Night Runner (9 page)

It didn't.

They say timing is everything. Well, I don't even wear a watch, so mine could have been better. I strode out of the dining hall expecting to merge with a crowd of people, but the lobby was nearly empty. I hadn't waited long enough for everyone to figure out what was going on and leave their rooms—assuming they could do all of this without an instruction manual or a personal attendant. To make matters worse, Everett Johansson was arguing with Nurse Roberta at the reception counter, so I practically bumped into him.

“Zachary, stop! It isn't safe!” he shouted.

I ran for the closest exit, the lobby doors right in front of me. The police were close behind.

Did I mention that I was pretty quick on my feet? Running for a few hours every night is apparently very good for this. I'd never actually been in a race before, but as it turned out, none of the officers inside had a chance. I bolted through the outside doors so fast, all they could do was shout. I looked back over my shoulder for a second, and that's when I collided with the officer waiting in the parking lot. I was so surprised, I dropped my box of food and tripped to the pavement. I'd totally forgotten there were men posted outside.

I tried to stand up, but someone had taken hold of my wrist. As I twisted away, a heavy weight pressed down on my back, flattening me against the asphalt. Someone started shouting at me, telling me not to move. At the same time, I felt another officer grab one of my legs. Then a third pinned my arm. And just like that, I was in the hands of the police.

I
wrestled with the three officers as best I could. It was hard because I was on the ground and they were all sitting on me. Then they weren't. The first officer, the one on my back—he flew off into the air like he'd been fired from a catapult. He landed on the hood of a police car. The second one—he was trying to pin my legs—he flew off an instant later. Unfortunately for him, he missed the car. I heard him grunt as he landed on the asphalt.

The last guy was kneeling on one of my arms. The look on his face was one of total astonishment. He half stood up and put his hand on his holster. Then he got hauled off the ground.

“You won't be needing that gun,” a voice said.

I expected it to belong to my uncle. It didn't. It belonged to the crazy old motorcycle man. He was standing in the parking lot in his top hat and overstuffed overcoat, with the police officer in one hand and the officer's gun in the other. He was actually holding the guy a foot off the ground. The old man stared at the pistol for a second, then
tossed it into the Dumpster beside us. Then he ripped a set of keys from the officer's belt. “Thanks,” he said. And officer number three was airborne. “Have a nice evening,” the old man added as the officer soared away.

I was so stunned I couldn't move. When he looked down at me, I thought for just a second he was going to pitch me out with the rest of them, but he didn't. He reached down and helped me to my feet. He must have been as strong as an elephant.

“So . . . didn't bother fixing the motorcycle I left for you?”

I couldn't speak.

The old man started walking over to the police car near the new lobby doors. It was a Ford Mustang. “Don't forget your box,” he said over his shoulder.

I picked up the carton of food, then took a few uncertain steps towards the car. The old man was trying to unlock the door with the keys he'd stolen. None of them seemed to work.

“Oh, hang it,” he said. Then he tossed the keys over his shoulder and just ripped the driver's-side door off the car. No joke. Like it was made of wet newspaper.

He was climbing into the driver's seat when I heard a man shout “Stop!” It was the first police officer. The one who had landed on the car. He was back on his feet and had his gun drawn. It was pointed right at us.

“Hands on your head. Back away from the car,” he shouted.

“Hurry up, boy!” the old man snapped.

My door opened from the inside and I ducked in. The cover of the steering column had been ripped off and the old man was rubbing two wires together.

“Don't move or I'll shoot,” shouted the officer.

The old man turned to me and smiled. “Time to slip it into overdrive.”

I smelled a spark and the engine turned over. Then I heard several gunshots. The sound made every muscle in my body jump.

“Hang on,” the old man said. He was talking through clenched teeth like he'd just been punched in the stomach. A dark stain was spreading across his chest.

Blood. The smell of it filled the car. I felt the muscles in my jaw begin to twitch and my head got all dizzy. It was exactly the same way I'd felt when I first saw him bleeding, the night he'd crashed into the lobby of the Nicholls Ward. I felt agitated, too. Almost angry. There was just a flash of it, but enough that I had a fleeting urge to rip his coat off and help myself to what he'd spilled so it wouldn't go to waste.

He threw the car into reverse and spun into the cruiser behind us. The officer with the gun was standing right beside it, so he had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. We slammed into the car and the front end caved in over one of the tires. Without a tow truck, it wasn't going anywhere. Then the old man slipped the gearshift into forward and tore out of the parking lot.

“Buckle up,” he said.

I had the box of food in my lap. I was fighting with the seat belt when I felt his hand pushing down on the top of my head. An instant later, several shots hit the back windshield and pebbles of glass flew all over the back seat.

“Are you hit?” he asked me as we raced down the street. He had to shout because there was so much wind coming in through his open door.

“No,” I answered.

“Good.”

I noticed he was still grinding his teeth. He looked into my box of food. “Toss me one of those, will you?”

I reached into the carton and pulled out one of the square bags. When I handed it to him, I noticed his teeth. Two of them in particular. You know the ones I mean. They were twice as long as they should have been, and pointed, like a wolf's.

“You're a vampire,” I said.

“Well, give the boy a cigar. What were you expecting? A cherub?”

“What's a cherub?” I asked.

“What's a cherub? Don't young people go to Sunday school any more?”

I shrugged. I had no idea what young people did.

“Of course I'm a vampire,” he continued. “Did you think you were the only one in town?”

“You mean there are more of us?”

The old vampire laughed. “More of us! Vampires are everywhere. Why, I'll bet you half the bureaucrats at City Hall . . .” He bit into the bag and took a sip. A look of total disgust came over his face and he spat everything out the open door. The wind blew half of it back inside. “What is this crap?”

I looked at the box to see if it said anything other than “Warning: Not for Human Consumption.”

“Blood,” I said. “At least, I think so.”

“Are you nuts?” he said. Then he laughed. “What am I saying? I just helped you escape from Crackerbox Palace.” He held the bag under my nose. “Does this swill smell like blood to you? If this is the real deal, I'm the Master Chief and you just got powned.”

The bag looked fine to me.

“Must be from an animal,” he said. “Probably a pig or a cow.” He went to toss the bag out of the car, but I stopped him.

“Don't, I'll have it.”

“Your funeral.”

He handed the bag to me. I drank it. It wasn't as filling as one of my brain cocktails, but it tasted just as good. I waited a few seconds to see if my stomach was considering any acrobatic routines, but I didn't feel so much as a cramp.

“Don't you have any of the real stuff?” the old vampire asked me.

“What real stuff?”

He looked at me like I was too stupid to be alive. I noticed his eyes
again. Watery blue. “Human blood, of course. What did you think I meant?”

I was shocked. “You drink human blood?”

“Once you start, there's only one way to stop.”

“How's that?”

He spun the wheel and we skidded around a corner. “You get killed,” he said.

So vampires could die. Of course they could die. Wooden stakes and holy water and all that. I stared at the old vampire for a moment, wondering how much of what I'd read in books and seen in the movies was true.

“Do you hunt people?” I asked.

He looked in the rear-view mirror. It had a bullet hole in it, so he took a quick glance over his shoulder, then he started driving with one hand.

“Not unless they really get on my nerves,” he answered.

I wasn't sure if he was lying or not. But he was weaving all over the road.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“What's the matter? I got shot three times. That's what's the matter. Here, take the wheel.”

I'd never driven a car before, but I'd played my share of racing games. As it turned out, driving a car in real life and driving in a video game weren't quite the same. Especially, holding the wheel in one hand from the passenger's seat. I side-swiped a parked car and knocked over a couple of garbage cans, but I didn't get us killed. I guess that was the main thing.

Meanwhile, the vampire was frantically digging underneath his coat. I couldn't tell if he was on fire or had a bumblebee in his shirt. Then he took out a bag that looked a bit like the one I'd given him, only this one was bigger. It was rectangular and had a red cross on it. It also had a bullet hole in the side, so half of the blood was gone.
The smell of it was strong, but I didn't get as worked up this time, I guess because I'd fed already. But a part of me still wanted to grab the bag from him and drain it myself.

“Damn,” he said. “This was my last one.” He put his mouth over the bullet hole in the side of the bag and finished the rest. By this time we were approaching Water Street, the main road running through town. I could hear police sirens behind us.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I'll be fine. Vampires heal very quickly, boy, much faster than people, especially if they get fresh blood. The good stuff, not that bovine crap you were pushing earlier.”

He must have been telling the truth—that vampires healed quickly—because he actually managed to keep the car straight for a whole block.

“Where are we going?”

“To the river. I know a place we can hide.”

“Isn't the police station this way?” I said. This didn't seem like the best route.

The vampire didn't answer. Instead, he stepped on the gas, ran a red light, then turned onto Water Street. The tires made so much noise when he rounded the corner that I was surprised they didn't fly off the car. A few blocks up the street in the other direction was the police station. I looked out the back. There were so many flashing red and blue lights, every officer in town must have been in on the chase. As it turned out, not all of them were behind us. A group appeared very suddenly around the bend. They had a roadblock in place. Several cars were parked end to end across the street.

The vampire jumped the curb so we were cruising right on the sidewalk. We were lucky—nobody was out for a stroll, just a few ducks that had wandered up from the river. Fortunately, we missed them. Unfortunately, we hit the back of a cruiser that had moved to intercept us. The hood flew off our car and the windshield crumbled
into a spiderweb of broken glass. Then the engine started making clunking noises.

“That's the problem with these damn Mustangs,” the vampire said. “A couple of high-speed collisions and they just fall apart.”

I was gripping the handle above the door so firmly I nearly pulled the roof down on us. I expected the car to fall to pieces, but it didn't. We kept charging forward.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

“I have a plan,” he answered.

I wondered if it involved checking him into the Nicholls Ward. I was about to tell him that my room was free, but he turned and asked me a question.

“Are you warm?”

This guy really was a loon. His door was missing. The car was like a wind tunnel. With his hair whipping around, it was a wonder he could even see the road.

“No,” I said. “I'm actually pretty cool.”

“Well, that's too bad. I thought if you were warm, you might like to go for a swim.”

I looked out my window. Like I said before, we were driving down Water Street. It had that name for a reason. The Otonabee River was flowing beside us. It looked like a giant shadow.

He cranked the wheel over. We left the sidewalk and started spinning on a strip of grass that sat between the river and the road. We did a slow three-sixty, then went over the bank. I heard myself shouting in surprise. For a moment we were airborne. Then the back of the car slammed into the river. Water splashed everywhere. The car stopped dead and the Otonabee started pouring in through the rear window and the open door.

The vampire calmly undid his seat belt. “So, did I pass my driving test?” he asked. Then he gave me a quick wink, turned and dove into the water.

A
s soon as the vampire disappeared out the car door, I frantically undid my seat belt. Half a dozen police cruisers were screeching to a halt where we'd left the sidewalk and spun into the river. There was no time to lose. I started to push my door open, then I realized it would be easier to swim out the driver's side, so I jumped over the gearshift, took a deep breath and pushed off against the sinking car.

The river was freezing. If you've ever jumped into cold water, you know exactly how shocking it can be. The chill goes straight to your bones and makes it hard to move. And the water was loud. That meant it was moving fast. It took me totally by surprise. The instant I was clear of the car, the river pulled me straight under.