Coalition of the Damned - 03 (17 page)

“What about him?” she asked. The first man elbowed his partner and he turned his attention back to her. “Identification?”

He simply nodded and pulled his from his breast pocket and flashed it to her. He still nervously looked around, waiting for some unseen threat to strike. “Ma’am? We really need to get you and your son to safety.”

“Safety?” she asked. “From what?” Barbara’s hand snuck back and curled around the grip of the pistol in her waistband.

“I’m not at liberty, ma’am,” the lighter haired man said. “We were just told to come and get you and take you to the base.” She could tell he was already getting aggravated that she wasn’t jumping and following his orders.

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand. What base?” she asked.

“The military base, ma’am.”

“You do realize that my husband and I are divorced, right? The military can’t lay any claims to me or my son. And neither can my husband. We have a divorce decree.” She was pushing the matter, buying time to milk information. She had to be sure, but she pulled the pistol from the back of her jeans and released the safety.

“Ma’am, please don’t be difficult. This is for your own safety—”

“From what?” she demanded. “Safety from what?”

The man pulled back slightly, not expecting her to balk at his perceived authority. “From…hostiles and such and…”

“
Hostiles
!” she cried. “What the hell? Are we playing cowboys and Indians here? What the hell is a hostile?” she demanded.

The second, dark haired man who kept nervously looking around turned to the first man and said, “Fuck it, man, just grab the bitch and let’s get out of here, will ya?” Barbara pulled the door open and fired two rounds to his chest and one to his head, then stepped back a half step and leveled the weapon on the first man.

“Who the hell are you people?” she demanded as she assumed a defensive shooting stance.

The first, lighter haired man shook his head and smiled at her. “Bullets aren’t going to hurt us, lady.” He opened his mouth and fangs descended in a threatening manner. “Come with me now and we may let you live.”

“Look again, asshole. Your buddy isn’t getting up.” The vampire glanced down at his friend, prone on the front steps of her house. “Silver bullets, dumbass.” Barbara put two in his chest right where his heart would be and watched him fall, his eyes still round with shock and fear with the realization that he was dead before he hit the floor.

Barbara stepped over the bodies and ran to the van parked outside her house. She threw open the driver’s door and scanned the interior. There was nobody else inside and she slammed the door and ran back to the house.

“Bobby! Pinocchio!” she yelled as she ran to the hall closet and grabbed her bug out bag. She ran to the kitchen and made sure the burners were off on the stove and grabbed Bobby’s football off the rear porch then back to the living room where Bobby had just come bouncing down the stairs. His eyes widened when he saw the two bodies on the floor and noted that his mom still had the gun in her hand.

“Mom? Did you shoot those two guys?” His voice was laced with excitement and tinged with fear.

“Yes, baby, I did. Get your coat and go to the car. Now.”

“Where are we going?” he nearly yelled as she ran past him.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said honestly. “Maybe to grandma and grandpa’s, maybe to the cabin. Maybe to find your daddy.”

Bobby nodded and grabbed his coat then ran into the garage. He threw his stuff in the back of the small SUV and climbed into the front and buckled his seatbelt. Barbara was right behind him, tossing her stuff in the back of the vehicle and catching herself as she tried to put the keys into the ignition. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely do it. Bobby reached over and placed his hand over his mom’s trembling fingers and she looked over at her son, so much like his father, a natural calm in the eye of the storm.

“You can do this, Mom. I believe in you.”

She forced herself to take a deep breath, then smiled at him and nodded. Then taking another deep breath, she slowly inser
ted the keys into the ignition and the SUV roared to life. She hit the button on the garage door opener and half expected a small army of monsters waiting for them as the door lifted, but let out the breath she’d been holding when she looked behind her and saw only the empty road behind her. She backed the car out and turned onto the road, facing the black van that delivered the attackers to her home. Fighting back the urge to scream at both the vehicle and the monsters that invaded her home, she put the car in gear and headed for the highway.

She drove for nearly a half hour before she pulled into a rest stop and dialed Robert. He didn’t answer when she first called and the call went to voicemail, but just as she hung up, her phone chirped an incoming call. She looked at the caller ID and saw that he was calling back. She pushed the green button and nearly cried out when she heard his voice.

“Please tell me you just miss me,” he said, his voice low.

“You were right Robert. They came. They came to our house,” she sobbed. “They came to our fucking
house
, Robert!” She was about to lose it until Bobby reached out with his little hand and took her free hand in his. He squeezed gently giving her strength.

“Oh, my God, Babs, tell me you’re both safe,” Robert begged.

“We are,” she said quickly. “I did just like you told me. I did it just like you fucking told me. To the letter, baby.” She heard Robert sigh with relief.

“How many were there?” The nervousness obvious in his voice.

“Only two.” She almost laughed. “Teach them to underestimate
me
!” She then laughed nervously and almost began to cry with the adrenaline pumping through her. “But, Robert…what do I do now? I just ran and left the bodies sitting on the front porch.” She started to panic now, afraid the local law enforcement would be looking for her to arrest her and take Bobby away from her. Throw her in jail…hell, throw her
under
the jail!

“Did you see what they were? I mean…could you tell if they were vampires or…”

“Yes!” she said excitedly, but not wanting to repeat it in front of Bobby. She wanted to maintain his innocence as long as she could. “They were.”

“No worries, baby. Come dawn, the sun will take care of the bodies. They’ll be ash. Nothing left.”

Barbara was trembling so badly she could barely hold the phone. “Robert, what do I do now? Where do we go?”

Robert blew hard into the phone as he tried to think. “If they found you at home, they can find your parents’ house.”

“Robert, they’re on a cruise, we could lay low there. Nobody would need to know we were there,” she offered. “They aren’t due back for almost two weeks.”

“No, the risks are too high,” he said softly.

“What about the cabin? Would they know about Grampy’s cabin?” she asked hopefully.

“I don’t know, baby, they might.” He paced with the phone thinking, she could hear background noises and the steady rhythm of his breathing. “I just don’t know where the safest place for you to go is. I’d bring you with me, but all hell is about to break loose where I’m going and I don’t want you and Bobby anywhere near this,” he said softly.

Barbara felt hot tears pour down her cheeks as she thought of him marching off to war again and her chest trembled. “I love you so much,” was all she could croak out, and it wracked her chest with pain to fight back the sobs.

“I love you too, Babs. So very much,” he whispered. She heard him sigh into the phone then take a deep breath. “Listen, you have the silver ammo, right?”

She inhaled shakily and nodded. “Yes. I had it packed in my go-bag.”

“Okay. Go ahead and go to Grampy’s. It’s in the middle of nowhere, you have four-wheel-drive, so you can get in and out easily. Also, you’ll be able to hear any vehicles that come that way,” he reasoned. “They keep it stocked with groceries and Bobby will have plenty of room to run around and fish and swim and…” Robert groaned. “Just be careful baby. Especially after dark.”

She nodded again, knowing he couldn’t see it. “I will, sweetheart. I promise.”

“Tell Bobby I love him,” Robert said softly.

“I will.” And without thinking she said, “And Robert?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“When this is all over…when the dust is settled and you’ve saved the world and it’s safe for us to go back to some kind of normal life and…” She choked up again, but regained her composure, “you and me?”

He expected her to say that they were done for good, that this was simply too much for any person to bear. He waited for her to drop the bomb that he knew was coming. He bit his lower lip and waited for the punch to the gut that he knew was already there, but simply hadn’t been delivered yet.

Barbara cleared her throat so that he could hear her better. “You and me? Yeah. Together forever. I don’t care if you
do
infect me,” she told him. “In fact, I hope you do so we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Robert was dumbfounded. He held the phone closer to his ear to ensure he heard her correctly. “In fact, you and me can just move to Grampy’s and once a month chase our tails and catch rabbits and deer and wake up naked in the morning co
vered in mud and rabbit fur and…”

“Barbara? Did you get hit in the head?” he asked.

She laughed into the phone and it felt good. Liberating, in fact. “No, baby. I just realized that some things are more important than playing it safe. So damn it, soldier, you come back to me, do you hear me?” she growled into the phone. “You come home alive. To
me
. So we can spend the rest of our lives together. Chasing our tails and doing it doggy style!” she laughed.

“Mo-o-om!” Bobby cried, poking her. “I’m right
here
.”

Robert laughed when he heard Bobby, but had to sniff back the tears that welled up in his eyes. “You got it, baby. Do it do
ggy style. Make puppies and eat Alpo and the whole nine yards.”

“Yuck, Robert. Okay, we won’t go that far, okay.”

“Well, I’ve had your meatloaf and…”

“Hey!” she laughed, “Way to ruin a tender moment, jerk!”

“I love you, Babs.”

“I love you, too.”

“Even your meatloaf.”

“You are such a bad liar, Robert.”

*****

Dominic awoke from his drug induced sleep screaming. It took three orderlies and two members of Team Two to hold him down and strap his wrists and ankles to the hospital bed. The o
rderly was just injecting him with another dose of tranquilizer when he flexed and bent the rails of his bed. The two members of Team Two grabbed his arms again and held him down until the tranquilizer took effect and he relaxed.

As the orderlies gingerly stepped back, watching Dominic in amazement, the two Team members simply shrugged it off and one said in heavily accented English, “Steroids. You know how these American commando types are.”

Dominic’s metabolism was quickly burning through the tranquilizers and painkillers and his mind tormented him with the images implanted by the dark vampire. He twisted against his bindings as he sweated out the drugs, his mind racing against the images. There was something he had to do and his subconscious knew it, he just couldn’t reach it. It was hidden behind a wall deep in his mind and he couldn’t see behind it. He knew the vampire had gotten into his brain and scrambled his eggs, he just didn’t know what he had done. The bastard had forced him to do things, to tell things that he wouldn’t have told…Dominic ground his teeth and tasted blood in his mouth. Was it real or a memory that the bloodsucker had forced there, he couldn’t tell. But his ears heard voices, scrambling and hectic and somebody was gripping his head. He fought against the grip, knowing the vampire had him again, preparing to bore into his mind once more.

Dom thrashed and someone forced something foreign into his mouth. He gagged and fought the urge to regurgitate as something was forced between his teeth…blood seeping down the back of his throat. Was he being forced to drink blood? The vampire’s blood? Was the bastard trying to change him…surprise, surprise asshole, he was immune!

The voices around him settled and the grip on his head relaxed. Dom felt the pain in his mouth and wondered what had hurt his tongue. He bit down on the foreign object and felt it give like a hard rubber stop between his jaws. His jaws ached the moment he did it and the fog in his brain began to lift. He concentrated on the foreign object in his mouth, settling his body, relaxing and unclenching his muscles one at a time.

He tried to relax his mind, knowing there was something he needed to remember. What was he blocking that was so i
mportant and why was he just now remembering it? The pain killers and the tranquilizers were burning off again and he felt the knowledge slipping from him. He knew that something was there and it was getting further away, slipping deeper from his grasp as he became more and more lucid. There was something important that he had to find out…he just couldn’t see it.

Dom sat up, his rheumy eyes open and searching. He n
oticed that his mouth was propped open with a bite-block and it was strapped behind his head. The two members of Team Two rushed to his side and he nodded to them. He mumbled something to them and they quickly took the bite block from his mouth. Dom sat up as straight as he could and spat blood to the side onto the floor. “Yuck, man that is nasty.”