But the bulk of the devastation awaited them inside the town.
“What is this?” Connie asked, her hand moving involuntarily up to her mouth.
It looked like the scene of some post-apocalyptic movie, one where mass-hysteria had overtaken the people after the breakdown of society. Traffic lights, long extinguished, swayed in the breeze like condemned criminals hanged for their sins. The metal poles of one traffic light was bent over, as if hit by a car, and the cable spanning the road almost touched the ground. Doug had to swerve way to the left to keep from hitting the light.
Demolished cars littered the road. Businesses had windows smashed and heavy steel doors ripped from their frames. At first glance, Connie thought the various stores had been looted, but as they passed, she could see that the merchandise of each, though disheveled, had not been removed.
“It looks like a bomb went off here,” Doug said in an awed, dreamlike tone. “You don’t suppose this is one of those mock towns where they do military drills, or—” he nearly gasped, “—test nukes?”
Connie didn’t think so. There weren’t any bullet holes that she could see. And except for the occasional burned car, there were no signs of explosions. If this was a mock town, someone had gone to great lengths to get every detail right. Perhaps, it was a ghost town. In this economy, it wasn’t unheard of for a town this small to just wither like a plucked flower in a dry vase.
Except that wasn’t right, either. This town didn’t feel dead to Connie. “I think we should get out of here.”
“I think you’re right.”
Doug stepped on the gas, swerving around the larger pieces of detritus clogging up the road. The air in the cab of the car seemed to grow cold and thin, and Connie felt as though she might suffocate. She let her eyes glaze over, blurring out the destruction surrounding them, for fear that, at any moment, they would come upon a dead body…or several.
Without warning, Doug slammed on the brakes hard enough to make the tires squeal. Connie threw her hands against the dash, and uttered a startled scream that was cut short when her seatbelt locked tight across her neck.
“What are you doing?” Connie asked, her throat burning. “Why are you stopped?”
In the dim luminescence of the dashboard lights, Doug’s face looked the color of a rotten corpse. “There are people in the road.”
Connie glanced up, thinking that there really were dead bodies in the road, but the headlights merely fanned out onto the empty blacktop. She was about to ask Doug what he was talking about when she caught movement in the shadows just beyond the light’s reach.
There was more than one, that much she was sure of. She could just make out the shape of bodies in the gloom, pacing back and forth. There was something very primal about the way these people moved, as if they were not human at all, but instead, some wild beasts pretending to be human.
As if to seal her irrational suspicions, one of the people let out a horrible scream unlike any noise a human could make. The scream hit her spine like a knife and she and Doug grabbed their ears.
“We need to go,” Connie said, on the verge of tears. Doug didn’t respond. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Still, he didn’t reply. “C’mon, Doug! Back up! Let’s get out of here!”
Doug stared blankly out of the windshield, hypnotized, or perhaps, in shock. His hand fell from the steering wheel and clicked on the brights, though whether or not on purpose, Connie couldn’t say.
The headlights blazed forth, illuminating, at least, a half block further down the road, and what they saw before them made Connie believe that Sheol really was Hell.
There were five of them standing there… Well, not all were standing. One was missing its legs, and had seemingly been bitten in half at the waist. One was missing its left arm. Just a bloody tatter of shirt and gore visible. All had red eyes as though they had suffered some sort of colossal aneurysm, and littering their skin was a swarm of thick, black veins. They seemed unable to abide the light, because they all shielded their faces and shrank back into the shadows.
“Let’s go. Please.”
“It’s a joke. It has to be a joke.”
“I don’t care. I want to go. There’s something wrong here.”
“It’s not real.”
“I don’t care.”
The four that could walk darted out of the path of the light with incredible speed, far too fast for mere actors in costumes. It was like watching a movie in fast forward. The legless fiend clawed his way into the shadows, a long tail of entrails spilling out behind him.
That was enough for Doug. A long, stuttering string of obscenities fell from his mouth as he fumbled with the gearshift. His hands shook almost as bad as if he were having a seizure, and he didn’t seem able to remember how to drive a car.
Finally, he put the car in reverse, stomped on the gas, and turned to look out the back window. Something smashed into the side of the car with the force of a train.
The car rocked up onto two wheels, which chattered and skipped across the black top. The car came to the edge of the road, the tires dipped into the soft earth and it began to cartwheel over and over.
Connie wasn’t sure just how many times they rolled. All she could do was plant her feet on the floorboard, shove her hands up onto the roof, and scream. The car landed on its wheels. The windshield had turned into a sparkling spider web. The side windows were gone. Despite pushing up with all her might, the roof had still been smashed down to just an inch over her head.
Connie looked to Doug. He was cocked to the side, hanging out of the broken window. Blood, stained ink-black by the darkness, poured from his nose, soaking his shirt. Connie squinted her eyes, which burned. She couldn’t see Doug very well, and at first, she wondered if she had suffered a terrible head injury and was now going blind. But then she realized the airbags had deployed and the cab was filled with a smoke-like white powder. Not only that, but the headlights—the very thing that had chased away the impossible monsters standing in the road—were smashed, and the only light now came from the car’s hazard lights.
Connie ripped her seatbelt off and turned in her seat. The intolerable darkness closed in all around them, broken only by the rhythmic pulse of the yellow hazard lights.
A noise—perhaps a growl, perhaps a demonic laugh—echoed through the night. Connie grabbed Doug by the shoulder and shook him hard. He cried out in pain, but didn’t fully gain consciousness. His head bobbed side to side and his eyes were large glassy orbs.
“Oh, god, Doug,” Connie said in the loudest whisper she could muster. “Wake up. We need to get out of here.”
Doug groaned. He blinked several times, then lifted a shaky hand to his nose. “What happened?” His voice was distant, scratchy.
Connie was about to remind him of their dire situation, but her voice caught in her throat when the first of the hellish creatures materialized next to the car. Connie wanted to scream, her brain said that she should, but no noise escaped her mouth. Faster than her eyes could track in the strobing yellow light, the creatures appeared as if from nowhere, surrounding the car.
Their eyes looked black, like a shark’s eyes, in the light. Their withered lips curled back from their teeth, and venomous-looking saliva dripped down their chins. They rushed all at once, attacking the car like a pack of wolves on an injured deer. The doors were ripped from the car and tossed away as though they weighed nothing. The creatures were fighting each other for the prizes within, but it didn’t take long for the victors to push inside. They took hold of Connie and Doug, leaning in to begin their feasting.
Something heavy crashed into the hood of the car, rocking the back end several feet off the ground and spilling the horrible creatures backward. Connie couldn’t quite grasp what she was seeing.
A woman, young and beautiful with long auburn hair, crouched on the hood of the car. She wore a long, leather trench coat that fanned out behind her like a set of dark wings, giving her the appearance of some fierce warrior ang
el. Her flawless white skin seemed to glow from within. Connie wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but she thought she spied a long, vertical scar starting at the woman’s neck, and vanishing down into her V-neck shirt.
The woman’s radiant emerald eyes were locked onto the demonic creatures surrounding them. She smiled, showcasing a set of small, but sharp fangs. “Wrong place at the wrong time.”
Connie didn’t know if the woman meant her and Doug, or the group of monsters. She didn’t have a chance to ask. In a movement so fast it made Connie gasp, the angelic woman launched herself high into the air before barreling head-first into the group of monsters.
CHAPTER TWO
Jerusa Phoenix rushed across the arid desert, kicking up a wake of sand behind her. There was no mortal creature that could move as she did, and only the eldest of vampires could match her speed. The powers endowed to her by the vampire spirit, gifted to her through the blood of her maker, Silvanus, had made her an unusual fledgling. But it was the gift she had carried over from her mortal life that truly set her apart from other vampires.
Trailing behind her like a comet’s tail, washing up around her like a tidal wave, a vast crowd of ghosts kept pace with her. When she had been human, Jerusa could see and communicate with the lingering spirits of the dead…the human dead. But now that she was a vampire, all she could see were the ghosts of blood drinkers.
This was no small achievement. Being a medium—or a witch, or whatever name was ascribed to her gift—was uncommon in the mortal realm, but Jerusa was the only one to retain the gift after becoming a vampire.
Some called her a Blood Witch. It was meant as an insult. But Jerusa had grown to like the title. Besides, it was her uncanny gift that had saved her from the judgment of the Stewards. It was her gift that had kept her alive, thus far.
Though the rest of the vampire ghosts remained at her sides and behind her, two special ghosts, Alicia and Foster, moved just in front of her, one on the left, the other on the right. Foster, once her best friend as a human, changed to a vampire by his love, Shufah, had perished at the hands of the savage Kole. But Alicia wasn’t like the others.
Alicia had died in a car crash at the age of fifteen. Her strong and perfect heart had been donated to another young girl who had been cursed with a bum ticker, and a knack for seeing ghosts. Alicia had been with Jerusa ever since. And when Jerusa had changed, Alicia had changed as well. She wasn’t a vampire ghost, but neither was she any longer the ghost of a human. Jerusa didn’t know what she was.
Alicia led Jerusa through the desert, toward the town of Sheol, a quarantine community for humans that had been bitten and infected by a vampire. Sheol was one of the last quarantine communities left in America. Most had been wiped out by Suhail’s army of savages.
Jerusa, Taos the blond giant, and the remaining members of the Crimson Storm had joined with another group of Hunters to surround the town Sheol in hopes of trapping Suhail here and ending his coup before another savage war spilled into the mortal world. If there were savages left in Sheol, Alicia would lead Jerusa to them.
Jerusa spied the town, a small black smudge nested in a rocky canyon, not more than a mile ahead. Her vampiric eyes caught the flicker of false light splashing upon the far ridge. Those were headlights. Someone was driving into Sheol. She had been ordered to hold her position on the outskirts of town, and wait for the other Hunters, but that wasn’t going to happen now.
Alicia shot Jerusa a concerned look over her shoulder. Jerusa nodded and the ghost motioned for her to follow. Alicia, perpetually in her blue prom dress, shoeless with a fancy hairdo, ceased to run and began to move across the land in a series of blinks, vanishing from one spot and reappearing several yards away. Jerusa pushed her speed to the limit, yet she couldn’t catch Alicia.
Jerusa followed the ghost up and over the ridge and into the southern border of Sheol. Tiny houses stood scattered about. The scent of death, stale and dwindling, seemed to surround her the way the smoke of a great fire will linger years after the flame dies. Debris littered the alleyways between houses: shoes, shirts, dishes, guns, and various other personal items. She tried not to think about the lives that had once claimed these artifacts, but a knot formed in her stomach and her eyes misted over with tears.
Alicia led Jerusa through the minuscule town of Sheol, toward the center of town. The aroma of car exhaust wafted through the air. She could hear the humming of the car’s engine several blocks ahead and it felt to her like the trebling of murky waters that were infested with sea monsters.
As they approached a one story building that looked to be a hardware store, Alicia vanished from the ground and reappeared upon the roof. Without hesitation, Jerusa leapt into the air and caught the edge of the roof with her fingertips. One hard pull and she somersaulted over the edge, onto the roof and rolled across the hot rubber surface. Alicia continued to vanish from one building and materialize upon the next, and Jerusa followed, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, as silent as a shadow.
The scream of a savage cut the night and Jerusa’s blood ran cold. The rev of the car’s engine echoed off of the buildings and she zeroed in on their location. There came the sound of twisting metal and rubber tires squalling against the pavement. A woman screamed. Multiple savages growled.
Jerusa came to the edge of the building and jumped high into the air, arched clear over a smaller building, and landed on the hood of the car.
The car bucked, spilling the savages backward. Jerusa spun, fanning her leather trench coat around, and shot a quick glance into the car. Neither human had been bitten, which was good. She turned her attention to the savages, and counted twelve surrounding her, which was bad.
The man in the car was bleeding, and the scent of his blood caused a painful shiver to erupt within Jerusa. The woman was paralyzed with fear, another intoxicating aroma for a vampire. Jerusa closed her eyes for a moment, willing the thirst to subside. She was a vampire of many secrets, one of which was that she had never fed. Alicia wouldn’t allow her to feed on blood (human, vampire, or even animal), for reasons only the ghost knew.
Jerusa opened her eyes. Alicia nodded toward the humans, silently asking if Jerusa would be able to do this with them around. She didn’t answer. She didn’t know. “Wrong place at the wrong time,” she said, speaking the words that had become the mantra of her life.
Without even a growl of warning, the savages came at her. When given the choice, a savage will feast on a vampire over a human any day of the week.
Jerusa back flipped from the hood of the car, catching the first savage under the chin with her boot. It flailed backward, but not as far as she would have liked. She landed on her feet but had to spin in order to escape the grasping hands of two other savages. Another rushed her from behind, but Jerusa caught him by the throat before he could sink his venomous teeth into her face. Her arm buckled under the force of the attack, so she dropped to her back, thrust her foot into his gut and set the beast tumbling into the others.
Jerusa ran backwards, keeping her eyes on the savages as she led them further into the desert and away from the humans. Though she was now a predator to humans, she still didn’t want to see them die. Besides, many of the savages were injured, with limbs or large sections of flesh missing where they had been fed on by the savages that had created them. She didn’t want the savages feeding on the humans and regenerating any lost limbs. And she certainly didn’t want them to use the humans’ brain matter to bring them any closer to consciousness. A mindless savage is dangerous enough, but an aware savage is another story altogether.
All twelve savages pursued her, even the one missing its legs. Jerusa continued to back up until she came to an open space where thick slabs of rock poked through the sand like the backs of whales surfacing in the ocean for a breath. Here, the savages couldn’t corner her. Here, she could run if things didn’t go her way. Here, she had a chance.
Four of the savages, all whole with no missing parts, kept their distance,
spreading around her, which told Jerusa that they had regained, at least, some of their conscious minds. The other eight, however, were still mindless and rogue, snapping and snarling at one another like mad dogs.
Here was the tricky part. Which group should she confront first?
Jerusa reached beneath her trench coat and pulled out what looked to be an ancient and ornate wooden staff. She twisted the handle and a pair of long, thin skewers came sliding forth from both ends. She spun the weapon up so that the cold metal of one of the blades just touched her ear. “The sun will be up soon. Let’s get this over with.”
It was one of the mangled and mindless savages that came at her first. From the shape of its body, Jerusa could tell that in life it had been a woman. But now she was something beyond abomination. Her scalp had been torn away, or perhaps chewed off. A great gaping hole existed where her stomach used to be, and what remained of her intestines spilled out like links of festering sausages.
She rushed forward, her injuries dampening her incredible speed only a fraction. Her talon-like fingers swiped at Jerusa’s face, and her exposed teeth gnashed together with the crack of a thunderclap.
Jerusa parried to the left, lowering down onto one knee, and with a hard swing, smashed the savage’s knees with a hammer-fist. The creature’s bones shattered, splintering through the skin like tiny white spears, and she slid to a stop on her face. Jerusa launched herself high into the air and came down hard, driving the skewer through the savage’s back. The thin blade slid through flesh and bone without resistance and lodged into the stony ground. Jerusa gave the weapon a twist and four prongs appeared out of the blade, curling downward on almost invisible hinges, driving themselves into the back of the beast. Jerusa pulled upward and the weapon came loose, the blade slightly shorter, while leaving the savage pinned to the ground.
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