The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel

by Hawley, Ashlei D.

  As though he didn’t control his body or mind, Leland found himself running away before he’d made the decision to do so. His lungs burned, his legs ached, and his heart tore in the face of his cowardice. He’d left his family, at least Drayton, for death. With tears on his face, he chased the promise of life for himself.

  Chapter Three – Jameson

  Jameson couldn’t define the way thirst pierced his throat. As though he’d made the effort to swallow sheets of sandpaper, and sadly succeeded, the skin on the inside of his neck felt rough and abraded. His maker had told him the thirst would abate at the end of the first week. It would no longer consume his thoughts and imbue his being with feelings of desperation and unquenchable hunger.

  Until then, he was isolated. He couldn’t be risked among the human population. Joselyn had told him he would not be able to contain himself if he smelled them, interacted with them. Their weakness would be the spice on his palate; their fear when he revealed himself as what he had become the perfect accompaniment to the blood which would give him sweet, sweet sustenance.

  Joselyn had turned him three days past. They hadn’t been separated since his turning until now. She hadn’t returned from her hunt the night before and her absence had begun to concern Jameson. Recently, she’d been interacting with other vampires; old ones. Jameson hadn’t met any of them, but he didn’t like the lines worry had worn into Joselyn’s ageless face or the fact that she wouldn’t talk to him about what they’d been doing.

  He fiddled with the cell phone she’d left him. The prepaid mobile didn’t have a service plan, and had only one number stored within it: hers. Joselyn had warned him not to call any numbers from the people he knew. They were few, but he was dangerous to them. He wanted to call Joselyn, but he didn’t want to seem needy and desperate. She’d taken a long time to decide to turn him. They’d dated for four years before she’d even revealed why she only came out at night, her peculiar appetites, and the darkness in her soul. Now her darkness was his. He was happy to share it with her for eternity.

  Nerves tense and patience exhausted, Jameson dialed Joselyn’s number. She hadn’t been in contact with him for over twenty-four hours. He couldn’t handle the thirst and worry anymore. It had only been a day, but in the grip of the thirst with nothing to distract him, it felt like the longest part of forever.

  “This is Joselyn.” Her voice was as bright and lively on the message as the burning blue of her eyes in person. He could almost taste her just by hearing the sound of her voice. “Please forgive me for missing your call. If you leave a message and your number, I’ll be happy to get back with you.” The sound of her lips pressing together in a kiss ended the message.

  “Joselyn, please call me back.” Jameson tried not to let his concern trickle into his tone. Leaving the message more brusque than usual and not adding his characteristic, “Love your sweet self,” he ended the call.

  Before he’d even placed the phone back on the arm of the recliner in which he’d confined himself, it buzzed with an incoming call. As far as he knew, only one person had the number.

  “Joselyn?” Jameson’s voice was hopeful as he answered the call.

  “Open the door!” Joselyn gasped into the phone. She sounded terrified. Something was wrong with her voice, but Jameson couldn’t focus on the abnormality through the fear he felt for her.

  Jameson shot to his feet and launched himself for the door. His new speed lent itself to him crossing the distance of the living room and kitchen in less than a second. He took the doorknob in his hand, twisted, and wrenched the thick metal open.

  Joselyn stumbled inside. Before he saw to her, Jameson slammed the door in the faces of the three men pursuing her. They were bloodied, feral. They looked like what Jameson had been warned he could become if the turning process failed. Like vampires lost to any of their human personalities and moral compass, the men after Joselyn seemed like rabid beasts.

  Jameson locked the door and turned to Joselyn. The steel was thick and reinforced. No matter what the men did to it, they weren’t getting through with any effort short of smashing a vehicle into it.

  Joselyn was on her hands and knees. She gasped with the effort of her run. Jameson knelt beside her and put one hand on the small of her back. The pattering of liquid drew his attention to the floor.

  Blood soaked the carpet. With every breath, more crimson splashed from Joselyn’s torn throat. Her arms shook with the effort of holding herself steady and after another second of trying to remain upright, she collapsed against the soaked carpet and was still.

  Jameson turned his maker over with shaking hands. He could still hear breath puffing from her lips. When she was turned to face him, he saw that her chest was as much of a red ruin as her dripping neck. Nestled deep in the flesh against her exposed heart, a slender metal cylinder had been lodged as though shot with extreme force by some projectile-firing weapon.

  When Jameson moved to withdraw the metal so Joselyn could heal, she gave one small shake of her head.

  “Too…late,” she choked out around the blood in her mouth. “Take…pocket.”

  Jameson felt around in her left pants pocket, where she’d weakly waved her hand. From within the folds of fabric, he withdrew an unmarked flash drive.

  “Don’t…drink,” she warned him in a whisper. “Poison…”

  Even with the ominous warning, her blood drew him as nothing ever had. He wanted nothing more than to lower his face to the destroyed skin and press his lips to the rich, life-giving liquid.

  She hadn’t chosen him just for his handsome physical appearance or the attraction she felt for him. Jameson was as strong of will as he was of body. Though her exposed blood made him feel as though he could never be complete unless he sated himself with the taste, Jameson leaned back on his heels and looked down at Joselyn’s still form.

  He closed her blank blue eyes and rested her pale hands atop her stomach. The men pounded on the door. They snarled, demanding entrance with their guttural shrieks. Who were they, he wondered. What had they been doing chasing after Joselyn? Who had killed her?

  The answers would not be forthcoming, no matter how long he sat on their living room floor with her dead body. He stood and made his way toward the bedroom they had shared together for three years. The flash drive he gripped in his hand went into his own pocket. He decided he would pack his laptop with him, and try to figure out what Joselyn had likely died for later, when he’d sorted through all of the impossible thoughts and feelings bound to assault him once the numbness dissipated.

  He was a newly-made vampire. The promise of immortality had been given to him just days before. And now his maker was lost to him; torn and battered and poisoned in such a way the immortality she’d offered him seemed a mirage of an oasis in an unending desert. What was life without Joselyn? And what was the promise of immortal life if she’d lost her own mere days after granting Jameson his?

  The questioned tormented him as he packed a small bag of clothing and toiletries. He ensured his laptop, charging cord, and other important components were tucked safely in the black briefcase he used to transport them before leaving the bedroom.

  What to do with Joselyn? He looked down at her when he reentered the living room and fought the tears which threatened. So many things seemed unfair to him in that moment. He gritted his teeth together and felt the merciless throbbing of his fangs. Having been forbidden from drinking of his maker seemed the cruelest torment. Hers was the only blood he’d taken since becoming a vampire. Though it hadn’t even been two days since his last feeding, the ravenous monster within him which called for blood and only blood convinced him he would shrivel up and die in the face of his enormous thirst. Joselyn’s presence had been stolen from him, and so her ability to sate the terrible ache of blood hunger.

  Jameson placed his pack and briefcase beside the balcony door. A second floor balcony was no problem to jump down from for him. With the door blocked by the rabid men, he would have to leave via the bal
cony. He was thankful for his vampiric strength, which would ensure he had no need of a tied sheet ladder in order to get down from their apartment.

  He lifted Joselyn’s body with as much tenderness as he had ever shown her. He knew that leaving a vampire body alone and unattended for any human to find would be a betrayal of their kind. As much as he hated to do it, he would have to dispose of her physical form before he could leave.

  The apartment complex was owned by vampires, though Jameson had never met them and Joselyn had never mentioned any of them by name. Jameson didn’t know what had happened to the rest of the world, but he knew his own had changed and been destroyed in the past hour. He was sure any vampire who found him after what he planned to do would understand his reasoning for his actions.

  Joselyn had told him before he’d even been turned that the risk of extermination was too high for their species if the humans found out about them. The safest course of action was to destroy a dead vampire before a human could find the body and detect the abnormalities. Humans were good at eradicating other species. Jameson knew he wasn’t the only vampire who didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the humans’ talent for devastation.

  Jameson placed his blue-eyed beauty on the bed they had lovingly shared each night of their time together. He didn’t have accelerant of any kind, but he did have several kinds of alcohol, nail polish remover, and papers. He intended to start a blaze on the bed that wound consume her lovely form and all evidence of her uniqueness. Vampires burned much better than human bodies. When the fire was done with Joselyn, there would be absolutely nothing left to identify her by.

  He went to the kitchen to retrieve alcohol bottles from atop the fridge. The nail polish remover would be found in the master bathroom attached to their bedroom. While he gathered magazines and loose-leaf paper from Joselyn’s desk in the living room, Jameson became increasingly incensed by the noise of the men slamming against the door.

  Fury ricocheted within him. The hand gripping the papers he’d collected crushed closed until he’d crumpled them all. Luckily, enough presence of mind remained within him to avoid making a fist with his other hand. He didn’t need alcohol-soaked glass lodged in his skin.

  Though he was certain the aforementioned poison had been responsible for Joselyn’s death, Jameson felt the men outside the door had something to do with it, as well. He would figure out what had happened to her, and then he would punish whoever had been involved. He didn’t know how, but he vowed to avenge her no matter how long it took.

  Jameson kissed Joselyn once on the cheek. He avoided her mouth, where blood had pooled around her full lips. If he tasted even a drop of her blood, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking the tainted liquid into himself.

  “Love you, sweets,” he whispered against her cool skin.

  He doused the bed with the two half-full bottles of nail polish remover he found under the bathroom sink. He left Joselyn’s skin dry. He knew that the vampire body would torch at the first touch of flames. The Everclear bottle was full, and he poured the entire contents around her. Three bottles of miscellaneous liquor soaked the floor around the bed. His sensitive sense of smell began to rebel against the abrasive scents mingling in the fabric of the room.

  The long-handled lighter Joselyn often used to light her scented candles was on the nightstand. Jameson took it in hand and touched the flickering flame to three pieces of crumpled paper. He left them fall on the floor. Three more, and then another four, joined Joselyn on the bed.

  When several of the lit papers touched the floor where the alcohol had been poured, a belch of nearly invisible blue flame puffed up and licked at the dry bed skirt. The fabric caught and soon the entire bedroom had become engulfed in hungry fire.

  Jameson walked backward out of the bedroom, keeping his eyes on Joselyn until her skin began to dissolve under the heat of the blaze. With her body caught in the inferno, it burned hotter and brighter. The rest of the apartment would catch soon, he knew, so he made his way to the balcony.

  The rest of what he knew of his world burned around him.

  Chapter Four – Leaving the Daycare – Phoebe

  It took three hours before the men pounding on the door lost interest in Phoebe and the three children with her. Eli and Hannah, for once, had fallen asleep without problem. Phoebe assumed the stress of the situation had gotten to them. Carmen remained on Phoebe’s lap. She drank a juice box and ate some crackers, but otherwise appeared catatonic.

  Phoebe found she couldn’t handle the silence, but feared for her life if she risked breaking it. Instead, she strained her hearing. She sought sounds of police and rescue vehicles, or the evidence of someone else coming into the building. There was nothing. She wondered how there could be nothing. Shouldn’t someone have seen what had happened at the daycare center and reported it? There had been a massacre of children and there should have been at least someone to see it and do something about it. Instead, there was nothing. No police sirens in the distance. No emergency vehicles wailing through the streets. In their quiet neighborhood, it appeared the world had ended without even the prophesized whimper.

  The “Sleep Tight, Silly Bear” book was in Phoebe’s hand. She didn’t remember grabbing it when she ran with Carmen toward the closet door. She couldn’t imagine how she’d grabbed the book yet not another child. She’d saved three kids, but she hadn’t been able to do anything to help her mother. Her tears splashed on the binding of the book as she squeezed it to her chest. Her mother had written the book. Maybe that was why she’d instinctively taken it when she ran for the closet with Carmen.

  Eli stirred and awakened with a small cry. Phoebe shushed him, wide-eyed in the darkness. She knew he couldn’t see her or anything else, but he heard her voice and recognized her.

  “Phoebe, what happen?” he whispered.

  Phoebe waited for several seconds before she answered him. Nothing had been alerted to their presence by Eli’s cry or voice. It was possible, she thought with a shimmer of hope in her heart, they had been left alone. Perhaps, Phoebe thought, the crazy men who’d attacked the daycare had found easier targets in other parts of the neighborhood.

  “I don’t know, but we have to try to get you guys home, okay?” Phoebe said back in her quietest voice. Carmen moved off of her lap, but didn’t say anything. She stood motionless in the darkness as Phoebe moved with one hand out toward Eli and Hannah.

  Eli yelped when Phoebe’s hand found him in the dark. She winced and froze. If anything was going to be notified of their hiding place in the closet, Eli’s boyish shriek would be the thing to do it.

  Nothing recommenced the assault on the door. Phoebe didn’t hear any movement in the room outside the closet. She would bet her life the daycare was empty. With a thick weight in her throat, she realized she would be doing just that when she opened the door.

  “Sorry, honey.” With a gentle shake, she roused Hannah. The girl began to cry as soon as she woke. “Hannah, you have to be a big girl for me. Can you be a big girl?”

  Hannah continued to cry. Both of the girls were going to be difficult to handle in what was to come, Phoebe realized. Even if Hannah exhausted herself with her tears, she would have to be carried if she wouldn’t follow instructions.

  “I’m going to go outside,” Phoebe said in hushed tones. “You need to stay in here and lock the door back up when I’m out.”

  She tried keeping her instructions short and direct. The kids were going to have a hard time as it was, she reasoned. The less she confused or upset them, the better chance she had of doing what needed to be done to ensure their safety.

  “Eli,” Phoebe said as she stood. “Lock the door when I leave, buddy.”

  Her feet felt as though they moved through freezing mud as she made her way to the door. She twisted the handle, which unlocked the door. The click sounded like a rifle shot in her straining ears. She froze with her hand on the knob and waited for some maniac to be inspired to a new frenzy by the sound of the d
oor unlocking.

  Nothing responded, as Phoebe insisted to herself nothing would respond. They were alone in the daycare. There would be no one to object to them leaving. Though she walked herself through these reassuring statements, they didn’t encourage her to turn the handle any faster.

  “As soon as I go,” she repeated to Eli. She heard him move up behind her. His arm brushed against her hip as he held it out to the door. “And let me back in when you hear my voice. Don’t open it for anyone else, okay, bud?”

  “K, Phoebe.” His little voice inspired confidence and fear in Phoebe in one fell swing. She wanted to wait in the closet forever. Instead of giving into the fear, she pushed herself forward with the door.

  Phoebe slipped out, silent and quiet. She heard Eli re-engage the lock as soon as the door swung shut. Instantly, Phoebe found herself transitioning from the darkness of uncertainty to a splash painting in the pits of Hell.

  Pieces of children’s bodies were scattered from the rainbow colored shelving units to the shoe cubby on the opposite side of the room. The newly-red floor squished as Phoebe moved through the carnage. She fought her gag reflex as she made her way to her mother’s desk. The van keys and her cell phone were there.

  While she made the effort to step over the abused corpses of kids she’d known and liked for many months, Phoebe realized there weren’t enough bodies, in part or in whole, to make up everyone who’d been in the daycare when the men attacked. She wanted to allow the flame of hope to swell inside of her that some of them had made it out alive, but an insidious voice inside whispered darker alternatives to her. Phoebe was certain whatever had happened to the missing children, it wouldn’t be found to be a happy ending.

  Phoebe shuffled through the papers on her mother’s desk. She moved folders and drawings from some of the children. The artwork made her tear up again. It felt to her as though she would never stop crying.

  The squeak her mother’s top drawer made as she opened it caused Phoebe to jump and quickened her panicked breathing. Her mother’s keys were inside and she claimed them. She hadn’t had many driving lessons but she thought in a pinch she could get the kids home and then get herself somewhere safe. She didn’t know where she would go. Maybe one of the kids’ parents would take her in, she mused. That is, if she could get the kids home.