They Thirst (45 page)

"Jimmy," Solange whispered thickly.

Wes looked, his heart pounding. There was blood on the steering wheel where Jimmy's forehead had cracked half of it away. Jimmy was wedged under the wheel, his left arm almost turned backward. His face was a sick, purplish color, and blood was streaming from one side of his mouth. He made a soft moaning noise, his lungs sounding wet and clogged. "Jimmy!" Wes shouted and started to lean over the seat. Jimmy's eyes opened. "Oh, shit," he said softly. "Looks like somebody plowed our asses, didn't they? Christ, my chest hurts!"

"Don't move. Don't move. I'll find a phone somewhere and call an ambulance. Don't move." He had to shove against the door several times to get it open because it was jammed up against that palm tree. He squeezed out, his ribs laced with pain. He fell to the grass and puked like a hurt dog. Solange helped him to his feet. His head was throbbing terribly; it felt like a balloon expanding. "Got to find a phone," he told her. "Jimmy's hurt bad." He looked up and down the boulevard for a pay phone, but they were right in the center of Beverly Hills and pay phones were as hard to find as Skid Row winos here. Across the street there was a large, white, stucco house with a wall around it. A light shone in an upper window, and a head popped out. "Hey!" Wes shouted. "Somebody help us! Call an ambulance, there's a guy hurt down here!" The person in the window paused a few seconds, then withdrew into the room. "The car may blow up!" Wes yelled suddenly to Solange. "We've got to get him out!"

"No, leave him where he is," she said. "Don't move him. Your head's bleeding."

"Huh? Shit!" He felt up at his hairline and looked at the red smear on his fingertips. He staggered, but Solange's firm grip on his arm kept him from falling. "I'm okay," he insisted. "How about you?" She nodded, and he walked around the crumpled Caddy to the remains of the Maserati. Oil and water were bubbling out of the engine block, hissing where they kissed hot metal. Wes couldn't see anyone inside the car. He stepped forward through a puddle of water and peered through the smashed window on the driver's side.

A mask of blood was suddenly thrust before his face. Before he could step back, a hand clamped his arm. The Maserati's driver was a man with silvery gray hair, now clotted with blood. His face was twisted with agony, the lips trying to squeeze out words. "Uhhhhhhh . . . they're coming!" he said in a frantic whine. "They took Denise, and now they're coming for me, they're not going to let any of us . . . uhhhhhhh . . . any of us get . . . get . . . get away . . . I"

"What's he saying?" Solange asked.

"I don't know. He's drunk or crazy," Wes said. He could hear a siren, approaching fast.
An ambulance. Thank God, that guy in the house must've called.
He started to pull away from the man, but the fingers dug deeper into his arm. "NO!" the man cried out. "No! Don't leave mel Please . . . please don't leave me!"

"You'll be okay," Wes said. "There's an ambulance coming."

"Don't leave me . . . don't . . . don't . . ." His voice died to a faint moan, and he slithered back down into the seat, his fingers dangling over the edge of the door.

Wes stepped away from the Maserati and peered into the Caddy where Jimmy lay crumpled against the wheel. "You're gonna be okay, Jimmy! Help's coming. You just hang on, buddy!"

"Right. . . hang on . . ." Jimmy whispered.

An ambulance, orange lights flashing, came roaring around the curve and screeched to a stop on the other side of the Maserati. The two uniformed attendants, one
a
Chicano and the other a lanky, red-haired guy, got out and approached the accident, walking quickly.

"Jimmy's hurt bad!" Wes told them. "He's all crushed up in the front seat!"

"Yes, sir," the Chicano said softly. But then the other guy was pulling the Maserati's door open and reaching for the injured driver. The gray-haired man opened his eyes and babbled in terror.

"Hey," Wes said, "what's . . . going . . . on . . . ?"

The gray-haired man screamed. In the rippling orange light Wes could see the glittering fangs slide out from the jaws of the ambulance attendant. Solange made a soft sound of horror and gripped his arm. Wes could hear the chatter from the ambulance's radio— ". . . got a two-car collision, corner of Wilshire and Detroit, two people involved . . . hit-and-run, corner of Pickford and Orange, man's down on the scene . . . car hit a telephone pole, Olympic and Catalina, two victims pinned inside . . . the hunting's fine . . ." The voice carried a cold hiss.

Solange pulled at him. "Run!" she insisted. "We've got to run!"

The Chicano glared at her greedily and wrenched open the Caddy's front door. Then he reached in for Jimmy and began to pull his body out from underneath the wheel. Jimmy screamed in agony.

"Are you crazy?" Wes shouted. "You're killing him, you bastard!" He started forward to tear the maniac away from Jimmy, but instantly Solange grabbed his arm to hold him back.
"No,"
she said, and he stopped to look at her as if she were crazy, too. Her face was a grim-lipped mask, an African goddess with strange lights glimmering in her eyes. He could hear another siren approaching. The gray-haired man was on the ground now, his legs twitching as the attendant bent down over him. "Jimmy!" Wes cried. "Jim . . . my . . ." And then the Chicano was leaning over Jimmy. Wes saw orange light glimmer off the fangs as they sank into Jimmy's throat. As he drank with thirsty heaves, the Chicano's black eyes sought out Wes and Solange.

And then, as if something had collapsed at the center of his rational soul, Wes realized what kind of things they were. Solange shouted, "WES!" and pulled at him as the second ambulance rounded the curb, orange lights flashing. As they ran, Wes looked back to see Jimmy's body spread out on the concrete. It shivered as if it had been plugged into a high-voltage charge; then he couldn't look back again for fear of being caught by that thing's hot, Gorgon-like stare. In the next instant the second ambulance roared up onto the sidewalk behind them, headlights blazing.

Wes and Solange ran along a high, wrought-iron fence; beyond it was a sloping lawn and a dark, Tudor-style mansion framed with palm trees. The driveway, closed off from the street by a locked gate, lay just a few yards ahead. Wes could see that the bars had been forced apart as if with a crowbar. There might just be room enough for them to squeeze through—If they could get to that house and a telephone . . . I But the ambulance was gaining on them, swerving around the high Washingtonia palms, clumps of grass flying up behind the tires. They reached the gate, and Wes shoved Solange through the bars. She tripped and fell on the other side, but he squeezed through and pulled her up, then both of them ran toward that house. The ambulance crashed into the gate behind them, knocking it open and smashing both headlights with a noise like a shotgun blast. Wes saw that some of the mansion's windows were broken out; it looked dead and desolate, and he realized with a surge of panic that
they
could already be inside. He looked back and saw the driver's pallid, grinning face streaked with the orange light. The ambulance was again almost on them. Wes wrenched Solange to the side as it roared past and up the hill, cutting them off from the house. It skidded up on the lawn, turning in a tight circle, and slammed into a palm tree.

They ran on, cutting across the lawn and past the house. Just on the other side of the hill's crest was a white, concrete structure that looked like a storage shed. A stone walkway led down through a landscaped flower bed, and below that was a swimming pool with a canopied bathhouse. Wes couldn't hear the ambulance anymore, but he knew they'd be coming soon. He tried the shed's door. It was locked, so he kicked it open. He stood among sacks of concrete mix and potting soil, various tools, a few large ceramic pots, and several cans of paint. Even before he heard Solange shout, he heard the ambulance roaring across the lawn. He lifted one of the paint cans and pried its lid loose.

"Stay here!" he yelled at Solange and ran down into the flower beds where the vampires could see him. The ambulance came for him, its grillwork grinning like the mouth of a hungry ogre. He saw the flicker of recognition across the driver's face. Before the ambulance could slow down, Wes heaved the paint can at the windshield, then leaped to one side with Solange's scream ringing in his ears.

The glass shattered, bright blue swimming pool paint covering the interior of the ambulance and blinding the things inside. It swerved, roared on past Wes through the flowers, and pitched over a small brick wall that separated them from the pool area. The ambulance nosed into the deep end of the pool with a huge splash. Hot metal hissed. The orange light grew weaker, casting rippled reflections.

Wes didn't wait to see if the things could get out. He ran back up to Solange, and at the crest of the hill they could both see the streaks of orange flashing out in the street. Wes froze.

"The house," Solange said.

It was the only choice they had. They got in through a pair of shattered French doors at the rear of the house, which opened onto a large sitting room where furniture, cabinets, and bookshelves had been overturned as if in a mad fury. Wes fumbled through the debris, trying to find a telephone in the dark. Solange picked up a lamp and stood at the doors; her eyes were wide and shining with fear but her hand was steady, with the lamp's metal base poised as a weapon. In another moment she thought she sensed movement outside. Wes did, too; he froze where he was, crouched on the floor with dirt all over his clothes and face.

Solange listened, her heart beating hard. They were there, she was sure of it. And now she heard the wet squeaking of shoes just beyond the doors. They would be coming through any second now. Her grip tightened on the lamp, though she was well aware she couldn't fight them hand-to-hand.

And then in the distance, there were two gunshots. It might have been from the house next door or from across the street. The shots were followed by a woman's scream and a man's rising, madly babbling voice. Another siren began to shriek. She heard the slapping squeak of the shoes running away from the doors, quickly fading. She exhaled and leaned aganst the wall, lowering the lamp. "They're gone," she said after she'd caught her breath again. "I think they found something better . . ."

Wes shoved aside an overturned coffee table and found lying underneath it an old black antique that Ma Bell herself must've used about a hundred years ago. When he picked it up, his heart sank—it had been ripped from its terminal. "Damn it!" he breathed. "We've got to call the cops!"

"There's no use in that," Solange said quietly. "The police won't be able to help. If they did come, they'd only . . . find those things waiting for them . . ."

"What about Jimmy?" It was all he could do to keep himself from shouting. His strained voice echoed through the room, many ghosts speaking at once. "What in God's name are they?" He knew the answer to that already, and there was no need for her to utter the awful word. "It can't be!" he said. "They're not real . . . not real . . . !" He steadied himself against an old sofa with red velvet cushions that had white music notes and lettering stitched on them,
The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
and
Charleston, Charleston.
"Somebody must live here," he said. "They must be upstairs." He was afraid to shout, though, for fear those things outside might hear him.

"I think you're wrong," Solange said. Wes stared up at her. "Look around. I think the things have come here and gone."

He forced himself to look. The mangled burglar bars were bad enough; a large, gilt-framed mirror was smashed all to pieces and now hung crookedly over a cold fireplace. Antique lamps lay in fragments on the floor. A couple of bookcases had been overturned, scattering old volumes and little ceramic figurines. Solange bent and picked up one of the figures—it was the remnants of a ballet dancer, both legs and one of the arms broken off. The tiny painted face smiled up at her.

"There's got to be a working phone somewhere in this goddamned tomb!" Wes said and moved through a pair of sliding oak doors into a carpeted corridor that led to the front door. There were more smashed mirrors and framed posters of old movies—
One Night in Madrid, The Prince and the Showgirl, Hollywood's Heaven.
Through the front windows he saw the orange flicker and thought he saw figures moving out on the lawn.

Solange was beside him. "An elevator," she said, and Wes turned. Next to a stairway with thick, ornately carved banisters, there was a wire-mesh elevator shaft.

"Yeah. Fine. So what?" he said irritably. He glanced back toward the front door, a shiver rippling through him. "Where did those things come from? What in God's name
made
them like that?"

Solange said, "We're not safe yet. We've got to find a place to hide in case they come after us again." She started for the stairway, and he was about to follow when a cold hand snaked out of the darkness and gripped his wrist.

Roach was down on the cold stone floor, whimpering like a dog at Prince Vulkan's feet. Vulkan, sitting in his chair at the long, waxed table covered with maps and diagrams, paid the human little attention. He stared into the fire, his face caught between light and shadow. The room still smelled of Falco's charred body; the dogs in the lower basement had gone wild over the cooked meat.
Dust to dust,
Vulkan thought,
and ashes to ashes.
Over on the other side of the table, Kobra sat, his boots propped up before him, and watched Roach through narrowed, red-lit eyes; he held Falco's femur in his left hand like a hideous scepter. Since after midnight couriers from Vulkan's lieutenants had been coming up the mountain to report on the shifting concentrations of activity —troops were now rampaging through Hollywood and Beverly Hills and a great part of southern L.A., including an area called Watts, which had already fallen. There had been several skirmishes with police officers who'd never known what they were chasing until it was too late. The control tower at the Santa Monica Municipal Airport had been overtaken, and some of the less-disciplined ones had amused themselves by crashing a few private planes. A military school in Westwood Village had been taken, and along with it sixty-eight young boys who had been asleep in their beds when the attack came; they would make fine soldiers tomorrow night. But for the most part the action had been hit-and-run, which was how Prince Vulkan preferred it right now. Individual houses broken into, the sleeping man and woman and children quickly drunk dry and shrouded away from the sunlight to sleep awhile longer; cars flagged down on the avenues and boulevards, their drivers taken by surprise; apartment complexes taken silently, one cubicle after the next. Prince Vulkan had been in L.A. a little over a month now, and by his conservative estimate there were over six hundred thousand of his kind spread across the city. Moreover, the number doubled every night. His fangs had sired the beginnings of a new race.