What Happens in the Darkness (35 page)

*** 

“What are you doing?” Martin asked quietly.

Rudy looked up, pulling himself out of his thoughts at the sound of Martin’s voice. He knew who Martin was—he knew all the key players in Patrick’s little game.

He was confused by the question. “Doing?”

“Patrick sent you. Right?”

Rudy nodded, lifting his gun against his shoulder and taking aim at Martin’s head.

Martin didn’t move, which greatly unnerved Rudy. Why wasn’t he defending himself?

“Patrick doesn’t want you setting foot on his island!”

Martin sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

Rudy swallowed.
What next? What game is he playing? The vampire versus the modern-day Van Helsing
, he thought proudly.
I will defeat you, vampire! I will taste your blood, for you are—argh!

A second later the man’s throat was in Martin’s clenched fist. A moment after that the throatless, lifeless body of “Rudy Van Helsing” was tossed over the side of the bridge.

Silence reigned on the bridge. The only sound was the churning waters of the Hudson River lapping at pilings and mooring buoys two hundred feet below, or the occasional shrill shriek of seagulls practicing hara-kiri moves overhead.

A number of Rudy’s army exploded into action almost as one unit, while at the same time members of Martin’s army launched themselves at Rudy’s group.

The human fighters barely had time to raise their weapons before the vampires swiftly attacked, taking obvious pleasure in disemboweling their victims, wearing shredded ropes of colon as bloody, smelly spoils of war. The majority of the humans went for a swim or had body parts scattered along the surface of the bridge.

Martin stood off to the side watching the attacks, sizing up the enemy.

A second row of humans moved in, lining up what appeared to be pipe bombs and other military weaponry Martin wasn’t familiar with. He wondered why they thought normal weapons would have any effect on vampires. Sure it might slow them down, but really, how—

“Fire!” someone yelled, and Martin watched as half a dozen pipe bombs exploded.

The front line of vampires—about fifteen, Martin quickly estimated—was hit by the shrapnel, but the vampires fell to their hands and knees or on their backs, screaming in pain, some clutching their faces, writhing around the ground.

Martin was taken aback and whipped his head from the vampires to the humans. “What the hell?” he cried. He leapt from the hood to the top of the car to get a better look.

Some vampires were smoking as if on fire, and others clawed at the dozens and dozens of shards sticking out of their bodies—and Martin suddenly realized they’d been hit with wood.

“Stay away from the bombs!” he yelled, but his voice was swallowed by the roar of the fighting on the bridge. He dropped off the car and sprang into action, reaching the pipe-launching humans before they could start round two.

But the line behind these humans moved into place, firing their weapons. Martin dived for cover and managed to duck, but his arm suddenly exploded in pain. His jacket was embedded with dozens of tiny hunks of wood that he knew reached right into his flesh. He was lucky he’d moved in time. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t have time to stop and pluck out the shrapnel.

Idiot humans, as usual, not Rudy’s army but ridiculous gawkers who hadn’t had time to react got caught in the crossfire. The vampires used them as human shields in order to reach Rudy’s little army and finally end this war once and for all.

A dozen men and women looked like blood-spattered Swiss cheese, bodies riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel, mangled hunks of flesh and broken chunks of bone embedded in the sides of cars and in each another. The ground was slippery with their fluids, with the brain matter that decorated every surface. Survivors ran screaming in every direction trying to get away.

The vampires took down the remaining “army” and stood back, waiting for fresh orders from Martin. The air was filled with the scent of blood and shit and seemed to incite them into a riotous frenzy.

As Martin was about to give the
onward
command, he once again stopped in his tracks.

On the other end of the bridge, half a dozen lions stared them down.

“Son of a bitch.” This was almost too funny. A present from Patrick? Damned likely. How had he managed to scrounge up
lions
?

The cats looked
hungry
. Three paced while the other three looked on.

Martin was sorry he hadn’t spotted them sooner. It might have been a more enjoyable end to the small army they’d just stopped.

His group had apparently spotted the lions as well, and the crowd on the bridge grew quiet. The humans sat still, rather than retreat to the relative safety of their vehicles.

If they were hoping for a show, Martin thought, they certainly weren’t going to be disappointed today. He was sick of humans and their fascination with the real-life Grand Guignol theater. They were about to get their fill.

Martin shook his head. He didn’t have time for this, and he wasn’t about to waste his resources—his vampire army—on the brain-dead stupidity of the humans. But he also didn’t want to harm the cats. No reason to. They were more innocent than the humans and were better mannered to boot.

It was apparent those cats hadn’t eaten in a while—and even more apparent Patrick must have had something to do with them being this far north when the Central Park Zoo, the only possible place these animals had come from, was located on Sixty-Eighth Street, more than a hundred city blocks south of the bridge. Those lions certainly didn’t bypass every human being—every food source—along the way.

He glanced over his shoulder and jerked his head in the direction of the procession of cars filling the bridge. They were everywhere, including dozens quite close to the lions. At least those humans had been smart enough to duck inside their vehicles.

Lana folded her arms across her chest. She leaned into Martin. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking this bridge looks like a buffet.”

She snorted. “Good.”

“C’est la vie.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to move yet. I don’t want to engage them.”

“We can’t stand here all night.”

“Here, kitty, kitty …” he muttered.

His army stood quietly behind him, waiting for his command. He still didn’t know what the hell to do.

The lions decided for him.

With a shake of its head and a loud roar, the first lion—clearly head of the small pride—ended the stalemate and began approaching Martin. The rest of the lions followed, all moving at a trot, advancing quickly.

“Defend yourself, but try not to engage!” Martin yelled to his army behind him. He felt the energy of his crowd pick up, felt the adrenaline flowing.

He also felt the sudden wave of panic and terror rising from the humans.

A few cries of “Oh, shit!” and shrieks of “Oh my
God
!” were followed by screams and yells of fear at the sudden realization that massively large wild beasts were suddenly charging full speed across the bridge toward them.

The lions were starving.

The majority of the people on the bridge had managed to climb inside their cars, but a handful had strayed too far. They pounded on doors and windows and scrambled on top of vehicles trying to climb into
anyone’s
car at that point, but
no one
was taking the risk. The rest ran screaming up the bridge, a race for time back to their original destination.

Martin’s group moved to the perimeter of the bridge, flanking both sides, jumping up onto beams and cables suspended above the height of the cars, making themselves a less interesting target for the enormous cats.

Martin stood off to the side near the center of the action, straddling the hood and trunk of two cars, taking it all in.

He’d been right—this was a buffet fit for cats.

The six lions trotted off into six different directions, the first two increasing their pace until they were running at full speed. The six attacked almost at the same time.

The first one, the apparent leader, swiped a paw the size of a man’s head against the shoulder of the slowest runner it found, a guy in his twenties wearing a NY Giants jacket. The cat shredded the jacket, and the guy scrambled on his butt trying to get away, throwing his arms in front of him to protect himself, but he was no match for the five hundred-pound beast. He screamed when the cat pounced, tearing huge chunks of flesh in impossibly large jaws, ending the attack with a bite to the man’s throat, tearing it out with one bite, nearly severing his head. Blood sprayed from the gaping neck hole, coating the car behind him. The occupants of the car screamed as if one voice, trying desperately to move as far away from the carnage as possible but only reaching the far passenger door.

The lion suddenly seemed more interested in the occupants than in his fresh kill; perhaps the family of four trapped inside the Chevy seemed much more satisfying. It pounded at the glass, its massive paw scratching at the doors and windows as if asking permission to come in, its eight-inch claws shredding the rubber edging around the door frames, shredding the lining of the car’s soft-top roof.

Another lion had the majority of its victim’s head in its powerful jaws and was slowly, increasingly clamping down while the old man in its maw pounded at its muzzle and begged for help, his voice muffled inside the lion’s mouth. He reached out blindly, trying to grab on to anything or anyone he could. The lion planted its feet on the ground and stayed its course, using only its mouth to fight its struggling prey. It jaws gained a better hold and bit harder, crunching into the man’s skull, biting deeper until the old guy finally gave up his struggle and staggered to his knees, his hands falling against the ground.

A small group of people finally tried to come to the old man’s rescue and attacked the lion with tire irons or whatever they could find, or threw rocks at it, foolishly waving their arms and yelling at the cat to back away, but all that did was piss the lion off. It dropped the old man for the moment and whirled on its attackers, disemboweling three men with one quick swipe of its gigantic paw, turning away to resume eating its fresh kill.

The three glanced down at themselves at the same time, each man looking quite stunned while attempting to catch the fresh waterfall of intestines gushing from their nearly empty abdominal cavities. The timing of their movements was so perfect it seemed choreographed. Ropey strands of bloody entrails spilled over their open hands, pooling at their feet, the heat from their body cavities steaming in the cold winter air. The smell of their blood seemed to encourage the lions, who attacked with a renewed energy.

People ran around the bridge screaming for help, some trying desperately to scale the cable wires, grabbing hold of anything they could fine, straddling the railings near the very edges of the bridge.

A woman grabbed Martin’s arm and pointed at the Chevy, screaming, “There are kids inside that car! Please do something!
Please
!”

Too late. The cat popped the Chevy’s soft top and reached in as if plucking a pickle out of a jar and pulled out a little girl who looked around ten. She clung on to the lion’s paw as if trying to keep it from hurting her, as if trying to control its movements.

She wasn’t very good at it.

“Nooooo!”
she sobbed. “Mommy!”

The lion roared in her face before swallowing her head whole, chomping it off in one bite. The girl’s headless body spasmed for a moment before dropping in a heap. The lion spat out the head as if it had left a nasty taste in its mouth.

The mother apparently hadn’t seen the child’s fate and scrambled to the roof of the car. “Jodi? Jodi, baby? Honey? Sweetie?”

Jodi Baby Honey Sweetie didn’t answer.

Martin rolled his eyes.

“Stay in the car!” someone screamed at the mother. “Don’t look down!”

“Wha—” The woman looked down. Her daughter’s lifeless face stared up at her, the features ruined from the lion’s bite, the girl’s tongue lolling out as if trying to lick ice cream from the corner of her mouth.

The mother fainted and dropped back inside the car.

“Please!”
the woman shrieked at Martin.
“Help them!”

Martin cocked his head. “What?”

“Oh God,
pleeeeeeeease
!” She crossed her hands in front of her face. “The kids! Please don’t let them—”

She was beginning to get on his nerves, interrupting this way. And he wondered when people had become so complacent—when they had gone from fearing vampires to believing they were on this planet to serve humans.

“Young lady,” Martin said, lifting her by the throat, where she clutched desperately to his arm, perilously dangling several feet off the ground, “you should learn to always help yourself first! If you want to save the children”— he pitched her several feet through the air, and she landed hard on her ass at the lion’s feet—“go right ahead!”

The lion whirled on her, not allowing her the chance to get up, landing heavily on her legs. Martin heard the bones snapping from six feet away, and the woman shrieked, inciting the lion further. It sank its teeth into her inner thigh, severing the artery, and she was dead seconds later. The lion buried its head in her stomach and pulled back, its mouth full of intestine and liver.

“You bastard!” someone screamed at Martin.

He looked back at the small group charging him.

Martin sighed and shook his head, and as each person reached him he lifted the idiot by the throat and pitched him over the side of the bridge, where one by one they plummeted the two hundred feet into the icy waters of the Hudson River.

After four people met the exact same fate, the crowd apparently decided Martin’s actions hadn’t been so bad after all.

Martin stepped off the cars and trotted up the bridge toward the New York side. He glanced behind him. The lions left a stream of death at least thirty bodies strong and finally disappeared off the opposite end of the bridge, headed toward New Jersey. He wished them well.