Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (22 page)

“Shit,” exclaimed Yawo, the co-driver and companion of Sarah for the past two years. His thick Ghanaian accent became more congealed as the 195

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minutes ticked by. He, too, wore special goggles to see in the dark as did most of the passengers on the bus. “We’ve only been on the road for a little over an hour, and already two unfortunates have become road kill. That is sass if I ever saw it,” he said with pride.

“That’s right, baby,” said Sarah. She patted his cheek and concentrated on the road beleaguered with decrepit cars. The countryside congestion was nothing compared to city traffic, however. Ed, the supervampire who could lift a three-ton boulder, had taken weeks to clear enough space for a bus without being too obvious. “Just keep your eyes peeled for me, and we’ll be okay. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

“Ahem. That would be three pairs if you count this old man,” piped in John Danby who sat in the front passenger row with a calico cat curled on his lap. Goggles that gave him the look of a fly rested on his nose.

Sainvire had insisted they carry a pair along with an emergency travel kit at all times. The kit included two sets of guns, a few boxes of cartridges, a Kevlar vest, and food and water rations. After the raids had become more frequent with ex-cattle getting abducted and killed like game during the evening hours, each man and woman had to be taught basic self-defense. Sainvire decreed that his vampires were to ransack police stations and military outposts and bring in weapons and artillery to outfit the humans under their care.

Sarah laughed a little self-consciously. “Sorry, John. Of course I’ll need all the help I can get.” The pretty, pear-shaped driver was winding around an RV

when the old lawyer and Muhammad Ali fan shouted, 196

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“Deer! Watch out!”

It couldn’t be avoided. The bus slammed into the animal barely sprouting antlers that rolled noisily under the tires at the same time Sarah hit the brakes.

Like most older school buses, seatbelts had not been installed. The heads of the passengers kissed the seatbacks in front of them before inertia hurled them to their seats. Those asleep near the aisle ended up tasting metal floor.

“Everyone alright?” Sarah asked as the last thud of tires rolled over the carcass of the animal.

Angry groans filled the bus. But having traveled in the dead of night every three to four weeks for the last couple of years had toughened hides. The passengers quickly settled down.

Except for Poe, certain animals, and an infant.

Poe pitched forward from the cozy spot between Maclemar’s arm and shoulder. She dove head-first onto the metal aisle of the bus with a clang. A crescendo of clucking, bleating, meowing, oinking, and screaming became the symphonic soundtrack of the moment. Maclemar and Michelle, who had flanked her while she slept on the unsegmented couch in the last row, helped her up as soon as the bus settled down.

“Ouch,” Poe cried, and she palmed her injured forehead. Running her tongue on her teeth and touching her nose for anything broken, she stood up.

The sound of wailing drilled into her head, and it was the only sound that frenzily continued. “Shit.”

“Poe, are you alright?” asked Maclemar. He rubbed her back to calm her.

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“Maclemar?” she said, holding onto his waist.

“Can you turn on the lights, please? I think I’m gonna hurl.”

“You better not!” someone threatened from her right over the din of crying.

“Who the hell was that? Is that Megan’s baby?

Where’s my guns?” she asked in succession out of nervousness. She could hear someone singing a dead-on imitation of Frank Sinatra. “Is that Morales?” she asked softly to no one in particular.

Someone squeezed her arm gently and said,

“Here, Poe. I got your goggles from your pack. I’m going to slide then over your head.”

“Michelle?” Poe shook her head, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. The darkness and crying were eating her up. “I think I’m dizzy.” She ignored the pain caused by the elastic as it touched lumps on her forehead and the back of her head.

From the abyss of darkness came phosphorous-green reception. Faces like insects stared at her from their seats. Some looked grim. A few smiled. Certain ones waved.

“Why don’t you sit down, dear?” a wrinkled woman by the window suggested nicely. “So we can mosey on.”

As soon as Poe sat down, Sarah resumed driving.

“The son of a bitch clobbered me,” Poe said. She gritted her teeth. Michelle handed her knives and guns to be sheathed in various holsters on her wrists, ankles, waist, and across her shoulders. “How long have we been driving?”

“A little over an hour,” answered Michelle.

Poe turned to look at Maclemar who remained unusually quiet. “How long was I out?”

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“Three, maybe four hours,” he said staidly. “He asked me to tell you he’s sorry and that Megan’s glad to know you’ll protect her child.”

Opening a bottle of acetaminophen, Poe popped five tablets and swished them down with water.

“They both sound as if they’re going to die tonight,”

she said with a frown. “Any of you got a candy bar?”

“I do,” piped in the voice of Percy who was two rows up to the left. She pulled out a bar from her Eeyore bag and scrambled toward Poe. Night goggles ate up three-quarters of her face.

“Twix. My very favorite,” Poe said in a low voice melting with indebtedness. With the kid looking on, the vampire hunter wolfed down the candy bar alive with living protein. “Hey Percy, can you do me the biggest of favors?”

“Anything, Poe,” the girl said with complete devotion that almost embarrassed Poe.

“Can you help Maclemar look after Penny and Chops?”

“Of course,” Percy said in a high-pitched voice.

“I’ll look after them good.”

“Thanks, Percy. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

She watched the girl go back to her seat.

“What do you mean by that, Sharren?”

Maclemar asked. He clamped a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Nothing, Darren,” she answered glibly. After another swig of water she swung her pack on her back and followed Morales’ voice that continued to sing to the crying infant.

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“Hey look, little Piper,” said Morales. He smiled at Poe and patted the seat next to him. “Here comes your Tia Poe. Come say hello.”

Habib, who parked in the seat behind Morales, handed Poe a bottle. “Maybe she’s ready to eat now.”

“Go ahead, place it in her mouth,” guided the baby’s other daddy.

Poe looked at the shriveled little phosphorescent green troll in the dark and smiled. “Cute little thing. I hope her looks improve in the daylight hours, though.”

“Don’t make me pinch you, Poe,” said an offended Morales. He took the milk from her and placed it gently in the infant’s tiny lips. “Megan said to make you godmother. I’ll have to veto her orders if you’re going to give Piper a complex this early in life.”

“I was just kidding,” Poe explained as she watched the nipple jerk away from Piper’s mouth after the bus galloped over a pothole. “So Megan really said I could be her godmother?”

“It was Joseph’s idea, but the little redhead took to it right away.”

“Wow. That’s something, isn’t it? Are you the godfather then?”

“Yup,” he said with pride.

“What color’s her hair?”

“Green,” he said as he secured the nipple in the baby’s mouth. “Why do you have your pack on? Did I just hear you ask Percy to babysit your pets?”

Poe shrugged her shoulders.

“Uh oh. You’re not going to pull one of your tricks on us, are you?” Before she could answer, 200

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Morales hollered. “Maclemar. Michelle. Get over here quick.”

“What’s wrong?” the Welshman asked. He took three giant steps to reach them with Michelle close behind.

“Guys, don’t make this any harder,” entreated Poe who held up the palm of her hand to deflect any naysayers. She stood and made her way to the front.

Penny doggedly followed her, and the pig in turn tailed the dog. Penny was smart enough to know that something was up.

“Excuse me,” she said to Yawo who stood by Sarah. When he didn’t move she elbowed him out of the way and whispered something in the driver’s ear.

“We’ve covered over ten miles, girl!” the bus driver exclaimed after a few whispered seconds.

“There’s no way you’re going to make it there in one piece.

“I run an average of six to seven miles a day, and I’m not even close to tired,” Poe said out loud, fully aware her friends were listening. She pulled at her lobeless ear in frustration. “Double that should be nothing.”

“Right, but you’ve never tried sprinting in the dark, have you?” Maclemar butted in, making his way to the front. Excusing himself to Yawo who was bumped further back, he added, “Those are the nasty sods who want to have a go at your flesh. Your delicate blood is incidental to them.”

“They’re slow. I can outrun them.”

“Bloody hell you can, crazy benyw!” He took another step until he hovered over her.

“Save me your Welsh compliments, Maclemar,”

she said. “I’d go back for you, too, if you were stuck 201

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in garlic land and weak from childbirth.” She was shaking.

“I’m touched, truly,” Maclemar said with sincerity. He draped his large hand over his heart.

“But I’m a little unnerved that you see me not as a strapping man, but as someone female-like capable of popping out babies.”

The fisherman’s retort made more than a few snigger.

“Now, now. Lay off the girl,” said Morales to the watchers-on. “She was only eight when they canceled school permanently. Poe didn’t get to sit through sex ed slide presentations replete with graphic pictures of gonorrhea and the birth canal.”

Poe, when she thought about her comment, grinned. “I didn’t mean to say it that way, Maclemar.” She turned to the driver before she said any more silly things.

“Miss, you’re going to need to let me off. The more you drive, the more I’d I have to walk. My friends need me. Trench and Newbitt are on their way. I’m more than a decent shot,” she said, not wanting to boast, but she had no choice. “Sometimes I can hit things with my eyes closed. Sister Ann, a friend of mine who’s dead now, said it was an intrinsic gift.”

“We need you here then,” a woman about sixty years old said. “Especially with an infant on the bus.

Anyway, they got that helicopter up there if worse comes to worse.”

“Last I heard, the helicopter was smashed during the dreadful landing,” Poe sighed. “As for Piper, she’ll be alright with all of you here to protect her.”

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Sarah shook her head and pursed her thin lips.

Harried, she threw out, “Help me out here, people.

I’m kinda busy driving.” She barely missed hitting an upturned truck.

“Folks may have given up on the eight left on their own at the farmhouse to face those blood slavers, but I haven’t. I don’t believe in many things, but I believe in Plasmacore. It will help depose those fascist bloodsuckers that want to act like royalty, like blasted Count Dracula, with castles, Igors, and slaves.” Poe looked around at the green-faced humanity around her and made a fist. “I’m tired of asking. I’m going to get off this bus, stopped or not.”

So angry to the point of salivating, Poe yanked the lever that opened the door and prepared to jump out.

“Let her out,” a familiar voice said from the middle of the bus. Poe scanned for the person and located Jenna’s face looking impassive in the green haze of her night vision goggles. The woman had left Sainvire, and in some sick way, Poe’s headache disappeared. She had never been so glad in her life.

Jenna didn’t speak again.

“This is madness,” Maclemar uttered temperamentally. “Even with these bloody things on, your peripheral vision will be hampered.”

Sarah sighed and stepped on the brake. “Alright.

I think this is foolish and a waste of a good fighter.

This group would be better served with you on our side. But good luck all the same. Remember not to make too much noise or flash a light of any kind.”

“Appreciate it, miss.”

“Can someone hand this to Poe?” Morales said from his seat as he tossed a roundish helmet to Yawo.

“These are ANVIS-6 goggles. The helmet might look 203

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like it came right off Luke Skywalker’s head, but it has perimeter control and it’s handsfree. Plus it might protect that stubborn noggin of yours. I got it on good authority that fighter pilots wore them in battle.”

“Thanks, Morales,” Poe said sincerely. Sarah pulled the old goggles off and placed the new night vision contraption on Poe’s aching head. “This thing is heavy but an improvement to my old gear.”

“Don’t thank me, loca girl,” Morales harrumphed. “You can thank Sainvire. He told me to hit you over the head every hour. But too bad, I was busy. Seems he pegged you right that you’d pull a stunt like this when you came to, but was he was hoping we’d have put miles behind us by then. So there’s nothing more to say. Just make sure to keep that helmet tight on your head.”

“Yeah, I will. Thanks. Look after my little godchild.” She turned to her dog. “Penny, you stay here and take care of Chops,” she said to the dog while patting her head. “You’re my bestest dog, and I’ll be back for you.”

Poe saluted to the driver and stepped down from the bus. The dog, not wanting to be left behind, followed.

“Wait, Poe, I’m going, too,” Maclemar declared.

He ran to the back of the bus to retrieve his things.

“No you’re not, Welshman. You’re staying with these people,” Poe shouted. She began to run just in case Maclemar and others decided to tag along. “I’ll come looking for you, Maclemar. You promised to take me back to West L.A., and I aim to take you up on that.” She heard the rumble of the engine as the bus drove away. She stopped to look back only to see the face of Maclemar staring out the back window.

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