The Vampires' Last Lover (Dying of the Dark Vampires Book 1) Page 6

  Another growl, more menacing than the first, resounded, and a pair of yellow eyes appeared for a split second as his flashlight’s beam traveled across the landing. Whoever—or whatever—was there scurried toward the top of the stairs.

  In the seconds that followed, two things hit me. The first was obvious, that we had to get the hell away from the stairs. The second was the memory of a small basement that had been converted into a bomb/storm cellar.

  Peter and Stephen had shown it to me and Stephen’s girlfriend, back in September during a party. I remembered how we all marveled at the money spent to outfit the cellar with modern comforts such as plush carpeting, a refrigerator, and even a small restroom. Not to mention the steel-reinforced door and reinforced cement walls, and extra two-by-fours in the ceiling. Apparently, the original owner feared either the rare tornados that could hit the area, or more likely, a possible nuclear meltdown at nearby Oak Ridge. Stephen thought it might be cool to turn the cellar into a recording studio someday. I just hoped it would keep a chupacabra vampire at bay. And, that we could reach it in time.

  “Peter, follow me!”

  “What?” His eyes were locked in disbelief on the malformed creature glaring at him from the top of the stairs. I yanked his arm and pulled him with me.

  “Just trust me, damn it!”

  Another shadow suddenly flitted across the landing. A second fiend was present.

  “Run to the cellar!” I shouted.

  The kitchen was dark, but could be reached by an additional doorway, off a small hallway next to the stairs. I remembered the cellar entrance sat next to the pantry and was thankful the door wasn’t locked when I grabbed the handle.

  Our unwelcome guests rounded the corner into the kitchen behind us as I pulled the door open. We lunged into the room and Peter slammed it shut, just as one of them leapt toward us. It rammed into the door with enough force to rock Peter back on his heels. He locked the door, and set the additional heavy dead bolts to ensure the door remained secure.

  For the next hour, we worried whether the door would hold up, as our pursuers repeatedly threw their bodies against it, hitting it hard enough that the hinges groaned from the strain. Their bloodcurdling shrieks chilled us far more than the cellar’s cold confines.

  Peter took a small space heater off of a shelf and plugged it into an outlet on the wall. I raised an eyebrow.

  “The wiring in here is separate. There’s a small solar generator and battery,” he explained in response to my unasked question. “I wish the owner had installed a phone down here too when he did the renovations.”

  The small heater kept it from getting too cold, but until dawn we were forced to keep a tireless vigil. Our main focus was holding each other tight while we listened to the destruction of the main floor above us, praying somehow we’d survive.

  e climbed out of the cellar just after 7:00 a.m. It had been silent outside the room since what I presumed to have been sunrise. I convinced Peter to wait an extra hour just to make sure they were gone. I told him that they might have been hiding to try and lure us out. I knew the real reason, but I also knew that Peter would never believe me. We knew we would miss the first class of the day, but once we saw the destruction to the kitchen and living room in Peter’s townhouse, it became immediately obvious that school would be an afterthought for the rest of the day.

  “My God,” Peter whispered in amazement, after we stepped back into the kitchen.

  The refrigerator lay on its side, and the oven door had been torn off. Huge holes had been gouged in the floor where the fiends tried to burrow their way into the cellar from above. Fortunately for us, a thick steel slab covered the cellar, in addition to the steel-reinforced walls and door.

  I couldn’t think of anything to add to my boyfriend’s simple assessment, at least not until I ventured past the smashed dining room table, and stepped into the living room.

  “I’m surprised no one else heard this shit—surely someone had to hear it!” I marveled, staring at the hole in the wall where a large picture window once was. A birdbath from the front lawn had obliterated the large flat screen TV.

  Peter whistled shrilly through his teeth and then pulled out his cell phone. He carefully approached the stairs while casting a wary glance toward the second floor landing. He looked over at me with a bewildered expression, as if the actuality of what he presently witnessed confirmed the previous night’s hostile siege as a true event, and that it wasn’t some malicious college prank enhanced by alcohol and overactive imaginations. I could practically see the internal war raging in his mind between what he had experienced and what he was willing to accept as his reality.

  I must admit that I chuckled a little. He was such a pragmatist, and almost atheistic in his zeal for the unadulterated truth. During the assault on the cellar door that lasted until four o’clock in the morning, he acted as if what was happening wasn’t much of a big deal, and that maybe the critters chasing him were buddies of his just trying to freak us out. Now he had to consider the screeching suckers were actually real.

  I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to venture upstairs—even in the full light of day. He talked to whoever was on the other end of the line while he remained at the foot of the staircase. Meanwhile, my cell phone chirped from an incoming call.

  “Txema!”

  Tyreen was on the line, sounding both worried and annoyed.

  “Hey,” I said, glancing outside through the hole in the wall. A police car drove by slowly, seemingly oblivious to the gaping wound in the once-handsome townhouse on Laurel Ave. I glanced over at Peter. My assumption that he was dialing 9-1-1 was apparently incorrect.

  “Sorry I didn’t call last night… we had a situation here.” I tried to keep my voice steady; I didn’t want to make her any more upset.

  “Sorry? Is that all you’ve got to say?” She sounded more irritated than concerned right then. “I’ve been worried sick about you, Txema! Another girl is dead, and four more have gone missing! It’s everywhere on the news, and I’ve literally been freaking out, thinking you were gone, too!”

  She started weeping, and for a moment I didn’t know how to respond. I already knew about the third girl from the previous night’s news report, but I was hardly prepared for the news that three victims had escalated to seven.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t let you know sooner that I’m all right, Tyreen,” I told her, stunned by this news. I could fully understand her depth of worry. “I can’t believe this is happening! Four more girls are dead? Shit! Just give us a moment to get things cleaned up around here, and we’ll be heading back to campus.”

  I hoped to take a shower first. However, Peter had just tiptoed down the staircase and announced to me that all of the rooms upstairs, including the main bathroom, were trashed. Showers and anything else hygiene-related would have to wait until we returned to the dorm.

  “Get what cleaned up?” Tyreen’s anger faded quickly from her voice, as if she could somehow see the same damage I surveyed. “What do you mean?”

  “We were attacked,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Are the police there? If they’re not, you and Peter need to get the hell away from that house! Whoever’s doing this stuff may be hiding somewhere inside Peter’s place—”

  “No, they’re gone.” I kept my voice steady. But then I seriously considered her words. What if she was right? Could our assailants be hiding somewhere upstairs, or beneath the main floor’s rubble?

  Armando’s allusion to Nosferatu suddenly appeared in my head, with the monster’s grotesque long talons casting eerie shadows on Peter’s bedroom wall upstairs, as the morning sun poured in through his window. Would the fiend’s body simply vanish in the bright sunlight, like in the movie? Or, would it be the more dramatic twenty-first-century version where a vamp slowly smokes before exploding into fiery cinders, consuming every physical vestige?

  “They’re gone?” Tyreen’s tone was one of incredulity much more than s
corn. “You’re telling me there’s more than one dude and that you saw him and his accomplices last night? You better have told the police all about this… you did, didn’t you?”

  I heard her release a low sigh in disgust when I didn’t respond right away. I didn’t know how much to tell her. After all, she knew nothing about any of my previous nocturnal visitors, starting with Garvan and Armando. That would be off-the-charts craziness already. But, suppose I could get her to consider the reality of two vampires paying me a personal visit to protect my ass. How could I also tell her that the recent campus murders were perpetrated by a group of other vampires, hideously deformed, and with no apparent disposition for mercy?

  Not to mention what those bastards possessed in terms of super-human strength. The advent of dawn may have very well been the only reason Peter and I didn’t perish. And, as far as the police were concerned, once my boyfriend called them and advised his landlord of the damage delivered to his rented townhouse, a whole new can of worms would be kicked over.

  “Txema, you did call the police… please tell me that you did!”

  “I’m getting ready to do it now—”

  “PLEASE do it right now!”

  “Okay, okay. Just chill for a moment. I’ll get it done—I promise!” I assured her. “Are you at the dorm or someplace else on campus?”

  “Johnny and I are getting ready to eat something, but then we’re coming back to Massey,” she said.

  “Peter and I’ll meet you there.”

  “When?” she persisted. She sounded panicked again.

  “Right after the police get here.” I made sure my tone sounded soothing, with a positive lift. It worked on guys; I just prayed it worked on my highly intuitive roommate, too. “Once they’re done with a police report, or whatever, I’ll make sure Peter drives us back to campus.”

  “Okay… you promise, right?”

  “Yes, I promise!”

  It was hard not to admire her persistence. It was so much like me, too. If the chupacabra vamps had a sadistic fondness for a beautiful African American instead of a girl of Basque descent, I’m sure I’d be just as obsessive for her safety.

  After my conversation with Tyreen ended, Peter called to me from upstairs. There was no sign of anyone else, and he had already called the police. The dispatcher advised that a patrol car would be on its way in a few minutes.

  He looked numb as he headed downstairs. No doubt, the images of what he saw in the daylight were still being reconciled to the bizarre and terrifying events from the night before.

  “There’s no one here,” he said, his voice subdued. “What in the hell am I supposed to tell the cops?”

  I could almost feel the depth of his bewilderment, and the torment of trying to merge his previous understanding of the world and natural laws with the incredible destruction left by our inhuman visitors. Peter’s perspective on life had been seriously jacked up over the last several hours and honestly, my own had as well.

  “You stick to the facts,” I said. “Tell them that you saw shadows of someone moving upstairs and then we ran down into the cellar. Whoever was here got angry and tore the place up. Just be glad they didn’t decide to burn the building down around us.”

  I added a wry smile to go with this last part, which he seemed oblivious to. He nodded pensively.

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said.

  Neither of us wanted to rehash anything more, and we waited in silence until the police arrived. They didn’t stay long, especially after Peter followed my advice in giving just cursory replies to their questions. Property damage, even on this scale, doesn’t get taken quite as seriously where there is apparently a serial killer on the prowl. After a brief tour of the townhouse and the back porch, the two officers completed their report.”

  “You’ll get a copy of this in the mail in the next seven to ten days. You can usually contact your insurance company and file before you obtain this copy of the report,” the lead officer said. He was businesslike, but there was also a weariness in his voice. I realized it was likely he had worked a double, perhaps even a triple shift already.

  The officer left and Peter went into the kitchen only to return a few seconds later with a box of heavy-duty garbage bags in his hand.

  I helped Peter tack a handful of garbage bags over the windows, and on the way back to Massey Hall, he called his landlord with the police report number for his insurance claim.

  Talk about lockdown.

  The security checks to get back onto campus were much more intense that morning as compared to Thursday. Also, unlike the previous day, there were Knoxville cops everywhere.

  Peter parked his Camaro at the library again, and we walked the rest of the way to my dorm. By then, we had already heard that classes for the rest of the day were canceled. Other than the dorms, only the libraries, bookstore, and cafeterias remained open.

  When Tyreen and Johnny grilled Peter about what happened, and what our assailants looked like, he surprised me by staying evasive about those details while expounding on the actual damage inside the townhouse. Johnny especially got excited about the overturned kitchen appliances and the birdbath impaling the sixty-inch plasma TV.

  As for me, Tyreen gave me another scolding that thankfully didn’t last long. Neither she nor Johnny badgered me with questions about what happened—nothing about what I saw and heard and I didn’t volunteer any information. For the time being I got to keep that information to myself.

  We spent the day in the library finishing our class assignments for the next week, and then returned to Massey Hall well before dusk. None of us broached the recent string of murders and the four latest disappearances. Nor did we keep tabs on the sudden national focus surrounding these terrible events. Sort of like an unspoken promise to avoid the subject, as if our mutual silence would protect us all from the burgeoning menace.

  The University and police had arranged for pizzas to be delivered to the entire dorm, and after we had our fill of food and drink, the four of us moved upstairs to our room.

  “I think everyone should stay here tonight,” Tyreen suggested, after she closed the door behind us. “It’s not like we’ll be the only ones up here with our men staying with us tonight.”

  “Me and Pete can use the guys’ facilities on the other side in the morning to take a shower,” added Johnny. “Unless y’all can’t stand to be alone for fifteen minutes!”

  “Oh, yeah, big boy?” Tyreen retorted, when he preened like a helpless female. “Who’s to say you’ll make it ‘til morning with your stank ass, be-e-e-a-a-t-c-h-h-h!!”

  That stopped his comic pose and snickering grin; then he erupted into one of his loud and irritating laughs.

  They seemed very much like an old married couple, loving and yet so dysfunctional. If nothing else, they got things revved up for a night of distracting entertainment. Before long, we were all poking fun at each other while taking turns playing Johnny’s Grand Theft Auto and Assassin’s Creed video games, and after that a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity. Peter and I began to nod off around eleven o’clock, and Tyreen and Johnny headed downstairs since neither one was ready to retire.

  We were exhausted from so little sleep the night before. I helped Peter climb up into my bed and then I snuggled close to him. Soon after, despite the lights still on and the TV muted in the corner of the room, we drifted off to sleep.

  areful… that’s it, Garvan.”

  I suddenly awoke. My room was immersed in darkness. The lights and television were off. I could hear Peter’s soft snores to my left, and I was moving toward the window… more like floating on my back toward the open window.

  “What in the hell?” I whispered hoarsely, trying to get my bearings. To my right, I could see light from the hallway beneath the door, and the shadow from one of my floor mates passing by my room. I couldn’t hear Tyreen or Johnny, snores or otherwise, which told me that neither one had returned yet.

  I had to be dreaming.

  “
It appears she is waking up. Cover her mouth and let’s be on our way!”

  The same voice from a moment earlier, and the Spanish accent was familiar. Very familiar.

  “Armando?”

  “Si,” the owner of the voice whispered in response to me. “I must insist you keep quiet, dearest Txema!”

  It was the same cheerful tone and irreverent delivery from the other night. Definitely him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, alarmed and finding it hard to keep my voice low. Preparing to float through a fourth floor window on a chilly night will do that to you.

  “I’m grabbing your coat,” said Armando, “and your slippers, too.”

  Huh?

  “Where in the hell are you taking me?” I shouted at him, or at least I shouted at the spot where his voice emanated from. I couldn’t see his face—just the outlines of his long fingernails guiding me along, as if I lay upon an invisible raft drifting through the air.

  “Some place safe.” Another voice, this time Garvan’s, sounded from my other side, calm and assuring.

  I couldn’t see him either, although I was certain he was there due to the now-familiar cinnamon scent.

  “A place not far from here,” he continued.

  “A place where everyone else is waiting anxiously to meet you!” added Armando.

  Incredible panic overwhelmed me, and I tried to look back at Peter, still snoring in my bunk bed. Some protector he turned out to be that night.

  “Ah, chérie, do not be alarmed,” Garvan said to me. I felt no less terrified. I tried to move my arms and legs and couldn’t do it. I could barely feel anything from my neck on down to my toes.

  “In just a minute we will reach our destination,” Garvan continued.

  I remember how this announcement confused me. I tried to picture what campus locale was nearby. Even considering the ultra-quick movements I’d seen from both vampires previously, if they planned to carry me out the window at our present drift, we might make it to the Alumni Center if we were lucky.