by Alan Ryker
He shook his head. “You think you're such a badass. The vampires are going to tear you apart.”
Jessica stood. Charlie tried to scramble to his feet, but without the use of his hands, had only made it to his knees. She kicked him in the gut and he toppled over. She kicked him twice more, then hopped back as he flailed, pulling at his cuffs.
“Stop! Stop,” he begged.
“I didn't like how you were looking at me. Every time I don't like how you're looking at me, I'm going to hurt you. When I don't like an answer, I'm going to hurt you.” She grabbed the loose end of the rope she'd tied around his neck and led him to a tree near the back door. She tied the rope around a limb he couldn't reach with his hands behind his back. “Sit.”
He couldn't quite sit. There wasn't enough slack. He knelt. He knelt very upright because of the rope pulling at his head. He couldn't look down at the ground. He wouldn't look at Jessica. So he stared up at the sky. Blood dripped from his face.
“Look at me,” Jessica said.
He looked at her without moving his head.
Jessica booted him in the gut. “I didn't like how you were looking at me.”
Charlie tried to curl up, but there was no slack in the rope. He closed his eyes.
“Look at me,” Jessica said.
“No.”
She pulled out her knife and pressed the tip through his beard to his throat. “You don't tell me no.”
“You're just going to hurt me.” He didn't open his eyes.
She hit him in the side of the head with her palm. His head jerked, making the noose tighten around his throat. “Look at me!”
He drew in a shuddering breath and looked at her. Tears pooled in his eyes.
“That's how I want you to look at me,” Jessica said. Jack was right. She didn't know if she could reel herself in. She knew she might be losing it, but she liked the feeling. It kept everything else out.
She grabbed a handful of his hair and pressed the tip of her knife to his throat. The cartilage of his Adam's apple tapped against the blade as it bobbed in his efforts to hold back tears. “Why did I let you live?”
“Because I know things you need to know.”
“Why did I let you live?”
“There's another way out of their basement. I've seen it before, when I was cleaning up after the dogs. There's some sort of steel porthole across from the door into the cellar.”
She took the knife away from his throat. “Where does it lead?”
“I don't know.”
She hit him in the temple with the heel of her palm. He hadn't been expecting it and fell sideways and strangled.
“Where does it lead?”
“I looked around the yard but I could never find the other end. I swear. I swear to God.”
“You swear to God, huh?” It made sense that there was no exit. It probably opened onto dirt. Why have a vulnerable point when you could just dig your way out? He flinched when she focused her gaze on him again. “What else?”
“Amy isn't as strong as the other two. They need her because she's the sheriff's daughter, but I think they keep her weak, somehow.”
“Jack could have told me that. What else?”
“Douglas seems like the leader, but he's not. He's just the angriest.”
“Yeah, Willie's the leader. I know. Are there others I don’t know about?”
“No.”
“Nowhere? None living in Wichita or Kansas City?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What the hell do you know?” Jessica put the knife back against his throat, this time near his ear, just above the rope around his neck. He leaned away from the blade, but she followed him. Sobbing freely, he strangled himself to evade the tip of the knife. Snot and blood ran from his nose, sideways down his cheek from how he sat tilted, gagging. “Why did I let you live?”
“Please,” he said. “That's all I know.”
Squatted on her haunches, Jessica sheathed her hunting knife. “Okay. I believe that's all you can remember right now. But Charlie, if you want to get out of this alive, you're going to need to remember more. I'll let you think.”
Jessica stood and joined Fatty on the back porch where he lay on the warm, broken concrete.
Chapter 10
Willie sat in the darkness, still and silent. The day brought an opiate numbness he liked. As the months went by, he liked it even more. He appreciated his hyperawareness, but the numbness of the day kept him from going mad.
So the first he heard of the fire was the dogs barking and whining.
Amy got to the cellar door first and opened it. Smoke billowed in. The house above crackled. Things hadn't started collapsing yet, but they would soon.
She looked at Willie as he emerged from his room. “What do we do?”
“Close the door.”
She closed the door and looked back to him. He walked to the circular iron porthole opposite the cellar door. It hadn't been opened since it was installed, to keep the seal tight and waterproof. Willie pulled it wide.
It opened onto dark, moist earth.
Willie flexed his clawed hands, shoved them in and began to pull the dirt out. This escape route had been his idea, and now it would save them.
“Maybe we should wait,” Amy said. Willie looked over his shoulder at her. She looked scared.
“This is probably going to start feeling like an oven pretty soon. You can stay if you like. You might survive.”
Douglas pressed in alongside Willie and began to dig as well. Fury contorted his face. “Harris?”
Willie nodded.
Before long, they'd moved enough earth for Willie to climb up into the short tunnel. He used his clawed hands like the buckets of an excavator. This was why his palms had grown wide and his fingers so strong and hooked. This was one of the things he was meant to do. He shifted the dirt back, and Douglas scooped it out into the bunker.
The earthen tunnel was cool, but back in the bunker, Amy said, “It's starting to heat up.”
Willie had been digging steadily, angling the tunnel up towards the surface. He stopped and went back.
The bunker was indeed getting warmer. He walked toward the wall shared with the cellar and the temperature climbed even as he crossed the room.
“We need to get into the tunnel and close the door.”
“Not yet,” Douglas said. “I'm not going to eat your dirt. I’m branching off.”
Willie nodded. He knew exactly what Douglas was thinking: if they ended up stuck in the same grave, it would be permanent for one of them. It wasn't personal. They were vampires.
Willie climbed back up into the tunnel. There was enough room for him to keep digging in his direction and for Douglas to branch off in another. Over his shoulder, he said, “Amy, keep pulling dirt out. Once Douglas has gotten a good start on his tunnel, you start your own and shut the door behind. We'll meet up come nightfall.”
“I don't know if I can,” Amy said.
“You'll have to,” Willie said. He felt the reverberation of Douglas's growl.
Amy had never been out in the world as a vampire. He had changed her, and she spent her first night as a vampire in a dog kennel in the cellar. But Willie and Douglas had dug their own graves.
He turned and forgot her. He thought only about the earth between his fingers. The feel of it told him so much. The way the gravel scraped against his claws. The way the worms and the ants moved agitatedly against his skin. His fingers tore through roots and the soil grew drier as he neared the surface, and he stopped digging. He stopped moving at all. Without Douglas clearing the dirt behind him, the tunnel closed up as he went. Willie let the earth settle around him. He let it hug him close. It felt so much more right than the bunker. Even with all its concrete, this felt safer.
Willie had to force his mind to operate. After the initial excitement, it was trying to shut down again until sunset. But for a moment Willie wanted to reflect. Jessica Harris thought she'd won. She thought they were cook
ed or trapped beneath the house. But she had done him a favor. Something major had been out of whack for some months. Buried alone with the house gone, things felt much better.
He could sense the two vampires so near him, though, and he wondered if Douglas had the same thoughts. He imagined so. This was how they were meant to live. They'd tried to use their new natures to become kings among men, but why? Who wanted to be king of the cattle?
They weren't feral vampires, but neither were they human. Instead of trying to find the balance between the two, they'd stuck to what they knew: living in a party house and preying on stupid junkies. Maybe there was no balance. Maybe there was only madness. But Willie knew now what didn't work.
Perhaps he and Douglas and Amy could part ways peacefully. Perhaps not. But Willie knew that there would be no more striking deals with the law. There would be no more human guards. There would be no more compromise. He would satiate his hungers.
First, of course, they would kill Jessica Harris. And if need be, they'd wipe out all of Krendel to do it.
Chapter 11
Jack's parents lived on Oak Street in Krendel, in a light blue double-wide trailer that sat on a large lot with a big garden in back. Jack walked up onto the porch he'd helped his dad build almost ten years earlier. After opening the screen door, he reached for the handle, then paused. They'd told him he wasn't welcome there anymore, not until he started living right again. He reached up to knock, but hesitated at that, too. He opened the door and stepped inside.
“Mom?”
No answer. It had been almost two years since he'd seen the living room. They still had the same floral-patterned sofas with the big doilies on the back. On the walls hung big multi-photo frames, the kind divided into a bunch of different little frames, some square, some round, some ovals. Pictures of him and his older brother back when they were little rascals with long, straight black hair. Pictures of them with his cousins. Pictures of his white relatives on his dad's side and his Native relatives on his mom's. She was three-quarters Cherokee.
“Mom?”
Still no answer. He walked through the house, through the kitchen. Early summer vegetables covered the counter.
Jack went out the back door. There was his mom, kneeling in the garden.
“Mom.”
She looked up at him, and he saw several emotions at war behind her eyes. She stood and took off her gardening gloves.
“Jack, what are you doing here?” She walked over and hugged him.
“Is dad at work?”
“Of course.”
“When he gets home, you two have to get out of here. There are some bad people after me and they'll come after you.”
“What are you talking about? What bad people?” The negative emotions he'd watched her suppress—the disappointment and frustration—came to the surface. “We aren't dealing with your messes anymore.”
“Listen, they're after me because I ditched them. I'm trying to straighten up. So they're pissed, and I'm afraid they're gonna come after you.”
His mom shook her head. “Where did we go wrong?” she asked the sky. Then to him, “Who are you talking about?”
“Some drug dealers.”
“It doesn't take many brain cells to see that drugs are nothing but trouble. You need—”
“Mom, this isn't about me right now. This is about you and dad. They're going to come after you.”
“Then we'll call the sheriff.”
Jack grew frantic. He hadn't had much hope of warning them, but he'd had some, and it was evaporating. “The sheriff can't help you.”
“Your father isn't going to be run off by trash,” she fairly shouted. “He's a proud man who takes care of his family. We'll call the sheriff. Now who are you talking about?”
The sheriff wouldn't help. Jack didn't think the sheriff was an evil man, but calling him could only do harm. The vampires had him under their thumb. He'd gotten in too deep with them to be any help. He was a drowning man, and he'd take anyone who came near under with him.
“Please talk to Dad. You guys could go visit Aunt Darlene.”
“We're not going—”
“Then at least tell him to stay alert!” Jack's mom jumped as his frustration exploded. “Don't go out at night. Keep a gun near. I'm sorry, Mom.”
She said nothing.
“Once this is all over, you'll see that I've changed. I'm done with this bullshit.”
“Language!”
“Sorry, Mom. I'll see you soon.” He turned to go.
“Wait.”
He turned back. She wrapped her arms around him again. He leaned down and rested his cheek on the top of her head. Half her hair was silky and black, the other half gray and wiry.
She squeezed him, then went back to her garden. He thought she was probably crying.
If he survived, he would turn things around. And he would protect his family as best he could, regardless of Jessica's intentions.
As he drove the dirt roads to avoid the sheriff and his deputies, Jack fought against the panic trying to wrap its fingers around his heart and squeeze. For the moment, he and his family were safe. In only a few hours, if the vampires were still alive, they'd come for him. He'd seen some of what they could do. He'd seen how they became animals. He was sure they didn't know it, but he could tell what they thought. Their eyes. They had the eyes of sharks: solid black and full of nothing but hunger. Hunger alone was a quiet thing. He had seen that most in Willie. He'd heard them talking about the trouble with Douglas, talking about him like he was the animal. They didn't understand themselves. Douglas raged, but that was his human side. Willie, though, was pure hunger.
Thank God he'd found Jessica Harris.
The sun stood high in the sky as Jack pulled around to the back of his squat. Jessica and Fatty lounged.
He looked over her long, muscular body and his chest tightened. She had a severity to her features—her jaw and cheeks and eyes—that was intimidating but beautiful. It was weird, because he wanted to get with her, but he also wanted to be like her. He'd never felt that way about a girl.
Jessica propped herself up on her elbows as he got out of the car.
“Did they listen?” she asked.
“Of course not. My mom might have, if it were just her. But she knows my dad won't listen to anything I have to say.”
Jessica nodded. The way she did that unnerved him. It was because she didn't nod in agreement. She was always nodding, but simply to acknowledge that she'd heard him speak.
“Where's Charlie?” Jack asked. He'd forgotten about Charlie.
Jessica tilted her head towards the nearest tree. Charlie knelt beneath the tree, watching them. A taught rope running from his neck to a branch.
“He don't look so good.”
Jessica barked out a sharp laugh, a laugh like he'd never heard from a girl. “He's not so good.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“The vampires are still alive.”
“How would he know?”
“He said there's another way out of the bunker.”
“Shit.” Adrenaline drove a spike into Jack's heart, then thundered through his veins and up to his brain, which swam in it. “Shit!”
“Calm down,” Jessica said, sitting up.
“What are we going to do?”
“We're going to hunt them down and kill them.” There was certainty in her voice, and he believed that if anyone could do it, she could. But he didn't know if anyone could stop Willie and Douglas.
“You don't know them. They're beyond… I don't know. You have to protect my family.” Jack thought of his mother. He wanted to cry, but couldn't with Jessica watching.
Chapter 12
Sheriff Yoder glanced over at Deputy Goodrich as they stood by the smoldering pile of rubble that had been Willie and Douglas's place. His daughter had lived there too, after they changed her.
Amy was probably ashes at the bottom of that ash heap. From ashes to ashes, he'd always heard at fun
erals.
But she'd become something different in the interim. Maybe now, though, it was settled.
Still, his eyes brimmed. Amy was his little girl. Even after she got into the drugs and the partying and hanging around losers like Willie and Douglas, she was his little girl. Even after she changed, he protected her as best he could.
His wife, Stephanie, would be destroyed.
Deputy Goodrich glanced at him and said, “So it wasn't a meth lab fire.”
“Nope. Hasn't tested so, at least.”
“Burned quick, though.”
“Don't know that. Who knows how long it was burning before it got called in.”
Deputy Goodrich nodded and watched the firefighters reel in their hoses. They'd saturated the ashes. Saturated the yard. “No one's heard from any of them. They're going to start digging soon. You sure you want to be here?”
Part of the rear wall stood. Nothing else remained. But could they have survived the fire?
“I don't mean to be…” Deputy Goodrich continued to stare at the pit, not meeting Yoder's eyes. “I don't know how to… Sir, this could be bad. The plans show that about a year ago they had a concrete basement put in behind the house. It wouldn't have burned, but—I talked to the firemen. They estimate that as dry as this house was, it probably burned near a thousand degrees. I don't know what that cellar was for, but it would have been an oven. So—are you sure you want to be here?”
“No. I thank you for your tact. I'm going to head home to tell Stephanie before someone else does.”
Deputy Goodrich squeezed his shoulder. He was a good young man. “You do that.”
Yoder got into his prowler and started it up, but the deputy leaned down to his window.
“Maybe it's just that nothing much goes on around here, but that girl wandering into town yesterday, just after the Hopewells disappeared and just before this… Well, do you think it's a coincidence?”
Jessica Harris had burned his daughter to death. He'd been ready to abduct her and hand her over to the vampires just the previous evening. But he couldn't feel any anger towards her. In fact, with the relief he felt, he was almost grateful to her.