The Dead Days Journal: Volume 1

by Sandra R. Campbell

  “Get your head straight, Dagon,” Halloween growled over my shoulder, his overwhelming presence safely pinning Lincoln to my backside.

  This is the safest place for Linc to be.

  The thought made me pause. Lincoln was safer with us, and Halloween could heal any wound. Lincoln could live a long and healthy life. But he’d have to give blood in return. Could I subject my brother to that kind of slavery? Would he hate me for it if I did?

  “So, she’s the one in control now?” Dagon challenged.

  “Leo holds our lives in her hands. Trust me. You want her to like you.”

  The heavily scarred Kuro sidled up next to Dagon. “Yeah, about that. When are you planning to share this miraculous news?”

  I felt Halloween move just before he appeared in front of me. The thick muscles around his shoulder blades flexed several times. “This is not the time or the place. Swallow your pride.”

  “And choke on it,” I added, choosing to ignore the chastising look Halloween tossed over his shoulder. There was nothing in our contract that said I had to make his peacekeeping job easier.

  “What about us, Orrin? What happens to us now?” Duncan scooted around the fire to address Halloween directly.

  “I made a promise to Leo to keep her family safe, and I’ve fulfilled that promise. The horde is gone. I just ask that you bear with me and my associates for a day or two longer while Leo regains her strength. Then we’ll be out of your hair for good.”

  “I think Leo has just proven she’s strong enough,” my father mumbled from his seat on the farthest log from the fire.

  Halloween strolled over to my father and placed a clawed hand on his shoulder before addressing the others. The grimace that emerged on my father’s white face warmed my heart.

  “A reminder to everyone. While we’re here, no one will be permitted to carry weapons, and before daybreak you’ll be confined to the panic room. As soon as I feel Leo’s ready to travel, I will return your freedom and your home.”

  Halloween continued to re-establish the house rules to my family, but a nudge at my side drew my attention down to my brother’s damaged face.

  Lincoln took hold of my hand and pulled me outside the courtyard gate. Anouk started to follow, but a gentle shake of Halloween’s head was all it took to still her bare feet.

  The center fire in the courtyard was the only light we had, which is why Lincoln stuck close to the fence. But where the fence ended at the mountainside, he turned toward the cave entrance of the bunker and all light was lost. Lincoln stopped.

  A second later I realized my eyes were adjusting to the complete lack of light. I could see various shades of highlighted shadows in the trees and along the forest floor. The veil of night had been magically lifted. My shaded black and white vision wasn’t the clearest, but I could see in the dark.

  Pregnancy vision?

  I gave Lincoln’s hand a tug. He didn’t budge.

  “What is it, little man?” I tried my best to keep my voice upbeat, but I obviously failed because he crumbled to the ground sobbing.

  “I want to stay with you. Please don’t make me go back in the panic room with Dad.” Lincoln rattled this off so fast I wondered how long he’d wanted to say those words.

  Anger coursed through me as I realized his pain went beyond a single punishment. “What has he done to you?”

  Lincoln shrank into a tight ball and stared up with frighteningly wide eyes. “He’s scaring me. He makes Zoe and me cry, makes us do things…to each other. I don’t want to do it anymore. Can I please go with you? Please, Leo. I’ll be good, I promise.”

  Every muscle in my body turned to stone. “What things, Linc?”

  I secured Lincoln in the closet Halloween and I called home before heading back to the courtyard, this time fully armed. Halloween hadn’t locked up all the weapons, and I left the storage room with a hunting knife snug on the back of my belt, a .38 Smith & Wesson in a sidearm holster, and a Bushmaster AR-15 slung over my right shoulder. I was ready to kill something, a monster. I was going to kill my father.

  The faint click of my worn boot heel against the dry pavement sounded like a ticking clock—or a time bomb. Except the longer it took me to reach the outside, the less I felt like pulling the trigger.

  Dad wasn’t always like this.

  Once, not that long ago, I’d admired him, loved him. I would have walked through the fires of Hell if he’d asked me to. He’d taught me how to ride a bike, how to swim, even showed me how to make the perfect jump shot. Later, he’d taught me to survive, to fight, to keep others alive, and to be a leader.

  He’s my father. He gave me life. Everything I am is because of him.

  But as soon as I’d talked myself out of killing him, a picture of Lincoln and Zoe flashed before my eyes: naked and crying and in a position no child should ever know. My father had treated them like animals. Dogs! He watched. I banished the images from my head, but tears of rage brimmed, threatening to fall, when a sharp clang reverberated down the corridor. Something heavy and metal had fallen just around the next curve. The small clanks and grumbles that followed were the sounds of someone raiding the pantry.

  Wiping the moisture from under my eyes, I switched the safety on the rifle off and slid around the hard corner with my back to the block wall.

  A hunched figure frantically picked at the scattering of dented cans and spilled packaged food that littered the floor around a fallen metal shelving unit. Tossing a ripped bag of grain to the side, he snarled. His head jerked sharply to the right, left, and right again, like a pissed-off viper striking out at invisible predators. The quick glimpse I gained of his profile revealed an undeniable hooked-nose.

  I knew the scowling person in the pantry was Robert, but his movements didn’t match the man I knew. His naturally smooth swagger had been replaced by wild twitching jerks. The frightening grunts and hisses he made were feral. Robert was possessed. This time I’d make sure I finished the job.

  I aimed the barrel of my rifle at the base of his spine. Since I wasn’t dealing with a human anymore, disabling him might be the easiest way to take him down. No way for him to escape if his legs don’t work.

  But before I could pull the trigger, Robert exploded from his squat position and shot straight up to cling to shelves three feet away. His head rotated one hundred and eighty degrees. Dead, hollow, white-coated eyes met mine. A smile slithered across his empty face. Grey, cracked lips stretched and tore, exposing decaying teeth and bloody gums.

  “Hey, Blondie. What are doing with that gun?” His mouth moved in unison with the words he’d spoken, but the voice didn’t belong to Robert. An icy tickle crept along the back of my neck. The disembodied voice was a directionless echo of wind filling the room from everywhere and nowhere.

  “Take a good look, Leona. I am what you carry in your womb. This is what Halloween has done to your child. You would not shoot your own son, would you?”

  I shook the filthy words from my head and refused to engage the demon in conversation. I raised the barrel of my rifle. I stepped into the open doorway, blocking the only exit, and waited for the first sign of movement from this morbid version of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  Even with that grotesque smile plastered across his face, I noticed the long, ashy finger uncurling from the top rim of the shelf. I pulled the trigger.

  A deafening screech exploded when the bullet ripped through his side, and stopped his beating heart. Robert fell backward off the shelves, landing with a watery thud on the hard concrete. He was free, but I had to make sure he was gone. I ran to the motionless body on the cement floor. The instant I knelt down, a thin stream of red mist rose from the ragged wound. I watched as Robert’s face slowly transformed back into a suave, mid-aged blues singer.

  “No, don’t!”

  Dead Day # 1,455

  Tonight I was officially informed that I’m no longer in control of anything. Not my family. Not my home. And if Leo had her say, she’d probably deny me the righ
t to take a shit. But at least my son has finally proven his worth, though he is none too pleased with me. Lincoln and Zoe will continue to be obedient. After a little explaining, they ultimately agreed that this is for the common good, a necessary act for the continued existence of mankind.

  This bunker is my life’s work. My creation, my dream, and I can’t give it up without a fight. I need my son and daughter back at my side. Their children must be born here, under my roof, under my control. Now that the horde has been handled either in death or by disbursement, the odds are back in my favor. I must keep Leo and her child here with me. The four remaining vampires are all that stand in my way.

  Robert came to me yesterday, when we were locked inside the panic room by those arrogant fucks, and he told me he knew a way for me to take our home back. He said there are a couple more things to work out, but when the time is right, he’ll let me know when to take action. Robert has proven to be my best, if not last, true ally. I will trust him on this because I have no choice. What’s the worst that could happen? Nothing. The worst has already happened.

  The following lives were lost. We honor their sacrifice and will remember them fondly.

  Blake Wilson—age 24 of Richmond, VA

  Bonnie McCord—age 61 of Edgewater, MD

  Thomas Irvine—age 27 of Baltimore, MD

  Population: 15

  Rations: 75 days

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A slab of ice smashed against my back, pushing me face first into the far wall. I threw out my hands in an attempt to catch myself when an avalanche collapsed over top of me. Before I had a chance to catch my breath, a crushing force covered my nose and mouth, sealing off my airways. I heard a loud pop a second prior to the searing pain of my nose breaking. The taste of copper ran swiftly down my throat before filling my mouth. I swallowed some of it and gagged. I struggled to move but gained no ground, my entire body encased in a hard coldness and pinned against the wall. I needed air.

  I need to not choke on my own blood!

  I stomped my feet as I gagged and tried to break free. I managed to slip one hand down from the wall. Digging in with blunt nails, I tried to dislodge the hard flesh that covered my face and kept me from breathing, but to no avail. This wasn’t Halloween. Whoever held me captive wanted to hurt me, wanted me dead. But they were too strong to be my father.

  A beastly roar thundered too close to my eardrum, and then suddenly my ice prison melted away. Free to move, I bent at the waist and released the overflow of blood from my nose and mouth, then fought to get air back into my starving lungs. I retched with my first breath and spat. A thick glob of dark red splattered over my boot laces.

  “Dagon, you broke her nose!” Halloween sneered from somewhere on my left.

  “Yeah, but she’s not possessed, is she?” Dagon responded with an unapologetic huff.

  That dick just made number two on my shit-list.

  I knew I should probably be more grateful that Dagon stopped the vampire-mist from entering my body and taking over, but as I spit more blood and took deeper breaths, I swore vengeance for the pain I suffered.

  Ha! Well, at least there weren’t two vampires messing around with my insides. You have to be thankful for the little things.

  “Touch her again and I will extract your soul and permanently eliminate your existence.” Halloween’s gentle hands cupped my chin, lifting my head to get a view of the damage to my face. His eyes were hot orbs under the obvious concern that darkened his brow.

  A swipe of his bloody wrist across the bridge of my nose was all it took for the bone to snap back into place. I winced at the crunch, and tears burned my eyes at the sharp sting of pain that followed. His kindness drained my anger like water through a sieve. The effect he had on me was very puzzling.

  Halloween used his dry palm to wipe some of the blood from my face. “What were you thinking?”

  And just like that my anger returned. Halloween and his merry band of vampires were the ones to blame for this, not me. I couldn’t handle the guilt anymore. Someone else had to take it for me.

  “I just learned my father forced my baby brother into having sex with Zoe. I was on my way to kill him when I came across Robert. Only he wasn’t Robert anymore. How could you not know he was possessed?”

  Someone needs to pay. Someone needs to hurt as bad as me.

  Halloween straightened. Taking a single step back, he jerked his head to the side, dismissing Dagon from the pantry. I met Dagon’s scowl with a harsh glare, and then, with a grunt, Dagon turned sharply on his heels as he pocketed a red vial containing the soul of the displaced vampire. He snatched hold of Robert’s leg and left a smeared blood trail as he dragged the body behind him.

  “It takes time. When I last saw Robert, he showed no symptoms of possession. The signs are not always visible.”

  “Maybe all the signs weren’t there, but you didn’t listen to a word I said. I told you! Are you a complete…” I had to bite back the rest of my words. Even in my rage I knew it wouldn’t be wise to call Halloween vile names.

  Besides, Robert wasn’t the real issue. My anger towards Halloween might have initiated from the pain his fellow vampire caused, but that couldn’t compare to the damage my father had done. The horde had nothing to do with the destruction of my family—that burden lay solely on my father’s fanatical shoulders.

  Halloween stood very still, his eyes locked on the fists clenched at my sides. I never saw Halloween move, but suddenly his hands were squeezing my forearms, pulling me a step forward, closer. “You’re not upset at me for Robert. Tell me, where’s your brother? How is he?”

  I tried to pull my arms from his grasp only to have Halloween tighten his grip.

  “Leo, I’m not the enemy.”

  He was right about that. My father had become the enemy.

  “I can’t leave my brother.”

  Halloween dipped his head, touching his forehead to mine. “We can’t take him with us. He’ll be subjected to feedings. You’ll hate me for it.”

  Is the pain of feedings worse than what my brother would face here with my father? Neither option appealed to me, but I could honestly say Halloween was the lesser of two evils. The physical damage would heal, especially with the aid of the healing properties of vampire blood. Or maybe I should say angel blood, because that gift certainly wasn’t part of their demon lineage. And with that, my decision was made.

  “You don’t know me well enough to know what I can and cannot forgive. Either Vincent dies or Lincoln comes with us. Regardless of what he’s done, he’s still my father. So, I’d prefer the latter,” I said, nudging my head against his. He allowed me to push him back a fraction of an inch. I hoped it was a sign of compliance.

  Halloween snaked his arms around my waist, but he spoke no words. I was too scared to ask for further clarification, and maybe he was too afraid to deny me out loud. Neither mattered, however, because my brother would not be left behind. Lincoln was coming with me, and I made sure to drive my point home.

  “You’re asking me to save your entire species. I only ask that you save my baby brother.”

  I held Lincoln and watched the quick rise and fall of his chest, which matched the rapid movement behind his closed eyelids. My father’s diabolical deeds haunted his dreams. This time the monster in Lincoln’s nightmares was all too real. And, as promised, I would make sure the monster he feared most never touched him again. Halloween hadn’t given me his word, but he also hadn’t removed Lincoln from the closet when he returned to sleep through the daylight hours.

  As I sat holding my brother, smoothing my hand over his head and hoping my touch gave him some comfort while trapped in the dark places of his mind, Halloween watched. Across the closet on a stack of pillows, Halloween lay completely bare except for a pair of navy blue running shorts. His midnight-shadowed skin gleamed in the dim candlelight, smooth and hard, a silent indestructible sculpture.

  I met his bright wordless stare with an appreciative but timid smirk
. The smile he flashed in return touched a vacant place in my heart. My left arm was completely asleep when I finally slipped Lincoln off my lap and tucked him into a sleeping bag. I was about to settle down next to him when Halloween delicately cleared his throat.

  With a raised brow, Halloween lifted a heavily muscled arm and nodded to the small empty spot on the blankets next to him. By now the sun had risen and he should have conked out, but he seemed to be waiting. Now I realized he’d been waiting for me. Crawling the short distance, I placed my head on the empty pillow next to his. Halloween pulled me against him. My lips accidentally grazed his cheek. I withdrew quickly and then buried my face into the cool nook of his shoulder.

  I felt something for Halloween, though I couldn’t be sure exactly what those feelings were. I might waver from time to time, but survive was what I always did in the end. So, leaving with him was obviously the only choice I could make. No matter what the world threw at us, he would keep me alive.

  But are we really meant to live?

  I’d never put much faith in religion, but that didn’t mean I wanted to feel Heaven’s wrath—or Hell’s for that matter. Isn’t that what I’m doing by having his demon-angel-human baby? Bringing the world to an end?

  Halloween stayed surprisingly optimistic, believing my weird hybrid child could save the entire world. But I was beginning to think it might bring about the end that much faster. Would God really appreciate being proven wrong? Or would I be proving God right? And what would Hell have to say about it?

  “I don’t want to have this baby,” I said aloud. By the dead weight of his arm, I knew he couldn’t hear me. Halloween had already checked out, the only reason I admitted my true feelings.

  “I know.” The words escaped his mouth in a raspy sigh.

  I propped my head up on my elbow, searching his tranquil face for any sign of life. “What else do you know?”