“Hey! You okay, kid?”
She swam closer and he put down his fishing pole. He didn’t like kids, but he wasn’t an asshole about it. She obviously needed help and he wasn’t about to let her drown.
He reached out a hand and she took it. When he pulled, she came out of the water, her clothes stuck to her developing body like a second skin. He was embarrassed to notice that she had breasts.
While he was looking, she bit into his weathered neck and pulled him closer. He tried to fight, but she was too strong for him. Their struggles wound up knocking them both into the water.
She took her food with her and went back to the cave. It was scary in the waters and she had always been a poor swimmer, but it was easier now that she didn’t have to breathe.
V
The fire at O’Malley’s brought three engines worth of firefighters. They worked hard to put out the blaze and in the end they succeeded. The Tripp family thanked them for their efforts by killing them. The hunger had grown overwhelming and they needed sustenance.
Alan Tripp was the one that suggested taking them back to the cave. Meghan agreed and Avery too, just as soon as Alan told him he could drive one of the fire trucks.
The resulting accident left several cars mutilated beyond repair and caused another fire. No engines responded to the frantic phone calls.
VI
Maggie and Ben got back to the apartment complex as quickly as they could. Ben had held up pretty well, all things considered, but he was having a little trouble handling the frat boys from hell.
“I can’t believe this shit. I knew those guys.” He was a little obsessive about it. He didn’t say much, but he said it several times. Jason had told her they were taken care of, and she thought that meant he’d destroyed the bodies.
Her mistake; she’d trusted him. It would not happen again.
Ben was looking a little off, his face was almost too loose for his skull and he was staring a lot. Staring at nothing, but definitely looking at it intently.
“Ben?”
“Hmm?” He shook himself out of it. “Yeah?”
“I think we should stay in tonight.”
He chuckled. “I’m not going out there again.”
She pulled off her wig and looked him over. He was still in the clown outfit, and he looked lost inside of it.
“Good.” He wanted to drift again she could tell and so she kissed him. It wasn’t long before he was fully focused on her. When she broke the kiss, he was looking into her eyes again, seeing whatever it was inside of her that fascinated him.
“Remember what you said before about us working everything out?”
“Yeah, of course I do.” He shrugged.
“Did you mean it?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m being goofy, I know that, Maggie. It’s just a lot to take in.” He stepped back from her, suddenly self-conscious again.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You always back away from me.”
“I don’t . . .”
“Yeah, you do.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know how to say it.”
“Say what? Tell me.”
She reached out and took the nose off his face. Then she pulled the wig away. His short hair was plastered to his scalp.
“It’s stupid.”
“What is, Ben?”
“I love you, Maggie. Okay? Satisfied? Ready to have your laugh?” He was bitter, expecting her to knock him down and kick him once he had fallen.
“Am I laughing?”
Ben shook his head, refusing to look at her again. She took his hand and brought it up to her lips, kissing his fingers. “I like you, Ben. I like you a lot. But I’ve been having a few complications in my life.”
That brought a small laugh from him.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t think of you as a friend, okay? Maybe my only friend in the world. I don’t think I could have made it through the last few days without you.”
He nodded slowly, still not looking at her. She moved closer and kissed the side of his face. “Stay with me tonight, Ben? Just be here and stay with me?”
“Yeah, of course.” Like it was the easiest thing in the world dealing with what he knew was a monster that had killed before and would again. She still couldn’t believe that part of it. He trusted her even with all that had happened.
She took off the oversized shoes still on her feet and Ben laughed suddenly. “Oh my God, you carried me halfway here wearing those stupid things . . . we must have made one hell of a sight.”
“Two-headed clown monster from hell.” She nodded her agreement. It was funny, but nothing seemed worth laughing at anymore. “How do you know you love me, Ben?”
“I just do.” He shrugged as he pulled off his shoes. Then he sat down to peel off the ridiculous pants he’d been wearing for the entire night. He had jeans on under them. Of course he would, it was the way he was.
“Well, try to explain it because I can’t quite get that part.”
“I’m happier when you’re around. Even with all the weirdness, I would rather be with you than have you gone.”
“Are you sure about that? Really sure?”
“Yeah, of course.” He said it like there was no doubt in his mind. “Maggie, I know all about the fangs and the people you killed and all about what you do for a living and what you did with Jason and Tom and everything, and I don’t care about any of it. I can fix whatever goes wrong whenever I can and I can cover for you and help you work out all of the shit that’s coming down around us, and it doesn’t bother me.” He stared hard at her, his eyes still looking into hers for whatever it was. “I can do all of that and I’m fine. But I can’t stand the idea of not having you around in my life. If that isn’t love then it’s close enough for me.”
She moved to where he sat and settled in next to him. Did she feel the same way? She didn’t know. She’d have to think about it, because just lately she wasn’t feeling much of anything. She’d been putting everything on hold for so long she didn’t know if the lack of emotions was just a natural reflex or something else that Jason had done to her.
Maggie pulled his head closer to her, and rested his head on her shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested; his breathing soft and rhythmic against her skin.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s close enough for me, too.”
VII
The fog was a joke. They couldn’t see ten feet in front of them when they hit the woods, but they kept walking. Danny was back to his normal self, which meant he wasn’t looking like he wanted to puke anymore. Boyd was sort of feeling like himself now, but only sort of. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the whole dead-people-who-weren’t-dead thing, but at least he knew they could be hurt. They could be stopped. He’d worry about how to dispose of the crawling body parts later.
“You hear something, Richie?”
“I hear you breathing like you’re gonna take a crap in your pants.”
“Yeah? Smells like you already did.”
“That would explain the wet all over my ass.”
“Seriously, though, I can hear something.”
“So check it out.” He took the shotgun and aimed it. “You got something ugly, I’ll blow its head off.”
“Yeah? What if it’s something pretty?”
“Then we can take pictures and maybe get an autograph.”
Danny crouched lower to the ground and craned his head, listening intently. Finally he reached out and grabbed at a tree base, pulling out a heavy coat. From behind it a little girl let out a squeal and tried to crawl deeper into the knothole she’d been hiding in.
Danny looked at the girl. She flinched, and shivered in her hole. “Come on, sweetie, come on out of there, we’re here to help.”
She made a sound that let him know she trusted him as far she trusted a big, fat spider sitting on her nose.
“Come on now, do I look like a bad person to you?”
Boyd shook his head and grinned as the little girl stared at Danny and let out a very small smile. He doubted there was a girl in the world that would think Danny looked like a bad person. At least until he didn’t call them back after a night of gnarly sex. As the girl was way too young for Danny, she was probably thinking he looked just swell.
She crawled out of the tree and looked at him with wild rabbit eyes. Danny leaned back a bit and waited, making no sudden moves. Finally the girl came all the way over to him.
“Did anyone hurt you, honey?”
“No. I wanna go home.” She was petulant. He felt the same way, but couldn’t really do anything about it and didn’t think Danny’s arms around his shoulders would make him feel any better.
“Well, we’re gonna try to get you there.”
“What’s your name, honey?” She almost jumped. She hadn’t seen Boyd and was looking at him like he was a very large frog. Next to Danny he was, but so were half the guys on the planet.
“Jayce.”
“Well, Jayce, why don’t we get you home?”
She put her hand in Danny’s when he offered it up, and they started back toward the main road. They’d have to look for Soulis in a little while. The idea of dealing with him while they were dragging around a little girl didn’t sit too well.
“Where’s Kelli? Did she send you for me?”
Boyd ground his teeth together and reached for a cigar. Kelli was probably the cute girl who’d lost her entire extended family. He hadn’t seen her and doubted that he would.
“Yeah, honey, she did. Said she had to leave a real cutie out here and go for help.”
“She’s okay?”
“She was the last time we saw her.”
“Good. I like Kelli. She’s nice.”
Something was moving out in the woods, moving up in the trees. It didn’t sound like a cat or a raccoon.
“Hey, Jayce?”
“Yes sir?”
“Did you see any of the creeps running around in black suits?”
“Un hunh.” She didn’t sound really keen on them.
“Want to see any more?”
“No.”
He walked over to the coat Danny had pulled away from the tree and picked it up. “Why don’t you put this over your head for a minute, okay?”
She looked at him like he’d spoken in ancient Aramaic. “Why?”
“Because things are about to get loud and messy, honey, and you don’t want to see it.”
She put the coat over her head and stood perfectly still. Boyd looked up into the trees and pulled his Dirty Harry piece.
“Gimme my shotgun, Richie.”
He threw the weapon and Danny had to reach but he caught it.
Three of the damned things dropped out of the trees like they were on bungee cords and not at all worried.
Danny got a smile on his face and yelled “Pull!” like he was at the skeet range. He nailed the first one to the tree, blowing its head clean off.
Boyd caught the second one in the groin with a glazer. Most of its legs slapped the ground on either side where the rest of the torso landed. It let out a scream. Once it had been a reporter that Boyd had never much liked. He’d have let it sit there and look at its legs, just out of easy reach, but it started screaming obscenities and there was a kid present. He took off its head.
Jayce was wearing her coat, so she didn’t get covered in its blood. She let out a scream anyway.
The third one jumped at Danny like a cat pouncing at a mouse. Not a very smart cat, mind you: Danny still had the shotgun. Danny pulled the trigger just as its mouth was coming to bite his face off.
It did a great back flip and fell down, twitching, the stump where its neck and left shoulder had been was dark and oozing, and it was still trying to crawl away. Danny blew its back all over the mulch.
“Well, that was fuckin’ disgusting.”
“Language, Danny Boy, we got a little kid here.”
“I heard my daddy say it. It’s okay.” The girl’s voice was muffled by the coat.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s fucken go.”
“You said it too!”
“Honey, you can even say it if you want.”
“I can?”
“Yep.” Boyd rolled his cigar around.
“Then can I fucking go home?”
Danny laughed and so did Boyd. They led her a distance from the carnage before they let her take off the coat. By then, they had both reloaded.
VIII
The people of Black Stone Bay never knew what hit them, and Jason Soulis smiled at that thought.
Throughout the streets, the corpses of the recently murdered lay spilled like garbage from a torn Hefty bag. If he had his way, they would not stay dead for too long. They would come back and he would hide them away and try again to make a stronger, smarter vampire. Some of the ones he had hidden away had already proven themselves; they were more able to think and the survival rate for the first few days was promising.
There was something about coming back from the dead that left them dazed, as evidenced by the boys from the fraternity house. Only one day back from the dead and not a one of them seemed capable of even remembering his name.
Then again, he had doubts they could have remembered their names even if they were still alive. They had more money than brain cells.
He moved back toward his home. He had enough bodies for the caves and he would soon discover if the town of Black Stone Bay would know how to keep the newly dead from rising. For now, he was finished with the night and wanted to recover.
He spotted the detectives and their young charge as he was descending and decided to wait. They were aggravated, and they were determined to see him.
He wondered if they would die well and decided that it didn’t matter. He would kill them and they would rise and he would be fine with that.
In the distance he saw fire engines rolling toward the Cliff Walk. He knew who was driving them. He knew that they carried a lot of bodies. All the better.
He scanned the horizon as he descended and saw that three police cars were heading toward the finer homes as well.
“All right then. One last dance before I sleep.”