I'm not skilled at keeping a steady blog. I can't even manage a food diary more than a week or a personal diary more than a couple days. But, I know how important it is to share yourself with the world, especially when you're an artist; painter, photographer, writer, ect.
I have just a couple updates:
Work on the third Raina Kirkland novel, Grave Omen, is slow going due to so many side projects. I'm worried that I may actually have to push back the release date, but I will do everything within my power to not do that.
The pre-booktour giveaway went really well, until I actually sent the books. The package arrive empty and mangled and that sucked out loud. Even though I wrote in the small print that I wouldn't be responsible for it once I sent it I'm holding myself responsible and I'm re-sending the package. It really was my fault. There is this super cute locally owned mailing business by my house called Mail Boxes and More and I wanted to support my local business so I dropped off my books and gift card with them. However, the woman behind the counter was loud, louse and did not make me feel comfortable leaving my package in her hands...but I was trying to wrangle up my rambunctious toddler so I did the really dumb thing and trusted the women behind the counter and left. I had a bad feeling all day and I was so not surprised to hear that the package didn't make it...I will fix this, though.
Another update, unrelated to writing, My husband's doctor found a tumor behind his knee. It looks like it may not be cancer, but they are running some more test next week. James belongs to a union so we are in a better position than most who meet troubling times such as these, but we're still hoping we don't loose our house over this; doctor bills and out of work and all that sad, sad jazz.
Anyway, I thought I'd share with you'al a couple of my favor chapters from FATAL RETRIBUTION. Um, a SPOILER ALERT is in order for those who have not read the book in question. Enjoy!
MARK’S HOUSE WAS across from Calvary
Catholic Cemetery, not far from University Village. It was a large house with red siding and
freshly laid sod in an attractive suburban neighborhood.
I
left home early but I didn’t anticipate the severity of the traffic on
interstate five. It was almost ten at
night when I parked behind a pretty metallic white Honda Civic with a UW
sticker in the back window. I was at the
end of a long line of cars parked along the curb.
For
once in my life I didn’t bring a purse with me.
My boots were tight enough to carry all I needed: ID, papers, cell
phone, and my bank card. I cut the
engine and pulled my cell phone out of my boot.
“Damn
it Mato.” I had hoped he’d be here by
now. I cursed loudly and took a deep
breath. I couldn’t just sit in my
car. Mato and Ranger would be here soon
anyway, so I might as well go inside.
“You’re
just another college student come to have some fun,” I told myself as I walked
up the slick grass lawn with heavy rain pouring down.
There
were two girls making out under the covered front porch. They stopped and watched me as I walked
toward them. One was a sexy pirate. She had a patch over one eye and her long
purple-red hair was teased half to death.
She was wearing a store-bought pirate costume and her hand was a hook
that was tracing ever so close to the other girl’s—um, southern regions. The other girl was a mummy, of sorts. Though, the white wrapping left lots of skin
exposed and little to the imagination.
“Hello,”
I said politely as I stepped onto the low porch and out of the rain. I looked at their outfits and almost
laughed. I had spent the whole drive
here thinking that it was going to be a fancy masquerade and I would be way
underdressed.
“Come
here,” said the mummy. She dashed over
and grabbed me by my arm. “Come on,” she
giggled.
She
pushed my back against the wall. “I
really need to go inside,” I said as politely as I could. They ignored me and pressed their bodies
against mine. Four eager hands were
exploring my body. Their breath smelled
like beer and cigarettes. The pirate
used her hook to lift my dress, rubbing the cold plastic against my inner
thigh. “Stop it,” I breathed. “Hey, I said no, damn it!” I shoved them away from me.
“Bitch!”
shrieked the pirate. Mummy just backed
away. Guess she could tell pissed when
she saw it. Smart girl. I was so glad Mommy and Daddy’s money wasn’t
going to waste. Good for them.
“No
means no,” I said grabbing the door handle.
“Bitch,”
the pirate repeated. Wow, someone’s
using her expensive education to further her vocab. I looked back at her. She looked like she wanted to fight. I didn’t.
“We
all have to be good at something,” I said.
The mummy laughed at her friend and thus a cat fight began. The girls were making more noise than they
needed to. Screaming high pitched and
yelling “Bitch!” and, “Fuck you!” When I
turned to open the door I didn’t need to.
A horde of college boys dressed as random monsters and heroes had come
to the door to watch the fight. I
pressed myself into the door frame to let them by. They made a semicircle around the two girls,
who were now wearing less clothing, if that were at all possible. Slapping, clawing and tearing at each other’s
clothes. Oh, the brutality.
The
front door led straight into the deserted living room. The cat fight outside had apparently emptied
the room. There was a brown leather sofa
and love seat with a bulky wood coffee table and two matching end tables. A large seventy-two inch television sat
directly in front of the leather sofa with a PlayStation Three to its
right. Posters of women in bathing suits
and shelves full of trophies and alcohol bottles occupied every inch of the
walls.
Rock
music was blaring from enormous speakers that sat where a dining table should
have been. Even with the heart vibrating
bass of the music I could feel my cell phone vibrating against my thigh. I couldn’t take the call here. I could hardly hear the thoughts in my
head. I couldn’t take it out in the front
either, what with the fighting and shouting out there. I looked around the place for somewhere quiet
to answer the phone. I made my way through the mammoth sized kitchen, full of
beautiful oak cabinets and slack jawed idiots, with the hope that I’d find a
door to a back porch. Eventually I
stopped saying “excuse me, pardon me.”
No one cared.
I
finally found the back door and opened it to find no porch. There were just steps leading out into the
rain.
Someone
yelled, “Shit, that’s fucking freezing!”
It was a skinny guy in his birthday suit. “Close the door!” several different people
yelled, so I did.
My
next best option was to find a quiet room down the hall left of the living
room. The hall was full of more
intoxicated college students. Bickering,
making out, and gossiping.
“Is
there a quiet room where I can take a call?” I asked a random guy. He was completely spaced out. He looked at me, eyes glazed. A dumb smile spread across his face. His teeth were perfect. His parents took good care of him
physically. Maybe they didn’t think to
nurture his mind, because he didn’t seem to understand its importance, hence
the killing of many brain cells. “Hey,”
I shouted over the music and his drunken and/or drugged stupor.
“Lets
hook-up,” he demanded, wrapping his heavy arms around me.
“No,
I need a quiet room?” My thigh stopped
vibrating, I had missed the call. The
boy frowned but pointed at a half opened door.
“Thanks,” I said, squirming out of his arms. I had to fight to make my way toward the
door. I felt like a fish swimming
upstream.
The
boy had completely misunderstood my meaning and pointed me to the bath room,
where they had turned the bath tub into some kind of large alcoholic beverage
bowl. A few kids were dipping cups in
the tub, but it was a little quieter in here actually.
“Can
I use the bathroom to make a call?” I asked.
More
slacked and overly happy faces stared back at me. I was really getting annoyed with these self
obsessed spoiled rich kids and their no consequences attitude.
“Shit
in the yard,” one slurred, angrily. He
had beady eyes and spiky black hair. I
remembered him from the picture of the team that was working on the vampire
project. Yes! He was the boy standing right beside
Mark. I think his name was Crag or
something.
I
wiggled my phone in the air for a visual aid and said really slowly, “I need to
make a call in the bathroom. It’s
raining outside.” That was a bit too
condescending, but it got my point across.
Two boys left, Beady Eyes stayed.
Arms crossed, sandaled feet planted.
It seemed that he wanted to make a point too. Fine by me.
I shut the door. He sipped on his
tub juice.
The
music was cut off enough that I could hear myself think again. This was a nicely built house. I plopped on the toilet and stared at the
phone like a life line, and maybe that was what it really was. So far the party wasn’t scary, but I hadn’t
seen Mark yet. Maybe I had but hadn’t
noticed. It was a costume party after
all, not a masquerade. Masquerades are
elegant, nice. This was neither elegant
nor nice. I wanted Mato here, I wanted
my backup.
I
squirmed nervously on the toilet while Beady Eyes made slurping noises. He was perched on the side of the tub in
cargo shorts and a toga, staring at me as I pushed a button to listen to Mato’s
voice mail.
“You
have-one-new message,” announced the machine lady. “First message, ’Raina, this is Mato. I am sorry, but we cannot crash Mark’s
party!’”
“What?”
I nearly screamed at the phone.
Beady
eyes scooted closer to me, staring like he could almost produce a coherent
thought. I turned away from him and held
the phone tighter to my ear. “The EI
went a different route and talked to Mark’s father. He is a very powerful man with powerful
friends, including a couple judges. All
our evidence has been ruled circumstantial.
We have nothing Raina, I am sorry.’
End of messages.”
I
sat on the toilet, my cell phone clutched in my hand, elbows on my knees. “Holy shit-balls,” I said in defeat.
“Bad
news?” asked Beady Eyes.
“Yeah.”
He
grabbed a plastic cup from the tower of cups on the sink and filled it with the
tub juice. “Here,” he said, handing me
the dripping cup.
I
took it, “Thanks.” It was full of
orange-ish red stuff that smelled terrible but I took a sip to make him
happy. It tasted like it smelled.
“Do
you want to…,” he began but Beady Eyes didn’t get to finish that question
because the door slammed open.
Obnoxious
heavy metal music flooded the small room and another toga-man came running to
the tub screaming, “Ambrosia, Ambrosia, the drink of the Gods!” The food of the gods, you idiot.
He
was wearing a gold mask and a gold laurel leaf crown. The mask covered his face with a mocking
smile.
“Greg,
you missed it. There was a cat fight on
the front porch and they got practically naked!”
He
sat next to Greg, and dipped his empty cup into the tub juice. Greg laughed with his masked friend and I got
up to leave.
“Hey,
don’t go,” said Greg.
I
looked back at them. Greg’s friend had
taken off his mask to drink, and I froze.
I recognized that tanned face, those big white teeth, that nose, those
eyes! I stood there like a deer in head
lights.
“What’s
wrong?” Greg asked.
I
said nothing and Mark looked at me after he emptied his cup in one quick
swig. He stared at me with soul piercing
eyes. At first those eyes were
indifferent but they changed. Soon they
were disdainful, knowing eyes that let you know someone was indeed home and he
wasn’t a man you wanted to get to know.
“Raina
Kirkland, is it?” he asked loud enough to be heard over the music. His drunken slur turned to grad student
snobbery in just as many seconds.
Charming, mocking smile painted so thick the fumes made me queasy.
“Mark,”
I said, bowing dramatically, my eyes never left his. A weird smile crawled its way up my pale
lips. I felt a strange sort of pleasure
take me.
“What
luck, you’re just the witch I’ve been dying to meet.”
“Maybe
I should go and let you get back to dying.”
I
moved to leave but he set his cup down ever so gently on the counter and stood
to tower over me.
He
smoothed down his toga. “I have something you should see.” And, he didn’t wait for my response, which
would have been something along the lines of, “All I want to see is you rotting
in a jail cell with the occasional midnight mystery date.” Instead, he grabbed my arm and turned me as
he ran past me.
“Black
hair and blue eyes suit you better,” he said as he tore our path down the
hall. “You look almost human.”
He
slammed open a door and we entered a room with an oversize chemistry set lying
out on three different tables. Clear
plastic sheets covered the brown carpet and furniture. The far wall was covered in what looked like
profiles of every vampire incident that took place and some I hadn’t known
about. It looked better than the one I
saw at EI, more detailed information. My
own face smiled back at me from the far wall.
It was a photo from my facebook profile and a red circle had been drawn
around it.
“What
the shit!” I yelled.
He
smirked, “Such language, tsk, tsk.”
“You’re
keeping track of all the people you’ve killed or worse! Why?
Do you like being reminded of how fucked up you are?”
“Mark?”
said a soft feminine voice. The voice
belonged to a small woman with bouncy bleach blond curls and heavy makeup. She was sitting on a plastic covered couch,
dressed as a nurse. Hell—o nurse!
“I’m
leaving,” I said.
“Why
so grouchy?” Mark joked. His smile was a
playful one.
“You
are a fucking sociopath and I’m allowed to be grouchy when the man that fucked
up my family and caused the death of so many innocents is prancing about his
laboratory in a toga, scot free because of dear old daddy.”
“Raina,
you don’t understand how important my work is.
If you had even the simplest idea of the progress we’ve made since we’ve
distributed our cures, shit Raina!” He
pulled his hair and began to pace the room, drunken and frantic. “I want you to understand, Raina!”
“Why
do you give a shit what I think? You
just got off scot free. You’re a
murderer! You caused vampirism to spread
like wild fire! It’s not even on the
fucking news for Goddess sake! How the
hell is this not on the news?” I yelled, looking at all the pictures on the
walls. That was a huge question of
mine. How the hell was this not on every
news program? It was kind of a big
deal.
“I
know people,” he said quietly. He shook
his head to push that subject away. “Not
one of those people really wanted to be vampires. They simply wanted to live and I offered them
the cure with a possibility that they would not even become vampires.”
Mark
began to dig through a backpack that sat on the couch next to the nurse. Her face was pleasantly blank. Her perfectly painted face made her
beautiful, but the look of complete ignorance made her hideous.
“They
turned Mark, they did get the disease you promised them they wouldn’t and they
went into a blood rage and infected and killed other people, innocent
people! Kids, Mark, little fucking
kids!”
“Yeah,
aint it cool?”
His
gold mask was back on, its smile so matched his own. He wiggled his cigar holder between two
fingers teasingly. It was gold with
silver lettering on it that read, “Carpe Diem.”
“My
brother tried to kill himself last night, so no, I don’t think it’s all that
cool.”
He
flipped his mask so that it was resting on his head like a second face,
“Spoil-sport. Don’t you see that you are
the key to all my life’s work?”
“All
your life—you’re what, twenty-something?”
He
just smiled at me and then looked over my shoulder and his smile
broadened.
“We’ve
finally engineered the virus to strengthen the healing affects and make the
vampiric side effects dormant, and you’re proof of that,” he said more to the
man standing behind me than me.
The
man that just entered the room was a tall black man with a cane, bald head and
dressed in a nice suit. “Meet Darrell,
he’s been given a three month death sentence.
Cancer, it’s a bitch, but it’s good for business,” Mark said, smiling
all the while. Darrell walked past me
and handed Mark an envelope.
“Don’t
do it,” I warned the older man. “He’s
caused so much suffering already.”
Darrel
turned on me with pain filled eyes.
“Don’t talk to me about suffering.
I know suffering! I’ve been
through chemo. I’ve seen the look on all
the specialists faces as they told me I’m going to die. I’m not going to die because of this bull
shit, I’m not! Death is not an option
I’m going to entertain!” His eyes were
haunted, determined. There was no
talking Darrell out of it. I could feel
his fear.
“Mark
please, stop this! You’ve amplified the
healing effect too much. Your last
victims turned in seconds, Mark. If you
give him that blood he’ll turn so fast your head will spin and then you, me,
her and all your friends are vampire food!
You can’t do this!”
Mark
was shaking his head while he filled a syringe from the tube of blood he had
taken out of his cigar holder. “This is
the same I gave Paul, the same that’s inside you—but refined. It will work the same way but better.”
“No
Mark, Paul, and two of my brothers turned.
I’m not human. I don’t know what
I am. It won’t be the same, Mark. Goddess!”
“Mark,
sweetie, maybe you should do this later, just in case she’s right,” the girl
pleaded. She was holding Marks arm,
giving him puppy dog eyes. He looked at
her like she was a buzzing fly.
“Go
sit on the couch and get the camera ready, now!” he yelled. She shrunk in on herself and sulked off to
the couch where she fiddled with a camera the size of a cell phone.
“Mark!”
I warned as he prepped the needle.
“Raina,
you’re about to witness medical history,” he stated, very serious. Darrell held out his arm. Mark tied it off to get a vein.
“No
Mark!” I shouted, and I slapped the syringe out of his hand. It smashed against a table and landed on the
floor. A small amount of blood pooled
around the broken syringe.
“No!”
shouted Darrell.
Mark’s
fist found my face and my face found the floor.
Pain washed over me, leaving me breathless for a moment.
“I
can prepare another injection,” Mark assured Darrell, but Darrell was on his
knees, dabbing his fingers in the spilled blood and licking them clean.
“Don’t
touch that!” I shouted and the effort hurt like hell. I grabbed at the plastic covered floor as I
tried to move past the pain in my head.
“Shit,” I spat, trying to lift myself up. My head was spinning. The fucker could punch.
“Stop
him!” I shouted at Mark, but Mark was busy patting his grieving client on the
back as Darrell dug his fingers into the blood, desperation for survival eating
at him like acid. His fear was loud in
my mind—and then nothing. I felt nothing
from him.
I
couldn’t stand up just yet but I could crawl.
I crawled to Darrell. His face
was bloodied. I ran my hand down his
cheek gently, he was burning up. He was
dying!
“Shit!”
I yelled over and over again as I crawled backward, getting as far away from
him as possible. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“What?”
the girl asked with her eyes wide.
I
had to steady my aching head with my hands, “He’s fucking turning, now!”
Darrell’s
body started convulsing under Mark’s hands and Mark stared down with wide
eyes.
“Give
me my gun, Jennifer!” he yelled at the girl.
He
turned back to the table and lifted his toga to pocket the envelope.
Jennifer
didn’t react to his words. She was
staring at Darrell, her eyes and the camera fixed of him as he screamed and
convulsed on the floor. She had a better
vantage point for watching Darrell’s turn, or would that be a worst vantage
point.
“My
gun?” Mark demanded, but Darrell began to puke blood.
We
watched in shock as the blood poured from Darrel’s mouth. I tore my eyes away from the horror and tried
to get Mark’s attention by standing between him and Darrel.
“Where’s
your gun, Mark?”
“It’s,”
he began, but then Jennifer started screaming and I turned to see that Darrell
had stopped shaking, stopped puking blood.
The tall man stood, head bowed, face slack. He stared at Jennifer from a heavy relaxed
brow, but she didn’t move. She cried and
screamed for Mark with the camera still pointed at the new vampire. I looked back at him to find him at the door
and I could see the moral dilemma playing in his head. Should he save himself or save her? Not the actions of a sociopath.
Darrell
made a movement in my peripheral vision that brought my attention back to
him. It looked like he was relearning
how to use his body. He took a step
toward Jennifer. She let out a helpless
yelp but didn’t budge from her seat. She
was paralyzed with fear, like Katie had been.
Fuck
my head still hurt like hell, “Stop!” I screamed at him. “Darrell, no!”
But,
he didn’t even pause for consideration, he wasn’t Darrell anymore. He was the walking undead, a hungry monster
and he lunged at Jennifer.
“Help
me!” she screamed standing on the couch, finally trying to run. But she didn’t get far. He grabbed a hold of her leg and she went
down. Her hands grabbed at the plastic
on the couch, but it was no use. He
crawled up her screaming, fighting body with the ease of the strong
undead.
“Fuck!”
I shouted.
I
ran to the couch. From behind Darrel I
grabbed his head, trying to keep him from biting down. His teeth were still human but human teeth
can do damage too. I pulled back on his
forehead with all the strength I had.
“Help!”
I shouted at Mark.
I
held Darrell’s head back but he still had hands and they dug at Jennifer,
making a bloody mess. I pulled harder,
lifting Darrell’s head higher but that didn’t stop his hungry hands from
ripping a hole in her stomach. She was
still screaming for Mark when I saw bone peeking out from her chest. Jennifer’s blood was everywhere, leaving my
face painted thick with it. The feel of
her hot blood running into my eyes and mouth, the only parts of my face not
covered by my mask, made something inside me snap and I couldn’t stop
screaming.
“Jen!”
Mark screamed, but he was too late to save her.
She was dead, silent, nothing but meat.
I let go of Darrel and he dove into her meat, making a bloody pig of
himself.
“Come
on,” I grabbed Mark’s arm.
“No,
Jen! She’s pregnant with my boy!” he was
staring at her or what was left of her.
That explained his uncharacteristic care for her. She was carrying an extension of himself
inside her. I spared a thought for the
young life that would never be, but I had to get everyone out of here before
Darrell got bored of chewing on her. He
wouldn’t get full. He would bleed us all
before the night was done.
“She’s
dead. We have to get out of here! We have to get everyone out of here now!” I
shouted at him as I reached for the door handle.
“No!”
he screamed and jerked his arm out of my hand.
He
pushed Darrell off of Jennifer and grabbed at her, trying to lift her broken
body off the blood soaked plastic, slipping and grunting with the effort. That wasn’t a smart idea. He made himself a target. Darrell lifted himself from the floor. His face and hands were covered in blood and
dangling bits of other stuff. He grabbed
Mark’s right leg, toppling him to the plastic covered floor. Jennifer’s body broke his fall. Darrell ravaged his legs with something close
to vampire speed. Mark’s tight jeans
gave him little protection. Darrell
ripped at Mark’s jeans with his teeth to get at the meat filling, and when he
did Mark broke into wild screams that hurt my ears. How could no one hear this?
He
kicked at the vampire with his other leg but it was no use. I ran after him, but I didn’t know what I
could do. Mark reached for his blood
soaked backpack and pulled out a metallic blue gun, and I stopped in my
tracks. I didn’t know how experienced
Mark was with a gun and I had no wish to be shot. It was small, couldn’t have had but five or
six shots. He pointed it at Darrell’s
head and fired, again and again, every shot point blank.
Darrell’s
head was blown back. He wasn’t moving
anymore. Thick blood and brain matter
oozed out lumpy over Marks leg, over Marks wounds. Shit!
“God
damn it!” Mark shouted at the dead vampire as he tried to pull his leg out from
under so much dead weight. “Fuck,” he
breathed, “Raina, help me, please.”
I
shook my head, “No.”
“Come
on…look, I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I hurt so many people! Please Raina!” he screamed, tears pouring
down his face.
I
took my mask off and threw it on the floor so I could wipe Jennifer’s blood
from my eyes, and slowly backed myself closer to the door. “You’re infected.”
“NO! RAINA!
NO!” he screamed as I opened the door and slammed it behind me.
“Run!”
I yelled at the people in the hall.
“Run, get out of here!” But they just laughed at me. “Vampire!” I screamed and heavier laughter
erupted.
But
Greg stepped up, “Who?” he asked, scared, knowing the danger, “Darrell Dolton?”
“Yes,
he’s dead though, but he infected Mark!” I shouted over the music, loud and
scary now that it matched the occasion better, Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl,
perfect.
Greg
looked good and scared. “Shit, don’t
yell vampire or run. These shit heads
won’t understand that!”
“Hey,”
one of the shit heads yelled in happy protest.
Greg
waded into the thick of the party and yelled, “Cops!” And, everyone was yelling, screaming, running
for escape.
“Cops!
Cops!” I yelled frantically as I ran through the house.
THERE WERE ONLY a few kids in the house
when Mark tore the door off its hinges.
Everyone else was out in the front yard.
Some were stumbling to their cars.
I was on the phone with Mato, who had someone on the phone with
Detective Travis. Greg was on the phone
with the police, like many others I would guess. Those in the house, after all our warning and
nearly dragging to the door, were screaming now. No more laughter, nothing but screams.
After
I frantically told Mato what had happened he spent a good while telling me what
I should have done. I should not have
gone in without him. I should have left
the moment I got the message. I should
have called the police when it was clear what Mark was planning.
“Mato,
I’m sorry,” I said close to the phone so he could hear me over the screams and
music coming from inside the house.
“The
police are on their way!” Greg yelled.
He was holding onto a hysterical girl dressed as Cleopatra. Mascara was running down her face with her
tears. She was bent over her cell phone,
crying to someone on the other end, screaming about what had happened, like a
lot of people. Most of the kids ran away
on foot or piled into a car and speed down the road drunk and scared.
Greg
and I both jumped a little when we heard someone pounding on the front door
from inside the house. My first thought
was that someone was trying to get out, get away. Guilt hit me.
But something stronger than human was shaking that door right down to
its frame.
“Shit!”
I cursed for what seemed like the hundredth time tonight. I really needed to pick a new favorite curse
word. Greg looked a question at me. I gestured hysterically toward the door. “Mark’s trying to get out!” the phone was
still in my hand, Mato was still on the line, listening.
I
could hear him telling me to run! I was
running, but not in the direction he wanted me to. I was heading toward the house. I needed to stop Mark from busting down that
door before the police got here. I
needed to buy these kids some time. The
house was built well, but that door wasn’t going to hold him off forever. It wasn’t locked, but Mark was in a blood
rage, like Paul had been. He’s slower,
dumber. I was hoping to use that to my
advantage.
I
leaped onto the low porch. The door
shook violently with Mark’s efforts. It
would be easier for him if he remembered how to use a door handle, but if he
remembered that he wouldn’t be eating his friends. I walked carefully toward a window that
overlooked the porch. It was low and it
was open, big enough for a man to fit through.
See, newly dead plus blood rage a dull witted vampire makes.
With
a shaking hand I pealed the curtains aside.
Greg was shouting at me to come back, no one else cared. Some made comments about my
intelligence. Fuck um, I was saving
their lives.
The
television was still on. I could see a
lot of blood, people crying, more people turning probably, but I had to stop
him, at least until the professionals got here.
Mark was about five feet to my right, clawing at the door like an
animal, beating it with his fists, throwing himself against it. Carefully, quietly, I stepped one foot into
the house, onto a chair that was set just in front of the window.
“Help
me!” screamed a woman. I hadn’t seen
her, just on the other side of the chair.
Her legs and chest were shreds of meat but she was still alive, poor
thing. “Fuck, help me!” she screamed past
me, to anyone else who might be more helpful. “Help me! Help me!” She shouted over and over again.
“Please
be quiet,” I whispered at her, but it was no use. She was hysterical and I couldn’t really
blame her for it. “Oh, fuck,” I said,
because she finally got someone else’s attention, Mark’s.
With
my one foot solid on the chair I launched myself into the house, away from the
woman and her screams and into the large kitchen. Mark was moving slow for a vampire, but he
was still fucking fast for a human!
Bloody floors and high heeled boots are so not a good combo. I felt like Bambi trying to stand up for the
first time.
Mark’s
face was red with blood and skin and bits hung from his mouth as he dived for
me. Cesar was back for revenge as the
undead! He grabbed me by my arm and I
screamed as he bit into it.
“Get
the fuck off me!” I screamed as his
tongue explored the wound, lapping up my blood and meat into his mouth faster
than he could swallow it. With his free
hand he grabbed my hair and pulled me closer to him. He wrapped his body around mine and rode me
to the floor. Fingers digging into me,
mouth exploring every newly opened wound like my body was one large sampler
tray. Surprisingly, I could hear police
sirens over my screams and the screams of Mark’s other victims. The red and blue lights flashed rhythmically
through the house like a great colorful strobe light.
I
heard the door being kicked in, and then gun fire lit up the house. Mark ran away from me but I stayed on the
floor, where guns hopefully weren’t being pointed. The gun fire followed Mark around the room,
and sprayed in the direction of any other people who stood up too fast to take
a chance with.
Bullets
were flying like a blizzard of lead. It
was a war zone. Automatics, shot guns and
pistols all. No one was left out. I think they would have used flame throwers
and grenades if they were allowed.
The
EI officers were in full riot gear as they made their slow way into the house
through the door, window and the walls.
Damn.
Four
officers with EI in yellow lettering on the back of the riot jackets drove Mark
down the hall, guns aimed at his head. I
lay back on my good elbow and held my shredded arm to my chest and watched as
the second line of defense came in and stared chopping off the heads of those
who were dead so they wouldn’t get up again.
Normally it’s illegal to just kill any old vampire, but in cases like
this the public and courts give the police a rather long leash and they gladly take
advantage. One of the head choppers
looked at me. Shit.
“I’m
Raina!” I shouted over the music that was still blaring. So appropriately, it was now God Smack’s,
Dead and Broken.
The
head chopper walked toward me. She had
what looked like over sized hedge trimmers.
“No, wait!” I yelled. “Stop!” I put all my demand into that word. Fuck, why had mind control not occurred to me
before?! “Stop!”
The
officer stopped, “Yes, ma’am.”
I
was in shock and hyperventilating, but I managed to say, “Take me out of here
unharmed.”
“Yes,
ma’am,” she said again, and she helped me up and out of the house safely. Shit.
The police were almost scarier than the vampires.
