Blood Run (16 page)

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and his hand went to the back of her neck and squeezed. She felt the soft, muscular creature shift below her bellybutton again.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked, and the teasing had left his voice.

She nodded, just as gravely.

He kissed her again. “Remember to hold on. Remember that I’ve got you.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ll remember.”

Lea called from upstairs, reminding them of sunset, now mere minutes away.

The family room had become very dark, and Promise thought she saw a glimmer in Peter’s eyes, like banked embers.

He stepped back and turned toward the stairs then turned to her again, his foot on the first riser. “See you soon,” he said.

She nodded and then, because it seemed he might never leave as long as he could see her, she turned into the laundry room. She heard him climb the stairs behind her.

She leaned against the back wall and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her heart. She smiled up at Lea who huddled silently over the hole, watching her intently. Then Promise turned to the slit she’d made and watched as the last light seeped slowly from the sky.

She had a clear view of the backyard. The moon was bright, and the sky must have been clear because she could see all the way to the shed. It looked sadly run down. The doors had been ripped off, and the opening seemed to yawn like a terrified mouth under the two little windows. She remembered her dad building that shed the year before Chance was born. She’d been allowed to carefully hand over the tools as her dad had called for them: hammer, flathead screwdriver, Phillips head…they’d laughed together over the last one because her mom had a brother named Philip, and daddy said what a coincidence because Uncle Philip had a screw loose. Promise hadn’t understood, but she’d laughed at the silliness in her dad’s voice.

In the dark laundry room, she hitched in a breath.

“Are you okay?” Lea asked, whispering, leaning as low into the opening as she could.

Promise glanced up and nodded. She gave Lea a thumbs up. Then turned her attention back to the slit.

A shadow flitted behind the fence at the back of the yard, and she took a quick, involuntary step back. It could have been anything. A bird or an owl, maybe even a deer…she’d only caught the barest glimpse of it.

Then she heard the buzzing.

The buzz cycled up and up, almost like a cicada, and then it became a gobbling scream. The hair rose on Promise’s arms, and she glanced up once more at Lea. Lea’s face was drawn in tight lines of dread. She shook her head at Promise.

“It’s okay…” Promise whispered and then vowed to not look up again. She had to keep her eyes on the yard. She looked out the slit in time to see something jump the back corner of the fence and run fleetly along it until it was out of sight at the side of the house. The shadows were such that Promise couldn’t even tell which side of the fence the form was on…but she knew it was close.

Then another form appeared from behind the shed, seeming to materialize out of the darkness. It stood near the front corner of the shed, swaying. Then the scream came again–full of furious hunger–from somewhere at the side of the house, outside of her sight line. Not far, really, from where she stood. Promise felt the compulsive need to check on Lea again, make sure she was there, but she controlled the urge. Lea was there, she reassured herself. Peter and Mark were there. They were all ready. She took another shuddering breath.

A face popped up at the slider, and she nearly screamed.

It was not Chance, it was too big, an adult. This must be the one that had gone to the side of the house. It was hideous in its transformation. Long white teeth and a shredded lower lip as if it had repeatedly bitten itself. Its skin was whitish gray with cheeks sunken under protruding cheekbones. Its chin seemed elongated, and its hair hung in dirty hanks to its shoulders. Promise couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.

The worst were its eyes. They stared into the family room with hungry stupidity, vacant of all thought save the need to feed, the irises seeming to burn from within. It brought up its white, emaciated hands and scratched slowly at the glass, its nails screeing. Promise had a physical sensation of nausea at the noise, coupled with the vampire’s softly rotted appearance. She swallowed, trying to control her stomach. Then she realized she could smell it, she could smell the semi-rottedness of the creature at the door–and hot bile filled the back of her throat.

It smelled like gone-over meat, hot road kill, feces, and blood.

Its searching hands found the opening in the door. It pressed its face between the glass and the trim and sniffed like a dog, big gulps of air that widened its shrunken chest. Then it began to pant in excitement, mewling.

Promise realized that it could smell her. Then its dreadful eyes found hers through the small slit, and Promise felt the blood leave her face. Her heart tripped and stumbled painfully, and she gasped. The vampire came to sudden, violent life, trying to wrestle itself through the gap. It shrieked, and the sound hurt Promise’s ears, and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t; she had to keep an eye on it as it struggled not fifteen feet from her.

“Promise?” Lea’s voice was a terrified whisper.

Without looking up, Promise reassured her: “It’s okay. It’s too big to get in. But, oh god, it stinks…it…just be ready…be ready, Lea.”

The vampire struggled its arms through, grasping and flailing, its long fingers wiggling and flashing whitely in the moonlight. Then it removed its arms and tried to jam its head through the opening, stretching the skin of its face until Promise thought it might sacrifice its face for entry. Then it repeated the process with its arms. Then its head again.

Promise began to have a new sensation: annoyance. How would Chance even get an opportunity to get in if this dumb thing was stuck in the opening like that? But how could she possibly make it leave? If she spoke or yelled or did
anything
…it would only drive it mad with hunger. Eventually, it might even find a way to break the heavy glass, even if it was just by luck.

Then movement at the shed caught her eye. The other vampire was coming across the yard. Great. Now there would be two of them trying to jam themselves through the opening. There was a good chance they’d break it. Promise gritted her teeth in frustration. They were going to have to start all over again. Come up with another idea.

She was just about to call up to Lea to drop down the straps, when the second vampire fell on the first, grabbing at its hair and pulling, trying to yank it out of the opening. The first vampire screamed in outrage and turned, snapping at the second vampire. It bit a chunk from the second vampire’s forearm and spit it out on the patio as if it tasted nasty. They snarled and circled, buzzing low and menacing. Then they leapt at each other and rolled, fighting on the concrete.

Promise felt a whoop of hot elation, and she wished fervently that they’d somehow manage to kill each other. “Do it,” she whispered with horrified, angry conviction. “Kill each other you blood sucking–”

A small, white face appeared at the far side of the glass door. A beloved face, despite the change, despite the need in its vampiricly glowing eyes.

Chance. Her baby brother. Still in his pj’s, although they’d been soiled and torn, the sleeves especially hanging like rags around his thin wrists. He was hunched against the slider in obvious fear of the rolling, fighting vampires. He braced himself against the glass with his small white hand, and his eye skittered from the melee to the family room. In his eyes, Promise thought she read a desperate homesickness; a sad compulsion to be somewhere he felt safe. He looked so small and alone…she nearly cried out. Then she remembered the fighting vampires and bit down on her tongue. It would be dangerous for Chance if she were to draw their attention.

She couldn’t call to him. She’d have to put herself where he could see her, and she had to do it quickly, while the other vampires were still occupied. She took a deep breath and went to the far end of the laundry room. Then she steeled herself and peered around the doorjamb, out into the family room.

Chance was still at the glass, but now his back was to it, little shoulders shaking. He seemed on the edge of flight, spooked by the roaring and buzzing, the bits of flesh and hair flying from the clinched and struggling vampires.

“Chance…” Promise said, and it was barely a breath, but still…he heard.

His head snapped around, eyes staring wildly, searchingly, into the family room. A shudder ran through Promise, and fear pushed hot bile into her throat. The little vampire’s face both
was
and
wasn’t
that of the baby brother she loved so much.

Promise wanted to fade back into the laundry room, so great was her fear and disorientation; instead, she swallowed and lifted her chin, willing calm into her muscles.

She stepped around the corner, fully into his view.

His head swiveled to her. Both his hands came up to the glass, and he hissed. She couldn’t tell if the hiss was surprise, anger, or need. Her eyes went to the other vampires in alarm. So did Chance’s. Then he looked back at Promise. She waved him forward, keeping her movements to the barest minimum so that she wouldn’t attract the attention of the other two.

He glanced again at the vampires, who had now rolled onto the grass, and he slid toward the opening. He hesitated at the gap, sniffing like a dog, then his eyes found hers again.

He slipped into the family room.

She could smell him, but she didn’t think his smell was as bad; not as strong as the adult vampire’s stench had been. His was more barnyard, less abattoir. He was so white and emaciated he almost didn’t exist. Promise was overcome with a wave of pity.

“Chance,” she whispered and stepped toward him, her hands out, beseeching. He looked so sad, so unhappy. Could she get him to fight his condition? It would put an end to the whole nightmare right now, and she would have her dear brother back. “Chance? It’s me, honey, it’s your sister. Remember me? Remember what I promised you? I want to–”

He hitched in a breath and screeched in rage, his hands curling into fists. Fresh terror pounded adrenaline through her body. The fire in his eyes flared furiously alight, flashing orange across the family room. His incisors were long and gleaming; his chin dropped to the point of dislocation. His mouth was a black cavern, and Promise was reminded of the vampire that had chased her through the woods–the soullessness. The futility.

She stepped back, fear nearly buckling her knees, and groped for the laundry room opening behind her. Chance advanced, his tattered pajamas shivering around his thin frame, and he screeched again. Promise could feel it vibrating painfully in her eardrums.

The vampires outside paused in their fighting and raised their heads, looking for the source of the sound.

They saw Promise behind the glass.

The original vampire was up in a split second and battering itself against the opening. The second threw itself headlong into the glass as if it hadn’t seen it. Its skull thonked dully, and a long crack appeared in the door, spiderwebbing out like silver lightning in the moonlit glass.

Chance pressed himself against the back wall and hissed furiously at the vampire trying to force its way through the opening. It hissed back, its features spread and smashed as it tried to push its head in. The other vampire had fallen in a heap and struggled in a dazed fashion, crawling toward the yard. A long flap of skin had peeled off its forehead and dangled over its eyes.

Promise stood on tiptoe, her eyes bouncing from the vampire stuck in the door to Chance. She was too panicked to run.

Then Chance’s eyes slid back to her. They glowed hotly, nearly crackling with heat.

He tilted his head and leapt at her, his mouth yawning wide.

Promise’s paralysis broke, and she turned into the laundry room, screaming. Chance’s hand brushed across her back. He was right behind her.

“Drop the doors! Drop them now!”

As if in answer to her demand, the sliding glass door burst inward with a crashing roar, and the other vampire was in. It scrambled toward the laundry room doorway as Chance rounded into it behind Promise.

“Drop them! Drop the doors!” Promise threw herself against the back wall, not daring to look behind her.

Seeing her trapped in the laundry room, no other way out, Chance screamed in triumph.

Promise closed her eyes.

The doors fell.

The rest came to Promise only faintly as she flirted with consciousness, nearly overcome by shock. The straps dropped down, and Peter yelled her name. Chance battered himself against the heavily reinforced door that separated them. The other vampire screamed in rage outside the laundry room.

She wound her arms through the straps, but had no strength in her hands. She fumbled, and they slipped from her fingers. She mewled in stunned and disbelieving terror and tried to pick them up again. Chance screeched and pounded on the door, each flat smack making her jump, making her heart race to the breaking point.

The first vampire had found the slit she’d put in the wall to be able to see into the family room. It scratched at the opening, screeching madly, its fingers wiggling, trying for purchase. Promise’s vision honed down to a blurry pinpoint. Something small but nasty struck her in the face, and she flinched back, her knees buckling. She began to slide down the wall, her eyes closing.

Someone grabbed her shoulders in the small, cramped space, and Promise screamed in despair, lashing out.

The vampire had gotten in.

Now it would kill her.

“Promise, it’s me,” Peter’s voice was warm in her ear, and his arms went around her. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“Peter,” she whispered, and her consciousness waned further. She sagged against him.

Then she felt herself being lifted, his hands steady on her waist as he raised her straight up. “Reach out,” he said, his voice showing no strain from her weight. She had the briefest sensation of flight, then her hands were grabbed from above as Lea and Mark pulled her up and out.