by Maxey, Phil
“Aren’t you afraid of vamps getting you?” she said to those in the front.
The man who was driving scoffed. “We got a hybrid! Two now!”
She didn’t bother correcting him.
“No stupid vamps gonna be a problem for us.”
The car drove into a driveway bordered by trees. Lights and sound boomed into the night.
“What the hell…” said Sasha under her breath.
She then saw the source of the commotion. A large country house, she guessed Victorian, appeared in front of them, and the car pulled up next to five others.
“But it’ll attract—”
The man shook his head. “Chill. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Ain’t no vamps around here.” He got out.
Evan looked back at her. “You shouldn’t be afraid to just… let go, have fun. You don’t know how long you got.” He too then got out.
She sighed. He was right. She followed him up the stone steps and into heat and noise. A bass boomed as people danced, lit by candles and flashlights.
“Pretty cool, right?” shouted Evan. He walked to a girl who was dancing by herself. “This is Shannon, my…” He searched for the right term.
“Nice to meet you!” shouted Shannon, shaking Sasha’s hand. “So you’re a hybrid?”
“Err…” Somebody pushed into her back. Her neck felt weird and she started to prepare herself, but then she realized the strange sensation was the result of someone’s spilled drink.
“Hey, watch it, buddy!” said Evan to the young man who laughed then stumbled away.
“Follow me, we’ll find you a towel,” said Shannon.
Sasha did as asked, squeezing through the bodies and onto the wide staircase that twisted around as it ascended. People sat on the steps talking and drinking. At the top giggles came from closed doors along the hallway.
“Umm… I think the main bathroom is this way…” said Shannon, walking into the gloom. For a moment Sasha lost sight of her, but then a square of light heralded an open door, and she walked towards it.
They both moved into a large clean bathroom. Shannon closed the door behind and set about looking inside the large cupboards.
“Ah…” she pulled out a white thick towel and passed it to Sasha who rubbed her back with it.
“I smell like beer,” she said seriously, then looked at Shannon. They both started laughing.
Shannon looked at herself in the large mirror. She had managed to find some lipstick and had smeared a bit across her lips before the party started, but now she was regretting the decision.
“You look nice,” said Sasha, avoiding looking at the mirror. She felt if she did, she would shatter, and seeing that would be too much.
Shannon sighed and rubbed the lipstick from her lips with her cuff.
“What’s wrong?”
“I never wear lipstick. It’s not me, I don’t know why I thought—”
A loud scream penetrated the bathroom door.
“Someone’s having fun,” said Sasha, smiling.
Shannon looked back at herself and ran her hand through her hair, trying to give it volume. She went to talk when the sound of gunfire split the air.
They both looked at each other. Footsteps thundered past the door.
Shannon ran to the frosted glass window, climbed up on the window ledge and looked out into the darkness around the side of the house. “Shit… there’s things out there.”
Sasha knew what they were. They were vamps. She knew she shouldn’t have come. “We should leave this place. Go back to the camp.”
Shannon jumped down. “Yeah.”
“Shannon!” shouted Evan outside in the hallway.
“In here!” she replied.
The door flew open, with Evan standing in the doorway. “We gotta go.” He looked at Sasha. “Sorry.”
She nodded and shook her head at the same time, trying to tell him it was ‘okay.’
They all ran down the hallway. Doors that were locked were now open, and people were running from the rooms and down the stairs. The three of them tried to join them.
Sasha looked over the balcony rail to the ground floor. Two men appeared to be fighting a vamp, while a third was being fed upon. She then realized more vamps were flooding in through the entrance.
The screams were now continuous and people fell to the ground as vamps sliced across them, sending sprays of blood across candles, extinguishing some of them.
Evan’s eyes were now black, and he ripped through two vamps that clambered up the stairs. A third though made it past his grasp and leaped in front of Sasha. Its face contained a manic smile displaying razorlike teeth. The creature raised its claw and swiped across her as if she wasn’t there.
She looked down at where a gaping wound should have been, but instead mostly saw carpeted steps. She had become ethereal, a ghost amongst other creatures of the night. The vamp, confused, tried to bite her, with the same result. As screams of pain rang out all around her, she suddenly felt completely safe. She was no longer of the world that contained the suffering.
Even for its animal-like brain the vamp realized there was no point attacking her and moved through her to Shannon. She screamed, but before the vamp could do any damage Evan grabbed it, twisting its head and breaking its neck.
Even amongst the chaos, they both looked at Sasha in shock. Her appearance then grew denser until the lighting was once again fully bouncing off her.
Shannon noticed a gap between them and the entrance. “Come on!” she pulled Evan along and with Sasha they jumped down the remaining steps, glancing past people fighting with vamps and out into the night air.
They only got a few steps before they were stopped in their tracks due to soldiers with M4s raised aloft advancing towards them.
Bullets streamed to their left and right felling more vamps.
Instinctively, Shannon, Evan, and Sasha raised their hands in surrender.
As the soldiers in full battle gear rushed past and into the large home, killing vamps as they went, Galloway emerged from the glare of a bank of headlights, shaking her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Anna stood next to Jess. They both looked at Marina sleeping in the small cell. Anna turned to the sergeant standing next to her. “Does she really need to be in there?”
“Galloway says she’s dangerous, so that’s where she stays until we’re sure she’s not going to try and eat anyone.”
“You took Jasper!” said Jess.
The sergeant frowned. “It was for the best. He’s fine, you can see him if you want.”
“But we’re not allowed to take him home with us?” said Anna.
The sergeant shook his head, then looked back at Marina. “You can probably wake her up now. We’re going to let you both go into the cell. It’s in her interest that you convince her to stay calm and that it’s in everyone’s best interest for Jasper to stay here.”
Anna wasn’t convinced that was true but nodded, and another soldier stepped forward, placed a key in the lock, and pushed the door open. Before anyone else had a chance to move, Marina had jumped from her supposed slumber, across the cell, and had the soldier a foot above the ground with her hand around his throat. The sergeant and three other guards immediately raised their weapons.
“Mom?” said Jess.
As if coming out of a dream, Marina looked down and, on seeing her daughter looking up at her, dropped the soldier to the ground who grabbed his throat, coughing.
“Get on the ground!” shouted the sergeant to Marina.
She sneered in response and went to move forward when Anna stepped in front of her and the danger she was facing.
“Marina, this is not the time for this. Jasper’s fine. Jess is fine.”
“They took him from me!”
Anna nodded, agreeing. “And that was wrong. But we can go see him. You’ll see for yourself he’s okay.”
Marina pulled Jess to her but continued looking at Anna. “Now. I want to go now.
”
Anna looked at the sergeant. He sighed then lowered his gun and gestured for the other soldiers to do the same. He then nodded.
A short while later, after a short walk through a series of corridors and stairwells, Marina rushed into a room and knelt in front of the little boy who was still wearing his sunglasses. “Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?”
Jasper shook his head.
Marina looked back to the sergeant at the door. “Why is he here?”
He went to answer but stopped and stepped inside the room to allow Groves to appear.
“You!” said Marina.
Groves held up her hands. “I just want to talk.”
“Start then!”
Groves looked at the sergeant who moved outside. Anna and Jess then entered, the latter walking to Jasper and engaging him in conversation.
Groves closed the door. “I’m sorry things happened the way they did, but once we knew who Jasper’s father was, he had to be taken into protective custody. Not merely for his sake, but for everyone’s at the camp.”
A number of questions ran through Marina’s head, the main one being why didn’t they just ask her, but instead nothing came from her mouth. She knew she never would have agreed to them taking him away anyway. Quickly she changed tact in her mind. Jasper seemed well, maybe it was better to go with the flow for the time being. “So… so what’s the plan? How can he help?”
Groves appeared to relax and walked closer to Marina, sitting on one of the chairs nearby.
“Umm… he already has.”
Marina looked back at Jasper who was now laughing with Jess a few yards away, surrounded by toys. “What did he do for you? Did he find his father?”
“Yes, he located him quite accurately. And it would appear he’s being held captive.”
*****
A blue road sign momentarily lit up in the pickup's headlights, then receded back into darkness as it moved past.
Joel sat in the passenger's seat alongside Dalton who was driving. In the backseat was Carla and Amos, and in the bed behind them, secured with multiple layers of chains was the hybrid Joel had stumbled into.
They were now only four hours from Jankle, and most in the pickup had been sleeping. Amos though was still awake, keeping Tyror’s mind from escaping its unconscious state.
“You should get some sleep,” said Carla, her eyes having taken a sneak peek at the young man next to her.
“You don’t understand how important he is.”
“We know how important he his. You told us what was inside his head. And Joel confirmed it from his own visions from the tablet. He’s some ancient powerful king. We get it… and that’s going to take me some time to get my head around, but you should still get some sleep. The chains will hold.”
Amos was exhausted, but the kingly hybrid was his responsibility. He could hold him far more effectively than any physical restraint. “I’ll sleep when we get back.”
He had taken the time since they left the small town to glean what he could from Tyror’s mind, and what he found boggled his own. He felt he had the answers to why the world was in the shape it was. That the Scourge virus was far older than most thought, and that the world had gone through a similar catastrophe thousands of years before. He also knew that the camp they were heading towards now had an even bigger target on it. And when the corporation came, it would be an all-out, knock-down fight. They needed to get back. The general needed to know.
He looked at Dalton. “How much further?”
“An hour closer than when you last—”
Dalton was looking at his side mirror.
“What is it?”
“Light in the sky, some miles off, behind us.”
Carla sat up and looked out the rear window. “Yup, I see it. It’s low. Must be a chopper. They’re looking for us, but they must be at the limit of their range. Still, though, we should get off the highway.”
Dalton veered to the right, taking an exit which swung around further right. Carla strained to see anywhere to hide in the absolute darkness around them, but Dalton kept on driving, leaving the road and moving rapidly across a large flat area of long grass. The pickup bumped over the uneven ground, but soon they were enveloped by tree branches. He slammed on the brakes and they came to a halt inside a forest.
Turning the engine off revealed the distant sound of helicopter blades. A repeating shudder which vibrated the pickup's windows.
As they sat in silence and the airborne military transport grew nearer, a clanging rocked the back of the pickup.
“Shit, I took my mind off him for two seconds!” shouted Amos. “He’s awake and pissed.”
Tyror filled the forest with shouts.
“I should have covered his mouth,” said Joel.
Dalton frowned and pushed the driver's door open. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t k—” Before Carla could finish there was a thud followed by another louder sound, which shook the vehicle once more.
Dalton sat back in the seat and closed the door. “He’s out. Now you can rest your mind,” he said to Amos.
The noise of the helicopter filled the air. A spotlight was visible on the highway, just visible through the trees.
In the dark of the pickup’s cabin, no one could see Amos’s eyes closed. “They’re low on fuel. Heading back now,” he said in a dead tone as if he was talking word for word what was coming from the other minds.
“You’re getting real good at this mind reading thing,” said Carla.
He smiled.
Soon, complete silence had returned and Carla clicked on her small flashlight, being careful to keep it pointed downwards at her map. “We can take the thirty-one. It runs parallel with the highway for most of the way, only problem is it goes through a number of towns, so—”
“Vamps,” said Joel.
“Yup.”
Dalton restarted the engine. He looked at the fuel meter. “We should probably fill up anyway, probably won’t make it back on what we got.”
Soon they were on a four-lane road heading south. Carla though still kept looking skywards.
“There’s a city coming up,” said Dalton.
Joel focused his mind. The distant buzzing of vamps made itself clear. “Yup, definitely vamps ahead.”
“It’s Birmingham,” said Carla, looking back down at her map.
Their headlights started illuminating buildings at the side of the road. Homes and businesses, wooden and brick built structures slid past as they moved across junction after junction.
The buzzing in Joel’s mind started to hurt his brain. “There’s a whole lot of vamps real close,” he said, squinting to try and alleviate the ache between his temples.
Dalton slowed as they arrived at another crossing point.
“Look!” shouted Carla, looking out into the black void to her left. Against the lighter sky, dark forms were massing.
“And ahead…” said Joel.
“What you want me to do,” said Dalton.
“There’s too many to fight,” said Carla.
“I got this,” said Amos.
“Got this how?” said Carla.
“Just give me a minute.”
“There’ll be a hundred vamps on us before that!”
Carla’s flashlight allowed her to see the concentration on the young man’s face. His eyes closed tight.
Seconds passed until Joel’s buzzing started to recede. “Whatever you’re doing it’s working.”
“Drive,” said Amos.
Dalton pushed down on the gas, and the pickup sped through the city’s streets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sasha, Shannon, and Evan sat in Galloway’s office.
Evan’s knee bounced up and down. “Where do you think she is?”
“How should I know,” said Shannon. She intermittently chewed on one of her fingernails.
Sasha sighed. She had only been to the principal’s office twice while at high school a
nd both of those were because the head wanted her advice on something.
The door opened and the heart rates inside the room increased, which Galloway being a hybrid was well aware of.
“Three dead, seven infected,” said the general, sitting heavily in her chair behind the desk.
The younger three looked down.
“Your group has only been here a few days, and already there’s been a house fire where four people died, and now more tonight.”
They still looked down.
The general sighed. “But I guess you have to take the rough with the smooth. Was it any of your great idea to have a party outside the camp?”
They all shook their heads.
“What’s your name, girl?” The general looked at Sasha.
She looked up. “Me?”
The general nodded.
“I’m Sasha Jacobs.”
“I heard some interesting rumors about you. Some that were in the house said they saw you turn into a ghost or something?”
Sasha looked away. “I… yeah, I guess.”
“It was pretty cool,” said Evan with a smile.
“You think this is funny, son?”
Evan shook his head, looking down.
“I know you were close to your grandfather, and maybe that’s messed with your head. But you should remember everyone inside this camp is here because I say they can be. If someone is more trouble than they’re worth, well there’s a whole world outside the walls to explore.”
Evan nodded. A thought then occurred to him. “Umm…”
“Yes?”
“What happened to the tablet? My grandfather had it. He had this stupid idea that it needed to be taken away. Hidden. Maybe…”
Galloway rocked back in her chair. “Keep talking.”
“Maybe that’s what caused what happened. The fire and everything. Maybe Josh disagreed or something…”
“The tablet is in safe hands. You worked with your grandfather on it?”
Evan was now looking more directly at the general. “Yeah, I helped develop a program on my computer to decipher the symbols it produced when it was working.”