The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel (7 page)

     When nothing rushed out at them from inside the small space, Phoebe leaned her head in through the doorway.

     “Hello,” she called softly. “Is anyone here?”

     No one answered. No one attacked them. The pounding from above got louder, but that was the only response Phoebe received.

     “Okay,” she told the kids, “go inside.”

     She ushered Eli and Hannah through the door before she carried Carmen inside. Once beyond the threshold, she closed the door as quietly as she could and twisted the locks into place. She put Carmen down on one of the two couches in the living room and waited for her arms to stop shaking before she gathered the kids to her and sat them down next to the catatonic younger girl.

     Phoebe put one finger to her lips and made her eyes go as wide as they could to exaggerate the need for silence. Eli nodded. Hannah took Carmen’s hand, but that was the extent of her agreement. Phoebe focused on Eli, because he was still her greatest ally.

     She gestured to the three doors in the hallway. She was sure two of them led to bedrooms and one was for a bathroom. With her gestures, she indicated the kids should stay put while she checked them out.

     Eli nodded once more. He understood her silent directions. Phoebe leaned down next to him and cupped his head close to her mouth.

     “If anyone comes out of those rooms besides me, run for the door. Close it behind you. Get the girls out and hide in the hallway as long as you can. You understand?”

     Big tears trembled on Eli’s eyes, but he gave her a third nod. Phoebe hated to put so much responsibility on the small boy, but they were all in this together.

     She made her way to the rooms.

     The first room she hit was the bathroom. She flicked the switch on the wall beside the door and sallow yellow light flooded the windowless room. The shower curtain was clear and revealed no threat behind it. Room one was empty.

     The second door was not a bedroom or bathroom, but a closet. Within it was a vacuum, several coats, several pairs of shoes, and miscellaneous cleaning supplies. It wasn’t even deep enough for anyone to hide in. Phoebe moved onto the final door.

     The only bedroom in the apartment was empty except for a bed, a vanity, a dresser with a TV on top of it, and piles of clothes on the floor. Phoebe wrinkled her nose at the smell of the room as she entered it fully. There was still another closet to check.

     She approached the closet door and let her hand rest on the handle to open it for a moment. Though she told herself her arm shook because carrying Carmen had exhausted her, fear clutched at her throat with icy fingers. She didn’t want to find anyone in the closet. She didn’t want to find any
thing
in the closet.

     With a quick jerk, Phoebe exposed the contents of the closet. Men’s and women’s clothing were mixed together. More shoes littered the floor of the space and boxes occupied the top. Though Phoebe moved some clothing around, she didn’t find a space where anyone could be hiding. She gave a sigh of relief and closed the closet back up.

     The last place she checked was beneath the bed. It sat so low to the floor she couldn’t even squeeze her slim body underneath it. If anyone was hiding under there, she thought, they would have to be an anorexic child.

     Satisfied that they were alone in the apartment, Phoebe returned to the children.

Chapter Ten – Vanity – Leland and Jameson

     The sounds of movement in the parking lot of the convenience store caught Jameson’s attention long before Leland realized they had company.

     “Someone’s out there.” Jameson tipped his head toward the parking lot.

     Female, he thought. He could smell an overwhelming amount of perfume even through the thick walls of the building. Even though he couldn’t see her, he could hear her stumbling on the uneven pavement. She would be near the door soon.

     “Do you see them?” Leland asked as he turned to look out the door.

     “I caught a glimpse,” Jameson lied. He didn’t like the way Leland’s pulse began to accelerate as he thought about the potential for others-crazy or not-to be near their temporary safe place.

     Rising adrenaline gave the scent of Leland’s blood a spicy kick and made Jameson’s mouth flood with saliva. His gums tingled, and his fangs pressed against the flesh, making it burn. He couldn’t feed from Leland because he doubted he could stop himself. He liked the boy; he didn’t want to drain his life. But if he didn’t take blood soon, he was going to go completely insane with hunger. 

     The woman approached the door quickly. High heels clacked on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. Her heavily-made up face peered through the dirty glass as she tried to pull the door open. Her lips, lined in black around lipstick red as blood, turned down into a pissed-off pout. She kicked the door frame with one open-toed heel and hissed in pain as she stubbed her toe.

     “We can let her in,” Leland suggested as he made his way to the door. “We’re leaving anyway, right?”

     Jameson nodded. He didn’t want to speak because he feared his voice would come out in a monstrous, ravenous growl. Instead, he gestured Leland forward. The woman didn’t seem insane. Stupid for running around in heels perhaps, but not crazy like the others.

     Leland threw the lock on the door and ushered the woman inside. Her mouth became an ‘o’ of surprise before she came to her senses and tripped over her tall heels to get through the door.

     “I didn’t think,” she drawled as she righted herself and adjusted her flimsy tank top around her obviously fake breasts. “I mean, I didn’t think no one was here.”

     She sent a flirtatious smile Jameson’s way as he approached.

     “Heya, handsome,” she purred. “How can a girl get a drink around here?” She looked over the counter and her eyes lit on the cigarette racks. “And maybe some smokes, yeah?”

     “Store’s not mine,” Jameson said in an affable tone. “You’re welcome to what you want.”

     The woman pouted once more, but the look was a carefully measured combination of sulk and sexy. Jameson would bet it got response from plenty of customers, but he wasn’t buying. Even as a human, he’d never had an interest in that kind of woman.

     High-heels sashayed over to the counter and leaned herself fully over it. Her short skirt revealed little beneath. Though Leland’s eyes bugged out at the view, Jameson’s rolled around in their sockets. She should have had ‘obvious’ printed across that surgically-altered ass.

     She turned from her place on the counter and smirked at them. “My name’s Vanity Flores. How about you?”

     Leland cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but Jameson put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. Names weren’t necessary. They were ready to leave.

     “Well, Vanity, you’re welcome to whatever’s here except our bags,” Jameson told her. “We were just heading out.”

     “Wait,” Leland protested. He directed an inquiry to Vanity, “Do you know anything about what’s going on? Do you know what’s wrong with the crazy people?”

     Vanity shrugged as she snagged a pack of unfiltered reds and a candy bar from the counter display. She stood and liberated one of the lighters from a nearby rack. She flicked it with her thumb once, then twice before it lit for her.

     Vanity smacked the pack of cigs against her open palm a few times and then tore it open with her long magenta nails. The glittery gems glued to the surfaces sparkled in the dim light of the store.

     “Dunno,” she said. Her pout had come back to those heavily-painted lips. “Shit’s gone whack, right? It’s all fucked up.” She slid one of the cigarettes between her lips and stained it red.

     “We’ll figure it out on our own,” Jameson told Leland in a low voice. “Come on.”

     Vanity clattered over to them in her heels as they waved to her and began to exit the store.

     “Wait,” she whined.

     Jameson shook his head at the door she’d forgotten to lock. He pushed it open and warned, “You’re going to want to keep this locked if you’re going to stay here for a while.”

     “Fuck, I just wanted some smokes,” Vanity mewled as she dangled the pack of reds and shook them in Jameson’s direction.

     “Can I go with you?” she pleaded. “I need to find my boyfriend, Camden. He called me from work a little bit ago. He works at some shithole like this, too, ya know? But I don’t want to go find him alone. You guys could use the company, right?”

     She moved between the two of them and played her long nails around the collar of Jameson’s shirt. The stench of her perfume made him feel as though he was about to vomit in her face.

     “Come on, I can be good company,” Vanity insisted. “Cam doesn’t mind when I’m good company for other cool guys like you.”

     Jameson removed Vanity’s hands from his shirt and tried not to grimace at the touch. She was so unattractive to him he didn’t even want to feed from her.

     “Miss, you don’t know us from the crazy people out there,” he explained to her in the same tone he would use for a child. “For all you know, we could turn on you at any minute. I think you’re safer trying to get to Camden on your own.”

     “You could turn on me,” Vanity agreed as she leaned closer to Jameson. “Or you could take turns on me,” she whispered in what Jameson supposed passed for her attempt at a seductive voice. The woman really didn’t quit.

     “Not interested.” Jameson squeezed Vanity’s wrists with more force than he needed to as he pushed her away. His strength was still something he had to work on getting used to.

     Vanity cried out as he pushed her. She acted as though he’d ripped her arms off instead of giving her an innocent little display of strength to make her back off.

     Jameson grabbed Leland and hauled him out of the door. The boy still felt some negative effects of his ill-advised drinking, he was sure, but they needed to move. Vanity was an inconvenience he didn’t want hanging around his neck or any other body part.

     “You fucking asshole!” Vanity screeched as she stumbled out into the parking lot after them. “I hope one of them fuckers finds you and beats the shit out of you!” She bent down to scoop up a rock in her manicured hand and flung it at them.

     Jameson pulled Leland slightly to the right to avoid the hit. Vanity wouldn’t be able to follow them far in her wobbly heels. She wouldn’t even be able to keep up if their pace went above a walk.

     “Pricks!” Vanity hollered as she threw another rock. It fell far short of its mark. “Losers! Assholes!”

     Jameson heard the stomping of feet before he saw the threat.

     “Get down,” he whispered to Leland. He pulled the kid around the side of a house and looked back toward Vanity. Her screeches had brought her some negative attention. Jameson didn’t want it to extend to him and Leland.

     A morbid curiosity and a drive to learn about his potential enemies kept Jameson silent and immobile.

     Vanity fled back toward the store as soon as she saw the mob of infected thundering down the street, drawn by her voice. She pulled the door open, slammed it shut, and locked it.

     Jameson saw that Vanity had decided to pull snack racks and tall shelves to the door in a frantic attempt to make a barricade. She leaned against it once she’d packed as much as she could against the entryway.

     The group of howling insane people hit the parking lot. Leland gulped a breath and hunkered down closer to Jameson. If he’d thought his family party was a freak occurrence, this group crushed that small hope. They were a fair distance away from his aunt’s home and none of the people in the mob were the original assailants who had killed or infected his family. The problem was obviously more widespread.

     One of the men in the group stood in front of the door. He twitched as though under the influence of some bad drug or in the grip of uncontained rage. He swung one fist at the door. Though the glass cracked, he didn’t make any additional effort to get through. He moved away and dragged his hand along the window. Blood smeared along the glass.

     He was thinking about the best way to get in, Jameson realized. The insight chilled him. Worse than a mindless collection of insane individuals was a powerful collection of thinking infected with murderous urges.

     Vanity didn’t recognize the threat. She stayed near the counter and did nothing more to protect herself. Jameson knew she’d trapped, not safeguarded herself.

     The man found the best space on the inside of the store and burst through the window. He gave no concern to the glass embedded in his flesh or the display of windshield washing fluid he barreled into and scattered all over the floor.

     Vanity screamed and Leland turned away. Jameson watched because he wanted to know as much about the enemy as he could.

     The infected man tore into Vanity with hands and teeth. He went for her neck first, Jameson noted, and wasn’t satisfied until blood glutted over his face in a hot crimson flood. Jameson hated himself for the envy he felt.

     The other crazy people followed the first man inside. They pounced on Vanity and dragged her to the floor. Jameson knew she was dead and was glad for it. She wouldn’t have wanted to be alive when the others tore into her pale flesh wherever they could.