They Thirst (60 page)

"Andy?" Jo called from downstairs. Then in a panicked voice, "ANDY!"

He walked back down the stairs on trembling legs. "I'm all right," he assured her. "I'm fine. But now we have to check this house from top to bottom. I don't think there are any more of them hiding here, but we have to be certain." He looked into the living room where Gayle was huddled on the sofa, whimpering like a little girl. "You're going to be all right, Miss Clarke?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she said quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. Let me get my breath. Okay. Yeah."

He nodded, knowing there was very little that would keep her down for long. He squeezed Jo's hand. "We'll start with the basement," he said quietly.

Tommy was running. Behind him his house was on fire.

He hadn't thought it would go up so quickly, but he figured the wind had helped fan the blaze. He'd stood over his parents' corpses for a long time, just looking at them and wondering what to do. He knew what was supposed to happen now. His mom and dad were supposed to sleep until the next nightfall, and then sometime in the darkness they would awaken to walk the streets with the rest of the Undead. That's what happened in all the movies.

The Undead.

That sounds so cold,
Tommy had thought.
So final. Once you've stepped across that line, you don't come back, not ever. But this is my mom and dad lying here, not . . . vampiresI
"Wake up," he whispered in the terrible darkness. "Both of you . . . please . . . wake up . .

But they hadn't even moved, and Tommy could see the deep punctures on their throats that told him they weren't ever going to wake up as Don and Cynthia Chandler again.

So after a long time of just standing there, he'd gone to his room, put on his jeans, a shirt, and his all-weather jacket, then looked in his closet for the old Army surplus backpack he'd used briefly when he was a Boy Scout in Scottsdale. He'd put some matches into his jacket pocket, then the rest of them went into the backpack along with an extra can of hair spray and his dad's Right Guard aerosol deodorant. He went downstairs and made himself a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, wrapped them in waxed paper, and slipped them into the pack along with a meat cleaver he found in a drawer. The main question that faced him was whether he should try to make it to the ocean or head up into the mountains. He'd thought about staying here in the house until sunrise, but he couldn't bear the idea of letting his parents slip over that Undead line, and he couldn't stay with them lying in the bedroom all white and empty. The ocean was too far away so he decided on the mountains.

But one thing he couldn't be sure of was how many real people there were in the houses around him, and how many vampires waited out there for little boys running in the night. He decided that if he saw anyone, he would assume the worst. He folded the sheets around his parents and stuffed newspapers under the bed. Then he cried a little bit before he could muster the nerve to strike the first match. He lit his spray-can torch and touched the flame to the sheets; they crisped and caught fire very quickly. There was no way he could wait to see if the bodies caught or not. He turned and ran, his face scorched by an agonizing lick of flame.

Now he was racing along the edge of Hancock Park, sand stinging his cheeks, the wind bringing the odors of oranges and cloves from the tar pits, the air metallic in his gasping lungs. He could tell the storm had diminished in force during the last several hours. Now sand dunes lay scattered across the white field of the park, and broken branches littered his path. He was a good runner; he knew he could last a long time because whenever he jogged with his mom and dad in the evenings he always left them behind and just kept on going until he looked back and saw them as only two struggling dots. His heart seemed jammed up in his throat. He turned and thought he saw a faint, reddish glow in the sky where his house was—had been—but he wasn't sure. He decided not to look back again.

He was heading northeast toward the only wooded refuge he could think of that was anywhere near his house. In August his dad had taken him up to the Nature Museum and Bird Sanctuary on Mount Hollywood, then down into the four-thousand acres (so the guidebook had said) of Griffith Park. There were a lot of bridle paths crisscrossing the park but very few roads, and Tommy remembered being amazed at how close a really unspoiled mountain area was to the winding residential streets of Hollywood. So that was where he had to go. He knew he could lose himself in that park, but getting there meant crossing through the heart of Hollywood, and he was bitterly afraid of what might be lurking there. He still gripped the can of hair spray he'd repelled the Vernons with, and there were good old dependable Fire Chiefs—
what I used to burn up my mom and dad with,
he thought suddenly—in his jacket pocket. As he ran, he saw the wind rippling currents of sand before him, and he thought of that terrified kid in
Invaders from Mars,
running across a sand hill that whirlpooled beneath his feet to send him into a subterranean world of alien horrors.

And then he was aware of the figure running behind him about thirty yards off to the left. Tommy looked over his shoulder. There was a hideous, moon-white face floating toward him from the darkness. He increased his speed, zigzagging deeper into the park. When he dared to look back, the thing was gone.

The high fence around the largest of the tar pits had blown down; a sheen of sand, white mottled with black, covered the surface of a lake from which a huge, concrete mastodon struggled to escape. Tommy ran along its edge toward the eastern edge of the park. He passed benches stripped of paint where the old men played checkers on Saturday mornings; he passed long strips of pavement that would not be used by Sunday afternoon roller-skaters for a long time to come.

And then something slammed into the small of his back. A hand dug into his jacket, almost ripping it off his shoulders, and flung him to the ground with brutal force.

He lay there fighting for breath, a shrill alarm,
Don't
let them bite you! Don't, don't, don't!
screaming in his head. He'd lost his grip on the spray can, and when he raised his head, he saw a couple of hulking boys standing over him, both of them leering in anticipation. The one who'd knocked him down was a fat-jowled Chicano with thick eyebrows and a spill of dirty, black hair on his forehead; he wore a blood-spattered, blue workshirt. The vampire looked at the can of hair spray at his feet and kicked it far out into the tar lake where it sank with a burst of bubbles. Then he advanced on Tommy, his eyes already glazed with pleasure.

But before the vampire could reach Tommy, a length of chain came snaking out of the darkness, cracking the Chicano across the face. He fell to his knees, howling with rage. The second vampire, a skinny, dark-haired kid with a scraggly mustache and goatee, whirled around to face the attacker. The chain whirred, striking him in the temple. He staggered and was about to rush forward when he saw who it was that had struck him.

Tommy's heart had leaped; now it fell again to a sickening depth. Bull Thatcher, armed with a three-foot chain, had stepped between Tommy and the two vampires. Tommy could see the bloodless, awful face of the Fairfax High Horror.

"You're on my turf," Bull said menacingly. "I'm hunt-in' here. Get out."

"It's our kill, you . . ." the Chicano began. He was silenced when the chain whistled across his face again.

"GET OUT!" Bull roared.

Tommy, his arms shaking so badly they moved like a jerky marionette's, slowly began to slip off his backpack.

"Get out, both of you!" Bull repeated. "I'm hungry, and I'm takin' this kill, you understand?" The vampires glowered at each other hotly but began to retreat when Bull lifted that chain and cracked it to the ground like a whip.

"We'll get you!" the Chicano shouted. "We'll find you when you're sleepin', and we'll fix you . . ."

Bull moved forward a few steps, the chain swinging above his head. The vampires were running away now. Tommy got his pack off, leaped to his feet, and ran in the other direction. Bull Thatcher watched the vampires run out of sight with a defiant smirk and then turned for his prize. Running along the lake's edge, Tommy heard his angered roar and flinched. He unsnapped a pocket and reached in. Bull Thatcher was chasing him, coming like the wind. Sweat popped up on Tommy's face; he could hear the thing gaining on him, and he dared not look back.

But then he heard the chain whistling toward his right ear, and he ducked his head, spinning around to face Bull and bringing out the meat cleaver in a tightly clenched fist at the same time. Before Bull could stop, Tommy had flung himself at the thing, burying that cleaver between the vampire's eyes with all his strength. Bull, thrown off-balance, staggered and fell into the tar pit on his back. Instantly bubbles exploded around his body, and he flailed at the air for something to grab. "NOOOO!" he roared like a maddened animal. "NOOOOO! I WON'T LET YOUUUUUU . . . !" Water and tar rushed into his mouth. He began to sink, tar streaking his face in thick, black lines. He fought wildly, but the tar had him and he knew it. He began to scream, the meat cleaver buried in his forehead but the wound bloodless.

Tommy knew the other vampires would hear and come back. He started to run again, slipping his pack around his trembling shoulders. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, but there wasn't time for any of that baby stuff anymore. When he looked back, he saw Bull's face disappear, and the scream bubbled away.

He ran on, breathing in great painful heaves. He left the park and ran northward across Third Street and through dark, silent residential streets where the merest suggestion of movement was enough to make him whine with fear. Then he was across Beverly Boulevard, still going north. Sand whipped into his face; were it not for his glasses, he would have been blinded. His lungs flamed, and now he knew he couldn't go much further. The worst part of it lay ahead, those main arteries through Hollywood. He was certain the vampires would be waiting there. How many would there be? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? He crossed Melrose and started to veer toward the northeast; he saw a group of moving shadows and dived beneath some hedges until they'd passed. He made himself continue, staggering from street to street, crossing through backyards and alleys. A gust of hot wind hit him, almost stealing the last of his breath. Lightheaded, he tripped and almost fell over something that he realized three strides later must have been a corpse.

And then a voice roared over his head. "I see you, child of the devil! Ye legion of Lucifer . . . !" There was a loud
crack!
right behind his ear, then a freight train knocked him off his feet and rumbled on past, leaving him crushed in the sand.

"A boy!" Jo said, peering out the window through widened eyes. "That maniac shot a boy!"

Palatazin eased over beside her and looked out. He could see the small figure lying prone in the sand right in front of the house. At first he'd thought the boy must be a vampire, but if that were so, a single bullet wouldn't have stopped him. Palatazin paused, his heart beginning to hammer, then took his .38 from its shoulder-holster.

Jo stared fearfully at the gun. "What are you going to do?"

"That boy may not be dead. I'll have to go out and see." He moved past her toward the door and, from the sofa, Gayle said, "For Christ's sake, be careful!"

Palatazin nodded and squeezed out the door onto the porch where a furnace breath of wind rocked him on his heels. Grit stung his eyes, and he had to wait a moment before he could see anything. Then he was moving down the porch steps, his grip already sweaty on his .38. He was alert for any movement in the windows of that silent house next door, but so far he couldn't tell where the man was. He tensed and then ran out to the curb where that boy lay sprawled on his face. Palatazin could see a bleeding gash across the back of his head, the dark brown hair matted with blood. He got his arms under the boy and started to lift him.

"Heathen!" the voice shrieked. "God's blight on the world!" A shot rang out, kicking up sand two feet away. Palatazin lifted the boy, struggled to his feet, and started to run back to the house. Another bullet screamed past Palatazin's face, leaving what he thought was a burning red streak in the sullen air. Then he was on the porch, and Jo was opening the door to pull him in.

Gayle had brought a pillow and bedspread from upstairs, and now Palatazin laid the boy on the sofa, his forehead cradled against the pillow. "How badly is he hurt?" Gayle asked.

"I don't know. The bullet took off some scalp at the back of his head, probably gave him one hell of a knock, too." He took off the boy's backpack and laid it on the floor. It was heavy, and things clanked together inside. He unzipped and unsnapped several of the backpack's pockets, rummaging through them. "I'd say he was prepared for a little of everything," Palatazin said. "I wonder where he was trying to get to."

Jo was gingerly parting the boy's hair to look at the wound. In the darkness she couldn't see it very well, but her fingers were already sticky with warm blood. She reached over and grasped his wrist. The pulse seemed strong if erratic. "Can you find me some towels, Andy?" she said. "Maybe we can stop some of this bleeding."

He went upstairs to search the bathroom.

The boy suddenly stirred and moaned. He said in
a
weary, old-man's voice, "You're dead . . . leave me alone! . . . burned them up, I burned them, burned them . . ." Then he was quiet again.