There was more gunfire in the distance, like firecrackers on the Fourth, and each flayed Billie’s nerves a little more. Oh, Chris. “Bart,” she said softly.
“Yeah, Mom.”
“Didn’t you bring a radio?”
“Yeah, in my backpack.”
“I think we need something to listen to.” He looked questioningly toward the door, but she just shrugged. “They already know we’re here. It can’t hurt.”
The teenager lifted the flap of the backpack beside him and eased out a miniature boom box, then extended the antenna and turned it on. The speaker crackled and then broke in on the fading lyrics of “In the Air Tonight.” The announcer for the FM station out of Bloomington came on, a soft deep voice suitably laid back for the time of night. “And that was, of course, Phil Collins, a man who can do no wrong in my book . . . well, other than ‘Sussudio,’ right? It’s one-twenty-five in the a.m. here at the Power, and the temperature’s bottomed out at a chilly forty-nine degrees, but it’s just a beautiful night out there, isn’t it? Just a wisp of fog and that big, bright moon up there, big as a basketball. This is the kinda night you just want to throw a blanket ’round your shoulders and go out on the porch with a hot cup of coffee and breath in that crisp, clean air. But hey, don’t forget to take the radio, huh? You wouldn’t want to forget us. The extended forecast says that nights will continue to be a little nippy on into the weekend, so if you have to be out after dark . . . take a jacket, okay? Now, from the request line, let’s jump back a few years with the Doobie Brothers. . . .”
The door handle jiggled again. Someone said something outside. But most of them listened to the music and were able to ignore it.
Del scooted over by his big brother and wasn’t ashamed to scrunch up against him. Bart put an arm about his shoulders. “Cold?”
“Scared.”
“Join the club.”
The younger boy searched his drugstore sack for a moment, came up with a Mounds bar. He handed a piece to Bart. “What if, you know?”
“What if what?”
“What if they get in here? Could we hold them off?”
Bart jerked a thumb toward the shotgun propped beside him, then motioned to the one Ted held and their mom’s as well. “We can take ’em. Don’t worry about it, Cap.”
“But I am worried. What if there’s too many of them or something like that? What if we can’t win?”
“And what if the Ruskies attack before morning? Then nothing’ll matter anyway, will it? C’mon, Cap. Stop borrowing trouble.”
The boy sniffed. “I just don’t want to die. Not like that.”
Bart squeezed his shoulders. “Don’t worry. If it comes down to it, none of us’ll go out that way.” He lifted his backpack gently onto his lap, carefully so nothing clattered, and opened it. Inside were six or seven Little Kings bottles, corked, the stoppers threaded with a length of rag. The stench of gasoline was heavy in the pack.
Del sat back against the wall. It hadn’t made him feel any better. He wagered that roasting would hurt just about as bad.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie tried to argue but the pain kept getting in the way. He was still on the couch, his neck still stinging, his arm splinted with a broken broomstick and heavy strips of gauze. He fidgeted not only from discomfort, but from disgust—he wanted to go with Stiles, and not being able to rankled him. “Well, at least take one of the guns,” he said. “You can’t go out unarmed. That’d be suicide.”
Stiles folded his overcoat and placed it atop the console television next to his shoulder rig and twin Smith & Wesson semi-autos. His shotgun was there as well. Between it and the Mossberg that Jessie nestled in the crook of her arm, there were exactly three silver shells left. “Let’s be logical, Charlie. If I get caught out there, whatever guns I’m carrying will be useless to you people. Keep them in here, where they’ll do the most good. Besides,” he pulled his black knit cap down around his ears, “my other shotgun’s in the van. If I can get to it.”
“That’s a big if,” Bean grumbled.
“Mr. Stiles?” Ida Fleming called weakly from her recliner. She looked no better than before, maybe even a little worse. But there was a dreamy look to her eyes—not one of distance or senility, not by a long shot. She was very alert, and her gaze was lit with a personal satisfaction, a sense of victory. Her faith had finally been put to the test. Vindicated. Now, if only she could hold on . . . She reached up a trembling hand and took one of his, placed a small cross in his palm. “This will protect you,” she said, smiling.
He looked at it and nodded, returning her smile. He also gave her back the symbol. “Keep it with you, Grandma. It only has its power when it’s with you.”
“But don’t you believe by now? After all you’ve seen tonight?”
“I’ve seen it all before,” he answered, “some even wilder than this. And I do believe, really. In goodness. Truth. In people like you. But I just don’t have what it takes, I guess. Faith, true faith, isn’t something you can give to someone like a library book, and you can’t just decide it would be nice to have. It doesn’t work like that—believe me, I’ve tried.” He touched his chest. “It has to come from in here. You have it.” He leaned closer. “If you can stay with us and stay strong, you can watch over all of us. All of them. I know you’re tired, but you have to hold out. For them. Can you do that, Grandma?”
She sank back into the chair, grimacing and clutching her heart, but once the pain eased she managed a wink. “I’ll be here, sonny boy. Don’t you worry.”
Just then Hubert came back into the parlor, having been the last of the residents to change their pajamas for warmer things to combat the new chill in the house. He was now in dungarees and a jacket, complete with combat medals from the Pacific. His helmet was still in place, and the Very pistol and sword as well. Stiles’s eyes centered on the latter. “Is that the real thing?”
“You bet,” he said, drawing the wooden scabbard from his belt and handing it over. “Took that off a Nip officer during my second month at Okinawa.” He watched Stiles draw the three-foot blade and beamed like a proud father. “Now watch that edge—I keep ’er pretty sharp.”
Stiles stepped back and took a few practice slashes in the air. It was obvious to all present that he’d had some experience with similar blades. Then he returned it to its sheath. “Do you mind if I borrow this for a few minutes?”
Hubert shrugged. “Go ahead, if it’ll help you get through. You are going for help, aren’t you?”
“He already explained that, Hubert,” Jessie scolded him. “There ain’t anyone left in town to call, and we can’t bring anybody else here or they’ll just become . . . well, like those things out there. We just gotta stay put, wait for morning. Mr. Stiles is just going for more of them silver shells.”
“Oh. Well, maybe I’d better go with you. . . .”
“I don’t think so,” Stiles said, patting the man’s shoulder. “One might get through, but not two. Besides, with the deputy laid up, it’s up to you and Jessie to keep them out, okay?”
Hubert grinned and saluted. “Yessir. Don’t you worry about a thing. This station will stay secure. You bet.” He glanced toward the window. “I’ve got a question, though. Just how’re you gonna get out without them seeing you?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself. I’d say they’ll be watching the doors and the windows down here. My better bet is upstairs.” He loosened the braid wound ceremoniously around the scabbard and used it to strap the sword across his back.
Deputy Bean propped himself on his good arm and called to Chris. “I still think it’s a damn fool plan,” he said, “and the whole thing leaves a dark brown taste in my mouth. But there ain’t much I can do to stop you. So what I can do is wish you luck. And if you come back in here with teeth to your knees, I promise to kill you proper.”
Stiles
nodded and gave a thumbs-up, then left the parlor.
His mind was working, hatching a plan as he climbed the stairs to the darkened second floor. He’d surveyed the house while taking Mrs. Fleming around, and now used that knowledge to gauge his best avenue of escape. He couldn’t simply drop from a window, not in the open—it would be suicide. So that narrowed his choices to only two rooms, one in the front of the house and one in the back. Both had stout tree limbs within reach, and each had its advantages. The front window would be the riskier of the two, since the front yard was so well lit by the security lamp by the road. But it would put him out that much closer to the van. Perhaps it was worth the risk. He went there first.
The bedroom door opened to pitch darkness, thanks to the curtains that were still closed. But somehow Stiles sensed movement in there—the vibration in the air, or the whispery rustle of blanket and sheet. The bed. He turned and swept on the wall switch even as his other hand caught the hilt of the sword over his shoulder and drew it halfway from the scabbard. But the dim light of the overhead bulb showed the figure on the bed to be not some pasty cadaver but George Bailey. He was huddled back into the pillows and holding out a mason jar full of pee-colored liquid. In his other hand was a disposable lighter. The aroma of gasoline was heavy in the air and mixed with the stench of the garlic lining the window. The old man finally recognized Stiles and set the jar back on the nightstand, trying to slow his hyperventilating. The soldier just ignored him, went instead to the windows, and peeked past the curtains.
Through the limbs of the big elm out front, he could see the figures below, wandering around in the yard, calling out to the people in the house and mimicking what their dead minds recalled as enticing. A drunk offered a bottle he no longer drank from. A child held out his candy bar. A woman he recognized as Georgetta Stovall did a bump-and-grind just below the window in her jet black leather, rubbing her breasts and her crotch and moaning in monotone. Stiles found the scene distasteful and turned his attention to the van at the edge of the road, measuring the distance and the number of steps he would need, and the time. But then he noticed what he hadn’t before. Bailey’s window had been nailed shut. There was no way to break it loose without attracting attention. “Scratch one escape route,” he whispered to himself. “Only one left.” He started for the door.
“Mr. Stiles?” the old man on the bed croaked.
“Yes?”
“I just . . . well, I just wanted to say how sorry I am. About Mrs. Atchison. I liked her, you know. We weren’t best friends, but she could be sweet when she wanted. She shouldn’t have had to die like that.”
“She didn’t have to. You could have stopped it.”
“I couldn’t!” The veins in his neck stood out. “It was just like with Nathan. I couldn’t move, I was rooted to the spot. All I could do was stand there and watch. I was so afraid . . . I’m afraid, dammit! Is that so hard to understand?!”
“I suppose not,” Stiles said. “But then, you’ve been at it longer than the rest of us. You know, I feel sorry for you, Mr. Danner, I really do. You’ve been running for so long and dreading your nightmares for so many years that you’ve forgotten about anyone’s life but your own. You’re twice damned, Sebastian. Once by your brother. And once by yourself.” He flipped off the lightswitch and closed the door behind him, leaving the old man alone in his own personal darkness.
Stiles went straight to the room farthest back. It was dark back there, even with the drapes open, and he didn’t bother turning on the light. He went stealthily through Ida’s room, past the autographed photos of Swaggart and Falwell and the holy bric-a-brac that covered the walls, and peeked through the window. It was dark out there, like the umbra of a distant planet. The big spruce that stood just a few feet beyond obscured the moonlight even more and left a zebra-stripe of shadows and dim light on the grass below. This was the place to leave from. But Stiles was still ill at ease. They could be out there, like sharks, circling, gliding just beneath the surface. Unseen until it’s too late. He flipped the latch as quietly as possible and eased the window open and waited for nearly a minute for a response, but nothing came. He still couldn’t see anyone out there. So he swung a leg up onto the outer sill and eased himself outside. The branch that reached closest to the window was part of the main trunk and half-again as thick as his thigh. He reached out and grabbed it and swung himself into space, and his throat caught when the branch began to sag. But then it stopped and held firm. He pulled his weight up onto it and slid along to the bough of the tree, one hand supporting his weight and keeping his balance, the other resting on the sword hilt over his shoulder. Still no one was in sight. So, little by little, he worked his way down, branch by branch, then dropped silently to the grass.
He moved to the corner of the house and peaked around. There was a female standing fifteen feet along, trying to work up the courage to approach one of the protected windows, and past her in a swirl of gathering fog were two more trying at another window and cursing their inability. Now, he wondered, what’s the best way to play this?
The most obvious, of course.
He stepped around the corner into plain view, but he didn’t run. He staggered along, imitating their own ambling gait as best he could, heading directly for the female and not around her. She glanced at him once but paid him little attention, not until he was much closer. But by then it was too late. The sword was drawn and already slicing toward her. By the time she reached up for her own throat, there was nothing to find but a stump.
The other two turned to look just as the female slumped to the ground. Stiles sprinted for them and slashed low as he passed the first, taking the vampire off at the knees. As it fell, he whirled on the second and took its head as cleanly as the girl and left its body staggering about as he rounded the next corner and headed across the front lawn.
His eyes scanned the yard, hoping to gauge the situation even as he acted on it. Six of them, maybe seven. At least the ones he could see. They turned casually as he ran past, surprise etched into the alabaster faces. It bought him a few extra seconds. A few more steps.
You’re gonna make it, you’re gonna make it . . .
A teenage boy and girl scrambled across the yard in a parallel path to his own, but as they approached the front gate they turned in and tried to intercept him. He held the sword against his side until the last minute, and as the boy groped at him he brought it up in a measured slash and sheared both arms off halfway to the elbow, then drove a kick into the boy’s face to remove him from the path. The girl saw this and tried to slow her momentum but it was too late; it took her right into the arc of the blade. Her body slid to a stop, but her head kept going. And as her cadaver fell from Stiles’s view, he found himself directly in front of the small wooden-slat gate to the property. No more than a few feet away, at the shoulder of the road, was rust-plagued salvation—the van.
The sound of many feet caused a realization to explode in his gut. The boy and girl hadn’t thought to stop him. They were meant only to slow him down.
He started to turn. That was when they hit him.
He went down in a tangle of bodies, right through the gate and fence, splintering both. Stiles landed with two on top of him, but he quickly bridged and threw them over his head before their momentum was spent. He rolled with them and came up on top, clutching one of the jagged fence slats he’d landed on, and driving it through the top vampire with such force that it transfixed the one beneath him as well. Then two or more caught the soldier from behind and slammed him into the side door of the van with a jarring force that made his vision swim. Strong hands latched onto his throat and began to choke the fight from him even as others piled on top, man, woman, and child, all tugging and grabbing at him. One woman crawled over the rest and bit at his throat but her teeth found only the cold hands that held him.
Stiles reached, strained for the door latch.
The hands left his throat,
and two mouths took their place.
He caught hold of the pull handle.
I hope you didn’t lock it, Charlie. . . .
The sliding mechanism activated and the door panel moved beneath their weight, throwing the lot of them off balance and spilling Stiles and his immediate captors into the carpeted interior of the van. He twisted away from them for just an instant, and his hands found the spare Remington between the front seats, right where he’d left it. He drove the sawed-off handle into the nearest face he could find, then brought it across the jaw of the other female that had tumbled in with him. He shoved them back toward the door; then turned the yawning bore of the 12-gauge on them and blew them back onto the gravel and kept firing on the whole group. The vampires fell over one another trying to get away, and the shoulder of the road was littered with bodies by the time he hit an empty chamber. He jumped to the door and kicked a corpse aside so he could get it shut, then locked it and all the others too.
But the vampires were persistent. They were already pounding on the sides of the van.
He took the time right then to reload the shotgun, then drooped the extra bandoliers over his shoulders and, as an afterthought, picked up the Uzi from the counter and the H & K carbine from the bunk compartment. They didn’t shoot silver, but they could still do their share of damage. He could never be overarmed.
The rest of the windshield shattered and a young boy tried crawling across the dash. A single blast sent him reeling back outside. Then the pounding on the vehicle increased, and it began to rock from side to side. They’re trying to turn it over! He dumped his gear into the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel. The engine revved with the first turn of the key, so he slipped it into reverse and stomped on the gas and backed over a few of his attackers. And when he’d reached the middle of the road, he shifted into drive and steered the squealing vehicle straight at the front yard, plowing through what was left of the fence like a stampeding elephant, the van’s wheels cutting furrows all the way across the lawn. He stopped it a few feet from the walk and swung out the door, weapons hanging from him like apples on the tree.
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