“What kind of proof would you like?” Jameson questioned.
“Fangs?” Phoebe suggested.
Jameson stepped forward and opened his mouth wide. The elongated canines shined in the dim kitchen light.
Phoebe swallowed hard and made to step back, but she was pressed against the far counter as it was.
Jameson kept moving forward. He’d already begun the show. He didn’t want to finish with her less than 100% convinced.
“Give me your hand,” he instructed.
Phoebe lifted her hand and held it out toward him. It trembled when Jameson took her fingers in his and then splayed them out. He pressed her open palm against his chest, where his heart beat so slowly it seemed not to thud at all.
“I am a vampire,” Jameson insisted in a soft voice. “I have inhuman strength, speed, and reflexes. The sun will burn me to ash, and I need to drink blood to survive.”
Phoebe pulled her hand away from his and let loose her held breath when Jameson moved away from her. “About that last one,” she said. “What are you going to do about that? Do you…do you have to kill people when you…feed from them?”
“I’ve never fed from anyone except my maker,” Jameson admitted. “She warned me that my first time feeding on a human could end badly if I didn’t have another vampire around to ground me.” He gestured around the small kitchen. “We’re sadly short on vampires accompanying us. Joselyn said I had the strongest will she’d ever encountered. I will try to avoid feeding for as long as I can but, yes, eventually it will be an issue.”
Leland shook his head. “No, man. That’s stupid. You should try to feed sooner than later. The sooner you do it, the better chance you have at controlling yourself. It’s like if you say you aren’t going to eat cake for three days and then on the third day you break down and eat two big ass pieces. If you didn’t deny yourself the whole time, you would have only eaten a little one, right?”
Phoebe liked Leland’s mindset and his analogy. It made sense to her. She locked gazes with Jameson. “So, who’s it going to be?”
Chapter Thirteen – Bloodletting
“Pardon me?” Jameson asked.
“Which one of us are you going to try to feed from?” Phoebe rephrased her question. She was surprised she didn’t pass out as soon as the words left her lips. What kind of crazy world was she living in?
“Neither,” Jameson insisted stubbornly. “If I start to feed from you, little girl, and I lose control, there’s no way this kid would be able to get me away from you. And you’ve got even less chance of saving Leland if the situation is reversed.”
“Did you not hear my thing about the cake?” Leland snapped. “If you deny yourself what you need, you’ll just take more when you finally snap. We have a calm minute here. If you’re a vampire and you need blood, this is the best time to get some, man.”
“I can’t believe I’m arguing with you about being food!” Jameson snarled. “I am a new vampire. I may seem like I have my shit together, but I am so far from having it together.”
“Then it’s only going to get worse the longer you wait,” Phoebe insisted. “Believe me, I don’t want to be offering myself up to be munched on. There are crazy people outside trying to get in here and kill us. I’ve lost my mom. I’ve lost everything I ever knew. Those kids out there are all I have left. They aren’t my kids, obviously, but they’re all I have left from my old life. That’s worth keeping to me. They’re worth fighting for. The only way we can fight and keep them safe is if we all decide right now to work together and have everyone be on the top of our game. If that means one of us has to play blood bank to you, we need to do that now. We might not get another chance before you go just as crazy as the Rippers.”
“You are the bossiest kid I’ve ever met,” Jameson said. His tone and expression both conveyed healthy doses of amazement.
“I’m fourteen,” Phoebe said. “I’m not a kid. I don’t think there’s any way I could still be a kid after what’s happened since this morning. Now, pick your donor.”
Jameson looked at Leland. The younger man grabbed a bowl and ladled chicken noodle soup into it. He drank the broth and lifted noodles to his mouth with his fingers.
“There’s still time to back out if you don’t want to team up with a mini female Hitler,” Leland suggested jokingly.
Phoebe glared at Leland but focused her stern gaze back on Jameson within a few seconds.
“He’s right,” Phoebe said. “You don’t have to team up with me if you don’t want. I admit that I probably want you guys around way more than you want us. I need help. If I can help you in return, maybe we can make this work.”
Leland finished his bowl of soup and went back for another. He looked back and forth between Phoebe and Jameson. He liked the girl, even if she was bossy. What girl wasn’t, though? He’d been around bossy women all his life. He felt more comfortable with Phoebe trying to bully sense into Jameson than he had since the bloody end of his family party.
“I’ll take blood from him,” Jameson finally relented.
“Let’s go to the bedroom so the kids don’t see,” Phoebe suggested.
Leland gulped his soup down. He felt like it had been turned to cement on his tongue. Oh well, he thought. He’d worked to convince Jameson he needed to feed, too. He couldn’t back out now.
Phoebe knelt by Eli and Hannah before she followed Jameson and Leland to the bedroom. None of the kids had touched their sandwiches. She gathered the plates and put them on the small glass table in the middle of the room before she spoke to them.
“We’re going in the back room for just a couple of minutes, guys,” she explained in her softest voice. “Stay right here. If someone knocks at the door, pretend you aren’t here until they go away. Okay?”
Eli nodded. Hannah, who’d been slipping closer to Carmen’s state for the past hour, stared at Phoebe with tears sliding down her pale cheeks. Phoebe kissed the girl’s forehead. She didn’t know what else she could do to help.
Carmen was curled up on the floor. Phoebe brushed dark hair away from her cheeks. Her skin was cool to the touch. Phoebe looked around for a blanket, but didn’t see one. She decided to bring one back from the bedroom.
When Phoebe entered the bedroom and closed the door, she saw Jameson and Leland standing near the bed. The men stared at each other. Neither of them knew what to do or who should move first.
“We don’t exactly have a lot of time here, guys,” Phoebe said. She pulled a plump chair that stood in the corner of the room over and placed it parallel to the foot of the bed. “Jameson can only move at night, right? So we should be out of here by tomorrow.”
“And where do you plan to go?” Jameson asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Leland followed his lead and sat on the plump chair.
Phoebe hesitated. “I have some ideas, but I want to figure some things out before I decide.”
The delay in her words made Jameson think she was lying. He didn’t press the issue. It was hard to focus on much else than the blood rushing beneath the surface of Leland’s dark skin.
Willing blood. Healthy blood. Leland didn’t smell of any sickness. He was a strong, stout kid with pure blood. Thinking about it made Jameson’s gums tingle as his fangs longed to be driven into the youthful flesh.
“Let’s get it done with,” Leland said. His pulse hammered away under his throat.
Jameson wished the sound would stop. It made him feel even more out of control when it came to his blood lust. He closed his eyes and breathed. He could control himself. He had always been in control.
“I’m here to help,” Phoebe said as she moved next to Jameson. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Phoebe put one hand on his shoulder. Jameson jumped and opened his eyes. He hadn’t expected her touch.
“Come on, I’m right here to ground you,” Phoebe insisted. Her voice was low and soothing.
“You work with kids a lot, don’t you?” Leland asked. He seemed to want to do anythin
g but what he’d agreed to. Roping Phoebe into conversation was as good a distraction as anything.
“What gave it away?” Phoebe asked in a wry tone.
“Well, the kids,” Leland said with a smile. “And you talk like my auntie did. She didn’t have kids of her own, but she was a teacher. Had that voice, too.”
“My mom ran a daycare,” Phoebe said. She pushed Jameson toward Leland. “I guess it’s in the blood.”
Jameson didn’t know if her phrasing was intentional or just unfortunate. Either way, it made him focus much more strongly on Phoebe and her blood. Where Leland smelled robust and rich, Phoebe’s scent was sweet and unsullied.
Though it seemed Phoebe had been pushing Jameson toward Leland in slow motion, the next series of activity happened in the blink of an eye. Jameson lunged from the chair and held Phoebe around her arms. She didn’t have the time to draw a second breath before he bent her neck away from him and pierced her flesh with his fangs.
Phoebe gasped. She was amazed at how little pain there was when Jameson’s teeth tore into her neck. It felt as though a numbing wave spread outward from the contact point. She held his upper arms, though she didn’t fear he would drop her. He held her so securely she wasn’t sure she’d ever be free from his powerful grasp.
Jameson was lost in the glorious taste on his tongue, the warmth sliding down his throat. He moaned against Phoebe’s throat as he swallowed. While his maker’s blood had been able to sustain him, the blood of a human filled him with power, heat, and satisfaction. It was splendid, perfection. He never wanted to stop.
Leland saw Phoebe begin to go pale. Worse, he heard the shattering of glass and splintering of wood from a floor below. Jameson was draining Phoebe dry and Rippers had entered the building. Awesome, Leland thought, just freaking peachy.
Because Jameson had warned them nothing would be effective in pulling him away from Phoebe, Leland decided on the best course of action he could think of. He jerked one of the drawers out of the dresser, emptied it of clothing, and swung it right at the back of Jameson’s head.
The wooden drawer hit Jameson at the base of his skull and cracked. The force of the blow sent him forward. Phoebe cried out. The sound didn’t seem to indicate she was in pain, but it was too weak for Leland’s liking.
The vampire jerked away from Phoebe’s neck and hissed at Leland. Lost to his feral hunger, with Phoebe’s blood dripping down his chin and staining his inhuman teeth, he looked just like one of the Rippers.
“Snap out of it, man!” Leland ordered in a whisper. “We have to get the fuck out of here. You said you could control it, Jameson. So fuckin’ control it!”
Jameson snarled at Leland. The younger man raised the drawer again, though he didn’t think it would help him much if Jameson wanted to take him down. He’d try, anyway, if it came to that.
“Jameson, we have to go,” Leland said. “We have to go. Those things are here. They killed my family. They killed Joselyn. They’re going to kill these kids if we don’t move right now.”
Awareness flooded Jameson’s blue eyes like an ocean wave. He looked down at Phoebe with a horrified expression.
“I didn’t…” he began. “Phoebe! Wake up!”
Phoebe’s eyes rolled, but she smiled up at Jameson. “I think I can say I believe you, vampire,” she murmured.
Jameson turned Phoebe with as much gentleness as he could and sat her in the chair. Her head fell forward, sending waves of chestnut hair in front of her face.
“We have to go get the kids ready to go, Jameson,” Leland said in a quiet voice. He heard the Rippers tearing through doors on the ground floor. They had to get out.
“I’m fine,” Phoebe said as she sat back up and put one hand on her neck. She had a hard time focusing, but she struggled to return to herself. Nausea swept through her, but she fought it back.
“Hand me one of those shirts,” she asked of Leland as she pointed at the pile of discarded clothing. “I’ll wrap it up and we’ll be good to go.”
Leland tossed a dark t-shirt her way. When Jameson caught it, Leland put the broken drawer on the bed and went for the door.
“Tie it tight,” he instructed the shaken vampire. “I’m going to go get the kids ready. We have to go back out the fire escape.”
Chapter Fourteen – Overrun
Leland entered the living room and saw two of the kids huddled together behind the couch. The catatonic dark-haired one was still curled up on the floor. The blonde and the boy stared at Leland from wide, scared eyes.
“Monsters coming,” Eli whispered. A slam and a scream sounded from downstairs and he jumped.
Leland strode toward them and helped the stand. “They’re coming, but we’re going,” he promised them in a soft voice. “They won’t get us.”
Phoebe came out of the bedroom. She leaned heavily on Jameson, who’d wiped his face off for the most part. He still had some blood on his chin. Leland decided he would have to let him know about the stain once they got out safely.
“Out the window,” Phoebe instructed the children. Leland didn’t like how she swayed where she stood, the glazed look in her eyes, or the way her voice slurred a bit as she spoke.
While the kids moved toward the window he and Jameson had entered, Leland went to the refrigerator. He took a plastic store bag from the hanging storage container and tossed some juice boxes, some single-serve bottles of orange juice, a handful of cheese sticks, and a glass can of olives into the bag. The other two bottles of orange juice he kept in his hand. He handed one of them to Phoebe as she tied Eli’s shoe.
“Drink this,” Leland told her. “You lost a lot of blood. If you want to start feeling better, you need to drink this.”
Phoebe took the orange juice without question and cracked it open. Leland was glad when she swigged half the bottle and nodded her thanks at him.
Jameson picked up Carmen and pressed her tight against his chest. Leland almost wanted to take the girl from him. He told himself Jameson could be trusted; he’d just had a vampiric lapse. Of course, a lapse on Jameson’s part could lead to him draining someone dry. Leland decided he’d just have to keep an eye on the older man and try to figure out a way to bring him back if he hit that place again.
“I’m not going to eat her,” Jameson assured Leland. He’d seen how the kid had looked at him when he’d picked up the girl. Phoebe’s look of hesitation and fear was a blow against him but it was Leland’s new suspicion that hurt him more.
“Phoebe, what happen?” Eli asked as Phoebe pulled him gently toward the window. “Bad things?”
Phoebe nodded and helped him onto the landing after she checked to make sure it was empty of threats. The Rippers from the ground level had left. Phoebe told herself they were probably the ones who’d broken through the front door.
“Yeah, buddy,” Phoebe whispered. “Bad things.”
------------------
On the first floor of the apartment complex, Simon Hicks had barricaded his doors and windows. He’d decided to wait out the outbreak of whatever virus or disease had caused people to turn into Rippers. He’d known the safe zones would fall. He didn’t trust law enforcement or the Army to handle their shit. From what the TV had said, it was the Army’s fault people had turned into murderous cannibals in the first place. The Ripper program had been meant to turn their fighters into ultimate war machines. Stronger, faster, able to operate better in darkness. Before they’d even taken the time to address possible side effects, General Derek Grissom had distributed it throughout the entire Armed Forced population. The people who’d already been at peak physical fitness and trained to kill had been given cannibalistic urges and full blown insanity.
What a cock up, Simon thought to himself as he heated his dinner in the microwave.
He heard the front door shatter and knew some of the infected people were inside. He wondered how it had spread so fast. How did the Army get it one week and the rest of the population have it in their streets and homes the next?
Simon went through his apartment and shut the lights off. He muted the TV and sat on his couch with a pistol in hand. He’d been watching the newscasts regarding the Grissom virus ever since they started airing. He knew they hunted by sight first and foremost, but sound was a close second. If he was silent, they would pass him by.
Simon heard a snuffling sound near his door. Through his sturdy barricade, he doubted the Ripper could smell him. He hoped it couldn’t, at least.
Silence reigned for a moment. Simon was sure the Ripper would lose interest and leave him alone if it couldn’t smell or hear him. He held his breath and waited for the creature to leave.
The microwave beeps sounded worse than a fire alarm wailing. Simon wanted to scream his frustration for letting the meal he was heating slip his mind. He doubt he would have even heard himself over the hungry wailing that started up outside his door. They knew he was inside.
Simon had boarded up his windows two days ago. When the Rippers broke through the barricade at his front door, he had nowhere to run to.
The first one to reach him wasn’t even an adult. A child of perhaps seven, the boy had three fingers missing on his left hand. The skin between his jaw and right shoulder had been savaged, but he came at Simon with healthy vigor and wild eyes.
Simon fired at the child, but between fear and inexperience, the shot missed.
“No!” Simon begged as the boy pounced.
The small teeth of the boy worried at the flesh near Simon’s collarbone, tearing through and drawing rushes of blood in the first instant. His full-fingered hand dug into Simon’s stomach. The soft flesh gave under the frantic digits as another one of the Rippers fell on him.
Simon screamed and writhed beneath the feasting Rippers. The boy slurped at the blood pouring from Simon’s neck. One of the adult Rippers buried its face in Simon’s open stomach and bathed his open mouth in the pooling blood there.
When the last of life drained out of Simon, the Rippers moved away from his body and out to find more victims. After a moment, Simon rose to join them.
The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel Page 7