Dark Corner (55 page)

The vampire disappeared. Just like that. He was gone.

The door yawned into the stormy night.

Each man in the room released a chestful of air. Then the
door, propelled by an unseen force, slammed shut, and someone cried out, "He's behind us!"

Andre looked. Diallo was behind the pool table, gripping
a billiards stick. The man nearest the vampire tried to fire his
pistol, but he was too slow. Diallo drove the stick through
the guy's chest like a man spearing a fish, the bloody tip poking out between the victim's shoulder blades. The man choked
out a garbled scream, his arms flailing uselessly at the wooden
pole.

Diallo lifted the man high and flung him across the room.
The guy crashed into the pinball machine, leaving a smear of
blood across the display.

Andre's stomach convulsed. He tasted warm beer bubbling up his throat.

"Shoot him, goddammit!" Mr. Clyde said.

Andre covered his head, and dropped to the floor.

Mr. Clyde's shotgun boomed. More guns fired as the men
attacked the monster. Bullets hammered Diallo, but he did
not fall, stumble, or bleed. The bullets seemed to bounce off
his body. Crouched, Andre could see the floor around Diallo:
rounds rained to the hardwood.

He had to get out of there, that was the only way he could
survive.

Across the room, Diallo grasped the edge of the pool
table. He flipped it across the floor as though it weighed no
more than a dinner plate. It slammed against the wall, bil liard balls flying, and the men tried to scatter out of the way,
but one of the men got trapped between a wall panel and the
pool table, and Andre swore he could hear the sound of the
man's chest being crushed under the weight. The guy's
scream ripped through the air.

Andre rose higher. He was about to make a run for the
door, when a beeline of men got there before him and tried
to open it. But it would not open. Somehow, Diallo had sealed
the door.

I'll go to the back, Andre thought. The hallway behind
him was as dark as a snake's throat.

Three men rushed Diallo at once.

Diallo lifted a chair and brought it down on the first guy's
head, busting his skull and shattering the chair, the man
going down in a hail of wood shards. Diallo plunged his fist
into the second man's solar plexus, drove it all the way into
the man's guts, then snatched out his hand with a bloody fistful of intestines, the dead guy collapsing, legs kicking. The
third man tried to tackle Diallo, but Diallo clamped his
hands on his skull and twisted so fast the man's head came
clean off. Diallo hurled the decapitated head across the
room, where it smashed into the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar.

Mr. Clyde yelped like a frightened child and took cover
beneath the counter.

Andre didn't know whether to piss his pants, or vomit. He
was so scared he thought he could do both.

There were only five men left, including Andre. Two men
strained in vain to open the door, Booker T hid under a table,
and Mr. Clyde had vanished behind the bar.

Diallo strolled to the guys near the door. They began to
cry.

One of the men kneeled, arms raised in supplication.

Now 's my chance, Andre thought. I'm not kneeling before
that motherfucker. No way.

Staying low, he bolted into the black hallway. Heart beating so hard he thought he might pass out. He couldn't see a
damn thing back here. Where was the door?

He shouldered open a door, went into a small room lit
with a candle. It was the washroom. Shit. How could he get
out? He saw a square window high up on the wall. But the
window was too small for him to squeeze through it.

He had to find another way.

He ran into the hall. A giant hand closed over his throat.

Andre gasped, beat his hands at the body in front of him,
but it was like punching a concrete wall.

The vampire lifted him in the air. Andre's feet dangled
above the floor.

Just when he thought he would black out, the vampire
threw him. He whammed against a table, pain barking in his
shoulder, salt-and-pepper shakers knocking against his head.

He was woozy, and in a universe of pain, but he had the
presence of mind to look around. Four men, including Mr.
Clyde and Booker T, knelt near the bar, like sinners at a confessional. Diallo towered above them, an unholy priest.

"Join us," Diallo said. He extended his hand. His eyes,
black as bottomless wells, fixed on Andre.

Andre spat out a mouthful of blood.

He crawled across the floor, straightened up.

And kneeled.

"King!" Nia whistled. "Come on, where are you, boy?"

She was in an alley, between rows of houses and short
brick buildings. Thickets of darkness surrounded her on every
side. Wind blew scraps of litter around her, the scraping of
trash against gravel sounding like a bony finger scratching
against a coffin lid.

She hugged herself against the chill breeze and the
deeper chill that had sunk into her marrow.

"King, wherever you are, come on out"

No answer. Only the rasping wind.

What had gotten into the dog to make him to run off? He
had seemed like such a well-behaved animal, as clever as a
person, in some ways. Much like her own lost dog, Princess,
she remembered with a pang of sorrow.

She walked along the alley, her running shoes scattering
pebbles here and there.

"King, come here, boy. It's Nia."

She might as well have been addressing the wind; it
would've given her more of a response.

She checked her watch. Ten minutes until she had to meet
David. She didn't want to return without his dog. Although
David didn't blame her for King's slipping away, she felt responsible for allowing the canine to scramble out of the
truck. King was like a kid brother to David. Losing the dog
would crush him.

"King, come on out, boy!"

The wind died. A hush fell over her.

She heard, somewhere ahead, a low growl.

Her fingers tightened around the leather dog leash. She
jogged forward, lightly, to minimize the sound of her shoe
soles striking the ground.

On her left, there was a brown wooden fence. The big
gate, wide enough to admit a truck, gaped open.

She thought the growl had come from that direction, but
she wasn't sure. It was worth a look.

She stepped inside the enclosure. A blue Dumpster on her
left. Stacks of wooden pallets and milk crates on her right. In
front of her, a low, gray brick building.

After performing a quick mental reorientation, she recognized that she was behind Mac's Meat and Foods.

One of the steel double doors at the back of the store
hung open, giving her a glimpse of a slice of darkness beyond. It puzzled her. Mac ran a tight ship; everyone in town knew that. He would never have closed the market without
fastening those doors.

What was going on?

The soft canine growl reached her again. It was definitely
coming from inside the store.

What was King-if it was really King inside-doing in
there? What was he growling at?

The dog could have been agitated by anything. Something
as small and harmless as a cat. Or something bigger and far
more dangerous.

Her hand went to the revolver on her hip holster. She unsnapped the holster's buckle, drew out the gun. She wrapped
the dog leash around her wrist to get it out of the way.

She moved to the doorway. She cocked her head, listened.

Silence, taut with tension, as if whoever-or whatever
was inside, was holding its breath. Just like she was.

She dug the mini flashlight out of her fanny pack. She
swept the thin blade of light across the darkness inside.

A small chamber, full of crates and boxes. But no one
was inside.

In the far corner, there appeared to be another door, half
open.

She checked her watch again.

Seven minutes, then I've got to go. I want to find King and
I think he's in there, but I promised David that Id return on
time. Promised him that I'd find the dog, too.

She pushed open the door and crept into the darkness beyond.

Jahlil had to get his father to a hospital immediately.

The siren wailing on the patrol car, Jahlil sped along the
dark streets. He ran through stop signs without slowing. No
one was out driving, and even if they were, he was in a cop
car, and they should get the hell out of his way.

In the backseat, Dad groaned.

"I'm gonna get help for you, Daddy," Jahlil said. He
glanced fearfully at the rearview mirror. Dad was slumped
in the seat, eyes shut, his face greasy with sweat. Jahlil
squeezed the steering wheel. "Just hold on, Daddy, hold on,
please."

After that fucking vampire, Kyle, had stabbed Dad in the
chest (not in the heart, thank God), Jahlil had shot the monster between the shoulder blades. But he hadn't killed the
vampire. Screaming in anger, the creature had jumped out of
the truck and flown away into the night, like a giant bat. He
hadn't attacked Jahlil, which was weird. Maybe the asshole
figured that the worst thing he could do to Jahlil was try to
take his father away from him. If that's what he'd been thinking, he was right.

The other vampires had chased after the rest of the people
on the patrol teams. Those folks cut out so fast it wasn't
funny, some of them on foot, some of them in their cars.
Within minutes, the parking lot was empty, and Jahlil was
left with a dead man in the flatbed, and his father.

Somehow, he'd driven to Dad's police car, gotten a first
aid kit out of the trunk, and found some pads he used to
staunch the flow of blood from Dad's wound. There was so
much blood Jahlil had vomited on himself. But he was still
able to keep going, and tape bandages on his father's chest.
He'd carried Dad to the car and slid him across the backseat.
Before he peeled away, he said a quick prayer over Old
Mac's body, then peeled the flamethrower off the man's back
and stored it in the trunk.

On the walkie-talkie, he tried reaching the other team
members, so they could tell him where he could find Dr.
Green. But no one answered him. He wouldn't have been
surprised if everyone had split town, the cowards. He was on
his own.

He didn't know how he kept going in the face of all this misery and madness. He felt as though he were in a feverish
daze, or in a really bad dream.

He pushed the car hard. It pissed him off that the bloodsucker bastards had taken over the hospital in Dark Corner,
but there was nothing he could do about it. Outside of town,
the nearest medical center was in Hernando, about fifteen
minutes away-when driving at the speed limit, that is. He
wanted to get there in half the time.

He swerved onto Main Street, at high speed. The tires
squealed, and the car tipped to the side slightly, but he didn't
roll over. On the straightaway road, he blasted the gas pedal.
The engine cried out like a horse popped with a whip, and
the vehicle rocketed forward.

The fastest way to Hernando was to take Main Street to
the Interstate 55 North exit, then zoom ten miles down the
highway. The 1-55 exit was just past the bridge that spanned
the Coldwater River. Only a mile or so ahead.

Dad groaned again, softer this time. Weaker.

"Hang on, Daddy!" Jahlil pleaded. Oh, God, he just
couldn't think about Dad not making it. Couldn't. Wouldn't.

But Dad had lost so much blood, it was like someone had
dumped a bucket of red paint on him ...

"He's going to make it," Jahlil muttered to himself. That
was it, end of story. Period.

Ahead, the metal bridge floated into view.

He rammed the accelerator to the floor. The speedometer
ticked to eight-five ... ninety ... ninety-five ... one hundred ...

Hunched over the trembling wheel, he ground his teeth so
hard that his jaws ached.

One hundred and ten ...

The bridge was a couple hundred feet ahead.

Then he saw something unbelievable.

"Oh, fuck!"

He frantically mashed the brake pedal.

The car screeched, skidding to a delayed stop that carried
him a quarter of the way across the bridge.

If he had rolled only twenty feet farther, he would have
been dead.

Because the bridge had been torn in half. Beyond his
side, the support beams had been scorched and twisted, and
the roadway was split, as if karate-chopped by a giant; the
mangled road dropped steeply into the river below.

Jahlil hammered the steering wheel. "Shit, shit, shit!"

He knew what had happened. That fucking vampire,
Diallo. He had done this. Somehow. He had probably thrown
lightning bolts at the bridge, like he was Zeus or something.

Shit!

His eyes getting watery, he slammed into reverse, rolled
off the bridge and back onto Main Street. He switched off
the siren.

He looked over the seat to check his dad. Dad was unconscious, and he wasn't moaning anymore, but his chest rose
and fell slowly, a good sign. It could be worse.

"Just keep hanging on, Dad," Jahlil whispered.

But what was he going to do now? Without access to I55, he'd have to take a bunch of winding country roads to get
to Hernando. And that damn vampire had probably blocked
those routes, too. He was a slick bastard.

"Think, man," Jahlil ordered himself.

He remembered that Dad had advised him to call David
Hunter if anything bad happened. He didn't know what
Hunter could do to help him, or if Hunter was even around,
but it was the only decent option he had left.

The cell phone was stashed in the cup holder. Thankfully,
Dad had programmed Hunter's cell number in the phone.

I hope he's not gone, too, Jahlil thought, pressing the button to dial the number. It seemed like everyone else was.

For once, Jahlil had a stroke of good luck. David Hunter
answered on the first ring.