Bring On the Night (28 page)

They ran.

Rampaging in all directions, they seemed to have forgotten one another and the odd directive from their mysterious pep rally coordinator. They had returned to form.

The ZC agents were ready for them. They fanned out, encircling the zombies and wielding long, gleaming katana swords or heavy battle-axes. A few held weapons that looked like giant hammers with stubbled surfaces, like those found on meat tenderizers.

One-on-one, the zombies might have put up a fight with their speed and strength. Certainly against humans they’d be a tough match. Against unarmed humans they’d be unstoppable.

But the vampire ZC agents had them outnumbered four to one. Their weapons made short work of them, hacking off heads or slicing bodies in half.

I’d seen humans die, killed in a battle with vampires. No
one ever really “dropped dead,” falling by pure gravity. No matter how they died, for a few moments their muscles remained rigid, resisting their body’s plummet to the earth.

Not these bodies. They went down as heavy and unresponsive as bags of laundry. Fluid spilled from their cavities, leaking like a toppled milk carton, not spurting like a human would.

They weren’t even animals. They were just animated objects, with no more feeling than a windup doll.

Or at least I tried to tell myself that as I watched the ZC agents close in on the last few zombies, the ones whose pyramid mishaps left them unable to run. They crawled through the mud, the ground sloughing off the last remaining rags of what was once their Sunday best.

The agents acted with brutal efficiency, reminding me of videos I’d seen as a kid, of hunters clubbing baby harp seals.

The broken-armed guy was last. He couldn’t even crawl, only slither on his belly, using hips and elbows to drag himself toward the distant scent of blood. His neck could no longer support his head, so he lay facedown, oblivious to his approaching annihilation.

Two agents stepped up to him. One pressed on the man’s back with the end of his giant hammer, holding him still. The other agent raised his sword.

A moment later, it was all over.

Silence shrouded the cemetery. Shane turned off his camera and set it beside him. We didn’t speak. It felt like that moment just before the credits roll at the end of an emotional gut-punching movie. But this was no movie.

My hands shook as I picked up what was left of my second lunch. My head spun from what I hoped was only thirst and not a complete emotional breakdown.

“What are you doing here?” said a man with a light foreign accent.

I turned to see Lieutenant Colonel Petrea approaching the van, with four human agents flanking him.

“Working,” I said. “For Lanham.”

He stopped a few feet away—which was far too close for my tastes—his dark eyes raking my frame. “You were made only two days ago, correct?” When I nodded, he said, “You should be resting.” He turned to Shane. “Is this your maker?”

“No, he’s my—um, this is Agent Shane McAllister.”

Shane folded his hands under his arms. “You’re the one who told her she would die.” He glared at Petrea. “Still think she has no future?”

The IC commander swiveled his head to meet my gaze. “The future is always in flux.”

Shane scoffed. “Then you can never be wrong. How convenient.”

“I saw darkness and death on your path,” he told me in his ethereal voice. “Was I incorrect?”

“You saw her file,” Shane interjected. “You knew she’d never had chicken pox, that she had Aaron Green as a professor, and that she’d probably be dead in a few days. Brilliant deduction.”

Petrea turned his whole body to face me. “I need no powers to know that you should not be out at your age. I only need memory. You should be with your maker.”

I looked away, partly because the angles of his face hurt my eyes, but mostly because it seemed like it would soon become impossible. He seemed to have me in some sort of prehypnotic state. “I’ve been activated. I have a duty to perform.”

Petrea stepped closer, and I could feel his gaze sear my
face. “Your maker has left you, hasn’t he?”

My mind raced for an answer that wouldn’t reveal too much. How did he know my maker was a man? Was he bluffing, or had the details of my turning already been added to my file?

Shane shouldered his way between us. “It’s none of your business,” he told my commander. I pulled in a sharp breath at his insubordination. He had a lot to learn about Control agent conduct.

“You are dismissed.” Petrea’s gesture encompassed Shane and his own agents. “Now.”

The others obeyed instantly, but Shane stayed where he was.

“Go,” I told him. Much as I disliked Petrea, I didn’t want Shane to get punished for pissing him off. Besides, his overprotectiveness was getting on my nerves.

With a heavy sigh, Shane picked up his camera and the video assembly. “I’ll take this to the ZC commander and then start helping them clean up. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can leave.” He gave Petrea a glower before stalking off.

“Sit,” Petrea told me, as controlled as ever despite Shane’s behavior. “Are you getting enough to drink?”

“I think so.” I sat on the tailgate of the truck, confused by his sudden concern. But he wouldn’t be the first vampire to treat me differently now that I was one of them.

“You have other vampires in your support system, besides this—” he waved his hand in the direction of Shane “—friend of yours?”

I nodded. “They take good care of me. Keep me out of trouble.” I scratched the back of my neck, feeling like I was talking to a high school guidance counselor. “If that’s all, sir,
I should probably go see—”

“My maker did not care for me either.”

I blinked, taken aback by his sudden change in demeanor. “They didn’t feed you?”

“He fed me too well.” Petrea’s gaze went cloudy. “As soon as I was made, he took me home to help him kill my family.”

“Oh. Wow.” That put my troubles in perspective. “Did you—go through with it?”

“I was crazed with thirst. I drank them all.”

I didn’t know what to say. Would I have devoured my own family in those first moments of insatiable hunger? If Spencer hadn’t tackled me, I would’ve killed Jeremy, who in one hour had gone from friend to prey.

“When I woke later,” Petrea continued, “and the bloodlust had faded, I saw what I had done to my father and mother and”—he bowed his head —“and my wife and daughter. My rage and grief drove me to stake my maker through the heart.”

I gasped, imagining the pain he’d brought on himself.

“I did not know, of course, the agony it would cause my own flesh.” He touched his chest, brushing the edge of the rows of rectangular metal ribbons. “But I would have done it nonetheless. It was a righteous act.” He adjusted the already straight jacket of his midnight blue uniform. “My survival, however, was an act of cowardice. I should have had the courage to destroy myself, to pay for my sins.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Your maker took advantage of your weakness.” My con artist info-digging instincts kicked in. “Why did he want to kill your family?”

“Vengeance. My father was a vampire hunter. He’d killed my maker’s wife. Or so the monster claimed before I pulled
the stake from his heart.”

“How did you survive without your maker?”

“Like you, I found a coven that took me in. Vampires who band together like us, they live longer and kill fewer humans.” His face hardened. “It is the rogues like my maker whom we must guard against.”

Why was he telling me this? Petrea struck me as the type who didn’t give away anything without expecting something in return.

“Why do you think your maker left you?” he asked.

Ah, there we go. “I never said he did.”

“Perhaps the Control can help find him. We have many resources at our fingertips.”

I’ll bet.
No doubt they had entire squads devoted to hunting down rogue vampires. Not that Monroe was rogue.

“That’s not really necessary,” I said.

“Of course. Unless he’s been taken captive. We know where the unlicensed vampire hunters have their nests.”

My throat tightened at the memory of the torture I’d once witnessed, the ashen faces crisscrossed with holy water burns. The thought of Monroe in the hands of the latest band of sadistic zealots made me squirm.

But still I told Petrea nothing. If the details of my turning were in my file, he already had enough information to make me feel vulnerable. My life of secrecy and subterfuge had ended when I signed that contract with the Control.

I wouldn’t let it go without a fight.

Breaking Us in Two

An hour before morning twilight, Shane and I headed back to the station—muddy, exhausted, and reeking of putrid flesh.

I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a fast-food napkin to blow my nose. “I’ll never get this smell out of my nostrils.”

Shane grunted a reply and clicked on the radio. Before I could conjure a tension-lowering topic of conversation, the wild surf-jam song ended.

Jim’s laconic tone came from the speakers. “94.3 WVMP Sherwood, Maryland. It’s 5:06 a.m., and that was Jan Davis with ‘Watusi Zombie.’”

I would have chuckled at the title if the sound of his voice hadn’t dropped the temperature in the car ten degrees.

“I have an important governmental type announcement for all you crazy early risers, so listen up.”

I glanced at Shane, who returned my worried look.

“In a joint order of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Department of Homeland Security, a mandatory curfew has been imposed for the town of Sherwood. Beginning at 1900 hours today, Tuesday, April thirteenth—that’s seven p.m. for us civilian non-pig types—all residents are
to return to their homes until further notice. That means no leaving your house after seven tonight. Not tomorrow morning or the next morning, not at all until they say it’s okay.”

“An indefinite curfew?” Shane said. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Probably has more to do with zombies than chicken pox. But of course they can’t tell people that.”

Jim continued, “Sherwood residents are permitted today to acquire any necessary items to facilitate this extended quarantine. Area grocers have been instructed to ration certain items to ensure that no citizen lacks amenities.” He chuckled. “That means no one gets to hog all the Fritos and toilet paper.”

He read the notice in a mock-official voice. “Residents and nonresidents will be required to remain in Sherwood as of the time of this announcement. National Guard troops have been deployed to enforce this quarantine order.”

“They’re trapping everyone inside the town,” I whispered.

“The federal government hopes to return the town of Sherwood to normal operations within a week. To expedite this process, any persons susceptible to the chicken pox virus should report immediately to the county health department at 991 Center Street in Sherwood, where CDC officials will provide all necessary tests and health care provisions at no charge. Susceptible persons are those eighteen months and older who have neither contracted the virus previously nor received the vaccination.

“This is where it gets interesting, folks.” Jim returned to the edict. “The CDC, along with the state and county health departments, will conduct interviews with all residents to determine the identity of susceptible persons. Cooperation will
be rewarded. Failure to voluntarily subject oneself or one’s dependent child to testing and quarantine, or withholding information regarding susceptible persons, may result in arrest for obstruction of justice.”

I shivered, as if someone had drawn the tip of an icicle down my spine. “They’re getting people to rat each other out.”

“Shh.” Shane raised the volume.

“Oh, here’s a bonus,” Jim said. “The IRS will provide no-penalty filing extensions to all those affected by the quarantine, seeing as you won’t be able to get out Thursday to send in your taxes.” Jim paused, and when he spoke again his voice was dead serious. “Just to be crystal? You can’t leave town. As of tonight, you can’t leave your house, maybe for several days. If there’s the least chance you could get sick with this plague, turn yourself in, or you’ll spend your dying day in a jail cell. They are not messing around.”

He gave the phone number and Web site URL for people to get more information, then read the whole order again, this time without editorial comment.

“I’ll repeat the announcement every fifteen minutes through the end of my shift, at which point someone else will have that unsavory duty. WVMP 94.3 will be the official source of emergency services information.” He recited the station phone number twice. “Let’s stick together, okay? Don’t go all every man for himself. See if your neighbors need anything. Look out for each other, and let’s get through this with as little drama as possible. Peace.”

Shane turned off the radio. “Who knows you never had chicken pox?”

“Outside of the Control and the radio station, just Lori, Tina, and Maggie. I had to make sure they couldn’t catch it
from me at the bachelorette party.”

“Lori and Tina know not to say anything. And Maggie was debriefed after the first zombie attack, right?”

I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll tell Lori to let her know what happened to me. I’m sure Major Ricketts made Maggie understand how important it is to keep vampires a secret.” And what would happen to her if she spilled.

Lori answered my call right away. “Hey.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Jim called at four thirty to tell us about the curfew.” She stifled a yawn. “David just left for the station.”

I told her all about the zombie “attack,” including the cheerleading antics.

“Oh my God, how bizarre,” she said. “That sucks you had to help shovel it up, what with your new sense of smell.”

“Eau de zombie will be the least of my problems if Maggie or Tina tells the authorities I never had chicken pox. Can you get to them and explain what happened?”

“I’ll call them right now.”

“Are you coming to the station with David until the end of the quarantine?”

“No, I better stay here with Antoine.”