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

by Hawley, Ashlei D.

  Jameson relieved the detached appendage of its weapon and planted the blade deep in its owner’s head. One hard swing down and the blade was embedded in thick skull bone like an axe in a tree stump. Jameson jerked the blade out and continued forward.

  One of the Rippers had slipped past him when he stopped to grapple with two others. Jameson hoped Phoebe and Leland could handle the single female.

  Matted dark hair concealed the wild eyes of the Ripper who came at Leland and Phoebe. Leland struck first, sending her sprawling with a well-placed swing of his bat. Moving up behind him, Phoebe wasted no time caving in the Ripper’s skull with her metal pipe as the writhing creature ate dirt. The skull cracked and caved in.

  Phoebe and Leland moved on.

  Jameson swung one of the Rippers on him into his companion. Both men tumbled together in a heap, but were back up in moments. They were so much more coordinated in the night it seemed unreal to Jameson. How could the shambling, slow-moving hordes of the day become these snake-like, functioning, thinking death machines at night?

  With the few seconds Jameson had bought himself, he’d gotten in a better position for the next attack. The first Ripper swung at him and Jameson swung his fist toward the chest of what used to be a simple, elderly man. The chest went concave and the Ripper sprawled backward. Jameson figured it would take the creature a moment to come at him again, so he focused on the younger of the two.

  The female Ripper had had half of her hair torn out. Part of the skin that once covered her skull hung in a flap down to her right cheek. Jameson dragged the female Ripper over to a fence and smashed the wounded side of her head into the wood. He caught her skull on the corner and drove it hard into the unforgiving material. Breath rattled out of her and she dropped, unmoving, to the ground.

  Jameson could hear other Rippers approaching. If there were guns in the farmhouse, he wanted one.

  One of the Rippers rushed far out of his trajectory, toward the fading exhaust of the van. Jameson trusted Leland and Phoebe to handle the creature.

  Jameson stomped on the head of the elderly Ripper as he passed. Having been unable to stand due to the traumatic nature of the chest injury Jameson had inflicted, the old Ripper didn’t have much fight remaining against Jameson’s heel. The skull cracked and another Ripper was still.

  Three down, Jameson told himself, and at least seven to go.

  The one that rushed Phoebe and Leland received almost identical treatment as the first had. Leland slammed the young boy to the ground with a well-placed swing with his bat and Phoebe pounded his head into the dirt with her metal pipe.

  For some reason, he’d lasted longer than the other. He’d also landed on his back, so he hissed up at them through lips that had been eaten away as Phoebe demolished his skull and the brain beneath. She thanked her adrenaline and terror for keeping her tears at bay.

  “How many do you think are left?” Leland asked as they jogged up the driveway in search of Jameson. He panted as he ran, and envied Phoebe’s long, easy strides.

  “Well, it seems like Jameson is taking out the ones he can,” she responded in a slightly out of breath voice as she pointed with her pipe to two of Jameson’s kills.

  “Do you see any others?” he asked as the farmhouse came into view.

  “No,” Phoebe responded. Her heart broke as she recognized her uncle’s truck. Shaun hadn’t left. She didn’t think he would have. “I don’t see them, but I know more are here.”

  “In the back,” Jameson shouted to them as he exited the farmhouse. A flash of metal glinted in his hand.

  Phoebe suspected the vampire had found her uncle’s weapons. She followed after Jameson, who blended into the night and out of her sight as he ran.

  When they rounded the farmhouse and saw the backyard, Phoebe and Leland slowed their run to a walk. Phoebe was at first puzzled by what she was seeing, but then she realized what had happened.

  Her uncle had obviously had a bit of time to work before whatever had happened to him had occurred. Around the large pond he’d commissioned local landscapers to dig and fill with fish on his land, all of his machinery had been parked. This included two tractors, one with a slurry trailer attached, a combine harvester, a second harvester, and two large trucks. A backhoe and two other cars Phoebe was unfamiliar with completed the circle of metal and wheels around the twenty-foot deep hole in the ground that was to be the pond.

  The heavy rain of the previous day had made the walls of the would-be pond slick and uneven. As Rippers lured or forced into the hole during the day tried to climb, they tumbled back down into their fellows. Furious howls and cries of hunger peeled out of the pond, but they were stuck even with their enormous strength. Climbing up the walls of slick, sludgy mud was impossible.

  “Oh, no,” Phoebe murmured as she approached her uncle’s favorite green tractor. Inside the cab, a still figure sat at the wheel.

  Tears gathered in her eyes and slipped down her cheeks as she walked close enough to recognize her Uncle Shaun. His shotgun was in his lap and half of his skull and brain had been blown across the back window of the trailer cab. A piece of lined notebook paper fluttered under the edge of the door.

  Phoebe climbed up on the side of the trailer as Jameson moved to the edge of the large hole. He began to fire as Phoebe took the paper and lifted it to her blurry eyes.

  ‘Bites are a death sentence,’ Shaun had written in the last moments of his life. ‘Got them fuckers trapped, I think. You clear ‘em out, you can have the place. Hope it serves you well. I hope it’s you who gets here, Gerry. Or Phoebe. Be safe. All my love, Shaun.’

  As Jameson delivered deadly blows to the trapped Rippers one bullet apiece, Phoebe slid down against the tractor’s big tire, clutched her uncle’s note to her chest, and wept.

  Chapter Twenty – Haven

  The next time Elise drove by the driveway, Leland waved the vehicle down. She picked him up and they drove up the long driveway together.

  “They’re all gone?” Elise asked in a hesitant tone.

  “As far as we can tell,” Leland answered. “Jameson says he can’t hear any other ones nearby. He’ll be able to alert us if anymore come.”

  “The town’s empty,” Elise said. “I didn’t see anyone. Few vehicles, few buildings barricaded. Any of them that were had already been broken into.”

  “By who?” Leland asked. “If there’s no one in the town.”

  Elise gave him a meaningful look and he sat back against the seat with a simple, “Oh.”

  “Looks like the last people in the town came here, then, didn’t they?” Elise asked as she watched Jameson construct a large bonfire.

  “Yeah, there were ten of them here and Phoebe’s uncle,” Leland said. “He, uh…he didn’t make it.”

  “Poor thing,” Elise said with a frown.

  “It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow,” Leland told Elise as she stopped the van. He stepped out and went around back to unbuckle Eli. Elise mirrored him on Carmen’s side.

  “I assume we’ll have a lot to do,” Elise agreed as she lifted the sleeping girl into her arms. “I’m worried they’re sleeping so much,” she admitted. She kept her voice quiet so as not to wake the kids.

  “Maybe once we’re off the road for a bit and things calm down a little, they’ll be better.” Leland carried Eli toward the farm house as Phoebe walked out the front door.

  “Hey, guys.” She gestured to her uncle’s home, which she’d always thought was far too large for the man alone. Everyone who worked on the farm lived in homes in the town, not on the property. Shaun had kept the seven bedroom farmhouse completely to himself; he hadn’t even had any indoor pets.

  “There’s no one inside,” Jameson assured Elise and Leland as he approached. He was on his way to gather up the bodies from the front yard and close the large front gate. It wouldn’t deter Rippers from vaulting over it in the night, but it might be helpful during the day.

  “He’s right,” Phoebe added. “I just check
ed every room and hiding spot I could think of.”

  “Because she doesn’t believe the vampire’s super sensitive hearing,” Jameson put in. “I would be able to hear a human breathing or a Ripper moving around in there but she insisted.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Elise quipped as she carried Carmen through the door. She smiled at Jameson as she passed. “Where should we put the kids, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe turned and headed into the house. “Follow me,” she said.

  She led Elise and Leland up to the top floor. Three bedrooms were filled with everything children would need if Shaun had ever had any.

  “We should all sleep close together,” Phoebe suggested. “My uncle liked having the house set up for a large family but he never found the woman to make it with.” She shrugged and looked out the window toward what would have been the pond. “And now he won’t.” She shook her head and turned back to Elise.

  Phoebe gestured to one of the two small beds in the room. “The kids can sleep in this room. We can bring blankets in here and crash out on the floor or we can take the other bedrooms on the floor. I’ll probably stay in here with them.”

  Elise deposited Carmen on the bed covered in yellow blankets and fluffy green pillows as gently as she could. “They’re lucky to have someone as devoted to them as you are,” she told Phoebe. The young girl shook her head and shrugged.

  “They’re lucky we found other people,” Phoebe said. “I couldn’t have done this on my own.”

  “You’re not alone,” Leland said as he placed Eli on the other bed. Eli cuddled up to the large stuffed elephant and snuggled under the gray blanket Leland draped over top of him.

  Leland stood straight and faced Phoebe. She didn’t know what to say or do. Elise put a gentle arm around the girl’s shoulder and led her out of the room.

  “Jameson will be up most of the night,” Elise predicted as she guided Phoebe toward the room beside where the children slept. “If anything happens, he’ll come wake us. You need to get some more rest. We’ll have a lot to do tomorrow.”

  “But I’m going to stay in the kids’…” she trailed off as Elise opened the bedroom door and ushered her inside.

  “I’ll stay with them,” Leland offered. “I’m so beat I could sleep anywhere.”

  Phoebe recognized the room Elise had decided she should sleep in. When she’d visited her uncle in the past summers, she’d stayed in the room with airy open windows surrounded by foamy white curtains, a large bed with plump pillows and a soft mattress, and her paternal grandmother’s antique dresser. She’d always touched the crystal bottles with tiny stoppers still filled with her grandmother’s perfume. The sight of the old room made her cry again. She hated the tears but couldn’t figure out how to stop them.

  “Lay down, sugar,” Elise suggested gently. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. We all need to be as rested as possible.”

  After she helped the younger girl under the thick quilt atop the tall bed, Elise waited a few moments. When she was sure Phoebe had fallen deep into sleep, she eased out of the room and shut the door.

  “There were two beds in the other room,” Leland said as he carried an armful of blankets and pillows to the room where the children slept. “I took these off one of the beds but the other is still good. She isn’t the only one who needs sleep, okay?”

  He gave the final room a meaningful look. Elise responded with a smile and said, “I know. I could sleep for a year, I think.”

  “I’ll settle for the night,” Leland admitted. He gave Elise a wave and took the blankets and pillows as quietly as he could into the kids’ room.

  Elise wanted to go to the last spare bedroom on the floor and fall into the deepest sleep she could, but she needed to talk to Jameson first.

  She walked outside and met him by the bonfire. Flames leapt greedily around the bodies Jameson had pulled from the front yard and retrieved from the hole intended to be a pond in the back yard. As she approached, she saw he was in the middle of digging another hole, near where the bonfire had been started.

  The body of Phoebe’s uncle was nearby. It rested on the ground in a peaceful pose. Jameson had crossed the deceased man’s arms over his chest. Elise didn’t know how to feel about the care Jameson had exhibited for a man he didn’t even know, so she simply maintained a respectful silence as he dug.

  “Not to freak you out, but I did hear you walk up,” Jameson commented as he continued to shovel dirt from the group to the pile beside him.

  Elise stepped closer and said, “Should have guessed that. Everyone’s asleep. Are you going to be up for the night?”

  Jameson nodded and stepped out of the grave he’d been digging. “Until about an hour before dawn I’ll be out here working. I promise I’ll hear them if they approach and I’ll get you up. I won’t let what’s supposed to be a safe place for us turn into the place we get trapped and die in.”

  Elise nodded and cast her gaze around the far-stretching property. “There’s a lot we have to do to make this place really safe for us,” she said.

  “And we’ll do it.”

  “Why don’t you write out a list for things we should do in the morning,” Elise suggested. “It might be helpful to have a plan already established.”

  Jameson rolled the body of Phoebe’s uncle into the grave and began shoveling dirt back into the hole.

  “She’ll appreciate what you’re doing,” Elise commented.

  “I appreciate what she’s done,” Jameson admitted. “She’s a tough kid, a good kid.”

  “They both are,” Elise said as her gaze found the farmhouse. “Do you think things will go back to normal soon?”

  The topic change confused Jameson, but he shrugged as he shoveled. “No one can really say, I guess,” he answered. “From what I’ve seen, though, this thing isn’t going down easy.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Elise stroked her belly, where her baby shifted and rolled. The child was always most active at night.

  Jameson looked at Elise and saw the worry etched into her pretty face. “One of the things we’ll work on is finding a doctor once we get this place secured,” he promised. “I don’t want this to be any harder on you than it needs to be.”

  Elise laughed and shook her head. “You sounded like my husband just there,” she commented. “He didn’t want me travelling or working. Like women haven’t been doing this since the dawn of time, you know?”

  Jameson smiled and finished with the grave. “I suppose you have us there,” he said. “But I’d still like a doctor on hand.”

  Elise arched her back with her hands pressing on her spine. “A massage therapist might be just as appreciated,” she joked.

  Jameson leaned on the handle of the shovel and watched the bonfire burn.

  “We’ll need to go into town for barricading supplies. That’s what you should do tomorrow. Start building up walls. We need them as tall and as thick as we can get them. Any vehicles you can find with keys in them, drive them over. We can use them to enforce the walls.”

  Elise nodded as she turned back to the house. “Write it down, if you can. I’m going to try to sleep. I just wanted to make sure you’ll be around to let us know if any of them come in the night.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Jameson assured her. “Go get some sleep.”

  Chapter Twenty-One – New Arrivals

  Jameson worked through the night. He tried to gather up things around the farm he thought would be useful. He examined the tractors Shaun had parked around the pond hole and wondered if he could drive them well enough to fortify their defenses. He wanted the wall to be set back away from the road. Trees blocked the view of the farm from the road and he thought with a little work, they could even camouflage the driveway. The place had a lot of potential to become defensible. If things were going the way he predicted they were, he wanted the farm to be locked down as tight as they could make it.

  Phoebe came out of the farmhouse with a cup of coffee and held
it out to Jameson. The darkness under her eyes aged her a decade at least and frown lines seemed permanently embedded in her previously youthful face.

  “You need more sleep,” Jameson commented as he took the coffee cup. “Thanks.”

  “You need more blood, but you don’t hear me pointing it out like a jerk,” she retorted. “It’s 5a.m. and I’m a band kid. We used to practice an hour before class started. This is about normal wake up time for me.”

  “It’s about bedtime for me,” Jameson said as he looked toward where the sun would soon rise. “None of them came in the night. I think this place is truly abandoned.”

  “My uncle would have brought everyone who stayed in town here,” Phoebe said softly. “He would have wanted everyone to join together and defend the place. I guess it didn’t work out as well as he hoped.”

  Jameson nodded. “I think he was a smart man but something happened he couldn’t have predicted.”

  “You burned them,” Phoebe said as she saw the remains of the bonfire. “I wish you would have left them. I would have liked to see if it was anyone I knew.”

  “Your dad wouldn’t have been one of them,” Jameson assured her.

  Phoebe gave him a puzzled look. “Why would you say that?”

  “I read the note when you went to bed,” Jameson admitted. She’d dropped it on her way into the house and Jameson had picked it up. “Your uncle still wouldn’t have had it if your dad had been in the group that turned.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Phoebe said as she sipped her own coffee. “I didn’t even think of it that way.”

  “I’m going to head inside soon. Elise wanted me to write a note about what you should do today. Can you find me some paper and a pen?”

  Phoebe nodded and turned to follow him in. “My uncle kept a notepad on the fridge. Do you want something to eat before you head to bed?”

  “Is that another sly comment about me needing blood?” he asked in a half-joking tone.

  “I know you need blood,” Phoebe retorted. “I asked about food.”