Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) (19 page)

He forced himself into a calm detachment he didn’t feel. He moved around to the arm that lay where he’d left it. If there were such a thing as hebie jebies he was pretty sure he had them right now. He rummaged through the kit and then pulled out a big needle and su
rgical thread. He pulled out an alcohol swab and was going to rip it open when he heard her laugh. He looked over to her.

Her face wasn’t bleeding anymore and there was a thin sheen of skin over the eye that had been lidless just a moment ago. “What are you goi
ng to do with that alcohol swab?” she asked.

“I’m going to…” he stopped short as he looked at the torn flesh where her arm should be. “Good point,” he said as he put the swab back in the kit. There was no mo
re putting it off. He picked up the arm and she sucked in a pained breath. He ignored her as he tried to see the best way to sew it back on.

“Just sew
the best you can. As long as it’s not backwards it will heal,” she said between clenched teeth.

He pressed the arm to her side and stabbed the dangling flesh
left on the limb. He pressed the needle up into the shoulder meat and then repeated the action. Alicia turned her head away and her breathing was labored. It had to hurt terribly.

“You feel this?
” he asked.

She gave him an incredulous glare before looking away again.

“What I mean is… if someone ripped my arm off and I had to get it sewn back on without anesthesia I would have passed out long ago. Well, that plus, I don’t think I’d be able to move my arm if it was no longer attached to my body. I mean I’ve heard when they cut the heads off chickens they still get a good dance out of them but not if the chicken has already been chewed on by the neighborhood dogs, I mean their bones don’t just start moving around while their head is being held in the farmer’s hand, I mean not that I’ve ever-“

“You’re rambling,” she interrupted him.

He stopped mid-sentence and acknowledged for a moment the emotion that was running through him. “You’re right. It’s just that this is a lot to deal with. I wake up to find you being eaten alive and then I get to sew your moving arm back on. This is a very not funny version of a bad B rated scary movie. If someone told me that things like this actually happened… It’s just a lot.”

“I told you. You would have been better off if you’d never known any of this. I told you that I wasn’t human.”

He stopped his task and looked at her. She was still trembling but already he could see that she was healing.

“Maybe
you’re not,” he said quietly.

He saw the hurt register in her face so he hurried to continue. “
No human I know could go through the things you’ve gone through and still want to help other people. Maybe those angel wings on your back are more than a tattoo,” he said before he went back to sewing her.

He was at the armpit and it was more difficult now. He had to lift her arm and place it over his shoulder. He controlled his reaction when the arm helped him by holding on to his sleeve for support. She pulled his sleeve and made him look into her eyes. The eyelid had returned but there were still no eye lashes yet.

“Mere de Dieu! You’re saying that you think me an angel?”

“I’m saying that you’re not the hard ass that you think you are.”

She rolled her eyes and fell back again. “You’re right about that. I couldn’t protect you while you were asleep. I would be the worst angel ever, non?”

“No one is perfect but I think you do alright. You have protected plenty of innocent lives. If people knew what you did you would be given a thousand metals. The fact that you don’t walk around flaunting what you
do for other people makes you-”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” he asked.

“Make me out to be some kind of selfless hero. I have my reasons for doing wha
t I do and they are not as selfless as you think. I have a debt to pay and I pay it every day that I wake up and live alone. So just… don’t. D’accord?”

He finally came back to the front of the arm and over lapped his stitches. It was ugly. He would never be a doctor, that much was certain. The arm released him and fell to her side.

“You have to get out of here,” she said as she lay there looking so weak and vulnerable. Some protective instinct rose up within him and he wanted to kick the shit out of something for this.

“We have to get out of here,” he corrected her as he looked around.
He went to the cave entrance. There was no visible light but he could nearly hear the sounds coming from outside. Alicia would be able to move a few boulders and get them out but she was running low on energy right now without a doubt.

He turned back to the interior of the cave. “The wolves,” he said out loud.

Alicia sat up instantly as if she was ready to battle again. He closed his eye as he saw the gory mess that was her back. She would be so mad about her tattoo, but he wouldn’t mention that now. “Where?” she asked.

“No. I mean they got in here some how. If they got in, then there has to be a way out.”

She grabbed his arm just as he was about to pass her. “Leave me here and get yourself out, cherie. I’ll heal. Take my cell phone, get to Bateman. Tell him what the twins said about you. Maybe he’ll help you.”

After
she finished her mandate, she fell hard, her eyes sliding closed. He hurried to her side and checked her. He was relieved to see that she was only sleeping. She was probably just healing herself. He shook his head wishing that she could just trust him. He wasn’t going to abandon her. She was pretty well stuck with him. He didn’t trust anyone but her to see him through this and he wouldn’t leave her vulnerable for another attack. He armed himself and then a thought came to him.

When he was a boy his father had taken him camping. They had found a cave like this and his father had told him that if he got t
urned around in a cave, a small fire could show him the way out. He found some kindling that Al had set up near the fresh water. He struck a match and got a fire going. The cavern filled quickly with smoke but then he saw it escaping somewhere in the back.

He picked up the glow stick and headed out after the smoke.
“I pray this day will end better than the last,” he mumbled. His hopes for that were very bleak seeing what a great start they were off to already.

Chapter
Ten

Jerry emerged from the dark smoky tunnel with a gasp. He drug in lung-fulls of clean air as he coughed out the bad. Maybe the fire thing wasn’t the best idea. He had to learn more survival skills than he had. After a while he looked around the area. The entrance the wolves had dug was nearly directly in the side of the mountain. As he looked back at it he realized that it was fairly hidden by the undergrowth. The wolves had to have crawled all over this mountain to find this one little passageway into the cave.

He looked up at the sky. It was early in the morning. He listened for any sound. He didn’t hear any cars to indicate a highway was near. Which way had they le
ft the bike? He’d been so tired he hadn’t been paying any attention at all. He was still tired truth be told, but not nearly as bone weary as he had been. He wasn’t even sure how he’d kept himself moving at all yesterday. He looked up at the trees. They were thicker off to the left than they were to the right.

H
e had a better chance of finding a road where the trees were thinner. He did recall coming uphill last night and for some reason he thought they’d ridden the bike at the crease of the mountain. He started out in that direction and snapped small branches as he went to better recall where the hole was to get back inside the mountain cave.

He had been walking so long that he thought it might be better for him to head back fo
r Alicia. Suddenly he burst from the trees and on to a paved road. He blinked a few times as he tried to absorb the fact that luck had finally been on his side.  There were no center lines on this road and it was too narrow to be a highway, but a road meant that there were people nearby. He looked to the left and then to the right.

He turned and pulled a few branches loose and left them in an x at the side of the road.
He turned to the right and started to walk. He’d been walking for about ten minutes when he came upon one of the biggest houses he’d ever seen. He wasn’t sure what he would say to these people but he knew that he needed help.

He was working on a story about how
he and his girlfriend had gone camping in the woods. He would say that they had been trapped by a cave in and that he needed help getting her out. He decided it sounded as good as any lie as he neared the front door. He cursed and discarded the useless thoughts the closer he got to the house. As it turned out he wouldn’t need any lie. The white front door of the beige colored house was lying in a heap of rubble on the floor. He pulled out the gun he had tucked in the waist band at the back of his jeans and made his way inside. The house was a majestic structure complete with a foyer and grand staircase that led up to a right and left hall way.

Something stirred beneath his feet and he took aim at the
white marble floor. Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the basement. He looked around the foyer at the smashed tables and pots. There was a picture in a silver frame lying face up. He picked it up and shook out the broken glass. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, with what appeared to be their mother and father, stared up at him with smiling happy faces. It looked like the type of picture that the rich made Christmas cards out of to send to their relatives around the holidays.

The stirring came from beneath his feet yet again and he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Apparently the wolves had stopped here for reinforcement and shelter. He lay the frame gently on the only table that remained standing. He walked until he
found the kitchen, then the door that led to the basement. The door was gone but the entrance way had been blocked by branches, twigs, and mud. It was as if a wild creature had found its way inside this lovely home and made its nest.

Technically that was exactly what had happened.
He took a deep breath as sadness filled his soul. There was a ripped and tattered maid’s uniform lying on the kitchen floor. There had probably been a whole staff of people working in this giant house. The house had probably been full of life, laughter, and happiness only yesterday, and now that was all gone.

His sadness was replaced by rage as he walked over to the branch wall and began to tear it down. The stirring inside turned to screeching howls as the light infiltrated th
e dank interior. He hurried outside and picked up a shovel that had been abandoned in the beautiful flower garden. The yard was what would be called ‘manicured’. Obviously someone had poured their heart and soul into taking care of the small delicate flowers that created wonderful designs.

He headed towards the house and smashed out the basement windows. Branches, twigs
, and mud had been used to block these entrances as well, but he dislodged them easily enough. He closed his eyes against the howling screeches, but he couldn’t close his ears, his nose, or his heart. How did Al do this? How did she do it day in and day out? She probably didn’t take time to stop and look at family photos.

He turned and was going to run as far away as possible when he remembered what he had come for. As much as he wanted to run he knew that he couldn’t. There were things that they needed that these people would never need again. He headed around the house and back in the front door. There was a panel off the entry hall. It was an expensive alarm system. Little good an alarm did them. It probably wasn’t even set as they
all curled up in front of the TV or did the things people did when they felt safe and secure within the walls of their own home.

He pushed the thoughts away from him with some effort and headed up the stairs. He found the master bedroom. There was a man’s wallet sitting on top. He used a napkin to open it up and pull the bills out of the
inside. There was nearly two thousand dollars. Who walked around with two thousand dollars in their pocket? Someone who wasn’t in a public service capacity, that was for sure. Well, with the exception of maybe a politician.

He ignored the name on the driver’s license and put the wallet back. He found car keys and made his way back to the kitchen. The screeching had stopped but the smell was rank and foul. He covered his nose and went to a door that led to a garage. There were two jeeps, a station wagon, a Mercedes Benz
, and a Saab sports car. He hit the button on the keychain and was relieved when the sports car beeped. They would need speed to keep ahead of the creatures at night.

He hurried t
o get inside and adjust the seat. The relief of being away from that house with its sad story was overwhelming. An entire family had been lost. Those left behind would be devastated by the loss. He made it to the place where he had left the X. He looked at the backseat. Al was going to be crammed in like a sardine. He had to get Al and the ammo back to the car. Nevada was a long ways off. He would make sure that they had a full tank of gas before nightfall came.

*
                            *                            *

It was nea
rly two by the time he got Al and the equipment back to the car. He’d had some grand idea of tying branches together to drag both Al and the equipment out of the cave but first things first, the hole was too small. Second he had no hatchet or machete to chop branches large enough to carry her and the ammo out, and no idea how to tie them together much less rope to tie them with. He’d been forced to make the uphill hike to go in, and bring Al out. He had wrapped her in the sleeping bag since she was still missing skin in places.

He’d then had to go back for the equipment. They were getting low on ammo. He had some money
, but probably not enough to buy an armory of silver cased bullets. He was spent by the time he slid behind the driver’s seat. He had to get some distance between them and Taming. He didn’t want to risk being identified again. He hit the highway and didn’t even stop to ask directions for three hours.

When he passed a road sign and realized they were going the wrong direction he stopped to buy a map. They needed to get a map and he needed some food. He stopped at a truck stop and pulled up to the restaurant side. He looked around. The parking lot was nearly empty. He slid over to the minivan he’d parked beside and checked to make sure no one was watching.

The plates were from North Carolina and the top of the van was loaded with luggage. They were on vacation and probably wouldn’t notice that their plates had been switched for some time. Who regularly checked their license plate number anyway? He quickly took out the screws and then transferred the plates to the sports car. He switched them swiftly and then headed into the restaurant. He placed a take-out order and went to look through the maps. He bought the largest road atlas they had then slid into a stool. Someone whistled from behind him.

“Would you look at that car!” He tur
ned to see a few truckers that had spied the car and were standing near the window with their mugs of coffee to admire it.

“You get good
gas mileage with that thing boy?” another of the truckers asked him. He wanted to sink into the floor.

“Don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll find out,” he replied tersely hoping that the tone would put off any further questions.

“Oh yeah. Takin’ ‘er out to stretch ‘er legs a bit eh?” another of the men asked. “Where ya headed?”

“
Florida,” Jerry lied.

The man whistled again. “
I bet you could hit about one eighty without blinking in that thing. Car like that goes a max two forty. You better watch out for speed traps.”

Jerry saw an opportunity. Though he wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible, there might be some merit to what the men were saying. “Yeah. Wish I knew where to get one of those radar detectors.”

He waited a moment before making eye contact with the trucker who had mentioned the speeding problem. The man nodded and went back to his table. When Jerry got his order he went out to the car and started it up. Al slept peacefully despite nearly being twisted like a pretzel. He started up the car and it purred like a cat. He drove around to the side of the parking lot where the truckers parked. He waited fifteen minutes before the man approached the car.

“A hundred,” he said as he opened his jacket and showed him the detector.

“A hundred,” Jerry asked blanching a bit.

“Okay. For you two hundred.”

“What-”

“If I’m not mistaken I saw you on TV yesterday as that Deputy what’s gone missin’. Maybe I give the law a call, maybe I don’t,” the man said with a shrug. “No skin off my teeth.
”

Jerry reached for his pocket when the man lifted the other side of his jacket exposing the gun waiting there. “Three hundred sounds about right,” he amended yet again.

Jerry slowly pulled out two hundred dollar bills. He then put an extra twenty on top of it and passed it out of the window. “A discount for an old friend,” he said as he lifted his shirt to reveal his own cannon.

“For an old friend,” the man replied as he passed the detector in with a smile that was minus two front teeth. He also produced a window suction to mount to the windshield, licked it once
, and stuck it to the windshield for him before strolling off whistling a happy little tune.

Jerry plugged in the detector and waited for it to key up. Once he was certain it was working he hit the gas
and left a bit of tire on the pavement behind him. Two days tops and they would be in Nevada and hopefully out of this nightmare. This couldn’t go on and on into eternity. He was nearly loosing track of himself. The only time he felt like himself anymore was when he was with Al. He could no longer see himself going on without her. He looked at Al sleeping in the back seat. Some parts of this could go on and on and he wouldn’t mind a bit.

*
                            *                            *

Alicia sat
in the driveway of her rancho style house. Her hands gripped the steering wheel and she was taking deep breaths. What if she were to start this car up again? What if she backed out and then just drove and drove, would the nightmare be over? What was it about this memory that she had to live it over and over? Was there something she was missing? Was there something she could do that would change what had happened?

With a sigh she turne
d the car off knowing that even if she could just drive away, she never would. This was her penance. She deserved this, not sweet dreams about making love with Jerry. She reached across the front seat of her Ford Focus and grabbed the bag of subs angrily. She looked up in the mirror to be sure that her scarf was tied in a flattering way, not that she really cared right now. It was just what she always did.

She nearly kicked the car door open
, slamming it closed behind her. She saw that the side door to the house was open a crack. She pushed the door all the way open. The door was not open because her husband had forgotten to close it. It was open because it had been kicked in and was hanging by only one hinge. She knew this, but she still had to go through her prior thought process.

Instantly she dropped the sandwiches and pulled the gun she had strap
ped to her belt. “Thomas! Jazzy!” she called out as she made her way swiftly through the den and then the kitchen. There was stuff everywhere… had they been robbed? She was on her way to the back bedrooms when… Her breath caught in her throat and tears sprung into her eyes.

She struggled to
breathe as she fell to her knees and the tears spilled over. Sitting in the middle of a puddle of blood was a little brown eyed baby. She was gumming the silver skull and crossbones keychain Al kept on her bike keys, her chubby fingers wrapped tightly around them.