Real Vampires Don't Sparkle (11 page)

Matheus became increasingly convinced that Quin did not know his ass from his elbow. Sure, they ran a lot, and quite fast, but what evidence did Quin present that they ran
away
from the hunters and not
toward
the hunters? Did Quin possess some ancient undead knowledge that Matheus lacked? Did special abilities skip a generation? Matheus ached in muscles he didn’t even know he owned, and he’d swallowed a bug. He felt it buzz in his throat and everything. Sunrise approached, and they still didn’t have a place to spend the day. Matheus had no experience in the topic, but an educated guess told him death by burning might not be the best way to go. Then again, being technically dead, maybe he wouldn’t notice. A fortnight ago, his only concerns were how to avoid the touchy-feely girl at work and if he needed to pick up peanut butter at the bodega. Now he worried about burning alive—or burning dead—and whether or not the man he was forced to trust with his undead existence actually knew what the fuck he was doing. Caught up in his own whirlpool of anxiety, Matheus didn’t realize Quin had stopped until he ran into him.

“What is it?” Matheus asked.

“We’re being followed,” said Quin.

“No kidding.”

“We don’t have any time. Sunrise is in—”

“Less than an hour,” said Matheus. “I know. I have the same spidey sense you do, remember?”

Quin ignored him. He paced in a small circle, examining the ground. Oak trees surrounded them, most too large for Matheus to wrap his arms around. Ancient roots twisted out of the earth, tangling over one another before delving back into the ground. One of the trees had fallen over, leaving behind a pocket of loose dirt. Quin jumped into the small hollow, kicking at the dirt.

“Help me dig,” he said. “Here, between the roots.”

He tossed a flat stone at Matheus’ feet, and knelt down with a stone of his own.

Reluctantly, Matheus joined him, holding the stone loosely in one hand.

“Why?” he asked. “What are you going to do?”

“Talk while you dig.”

Matheus worked on the other side of the trench Quin created. The earth was a rich, dark brown laced with tiny, hair-like roots. Matheus drove the sharp edge of the stone down, hacking the dirt into fist-sized clods.

“You’re going to stay here,” Quin said. “I’ll lead off the men chasing us.”

“Here?” Matheus paused in mid-hack.

“You’ll be safe underground.”

“You want to bury me alive?” Matheus gaped at Quin, still busily digging as though he weren’t a psychopath of epic proportions.

“You’re dead, Matheus. After sunrise, you won’t know the difference.”

“I’ll suffocate!”

“You don’t need to breathe,” said Quin. “It’s just a reflex.”

“I need air!”

Quin jammed his rock into the ground.

“You don’t.” He grabbed Matheus around the back of the head, and shoved him down into a pile of fresh dirt.

Earth clogged Matheus’ nose and mouth. He tasted dirt, thick on his tongue, positive he felt something wiggling against his teeth.

Quin pushed harder; Matheus’ spine creaked in protest. The muscles in his neck strained to the point of snapping as he struggled to raise his head. He clawed at Quin’s wrist, tearing out furrows of skin.

“Don’t inhale,” Quin said calmly. “You’ll spend a week hacking up mud.”

Matheus beat his fists through the air, landing a few glancing blows brushed aside by Quin. He kicked and squirmed, pinned into place by Quin’s grip. Each second brought more wild desperation. His lungs screamed for oxygen. Except….

They didn’t. He wanted air. His brain told him he needed air. Urgent signals flashed through his nervous system, blissfully ignored by his body. He could have been sitting peacefully on a porch, if Quin hadn’t been shoving Matheus’ face into a pile of dirt that contained God knew how many different kinds of feces. Matheus dropped his hands, forcing his whole body into stillness.

After a second, Quin pulled him up, one hand wound in Matheus’ hair.

“Do you want to die?” he demanded. “Tell me now so I can stop wasting my time.”

Matheus jerked his head away. He spat out a mouthful of dirt, then wiped his tongue on the inside of his shirt. He scraped off the fuzz left behind. With exaggerated care, he searched for his makeshift shovel and began digging. He did not look at Quin.

They dug in silence, piling the dirt into a large mound at the base of the trench. Only thirty minutes to sunrise. The warning pressure pulled through Matheus’ chest. He fumbled with the stone as the numbness set in.

“You’re a bastard,” he said softly.

“I didn’t have time to argue with you,” said Quin. His tone was empty, business-like. In a thousand scenarios, he did the same thing in every one.

“Still a bastard.” Matheus slammed the rock down with unnecessary force. He raised it for another blow, but Quin gripped his wrist, stopping him. For the barest fraction of a second, Matheus thought he would apologize.

Then the sounds of people filtered through the trees.

“Get in,” Quin said.

Matheus lay in the hole before his brain processed the command. He wondered if the ability to cram whole books of threat into two words was innate or learned. Hijacking a body through sheer, animalistic terror had its uses, but Matheus preferred to be on the other end.

“When this is over, I’m not going to leave the shower for a week,” he said. The dirt stuck to his skin and matted in his hair. Quin packed the earth around Matheus, occasionally pausing to stamp down clods with his feet. Matheus’ fingers clenched. He’d never been overly claustrophobic, but each scoopful of dirt felt heavier than the last.

“Stay here until I come back,” Quin said, tramping the dirt over Matheus’ chest. Matheus wheezed as his ribs gained several new dents. “Understand? Do not go off by yourself.”

“Okay,” said Matheus. The overturned tree offered some cover. Quin kicked some leaves into the hollow to hide the disturbed earth, and added a couple of medium-sized rocks for effect. Two thick roots hemmed Matheus in on either side. Small, hair-like roots tickled his skin. Matheus remembered a documentary he’d seen years ago. Wasn’t there some kind of spider that lived underground? He hadn’t watched the entire program; he’d switched over to the History Channel because at least the Third Reich wouldn’t lay eggs in his ears. Matheus wished he’d stuck the program out to the end now. Knowledge of Hitler’s plan for the Russian Front had no use in his current situation.

“Matheus.” Quin knelt beside Matheus’ head, peering down at him.

“I said okay.” Matheus wished Quin would stop looking at him like that. His expression raised all kinds of uncomfortable questions Matheus wanted to avoid, especially with the pressing suffocation/ground spider issues to think about.

“Close your eyes,” Quin said.

“Sunrise soon,” Matheus said as Quin began packing dirt around his head, reminding him of the neck braces EMTs used after a fall.

“I know.” The corner of Quin’s mouth curved up as his snaggletooth made an appearance. “I have the same buggy sense you do, remember?”

“It’s spidey sense,” said Matheus.

“They’re both equally stupid,” Quin said. “Close your mouth.”

“Be careful.” The words escaped before Matheus had a chance to think about them. He pressed his lips together to stop any further ridiculousness, with the practical benefit of preventing Quin from packing yet more dirt into his mouth. Matheus knew his stomach contents contained sixty percent soil by this point.

“Sure,” said Quin. “Sleep tight.”

Bastard
, Matheus thought.

Something wriggled near Matheus’ ear. It touched the shell of his ear, the trickling of tiny feet moving over the lobe to the hard cartilage inside. Matheus tried to brush it away, but his hand remained stuck. He jerked his hand again, felt the muscles strain, but no resulting movement.

Oh, right, buried alive. Or buried undead.

The wriggling thing inched closer, brushing the inside of Matheus’ ear. Matheus had horrible visions of earwigs and egg-laying spiders. He struggled, refusing to spend the rest of his undead existence with his brain half-eaten by maggots.
Brilliant idea, sticking a corpse in the ground with all the creepy-crawly things that just happen to eat dead things. Never mind that the owner of said body is not quite finished with it, thank you very much.
He kicked, edging out hollows around his feet. Quin had stomped the soil into submission, forming a hard shell around Matheus’ body. He continued to scrabble, as the spaces around his limbs grew larger. The weight lessened, and finally Matheus thrust an arm free. He grabbed at the roots, pulling himself up, gasping for air he didn’t need.

Matheus scrambled out of the hollow, then slumped back against a tree. He pressed a palm to his chest, disconcerted by the lack of a racing heartbeat. Earth caked the walls of his lungs. Dirt coated his tongue, gritty between his teeth. Matheus spat, again and again. He shook his head, clods of dirt falling out of his hair. A dust-cloud of earth enveloped his every movement. He had dirt in places he didn’t want to think about. Soil bonded into the fibers of his shirt and pants with the tenacity of Super Glue. Matheus made a note to start billing Quin for his ruined clothing.

Twenty minutes passed before Matheus reached an acceptable level of de-earthment. A respectable pile of dirt rose up around his feet. Matheus kicked at the soil, wondering what the hell happened to Quin. The gray-blue color of twilight darkened into true night, the moon just visible through the canopy of leaves. Maybe Quin got caught on his way to meet Matheus. Maybe the hunters captured him this morning. Maybe he was already dead.

“No,” said Matheus. His voice sounded out of place among the trees. He would know if Quin had died. Part of that claim thing that connected them. That left capture. Matheus groaned. He didn’t want to rescue Quin. The last time he tried to rescue Quin, insane crossbow fetishists kidnapped them both. Maybe Quin didn’t even need a rescue. He hadn’t been very happy about it before.

In the distance, something let out a wailing cry, low note rising midway, like a step on a stairway. Matheus froze. The cry repeated, this time overlapped by an answering call. Animals didn’t make noises like that. The sound came from the beginning of a horror movie, ignored by the protagonists despite being a clear indication to run the fuck away. Taking a step back, Matheus looked left and right. His whole body vibrated with waiting tension. The brush to his right rustled, and Matheus spun around, visions of hunters and mountain lions competing for attention in his mind. The leaves of the brush shook; too late to run. Kneeling, Matheus scrabbled on the ground for some kind of weapon. He grabbed a rock and rose triumphantly, ready to strike the terrible…bunny.

Matheus stared as the small, brown rabbit hopped over to the upturned tree. With a nervous laugh, he let the rock fall. The rabbit took off into the brush.

“Fuck this,” Matheus said, rubbing a hand over his face. He would rescue Quin whether he liked it or not. A rabbit nearly gave him a stroke. Clearly, the woods did not benefit his mental health. Besides, if Quin got all cranky every time Matheus tried to help him, then he shouldn’t have turned Matheus in the first place. Sure, he’d never managed to keep any retail job longer than three months, and spent the majority of his time avoiding human contact, but he still liked to be helpful.

Matheus stomped through the trees. He couldn’t move silently enough to avoid hunters, so he might as well be loud enough to frighten away anything thinking he might make a nice snack. He viewed this as a visit to a foreign planet. Gone were his comforting pavements, familiar streetlamps, and sweet, homey, little 7-Elevens. Anyone who wanted to return to nature needed psychiatric care.

Matheus didn’t know which direction he followed. He’d managed to grasp that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, not the most useful information anymore. Someone had told him that moss grew only on the north side of trees, but apparently forget to tell the moss in this forest. As far as Matheus was concerned, there were two directions: that-way and not-that-way. Quin was that-way. He hoped the hunters were not-that-way.