Bump

Chapter 15

 

  It had been nearly a week since Ryan had first sat on the roof of the warehouse at 4197 Mockingbird, but he had spent so much time there in the following days that it felt like he had never left. Every day after school he found himself on the roof, struggling to confront and then control the murderous manifestation of his savage subconscious.

  In the other aspects of Ryan’s life, it had been a week worthy of very little mention. School marched unceasingly on, but with no looming tests or papers, Ryan found himself paying even less attention in class than usual. His parents had bought the lie about his newfound interest in debate club and the amount of after-school work it required. His absences from home no longer unexplained, his evenings were now free to practice, which was exactly what he had been doing.

  Unfortunately for Ryan, Evelyn was nowhere to be found at 4197. She had been away on an extended reconnaissance mission and Ryan hadn’t seen her since the morning she had nearly shot him through the eye. Her absence however, had not stopped him from thinking, or indeed dreaming, about her.

  Regardless, the week had been productive. Ryan felt he was making real progress with the wolf, but more importantly, he had been able to smooth things over with the people who mattered to him the most. He had told Vanessa, and then Eli, everything.

  Ryan had been stunned by how well they had taken all the news, especially Eli, who had acted as if he knew everything all along.

  “Well there had to be some truth to it, right?” He had said when Ryan told him that monsters and psychics and vampires were real and all around them. “Thousands of years of mythology and legend must have had a basis in something. Makes sense. I always knew Warren Zevon would never lead me astray. What concerns me most is this girl: she’s single? And smokin’? Something’s got to be wrong with her. I’d take it upon myself to find out, but somehow I always end up getting slapped.”

  “Whereas this time you’re more likely to get-” Ryan had begun.

  “Shot. Yeah, exactly. Have fun with this one, buddy.”

  Tonight was the first night Ryan had spent time with his friends since he had come clean about his condition. To Ryan’s delight, the evening was going much better than he had expected: they were acting as if nothing at all had changed. Tonight he was taking a break from the meditation and the warehouse, and it felt good. The last thing he wanted was for things to be awkward or strange between him and his friends.

  His good mood however, was fading quickly. He was five kills behind and Vanessa, despite having a magazine open on her lap, insisted on backseat-gaming.

  “Assault rifle behind you.” She muttered.

  “I know.”

  “He’s headed to the sniper tower.”

  “I know!”

  Six kills behind. Then, game.

  “While you’re busy trying to save the world, some of us are focusing on what really matters.” Eli said. “Like learning all the new maps and memorizing spawn points. You handle this planet, Ryan. I’ll look after the rest of the galaxy.”

  Eli dropped his controller on the square of shag carpeting beneath him and stretched.

  Night had fallen and the shadows in Eli’s basement became longer and darker. Vanessa reached over and flicked on a lamp that bathed the area in its warm glow.

  “So what’s your plan for this girl?” Eli asked. “Just hope she’s a dog person?”

  “No plan, I just want to see her again.”

  “Have you asked V what you should do? V, what should he do?”

  Vanessa glanced at Ryan, then looked back at her magazine. “I don’t know,” she began hesitantly, “I don’t know anything about this girl.”

  “So the whole ‘feminine intuition’ thing, not quite what it’s cracked up to be…” Eli muttered.

  “It doesn’t work on other females, moron.” She shot back. “Besides, all feminine intuition really amounts to is one principle: don’t date Eli.”

  “Ah,” Eli replied, “so I have evolutionary biology to blame. That’s certainly a load off my mind.”

  “Can’t imagine your mind was too heavily loaded to begin with.” Vanessa remarked.

  Ryan felt his phone vibrating. He slid the phone from his pocket and unlocked the screen. It was a text from Evelyn: Warehouse in 10.

  “Speak of the hottie and she doth appear.” Eli mused, reading over Ryan’s shoulder. “Looks like she’s back in town.”

  “And wants to meet with me. I wonder why.”

  “The nights are long and cold without Ryan.” Eli said. “Believe me, I know.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to let himself think like that, but that’s exactly what some part of him was thinking. He couldn’t stop it even if he tried.

  “I guess I’ve got to bail.” Ryan said, getting up from the couch.

  “Sure, go, fight evil. We’ll be here, having fun without a care in the world.”

  He started for the door, but as he did, Vanessa caught his arm in her grasp. Ryan spun around and they locked eyes immediately. The big, blue pools bored into him and she mouthed two words: Be careful. Ryan smiled, winked, and was gone.

  It took him a little longer than ten minutes to reach the warehouse, but he figured that was just as well. He didn’t want to seem too eager.

  Ryan didn’t actually believe that there was any personal motive behind Evelyn’s actions, since they had barely ever spoken. Even so, that didn’t stop him from checking and re-checking his tousled hair or gulping down four Altoids during the drive.

  He turned onto Mockingbird and saw that, for the first time, the outer garage door to the warehouse stood open. Dim orange light streamed from the building onto the street.

  He parked the Cherokee off to the side of the driveway and made his way into the garage. Evelyn was waiting for him, just as stunning as he remembered, wearing her black tank top. Instead of jeans however, tonight she was wearing baggy black combat pants with cargo pockets and flexible plastic knee pads sewn in. The pants were tucked into black, lace-up combat boots that came halfway to her knee.

  The change in wardrobe however, was not what startled Ryan: it was her accessories. The slim silver pistol he was all too familiar with was strapped to Evelyn’s thigh in a hip holster. Another smaller, black handgun was tucked beneath her arm in a shoulder holster, and what looked like a small submachine gun was slung across her chest.

  “You know Hans Gruber died, right? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” Ryan said.

  “I know it’s a little overboard, that’s the point. We’ve got to rouse the rabble.”

  “Well you look ready to turn the rabble to rubble.”

  Evelyn double-checked the submachine gun then walked back to the work bench to grab a fourth pistol, which she also checked.

  “Let’s go.” She said. “You’re driving.”

  “My car? Why? You’ve got a hundred cars right here, and they all drive better than mine.”

  “Yeah, but if somebody IDs our plates, I’d rather have them coming after you than me.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” Ryan replied. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He rolled his eyes.

  Evelyn punched a button inside the garage and the door began to descend. They made their way back to the Cherokee and clambered in. Ryan mentally kicked himself for not throwing away the empty Doritos bag on the floor of the passenger seat.

  “Where to?” He asked.

  “Shipping docks. Follow the waterfront.” She replied. Ryan obeyed.

  He pulled out onto the main road and travelled parallel to the harbor. Evelyn laid the fourth pistol on her lap and inspected it.

  “Have you ever fired a gun before?” She asked.

  “Not recently.”

  “Well they haven’t changed much. Bullets come out that end.”

  “Yeah, that sounds familiar. It’s all coming back to me now. If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell me what the hell is going on? Not that I don’t want to spend ti
me with you and your four, very angry-looking friends, but I don’t have control over anything yet. I’ve been sitting on a roof for the better part of a week and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I can’t transform.”

  “Don’t worry, it happens to a lot of guys.” She replied. “I don’t need you to be Super Wolf Guy tonight, I need you to stand there, keep your mouth shut, and look intimidating.”

  “Isn’t that more of Daniel’s area of expertise?”

  “You’ve got to get your feet wet sometime, and there’s no time like the present. This is a milk run. You are in no danger. I wouldn’t have brought you along if I thought things might turn ugly. But you need to see what’s going on. You need to see what we’re up against.” She finished.

  “You’re the boss.” Ryan replied.

  She gave a wry smile. “And don’t ever forget it.” She held up the fourth gun so Ryan could see it. “This is a Colt M1911A1. It is simple, it is reliable, and it will kill most human-sized things that have a heartbeat. You, however, are not going to kill anything. There are live rounds in this gun, but you will leave the safety on. Hold it, but do not point it at anyone. And definitely do not pull the trigger.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  The gun was nickel-plated with black grips, and though Ryan was no gun aficionado, he liked the look of this one.

  Evelyn pulled the familiar silver gun off her hip and began to inspect it. It was different than Ryan’s, sleeker with more of a shine.

  “Why is yours different?” He asked.

  She let the slide clack back into place. “Because unlike you, I know what the hell I am doing. This is the Jericho 941, and I intend to take it to the grave. Won it off some chump in Barstow, and this baby and I have been together ever since.

  “Touching story.”

  “Purer love than you’ll ever know.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  Evelyn slipped the Jericho back into her holster and a silence fell.

  “Are we going to go over a plan or something? Are you gonna give me any kind of clue as to what we’re actually doing?” Ryan asked after a moment.

  She pulled the small black pistol from her shoulder holster and began to inspect it as well.

  “What do you know about Vain?”

  “The street drug? Only what’s in the news.”

  “The media has no idea how widespread this stuff is. In fact it’s been Anthony Hess’ biggest revenue stream since the commercial real estate market took a dive.” Evelyn replied.

  “A vampire drug dealer?”

  “Vampire drug kingpin. Demand is going steadily up and he’s the only one who can supply it.”

  “Why?” Ryan asked.

  “Because he’s the only one who knows how to make it. They mix a tiny bit of some pure, narcotic hybrid into a few ounces of blood then sell it as a kind of macabre cocktail. Mostly they use pig’s blood which is bad enough. Lately though, we’ve been recovering more and more samples of higher quality stuff that uses human blood, but we don’t know where he’s getting it from.”

  “People pay to drink blood?”

  “It’s a cheap, flashy-looking designer drug that can be taken orally and it’s not too powerful or too addictive to scare away casual users. The yuppies and WASPs of this town are all over the stuff.”

  “How do we fit in? It’s just another drug on the streets, right? Isn’t that still police jurisdiction?”

  “What do you actually know about vampirism?” Evelyn asked.

  “Probably very little.”

  “It’s not a supernatural curse, not like yours, it’s a virus. It’s a virus that’s transmitted via bodily fluids. The only bodily fluids vampires have left is the blood that is sitting stagnant in their veins.”

  Ryan tried to put the pieces together in his head. “So theoretically, Hess could put vampire blood into this drug and make anyone who doses on it into a vampire?”

  “Theoretically.”

  “So little by little, he could turn the entire population into vampires?”

  She shook her head. “He’d have no reason to. It’s not good business. You don’t make money by turning your customer base into a bunch of animalistic psychos.”

  “Except on Black Friday.”

  She ignored him. “You have to understand that ninety nine percent of vampires are like the worst kind of heroin addict: the bloodlust drives them to the brink of madness. It’s all they can think about. Most of them are closer to animals than humans. Hess has been around long enough though, and he’s smart enough, to have figured out a way to overcome the bloodlust at least to the point where he can still function normally. There are hundreds of vampires in this city, and maybe half a dozen that can still carry on a normal conversation.”

  “Hundreds? And they all work for Hess?”

  “Or Renart. Vampires don’t last long if left to their own devices. They tear each other to shreds. Give them a leader and the promise of rationed blood, and you’ve got yourself an army of very willing, very desperate monsters.” She replied.

  “I don’t suppose crucifixes do much good, then?”

  “The crucifixes and stakes and stuff are all part of the religious mythology and most of it is untrue. Kill a vampire like you would kill a human: cut off the head, destroy the brain. Don’t bother aiming for the heart, it’s just dead weight like the rest of their organs.”

  “What about sunlight?”

  “Their skin is basically dead, so it can’t process the rays in the same way we can. Bottom line is that it hurts them like hell, but they’re not going to burst into flame.”

  “So if these things are so mindless,” Ryan wondered, “why would Hess want to turn more people into vampires? It sounds like his army is already plenty big for his purposes.”

  “That’s the question.” Evelyn replied. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  “What do the docks have to do with anything?”

  “We think Hess produces Vain somewhere in the city, but he imports nearly all of his raw ingredients from overseas. He’s been moving supply for months: ships coming in from China, Portugal, Egypt, Thailand. We haven’t found his factory yet, but when we do we’re going to have to hit it hard. We’re going to the docks to intercept a shipment and hopefully pump somebody on his payroll for information.”

  “And that’s why you’re sporting the Ted Nugent ensemble? You’re trying to scare them?”

  “Think it’ll work?”

  “Well I’m scared of you.”

  “I suppose that’s a start. Pull in here.”

  Ryan nosed the Cherokee onto a side street that put them closer to the waterfront. They were at the shipping docks now, and squat, ugly buildings were further dwarfed by the towers of multi-colored cargo containers.

  “Right up here, #38.”

  He pulled up to the curb next to the pier Evelyn had indicated and put the Jeep in park.

  “You know,” Ryan began, “you never told me what your power is. I mean, what can you-”

  “Shut up.” She whispered urgently and her hand shot past Ryan to flick the headlights off. “Kill the engine.”

  He did, and she pulled him down low behind the dash. Their faces were inches from each other and the longer they crouched there awkwardly, the more Ryan thought he felt a strange heat coming off Evelyn. It was a pulsing, dry, almost tangible heat as if her entire body were wracked with some terrible fever. Ryan wanted to ask her what was going on, but he figured it was a bad idea to disobey a woman strapped with enough ordnance to occupy Liechtenstein.

  Two men crossed the street a few feet in front of the car: one tall, muscular and completely bald, the other shorter and slightly less muscular. Ryan prayed that they hadn’t seen his headlights or heard his engine. He knew he couldn’t afford a shootout in this car, not with his insurance rates.

  The men didn’t seem to have noticed anything, and they made their way towards the pier and between the skyscrape
rs of cargo containers. They were speaking to each other, but their voices were low and hushed and Ryan couldn’t make anything out.

  Wordlessly, Evelyn slipped the Colt into Ryan’s hand. As she did, their fingers touched for a moment and Ryan felt the incredible heat coming off her skin. Her finger seemed impossibly hot to the touch. She caught Ryan’s eye and whispered in a barely-audible voice.

  “Follow me. Stay low.”

  She slipped out of the car and Ryan followed, trying to silence his footsteps on the worn pavement. Across the street behind them was a single-story administration building next to an empty parking lot whose edges were overgrown with weeds. Before them was the maze of shipping containers that created long, black hallways that Ryan’s eyes could not penetrate. He could hear the gentle lapping of the ocean somewhere beyond the containers, but he knew there were at least a few hundred more yards of concrete pier between him and the water.

  Evelyn slunk low and kept herself in the shadow of one of the walls of crates. What little moonlight there was stopped far short of illuminating either of them, and Ryan followed with the Colt heavy in his already-sweating hand.

  They made their way into the maze at a moderate pace, with Evelyn clearly more concerned with keeping an eye on the two men than she was with being silent. She was dressed for the occasion and, even in the heavy combat boots, her liquid grace made her movements almost noiseless. Ryan on the other hand, had been told nothing of a stealth mission. His dark brown jacket provided some camouflage, but his jeans still swished audibly when he moved.

  There was a dim yellow light at the end of the row and from this distance, Ryan could just make out a small staging area. There were forklifts and a few battered, identical pick-up trucks, as well as a large trailer, the type used as temporary offices on construction sites. The light came from a single, high-powered electrical bulb flickering in its rusted shade mounted high on a pole. It cast its light in a broad, diffused circle and illuminated just enough that Ryan could make out the two men standing beneath it, with a single wooden crate between them.

  Compared to the other cargo containers, this crate was tiny: perhaps the size of a refrigerator laid on its side. It sat atop a large wooden pallet used to transport the crate via forklift. The box was completely unmarked, but it was the only thing the men were paying any attention to.

  “Looks like just the two lackeys.” Evelyn whispered. “Do you see anybody else?”

  Ryan couldn’t see much of anything, but he shook his head nonetheless.

  “Make sure the gun is visible. Try to look mean. If I tell you to, either run like hell or hit the deck.”

  She took a firm grip on the submachine gun with her left hand and drew the silver pistol with her right. The heat was almost exploding off her skin now, and she took a deep breath before stepping out into the light, her eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, chin held high. Ryan followed close behind and tried to puff out his chest. His heart was pounding in his ears and his knees shook from the adrenaline and fear, but he tried to convey an air of danger. For all he knew, he looked like a moron.

  “I don’t know what you two are, but whatever it is, I got no problem with killing it.” Evelyn announced, and the two men spun around to face them.

  Both men’s hands moved to their waistbands, but Evelyn trained a gun on each of them and they stopped.

  “No need for things to get nasty.” She said.

  “You drew first.” Said the man who was larger, nearer, and balder.

  “Just had to make sure we could agree on a nice, civilized conversation.” Evelyn replied, keeping the guns level.

  “That H&K,” the smaller man ventured, indicating the submachine gun, “that’s not cop-issue. You work for the trickster?”

  “I’m an interested party.”

  “Human?” The larger man asked.

  “Only at weddings and during reruns of Gilmore Girls. The rest of the time I’m a stone-cold badass and a crack shot. This is one of those times. Plan accordingly.”

  “We couldn’t tell you anything even if we wanted to. Our boss will pick his teeth with our ribs.” Said the larger man.

  “Well I’m going to kill you if you don’t talk and Hess’ll kill you if you do. I guess the question is who you’re more afraid of.” She replied.

  The small man scoffed. “You’re right. We should side with the bossy teenager over the vampire that owns every inch of this town. How thick-”

  A shot rang out, a deafening bang that reverberated off the steel containers. Ryan and the larger man jumped in surprise, while the smaller man crumpled to the ground and clutched his shattered kneecap that had exploded through his jeans.

  The man screamed in pain and Evelyn leveled the smoking silver gun at his head. His cries immediately died to a whimper as he cowered in fear.

  The uninjured man recovered from the surprise, but simply smiled. “Nothing you could do to us can compare to what Hess does to people who betray him. Hell itself can’t compare.”

  She firmed her grip on the submachine gun pointed at the man. “How about I send you there and you let us know?”

  The man smiled cruelly and a heavy stillness hung in the air.

  “I don’t like killing humans.” Evelyn continued, her jaw set.

  “Then that’s a difference between you and me.”

  Faster than Ryan could blink, the man’s hand shot to his waistband and his fingers closed around a black pistol. Evelyn let loose a burst of machine gun fire at the man’s feet. The warning went unheeded and in a split second, the man had drawn the pistol and raised it to return fire.

  Ryan didn’t even have time to react, but Evelyn, with impossible speed, swung her pistol around and let fly with two rounds that struck the man squarely in the chest. The black gun fell out of his hand and clattered to the ground as he crumpled to the asphalt.

  Evelyn didn’t move or even breathe for a few seconds. She stood completely still with the gun trained on the man, waiting to see if he would get up.

  He didn’t move, but he wasn’t dead. The man’s breath came in ragged gasps and each cough produced more spittle and blood.

  “Watch him.” She instructed Ryan, as she stepped over to the smaller man and stripped him of his weapon.

  Ryan approached the downed man and pointed his gun gingerly at his head. He kicked the black gun away and it skittered beyond the lamplight and into the darkness.

  Evelyn made her way over to the crate and set about trying to open it. They hadn’t brought any tools, and Ryan doubted a machine gun would do much to solve this particular problem.

  As she puzzled over the crate, his gaze fell back to the dying man. The gun in Ryan’s hands was getting heavy, and the adrenaline was making his hands shake almost uncontrollably. As he fought to steady them, a tiny blinking light caught his eye.

  Something inside the man’s front pants pocket was giving off a small red light at one-second intervals. Ryan reached down and pulled out what looked like a small transmitter of some kind. His first thought was a GPS tracker, but then he saw that the transmitter bore a small plastic button that looked like it had been pressed. Ryan’s second thought was bomb.

  “Uhh, Evelyn? We’ve got a problem.” He said, trying to keep one eye on the men in his charge.

  “No kidding.” She replied.

  “No, seriously. Forget the crate.”

  She looked up at him and Ryan tossed her the transmitter. “What is it? A bomb?” He asked.

  Evelyn turned it over in her hands, a quizzical look on her face.

  Suddenly a noise reached their ears from the far end of the cargo container-hallway. It was a rustling that turned into the pattering of and scraping of feet. Many feet.

  Something dawned on Evelyn. “Oh crap.” She said.

  She tossed the transmitter away and picked up her guns. “Run.”

  Evelyn took off at dead sprint and Ryan, confused and anxious, followed her as best he could. Their shoes slapped aga
inst the concrete as Evelyn led them into the maze of shipping containers. The wind rushed past Ryan’s ears and his own breathing came in loud gasps, but he could still hear the scraping behind them. In fact, it sounded like it was gaining on them.

  Evelyn dashed through passageways and barreled around corners, seemingly at random. As far as Ryan could tell, she didn’t have a destination, she was just trying to put as much distance between them and their pursuers as possible. They were failing.

  In the narrow passageways between containers, the blackness was nearly absolute. Ryan couldn’t see much past Evelyn, and he couldn’t see more than a few feet behind him. The only clues he had were the sounds made by whomever or whatever was chasing them. The footfalls and scraping grew louder by the second. Ryan wondered if it could be Grayle and he felt his blood chill in his veins. After a moment however, he realized that if they were being chased by a werewolf, they’d have been dead already. The thought gave him little comfort.

  The two teenagers scrambled around a corner and found themselves back where they had begun. The forklifts, trucks, crate, and trailer were all in the same place, still half-illuminated by the flickering light. The bodies of the two men however, were gone. In their places were long, slick smears of dark red blood that reflected dull light off the black pavement. There were ragged shreds of clothing here and there and small, scattered piles of glistening viscera, as well as the occasional big toe.

  Evelyn hesitated only for a moment. She looked at the carnage and then down the long, dark hallway back to the street. Even Ryan knew they’d never outrun their pursuers back to the Cherokee, not over open terrain. She grabbed him by the arm and they dashed to the far end of the trailer and up the metal steps to the door. Evelyn kicked it in with a loud crack and the two dove inside.

  It was dark in the trailer, but the light from the outside was enough for them to work with. There were two built-in administration desks that supported countless stacks of papers and manifests as well as a pair of ancient desktop computers. To the side was a large gray filing cabinet, which they slid into position as a barricade for the broken door.

  They stood still for a moment to listen. Ryan heard nothing of their pursuers, only his and Evelyn’s panting gasps for breath. He didn’t dare approach the window to peek out.

  “Vampires.” Evelyn whispered breathlessly.

  “Can they find us here?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what do we do?”

  She looked at him, then at their surroundings, then at the windows. “I…don’t know.”

  For the first time, Ryan felt himself become truly afraid. The chase through the pitch-black maze had been frightening, but he had trusted Evelyn to get them out. It had never crossed his mind that they might come up against something she couldn’t handle. It had never crossed his mind that with her, he was anything less than perfectly safe. Now however, the possibility dawned on him: this double-wide trailer may very well become his tomb. Ryan felt a flash of anger at Evelyn for getting him into this situation, and for not having a back-up plan.

  The sound of a faint hiss penetrated the trailer and they crept toward the window. The vampires had returned, and were fighting over the scraps that remained of the two men. There were at least a dozen creatures, and none of them seemed as concerned with finding Ryan and Evelyn as they were with slurping up every last bit of blood from the pavement.

  They fought and jockeyed for position like animals on the Serengeti, but still looked human enough that the behavior shook Ryan to his core. He reminded himself that they were human, or at least that they used to be.

  Even in the low light he could see that their skin was a sickly sallow color, like that of terminal patients in an ICU who were not long for this world. They were very skinny, emaciated, and their loose, saggy skin clung to their bones like a thin shroud. Their fingernails were long, ragged, and yellow, but only in places where they weren’t already caked with fresh or crusted blood. Their hair was patchy and stringy, and in some places falling out altogether. The skin on their heads and faces seemed to be stretched tight over their skulls, and the bones beneath the milky skin protruded at harsh, unsightly angles. This also made the ears stick out more than usual, which gave them the illusion of coming to sharp points at the top. Their mouths were smeared in crimson blood, but long, sharp incisors were visible behind thin, pale lips. The faces themselves were gaunt with sunken eyes that appeared cloudy and dull, but even in this light Ryan could see that there was still something behind those eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t life, or any kind of real intelligence, but these savage creatures weren’t entirely mindless, despite the fact that they had just dismembered and gorged themselves on the life force of two human men. Their mannerisms and actions and especially their eyes all showed signs of some lost humanity, but maintaining that humanity was clearly no longer a priority, not compared to the bloodlust.

  It was that fact that disturbed Ryan the most: these things didn’t look like storybook monsters, they looked, more or less, like humans. They still wore tattered, filthy human clothes and used their opposable thumbs, but they were committing acts of such untamed, feral barbarism that it gave him chills to think about the madness that had been unleashed on these people. In a very real way, Ryan pitied them. At the same time however, he knew that at any moment they could come after him in this trailer. One mistake, one wrong move, and Ryan knew he and Evelyn would be swarmed in an instant.

  He looked over at Evelyn who was staring out the window at the same grisly scene. Her bright green eyes reflected the dingy orange light that flickered like a dancing flame on her irises. There was no fear in her eyes, not so far as Ryan could see, only anticipation. He wished he looked half as calm. Her gaze roamed around the room and fell to rest on a point past Ryan’s head. He turned around and followed her line of sight to a pegboard with a dozen keys hanging on hooks. She gritted her teeth and looked down at the semi-automatic in Ryan’s hand.

  “Turn the safety off.” She whispered.

  “You told me never to turn it off. I still have zero training with this thing.”

  “Fine. Throw the bullets at them for all I care.” She snapped.

  Ryan flicked the safety on the side of the gun. Evelyn peered back out the window.

  “Pull the slide back to chamber a round. You’ve got seven shots, so make them count.” Evelyn instructed.

  “Any…safety tips?”

  “Yeah, don’t shoot me in the ass.”

  Evelyn slunk past Ryan to the pegboard and grabbed a key. She returned and pressed it into his hand as she propped one leg up against the filing cabinet, ready to kick it out of the way. “I’m going to cover you while you grab a truck. Get back here as quick as you can, I don’t think I have enough ammo for all of them.”

  Ryan nodded and looked down at the key in his hand. There was a strip of worn masking tape on the top of it, and scrawled on the tape in permanent marker was #3.

  She looked at him, right into his eyes, and Ryan adjusted his grip on the Colt. Evelyn took a deep breath. “One...two…three.”

  She gave the filing cabinet a hard kick and sent it crashing to the ground. The two burst out of the trailer and Evelyn let loose with a hail of gunfire. The submachine gun rattled through ammunition in short bursts and the Jericho thundered away with ear-splitting bangs.

  Two of the vampires collapsed, even more dead than they were before. The others, however, reacted and attacked with incredible speed.

  Ryan vaulted down the stairs and sprinted towards the parked trucks. As he drew nearer to the vehicles, he heard at least one creature give chase behind him, but he didn’t dare look back until he had to. Ryan reached the trucks and searched desperately for “Truck #3”, but he couldn’t see anywhere they were marked. He spun around and found himself face-to-face with a vampire that had been much closer on his heels than he’d thought. It was perhaps six feet away and as soon as Ryan turned, it leapt through the air at him. Ryan brought up the
gun and squeezed the trigger. The semi-automatic bucked wildly in his hand and caused him to almost lose his grip on it entirely. The bullet sailed off into the night far from its intended mark. He took a split second to recover and readjust, but by then the vampire was on top of him and they both went crashing to the ground between two of the trucks.

  The creature was wiry as a pipe cleaner but deceptively strong. Ryan’s back was on the asphalt, and the vampire was on top him struggling for position as Ryan tried to kick it away. Its breath was a stale, putrid stench that nearly made Ryan gag as he lifted his arm to instinctively cover his throat. It was a stupid mistake that Ryan realized much too late: the blood coursing through his arm was just as appetizing as the blood in his neck.

  The vampire snapped its jaws open and sank its incisors into the flesh of Ryan’s forearm. Any pity Ryan had felt for these creatures had vanished. He cried out in anguish as the sharp pain momentarily blurred his vision. He shook the vampire free and struck it across the jaw as he did. The creature disoriented, Ryan swung his other hand around and stabbed the gun barrel under the chin and into its throat as he pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the neck and spinal cord and sprayed the ground in dark, stagnant blood. The vampire collapsed on top of Ryan, who shoved it off in disgust. He didn’t know if the thing was truly killed or if the brain could simply no longer communicate with the rest of the body, but it wasn’t attacking him anymore and that was good enough. He didn’t want to waste time or ammunition making sure it was dead, he wanted to get out while he could. Ryan allowed himself to feel a twinge of pride at the monster he had felled on his own, but he knew it was still a matter of one down, more than a dozen to go.

  He found the numbers stenciled in black paint on the backs of the trucks, and clambered into number three as he wiped vampire blood from his face with his sleeve. He made sure not to get any in his mouth, even though he had no idea if werewolves were even vulnerable to the vampire virus. Ryan jammed the key in the ignition, floored the pedal, and the truck screeched out of line and barreled back towards the trailer.

  Evelyn had climbed on top of the trailer and was fighting vampires on all sides. The creatures scrambled up the sides of the office and over one another in desperate attempts to claim the fresh blood for themselves. Evelyn let fly with burst after burst of gunfire, but even from this distance Ryan could see that she was about to be overrun.

  He raced to the staging area as fast as the old truck would go and he slammed full-speed into three vampires as he skidded the truck to hasty stop beside the trailer. Evelyn fired off one more burst and leapt into the bed of the truck. The vampires had turned to assess this new threat and Ryan saw all three of his mirrors fill up with the undead.

  “Go!” Evelyn screamed through the cab’s back window and Ryan put sneaker to pedal as they shot off into the darkness. The vampires gave chase, but even they couldn’t keep up with eight cylinders and soon their ghostly white forms faded into the black. Ryan took a long, ragged exhale and focused on getting back to the Cherokee in one piece. He heard a knock on the back window and reached back to slide it open.

  “Pull over!” Evelyn shouted over the rush of wind.

  “No thanks!” Ryan shouted back.

  “Trust me! We need to finish this!” She yelled.

  Ryan fought every survival instinct in his body and screeched the truck to a stop in the middle of the dark hallway. They were perhaps fifty yards from the street and the Cherokee, but already Ryan could hear the footfalls of the vampires closing in.

  Evelyn jumped out of the back of the truck and Ryan slid out of the cab.

  “Get back to your car, get it running. We’re going to have to get out of here fast.” She instructed.

  “I’m sorry, but the speedy getaway is what you just stopped. We were home free!”

  “And leave a handful of vampires running loose? We have to finish it.” Evelyn replied.

  “Do you even have the ammo left?” Ryan asked, not believing what he was hearing.

  “I’ve got enough. Now get back to the street.”

  Ryan left the truck sputtering idle and ran back to the Cherokee as instructed. He fired up the engine and watched through the driver’s side window as the dim form of Evelyn jogged a few yards away from the truck and then spun on her heel to face the coming horde. He watched, but she didn’t move. She didn’t run or hide, she simply stood there.

  Her pistols were in their holsters, the submachine gun slung at her back. With her hands completely empty, she stood between Ryan and the truck, with nothing but the truck between her and the vampires. He saw the first one emerge from the darkness like a pale specter materializing in the fog. Then another, and another. The creatures came to a slow, suspicious halt as they found the truck. They gathered around the coughing vehicle and began to inspect it and the surrounding area. They swarmed over the truck like insects, jumping onto the hood and into the bed, searching for any trace of their quarry…or of blood. Ryan knew they would see Evelyn any second, and he flung the car door open to help just as she made her move.

  She raised her empty hand, palm and fingers extended, and for a long moment, nothing happened. The movement had caught the attention of the vampires, who leapt snarling from the truck and set out after her in unison.

  A brilliant orange flash erupted and seared through the inky dark as the truck exploded in a blinding fireball that created a wave of heat so intense that Ryan could feel it even from this distance. The force of the explosion rattled the cargo containers and reverberated through the night a deafening boom that echoed down both ends of the long metal hallway. He watched as one after the other, each vampire was swallowed up in the explosion and destroyed mid-run as Evelyn dashed back to the Cherokee and threw herself inside.

  “Drive.” She instructed. Ryan didn’t think twice about obeying.

  The Jeep sped away from the dock and Ryan watched in his rear-view mirror as the yellow flames rose and licked at the starry sky. Even with the windows up, Ryan smelled something very close to an odor he thought might be burning flesh.

  “Well there’s something you don’t see every day.” He said.