Dead by Dawn (30 page)

When Adam was finished, the truck’s battery was in the Cruze and the Cruze’s battery was on the ground.

“Wish me luck,” he said, sliding behind the driver’s seat.

“No pressure,” said Sarah. “It’s only our lives at stake.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

Adam closed his eyes and turned the key. The engine whined as the starter began doing its work. The truck battery kept the starter humming with little hesitation; they were lucky the battery was a good one. The engine, however, was refusing to turn over.

It took at least ten seconds for the engine to sputter to life. To Adam it felt like a lifetime.

He opened his eyes again and saw they had just over a half tank of gas.

“Get in,” he yelled out the window.

Sarah did what he asked and was soon sitting in the passenger side. “What do we do now?”

Adam shrugged. “I guess we just start driving.”

He put the car in drive and did just that. Overhead the first star was making its appearance.

Chapter 45

              Joe was painfully aware of how dark it was outside. Most of the windows were boarded up, but there were a few that he could still see outside through. The night was upon them.

They ran into a vampire in almost every room. At first they were using Keith’s silver tipped knife to dispatch them, but now they were running out of time. They were looking for one specific vampire who stood out from the others. They took one glance and then skipped over any that didn’t.

The vampires they skipped over showed no signs of being special. They wore regular clothes, most sleeping on the floor, some on desks. All of them were sleeping, none stirred when Joe entered the room. He didn’t know what to look for when searching out their leader, he just knew it had to be different. In his mind he pictured it wearing a crown.

If only we had more time,
Joe thought.

The vampires would be waking any minute. As far as he knew, some could already be awake. He fully expected to open one of the next doors to find the vampire inside standing.

Their shoes were covered in white dust from tromping through all the plaster that had been ripped from the walls. There were places where the framing underneath was exposed. Everything was so gray. The shadows seemed to reach out for them, trying to hold them back with darkness.

“Maybe we should start a fire and burn the vampires inside,” Keith suggested.

“We’re not burning down the White House on my watch,” said Joe.

“True, that was always more of a British thing.”

Matt was breathing heavy, it was the loudest noise in the hall. Joe couldn’t exactly blame him, though he still wished the guy would stop.

“Alright,” said Joe. “We’re in the West Wing. If this guy’s not here you owe me that twenty.”

Keith smiled. “He’ll be here. If that cocky son of a bitch loves playing king of the hill as much as I think he does, the only place he would stay is the Oval Office.”

“Or he could be in the basement, far away from the sun,” said Matt. “We probably just wasted what little time we have left.”

“He’ll be in there, don’t you worry,” said Keith.

They continued down the hall in a single file line, guns at the ready. They skipped over entire rooms, not even checking if there were vampires inside. They had one last shot of finding the head vampire before losing the last of the daylight, and that was the oval office.

They found it behind the sixth door they opened. By all means it looked similar to all the other office doors, but the plaque on the door could not be mistaken. Joe twisted the knob and the door opened.

The room got its name because of its oval shape. It was a large room with blue couches set up in front of a large desk. The carpet was decorated in different shades of gray stripes and in the center was a large eagle crest. Joe knew the eagle to be the presidential seal.

How many great people claimed this room as their office? How many had taken the oath and sworn to protect this nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic?

Now Joe and his companions were the protectors. The very fate of the nation, and world rested in their hands.

The Oval Office was no longer the peaceful room it had once been. The windows were boarded up and covered in dark red drapes and it smelled like a rotting corpse. The eyes were scratched out of the paintings on the walls, and dried blood spotted the carpet. George Washington was one of the paintings staring out at them through black eye sockets. It made him look like a demon. A vase, set in the center of a coffee table in the middle of the couches, stood frozen in the stale air. Its flowers were wilted and brown, the petals falling to the table.

Joe took a step inside, half expecting a mob of bats to go flying by. His hulking features were an intrusion to the dead room.

All the pens and other supplies had been pushed off the large desk and onto the floor, in their place was a coffin. It was gray and massive. The lid was missing.

The vampire inside was asleep with its arms folded over its chest. It wore a black cloak that floated around its body in tattered strips. Joe imagined they would flail out around the vampire when it moved. The effect would be sinister.

The cloak covered all but its long and bony hands. Those rested over his chest, each fingernail coming to a point. The vampire was old, older than any vampire Joe had ever seen before. The skin was still smooth, but fragile looking like aged parchment. As they approached, they noticed its features were speckled with aging spots.

This was the vampire they were looking for.

“Take him down Joe,” said Keith.

Joe handed Keith his shotgun and pulled the stake from his belt. It was the same stake he had carved from the chair at his house. It was hard and sturdy. It would do the job.

He started creeping up on the coffin. Boards creaked with every step and he wondered how much noise it would take to wake the vampire. He tried to keep his foot falls light. The last thing he wanted was to wake the vampire on a noisy approach. With the night so close, who knew how deeply it slumbered.

Joe made it half way between the door and the coffin before things went wrong.

A gun went off. He turned in time to see Keith hit the ground.

Blood poured from both the entrance and the exit wound on either side of his neck. He began to gurgle and attempted to hold the holes shut with his palms. It was no use. Joe could see clearly that the bullet had passed straight through his jugular.

Matt turned his pistol from Keith to Joe.

“What the fuck did you just do?”

Matt began to laugh; it was a chilling, crazy type of sound. “You dumb hillbilly.”

Joe was frozen under the glare of the pistol, he wasn’t sure what to do. Any wrong move and he would be shot; he faced the same odds if he stood still. He wished he could help Keith, but knew his friend was a goner. The blood was already pooling around him.

Keith continued to gurgle on his own blood. He opened his mouth wide, gasping for air. Even more blood trickled from the corners of his lips.

Joe tried to look over his shoulder, but knew Matt wouldn’t let him turn his head enough to see the sleeping vampire. Instead he chose to look his would be killer in the eyes.

Matt momentarily glanced at the floor.

On the ground, Keith stopped moving. His hands no longer gripped at the wounds. The gurgling had stopped as well.

“Well aren’t you a clever son of a bitch,” said Joe. “You shot a man who had his back turned.”

“I did what was asked of me, which is more than I can say for you.”

Joe eyed down the pistol, wondering how many shots he could take and still wrestle it away from Matt. He imagined the answer was somewhere around zero, even for him.

“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”

“Curiosity, I want to see what they do to you when they wake up.”

“And you’re not worried what they’ll do to you?”

“When they wake up, my task will be complete and I will be with her.”

Joe squeezed the stake, wondering how much pressure would be needed to snap it in half.

Keith is dead and the string that holds humanity is being cut, all because of this stupid motherfucker
, thought Joe.

“You’re the one that untied our anchor.”

Matt kept moving his aim up and down from Joe’s gut to his forehead, as if he were deciding where to shoot. “So what? It was taking the vampires too long to find us.”

“They got Sherry and Chip… I should snap your fucking neck.”

“I don’t think so, I’m the man with the gun remember.”

Joe rocked up on his heels, preparing to charge. The rage inside would have it no other way.

If this little piss ant thinks I’ll go down without a fight… I’ll drown him in my own blood if I have to.

Joe took his first step then froze. Matt was not alone.

A woman came up behind him. She was thinly veiled in a slip. Thick red curls fell over her shoulders and down her back. She was the most beautiful person Joe had ever seen.

But that was their trick wasn’t it?
The vampires had a certain beauty about them that was meant to draw humans in.

She was just as pale as any other vampire, and when she smiled he could see her fangs.

“Matthew.” said the vampire in a silky voice.

Matt visibly shivered. “I stopped them from hurting our master my love, I did what you asked.”

“You did.”

“I even brought you a gift.”

“I can see that.”

Matt shifted. “Now that I’ve completed my task, is it finally time for me to join you, for us to be together forever?”

The woman’s voice grew cold and menacing. “No.”

Without looking away from Joe, she palmed the side of Matt’s head. Matt squealed and the gun went off into the floor. The woman shoved his head into the side of the doorway. His skull collapsed under the pressure of her arm. When she pulled him away, there was a dent in the doorway as well.

She tossed Matt to the side and he fell to the ground with a dilapidated skull. Blood dripped from the corners of his eyes and a crack in the back of his head.

It pissed Joe off that she was doing what he wanted to do, but at least Matt got what was coming to him.

The vampire’s eyes fell past Joe. “Ambrogio,” she said.

Joe caught movement out of the corner of his eye and tried to turn, but it was too late. The vampire was on him.

He felt the cold hard bite of fangs on his neck and his knees went weak. The world faded out of focus as his life was sucked away. A dark cloud enveloped his mind. It was so hard to think. He couldn’t even come to the full realization that the vampire was feeding from him.

Joe pulled the wooden stake from his belt and thrust the tiny weapon backwards and up. The vampire was standing slightly to one side, giving him the perfect angle.

The vampire lifted its head and gasped.

“No!” cried the female.

Joe used the new separation to drive the stake home. He could feel a cold liquid pouring out of the wound and onto his hand.

The vampire bit down again, and this time Joe felt fire shoot into his veins. His vision went white from the pain.

The vampire dropped, and Joe stumbled forward. He continued on until he hit the wall. There he sank to the ground.

The fire was spreading from his neck, down his right arm.

Joe used what little strength he had left to prop himself up against the wall.

Matt’s gun wasn’t very far away. He reached out and took it, holding it in his lap.

The female vampire was on her knees, leaning over her master. The stake in his chest had turned black. The vampire’s skin was shriveling. Wrinkles appeared and grew until they covered its entire body. It wasn’t long before the vampire began to look like a giant raisin.

The fire inside Joe was moving to his chest and down to his lower leg. His skin broke out in a cold sweat.

The female vampire stood up and faced him. Her expression was stoic, she might as well have been carved out of marble.

“You think you’re so clever human, but you’ve accomplished nothing,” She growled, flashing every bit of her fangs.

Joe lifted his head to meet her gaze. He knew the little pistol in his lap wouldn’t do much, but he was preparing to shoot her in the face anyways.
Just one last act of defiance before he passed out.

“He’s not dead you know. I can feel his presence, he’s still here.” She turned her head to the side and examined the bite mark on Joe’s neck. “He put himself inside of you.”

“Bullshit,” Joe managed.

“Yes, he put his life force inside of you, and soon you will become him!” The vampire’s glare turned into a wicked grin. “He will still lead us, through you.”

Joe lifted the pistol, but instead of pointing it at her pressed it against his own temple.

“Good to know.”

The vampire’s eyes went wide, the smile on her face dropped. “No!”

Joe pulled the trigger.