Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (23 page)

Rono/DEAD SURROUND

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“Pad Thai, lasagna, clam chowder, garlic bread, chicken tikka masala,” Poe recited to keep the darkness from overwhelming her. Terror latched onto her body like half-starved cattle. She reached back into her memory until the names of her favorite food fell from her lips like lyrics to soothe the mind. “Are you getting hungry yet, Pen?” she asked as she looked down briefly at the loyal dog keeping pace.

“Adobo, zereshk polo, bibimbap, udon and soba noodles, In-N-Out burgers, fresh cut Islands fries,”

she said. She slowed down and took a swig of water.

Once the water bottle had been replaced in the netting outside her pack, Poe pulled out a second gun from her thigh holster. It was a homemade 9mm automatic pistol with a silencer. She picked up the pace to a moderate run.

“Whoever said they’re not afraid of the dark is full of yak shit,” Poe muttered as she jogged cautiously around a jackknifed truck. Her vision enhancer goggles showed a skeleton hugging the steering wheel.

He said he loved me right before he popped me
over the head. Did he mean it?

Heat still emanated from the asphalt regardless of the drop in temperature. She was soaked under the Kevlar and hooded jacket. It was too warm a night to be so bundled up.

Don’t go too fast. You might step on something
unpleasant,
the voice in her mind said bossily.
You’ll
need to protect your ankles or you’re dead meat.

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There’s no Morales or Maclemar to carry you
.
Or a
Sainvire to give you a lift.

“Please, Mom and Dad, let our side be alright,”

she prayed for the umpteeth time to the only deities she believed in. “Trench and Newbitt can’t win. They just can’t.”

The hooting of an owl interrupted her prayer and startled her enough to examine the sparse trees along side the road. She missed tripping on a tubular tip of a muffler peeking out behind weeds that sprouted from crags on the road. A shot fired accidentally as Poe tried to stop her fall with the hand that held the Sig Sauer without a silencer. The booming sound that echoed in the warm night nearly stopped her heart.

Penny whined.

“Oh no,” she croaked. “I hope nobody heard that.”

Shaking the dust from the knees of her pants, Poe started running. She paced herself to not get too fatigued in preparation for whatever the blasted gunshot would bring.

“Yes, I should’ve stayed to look out for Piper.

And yes, this a nasty suicide mission where I’ll be the main dish, extra rare,” she told the green darkness.

“I’m so sorry, Penny,” she said and bent down to pet the wiry terrier mutt. There was movement ahead.

She zoomed in at the line of field mice crossing the road and shivered.

“Eesh! Mice.” Her ears were hot, and her vital signs unstable.
Think of something to keep your mind
occupied. Think of dessert.

“Sticky rice with mango, pumpkin pancakes, marmalade crepes, sticky toffee pudding, warm pecan pie with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream, 206

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Hof’s Hut chocolate wipeout cake, Big Man Bakes red velvet cupcakes.”

She saw the first one dragging his bum leg behind him along the grassy road side. Even in green the Revenent looked positively fiendish with hollowed eyes and a scarecrow gait.
Keep running.

He can’t catch up. You were thinking of dessert.

“Dessert? Are you kidding me?” muttered Poe.

“I can’t think of food right now.” She spotted two more Revs ahead, a female and a child walking achingly slow.

The cretins must plant themselves within easy
reach of the road
, the voice in her head mused.
Your
hands are shaking. Quit it. Keep your mind busy.

There were more than a handful of them now pouring out from the countryside. And the Revenents had spotted her.
Remember, don’t shoot. It’ll attract
more of them. Plus you don’t want to waste your
bullets. You’ll need them at the farmhouse.
Poe resheathed one of her guns and picked up a crooked branch thick and long enough to inflict damage.

“Where are they coming from?” Poe complained to Penny as she caught sight of more Revenents.

“When did these things start popping up? I don’t remember seeing even one before on the Pacheco Pass.”

Focus! Give me the names of actors who played
Sherlock Holmes!

“Um, there’s a—” Poe swung left to avoid a creature squirming itself out of a banged up Camaro.

“There’s Michael Caine and um, Vasily Livanov, Basil Rathbone, Ronald Howard. Oh shit!” Poe screamed, kicking the walking beef jerky that came from her blindside. She let out a shaky breath and 207

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looked down at the corpse with a broken hip still wiggling about thanks to a combination of Muay Thai kicks. “And let that be a lesson to you!”

She surveyed the area with a quick 360-degree turn. She urgently returned to a run, this time faster than usual. Penny bared her fangs.

“Um, there’s Geoffrey Whitehead, Peter Cushing, and that kid – what’s his name – James D’Arcy.” Poe slowed down. “Where are they all coming from?”

There were over twenty Revenents looking like they were having a circle of togetherness. Some were too busy to notice her. A curious Poe swung a leg up the hood of a station wagon and climbed up to the roof. Penny whined in concern, and her tail withdrew between her legs.

“Oh no,” escaped from her lips. The green screen showed Revs picking apart the remains of a deer.

“That must’ve been the animal we hit. Oh shit!”

A skeletal hand clasped an ankle from behind her and was tugging hard to pull her down. Penny chomped down at the Revenent’s foot until her companion was freed. The noise drew the attention of the Revs outside of the circle, the ones with no access to deer meat. Slowly they made their way to Poe by walking like the zombies in the Thriller video.

“Fuck this!” Poe cried. She jumped on the Rev’s shoulder until it was reduced to nothing more than an accordion of bones when it hit the ground. She dodged, ducked, and skidded to avoid the outstretched hands that tried to grab her, running like the mouth of hell was opening wider behind her.

“Penny, please keep up with me!”

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Calm down or you won’t be able to think. There
might be more of them out there! Finish off your list.

“Right. Right,” she said, and she exhaled shakily to slow her breathing. “There’s Douglass Wilmer.

And of course, hands down the best Sherlock Holmes there ever was, Jeremy Brett!”

Then she couldn’t speak anymore. Ahead of her was a procession of twitching limbs and trembling necks too emaciated to carry their own skulls, and one or two crawling baby spawn beating the Revs to the finish line. They had surfaced for the deer and perhaps incidentally to investigate the gun shot. Or they had been sent ahead like robots to sweep the roads. No matter. The rascally bunch had seen her.

She and her dog would have to walk the line of fire.

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“This is like a patchy soccer match,” stated Poe.

“One person against the bleacher crowd.”

Poe took a deep swig of water. “Sorry, Pen. No water bowl for you.” Holstering the Walther PPK and gripping a piece of wood, Poe charged through the horde and whacked away. She hit brittle bone. She had no choice but to part the Red Sea so she could reach the other side. The terrier attacked ankles and baby arms mutely. Poe herded them toward the middle of the road then veered to the far right where activity was thin. If they could just avoid creatures popping up from the side, they would be fine. Her own intermittent breathing rankled her ears.

You were sitting on a goldmine of vampire
diuretic, and you didn’t bottle it up?
the angry voice in her head complained.

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Poe sniffed. She was mighty disappointed with herself. What was she thinking by not replenishing her spray bottles with garlic marinade?

You’re too busy lusting after a vampire and a
man, that’s what. But getting back to the subject at
hand, maybe this area is bleeding corpses because
it’s the demarcation line between garlic territory and
the no-smell zone.

“I hope so. A couple more miles and it’ll start stinking like garlic, and they’ll be off our tail,” she tried to appease the voice. “I’ll get us there, but just keep off the subject of Maclemar and Sainvire,” she said abrasively as she clubbed the nearest Rev in the neck. “If I want to lust after them, then I will. I don’t have much time to live, and I aim to think about the top men in my harem.”

She pointed the Walther PPK at a Revenent that was light on his feet and blasted his head off. Besides the tripping accident it was her second bullet of the evening. “Down you go. Pen, you okay?” The dog looked up at Poe and whined.

More sounds of gunfire shattered the quiet of the night and dissipated all thoughts of harems. “Shit.

No. Please don’t let it be Maclemar,” prayed Poe to her parents. “I hope the dumb Welshman didn’t follow me.”

She looked back at all the Revs she’d clubbed out of her way for what seemed like hours. The thought of crossing paths again made her knees shake. Another shot rang. The dog whimpered as if knowing what her human friend was considering.

“There’s no way they’re killing one of my boys!” Adjusting the stick to a more comfortable grip, Poe turned back and charged.

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It was surprisingly easy to run back. The Revs, nothing but reeking bones and leathery skin, had given up trying to catch her and headed like automatons to where the shots originated. Poe aimed for knees and necks. “They’ll be crawling.”

She thought of Maclemar and shivered. Poe was attached to him for good or bad. “We have unfinished business together, Welshman, so hang on!”

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“Sorry for dragging you into this,” Maclemar said as he swung a tire iron at the same Revenent he’d hit three times. The creature just wouldn’t stay down.

Since disembarking from the bus, Maclemar had almost regretted his decision to go after Poe.

“It was my decision to tag along, man. So you’re absolved from guilt,” Michelle said. She hacked tirelessly with her axe at the bodies that came at them. “Just thank your stars I brought this limited edition Gimli broadaxe along.”

“Right. I thought I recognized the Elvish on your scabbard,” he grunted while stomping the face of the tenacious little fiend.

“Fuck that, Maclemar. Your ignorance is glaring for being a countryman of Tolkien. It’s written in Dwarvish. Can’t you tell the difference?”

“Maybe by the fires of Moria,” he said unenthusiastically. “There’re more of them by the second. Slow or not, we better get out of here before they block us in completely.”

She walked in sweeping strides to keep pace with Maclemar. “I think they heard the shots I fired back 211

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there, and they got curious. I should slice off my left one for that blunder.”

Maclemar winced at the woman’s mouth not for the first time that evening. Her vulgarity, though interesting, hurt the ears. “Right. I’d a done the same thing myself if something jumped at me with deer stomach hanging from its mouth. Let’s just fend off these accursed arse nutters and find Poe. And mind the muffler by the weeds there.”

“You must like her a lot for you to risk gettin’

eaten by these things,” Michelle said. She tried out a Muay Thai kick Poe had taught her and smiled at the result.

“You can say that,” he said gravely then spotted a baby dead hanging like a slug from the passenger door. “Oh fuckall! A baby!”

She would never forget the babies that had attacked her in the Los Angeles Metro tunnels. The babies were vampire spawn that had been thrown into the storm drain. “Mind if I waste a bullet by blowin’

that thing’s head off?”

“Bullet well spent, that would be,” said Maclemar.

“Damn right. I saw a bunch of these in the subway tunnels when I was still braindead cattle.

Swear-to-God-no-kidding, I peed in my pants and snapped out of my stupor,” she said as she pulled the trigger and hit the demon baby in the stomach. Like Alka-Seltzer in water, the baby fizzled in its own sauce. “They crawled on the subway ceiling defying gravity and stuck out their lizard tongues at us. I remember Poe coming with Morales in the nick of time to spray those walking abortions until they 212

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sizzled. Seems like she always shows up in the nick of time.”

“Let’s return the favor, shall we? We can’t let her go through this horrific muck alone. I can’t imagine surviving this without you here. Watch out!

To your right!” he warned as a fallen Revenent attempted to rise again and reach for Michelle’s leg.

She hacked it with the axe. “So would you say you’re head over heels?” she said.

“Michelle lass,” grinned Maclemar in the dark.

“I don’t know. But it is some powerful sentiment nevertheless.”

“Yeah, powerful enough to go through this shit,”

Michelle’s voice cracked. Her badass persona had wilted. She was on the highway full of hellish grotesqueness, and it was getting to her.

Surrounded by such abomination that once only existed in books and film, they relied on their little conversations to keep them both from losing it. “And man, don’t worry about Poe. She’s a superhero,” said Michelle. “The power in her arms and legs when we spar could take down even a big guy like you. Oh yeah, she already did in the courtyard.” Her giggle sounded faintly crazed. “And the most outlandish thing is that she held back her strength.”

Maclemar winced at the masses of ulcerous dead things headed their way.
Be safe, Poe
, he prayed. The creatures were half-a-block away. To keep fear from taking over, he focused his mind on making mincemeat out of the ultra-slow Revenents. “What about you? Why did you decide to go on this thankless mission?”