They Thirst Part 31

You be first over there and have yourselves some fun for Tiger Eddie, okay?

Gonna be keepin' you up-to-date 'til sign-off time. Right now here's a fine disc from the Motels . . ."

Tommy picked up the radio and flung it against the wall. It shattered into small bits of plastic and metal. Then he stood and looked down at his parents'

bodies, a sob trying to work its way out of his throat.

He began to cry, but he kept his finger on the hair spray b.u.t.ton. TWO The madman next door was singing again, trying to outshout the wind. "Onnnn Christ the solid rock I stand . . . alllll other ground is sinking sand, alllll other ground isssss sinking ... I see you out there! You stay away, you hear me!" There was a quick crack of a shot fired at shadows. Then silence except for a few hoa.r.s.e sobs.

You'd better save those bullets, Palatazin thought. They may not be worth much, but I'm sure they're better than nothing. He was sitting on the floor beside the window, his back against the wall. Jo lay on the sofa, drifting in and out of a troubled sleep.

Gayle came back from the kitchen, eating a slice of ham. "You sure you don't want any more of this?" she asked him quietly. "It's just going to go bad in that fridge."

He shook his head.

"There's fruit," she said. "Some apples and oranges."

"No. I don't want anything." He watched as she stepped cautiously to the window and peered out. "You'd better get some sleep while you can," he told her.

"How long until sunrise?"

"About three hours."

Softly, she said, "When is that wind going to stop?"

"The storm's died a little bit," he said, "but I wouldn't suggest our trying to leave this house. There's no telling what we might run into. I think we're about as safe here as we could possibly be."

"Some consolation. What happens at dawn?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know the vampires go crawling back into their graves or holes or whatever, but what happens to us? Where do we go when the storm stops?" Palatazin almost voiced his fears-that the storm had somehow been brought on by the vampires and would not stop, but would probably intensify during the daylight hours to keep the pockets of humanity isolated from each other-but he didn't. Instead, he said quietly, "I want you and Jo to try to get out."

"Okay, I'll buy that. But what about you?"

"I'm going to finish what I began. I'm going to find a way up to the Kronsteen castle . . ."

"Alone? You're crazy if-"

"Yes, alone," he said firmly. "And I may be crazy, I admit it. But who else is there to do it? And if it's not done-if it's not at least tried-then from now on every night will be just like this one. People hiding in the dark, waiting for the vampires. When they're finished here, they're going to sweep eastward, town after town, city after city. Los Angeles is now, for all intents and purposes, theirs. How long do you think smaller cities would last? How long before they reach Chicago and New York? I think there are already vampires in those cities, placed there by their master as advance scouts. But I think they're waiting to see how successful these vampires are here before they begin ma.s.sing their armies."

"Surely some news is getting out to the rest of the country!" Gayle said.

"Surely . . . somebody out there knows . . . what's happening to us! Don't they?"

Palatazin shook his head. "I doubt it. Right now all they know is that the sandstorm of the century has. .h.i.t L.A. Other than that, what could they know?

How could the news get out? No, Miss Clarke, I'm afraid we're quite isolated, which, of course, is exactly what the vampires want." She was silent for a moment, wincing as a gust of wind blew sand against the gla.s.s. She sat down in a chair, drawing her legs up underneath her. "Why did they choose L.A.?" she asked him finally. "Why begin with us?"

"I'm not sure. Oh, I have my theories, but..." He shrugged. "Los Angeles may be one of the largest cities in the world, but it's really a gathering of villages, many of them having no real contact or intermingling with any of the others. I think the vampire king has had . . . much experience in taking villages, and he began here because he recognized that fact about L.A. Also, he probably realized how isolated this city already is from the rest of the country, cut off by mountains and desert. And if you hear about strange goings on in L.A.-for instance that Gravedigger thing-most people here and in other parts of the country tend to simply shrug and say, 'Well, that's life in Los Angeles.'

Believe me, the vampire king has studied this city thoroughly, and he saw how he could take advantage of such att.i.tudes. Also, to conquer a city of this size . . . think of the confidence that's going to give the vampires who are scattered all over this country, waiting for their master's command. They're going to think they're invisible, that nothing can stand in their way. They may be right."

"How are you going to get up that mountain with those dogs standing guard?" He looked at her and smiled grimly. "I don't know." Gayle s.h.i.+vered. "Maybe I will try to get some sleep. G.o.d knows I need it. I'm going to go scare up a pillow and a blanket." She rose to her feet and started toward the stairs.

"Will you bring a pillow for Jo, too, please?" he asked her.

"Sure. Back in a minute." She climbed the stairs in the dark, her hand gripping the banister hard. She opened a door and peered in. It was a bedroom. There were a couple of pillows on the bed, but the blanket and bedspread had been kicked off. She gathered up the pillows, hurrying because the moan of the wind at the windows sounded so ghastly, when her heart gave a violent kick. She stared at the bed, an odd recollection ticking in her brain. There were no sheets. Just as in Jack's apartment before she'd found him . . .

"Palatazin," she said. It came out as a dry, throaty whisper. Something rustled in the room, s.h.i.+fting heavily. There was the m.u.f.fled noise of ripping cloth.

"Oh, G.o.d," Gayle whimpered, one hand going to her mouth. "Oh, G.o.d, no, no, no . . .".

In the darkness the closet door began to open. Another movement caught her eye, and now she could see a coc.o.o.ned shape writhing out from under the bed. It jerked and stretched and, with the soft tearing of cloth, a grasping white hand protruded, fingers clawing at the sheet. A body came tumbling out of the closet.

It was the gray-haired man in the mantel photographs, his legs still wrapped tightly. He fought to get free, and slowly his gaze turned upon Gayle. His eyes flamed.

Gayle screamed. She backed out of the bedroom, and as she did, she saw a woman's head appear out of the other shroud. "WHAT IS IT?" she heard Palatazin shout from downstairs. "GAYLE?"

She started down the stairs, tripped and fell headlong before she could grasp the banister. When she looked back, she saw the man coming at her, a black tongue licking his lower lip. He reached down and grasped her arm, his grip colder than the dead of winter. His grinning sickle of a mouth gaped, and Gayle almost fainted with horror as the fangs began to close in on her throat. Palatazin stepped to the foot of the stairs with Jo behind him. The vampire, its fangs a half-inch from Gayle's jugular vein, looked up, its eyes narrowing as it sensed that something was not right.

Palatazin flung out his arm with the bottle of holy water clamped in his hand and saw the droplets spray across the vampire's face. Instantly the vampire shrieked in agony, trying to hold an arm over its eyes. It let go of Gayle and scurried up the stairs. Palatazin followed, his face gone gray. In the bedroom the vampire whirled to face him, and Palatazin could see the smoking holes where the drops of water had struck. The female vampire had almost kicked free from her shroud, and now she began to crawl across the floor toward the scent of hot blood. The male vampire hissed and advanced toward Palatazin.

He stepped back, slamming against the wall, and flung out with the bottle again.

A machine-gun slash of holes crossed the vampire's forehead, putting out one eye. The thing screamed and fell to its knees, writhing in pain as if it had been sprayed with acid. When Palatazin stepped toward it, the vampire staggered up, shuddering with fear, and crashed through the window on the other side of the bedroom in a silvery shower of gla.s.s.

The female vampire gripped Palatazin's ankle, pulling herself toward him. He poured a little of the water in the palm of his hand and flung it quickly into her face. She howled and contorted, pulling free of her coc.o.o.n, both hands pressed to her eyes. Then she was up and staggering blindly, trying to find the window. When her hand closed on the gla.s.s fragments on the sill, she pulled herself up and over, falling out of sight.

Palatazin looked through the window, wind whipping into his face. He saw the two figures, still running, and heard the madman's strident cry, "Ye foul sp.a.w.n of Satan I strike the blow of G.o.d." There were three quick shots, and the vampires disappeared into the storm. Palatazin was stunned; he'd had no idea the holy water would have that destructive an effect. His stomach heaved, dark motes spinning before his eyes. He could hear Gayle downstairs, babbling hysterically.

When his dizziness pa.s.sed, he looked at the bottle of holy water. It was a little less than half full now. What was in this water that could've caused a reaction like that? he wondered. There was a single drop remaining in the palm of his hand. He sniffed it, then licked it.

The water was salty.

Seawater? he asked himself. Then perhaps the salt had an immediate, corrosive effect on the vampires' dead flesh? He didn't know why Father Silvera had brought him seawater, but he was decidedly grateful for it.

"Andy?" Jo called from downstairs. Then in a panicked voice, "ANDY!" He walked back down the stairs on trembling legs. "I'm all right," he a.s.sured her. "I'm fine. But now we have to check this house from top to bottom. I don't think there are any more of them hiding here, but we have to be certain." He looked into the living room where Gayle was huddled on the sofa, whimpering like a little girl. "You're going to be all right, Miss Clarke?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she said quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. Let me get my breath. Okay. Yeah." He nodded, knowing there was very little that would keep her down for long. He squeezed Jo's hand. "We'll start with the bas.e.m.e.nt," he said quietly.

THREE.

Tommy was running. Behind him his house was on fire.

He hadn't thought it would go up so quickly, but he figured the wind had helped fan the blaze. He'd stood over his parents' corpses for a long time, just looking at them and wondering what to do. He knew what was supposed to happen now. His mom and dad were supposed to sleep until the next nightfall, and then sometime in the darkness they would awaken to walk the streets with the rest of the Undead. That's what happened in all the movies. The Undead.

That sounds so cold, Tommy had thought. So final. Once you've stepped across that line, you don't come back, not ever. But this is my mom and dad lying here, not . . . vampires! "Wake up," he whispered in the terrible darkness.

"Both of you . . . please . . . wake up . . ."

But they hadn't even moved, and Tommy could see the deep punctures on their throats that told him they weren't ever going to wake up as Don and Cynthia Chandler again.

So after a long time of just standing there, he'd gone to his room, put on his jeans, a s.h.i.+rt, and his all-weather jacket, then looked in his closet for the old Army surplus backpack he'd used briefly when he was a Boy Scout in Scottsdale. He'd put some matches into his jacket pocket, then the rest of them went into the backpack along with an extra can of hair spray and his dad's Right Guard aerosol deodorant. He went downstairs and made himself a couple of peanut-b.u.t.ter-and-jelly sandwiches, put them in sandwich bags, and slipped them into the pack along with a meat cleaver he found in a drawer. The main question that faced him was whether he should try to make it to the ocean or head up into the mountains.

He'd thought about staying here in the house until sunrise, but he couldn't bear the idea of letting his parents slip over that Undead line, and he couldn't stay with them lying in the bedroom all white and empty. The ocean was too far away, so he decided on the mountains.

But one thing he couldn't be sure of was how many real people there were in the houses around him, and how many vampires waited out there for little boys running in the night. He decided that is he saw anyone, he would a.s.sume the worst. He folded the sheets around his parents and stuffed newspapers under the bed. Then he cried a little bit before he could muster the nerve to strike the first match. He lit his spray-can torch and touched the flame to the sheets; they crisped and caught fire very quickly. There was no way he could wait to see if the bodies caught or not. He turned and ran, his face scorched by an agonizing lick of flame.

Now he was racing along the edge of Hanc.o.c.k Park, sand stinging his cheeks, the wind bringing the odors of oranges and cloves from the tar pits, the air metallic in his gasping lungs. He could tell the storms had diminished in force during the last several hours. Now sand dunes lay scattered across the white field of the park, and broken branches littered his path. He was a good runner; he knew he could last a long time because whenever he jogged with his mom and dad in the evenings he always left them behind and just kept on going until he looked back and saw them as only two struggling dots. His heart seemed jammed up in his throat. He turned and thought he saw a faint reddish glow in the sky where his house was-had been-but he wasn't sure. He decided not to look back again.

He was heading northeast toward the only wooded refuge he could think of that was anywhere near his house. In August his dad had taken him up to the Nature Museum and Bird Sanctuary on Mount Hollywood, then down into the four thousand acres (so the guidebook had said) of Griffith Park. There were a lot of bridle paths crisscrossing the park but very few roads, and Tommy remembered being amazed at how close a really unspoiled mountain area was to the winding residential streets of Hollywood. So that was where he had to go. He knew he could lose himself in that park, but getting there meant crossing through the heart of Hollywood, and he was bitterly afraid of what might be lurking there. He still gripped the can of hair spray he'd repelled the Vernons with, and there were good old dependable Fire Chiefs-what I used to burn up my mom and dad with, he thought suddenly-in his jacket pocket. As he ran, he saw the wind rippling currents of sand before him, and he thought of that terrified kid in Invaders from Mars, running across a sand hill that whirlpooled beneath his feet to send him into a subterranean world of alien horrors. And then he was aware of the figure running behind him about thirty yards off to the left. Tommy looked over his shoulder. There was a hideous moon-white face floating toward him from the darkness. He increased his speed, zigzagging deeper into the park. When he dared to look back, the thing was gone. The high fence around the largest of the tar pits had blown down; a sheen of sand, white mottled with black, covered the surface of a lake from which a huge concrete mastodon struggled to escape. Tommy ran along its edge toward the eastern edge of the park. He pa.s.sed benches stripped of paint where the old men played checkers on Sat.u.r.day mornings; he pa.s.sed long strips of pavement that would not be used by Sunday afternoon roller-skaters for a long time to come.

And then something slammed into the small of his back. A hand dug into his jacket, almost ripping it off his shoulders, and flung him to the ground with brutal force.

He lay there fighting for breath, a shrill alarm, Don't let them bite you!

Don't, don't, don't! screaming in his head. He'd lost his grip on the spray can, and when he raised his head, he saw a couple of hulking boys standing over him, both of them leering in antic.i.p.ation. The one who'd knocked him down was a fat-jowled Chicano with thick eyebrows and a spill of dirty black hair on his forehead; he wore a blood-spattered blue works.h.i.+rt. The vampire looked at the can of hair spray at his feet and kicked it far out into the tar lake, where it sank with a burst of bubbles. Then he advanced on Tommy, his eyes already glazed with pleasure.

But before the vampire could reach Tommy, a length of chain came snaking out of the darkness, cracking the Chicano across the face. He fell to his knees, howling with rage. The second vampire, a skinny, dark-haired kid with a scraggly mustache and goatee, whirled around to face the attacker. The chain whirred, striking him in the temple. He staggered and was about to rush forward when he saw who it was that had struck him.

Tommy's heart had risen; now it fell again to a sickening depth. Bull Thatcher, armed with a three-foot chain, had stepped between Tommy and the two vampires.

Tommy could see the bloodless, awful face of the Fairfax High Horror.

"You're on my turf," Bull said menacingly. "I'm huntin' here. Get out."

"It's our kill, you . . ." the Chicano began. He was silenced when the chain whistled across his face again.

"GET OUT!" Bull roared.

Tommy, his arms shaking so badly they moved like a jerky marionette's, slowly began to slip off his backpack.

"Get out, both of you!" Bull repeated. "I'm hungry, and I'm takin' this kill, you understand?" The vampires glowered at each other hotly but began to retreat when Bull lifted that chain and cracked it to the ground like a whip.

"We'll get you!" the Chicano shouted. "We'll find you when you're sleepin', and we'll fix you . . ."

Bull moved forward a few steps, the chain swinging above his head. The vampires were running away now. Tommy threw his pack off, got to his feet, and ran in the other direction. Bull Thatcher watched the vampires run out of sight with a defiant smirk and then turned for his prize. Running along the lake's edge, Tommy heard his angered roar and flinched. He unsnapped a pocket and reached in.

Bull Thatcher was chasing him, coming like the wind. Sweat popped up on Tommy's face; he could hear the thing gaining on him, and he dared not look back.

But then he heard the chain whistling toward his right ear, and he ducked his head, spinning around to face Bull and bringing out the meat cleaver in a tightly clenched fist at the same time. Before Bull could stop, Tommy had flung himself at the thing, burying that cleaver between the vampire's eyes with all his strength. Bull, thrown off-balance, staggered and fell into the tar pit on his back. Instantly bubbles exploded around his body, and he flailed at the air for something to grab. "NOOOO!" he roared like a maddened animal. "NO! I WONT LET YOU-!" Water and tar rushed into his mouth. He began to sink, tar streaking his face in thick black lines. He fought wildly, but the tar had him and he knew it. He began to scream, the meat cleaver buried in his forehead but the wound bloodless.

Tommy knew the other vampires would hear and come back. He started to run again, slipping his pack around his trembling shoulders. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, but there wasn't time for any of that baby stuff anymore. When he looked back, he saw Bull's face disappear, and the scream bubbled away.

He ran on, breathing in great painful heaves. He left the park and ran northward across Third Street and through dark, silent residential streets where the merest suggestion of movement was enough to make him whine with fear. Then he was across Beverly Boulevard, still going north. Sand whipped into his face; were it not for his gla.s.ses, he would have been blinded. His lungs flamed, and now he knew he couldn't go much farther. The worst part of it lay ahead, those main arteries through Hollywood. He was certain the vampires would be waiting there. How many would there be? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? He crossed Melrose and started to veer toward the northeast; he saw a group of moving shadows and dived beneath some hedges until they pa.s.sed. He made himself continue, staggering from street to street, crossing through backyards and alleys. A gust of hot wind hit him, almost stealing the last of his breath. Light-headed, he tripped and almost fell over something that he realized three strides later must have been a corpse.

And then a voice roared over his head. "I see you, child of the devil! Ye legion of Lucifer . . .!" There was a loud crack! right behind his ear, then a freight train knocked him off his feet and rumbled on past, leaving him crushed in the sand.

FOUR.

"A boy!" Jo said, peering out the window through widened eyes. "That maniac shot a boy!"

Palatazin eased over beside her and looked out. He could see the small figure lying p.r.o.ne in the sand right in front of the house. At first he'd thought the boy must be a vampire, but if that were so, a single bullet wouldn't have stopped him. Palatazin paused, his heart beginning to hammer, then took his .38 from its shoulder-holster.

Jo stared fearfully at the gun. "What are you going to do?"

"That boy may not be dead. I'll have to go out and see." He moved past her toward the door and, from the sofa, Gayle said, "For Christ's sake, be careful!"

Palatazin nodded and squeezed out the door onto the porch, where a furnace breath of wind rocked him on his heels. Grit stung his eyes, and he had to wait a moment before he could see anything. Then he was moving down the porch steps, his grip already sweaty on his .38. He was alert for any movement in the windows of that silent house next door, but so far he couldn't tell where the man was.

He tensed and then ran out to the curb where that boy lay sprawled on his face.

Palatazin could see a bleeding gash across the back of his head, the dark brown hair matted with blood. He got his arms under the boy and started to lift him.

"Heathen!" the voice shrieked. "G.o.d's blight on the world!" A shot rang out, kicking up sand two feet away. Palatazin lifted the boy, struggled to his feet, and started to run back to the house. Another bullet screamed past Palatazin's face, leaving what he thought was a burning red streak in the sullen air. Then he was on the porch, and Jo was opening the door to pull him in.

Gayle had brought a pillow and bedspread from upstairs, and now Palatazin laid the boy on the sofa, his forehead cradled against the pillow. "How badly is he hurt?" Gayle asked.

"I don't know. The bullet took off some scalp at the back of his head, probably gave him one h.e.l.l of a knock, too." He took off the boy's backpack and laid it on the floor. It was heavy, and things clanked together inside. He unzipped and unsnapped several of the backpacks' pockets, rummaging through them. "I'd say he was prepared for a little of everything," Palatazin said. "I wonder where he was trying to get to."

Jo was gingerly parting the boy's hair to look at the wound. In the darkness she couldn't see it very well, but her fingers were already sticky with warm blood.

She reached over and grasped his wrist. The pulse seemed strong if erratic.

"Can you find me some towels, Andy?" she said. "Maybe we can stop some of this bleeding."

He went upstairs to search the bathroom.

The boy suddenly stirred and moaned. He said in a weary, old-man's voice, "You're dead . . . leave me alone! . . . burned them up, I burned them, burned them . . ." Then he was quiet again.

"Do you think he's going to die?" Gayle asked.

"I'm certainly no doctor," Jo said. "But he's a small boy. I hope he's stronger than he looks."

Palatazin brought the towels, one of which he'd soaked in cold water. Jo started cleaning the crusted blood away, then pressed a towel against the wound.