Dark Corner (53 page)

Their army had arisen.

Standing at the end of the walkway that led to the hospital entrance, Kyle watched their soldiers, the valduwe, pour
out of the building.

They were an odd-looking group: men and women of myriad ages and ethnicities (though most of them were black),
some of them clad in blue hospital garments, others wearing
street clothing, some of them physically fit, others obese,
some of them attractive, some of them ugly. But they had
two traits in common: their insatiable hunger for blood, and
their obedience to the will of his father.

Upon awakening the army, Diallo had telepathically
commanded the valduwe to obey Kyle's orders. Kyle had
not yet exercised his authority. He enjoyed watching these
low-level vampires-these mongrels of their species-attack and feed on every human in the vicinity. They had no
finesse, no finely honed hunting skills, only graceless, sav age strength. The humans did not stand a chance against
them.

By dawn, we will command hundreds of valduwe, his father had promised. We will suck this town dry of life, and
then we will move onward to the next.

Diallo had ventured elsewhere in the town, alone, to recruit new soldiers. He had instructed Kyle to take these mutants and use them to subdue the city and multiply their
numbers. Before sunrise, he and his father would reconvene
in their sanctuary.

Kyle had waited a lifetime for a mission such as this. His
father had instilled his life with purpose. What purpose was
there in living in isolated luxury, avoiding humans as though
they were something to fear? It perplexed him how Mother
could tolerate her dismal existence.

But he would not waste time worrying about Mother anymore.

Several vehicles veered into the parking lot. Humans.
Armed with weaponry. Members of the civil defense team.
Fools.

A casual glance confirmed that David Hunter was not
among them. Neither were Nia James or Chief Jackson.

Nevertheless, Kyle summoned his army. The time for battle was near.

Jackson and Jahlil roared across town, siren wailing.

A crackling voice on the walkie-talkie it sounded
like Mac shouted that something like twenty vampires
roamed outside the hospital. "One of the head honchos is
with them, too," Mac said. "Tall, dark-skinned fella,
wearing black, looks young. You gotta hurry up and get
here, Chief." Mac's voice quavered. He sounded truly
scared.

"Is Hunter there?" Jackson asked.

"We lost him on the way over," Mac said. "Think he
stopped for something."

"Shit," Jackson said. He hoped that David was okay. The
last thing they needed was to lose Hunter. "We'll be there in
a few, Mac. Hold it down"

"Yes, sir." The radio sputtered into silence.

"I'm kinda scared, Dad," Jahlil said. Holding his shotgun
on his lap, he stroked the barrel as if for reassurance. "What
if... what if we can't win?"

Jackson glanced at his son. He understood the true fear
that weighed on Jahlil's mind. But Jahlil was afraid to say it.

What if you die, Dad? was the fear that Jackson realized
tormented his son.

"Anything like that happens, you call Hunter," Jackson
said. "He'll know what to do"

"But I hardly know that guy, Dad. I mean, he seems cool,
but...

"You can trust him. He's a good man. I talked to him earlier about backup plans, guess you'd call them"

"Oh" Jahlil wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He
laughed, but it was a nervous sound. "Forget this, man, I'm
gonna start thinking positive. Didn't you used to always say,
`If you can believe it, you can achieve it'?"

"That was me"

"I'm gonna take your advice. This one time." Jahlil
chuckled again, and this time, Jackson laughed, too.

Nothing, Jackson thought, is as important as keeping up
hope. Hope was like food, nourishing you, making it possible to endure what seemed unbearable. A man without any
hope was practically dead inside.

But sometimes, hope didn't save the day. Jackson didn't
have the heart to tell his son that he had believed, and hoped,
that his wife would conquer her cancer. Didn't want to crush
his boy's optimism. Just as it was important to nurture hope
on your own, so was it important to allow someone to hold tight to his own hope, even when his efforts might be in
vain.

The hospital would be around the next corner.

David slumped against a tree, recovering from the incident with Franklin, while inside the Pathfinder, King bustled
around impatiently.

He and Nia had taken the young woman upon whom
Franklin had preyed inside her house, and laid her body
across the living-room sofa. She remained unconscious as
they moved her, purple-red puncture wounds glowing on her
neck. Undoubtedly, she was already mutating into a vampire.

The thought sickened and angered David. How many
other people in town had been bitten and were quietly undergoing the same terrible transformation? They didn't have
much time before they lost everyone to Diallo and his bloodthirsty minions.

"We've got to go," he said. His watch read half-past ten.
"We've got to help the team at the hospital."

"I hate to bring this up, but what should we do about
Franklin's body?" Nia asked. "Should we come back
later?"

"Yeah" He refused to look around and see Franklin's
corpse. "We'll take care of it later."

As they shuffled back to the SUV, King flew into a frenzy,
barking and pawing the windows.

What's gotten into him? David thought. King had freaked
out before they'd discovered Franklin feeding on the woman,
too. Did the dog have a keen nose for evil?

David looked around. He didn't see anything out of the
ordinary.

King stood in the space between the front seats, growling.
David locked gazes with the canine, and it struck him, sud denly, what King was going to attempt. He had lived with
the dog long enough to be able to predict its actions.

Nia opened the passenger door.

"Don't let him get out!" David said.

King bolted through the doorway in a gray-black streak,
knocking Nia aside as he ran.

"King, get back here!" David scrambled after the dog.
"Stop!"

The dog did not heed his call. King galloped across a
yard and disappeared in the murky shadows behind the
house.

"Come back, King!" David chased him.

But King was not in the backyard. A dark alley ran behind the property, and David went to the edge and looked
both ways. He did not see any sign of King. The dog
could've run anywhere.

It was a dangerous night for men and dogs alike. David's
worst fear was that King would be attacked by one of those
hellhounds and become a member of Diallo's murderous
hordes.

Nia ran up beside David. "Where is he?"

"The hell if I know." If David's hair were longer, he
would've grabbed it in his fists and pulled it out in tufts.
"He's never run off like this. I don't know what's the matter
with him."

"I'm so sorry, David. I shouldn't have let him get out"

"It's not your fault. I should've left King at home in the
first place. Damn" He marched to the truck and got the dog
leash.

"I know we're supposed to be helping at the hospital, but
I can't leave my dog out there," he said. "No telling what
could happen to him."

"I'll go look for him," Nia said. "I've lost one dog today,
and I'm not losing another one if I can help it. Give me the
leash"

"Are you nuts? I'm not letting you walk around alone out
here"

"I'll have my piece with me "" She patted the holstered gun
on her hip. "You can cruise around the block looking for
King, and I'll look for him on foot. It makes more sense,
David. I can run faster than you. Former track athlete, remember?"

"You're right, but I have a bad feeling about this." He
pressed the leash into her palm. "Okay, whether we find
King or not, we meet back here in fifteen minutes."

"We'll find him, I promise," she said. "See you in fifteen."

David watched her leave.

She can protect herself, he reminded himself. Hell, she
can handle a gun better than I can, knows how to fight, and
runs like a gazelle. She'll be fine.

But why did he have such an awful feeling of dread?

When Jackson neared the hospital, his first thought was
that a mob had crowded in front of the building. But this
mob was mostly dressed in dirty patient gowns.

They were the vampires.

Feral-looking dogs, at least a dozen of them, joined their
two-legged counterparts.

The bloodsuckers gathered around the striking, unmistakeable figure of Kyle. Clad in black, he might have been an
ancient god who had emerged from a chasm in the earth and
brought along his evil servants.

I reached inside your puny brain before and shaped it as
a sculptor manipulates clay.

As Jackson remembered how this fiend had screwed up
his mind, a spider of anxiety skittered down his back.

A couple hundred yards away, at the edge of the parking
lot, the citizen defense teams had used their cars to form a
barricade. Five vehicles-a Dodge Ram pickup, a Ford Explorer, a Chevy, a Honda, and a Mustang-were arranged
bumper-to-bumper, serving as a makeshift wall.

"This is crazy," Jahlil mumbled.

Jackson parked the patrol car at the end of the line of vehicles.

"Move fast," he said to Jahlil. Jackson grabbed his shotgun, and Jahlil clutched his, too. "Stay behind the line."

Hurriedly, they got out.

About fifteen people huddled behind the bunker. Every
one of them had a firearm, and Molotov cocktails were lined
up on the pavement.

The team members were visibly relieved when they saw
Jackson. Mac approached him, the flamethrower strapped to
his back.

"Sure glad you got here safe, Chief," Mac said. "Those
dirtbags haven't moved on us yet. They've been hanging
back, like they're waiting on something."

"So what're we waiting for?" Jackson said. "Last thing
we wanna do is let them make the first move and put our
backs against the wall. We've gotta take the initiative, Mac"

Jahlil grabbed his arm. "They're coming, Dad"

I ain't surprised, Jackson thought. Id bet dollars to
doughnuts that Kyle was waiting on me to get here.

The vampires shambled across the parking lot, moving in
loose formation, like a demonic army. Kyle marched behind
his soldiers.

"What do we do, Chief?" Mac asked in a shaky voice.

Jackson quickly summed up the situation and made a decision.

"This is what we're gonna do," Jackson said. "Mac, you
and I are gonna climb on the flatbed of your truck. If you
don't mind, my son's gonna drive. We're gonna circle
around this parking lot, real fast, and pick off those suckers.
I'll hit 'em with my shotgun, and Mac'll blast 'em with
some fire."

Mac nodded. Jahlil looked scared, but determined to do
the job.

Jackson said, "The rest of y'all, stay behind the lines and
use your guns and the bottle bombs to knock 'em down.
Keep 'em back! Mac and I will do our best to squash the
suckers, but we can't fight 'em alone. Everyone ready?"

"Ready, Chief," the group murmured, in anxious voices.
They didn't sound half as gung-ho as he'd hoped. They
sounded as if they were on the verge of getting the hell out
of there.

He couldn't blame them. This was probably a suicide
mission. But he had to do it. It was his duty, and forsaking
duty was unthinkable.

"Let's go, Dad!" Jahlil said. "They're getting closer!"

The vampire army was halfway across the parking lot.

Mac's pickup was parked at the front of the wall of
cars. Mac and Jackson hopped onto the flatbed, and Jahlil
scrambled behind the wheel. The truck started with a
throaty roar.

"Go, boy!" Jackson yelled, and thumped the roof of the
pickup.

Jahlil poured on the gas. The Dodge peeled out across the
pavement. They began to roll toward the vampires.

Jackson positioned himself on the side of the truck, near
the front, and Mac took the rear on the same side, so they
could work in tandem.

"This beats the hell out of 'Nam," Mac said. Gripping the
flamethrower, he shook his head. "Christ, I thought nothing
could be worse than that"

"I hear ya, Mac" Jackson held his Remington shotgun
tight. His heart throbbed painfully.

Thunder rumbled across the night, sounding like mountains colliding somewhere on the horizon. Cords of lightning punished the swollen sky.

As they came up on the monsters, a clarity of vision over took Jackson. He sank into what he liked to call the "zone of
the hunter," a state in which his eyesight was hawk-sharp,
his muscles were pumped and loose, and his concentration
was unbreakable.

He raised the shotgun.

"Ready when you are, Mac"

"Let's do it, Chief."

Jahlil, handling the Dodge with expert skill, drove directly toward the vampires, as if he were going to steamroll
over them. The creatures shrieked, and scattered like rodents. Jahlil smoothly curved to the edge of the pack.

Jackson took aim at one of the suckers-someone he
knew, God help him, when the vampire had been a manand plugged the beast in the head. The creature flopped to
the ground.

Mac hit the fallen vampire with a jet of fire, and the monster went up in flames like a bundle of dry sticks.

"Yeah!" Jahlil honked the horn.

Jackson didn't have any desire to celebrate. He was sickened by this terrible work they had to do. This was police
duty, at its worst.

After tonight, he might hang up his badge, forever.

The vampires howled, enraged. They chased after the
truck.

Jahlil veered around the lot, keeping a good lead on them.
Then they made another pass at the horde.

Jackson lowered into a crouch. He squeezed off two
shots: one struck a vampire in the back, the second hit another vampire in the chest. Both of the vamps crumpled.
Mac torched them the instant they fell.