She was crying when she got into the truck. He had been a good leader, both spiritually and in the community, and despite his relative youth, it was still like watching a parent lose touch or drink himself stuporous. She climbed in the back with Del and let Ted take over the wheel. “It’s okay, Mom.” Del tried to be soothing. “He’s just flipped out. There’s nothing you could do.”
“I say fuck him,” Ted said, shifting into first and squealing off down the street. “Time’s a wastin’. Look at the sun.”
It touched the treetops and slid a bit past them. The light dimmed. Shadows festered and spread.
Pete’s Radiator Shop was small and inconspicuous, just a block past the IGA store and the gas station on North Hickory. The little white building didn’t even look like a garage; a painted plywood sign and arrow had to point out the two bay doors in the rear. Charlie Bean was standing outside with a cigarette and a Coke when they pulled up. “Nice truck,” he said, half-facetiously. “So, how did it go?”
Ted looked to Billie, and she to Charlie. Then she managed a “Fine, I guess. Where’s Chris?”
The big man shook his head. “Ain’t seen him. I figured he was with you.” Up close, he noticed Billie’s reddened eyes. “You aren’t telling me everything. What’s up?”
She tried to smile reassuringly, but the picture from Kings Island wouldn’t leave her mind. She just brushed past the deputy without a word and went inside. Bean looked to Bart, but the teen threw up his arms. “We ran into Reverend Knutson. The man belongs in a rubber rectory. I guess she’s taking it pretty hard.”
“I didn’t know she was that fond of him,” Bean said, “but I know what you mean. He gave me some trouble at the church this morning. It wasn’t easy convincing everyone else when he wouldn’t even believe it.” He flicked a butt across the gravel lot and leaned closer. “You say you haven’t seen Stiles?”
“Not a peep. We went back to your place and found all of his stuff gone.”
“Everything?”
“Every little thing.”
“Shit.” He lit another cigarette and took a few anxious puffs. “That’s just great. What if that fucker’s took off? What are we gonna do?” Another puff, then he ground it under a heel. “That’s just fucking great.” He stalked back through the garage door with the boys in tow.
They didn’t recognize most of the people inside. That might have seemed strange for a town the size of Isherwood, but the days of knowing your neighbors had faded long go with the Andy Griffith Show and Saturday-night band concerts under the stars. They knew some of them by name, others by deed, and others by gossip, but they didn’t really know them. And that felt strange. There they all were, some friends but mostly strangers, gathered around a pair of picnic tables and a trough of water as if it were the oracle at Delphi. A woman had donned Pete’s welding mask and fired up the acetylene tanks to melt down the silverware. First it was fluxed to eliminate the other alloys inherent in the castings and to somewhat purify the silver content. Then the silver itself was melted, and the molten metal dripped into the trough at her feet. Each drop hissed in defiance as it struck the water and formed a perfect pearl of silver in the process. Then a man would scoop out the newly formed shot and lay it on one of the tables, where it became the focus of another reloading line. It was a slow process, limited by the speed of melting the shot, so another ad-hoc line had been set up on the other table. There metal snips were used to cut fork tines and silver wire and other pieces into smaller bits, irregular in shape. Like shrapnel. Then these too were loaded into shotgun casings. These loads weren’t as pure as the melted shot, but it was better than nothing and too late in the day to argue. In all, a substantial number of shells had been finished, though not enough according to Bean. So there was factory ammo there as well, deer slugs and double-0 buck, just in case. The silver rounds were marked with stripes of luminous paint to distinguish between the two. If it glowed, it could kill; if not, just shoot for the eyes and pray.
Two men sat on stools nearby, sawing the butts and barrels off expensive hunting arms to make scatterguns out of them. Bean got one for Ted and Bart and one for Billie as well, then draped bandoliers of silver shells around their shoulders.
Billie was standing at Pete’s work counter when she saw, among the tools and car parts and empty beer cans, some unusually altered shotgun shells. She picked one up. It had crepe streamers attached to the top and a cork with a nail through it glued to the bottom. The plastic casing had been scored and a length of tape wrapped around the middle. From the look of it, the tape had been impregnated with long silver clippings and slivers of wire. “What the hell is this?” she asked.
“A little home cooking,” Bean said, taking it out of her hands and laying it back on the table. “They’re fragmentation grenades. They land on the cork, and the nail detonates the shell. Since the casing has been scored, the charge blows outward rather than up, and that sprays the pieces of silver in every direction. Nasty little thing, isn’t it? I thought Stiles could use them, but . . . doesn’t look like that now, does it?
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Bart told me about his stuff being gone. Looks to me like he’s just took off.”
Billie bristled at the notion. “You know what your problem is, Bean? You haven’t got any faith. He said he’ll be here. Okay?”
Bean had a cynical retort in mind but didn’t get the chance to use it. He was interrupted by the sound of an engine outside. Del ran to the door, then came back with an I-told-you-so grin. “Wrong again, Chuck,” the boy proclaimed.
Everyone stopped and turned their attention toward the doorway as a figure appeared there. Stiles was clad in black fatigues and knit cap and gloves. Even his face was smudged black, so that he looked like a shadow pulled loose from the ground. His mere presence had a distinct effect on the townspeople assembled there; a flash of relief, and of hope, swept through the room, but with it a tinge of fear. Bean could feel it. This dark angel might be their only salvation, but he also put them on edge.
The deputy felt empathy with them. Stiles made him nervous too.
Billie ran forward smiling. At least until she saw Stiles’s face. No wonder the others were antsy at his appearance. She told herself it was the same face, the same bruised and swollen features. But there was something different now. The muscles were indeed more taut and the lips, despite the swelling, had become little more than a thin line. But it was the eyes that had changed the most. They burned with an open intensity, a thin, cold fury. He had psyched himself for the battle, she realized, and she didn’t know whether to speak and risk breaking his concentration. So she stayed silent, and let the warrior stride quickly past her. He went straight to Bean and drew a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “It’s time to move,” he said, unfolding it to show a quickly scrawled map. “Do you know the two houses in the cul-de-sac at the end of Platter Drive?”
“Sure. That’s in Pinecone Terrace, not far from here.”
Stiles nodded. “The basements are well fortified. I’ve secured the upstairs doors, so the ones outside the basements will be the only entrance. Easier to defend.” He turned to the rest of the people. “There’s a school bus outside. I want all of you on it in the next five minutes. I’ve found a place for you to hide.”
“Hide?” Ted said. “You mean all of us?”
“All of you.”
Several of the men and even some of the women grabbed for their shotguns. “Not us,” one of them said, and the others agreed. “We can help you out there.”
Stiles seemed to ignore them. “I have traps set,” he told them without looking. “You might blunder into them, trigger them prematurely. And I wouldn’t like that.” He looked to Bean. “Do you have my guns ready?” He noticed the streamered shells on the counter. “What the hell are those?”
Ted came up behind Stiles, still pushing it. “Stiles, you’re no
t the only one here who can handle himself, so quit playing hero. We can do this.” When the man didn’t answer he cursed and called to the others, “You guys get the others into the bus and wait for me out there. If he doesn’t want us, we’ll just do this ourselves.”
Stiles turned on Ted with an ominous glare and no one else moved. But after a long minute Stiles just stepped past him. Charlie handed him a chopped Remington semi-auto shotgun and a second one in a makeshift scabbard for his back. He nodded, grabbed a few bandoliers of silver shells from the table, and took Billie by the arm. “Come with me,” he said softly as he drew her toward the door. They were almost outside before he said over his shoulder, “Charlie, get them to the shelters. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Then he stopped and finally looked back at Cooper and the others. “If there’s anyone not in a shelter when I get there, I’ll kill them. At least that way you’ll die quickly.”
They went outside, past the soldier’s stolen school bus, and climbed into the bakery truck. Stiles glanced at the setting sun. The rev of the pedal under his foot bespoke his urgency. Billie was watching him. “You were kidding back there, weren’t you? I mean, you wouldn’t kill any of them, would you?”
He said nothing. It was answer enough.
He steered the truck back to Elm and turned south, back across town. She intuitively knew where he was taking her. He crossed Main Street and turned at the next block, onto Walnut Street, and went one block more before parking in front of an older house with peeling paint and a hanging length of gutter along the front. The familiar Conestoga mailbox read MOORE across its wagon-cover. Stiles was already out of the truck and motioning for her to follow. He led her across the lawn.
Just off the porch and between the hedges there was a basement window well, reinforced with corrugated tin and just deep enough for the small pane to swing up. Barely enough room to show Sharon Lou’s entire face on the other side. “Lou?” Billie exclaimed, kneeling down to the window. “Are you all right?”
Sharon’s face disappeared abruptly and Billie suddenly found herself nose-to-nose with a double-barreled shotgun.
“I’m sorry, girl,” the older woman said, “if it really is you. I just can’t take no chances. Not after last night. Now back up there with your boyfriend.”
She did as told. “I tried to get her out myself,” Chris said. “I knew she was a friend of yours, so I thought you might be able to convince her.”
“Hell no, I ain’t coming out,” Sharon told them. “After what I saw last night . . . things I couldn’t understand if I tried. I don’t trust nobody. So I’ll just stay put, thank you. I’ve got canned goods and blankets and a bathroom down here. And my gun. I can hold as long as I want. At least until the state police get here. Or the National Guard.”
“But it’s not safe enough,” Billie said. “Come with us.”
“It’s getting dark,” the older woman said, retracting her gun barrel. “I’m sorry, Billie. I’ve got to lock myself in.”
“Wait.” Stiles picked a handful of rounds from one of the bandoliers and dropped them into the well where she could reach them. “There aren’t many. Use them only if you have to.” He took Billie by the arm again and led her away.
“No!” she said, fighting him. “We can’t just leave her there.”
“Right now she’s safer than we are. Look at the sun, Billie. There’s no more time.”
They hurried to the truck and he gunned the engine, and they covered the several blocks to the Platter Drive cul-de-sac in just a few minutes. The school bus was already parked outside. Stiles’s van was where he’d left it in the driveway. Bean was standing outside the first house’s basement, his trusty full-length Mossberg cradled in one arm. The extra belts of shotshells were in a pile at his feet. “They’re all in,” he said as the two approached, “and I mean all of them. You really put the fear o’ God in ’em, bub.” He pointed to the other basement, just across the side yard. “The others are secured already. Billie, you and the boys will be in here with some of the others.” The heavy door was still open. She could see Del and Bart and Ted standing just inside.
She turned to the hard-featured man beside her and could not deny the obvious; in this present incarnation he frightened her. He was cold and stony-faced, an assassin every bit as familiar with death as his prey. But at least he was human. And somewhere deep inside him there was something more. Something she needed. “I don’t really know what to say,” she stammered, wanting his arms around her but not daring to ask. “Be careful.” She started to go in, but not before throwing her arms around his neck and whispering in his ear. “I love you.”
He put an arm around her middle but it was not holding her, not the way she wanted. But in pulling away, she saw it. Something in his eyes. A flicker perhaps, the slightest glimmer of what lurked behind that wall of armor. The man she knew. And he had heard her. It was gone just as abruptly, leaving only the look of the assassin in its place, but she had seen it. And she kept that thought with her as Charlie closed the door behind her and she threw the heavy bolt.
Outside, Stiles addressed the lone figure that now stood before him. “You too, Charlie,” he said. “Get inside.”
“Nope.”
“You heard what I said earlier.”
“Yep. And you scared me too. I don’t doubt you’d do it, not for a minute. But just think about it for a minute. You’re gonna need me. Look at yourself, man. You’re a mess. You wince with each step, your ribs are busted, your face looks like hamburger, you’re popping painkillers like M & M’s. C’mon, I can help. Trust me.”
Stiles just stared at him. Not angrily; no emotion showed on his masklike face. He just stared, and Bean thought he could almost hear the whir of mental gears computing the logic of his words. Then the decision was made. Bean could see it as the soldier bent down to pick up the remaining ammo belts. His eyes squinted for just a moment, and pain flickered through them. The point was conceded. He pulled a small tube of black face paint from his pocket. “Get that face covered,” he said, “and help me get this stuff to the van.”
They were loaded and ready to go when Bean first noticed the fog. It was starting in the low-lying areas, just down the street from them at the bottom of the hill, a pale and wispy grayness. “I don’t like the looks of that,” he groaned. “I guess it’s too late to just torch the whole place and run like hell? Yeah, I know. It wouldn’t get them all. Stupid idea.”
“It wouldn’t get Danner. That’s the important thing.” Charlie shivered. The fog was spreading. “I still don’t like the looks of this. Not one bit.”
The sun lingered at the horizon, hanging on by force of will, just long enough for them to get into position. Then it was gone.
Part III: SHADOW WAR
Chapter Sixteen
The vampire had no problem getting Larson’s patrol car into gear. Just push the stick to “D”—he’d learned that readily enough. But figuring just how much pressure to apply to the gas and brake pedals—that was a skill Danner had yet to acquire. He drove down the evening street in short, spastic little hops, squealing tires and screeching brakes, and it nearly brought a flush of angry redness to his pallid cheeks. The steering wheel sported finger grooves where it had not before, and the column groaned from the punishment he inflicted. But he refused to quit. He had to learn how to drive; it was the way of the world these days.
He gunned the engine and overshot the intersection at Sycamore and Cedar, and an overcompensating jerk of the wheel took him up over the sidewalk and across the corner lawn. But he managed to get the cruiser back onto the road, and the prowl continued.
He was hungry. Even after gorging himself the previous evening with such gluttonous abandon, the pangs were there, sharp and unrelenting. He had expended too much undoing the damage Stiles had inflicted. He was whole again, unmarked, but at what cost? He was drained. Once again he was a slave to the hung
er instead of its master, as much now as when he climbed from his makeshift prison three nights past. He had to feed soon. He had to find prey.
But that was easier said than done. He’d been active for nearly half an hour already, and still no food was in sight.
The vampire fumed. Stiles was responsible. Who else could it be? He was hiding them, Danner was certain. Would he never learn? It was only a matter of time ’till he found them, all huddled together like a Thanksgiving feast. And Stiles would be there with them. After all, the man was no fool—ghost or no ghost, he wouldn’t dare stay out past sundown again. Not after last night. Yes, he would be there, all right, cowering, hiding. Waiting to die.
Danner smiled at the notion. It gave him some solace, but not enough to overcome his needs.
He thought of blood, and he wished he’d made it home the night before. There he kept a reserve supply ready—he believed her name was Katrina, though it was of little import. But he just couldn’t make it back there, not after Stiles had left him gaping like a sausage on the grill. So he had hid in a victim’s basement and he had fed, and healed. And he had been confident that staying in town would guarantee easy prey the next eve. But now the notion seemed ludicrous. His eyes swept the empty street. Another half-hour, he thought. Then he would go to Katrina. At least she would get him by, tide him over till he could find Stiles and the others.
He tried the radio again—it was one of the few knobs on the massive console he could fathom—but little had changed from the last time. Sammy Hagar had been replaced by Bon Jovi; in short, he couldn’t tell the difference. The music was strident and hard on the ears even with the volume low, and the lyrics were nonsensical to him. But he left it on just the same. Like the car itself, this music was a sign of the times. If he was to exist here, and thrive, he would have to acculturate himself. No matter how unpleasant that proved to be.
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