“Well, there are one or two little bits of mild unpleasantness we have to deal with before we can move on to the fun stuff.”
“Such as?”
Tom’s expression was mildly pained. Even so, the smile never entirely went away. How was that even possible? It was creepy as fuck.
“Well, and I apologize in advance for this part, but there’s simply no way around it…we do have to kill you.”
Monroe made a dash for the heavy iron door, seizing the handle with both hands and tugging at it with all his strength. There was no thought in this. Just instant reaction. Surrender to primitive instinct and panic. A wild and uncontrolled drive to escape, regardless of how impossible it seemed.
The door didn’t budge.
Monroe screamed.
“SHIT!”
He tugged at the handle again, screaming.
Behind him, Tom was laughing again. “Door’s electronically locked. That sound you heard in the waiting chamber of a bolt being thrown back? Another sound effect.”
Gotta get out, gotta get out, gotta get out—
Tom chuckled, right behind him now. “All right, enough of that nonsense.”
He seized Monroe by a bicep and pulled him away from the door with astonishing ease. Then he spun him around and started dragging him across the room toward the elevated space where the Jacuzzis and bikini-wearing girls were. Monroe flailed and struggled to tear himself free from Tom’s grip, but the guy’s strength was inhuman. Which made sense, what with him being a goddamn vampire.
The girls all turned smiling faces their way as they reached the Jacuzzis. Some were sitting on the edges of the Jacuzzis, while others were fully in the water. Even in his terrified state, Monroe couldn’t help noticing how gorgeous they all were. Each was gifted with
Playboy
centerfold racks and curves. Theirs were the faces of perfect, slutty angels.
One of the girls, a stunning brunette with flowing shoulder-length hair and eyes a brilliant shade of blue, swiveled her hips on the edge of the nearest Jacuzzi, turning herself to face them fully. “Who have you brought us tonight, Tom?”
Despite everything, Monroe couldn’t help laughing.
Tom.
Well, that’s fucking convenient.
“His name’s Monroe. Be gentle with him, girls. Don’t make him all the way dead. Monroe’s a special case. He’s to become one of us.”
The blue-eyed brunette beauty smiled. “Wonderful. About time we got some new blood in here.”
Monroe looked at Tom. “Dude, I don’t wanna be a vampire.”
Tom’s grin took on a wicked aspect. “Tough shit.”
He grabbed Monroe with both hands, lifted him as easily as he’d lift a child, and tossed him into the nearest Jacuzzi. Monroe plunged into the water, his head sinking fully beneath the surface for an instant before several sets of hands seized him at once and pulled him back up. He gasped for breath, blinked water out of his eyes, and stared around him at the bevy of curvaceous, dripping-wet bikini beauties.
They were all smiling very broadly.
Too
broadly.
Fangs popped at the corners of all those lovely mouths. And then they were all tossing their heads back and doing this totally unnerving, weird hissing thing.
Aw, crap.
And then they were on him.
It felt like heaven at first. All that soft, jiggling female flesh pressing against him from every angle.
And then it hurt.
A lot.
Chapter Thirteen
Stalled and wrecked cars choked the streets of the ruined city. Jason was nonetheless able to navigate his way through by using sidewalks and road shoulders, as well as by occasionally exploiting gaps in the unmoving sea of automobiles. There were bodies in varying stages of decomposition in some of the cars, while others were empty. Other corpses were splayed across medians. Still others had fallen in the road. Jason frequently had no choice but to drive over the ones in the way. This made all of them, even Brix, a little queasy each time it happened.
There were more zombies everywhere she looked. Not huge throngs of them like in a lot of movies. Their ranks were thinner than that. But they were numerous enough to present a significant problem. The shambling forms would stop at the sound of the approaching engine noise and turn in that familiar clumsy way to eye them hungrily. And then the zombies would stagger in their direction. Some moved in a steady yet relentless gait. Others fell over after a step or two. The ones that fell would often have trouble regaining their feet, but even those refused to give up the scent of the fresh flesh that had entered their vicinity, crawling or using their hands to pull themselves forward.
For Brix, it was all a little unnerving, but she was staying mostly calm now.
Nikki, however, was becoming completely unhinged. She bounced up and down in the back, occasionally pounding her fists in frustration and uncomprehending rage against the back of Jason’s seat. She cried. She screamed. And over and over, she asked the same maddening, unanswerable questions.
“What’s going on? How did all this happen while we were in the theater? It doesn’t make any sense. Nothing makes any fucking sense. Why isn’t anyone explaining this fucking shit to me? How did this happen?
How-how-how-how-how-how-how—
”
Enough.
Brix turned in her seat and aimed the Glock at Nikki. “Shut up. Now.”
Sudden, shocked silence.
But only for a moment.
Nikki reared back and kicked the back of Jason’s seat with the flat of a foot, hard enough to make Jason lose his grip on the steering wheel for a moment.
Jason’s head snapped backward for a second as he leveled an angry glare at his girlfriend. “Knock that shit off, Nikki! You almost made me crash.”
Nikki kicked the seat again, harder than before.
“Fuck you, Jason! That bitch is pointing a gun at me! Fucking make her stop right fucking now!”
Everyone cringed at the volume she was able to generate that time.
Jason shot an apologetic look Brix’s way. “Um…could you maybe stop pointing that at her? Just, you know, so we could have a more peaceful ride.”
“I ought to blow her brains out.
That
would make things more peaceful.”
Jason looked pained. “Hey, come on…she’s my girlfriend.”
Brix snorted. “You poor bastard.”
Nikki laughed. “Wow. What an unbelievable cunt you are. You were treating Jason like scum before all this went down. Now you’re all fucking
interested
in him all of a sudden. Don’t even lie, bitch, I can see it in your eyes.”
“You’re crazy.”
Nikki laughed. “I’m not. And two can play this game.”
She scooted closer to Trevor and put her hand on his knee, maintaining eye contact with Brix the whole time. Trevor had been sitting there in stunned silence, looking shell-shocked at being so close to all that noise and rage. Now he just looked startled and scared, almost like a mouse suddenly cornered by a pouncing cat.
Brix glared at her in simmering fury for a long moment. Then she pulled the gun away so that it was no longer pointing at Nikki. “There. You happy? I’ve done what you wanted. Now get away from
my
boyfriend.”
Nikki smiled as she turned away from Brix, wrapped her arms around Trevor’s neck, and leaned into him to press her mouth against his, thrusting her tongue between his parted lips. The kiss went on for several seconds while Brix fumed and Trevor made muffled noises of protest.
Jason had noticed what was going on and now he sounded pissed. “Jesus, Nikki. Cut that shit out right now.”
Nikki broke off the kiss and smiled darkly at the back of his head. “Or what?”
“Or this.” Trevor shrugged free of her embrace and shoved her roughly away from him. “Let that be the last time you lay your skeezy hands on me, bitch. I wouldn’t want you if you were the last girl on earth.”
Brix smirked. “That’s my boy.”
Nikki glared hatefully at him for a moment.
And then she erupted again, screaming yet again and kicking the back of Jason’s seat with both feet. The seat rocked forward with tremendous force, startling Jason and sending the steering wheel spinning out of his grip. Instinct made Brix drop the Glock and lurch toward the steering wheel, but by the time her hand locked around the molded plastic, it was too late.
The Malibu slammed into the side of a stalled U-Haul trailer, resulting in a grinding, ominous crunch of metal. The impact ripped her hand from the steering wheel and threw her against the dash, causing her to cry out in pain. Jason was thrown against the steering wheel and cried out, too. There was screaming from the back as Brix fell awkwardly back into her seat. She was momentarily too stunned to act when Nikki surged forward and reached between the seats to snag the fallen Glock.
Brix’s eyes went wide as the barrel came level with the center of her face. One glimpse of Nikki’s grim, snarling expression was all she needed to know the girl was about to kill her. She was already squeezing the trigger. There was nowhere to run. No cover to seek. She was fucking dead, that’s all.
Or she would have been, had Jason not interceded. He fell back from the steering wheel and saw what was happening just in time to swat at Nikki’s hands, throwing her aim off. The report of the gun was very loud inside the car, drowning out Nikki’s screaming. Thanks to Jason, the bullet punched harmlessly through the passenger side window instead of making a mess of Brix’s head. But the crisis wasn’t yet over. Nikki still had hold of the gun and she was correcting her aim to take another shot at Brix. That allowed enough time for Jason and Trevor to attack Nikki simultaneously. Their hands guided her arm away from Brix and the next shot went through the windshield. Nikki spewed indecipherable, screaming venom and squeezed the trigger yet another time. Brix knew it was her turn to act, and she had to do so immediately, while Nikki’s arm was immobile. She stiffened her hand and chopped at the other girl’s thin wrist with as much brutal power as she could muster. Which was a lot. And then she did it another time.
The pain caused tears to burst from Nikki’s eyes. She dropped the gun and Brix snatched it up and pressed the barrel against her forehead.
Jason barked a single word at Brix, “Don’t!”
Brix was shaking. Her finger trembled on the trigger. She didn’t want to admit it, but the narrow escape had traumatized her. Her heart was going so fast she thought it might explode. She struggled to hold back tears of her own as she stared at Nikki’s anguished, moisture-streaked face.
“Brix.” Trevor. His tone soothing, gentle. “Listen to him. Don’t do this. It’s over. You’re in control again. You don’t need to kill her. And you don’t really want to. That’s not you.”
Brix wrenched the gun away from Nikki’s forehead, but glared murderously at the other girl. “I’m gonna sort shit out with you later. Believe it, bitch.” She looked at Jason. “We’ve got bigger things to deal with now. Can you get this heap going again?”
Looking as relieved as a man who’d just narrowly escaped a date with the Reaper himself, Jason heaved a breath and let go of Nikki. He reached for the ignition and gave the key a twist. Nothing. No grind of an engine struggling to come to life. Just that repeated, ominous click as he turned the key back and forth several times.
He stopped trying and looked at Brix. “It’s dead.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Trevor also relinquished his grip on Nikki and turned in his seat to stare out the back window. “Um, guys…we’re about to have a big fucking problem.”
Brix followed his gaze and saw at once what he was talking about. Maybe the streets weren’t quite choked with the living dead, but there were enough of them to cluster into a small, deadly crowd if given enough of an opportunity. And that was precisely what had happened after the crash and the ensuing struggle. The walking corpses were closing on the Malibu with deceptive speed. Another few moments and escape would be impossible.
“Everybody out!” Brix screamed the words. “Now!”
She got the door on her side open and emerged from the car just in time to put a bullet through the head of a zombie less than six feet in front of her. The zombie staggered backward and toppled over, knocking another hissing animated corpse to the ground with it.
More screaming emanated from inside the car. A quick glance told the story. The door on Jason’s side was stuck, the metal crumpled from the crash, and they were all struggling to get out through the passenger side door. Brix moved a few extra steps away to make room.
It took several more seconds—precious time they could ill afford to lose—but the rest of them eventually managed to exit the crashed car to stand in slack-jawed terror behind Brix. They were moments away from total defeat. From agonizing death. She felt this down to her bones. But, while the others allowed their terror to paralyze them, Brix realized it was down to her to act and be the leader.
A quick scan of the surroundings revealed they had crashed at the edge of a four-way intersection. More cars and corpses everywhere. She saw buildings. Convenience stores. A doughnut shop. Fast-food restaurants. A full-service auto-repair garage looked like the most secure building, but it was too close and there were too many zombies in the way. Brix’s head snapped rapidly this way and that, desperately seeking the way out. Then she locked onto a distant row of houses, a residential area a hundred yards or so beyond the nearest convenience store.