Blood Run (20 page)

She gazed at him for a moment and then nodded. “Yes. Clear enough.”

He brushed a loose swirl of hair behind her ear. “Your ponytail is coming undone,” he said and leaned to kiss her. She kissed him back, and as they kissed, he pulled the pink scrunchie from her hair, letting it cascade like heavy black velvet down her back. Then, sight unseen, as their lips remained pressed firmly together, her gathered her hair back into a neat ponytail, doubled the scrunchie over and pulled it on. He broke the kiss to look into her eyes. “There,” he said; his voice low and rumbling. “All fixed.”

She smiled, and he felt something loosen in his heart as relief flowed through him.

“Are you two going to eat? Or stand there and kiss all day?” the soldier said, calling across to them from the front of the Humvee. A map had been spread on the hood and anchored with rocks. The soldier next to him laughed into his hand.

Promise blushed, and Peter waved. “We’ll be right there!” he said. Then he looked back down at Promise. “Okay? You’re not mad? Or upset or anything?”

“No,” she said, “I’m not mad or upset or anything. Just hungry.”

“Then let’s eat,” he said and grinned. The grin softened into a smile as he continued to gaze at her.

“What?” she said, smiling back.

He sobered completely, and his eyes seemed to darken as his brows drew together. “I love you, Promise,” he said. It was the first time he’d said it, although not the first time she’d felt it.

She blinked up at him. “I love you, too.”

He cupped the back of her head under her ponytail and kissed her again. “Good,” he said. He took her hand as they walked to the Humvee.

“You two are making me jealous,” the soldier from the passenger seat said, grinning amiably. His nametag read ‘Billet’. “I might have to start kissing on Miller over there.” He indicated a soldier from the lead Humvee.

She looked up from where she’d been sorting through a basket of food on the shoulder of the road. She gave Billet the finger.

The soldiers were all dressed in uniforms of solid black–black cargo-style pants over black boots and black T-shirts covered by short coats that didn’t look very warm to Promise. The thickest part of the coat was a thick, stiff collar–at least six inches high–that would cover the soldiers’ throats. At the moment, they each had the collar disengaged and hanging down their backs.

“In your dreams, Billet,” Miller said.

“In my nightmares, you mean,” Billet said and laughed. The soldier next to him laughed, too. His nametag read ‘Shields’.

Miller shook her head. “Idiots,” she said with disinterested disgust. “Rike? You want cheese or peanut butter?” she called across to the front of the second Humvee, the one she’d been riding shotgun in. A tall man with ‘Riker’ on his nametag was marking something in a notebook.

“Thrill me,” he said mildly, without looking up. “Hey, Billet…was that Hamlet we just passed?”

“Yessir, Hamlet. Should put us at Masonville right around four, four fifteen,” Billet said, his finger on the map.

“Long as one of those horses doesn’t lame up,” another voice came from a copse of bushes about fifteen feet off the road. Another soldier squatted there, facing the woods fifty feet distant. “Unless you think we can fit it in a Humvee if it does,” he said and stood, drawing up his pants. He was not as tall as Riker, but he was thick through the shoulders and chest; like a bulldog. His nametag read ‘Evans’.

Promise, who’d turned toward him at the mention of the horses, turned away, embarrassed to have caught him so obviously relieving himself. “We can just give it a ride to the next animal hospital, right?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and he shot Promise a look of contempt.

“Ev, geez, give it a rest,” Miller said, setting peanut butter crackers down near Riker. “We all know how you feel. Now shut the hell up about it. This isn’t an EST session.”

Riker looked at the crackers and grimaced. He said, “Peanut butter?”

Miller raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders. Then she turned back to Evans. “Where’s Lu?” she asked.

Evans shrugged and bit into a half-eaten beef jerky he’d fished from a front pocket. He chewed. “Dunno. Shitting, I guess.”

Miller glanced at Promise who was rummaging in the food. Promise’s cheeks had colored with embarrassment. “Ev, language? Okay? Do you have to be such an animal?”

Evans grinned at her apishly, bits of beef caught in his teeth. “Me no know what you say!” he said and grunted twice. “Me Tarzan!” His eyes went to Promise and glimmered meanly. “Me want lady to make fu–”

“Enough!” Riker said and slapped Evans across the back of his head. Evans ducked and cursed under his breath, but slunk away toward the lead Humvee, rubbing his head. It hadn’t been a playful slap.

Riker smiled briefly at Promise. “How you holding up?” Riker asked. He was middle-age looking and the one in charge of the detail.

“Fine, no problems. Ash actually seems pretty happy with all the walking,” she said and smiled.

“Let’s hope so. He’s got a good ten to twelve days of it coming up,” Riker said. “When we stop for the night, make sure you look over his hooves very carefully. Check for any small stones, especially. A small enough stone wouldn’t impede him right away, but could crack the hoof over time.”

Promise nodded, her face studious. She liked Riker, had liked him almost on sight. There were aspects of him–especially the gentle lecturing–that reminded her of her dad. She wondered if he had kids of his own, maybe even a daughter.

“Here,” Billet said from behind her. “Keep this flashlight in your kit. It will help you check his feet.” Billet was young, probably not much older than Promise. He had the ingratiating, mischievous manner of a large breed puppy. He handed her the flashlight with a shy grin and then turned abruptly to run back to his Humvee. “Come on, Shields! Get your sorry ass back in the truck, you stupid grunt!”

Shields threw a mock punch, and Billet pretended he’d been hit. He swayed back with a theatrical ‘uuuurrgh’ then snapped up, laughing. They clambered into their Humvee, shooting imaginary guns and dying by turns.

Riker shook his head. “They’re young.” He smiled briefly at Promise then turned back to the vehicles. “Miller, let’s go, we have to make tracks to get to Masonville by four. Hey, Evans, where’s Lu?”

Evans, who’d been laying across the hood of the Humvee, sat up and shrugged his shoulders.

“Yo, Riker! Check this out!”

The voice called from near a low billboard thirty feet ahead. The last soldier–Lu–stood on the shoulder of the road, waving at Riker in a hurry up gesture. His voice was filled with cautious alarm. Peter stood next to him, hands in his pockets, looking at something behind the billboard.

They all went to see what had Lu so alarmed.

Peter stepped away as they approached and grabbed Promise’s hand. “Hold on, don’t look yet. It’s…it’s pretty gruesome.”

From the corner of her eye, Promise caught Evans’ derisive snort and shaking head. Embarrassed annoyance flooded her. “I’m not a baby, you know,” she said quietly, only to Peter, not wanting to make a further spectacle of herself. Then she drew her hand away.

“Promise,” Peter said, taking her face in his hands. “I know that. I wasn’t saying you were. I just want you to be prepared. It’s really–”

Billet flew by behind Peter, his hand over his mouth. He bent double and threw up, yarking painfully. Then he did it again.

Promise looked from Billet to the rest of the soldiers, expecting to see a smirk on at least Evans’ face…but they were all still, staring at the ground.

She looked.

There were two bodies. A man on his back looked at first to be wearing a brownish-red jumpsuit, but then Promise blinked and realized his entire front was covered in dried blood. His throat had been ravaged, but it looked more chewed than sliced. The ridged tube of his esophagus was visible along with the thick, white tendons at either side of his throat. Flies buzzed sluggishly in the cold air.

Half on and half off him was a form that had at one time been human. It was shrunken, wizened, it’s body brownish black and bumpy with layers of thick, deflated-looking yellow skin that Promise realized were drained blisters. Bile filled the back of her throat.

“Oh, man,” Billet muttered unhappily, off to the side. Then he heaved again. Promise felt an answering tug in her own stomach.

Long, white hair lay in clumps around the bodies, tangled in the weeds. The vampire’s head was peeled looking, the skull showing through in places.

Riker stirred and shook himself, like a man coming awake. “Okay, it’s gross, there’s no question, but we’ve seen lots of victims, Lu. I don’t know why you wanted us to…”

“I think it happened in daylight,” Lu said, and Promise, along with everyone else, turned to him.

“What? Lu, you’re out of your mind! You can’t–” Miller started, but Lu cut her off.

“This guy,” he said and pointed to the man with the ripped neck, “was not on a night expedition. Unless he was completely uninformed or clinically insane, he was
not
out at night. Look around…no flashlight, no torch, no stakes, no…
no preparation at all
. He was young, fit, he was obviously collecting stuff.” He pointed to a bag about twenty feet away that had spilled out canned goods, water, books. “He doesn’t have a coat on, even. I’m
telling
you–this guy was attacked in daylight. That’s why it’s–the vampire–is burned up. It came out in the sunlight.”

Lu crossed his arms over his chest and stared away at the horizon. He was on the small side, but very trim and fit looking, his dark eye slightly magnified behind glasses. “This vampire attacked him during the day. I think it might have come out of those woods over there–” He pointed.

Promise turned and looked and was eerily reminded of the day a vampire had chased her and Ash through the woods during the day. Those woods had been thick, like the ones Lu pointed to now, but the day had been much more overcast than this one. Then she remembered that the blood on the man was brown and dried. Whatever had happened had happened yesterday at the earliest. What had the weather been like then?

“It was raining yesterday,” Lu said, and Promise started uneasily. It was almost as though he’d read her thoughts. “Thunderstorms off and on and overcast the entire day; there was no sun. No sun
shining
, I mean.”

The soldiers all shifted and looked at each other. Promise opened her mouth to speak, and Peter squeezed her hand. She looked at him, and there was a caution in his eyes.

“I guess this could have been a half-and-half…maybe that’s why it could go out on a cloudy day. But I hate to think what–” Miller started then stopped, glancing at Peter.

Riker looked up at the sun. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’re wasting time. We’ll talk about it tonight. God knows we’ll have the time then.”

He smiled at Peter and Promise as he went by, but the other soldiers regarded Peter with caution.

~ ~ ~

“Why didn’t you want me to tell them about the vampire that chased me in the woods?” Promise asked. They were back on the horses and trotting quickly along behind the Humvees.

Peter shot her a look of surprise. “You could have told them that. I thought you were going to say something about me.”

“What would I have said? They all know you’re…they all know your story, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they do. I just didn’t want you to have to feel like you had to defend me in any way.”

Promise glanced at the Humvee in front of them. Lu was driving, and Evans was turned, looking at them through the small back window. He was hard to see in the dim vehicle, but she thought he looked contemptuous. Then he turned around.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like
him
.

Peter looked at the woods on either side of the road. They were closing in, getting closer to the road by the mile, and the sun was on the downside of afternoon. He’d be glad when they got to Masonville and were safely in for the night.

He wouldn’t let himself realize that part of his anxiety arose from the fact that the drawing of the night lit a pulse of excitement in his brain, like distant, soundless heat lightning.

~ ~ ~

They’d picked a former deli on the main street of Masonville to stop for the night. Its plate-glass window had been reinforced with plywood, and it was essentially one large room that would easily accommodate both humans and horses. A countertop ran the length of the space, cutting it in half, but the deli cases, slicers, machines, tables and chairs had all been cleared out at some point in the past.

The horses were dozing on the far side of the counter, near the back wall. A Coleman lantern glowed cheerily in the dark room, but no one seemed cheered by it. Promise thought that the corpses by the billboard rode heavily on their minds.

Promise was reminded of the time when the grocery store her dad managed–ShopALot–was bought out by the Market Basket, and her parents had had two gloomy weeks, wondering if her dad was going to be kept on or not. It had been all they could think about, and it had put a pall on every family activity.

She did now what she had done back then: she tried to distract herself and everyone else with conversation.

“How long have you guys been a unit? Is that what you call it?” Promise asked and offered out a handful of candy bars.

Riker stirred and smiled at her, taking a Snickers. “We’re a unit, yes, and let’s see…Miller has been with me for just over a year. Billet and Shields came as a matched set about eight months ago, Evans a month later. I’ve known Lu for ten years, but he’s been in the unit for less than a month. We lost a team member right around Thanksgiving. What
used
to be Thanksgiving.”

“You lost someone?” Promise said with alarm, and Riker smiled.

“Nothing dramatic, she just transferred. We lost her more to boredom than anything else. This kind of detail isn’t for everyone.”

Evans snorted. “Are you kidding? Who
wouldn’t
like to be a glorified mailman?” He smirked, and his eyes slid to Promise. “And a babysitter. Add that to the list of things I can put on my résumé now.”