the floor even as the final round left Collins's weapon.

  He ejected the empty magazine and slammed in a fresh one, then leveled the pistol at the old woman's prone body.

  Mulroney edged closer to the old woman, her pistol aimed at center of mass.

  She has to be dead, Collins thought, there was simply no way anyone... any thing... could have survived that fusillade.

  "Let's go," Collins yelled, his ears ringing from the shootout. Birdy was cowering behind Tyreese, who had wrapped a big arm around her shoulder and placed his body between the kid and the crazy old woman.

  "Birdy, you go fi—"

  The dead woman sat up.

  "You have got to be shitting me," Mulroney hissed.

  Then the dead woman got to her feet.

  "Get back to the apartment," Collins yelled at Tyreese as the woman stepped in front of the shattered exit, her bullet-riddled nightgown billowing in the wind roaring through the empty door frame.

  Tyreese swept Birdy up in his arms and began to move as quickly as his prosthetic legs would allow back to the stairwell.

  Collins turned his focus to the old woman just as Mulroney opened fire again, hitting the woman several times in the head and chest, dropping her to one knee. By the time Collins had made it to his partner's side, she had emptied the rest of her second magazine into the old woman, pushing her back.

  "Let's move," Collins ordered, grabbing the cop's shoulder and swinging her around, pushing her in the direction of the stairwell. "Back up to the apartment." He could see the shock in Mulroney's eyes, the utter disbelief at what had just happened. "Move!" he yelled again as the old woman, who should be dead twice over by now, pushed herself to her feet again. The two cops sprinted to the stairwell and flung open the door. Tyreese and Birdy were halfway between the first and second floor landing.

  "Keep going," Collins yelled, turning to look back through the shatterproof window in the door. Collins yelped in fear as the old woman's face suddenly appeared against the glass, spittle dribbling between her fangs. Collins ran, chasing after Mulroney, who was taking the stairs two at a time.

  Collins's
breath came in puffs; He was too damn old and out of shape for this shit even when the perps were human, let alone some godforsaken monster from hell.

  Tyreese and Birdy had already made it to the second floor landing.

  "Run!" Birdy screamed. "Run!"

  Mulroney's upper torso appeared over the bars of the second floor landing guardrail above Collins, her pistol pointed at the door behind him.

  Don't look back, Collins ordered himself. Don't even think about it. He ducked instinctively as the crack of Mulroney's 9mm pistol exploded through the confines of the stairwell.

  "Come on, Boss. For fuck's sake, run."

  Collins could not remember ever hearing terror in a cop's voice before, but he heard it now, could see it each time the swinging beam of his flashlight illuminated Mulroney's face as he pounded up the stairs to the landing where she covered him.

  Mulroney's weapon fired again, and he heard the old woman screech behind him.

  Jesus! Oh, Jesus!

  Collins reached Mulroney, didn't even pause to catch his breath before starting up the next set of stairs toward where the kid and Tyreese waited. Glancing back down the way he had come he saw the old woman edging up the steps toward them. She was almost nonchalant about her approach, as though she thought she could sweep in any time she wanted. Half-way to the third floor landing, he pulled his own weapon and turned to cover Mulroney's retreat.

  "Mulroney, get your ass up here," he yelled to her.

  Mulroney turned and began to climb the stairs toward him. Her left foot was on the third step when the door to the second level opened and a yellow-eyed Hispanic man darted through the gap, grabbed Mulroney by the hair with both hands and dragged her back through the doorway. Mulroney didn't even have a chance to scream before she disappeared into the darkness and the door slammed shut.

  "No!" Collins yelled. He dove toward the door but before he could reach it, the old woman was there in front of him, blocking his path.

  Someone somewhere was screaming. It could have been Mulroney, it could have been Birdy. Collins could not decide. Hell! For all he knew it could have been him. And that would be okay, because this was madness, utter madness.

  The old woman edged up a step toward Collins. From above him, the detective heard Birdy's and Tyreese's voices screaming at him, urging him to turn around and run. He hesitated for a moment then fired two quick shots into the old woman's face, sending her spinning away into the corner. He reached a hand toward the handle of the door leading to the second floor... and stopped.

  The detective glanced at the old woman. Even now she was struggling to her feet again. He looked at the door where his partner had disappeared as quickly as the prey of a trapdoor spider. Then Collins was backing his way up the stairs again. After three steps he turned and raced to join Tyreese and Birdy on the third floor landing.

  If either of them had asked why he had not tried to rescue his partner, he would have told them it was because Birdy needed him more, that his partner was gone and that there was nothing he could have done to save her.

  But that was a lie. The truth was that he was terrified.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Detective Collins pushed Tyreese and Birdy through the apartment's doorway, then stumbled in after them, slamming the door shut behind him. He tried to slip the deadbolt across but his hands shook too much. Instead, he leaned his full weight against the door.

  "Birdy," he gasped, panting from the exertion and adrenalin flooding his system, "can you... close... the... lock... please." He was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. It was odd because at that moment he wasn't even sure he was a part of this reality. Birdy jogged to him and slid the deadbolt into place. To Collins it felt as though he was somewhere else, watching the events unfold around him. A buffer of calmness surrounded his mind. It was shock more than likely, he realized, of course, helping his mind cope with what had just happened. He leaned over and placed his hands on his knees—Jesus! They snatched Mulroney right off the stairs—he took a deep breath and held it for a moment... then exhaled—that could have been me... oh fuck. Fuck!—took another breath and exhaled slowly.

  After the fifth breath he felt his heart begin to slow, panic was gradually replaced with a throbbing ache in his knees and arms. Oddly enough though, the headache he'd had for the past couple of days had vanished. Tyreese was standing near him; Collins could see his mouth moving but he couldn't make out the words. "What?" Collins said, and then realized he could barely hear his own voice over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.

  Tyreese stepped in closer to the detective, placed his hand on Collins's shoulder and said slowly and presumably loudly, "Are you hurt?"

  It was going to take a while for the effects of the gunfire on Collins's unprotected ears to subside, but after a quick self-assessment, the detective gave Tyreese a thumbs up. "I'll live," he said, then, "We need to barricade the front door."

  Tyreese agreed, nodding his head in the direction of the living room.

  The detective followed Tyreese.

  Birdy stood in the kitchen gulping a glass of water, watching the men. She seemed to be the calmest of all three of them, but her eyes were still wide and unblinking.

  "Grab hold," said Tyreese, as he bent over and slipped his hands under the far end of the sofa. Collins did the same at his end, and together they lifted the sofa, manhandling it down the corridor. They placed it close to the door, then Tyreese tilted it up on its side and leaned it against the door.

  "That should buy us some time," Tyreese said.

  Both men headed back into the kitchen. Collins checked his pockets for his cell phone but could not find it. The last memory he had of it was when he had checked his messages in the car. He'd either left it there or lost it when he had fought his way back up here. "Do you have a land line?" he asked, moving his lower jaw left to right to try and clear the last of the discomfort in his ears.

  Tyreese shook his head no. "But my cell phone's over by the coffee pot," he said.

  Collins disconnected Tyreese's phone from the charger and dialed the number for the precinct front desk from memory. The phone rang and rang for almost two minutes. Nobody picked up. He mumbled an expletive, thought for a second, then dialed nine-one-one.

  A woman's recorded voice answered, "All lines are currently engaged. Please stay on the line and we will—" The call abruptly disconnected. Collins tried the number again and this time all he got was a busy signal. That meant the phone systems were either malfunctioning or overwhelmed, but what about his unanswered call to the precinct? Sure, they had been shorthanded for the past few days. When you factored in the mother of all storms sitting over their heads, he mused, and a city that was in a general state of emergency, your resources were going to be stretched pretty thin... He let the thought trail off as a new, far more sinister idea took its place. Maybe those things in the hallway were just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe they had spread throughout the city, or even farther. The idea made him physically shiver. If that was what had happened, then they were on their own and in much deeper shit than he had imagined.

  "What do we do now?" Birdy asked Collins.

  That, as Collins's dad would have said, was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. "For now," he answered, "I think we stay put here, at least until we can find out exactly what's wrong with those... people."

  "Those 'people' are vampires," said Tyreese, his tone of voice disconcertingly matter-of-fact. "I would have thought that was pretty goddamn obvious by now. How else do you explain the teeth, or their invulnerability to your bullets? Shit! Birdy killed her... she killed the creature on the stairwell with a stake? A freaking stake!"

  The detective shook his head. "That's ridiculous. There has to be another explanation than... vampires, for Christ's sake."

  "Like what?" asked Birdy.

  "Like, maybe it's a disease or a bio weapon or something. I don't know. I just know it can't be vampires. It can't be vampires!" By the time he reached the last wor
ds he was almost shouting them.

  "Maybe it's a virus. You know, like in the Walking Dead," said Birdy.

  Now it was Tyreese's turn to look confused. "The walking what?"

  "It's a TV show," said the detective. "About zombies." He thought he saw a flicker of a smile on Birdy's face at the fact that he knew the reference. "What? I watch TV." He smiled back. He liked the idea of having gone up in the kid's estimation.

  "Yeah, well this ain't a TV show," said Tyreese.

  "Don't forget the cops that were attacked in the apartments behind us," said Birdy.

  "What? What cops?" Collins asked, shocked at what he had just heard.

  Tyreese looked at Birdy, then back to the detective. "We thought you knew."

  Collins shook his head and repeated, "What cops?"

  "Earlier this evening some of your guys showed up a street over. Birdy, in one of her not-so-bright moments, went to take a look.

  Birdy cut in, "There were cop cars and a SWAT van."

  "Jesus Christ." Collins leaned against the wall for support while the information sank in. He turned to face Birdy. "Did you speak with any of the cops?"

  Birdy shook her head. "There weren't any. Just their cars."

  Collins looked taken aback. "No one? You're absolutely sure?"

  Birdy nodded. "There was shooting... and screams. But when I got there, there was no one."

  Rain thrummed against the windows. From somewhere distant, the dull rumble of thunder vibrated the glass in the living room window.

  "So, what do we do now?" asked Birdy.

  The logical thing, Collins thought, would be to try and make another run for the car, but if the building's overrun with more of those... those... things—his mind would not allow him to say the V word—then there's no guarantee we would make it, so we'd have to—

  "Shit! Ah, shit!" Collins felt his heart sink.

  "What?" Tyreese growled.

  "The car keys. Mulroney drove us here. She had the car keys and she's..." he allowed the sentence to fade away. "I don't suppose either of you have a car we could use?" he asked.