A Town Called America (24 page)

“Baby, what’s going on? Why are you getting so worked up? It’s probably just the—”

“I said
now
!” Cara snapped at Mick.

Mick took the children inside the house and told them to go to their rooms. He’d never seen Cara act like this before, which alarmed and confused him.

Mick was nearly six feet tall and of average weight. He had jet-black hair that was starting to gray slightly as he approached forty years old. He was a strong man but as gentle as they came. Make no mistake—there was no mistaking kindness for weakness with him. Mick was far from weak, and although he’d never raised his hand in anger to his family, he wasn’t one to stand idly by during a crisis.

Mick had seen his fair share of death after the collapse—hell, everyone who had survived did. The only reason he’d seen less of it than the most people was because he’d been working at a hotel resort on an island off the coast of Florida when it had happened.

The resort hadn’t opened yet, and Mick was there working on a survey for a construction project. It had only been his business partner, Dawn, and himself on the island that day, along with the project manager and a few crewmembers.

When the fall happened, the three of them found themselves stranded on an island in a half-built hotel with no power, no food, and no way to get off the island. Mick rarely spoke about the island, and never once did he say how he had made it back to the mainland.

The sounds of the horses grew louder and louder as they approached the farm. Mick and the children were safely inside when Cara ran from the house to an adjacent road. She climbed up a nearby tree that hung over the side of the roadway and waited.

Keeping a low profile, she clung to a large branch just above the dirt road. As they hadn’t had a single visitor in years, Cara wasn’t taking any chances. With her arms wrapped around the branch, she inched up slowly until she was at a place that gave her the best tactical advantage.

When the two horses pulling a wagon came trotting along the roadway, passing under the tree where Cara was hiding, no one on board had any idea what was about to happen. Two people were on the wooden wagon bench, both wearing M.M. jumpsuits. One was controlling the reins, and Cara thought two more were in the back of the covered wagon, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

Most likely M.M. scouts
, she thought.

Weapons were likely, but ammo was scarce, as most people had run out years ago. As this went through her mind, she thought the odds were in her favor.
Four to one. Hell, that’s too easy
.

Taking a deep breath, Cara saw in her mind just what she was going to do: jump onto the front of the wagon and hit the man on the left once in the sternum. Meanwhile the one on the right would try to maintain control of the reins. She’d hit him twice in the side of the neck.

The first guy is thin—130 pounds at the most
, she thought.
After I throw him off, I’ll deal with the second one and toss him out as well. Then I’ll pull the horses to a stop and take care of anyone in the back
.

That was the plan that went through Cara’s mind in the split second before the wagon crossed under her tree.

Being able to determine a person’s actions with accuracy beforehand was a gift she possessed; she was able to slow her mind and take in information. It was a gift she’d secretly perfected for years. It was why she was an exceptional sharpshooter and why she’d always been able to take care of herself. The older Cara got, the more in tune she became. Year after year her mind become stronger and more agile.

As the wagon passed, Cara did just as she had pictured in her mind, dispatching both men within two seconds and tossing them from the wagon. Quickly she took the reins and pulled the horses to a stop some fifty feet from where the two bodies lay. In less than two seconds she was out of the wagon and standing next to the bodies of the two men she had thrown to the ground.

One was struggling to stand when Cara ran up to him and kicked him hard in the jaw. As she was wearing her steel-toe boots, his jaw shattered upon impact. His body spun around, blood flying from his nose and mouth, just before he fell to the dirt road, unconscious.

Faster than humanly possible, Cara grabbed the pistol the second man attempted to point at her. She twisted his arm, and in a millisecond, the weapon was in her hand. His arm broken, he stood stunned. Cara pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. With a click nothing happened; realizing it was empty, she tossed it to the ground. She grabbed and bent the man’s broken arm behind his head then used her knife to puncture the side of his neck.

She let go of his dead body, and he fell to the ground. Cara stepped over him and walked toward the man with the broken jaw; he was still alive.

“It’s light out.” She kicked him in the side of the head, killing him instantly.

In a flash Cara was at the covered wagon, pulling the heavy canvas aside only to find it empty.

“Damn, I still have it,” she said in a deep, unnatural voice as her tongue slowly broke from her mouth and licked the splattered blood from her lips.

Mick, curious as to what was happening, had walked to the road and, from behind a bush, witnessed everything she’d just done. He slowly moved closer to Cara, who was kneeling over one of the two dead bodies. Grabbing a handful of hair from the second man’s body, she pulled his head back toward hers and slammed her face into the side of his neck. She sank her sharp teeth into his flesh before placing her mouth over the open wound.

In horror Mick watched as Cara lapped up the warm blood. The sensation exhilarated her. Every drop felt like pure power as it drizzled down the back of her throat, revitalizing her. She slammed the man’s head against the ground before she pulled it back to consume any remaining blood.

Unable to comprehend the scene before him, Mick’s mind was at a standstill. He was in complete disbelief Cara could commit such a crime against humanity. He told himself that it was dark outside, and because there was no light other than from the moon, he was actually looking at something else. His eyes somehow must be playing tricks on him. He saw Cara’s eyes were black, so it had to do something with the darkness.

As he inched forward, crouching for a few more steps, he thought,
that still doesn’t explain her face
. Cara’s face looked different; it was subtle, but the difference was there. Her skin had a very light glow to it, almost as if it were slightly transparent, like the phosphorescence of the ocean. A few seconds later, he saw that strange glow made the veins on her face and body appear to have an energy of their own.

At that moment Mick finally saw Cara clearly enough to realize she was covered in blood and smiling as she consumed the blood from the man’s body. That moment was a lifetime for Mike. No words or thoughts could explain what was happening. He only felt fear from seeing his wife as she was.

Mick slowly turned away from Cara and crept away from the horrific scene. Three steps away from the bushes he’d been hiding in, he took a deep breath. Then he sprinted to the house, but as he looked back, he lost his balance and fell face-first on the ground.

“Oh, shit,” Cara said.

Mick pushed himself up from the ground and ran as fast and hard as he could. Once inside the house, he closed and locked the doors behind him. Then he grabbed a bag and stuffed the children’s clothes into it.

“Get up! Get up!” he yelled, panicking. “We’re going on a trip.”

A few minutes later, Mick was pushing Jessica and Egan toward the door when it opened. Cara stood in front of the lace curtains that hung from the open doorway, which were blowing slightly from the ocean breeze. Mick moved the two children behind him.

He would do whatever it took to protect his children from whatever this thing was that stood between them and the door.

THIRTY SIX

E
ven after all these years
,
Billy still gets to me
, Cara thought, as she sat in the wagon, cleaning the blood from her face and hands. After she cleaned herself up, she headed toward her home on the dock. The moment she opened the door, she saw Mick facing her, with the children behind him.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?” Cara asked.

“You changed your dress,” Mick said quietly.

“Yeah, I spilled something on it.”

Mick stood looking at Cara, wondering if he might be losing his mind. She looked completely normal in every way.

You’re not losing your mind. I can explain everything
, Cara said without using a single syllable.

Mick shook his head until he finally spoke. “What the hell are you?”

“Baby, I need you to trust me. Let’s talk outside. Please, baby. Kids, go to your bedrooms now,” Cara said calmly.

After Jessica and Egan went to their rooms, Mick spoke again. “I saw you. You…you were different. I don’t understand…your face, your teeth…You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

“Mick, trust me. I can explain,” Cara said, as she moved slowly and cautiously toward him.

The only way Cara felt she could mend the situation was to be honest. After taking a few short steps, she moved as fast as she could toward Mick.

In the single blink of an eye, it appeared Cara was in two places at once before appearing in front of him. She reached out her arm and tried to touch his check gently. Mick, having backed into a corner, turned his face away from her in fear. He was petrified, and she knew it. Cara understood, but she couldn’t figure out a way to put his fears at ease without manipulating his mind. When she touched him, Mick instinctively flinched.

“Please,” Cara begged.

“Cara, I don’t want to know what you are. I just want you to go.”

As she stepped back, Mick watched the tears form in her eyes. They poured from her eyes as she begged Mick to trust her.

Cara found no other way to get through to Mick, so she did something she didn’t want to do initially. Before he could react, she was next to him, holding his hand in hers. The joining of their minds began with a flash of light the moment she made physical contact with him. Their minds, for that moment, shared everything. They walked hand in hand outside to the dock, where they had spent some of their happiest moments together.

Mick sat down and listened, as he felt no desire to do anything other than what she was requesting. Tranquility had passed through his mind like a wave of warm water over a sheet of ice. It was calming and sensual to both, but Cara knew the effect wouldn’t last long after physical contact was broken. And Mick would remember only the thoughts she chose to share, nothing more.

Cara explained that her name was actually Christiana, but she preferred to go by Chris. She had lied about her name in order to protect Mick and the children from the M.M. Unlike the other times she had joined minds with someone, this time she was going to be completely open and honest. She told Mick about her childhood, about the fighting and trying to survive after the collapse, and about Rick and Robbie.

She also told him a secret that she had kept from him: the secret of how she had met a man named Billy, a man she later found was her father.

Rick and Chris had been traveling alone in those days, and she was all of nineteen or twenty. Needing shelter the two lovers had stopped at a building that once had been a police station. It was four stories tall, and a large adjacent parking lot still held the remnants of the police vehicles that once had patrolled the town.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but the one thing they never should have done was enter that police station. There just were too many things that said they should stay away, things they had ignored.

The sun was high in the sky, its rays heating up the pavement under their feet as they tied up their horses to a tree. When they approached the police station, they were tired, hungry, and ready to relax and take a few days off. They’d been traveling for more than a week and were ready for a break.

The name of the town was Blanton, and it was remarkably untouched—well, other than the plywood that had been used to board up the windows on the police station. It wasn’t ordinary scrap wood, though; it was quality wood nearly one inch thick, and it was meant to keep people out.

Bright-red letters painted on the main entrance said,
KEEP OUT
.
YOU ARE ENTERING AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENT
.

Perhaps they should have heeded the warnings, and perhaps in a preglobal-collapse era, they might have turned and walked away, but in the world they were in, everything was extremely dangerous. Rick and Chris figured someone was just trying to scare people away. They’d find out later that they were more correct than they knew.

After a great deal of effort, eventually they pulled away a board, which allowed them to enter through a window at the back of the station. The two climbed through and were amazed at once.

In bright red, painted on the floor, were more warnings.
DO NOT ENTER
!
YOU MUST LEAVE AT ONCE
.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE
!
THIS PLACE WILL ONLY BRING DEATH TO THOSE WHO ENTER
!

Again they didn’t think much of it, so they walked past the warnings. After completing their routine of clearing each room in the building to ensure there were no people, they found nothing odd or out of order. The only areas they didn’t have access to was a hallway that led to the holding cells and an adjacent room where the police more than likely had conducted interviews and interrogations.

Settling in on the second floor in a comfortable little room that looked it had been a waiting room, Chris and Rick pushed two old couches together to form a makeshift bed. After cleaning up a bit, they made their way to the rooftop to watch the sun go down, as they had many times before. It was a glorious sunset in which the entire sky had faded into an amazing mixture of red and blue. Rick and Chris sat and watched the sun as they took their fill of rations.

It wasn’t until late that evening that the atmosphere seemed to change, and they both began to feel uncomfortable. It seemed that as soon as the sun had set, the environment was different; the entire building felt as if it somehow had come to life. They heard noises: the sounds of footsteps where there were no people, doors slamming. They even felt they were being watched. Both practical people, they felt there had to be some logical explanation. However, even as grounded as they were, it didn’t take long before they started to wonder whether the building might be haunted.