The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel (10 page)

     The wooden drawer hit Jameson at the base of his skull and cracked. The force of the blow sent him forward. Phoebe cried out. The sound didn’t seem to indicate she was in pain, but it was too weak for Leland’s liking.

     The vampire jerked away from Phoebe’s neck and hissed at Leland. Lost to his feral hunger, with Phoebe’s blood dripping down his chin and staining his inhuman teeth, he looked just like one of the Rippers.

     “Snap out of it, man!” Leland ordered in a whisper. “We have to get the fuck out of here. You said you could control it, Jameson. So fuckin’ control it!”

     Jameson snarled at Leland. The younger man raised the drawer again, though he didn’t think it would help him much if Jameson wanted to take him down. He’d try, anyway, if it came to that.

     “Jameson, we have to go,” Leland said. “We have to go. Those things are here. They killed my family. They killed Joselyn. They’re going to kill these kids if we don’t move right now.”

     Awareness flooded Jameson’s blue eyes like an ocean wave. He looked down at Phoebe with a horrified expression.

     “I didn’t…” he began. “Phoebe! Wake up!”

     Phoebe’s eyes rolled, but she smiled up at Jameson. “I think I can say I believe you, vampire,” she murmured.

     Jameson turned Phoebe with as much gentleness as he could and sat her in the chair. Her head fell forward, sending waves of chestnut hair in front of her face.

     “We have to go get the kids ready to go, Jameson,” Leland said in a quiet voice. He heard the Rippers tearing through doors on the ground floor. They had to get out.

     “I’m fine,” Phoebe said as she sat back up and put one hand on her neck. She had a hard time focusing, but she struggled to return to herself. Nausea swept through her, but she fought it back.
     “Hand me one of those shirts,” she asked of Leland as she pointed at the pile of discarded clothing. “I’ll wrap it up and we’ll be good to go.”

     Leland tossed a dark t-shirt her way. When Jameson caught it, Leland put the broken drawer on the bed and went for the door.

     “Tie it tight,” he instructed the shaken vampire. “I’m going to go get the kids ready. We have to go back out the fire escape.”

Chapter Fourteen – Overrun

     Leland entered the living room and saw two of the kids huddled together behind the couch. The catatonic dark-haired one was still curled up on the floor. The blonde and the boy stared at Leland from wide, scared eyes.

     “Monsters coming,” Eli whispered. A slam and a scream sounded from downstairs and he jumped.

     Leland strode toward them and helped the stand. “They’re coming, but we’re going,” he promised them in a soft voice. “They won’t get us.”

     Phoebe came out of the bedroom. She leaned heavily on Jameson, who’d wiped his face off for the most part. He still had some blood on his chin. Leland decided he would have to let him know about the stain once they got out safely.

     “Out the window,” Phoebe instructed the children. Leland didn’t like how she swayed where she stood, the glazed look in her eyes, or the way her voice slurred a bit as she spoke.

     While the kids moved toward the window he and Jameson had entered, Leland went to the refrigerator. He took a plastic store bag from the hanging storage container and tossed some juice boxes, some single-serve bottles of orange juice, a handful of cheese sticks, and a glass can of olives into the bag. The other two bottles of orange juice he kept in his hand. He handed one of them to Phoebe as she tied Eli’s shoe.

     “Drink this,” Leland told her. “You lost a lot of blood. If you want to start feeling better, you need to drink this.”

     Phoebe took the orange juice without question and cracked it open. Leland was glad when she swigged half the bottle and nodded her thanks at him.

     Jameson picked up Carmen and pressed her tight against his chest. Leland almost wanted to take the girl from him. He told himself Jameson could be trusted; he’d just had a vampiric lapse. Of course, a lapse on Jameson’s part could lead to him draining someone dry. Leland decided he’d just have to keep an eye on the older man and try to figure out a way to bring him back if he hit that place again.

     “I’m not going to eat her,” Jameson assured Leland. He’d seen how the kid had looked at him when he’d picked up the girl. Phoebe’s look of hesitation and fear was a blow against him but it was Leland’s new suspicion that hurt him more.

     “Phoebe, what happen?” Eli asked as Phoebe pulled him gently toward the window. “Bad things?”

     Phoebe nodded and helped him onto the landing after she checked to make sure it was empty of threats. The Rippers from the ground level had left. Phoebe told herself they were probably the ones who’d broken through the front door.

     “Yeah, buddy,” Phoebe whispered. “Bad things.”

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     On the first floor of the apartment complex, Simon Hicks had barricaded his doors and windows. He’d decided to wait out the outbreak of whatever virus or disease had caused people to turn into Rippers. He’d known the safe zones would fall. He didn’t trust law enforcement or the Army to handle their shit. From what the TV had said, it was the Army’s fault people had turned into murderous cannibals in the first place. The Ripper program had been meant to turn their fighters into ultimate war machines. Stronger, faster, able to operate better in darkness. Before they’d even taken the time to address possible side effects, General Derek Grissom had distributed it throughout the entire Armed Forced population. The people who’d already been at peak physical fitness and trained to kill had been given cannibalistic urges and full blown insanity.

     What a cock up, Simon thought to himself as he heated his dinner in the microwave.

     He heard the front door shatter and knew some of the infected people were inside. He wondered how it had spread so fast. How did the Army get it one week and the rest of the population have it in their streets and homes the next?

     Simon went through his apartment and shut the lights off. He muted the TV and sat on his couch with a pistol in hand. He’d been watching the newscasts regarding the Grissom virus ever since they started airing. He knew they hunted by sight first and foremost, but sound was a close second. If he was silent, they would pass him by.

     Simon heard a snuffling sound near his door. Through his sturdy barricade, he doubted the Ripper could smell him. He hoped it couldn’t, at least.

     Silence reigned for a moment. Simon was sure the Ripper would lose interest and leave him alone if it couldn’t smell or hear him. He held his breath and waited for the creature to leave.

     The microwave beeps sounded worse than a fire alarm wailing. Simon wanted to scream his frustration for letting the meal he was heating slip his mind. He doubt he would have even heard himself over the hungry wailing that started up outside his door. They knew he was inside.

     Simon had boarded up his windows two days ago. When the Rippers broke through the barricade at his front door, he had nowhere to run to.

     The first one to reach him wasn’t even an adult. A child of perhaps seven, the boy had three fingers missing on his left hand. The skin between his jaw and right shoulder had been savaged, but he came at Simon with healthy vigor and wild eyes.

     Simon fired at the child, but between fear and inexperience, the shot missed.

     “No!” Simon begged as the boy pounced.

     The small teeth of the boy worried at the flesh near Simon’s collarbone, tearing through and drawing rushes of blood in the first instant. His full-fingered hand dug into Simon’s stomach. The soft flesh gave under the frantic digits as another one of the Rippers fell on him.

     Simon screamed and writhed beneath the feasting Rippers. The boy slurped at the blood pouring from Simon’s neck. One of the adult Rippers buried its face in Simon’s open stomach and bathed his open mouth in the pooling blood there.

     When the last of life drained out of Simon, the Rippers moved away from his body and out to find more victims. After a moment, Simon rose to join them.

     Apartment 1C was home to Cole and Kallie Yeats. They had been packing and preparing to leave. Kallie wanted to find one of the safe zones that had withstood the Rippers so far. Cole had wanted to stay in their home, but as chaos claimed the city, he found himself shifting more toward Kallie’s plan.

     It was too late to put the plan into action. Cole pushed Kallie into their bedroom.

     “Go! Get out through the window!” he insisted. Kallie wanted to argue, but he shoved her harder and slammed the door shut. He stayed behind to fight as the Rippers pounded their way through the apartment’s front door.

     The blade of the kitchen knife he gripped bent as the first Ripper slammed into him. The feral woman didn’t react to the blade imbedded in her stomach. She snapped at Cole as he held her back. 

     Cole’s grip slipped and those gnashing teeth found purchase against his face. He shrieked in agony as she tore off his nose and half of his left cheek. He struggled to release himself from her grasp, but another Ripper barreled into them from behind.

     Cole went down under the weight of both of the cannibalistic monsters. One of them bit into his neck. Another ripped chunks of his right arm off. Cole’s screams joined the brutal music of the other dying individuals in the apartment complex.

     Outside apartment 1C, Kallie stumbled and fell. She cried over the loss of her husband. Distracted by the blur of her tears, she didn’t see the Ripper who’d come into their bedroom, following the sounds of her escape. When she stood, the monster pulled her back inside the open window. Before she was even fully back in the apartment, the Ripper buried its red stained teeth into the skin of her neck.

     Kallie thrashed against the creature’s hold, but as the air wheezed out of the hole in her skin, the strength drained from her body. She was left on the bed to bleed out until she stood to join the ranks of the Rippers.

     So it went, across cities, villages, towns and remote locations all over the world. People ran and hid, fought and barricaded, but humans alone could not stand against the tide of Rippers.

     As they worked silently and quickly to shimmy down the fire escape, Phoebe hoped that with a vampire, they would gain a better chance at withstanding the flood.

Chapter Fifteen – Elise

     The Rippers who had converged on the apartment complex had made their way inside. Phoebe saw from their place on the second level of the fire escape that they were alone in the back area except for one woman who’d had the same idea as them.

     The woman gripped the edge of the fire escape railing with one hand. The other rested on her heavily-pregnant belly. Her dark eyes locked on Jameson’s as the vampire and his group began to move over to the landing she stood on.

     “Stay where you are!” the woman commanded. She backed away from them, one hand still protectively on her stomach as she thrust the other out as though to prevent them from moving closer.

     “Listen, we’re just trying to get away, too,” Phoebe said as she drew the kids closer to her. “You could come with us. It’d be better than being alone, wouldn’t it?”

     The woman looked as though she didn’t trust the suggestion, but she was less resistant to accept when it came from Phoebe.

     “My name’s Elise,” the dark-skinned woman said. She pushed her thick hair away from her pretty, worried face and held out a hand. “I’ll help you over. If we can get around to the front, I have a van.”

     Phoebe sent Hannah over first, then Eli. Leland went next. He was followed by Phoebe, who reached out for Carmen. The others began their descent down the fire escape as screams and roars continued to pour from inside the apartment complex.

     When Phoebe reached the first floor landing of the fire escape, hands burst from the window she stood beside. Jameson, who was on the landing with her, shoved Phoebe back and broke the hands at the wrists. The Ripper inside shrieked its outrage as Jameson turned away and followed Phoebe down.

     He realized in horror that when he’d pushed her away from the Ripper, she’d fallen down the ladder. She was on the ground, breathing but unconscious.

     “Shit,” Jameson muttered as he dropped down next to her. The blood loss must have slowed her reflexes. “Leland, carry Carmen. I’ll take Phoebe.”

     They rushed around the far side of the apartment building. Jameson went first. Not only was he able to move with little trouble added by Phoebe’s weight, but he was the best chance of fighting off a Ripper if it threatened them upon reaching the parking lot. A group of them he’d have trouble with, but one or two he could handle.

     The parking lot was clear for the first few moments they ran across it. However, the group soon caught the attention of some of the Rippers who hadn’t moved to higher floors.

     Some of the apartment building’s previous residents joined in pursuit as the Rippers recognized prey on the move. They’re shrill wails and bloodied faces caused the desperate humans to move as fast as their bodies allowed.

     “Keys!” Jameson shouted to Elise. She wrestled them from her pocket as she ran and tossed them to him.