Lights Out (30 page)

As Maggot watched, Nicholas stood up from the bunk. The guard unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve, and Maggot watched in horror as he rolled the sleeve up past his elbow, almost all the way to his shoulder. He balled his hand into a fist. The guard’s smile grew awful and leering. “Let’s work on some
real
pain,” he said.

Maggot swung his arm, his own hand curling into a fist as it sailed through the air. Images of his father raced through his head, flaring his sudden thirst for violence, for death. He would kill Officer Nicholas, make him pay for the terrible things he had done. The monster would fall beneath his hand, and then he would show Nicholas what pain meant.

But Nicholas caught Maggot’s fist and shoved it aside. A kick to the gut followed, and Maggot doubled over, his will to fight suddenly gone.

He scampered backward and Nicholas followed, his feet attacking like vipers.

“Try to hit me?” the guard yelled. “You little fuck!”

Maggot shrank away, but there was nowhere left to go. He was cornered. Desperate, he tried to retreat to another place, a secret pace in his mind where he would not feel pain, but the guard still stood there, looking down at him and smiling like the devil himself.

But then suddenly Nicholas stopped smiling. His eyes went wide as the rest of his face fell slack. A moment later, his body went limp and collapsed to the ground.

Maggot looked at the man’s body, at the large, bloody wound in the back. It did not make any sense. He tried to sort it out, but no answer that came to him made any sense.

Slowly, he noticed the shoes just beyond the guard’s bloody corpse. He examined them for a moment and then looked up at the dirty, mud-streaked slacks and the shirt that had torn in several places. Finally, his eyes came to rest on the face--the monstrous, creased face--and the bared fangs. The thing was terrible, frightening, but something about it looked so familiar.

“Dr. Wilson?” Maggot asked.

Nine

Darren felt his way along the railing, searching for the staircase. His eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness that threatened to smother the sputtering bonfire, but that only made him damn near blind instead of completely screwed. The air filled with screams of horror and pain, and above it all he heard the growling and snarling of that beast, that terrible creature that had started all of this. He had to reach the monster and stop it.

So he had to find the stairs.

His foot caught on one of the dead bodies, and he nearly fell. Crying out, he tightened his grip on the rail and managed to right himself a split second before he went tumbling. At the same moment, the fire died and Unit B went dark.

But as his eyes continued to adjust, he realized the darkness was not total. Weak emergency lights cast a small amount of light. The fire must have set them off somehow.

Suddenly, a loud crash sounded from the opposite end of the prison. The entire cellblock shook. He knew the source at once. Ron’s forces had punched their way into the building. The State Police and SORT team would be charging through any second. Things were about to get infinitely worse. The only thing they had going for them now was that the cops would have to fight their way through Unit A in order to reach them.

Moving cautiously, letting his eyes finish their adjustment, he found a break in the railing. The staircase. He whispered a prayer and crossed himself. Still unsure of what he would do once he reached the bottom, he began his descent.

***

“Fuck this.” Ribisi stood near the center of the unit, feeling flecks of warm blood splash across his face every few seconds.

He looked around, and he didn’t like what he saw. Men were dying all around him, and their numbers were dwindling fast. He’d seen the new vampire, or whatever the hell it was, enter before the fire died, and the bastard had looked like something right out of hell. Now, he could only guess its location--the emergency lights cast too many shadows--but the cries that came from a large group of prisoners and guards seemed to answer the question easily enough.

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” He searched for his people, but they were nowhere close. They were either fighting or dead. A small taste of victory had poisoned them, and they’d failed to realize this new vampire was beyond them. Now, they paid the price.

Anton backed away from the mass of bodies and searched the room again, trying to formulate a plan. He saw a lot of corpses, both human and monster, but nothing that might do the trick. Looking up, he found the buckets of holy water stationed on the second floor walkway. The men in charge of them had disappeared, either dead or fleeing. If he could get up there and get his hands on one of the buckets, he’d have something that might pack a big enough wallop to stop that goddamned beast.

He moved toward the closest staircase, and made it nearly four steps when he saw Morrow ram a stake into the heart of a bloodsucker. Anton grabbed the man’s arm as he passed, not bothering to slow his pace.

“C’mon, Officer. We got work to do.”

***

Tree looked to Hodge and nodded. They’d been watching each other, and he’d seen the Aryan kill two bloodsuckers. Tree had managed to off three, and their black blood coated his arms past the elbows. Now, the two giants moved through the crowd, heading for this thing that could only be the head motherfucker.

They clambered over the corpses of their fellow prisoners, drawing closer to the creature. Tree couldn’t hear anything through the ringing in his ears. His stitches had torn open, but he ignored any pain his wounds produced. He felt nothing but the need to kill the thing in front of him, and he was sure Hodge felt the same. They were in this together, despite the hate between them. Their desire to kill the bloodsuckers was more powerful.

The space between them and the monster cleared, and they attacked as a single unit, leaping at the beast and catching it in the gut with a flying tackle. The creature stumbled back a single step before righting itself and casting them aside. Tree let out a growl and launched himself at the again, Hodge right behind. He threw a punch at the thing’s face and landed a solid hit.

Pain raced up his arm as his hand shattered, but he ignored it, instead swinging again, rocking the vampire’s head backward. Hodge kicked the back of the monster’s knee, and it finally went down. Tree brought the stake over his head and down toward the vampire’s heart, but the thing grabbed his wrist in a grip like steel, stopping the weapon dead. Hodge reared back and kicked the bloodsucker’s face. Still the monster didn’t weaken. Tree stomped on its balls to no effect.

“Die, you muthafucka!” he roared down at it, and the vampire responded with a long screech that stabbed at his eardrums before it hurled him backward. He seemed to float for an eternity before crashing hard on his back. The air burst out of his lungs in a single, violent explosion, and he hiccupped as he tried to draw breath into his lungs again. He rolled to his side, groaning, and then he fully remembered what was going on and leapt to his feet.

Tree turned and saw Hodge take a shot to the side of the face that spun him like a top. Blood flew from the Aryan’s mouth in a wide spray, and when he hit the ground he showed no signs of life.

Tree charged the monster, building up speed until he was rocketing along the floor like a bullet train. When he connected with the monster, he sent it backward into the wall like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. He reared back and kicked it in the kneecap, heard a satisfying
crunch!
followed by an agonized shriek. The creature’s leg buckled, and it listed to one side.

Tree assaulted the beast with rights and lefts, kicks and punches, and the thing began to crumple to the ground. He roared his celebration, and when the thing fell forward under his onslaught he searched the floor for a stake so he could finish off the fucking bastard.

He was still searching frantically when pain exploded in his balls. A scream tore free of his throat, and he looked down in time to see the bloodsucker’s taloned hand rip away his genitals. He grabbed his crotch, unable to do anything else, and sank to his knees. The monster stood over him, keeping its weight on one knee. It hissed down at him, and even as the first stages of shock took hold of his system, Tree returned the vampire’s gaze.

***

Darren watched the vampire fight off Tree and Hodge, two of the biggest men he had ever seen. Now, their bodies littered the floor along with the rest. There were maybe twenty men left standing who tried to fight the creature. The rest had fled or were hiding in empty cells.

Dozens of bodies covered the floor, but he didn’t stop to count them. He simply marked the quickest path through them and then pushed them out of his mind.

He leapt down the last part of the stairway and landed in a clumsy crouch, pitching forward and catching himself with one hand. When he looked up, he saw Ribisi and Morrow climbing the opposite staircase. A part of his mind wondered what they were doing, but he shut down those thoughts. He had to get that vampire’s attention, and he had to do it fast. Everything else could wait.

Clutching his rosary in a death grip, he started across the floor.

***

Morrow followed Ribisi up the stairs, watching the shadows play across the back of the old man’s head. He felt tired and frightened, and he had no idea how many dead they were leaving behind them, only that it was more than he dared acknowledge.

“Where we going?” he asked between panting breaths.

“Just keep your eyes open.”

Morrow nodded just in case Ribisi cast a glance back at him. He wanted the man to think he was still playing along like a good little peon.

They reached the first walkway and left the stairway. Ribisi led him toward the Unit’s entrance, where this new vampire was destroying everyone in his path. He saw it tear Tree’s throat out in a single pull of flesh and tendons and blood vessels, washing the monster’s chin and mouth with crimson. Nothing was going to stop that thing. Their hope was officially gone.

“We’re gonna kill that fuckin’ thing,” Ribisi said, but Morrow couldn’t bring himself to believe the words. Ribisi was going to try, and he was going to fail. The vampire would kill him after that, and Morrow couldn’t let that happen.

“I don’t think so, Anton,” he said, then grabbed the old man and shoved him into a nearby cell.

“What the fuck you doin’?” Ribisi demanded. The look in his dark eyes was pure rage. He didn’t like being pushed around.

Join the club,
Morrow thought. He answered the Sicilian’s question with a punch to the gut. The man doubled over and stumbled backward, hitting the cell’s wall and collapsing to the floor.

“You threatened me, kept me under your goddamn thumb for how long now? I’m fucking done with that. You understand me, you son of a bitch?
Do you?”

Ribisi looked up with wet eyes. He grit his teeth through the pain. “You’ll die for this one, Officer. I swear to fuckin’ Christ!”

Morrow continued, not giving a fuck about the old man’s threats. “You threatened my family. My
family,
goddammit!” He landed a right on the old man’s jaw, followed it with a left that knocked the Sicilian to the floor in a sprawl.

Anton looked up at him, smiled with his bloody mouth. “You got no dick, Officer.”

Morrow grabbed Ribisi’s throat in both hands and squeezed. His fingers burned with the effort, but he didn’t let go, did not ease his grip until long after the old man had stopped struggling. Once he knew for sure that the boss was dead, he let go, letting the corpse fall to the floor.

“Rest in peace, you bastard,” he said. Then, left the cell. He had to find a way out of Burnham.

***

Darren moved around the outskirts of the cellblock, trying to get as close to the exit as he could. He kept his eyes on the vampire, which was now creeping toward the center of the room on uneven legs. What few inmates remained hung back, watching from the outskirts and trying to figure out what to do.

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the vial of holy water he had placed there and popped the stopper with his thumb. In the back of his mind, he knew this was a terrible idea, one that most likely had no chance of working, but it was the only plan he had, so he needed to give it a shot. Desperate times and all that jazz. The thought almost made him chuckle. It probably would have, if he wasn’t so terrified.

Checking his location, he found himself near the exit. He looked down the hallway, marking a path through the scattered corpses and then turned back to his target. His balls seemed to draw up until they were just below his heart. He thought he might pass out again, but he took a deep breath of the smoke-filled air and choked instead. His eyes watered, and he wiped his tears away with a sleeve. Steeling himself, he stepped forward.

“Monster!”

The vampire turned at the sound of his voice, peeling its blood-smeared lips back into a hungry smile. The vestments didn’t seem to have any effect, but Darren had expected that. They hadn’t bothered the lesser vampires much. He could only hope the water would have an effect.

“Still hungry? Want to see if my blood tastes better than the rest? C’mon!”

The creature moved toward him, hissing, and Darren forced himself to stand his ground. His heart hammered in his chest, and his breath felt cold and useless as it passed his numb lips. He held the vial in one hand, his thumb pressed over the opening.

“That’s a good boy. Come and see what I’m made of, you fuck!”

The monster darted for him, and Albright swung the vial upward, releasing his thumb the slightest bit. A thin spray of water flew outward, splashing across the beast’s naked skin. He smiled when the vampire reared back, crying out as its skin bubbled in the places it had been hit. He splashed it again, and the cry of pain shifted to one of rage. When the monster calmed, turning to look at him with burning yellow eyes, Darren spoke.