Blooded: Dead Things Read online

  Lana had killed the zombies with Leon’s shotgun and said goodbye to her mother. She feels sad for leaving her mother at such a vital time, but the vision Leon had of herself awakens something within Lana that she had forgotten for years.

  She was thinking about someone—and for once the name Kronos wasn’t in her thoughts.

  Lana exhaled, putting the tall, thin hardback she retrieved from under her bed into her backpack. This was the first item she thought of, but it’s the last to be placed in the black bag in a separate pocket; the bigger section storing stakes and a crossbow.

  From the second floor, she spotted out her window the ultramarine blue car racing through the tall prairie grass that will be used for hay. Lana looked around the room, taking the past and present into her soul. Save for the bathroom near the top of the stairs, the whole second story is one bedroom. It used to be her parents’ sleeping quarters, but her father gave it to her because she was having various friends over and thought his sociable daughter should have the commodious area.

  He died that unforgettable night.

  And now Cole and Loki were the only ones staying the night. The only ones staying around her. Lana let out a sigh of…relief. She twirled to the cheval glass to her right. The tall, round mirror fixed into the dark frame, its legs mashing in the slate blue carpet. Even though she changed from shorts and a short sleeve shirt into their opposites, she still could not place what was different about herself. Was it hope? The real kind that wasn’t false? Regardless, glossy lips pushed soft cheeks upwards to twinkling eyes as they smiled.

  She snatched the backpack off the queen-size bed and headed downstairs.

  COLE

  “TRUST? DO I TRUST THEM?” Cole repeated Kimberly’s question, whispering even though the music was on. Leon had turned it on to drown out Loki. Cole didn’t like how she threw herself at guys. But they were friends. The way the short-haired guy, Lucas, encouraged Loki’s behavior worked against Cole’s favor. “Sure one of them saved my friend’s life, but as of right now the only reason I’m not questioning the recently bloody man’s sanity is because of Lana’s credence.

  “And just because one of them knows of ‘future might happenings’ doesn’t make them BOTH saints.” Cole didn’t know Lucas and Leon. And they did not know him. “Lana can handle herself. But there is no way in hell I’m handing her over. If Lana had not decided to go then I wouldn’t be leaving either.” Leon turned off the music.

  She didn’t say it, but Cole knew the fragile woman who was probably older than he was was thinking about his parents.

  “Orphaned at age eleven and eventually adopted does not mean I love my new parents any less than my biological parents. I called them from Loki’s house and told them I had to leave, to be safe, and I loved them very much. And there are only two justifications for why I would ever forsake them. Vampires and… Lana…?” They pulled up in front of the buoyant girl. Cole didn’t know what it was about her this time, but he thought she never looked more attractive. He was about to be chivalrous and open the door for her when unexpectedly his army men below the belt, due to delectation, wanted to know if swimming… Aroused, Cole decided to stay right where he was, right next to Kimberly.

  Lana got in, and the car took off faster than a chained dog chasing a female scent after the line has snapped.

  ✽✽✽

  LUCAS

  ONE MINUTE and thirty seconds.

  The yellow numbers counting down on the big rectangle timers placed along the route leaving the terrorized city feel as surreal as a dream. The ride through Hastings, Nebraska has been a quiet one—especially now. No one had made a sound out of fear that even talking will somehow preclude them from skipping town.

  “One twenty-nine… one twenty-five… one fifteen,” Leon whispered, counting down the seconds. It seemed time was going faster and we were moving slower. “One hundred and five… ninety-three…”

  I wanted to take my death grip off the steering wheel and punch Leon in the groin. I could feel his eyes constantly shifting to the speedometer, expecting the car to magically sprout higher numbers. The needle pointed to the far right. Maxed out. Like my heart. I thought it was going to beat right out of my chest. My palms sweated on the wheel.

  “84…

  “73…

  Behind us a car pulled out from the short line of vehicles and went around us. I guess they weren’t maxed out.

  “60…” Leon continued counting down.

  Finally, I saw it. Stretched out—for what seemed to be the distance from California to North Carolina—were hundreds of military soldiers with hundreds of guns and several tanks expanding horizontally from both sides of the road. There was no “going around” or “breaking through”.

  “50…”

  We zoomed by a house.

  “40… 37…”

  We zoomed by another house. “Lucky bastards,” I said, and Kimberly jumped at the sound of my voice. “Must have been real easy for em’ to leave.”

  The timer at the roadblock was getting bigger and bigger, letting us know if we didn’t beat the countdown to God only knows what happens, we were going to be the first ones to find out.

  “30…”

  “Almost! Almost there!” I took my foot off the gas and slowly pressed the brake pedal, the needle began pointing to the left.

  “Twenty-three seconds.”

  The car came to a stop in front of the barricade; the yellow number twenty-three on the screen.

  Several men—the kind of hulked out men nobody in their right mind messes with—surrounded the car and pointed long barreled guns and what looked similar to grocery store barcode scanners at us.

  Unable to take his eyes off, Leon watched the timer flick down from twenty-three. “It seems to be moving in slow motion.”

  “Trunk,” the soldier closest to me ordered. Great. It’s not a zombie I’m stowing away in there, I thought.

  I opened the door and popped open the trunk. Two soldiers stared down at the giant cross and stakes. And then they glared questionably at me. I smiled pleasantly, not offering an explanation. The guy to my left closed the trunk. “Go.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. The guards parted, and Hastings was nothing but a reflection of cornfields in my rearview mirror.

  Leon said something about the color of the numbers changing from yellow to red when the number twenty flicked to nineteen while we were back there. “Why nineteen? Why not ten? Or twenty even?”

  With all this wackiness going on this is what he thinks about? “You’re so O.C.D.”

  “You’re so U.G.L.Y.”

  I gasped with false offensiveness and placed my hand to my chest dramatically. But there was nothing overdramatic about this day. We had made it out of the city. But now what?

  BLAYNE

  “SHE’S left her house, but she isn’t alone,” Blayne needlessly said to the eight hundred and sixteen year old Vampire with the young but scarred face of a thirty-five year old.

  “That credulous boy will always trail behind my Lana. Poor little orphan will never stop chasing after her. His readiness to believe he has a chance with her is going to prematurely end his pathetic life.” Kronos let out a contemptuous cackle. His long black hair flowing down his shoulders.

  The floorboards creaked while the Novice paced, listening to the voice on the other side of the phone conversation. “And there are new humans.”

  “New pleasure,” the elder leered, sitting up straight with his forearms resting on the arms of a chair.

  “Not a problem,” Blayne grinned. “If they slip up you know Lana is the one Kronos wants burned alive.” He shoved the phone into his pocket.

  Kronos, having heard the entire conversation, smiled with delight. “Hastings is closed.”

  “Yes.”

  They become noiseless. Hearkening a human scream outside the perimeter, their jubilant laughs echoed in the small room. Blayne composed himself. His face serious. “What if Lana can’t make it? A
nd I thought you personally wanted to kill her.”

  The young Vampire has only seen the Shadow one time—in another life. The memory is hazy, but he recalls being scared and angry when the girl found him. Then he was running through the freshly dewed grass; he just wanted to go home. Blayne was halfway to his destination when suddenly he couldn’t move. He woke up in the underground of August and Rush Cemetery’s cavern. The Novice woke up and he was hungry. And his older human brother was present…

  A couple of weeks later his creator told him it was time to go home. And so he did. Blayne fed off of the rest of his blood relatives, some of them, the others he had over the course of a few months in another sitting. His grandfather, however, devastated by the loss of his family, blew his own brains out one cloudy morning. Every blood relative in Blayne’s family is dead. He killed his brother and younger cousins first.

  “When I have her where I want her,” the elder Vampire hissed up at him. “I must say, you will not live to be as old as I.”

  Blayne frowned.

  “Cheer up. Care for a little” —Kronos looked up at the cream colored ceiling—“Push?”

  They trembled. The girl who only kept one side of her head shaved, and a man with his hair dyed black to cover his graying roots. His facial hair gray and white. The man had told them his name was TYLER as if it meant something…

  The two had chains around their wrists and ankles that connect with two fixed points in the ceiling; one in front and the other behind them.

  “You know I can’t do that,” Blayne said.

  “Duh! One would think you knew the theory of repetition.”

  There are times when his sire can make him feel just like a worthless human—now being one of those times. Blayne sucked it up and began his lesson with the girl. Females are the easiest to Push. So he has heard. He stretched his hand upwards and concentrated. Other than the girl desperately tugging at the chains and making them rattle very noisily nothing happened.

  Doubting he will ever learn, the kid—compared to the black haired Vampire—picked up an out of placed dresser and swung it down to the floor. The broken drawers now lied in disorderly piles about the room.

  “Toddler, let’s not have a temper tantrum. Take out your frustration in a truly satisfying way.”

  Blayne jumped up and wrapped his legs around his victim, positioning himself underneath the frightened girl with mascara running down her face. He reached over and removed the duct tape over Tyler’s mouth. Then the Novice swung his arm back, making a fist. BAM! BAM! The chained girl’s nose and eye sockets caved in.

  Blayne’s long fangs punctured the human girl’s artery.

  The only sound to be heard, other than the two rapid heartbeats, was the sound of the blood stream disturbing the air while it flowed out from Tyler’s mouth to satisfy the voracious appetite of his sire.

  LANA

  AFTER the escape from zombie land, Lucas figured since they had two professional Vampire assassins in the car—it had once belonged to Luke’s mother and Uncle Jay, Leon’s dad—he could tell everyone about Leon and him being Vampire Hunters.

  “What makes this awkward is that six strangers have been forced together under this roof to save another stranger which in turns saves us,” Leon said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “And now we are wandering south to Tennessee; which we know is a false destination.”

  Leaving the county, he asked, “Lana… uh… your mother, what—”

  “Basement. Food. Big gun,” Lana said before he could complete his sentence. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “I haven’t really done anything to—”

  “Why are you being modest?” Loki cut in. “You saved a stranger. A girl stranger that’s hot!” She lasciviously traced his biceps with her fingers, making us wonder if she was talking about herself. Startled by the girl’s provocative nature, Leon let out a nervous laugh. Not knowing what to do, he looked back at Lana for support.

  “Kool-aid was invented here by Edwin E. Perkins. Well, not here, but in Hastings.” That did nothing to distract the girl, still running the tips of her fingers on his arm. “Sorry,” Lana mouthed.

  “I stole some tampons from a girl,” Cole blurted out.

  “What?” Leon asked merely a split second before Lucas pointed out, “As opposed to taking them from a dude?”

  “I stole a tampon.”

  “Yeah. We heard that,” Lucas said, his voice almost harsh.

  “This one time—”

  “—At band camp,” Lucas laughed.

  “Seriously, Luke? The American Pie joke—”

  American Pie? Was that a movie or something?

  “—Okay, granny panties.” Lucas moved his arm back and forth and overenthusiastically said, “Let’s hear about some tampons!” The excessive enthusiasm tickled Lana and Loki; their girly laughter filled the confined space and Cole couldn’t help but laugh at them. Lucas looked over at Leon and smiled with satisfaction. “Cute,” Leon said, unamused.

  “Okay,” Cole started again after the laughter subsided. “One time Lana was telling me about how disgusting the girls’ bathroom was. Sometimes she would go in there and used toilet paper and tampons would be the floor.

  “Well, one day in the lunch line, I heard a girl talking about how she purposely left out used female stuff. She got a kick out of seeing people’s faces and was gonna do it again after lunch. So I thought, what a disgusting biotch, and I easily looked in her purse and stole the two unused ones. Then I had Lana take a used one from the bathroom—”

  “I wrapped it in toilet paper,” Lana clarified. “And near the end of lunch period Loki put the nasty thing in the girl’s purse.”

  “We followed her into the bathroom,” Loki said. “She always smoked and texted in there during that time. She reached in for her phone and instead grabbed the tissue. And when she unrolled it the bloody thing fell in her hand.” They laughed triumphantly.

  “After she washed her hands,” Lana recounted, “she went into the stall, and when she couldn’t find her tampons she said, ‘Someone stole my tampons!’ and someone said, ‘Yeah, they’re pretty sneaky with pulling it out of your vagina and all!’”

  Leon laughed so hard his shoulders shook. Lana thought it felt good to laugh.

  Lucas nudged Loki with his shoulder. “You put the lady thing in her purse?” She nodded. “That’s not a lady thing to do. In fact, it’s sick and vindictive. But I like it,” he smiled. Everyone seemed to find the joke humorous except Kimberly, Lana noticed. The fragile woman stared blankly out the window. The reflection of her stringy brown hair and pale face stared back. No signs of life in her eyes. Lana recollected the way she looked at the man on the pavement after she rushed out of her wrecked suburban. “Was Lee your brother?”

  Kimberly nodded, rocking back and forth.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  The inconsolable woman returned to her blank state as if the optimistic teenager had never spoken.

  The verdant-eyed girl turned to the dull scenery out of her open window; Lana couldn’t bear to watch Kimberly’s freckled hands intensely squeeze her own arms to the point where it had to be causing pain. The air flowing through the car tossed her tresses and several strands of Cole’s hair. Lana stared at the pavement. Lines… Lines… Car… Lines… Lines… Car… And more painted strips dividing the two lanes of traffic.

  Everyone that was attentive decided that it was a good idea to avoid the interstate. It seemed like a great place for unwanted things to happen.

  Lana drifted yet again to her dreams from the previous nights. They brought her comfort in this uncomfortable time.

  “I feel guilty,” confessed Loki.

  “Why? It was funny,” Lucas said about the disgraceful bathroom girl.

  “Not that. For lying to you and Leon.”

  “Huh?”

  “Her parents,” Leon presumed. He had caught the reaction on Cole’s when Loki told them her mother was on a business trip.


  “Yeah…my mom is not on a business trip. The truth is I don’t know where she is. She comes and goes at all hours. The last I heard from her was like two days ago. She was at a friend’s house with Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan. I wasn’t lying about Dad though. He lives in Georgia.”

  “Mom lives in her own world, and dad might as well live on the moon,” Leon translated. Lana knew everyone sympathized with her friend except Leon Carmany, who refused to have any sympathy for the girl sitting next to him, and Kimberly, not seeming to hear a word spoken in the car.

  It will not stop Luke from sleeping with her though, in fact, to Lucas, Loki is a sure thing. And much to Leon’s distaste, statistics would agree. He doesn’t like statistics, and Loki is the object of his aversion, Lana thought.

  “So, weapons,” Cole interjected. “How should they be divided?”

  “I don’t want one.” Lana pulled out the small crossbow from her backpack. “Got my own.”

  Cole took one look at Kimberly and decided the inoperative woman shouldn’t be handling firearms. “Loki, you have terrible aim. Take the shotgun and let Leon have the rifle. If that is okay with you, man?” Leon nodded and accepted the rifle from him. “Thanks.” Loki received the shotgun from Lana over the blue seat, making Kimberly the only one without protection.

  The distributed guns made Lana realize that she had been waiting for the right moment. And it had arrived. She took today’s unfortunate events seriously, but seeing the chambers that will fire at her altering and dying species makes her think about the momentous book she packed. “I-I didn’t realize how much things… I’m saying we need help.”

  Lucas shot her down. “Don’t know anyone.”

  “I do,” she suggested. “Sort of.”

  Leon raised an eyebrow. “Who can help us?”

  She unzipped her satchel and placed the old book on her lap. “I don’t know, Lana,” Cole said dubiously, understanding where she was going with this.