Vamp-Hire (25 page)

He waved her closer.

It took a little maneuvering. She looked like
she was somewhere around six feet tall and he couldn’t stand up
straight in his cage. Pearlanne had to squat for their mouths to
match up.

Nick gave her a quick peck and her eyes
fluttered open.

“Not good enough.” She licked her upper lip
in a manner that looked more hungry than lustful. Nick was pretty
sure of the mechanics, even though he doubted he had ever done this
before. He prayed there were no vamp kissing diseases he needed to
be concerned about.

He pulled in close. Their lips met once,
twice, then her tongue was like a butterfly, darting here and there
inside his mouth. He tried to keep up, but every time the tip of
his tongue met hers, it swam away. Her mouth was surprisingly minty
and sweet. He relaxed into the kiss, angling his head to probe
deeper. Fingers touched his face. Her nose tickled the side of his.
He would have been lying to say he wasn’t enjoying himself.

She pulled away.

“Already done, Sweetie.” She had the same
half smile as her father, her eyes half-lidded. For at least three
seconds everything was alright. Then the serene expression on her
face melted. “Oh, God, no!” She looked left and right, then at the
door she’d come in. “No, no, no, no!”

“What?” Nick said. “What is it?”

“They’re here!” she said. “They’re already
here.” She was still touching the wire mesh and Nick wrapped a
finger around the corner of her hand.

“Pearlanne, let me out. I can help.” It took
a moment for her to focus on him. He locked eyes with her.
“Pearlanne, I can fight with you. Whatever’s up there.”

Her eyes softened. “Okay,” she said, her
voice bland. “Yeah. I can let you out. I can do that.” She produced
a key from her pocket and slid it into the lock of the hatch at the
front of the enclosure.

There were two gunshots and she whirled in
the direction of the door. Nick willed her to turn the key.

“Pearlanne, whatever’s going on up there,
somebody’s got a gun. If it’s not your father or Wendell they’ll be
coming down here next.” She nodded quickly and undid the lock,
springing open the hatch. Nick crawled out, wondering how they’d
gotten him in. It had to have been awkward getting him inside.

“Okay, we have to start letting some of these
people out.”

“Nobody’s shooting,” she said. “Why isn’t
anybody else shooting?” He knew what she meant. She’d probably
recognized the gunfire. If one of her people had been the shooter a
moment ago then he should have come or called down if he’d wounded
someone. Just the two shots and then nothing was probably worse
than no shots at all.

Nick snatched the key out and went to the
next pen. His foreign neighbor was on his knees, still looking
frazzled. In the heat of the moment, Nick had to admit he wasn’t
exactly comfortable letting him out. He’d never seen a vamp look
like him before and had no clue if he were violent. He went to the
pen next over and unlocked that one. Nick worked as fast as he
could, unlocking each one until he made it to the end.

Vamps began crawling out through their
hatches, including the three he’d been in the truck with.

“We should kill her,” one of them said,
looking at Pearlanne.

“No. There’s no time for that. You heard
what’s going on up there.” Nick didn’t want anyone else dying if he
could avoid it. “We don’t know if they’re going to do the same to
us.”

“Yeah,” a woman said. “But they want you. Not
us. Those are vamps up there. For all we know we can walk right
past them and out the door.” She pushed past Nick.

“Where are you going?” Nick said.

“Out. This isn’t my fight.” Others grumbled
and a few followed her. Pearlanne had taken to nervously picking at
her fingertips.

“Pearlanne! Pearlanne!” Nick pushed through
the bodies to get back to her. “What’s that chainsaw for?”

“Cutting trees,” she said. Her eyes were all
wrong. “I’m so scared. All those feelings. It’s just too much, I
can’t stand it.”

He held her face between his hands.

“You have to calm down. If you turned it on
you can turn it off.”

“I can’t feel my daddy.” Tears were streaming
down her face. She nodded and closed her eyes.

Someone screamed behind him and Nick turned
to see a small group of vamps standing by the door and a long arc
of red just before it splashed them in the face. A vamp who looked
about sixteen or so shoved his way back through, his face frozen
with horror. His whole head was red save for his wide, shocked
eyes.

He stumbled and the vamp nearest him was
snatched through the open doorway. It was dark through there, but
if those were vamps on the other side, no lights wasn’t a problem
for them.

The other vamps gathered at the door
retreated and Nick grabbed the chainsaw off the table. He looked
for a cord or something to pull to start it and found a button
nestled on the side.

The three vamps that were by the door had
shut it, all of them leaning against it to keep it closed.

“I don’t think we can hold it for long!” a
tall blond shrieked. “Do something, quick!”

Nick wanted to ask them what they had seen,
what had happened. He didn’t see the woman who had led the group to
the door. She had to have been the first one through it and that
arc of blood had probably been hers.

The teenager who had pushed past the trio had
crawled back into a pen. He had his arms wrapped around his legs
and was staring at some point in space, eyes filled with hollow
terror.

“Pearlanne, is there any way out of here
other than that door?” Nick asked. The look on her face was a twin
of the boy’s. Nick grabbed her by one arm and gave it a shake.
“Pearlanne!”

“Yes! I mean, no. I… I don’t know.” Her eyes
settled on him and flittered away. Nick looked at the chainsaw,
then at a window near the rear of the room, high up on a ten foot
tall wall. It was covered with bars and wouldn’t be big enough for
someone with broad shoulders and big arms. Despite their brief and
unpleasant history, he felt responsible for all the vamps in this
room, especially her.

Something big dented the door from the other
side. The vamps barely held it in place. Everyone in the room
gasped.

“All right, they’re coming in,” Nick said
under his breath. He took a half dozen purposeful steps to the
door. “If they want me, they can have me. But they’re gonna have to
work for it.” He thumbed the button on the chainsaw and it was
nowhere near as loud as he’d been expecting. Nick wanted an
intimidating sound. Something that would boost his confidence and
sap the courage of their attackers. The door ripped open and
someone screamed. One of the vamps fell and two were thrown back
when a hand snatched out of the dark and grabbed the wrist of a
woman in a sweater and jeans and twisted.

Nick charged, leaping over the fallen vamp
and plunged into darkness.

A face had barely emerged from the dark with
black eyes and a blood-streaked mouth. Nick slammed into a body
blade first, feeling the chain bog down as it ripped through flesh.
Nick was screaming at the top of his lungs, barely hearing himself,
nearly drowned out the by dull buzz of the electric chainsaw
grinding through meat and bone. The vamp wailed and backhanded him.
Nick ducked his head at the last moment, taking the brunt of the
heavy-knuckled blow on the top of his head. He felt the chainsaw
punch all the way through and pulled back and up, trying to tear as
much body as possible.

Blood splattered onto him in thick, hot
glops, like someone was chucking a can of paint on his chest that
had been left in the sun. It had an acidic smell the likes of which
he was unfamiliar, heavy and caustic. Then hands grabbed Nick by
the back of his shirt and lifted him off his feet. He was propelled
across the room, somehow managing to hold onto the chainsaw,
bouncing off something heavy and large before crashing to the
floor.

He could feel them in here. At least three,
including the one he’d injured. Nick could hear it gurgling and
sensed the hesitance of the others. They were related somehow. Nick
couldn’t wrap his head around it. Not siblings, not friends, not
blood related, but related some way. If he survived the next ten
minutes or so he made a mental note to ask.

Nick tried to push himself off the floor and
his hands slipped on blood-slickened linoleum. He smelled it all of
a sudden; all over him, still warm and soaking into his clothes. It
didn’t smell right. Not that blood had a ‘right’ smell, but it
smelled… off. To Nick’s nose, human and vamp blood had a near
indistinguishable scent. He’d been around enough paper cuts,
scraped knees, and poked fingers to know this had a trace of
something else in it.

He rolled off his butt and carefully planted
his hands, getting on all fours. His eyes adjusted and he saw no
one. He’d lost the chainsaw somewhere. He heard them and was just
as certain they heard him. They seemed unsure. Nick had to have
either killed or critically injured the first one. The vamps
remaining must have been determining what to do next. Sheep
sometimes fought back, they weren’t supposed to kill the wolf,
though.

Nick realized the clicking sounds he was
hearing was speech. They were talking to one another, though he
didn’t know what they were saying. He could pick up enough of the
intonations to know they were afraid. This was probably supposed to
be a simple pick up for them. The average person, human or vamp,
was probably sheep to them. Fighting back, at least significantly
so, was uncommon. Especially with a chainsaw.

They knew they had Nick in here with them.
What they didn’t know was if there were more people with chainsaws
getting ready to come charging in. Nick spotted the butt of the
chainsaw on the floor around the corner of the desk he was hiding
behind. If he could grab it and get it started again, he could
either wound or scare the hell out of them and make it back to the
others.

A pair of feet landed heavily on the desk and
a vamp let out a screech. Nick ducked when a hand clawed the air
above his head. He rolled under the desk onto his back and kicked
straight up as hard as he could. He felt its weight shift as it
tumbled and fell. For a moment they made eye contact where they
both lay on the floor and then it was gone.

A shadow passed him on the right. Nick shrank
back as another one, or maybe the same one, landed and crouched in
front of him. It had the general size and shape of a person, but
this thing had nothing else in common with a human. Its horrible
smell was worsened when its mouth fell open and it lunged for him.
Nick thrust his feet into its chest, driving the creature back,
knowing he had only bought himself seconds.

Then came the scream. He and the vamp paused
before it quickly stood and ran.

It wasn’t only one scream, it was several.
Nick hurriedly scooched from under the desk and saw the shadowy
form of the last vamp as it retreated through a door. Pearlanne was
at the front of a mass of vamps who had poured through the doorway
and were advancing into the room. They were kicking and punching
anything within reach, probably scared out of their minds and
totally unprepared for an actual fight. Shockingly, it had worked.
At least for the time being.

Someone found a light. Even though all of
them either had or quickly would have adjusted to the dark, nothing
truly chased away the monsters like illumination. Several of them
turned on Nick and he held up his hands like someone was pointing a
gun.

“You’re alive?” a bearded vamp said.

“Wait a minute,” the tall blond said,
narrowing his eyes. “How? Those things tore Kathy and Derek to
shreds in seconds. How’d you make it?”

“The chainsaw.” Nick laughed nervously. The
adrenaline rush was wearing off and he felt shaky. He grabbed hold
of a chair and used it to prop himself up. He thought it was
important to be standing right now. This wasn’t over yet.

Pearlanne was a few feet away and she picked
up the chainsaw. She looked at something across the room.

“This… did that?”

Though Nick couldn’t see the one he’d caught
with the chainsaw he could tell it was bad by several ashen faces
aimed at a spot near the door.

“I think he’s still alive,” a man said,
shoving his glasses back up his nose. He looked at the man next to
him. “Right?” Nick had never seen one of his kind wear glasses. As
it had been explained to him, the nature of the vamp condition
corrected most minor genetic weaknesses or the host died. Maybe the
glasses were for fashion only.

“Well, let’s see what it knows,” a woman
said. It was the same one whose wrist had been broken by the
creature on the floor. The manner in which she was looking told him
this was something beyond curiosity.

Nick came closer and got a good look at the
damage done. The thing on the floor was three-quarters away from
being sawn in half. Nick had caught it just below the middle of its
chest and ripped all the way through its right side. There was
surprisingly little blood and Nick realized most of it was on him,
sticky and cool. He didn’t like the way his shirt clung to him, but
there was nothing to be done about it unless he was willing to take
it off.

It was holding onto its insides. Nick peered
into the vamp’s wound and saw jagged bone, lacerated intestines,
and other organs that looked like shredded meat. The creature
shouldn’t have been alive. Presently, it was dragging itself as
best it could with one arm in no direction whatsoever.

The woman laid a hand on its bare upper arm,
the one it was using to hang onto its guts. It swiveled its head
toward her.

It hadn’t been crying out in pain before, and
now a small sound escaped its gaping wide mouth. Its tongue had
been lolling around, like it had come loose from its moorings, then
it withdrew into the cavern of the mouth, the jaw relocating with
two thick clicks. The change had an immediate, humanizing effect on
the face.