by Alan Ryker
After a shower, she took her emergency bag from the closet. She’d put the kit together months ago, in case she had to make a quick run from either vampires or the law. It was a framed hiking pack with a lightweight sleeping bag rolled at the bottom. It held a few items of clothing, some calorie-dense food, light camping gear and most importantly, a big roll of twenty dollar bills. To the exterior, she strapped her machete, handle-down. She slipped her .40 into a side-pocket that was accessible without removing the pack. It wouldn’t be a quick draw, but it was better than nothing.
Jessica dressed quickly. As fast as that monster had moved, she didn’t doubt that for every few minutes she wasted, it was a mile further away. Her hope was that it didn’t think it was being pursued. It would go to ground before daybreak, and thankfully the days had gotten very long. She would have time, but she still had to hurry.
She dressed as casually as she could for maximum utility. Army surplus fatigue pants with big pockets. She wished that she could get away with shorts. It could be a very long, hot run, and she worried about dehydration. But the brambles of the pastures and the crops of the fields would strip the skin from her legs within an hour.
Boots would slow her down. So, canvas Keds.
A tank top. Then her handwraps and chainmail gloves. Over all that, one of her uncle’s big western shirts. A light one, made for long days in the summer sun. The sleeves were long enough to conceal the gloves she didn’t dare go without at night.
The smell of the shirt crushed her heart in a chainmail fist.
She ground her jaw as she stared at her bloody, stab-proof vest. She couldn’t wear it, and it was too bulky to pack. So she went with her second best: a massive bondage collar. Shopping for it had been extremely embarrassing. The sex toy shop in Wichita had a small leather section, and she’d found a black collar that covered her entire neck. Four metal rings hung from it.
The irony of using leather to protect herself from a creature that typically lived on cattle didn’t escape her. But it was the best she could do, and it was thicker and tougher than rawhide.
She imagined the looks she’d get in it. Hostile, to say the least. But she’d lived with constant hostility for the past year, and she didn’t imagine it could get much worse. A backpacker in a small Kansas town would be under suspicion anyway, and with nu metal and goth rock shocking parents on the television, she’d get by with nothing worse than looks of scorn. Anyway, she only had to wear it at night.
She put on her collar, put on her pack, then grabbed the .25 caliber pocket pistol hidden at the back of her closet. It was hidden because, besides her not being eighteen, she’d converted the gun to fully automatic by filing down the sear. A .25 caliber bullet had no stopping power on its own, but her little pistol would unload at one trigger pull within a fraction of a second. Getting hit with six .25 bullets was similar to getting hit with 12 gauge worth of buckshot. It was the most incredibly inaccurate gun she’d ever fired, but a vampire charging you down was a spray and pray situation. And she could run with it in her hand for hours.
Jessica went downstairs. The dogs had calmed down, but they still swarmed her when she opened the door to the utility room. There was no way they’d follow her to the kennel on their own, so she leashed them all up.
She had too damn many dogs.
She led them over to a long hog house she’d fenced in. They didn’t enjoy staying in their kennel, but she couldn’t have them running loose. She didn’t know when or if she’d be back. And honestly, it was a pretty nice set up. She'd just spoiled them by allowing them to sleep inside at night and run free all day. She’d fenced in plenty of grass and even a shade tree. Mark, the vet assistant, would know to find them there.
She watched them for a time as they sat and whined at her through the fence. She felt guilty opening the gate again to take out only Fatty. Fatty was a special favorite of Jessica’s, a chunky little beagle that was lazy by temperament, but could run forever once he had a scent. And while he hated vampires, he wasn't aggressive and stood down when Jessica commanded. She had dogs who believed they were protecting her when they got between her and a vampire, when all they were actually doing was blocking her shot.
True night had fallen. Jessica nearly left, but then got the feeling that she'd forgotten something. She walked around the house and noticed a car at the end of her driveway. Her heart pounded. At first, it was from a barely formed fear that someone sat there. Then, after she understood that it was empty, from the knowledge that she’d almost left evidence so huge and noticeable right out in the open. She ran to the car, Fatty in tow, and drove it into her garage. She shut the door on it, but wondered what else she might have missed.
Fatty picked up the scent immediately, bayed, and they were off. Jessica set a pace she knew she could maintain for hours. The visible patch of ground swung back and forth so that her world seemed to be composed of only the five feet directly ahead of her. She imagined that the headlamp looked odd bobbing through the night, but while she could walk at night with enough moonlight, she couldn’t run. The danger was that the patch of light kept her eyes unadjusted to the darkness. It was like running on a treadmill inside a tiny room with black walls.
Hour after hour, Jessica ran. Despite Fatty's rotund build, he actually pulled on his lead whenever she slowed or stumbled.
The tall grasses dragged at her feet. In the dark, it was easy to get lulled into the rhythm, to almost become hypnotized. If the beast caught her like that, she'd be dead. It was barbed wire that caught her, though, and she scratched her stomach pretty good when she ran straight into a fence because the bottom strand was broken and Fatty had run right under.
Cattle opened their big eyes and stared at her as she loped past. The vampire had taken the same path, and yet the cattle hadn't moved away. They were stupid animals, and lucky the creature had developed other tastes.
Jessica's long legs ate up the miles.
Field running was treacherous. The furrowed earth provided ridges that tripped her or collapsed underfoot. She adjusted her stride to match the striations of a given field. That was as draining as the grass in the pastures.
At three a.m., she stopped in a pasture by a creek. She estimated that she'd covered over fifteen miles. It was time to sleep. The sun would be up in a few hours, and the vampire would have to go to ground. The vampire was faster than her—much faster—but it had to spend the long days out of the sun. She'd much rather come upon it in daylight. It probably didn't know she pursued it, because it now obviously thought of itself as the alpha predator.
Trees rose up from the moist earth beside the creek. Cattle lay nearby. In the mornings, they liked to drink before wandering away to find better grazing. Jessica unrolled her sleeping bag beneath some small but leafy young trees. She knew that it really made no difference, but she felt more secure there than out in the open. She understood why cavemen preferred caves.
Jessica tied Fatty to one of the small trees to keep him from wandering away. The same traits that made beagles great trackers also made them difficult to train. Fatty was as stubborn a beagle as you'd find, and once he started following a scent, he didn't want to give up until the chase was over.
Jessica lay on her back in the thin sleeping bag. She was tired, and the morning sun would wake her soon, but sleep didn't come immediately. She looked up at the branches overhead. She looked out at the star-filled sky. She felt so alone. Before Dennis had gone on his killing spree, she'd been popular. She was a tough chick. Tough enough that girls wanted to be her friend, but not so tough as to scare the guys.
Afterwards, though, she scared people.
She couldn't help it. After the initial shock wore off, she tried to get back to normal. But people looked at her differently, and it made her self-conscious. She'd fought her urge to withdraw, to stare stony-faced. She knew it was in her blood. But everywhere she went people looked at her. The girls who'd admired her, she knew they talked behind her back. She knew from the way they exc
hanged glances when she came around.
The guys were even easier to read. They nudged each other and joked, or just stared wide-eyed. She wasn't one to hold a fake smile. Like her uncle, she wasn't one to back down, to be shamed.
Blood will tell. She stopped fighting it.
They didn't know that she protected them. They didn't know that she kept their cattle and their children alive. But she didn't do it for them. She didn't know why she did it. Hate? Guilt?
She stared out at the stars. She missed having friends. After she cleaned up her mess, maybe she would leave. She didn't think she could handle college. She couldn't imagine trying to pretend that any of the things in those books mattered. But maybe she would leave. She could disappear and get a waitressing job. She had long legs; she'd get great tips. She could sell the ranches, then tell the government about the vampires and get it all taken away from the bastards who'd shunned her.
Away from her uncle's house, the last thing tying her to the corpse of her past, maybe she could move on and be normal again.
These were Jessica's thoughts as she fell asleep.
The trees blocked the sun, and Jessica was thankful to have been able to sleep an hour past dawn. She rolled over and her muscles protested immediately. But, except for the lack of sleep, it wasn't anything new.
Sometimes Jessica ran fifteen miles a day for weeks on end. She'd read that human's weren't made in God's image. That they were made to run. That on the African plains, humans could run down any animal, make them overheat so that they stopped moving or even fell over dead. Humans weren't the fastest animal on the savannah, but they were the most persistent. They didn't train for months for a marathon. They regularly ran near marathon distances.
Jessica didn't know about God's image, but she knew that she was built to run. Before she even stood up, she pulled one leg after the other to her chest, stretching her hamstrings, rolling her feet back and forth to loosen up her ankles. Fatty crawled over to her and licked her face as she did. Jessica tried to push him away and he nibbled on her hand and had her laughing too much to continue stretching. So she sat up and took breakfast out of her bag. Crackers and peanut butter. Every so often she'd give one to Fatty and watch him struggle delightedly to swallow the treat. It was good entertainment.
Jessica guzzled her water. She looked at the creek, but there was no way she'd drink that, not even through her filter straw. That water ran through heavily fertilized fields before collecting into a stream. It was half chemicals. She'd have to fill up as she passed a house or a watering pump. No big deal.
Jessica took off her chainmail gloves and pocketed her pistol. During the day, she'd know when she was about to come up on the vampire.
She walked at first. Jessica wanted to let her legs and lower back warm up. But once Fatty had the scent, he wanted to go. He pulled on his lead until Jessica relented and began to slowly trot, then to jog.
Jessica ran while the day was still cool. She crossed fields and pastures and gravel roads and occasionally paved county roads. She didn't go west often and didn't know the area very well, and knew it less well the farther she went. She managed to not see anyone, as the vampire had stayed away from the roads. Jessica wished that she could tell how long it had been since the vampire had passed. To distract herself from the discomfort of the run, she let her mind wander. She imagined herself in a western, examining a bent blade of grass. Sniffing it—maybe even tasting it—then looking up and saying, “He went this way not three hours ago.”
Around eleven, Jessica crested a grassy hill and looked out at a town in the distance. If the vampire kept up its current trajectory, it would pass directly through Krendel. Jessica knew that it wouldn't be that brazen. Then again, it had stood atop that hill, looked at that town and continued running right for it.
Fatty was beginning to tire. He trooped on, but Jessica knew he couldn't keep up the pace they'd set. Down at the bottom of the slight hill was a slight valley, and it was green, despite the increasing dryness of the land as they went west. A few trees stood clustered together, and Jessica thought they might provide enough shade to nap in. Like Fatty, she was beginning to drag.
It was nice in the little stand of trees. Hills rose in every direction and long, yellow grasses rustled in the wind. The trees provided enough shade to protect them from the glare of the sun. Jessica rolled out her bag, laid an arm across her eyes, and was asleep in seconds.
And it seemed like she'd only been asleep for seconds when she awoke to the buzz of a small engine as it crested the hill to the north.
Two kids riding on an ATV came straight at her. She could tell that they hadn't seen her yet. She looked around, but with hills in every direction, she couldn’t find a means of getting away without being noticed.
So she sat up, wrapped her arms around her legs, and waited. Maybe they'd just pass by.
They both had dirty-blond hair. The girl drove. She looked to be eleven or twelve. A possibly annoying age. Behind her, a boy Jessica assumed was her brother had his arms wrapped around her. He was younger, probably no older than nine. A very annoying age. Especially for boys.
They didn't ride away. They came straight for Jessica's little stand of trees. At the edge, they cut the engine and began to chatter.
“I want to drive on the way back,” the boy said.
“Yeah, right.” The girl scoffed. “Last time you nearly rolled us. I'm not gonna let you break my neck. Besides, Mom said I drive or we walk.”
“Mom's not out here. And what if Mom knew that you spend all day writing love letters to Tommy?”
They had started moving for the trees, but the girl stopped short at this. “Are you a tattletale?”
“Are you going to let me drive?”
“Are you a tattletale?”
“Are you going to let me drive?”
The girl grabbed the boy's arm, and for a moment there was fear in his eyes, but then they squinted down.
“I aint afraid of you,” he said. “You hit me, and I'll tell Mom about Tommy.”
The girl jutted her jaw. From the way the fingers on her free hand worked, Jessica knew she was weighing the trouble she'd get in for her little love affair versus the satisfaction she'd feel at slugging the brat.
“Fine,” the girl finally said through a clenched jaw. “But you'll slow down when I tell you to. And you won't try to turn on top of a ridge.”
“I know that.”
“You didn't last time.”
They started walking into the little copse of trees again, and the boy was about to retort when he saw Jessica. It took him aback, and for a moment, he stared in silence. This made the girl look at Jessica, too.
Jessica nodded, “Howdy.”
Having noticed her first, the boy recovered first. “Howdy.”
“Howdy,” the girl eventually said.
“Howdy,” Jessica replied. She almost smiled, enjoying the strange game.
Fatty broke the tension by walking to the end of his lead and lolling his tongue at the boy. The boy walked to him and knelt. He scratched Fatty's wriggling body while the dog did his best to lick the boy's face off.
“This is a nice dog,” the boy said. “What's his name?”
“Fatty.”
“Fatty. That's funny.” The boy smacked a hand on either side of the dog's torso, testing his girth.
“I'm Melinda and this is Todd. Finney,” the girl said. She said it politely enough, but it was a challenge.
“I'm Jessica.” The lack of a last name hung in the air.
Todd took off his backpack, sat it on the ground and squatted in front of it. He removed a journal first and tossed it at Melinda's feet. She glared at him, but he didn't look up as he pulled out a stack of comic books. He seemed to have decided that what would come next between Jessica and Melinda was girl business. Taking his comics, he sat beneath a tree and tried to read while hugging Fatty with one arm. Fatty was still trying squirming with delight.
Jessica read Melinda's fa
ce. The girl was caught between several potential dynamics, and Jessica could see her struggling to decide how to behave. There was enough difference in their ages that she should possibly treat Jessica as an adult. On the other hand, this was the girl's property and she could possibly get away with treating Jessica as an interloper.
Not wanting trouble, Jessica decided for Melinda. “This is a cool place. Is this where you guys hang out?”
The tension in the girl's face left as she realized she was being treated as a peer by an older, cooler girl. “Yeah. We come out here to get away from our mom.”
Todd had given up on reading his comic book and was fully devoted to wrestling Fatty. He said, “She don't ever run out of chores if we stay in the house. Makes you wish for school.” Fatty pressed forward, knocking the boy onto his back and licking in his ear as Todd turned his head away laughing. “Your dog is crazy!”
Jessica laughed. “He'll calm down in a minute if you pay attention to him. He didn't like you ignoring him and reading that comic.”
Melinda looked at the boy and shook her head. “Todd can be so annoying. He follows me everywhere.”
“You're the annoying one,” Todd said. He'd managed to get back upright.
“Do you guys go to school in Krendel?” Jessica asked.
“It's summer vacation,” Todd said.
“She means when school is in,” Melinda said. Then to Jessica, “Yes. I'm starting junior high this year.”
“That's exciting. A bit scary at first, but I'm sure you'll like it.”
The girl sat against a tree near Jessica. “Are you still in school?”
“I just graduated.”
“Wow. That's cool. I can't wait to be done and go away to college. Are you going to college?”
“Maybe. I haven't decided yet.”
“I'm not going to college,” Todd said. “I'm going to join the Army. After that, I'm gonna be a cowboy, like my dad.”