Dark Corner (52 page)

David's jaws locked, his teeth grinding together. He had
pressed the brake to the floor.

Beside him, Nia had stuffed her hand in her mouth, as if
holding back a scream.

Keep on driving, a soft voice whispered in his head.
Pretend you didn't see this. This man is your friend, your
elder. You can't hurt him, and you know it. Go on, keep driving. Nia won't mind, either.

He well might have given in to the temptation to drive
away, but King began to bark.

Grasping the woman protectively in his arms, Franklin
turned and saw them.

ackson had prayed, more passionately than he had ever
I]prayed for anything, that he would find his son alive. His
prayer was, thankfully, answered. When he swerved in front
of his house at a reckless speed in the patrol car, Jahlil sat on
the porch. His shotgun, which Jackson had given to him last
Christmas, lay across his lap.

A blue Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight was on the lawn. Jackson
recalled that the car belonged to Jahlil's buddy, the kid
named T-Bone. The boy who had been attacked by monster
mutts last night.

Christ.

Jackson parked in the driveway, jumped out of the car,
and ran to his son.

"Are you okay, Jahlil? Where the hell you been? Why'd
you leave the station after I told you-"

Jahlil raised his hand with the weariness of an old man
and waved it feebly, and that motion alone shut up Jackson.
Something had happened, and it wasn't good.

"Hey, Dad," Jahlil said. His voice was hoarse. His eyes were puffy, too. "I'm all right. Haven't been anywhere, just
here at the house"

Jackson caught a whiff of a vile smell. It was the same
stench that had steamed from the burned creature that had used
to be the deputy.

In the corner of the yard, a large shape lay on the ground.
The stink came from over there.

"What happened here?" Jackson said.

Jahlil braced his hands behind his neck. "Poke and I came
here to get some weapons before we went out to hunt those
bloodsuckers. But the thing that used to be T-Bone drove up
here to meet us. We had a fight. T-Bone bit Poke, I shot TBone, T-Bone almost got me, then Poke set him on fire"

Shock blew the air out of Jackson's lungs. Weak-kneed,
he plopped on the steps next to Jahlil.

He had planned to give his kid a no-holds-barred tongue
lashing when he found him; between praying for his boy's
safety, he'd rehearsed the mad words in his head as he drove
to the house. Now, he couldn't remember what he was going
to say, and he didn't give a damn. Cussing out the boy would
be a fool's move. His son had lost his two best friends, and it
didn't matter that Jackson had long believed that the boys
were a bad influence on Jahlil. None of that crap mattered
anymore. Not in this terrifying new world they had been
thrust into.

"I'm sorry, Jahlil," Jackson said. Awkwardly, he put his
arm around the boy's shoulders. He was surprised when
Jahlil didn't bristle. Jahlil leaned against him, head lowered,
and trembled as he gave in to silent weeping.

Jackson remembered the last time he'd put his arm
around his son. It was the night that Paulette passed. He
had not touched Jahlil since then, not with an embrace or
even a handshake. Something seemed very wrong about
that. He liked to blame their communication gap on
Jahlil being rebellious and resentful of his authority, but maybe he had not been holding down his duty as a father,
either.

Well, I'm from a different generation of men, Jackson told
himself. His own father had never hugged him, after Jackson
grew past the age of seven. Hell, his daddy hadn't liked to
talk that much, either. The things Jackson learned from his
dad, he learned mostly from watching him. His father was
the epitome of the strong, silent type, like a lot of older men
Jackson knew.

Ain't no wonder that I'm just like him, then, Jackson
thought. But my boy needs something more than that.

Jahlil sniffled, and straightened. "Okay, Dad. I'm fine
now. I'm not gonna get all soft on you"

"There's nothing wrong with crying, son. Better to let it
out than to keep it bottled up, driving you out your mind."

"Yeah, sure. Just like you cried when Mom died, huh?"

The comment hit Jackson like a blow below the belt. He
fumbled for words.

"Son ... ah ... I cried over your mama. I did. But not
in front of you"

"Why?" Jahlil wiped his nose. "Because real men don't
cry in front of people, right? Guess I just proved I'm not a
man yet"

"I wanted to stay strong for you. When your mama passed,
I knew I was all you had left. Couldn't afford to let you see
me weak. So I had my tears in private."

"Maybe you didn't hide the tears for me, Dad. Maybe you
hid them for you, 'cause you can't handle anyone thinking
you're weak"

Jackson pressed his lips together. "Hmm. Might have a
point there. Maybe I did it for me. But that's how I am, son.
Doesn't mean I loved your mama any less, and it doesn't
mean I love you any less, either."

Slowly, Jahlil nodded. Jackson could hardly read his
boy's mind though he wished sometimes he could-but he believed that he had answered a question that had troubled
Jahlil for a long time.

"Well, Dad, that's cool," Jahlil said. "I mean, you're a
grown man, almost fifty, right? It would be kinda stupid for
me to expect you to change your ways"

"Hey, I'm almost fifty, but I ain't hardly dead," Jackson
said. He laughed. Jahlil laughed, too, and for a moment, the
vibe was right between them: easygoing and good, the way it
had used to be before Paulette had died.

Then the wind blew, pushing the stench of death in their
faces, and their laughter dropped off. The gravity of their
circumstances pressed on Jackson like a lead weight. It was
time to get back into gear.

"Where's your buddy, Poke?" Jackson said.

"I took him inside. He's in the guest room, asleep. We
need to take him to the hospital, Dad."

Jackson grunted. "Can't take him there. Those vampires
are overrunning the place. We sent the backup team there to
help."

Jahlil's eyes grew as large as dinner plates. "How many of
them?"

"Well, there were close to twenty folks in quarantine.
Sounded like all of them have changed into those monsters"

"That's messed up," Jahlil said. "We've gotta go there to
help. We can leave Poke here, he'll be fine"

"Till he changes," Jackson said softly. "Wouldn't be no
sense in dropping him off with his family; we'd only be
putting them in jeopardy." He sighed. "All right, let him stay
here. By morning we should have some idea of what to do"

"What about T-Bone's ... body?" Jahlil's attention flicked
to the edge of the yard, and he quickly looked away. "I can't
deal with that right now, Dad. Sorry."

"Come morning, we'll have a plan in place. I think we're
gonna have a number of cases like this on our hands, though
I hate to consider it. Terrible shame"

"Okay." Jahlil stood, swung his shotgun over his shoulder.
His face had hardened with determination.

Intense pride swept through Jackson. His son was a fighter,
for God's sake. Suddenly motivated, Jackson rose, too.

But the memory of Paulette's deathbed words came to
Jackson: Take care of our baby, Van. You're all he has left in
the world. Raise him to be a good, strong man.

Briefly, Jackson considered making Jahlil stay home,
away from the danger. But he rejected the idea. What could
he do, lock the boy in his room? Then what if something
happened and his son was attacked again? Nowhere in the
town was safe tonight. The safest place for Jahlil was right
by his side. He would lay down his life to keep his boy alive.

"All right," Jackson said. "Let's go to the hospital"

Cradling the woman in his arms, Franklin Bennett showed
his teeth like an enraged animal.

Although David sat in the idling truck, perhaps twenty
feet away, he swore that he could see the needle-sharp points
of Franklin's fangs.

In the backseat, King barked, spittle flying from his
mouth and spattering the windows.

"I can't do it," David said, still clutching the steering wheel.
He was dizzy, as though he had been spinning on a carousel
for the past five minutes. "I'm not ready for this. I can't do
it."

Calmly, Nia pried his hands off the steering wheel. She
placed a Molotov cocktail, fashioned from a beer bottle,
into his sweaty palm, and pressed his fingers around the
neck.

"You can," she said. She took her gun out of her purse.
"You have a cigarette lighter. Get it, and let's go. I'll back
you up.
'

Feeling as though his limbs were attached to invisible strings manipulated by unseen hands, David got out of the
SUV. Inside, King growled and clawed at the windows. Nia
came around the front of the truck, gun pointed toward the
ground.

"Stay away from me, David," Franklin said. He was not
wearing his glasses anymore. He let the woman's body fall
to the ground.

Hearing Franklin's voice, which sounded the same as
ever, wrenched David's gut. Surely, Franklin was only ill. He
could not be a vampire. Vampires didn't exist!

But you saw his fangs, didn't you, David? Look at the
blood on his chin!

The bottle in David's hand might as well have been a hundred-pound brick. Lighting the fuse and hurling the homemade bomb at Franklin seemed like an impossible undertaking.

"Please, don't make this any harder than it has to be,"
David said. "I don't want to do this to you. But I have to "

"You don't understand," Franklin said. "I want this new
life. I am healthier than I have ever been, full of a vigor that
I never experienced as an ordinary man. You have no right to
take this away from me. You have no right!"

Cheetah-swift, Franklin broke into a run.

Indecision froze David. But not Nia. She fired a shot as
Franklin fled across the yard and leapt over a line of bushes
with the speed and agility of a track-and-field athlete.

The bullet knocked the vampire off balance. He fell to the
ground, moaning. But he started to rise.

Nia rushed forward. She fired again, plowing a shot into
the creature's spine. Wailing, it dropped against the earth ...
but crawled forward, resolute.

Nia prepared to loose another shot.

"Stop it!" David yelled at her. "That's enough!"

She turned on him. She was crying, but her eyes blazed
with resolve. "Then you finish him, dammit!"

David was both grateful at Nia for preventing the vam pire's escape, and furious at her for forcing his hand. But she
was right. It was his responsibility to deal with Franklin.
That was how Franklin had wanted it.

His legs feeling as if they might give way underneath
him, David ran closer to the vampire.

Franklin (no, don't call him that, it isn't Franklin anymore) was on all fours. Blood soaked the back of his shirt.
He groaned.

David's fingers dug into his pocket, closed around the
plastic lighter.

Sensing David's approach, the vampire looked over his
shoulder.

"You need not harm me, David," the vampire said. "Go
away, leave me in peace. I am not a man anymore, but I have
not forgotten the friendship that we shared. I give you my
promise that I will never hurt you or Nia."

David slowly shook his head. "No. When you were a
man, you made me promise that I would take your life if you
ever became ... something like this. Remember?"

Franklin's mouth opened, a soft gasp escaping him.

"I remember. I charged you with that responsibility ...
and sealed it with your promise. I remember." He sighed
deeply.

For a heartbreaking minute, his were not the eyes of a
vampire. They were the eyes of Franklin Bennett again, the
kind, intelligent man who had sacrificed his life to help
David.

A wave of tears threatened to overcome David, and he
blinked them away, savagely.

Franklin lay on the grass and rolled onto his back.

"Hand me the explosive," Franklin said. "Once you've
done that, ignite the fuse. Move with haste"

"But-"

"Do it. Please. Before I change my mind."

David offered the bottle to him. Franklin plucked it out of his grasp and pressed it over his abdomen. The dry
rag, hanging from the lip of the bottle, fluttered in the
wind.

"The fuse," Franklin said.

It took three attempts for David to produce a flame with
the cigarette lighter. The fire tasted the rag, and began to
consume it hungrily.

"Now run away from here, son"

David ran.

Seconds later, the explosion came. The blast punched a
hole in David's soul. He dropped to his knees. He buckled
over and vomited, crap pumping out of him, leaving his
throat raw, hot tears dripping from his face and plopping into
the vomit he had expelled on the pavement.

Then, a comforting hand rested on his shoulder: Nia. As
always, Nia.