Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (7 page)

She had a mop of greasy red hair and lacked any teeth except for one drawn out fang. Her mouth smacked open and close in anticipation of dinner.

Then there was No Nose who proved to be more limber than the rickety rest. He made a grab for Poe’s scarred forearms. Sharp undulations of the boat bided Poe some time as every wave made the creatures 54

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pause for balance. Whatever they were, they were shoddily put together.

“This is just a dream. Any minute now Penny and I will find ourselves sitting on our couch watching
Office Space
or
Caddyshack
. Something hilarious,” Poe said stupidly to boost her courage.

“Use only your legs, or they’ll get you!” she told herself while kicking at the knees of whichever came closest.

No Nose was a grabber. His raw fingertips slid out its last slivers of blackened nails in the process of clawing Poe’s shoulder for the second time. He had a way of absorbing blows, even Poe’s focused attacks, without complaint. The swifter the blows, the quicker he mended as the clicking sounds demonstrated.
Even
Sainvire couldn’t fix himself up this quickly.

“Why don’t you just keel over, you dumb goon!”

cried Poe as she watched No Nose’s friends join the revelry. “Go get ’em, Pen!”

Lathering at the mouth, Penny unleashed more damage. She tore tough chunks of sinewy meat off of the creatures and swallowed them.
Beef jerky treats!

The dog focused on ankles and knees until the undead literally fell on their faces.

“Attagirl, Pen,” Poe encouraged. Deep inside Poe was disgusted that her dog had eaten at least two pounds of jerkied flesh. “Try not to gulp them down this time.”

Poe kept the undead at bay by tucking her arms close to her body, utilizing round and side kicks. One false move and she’d have been snagged and wrestled on the deck. Chained and vulnerable as she was, she’d have been defenseless once down. A few times she saw her kicks damage ribs, knees, and hip 55

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bones to the point of paralyzing the creatures, but they would glue themselves back together.

Bones fused under thin, kite paper skin right before her eyes.
No wonder Trampoline Man dumped
them on board to do his dirty work while he had a
snack of piglets with his buddy
.

There were too many, and she was getting tired.

Her head felt like a giant vacuum was sucking it clean. Eventually the muumuu-wearing automaton figured out that the chain limited the girl’s reach. A tug of war arose leaving Poe with boxed-in kicking range and without the use of one arm.

“Shit!” Poe screamed as the wind scattered garlic spray useless. “Come closer then!”

She was near tears. A real honest-to-goodness migraine had crept up on her, and the swell of the seas hindered her footing.

Muumuu had Poe’s chain wound around her arm, her long face blank but nonetheless determined.

Poe let herself be dragged. “Calm down. Or she’ll get you,” she said aloud.

The moment Poe’s extended right arm was within shooting distance of the creature’s face, Poe let out a squirt, catching the long-faced dead in the white of the eye despite the wind. For good measure Poe sprayed the mouth, too. She didn’t get to relish the hissing or the smoke indicating that part of Muumuu was melting and sputtering. The dead converged at once on an overwrought Poe. The lack of food and continuous vomiting the past day had left her weaker than usual and ill prepared for the assault.

Can’t cry about it now! Gimme some adrenalin,
Xena!

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She swung around, stuck a pen in No Nose’s eye, and followed up with a fist into Plain Ugly’s concave chest. Poe, breathing laboriously, kneed No Nose on the side of the head. Despite holy water damage, the redhead creep crawled blindly toward her.

They kept getting up to Poe’s dismay. She wanted so badly to cry.



The harassed dog fought bravely alongside Poe.

Bereft of the ability to bark, Penny took her courage from biting, but like Poe the mutt was tiring. The silent freaks that occasionally made a sound halfway between a Chewbacca snarl and a humpback whale feeding call were gaining on them.

It was no surprise when Plain Ugly reached down and picked the dog up by the tail like a rat.

Penny tried to take a chunk of jerky from her awkward position but failed. The noise that escaped from the dog’s mouth injected Poe’s thudding heart with dread. The tail, after all, was connected to the spine. Her dog was in pain.

“Penny!” Poe yelled with trepidation. “Hold on for me!”

Left with no choice, Poe turned her back on No Nose, her pursuant whose eye popped back to normal. She made a grab for Penny before Muumuu could sink her teeth into her scruffy neck. The dog tumbled to the floor and banged her head along the railing.

“Thank you, Warrior Princess!” she said with a gasp and picked up the pen she’d lost. Poe grunted 57

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angrily and plunged it into No Nose’s heart. Blinking in wonder at the force of the pen that was now buried into the undead’s chest, she stared as its body spasmed.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said, nearly in tears. She pulled out the pen and heard a sucking sound.

Stooping low on the ground, Poe squirted holy water into the wound. To her wonderment the thing on the floor twitched, beating the deck with his feet and arms until he expired.

Before she could exhale with relief, Plain Ugly tackled Poe to the ground. Her screams were furious in the night.

“Get off of me!” Poe shrieked.

A blinded Muumuu, who still had Poe’s chain curled around her arm, yanked Poe’s right hand painfully upward. With only one limb free, Poe aimed the holy water into the mouth of Plain Ugly who sat on her like a couch. He sputtered from instinct, but the spray was empty.

“Oh no!” Poe said in despair. She pressed the spray button once more, but only air gasped out.

Hoping a piece of garlic clogged the spray, Poe tried again. She got more of the same.

Plain Ugly, seeing no immediate threat, backhanded Poe with a rotting hand. Without further ado he lowered his gray half-stacked teeth down to Poe’s cheek. Before the fiend could partake of her flesh, Penny the dog lunged on Plain Ugly’s Sequoia tree bark neck.

Plain Ugly battled the dog. The chain entangled, the slack tightened, and each movement bruised Poe’s wrist. It was like being weighted by an anchor during a boxing match.

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Muumuu wrestled Penny from Plain Ugly, tearing off the dog’s collar and tossing her into the water. Poe cried as she witnessed her dog fall overboard.

Poe was dizzier than ever.

Muumuu captured a leg. No matter how much she fought, Poe couldn’t free it. She closed her eyes tightly as the monster opened wide, her one yellow fang doubling in length for a piece of thigh. Her olive army pants gave the ogre a struggle, however. Plain Ugly bit her cheek and proceeded to suck. His reeking breath made Poe want to cry.

It hurt. She could taste her death in the drizzle of rain she’d only just noticed.

Like watermelon-flavored shaved ice in the summer, a most pleasant thing occurred. Poe heard gunfire, albeit shrouded in a silencer.



And the archangel swept down to her rescue.

Equipped with a gun muted with a silencer, he shot Poe’s cannibalistic friends in the back, destroying their moldy organs until they slumped dead on top of her.

“Sainvire?” Poe asked disbelievingly while half-submerged in the bodies of the truly dead.
Is it him?

Same height and dark coloring.
Her migraine was making her see double.

He didn’t say a word.

Completely undone and nearly weeping from gratitude, Poe mustered a smile for the dark-haired seraph with a glowing face.

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“How’s your cheek?” he asked, gently wiping blood from the one-fang bite.

Poe’s smile vanished. His voice pricked her ears.

Without the halo of hero veneration, she studied the face that seemed to shine as if a candle was directly lit under his nose.

“Well are you alright then?” he repeated, sounding irritated. Since she didn’t answer, he dragged the bodies near the edge of the railing. The man took a clean swipe off of their scalps and gave them a kick until they rolled off the boat.

“Clear your head, woman. I’m not bloody Sainvire,” he grumbled, offended.

His voice. That odd accent. He sounds like…

“Caveman?” asked Poe incredulously.

Upon closer examination of fresh shaving nicks, she noticed that his face glowed. He appeared unearthly because everything about him was dark, except for his cheeks and chin, unbleached by the sun.

“That would be James Maclemar to you,” he said with a frown. He selected the correct key and unlocked her restraints.

“Where the hell were you?”

“Sorry. I’m a deep sleeper.”

Poe was speechless.

“I’ve brought your gun,” he said, reaching for the Ziploc’ed Glock tucked behind his back. Almost everything in her pack was sealed in plastic. The light drizzle was threatening to turn into rain.

Before he could hand it to her, Maclemar found himself zooming thirty feet up in the air and tersely dropped into the chilly water by a sour-faced Trampoline Man. Within seconds the jumping 60

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wonder returned with his pig-eater companion in his arms. Both glared furiously.

“Lucky for you. We have a few more Revs in our boats,” said Trampoline Man.

Just looking at the pair of thugs wearied Poe.

She’d had enough. She was starving, worn out, highly confused by James Maclemar’s make-over, and devastated by her dog’s watery death. Before the two vampires could hurt her, Poe spoke.

“Hold it, boys,” she said steadily. “Hold off trying to chomp on my neck. I’d like you both to take a good look at my face. Look familiar?”

If Passionada hadn’t been lying about her fugitive status, then Poe thought she could bide her time until she was strong enough to take on the two bozos harpooning her with their eyes.

“You’re killing time, gel. I got your numba,” the roundish undead with a New England accent said, batting away the fish and scalp found hanging slapdash on the boat. The mound of recently sliced head parts he booted into the waters.

“You will be our dessert after all,” seconded Trampoline Man as he took a step toward her. “Like it or not.”

“Hold up. This is the face that can make all your dreams come true,” she said quickly as he took another step closer. “Recognize this scar?” She traced the five-inch scrape job from forehead to cheek.

“Beverly Hills mansion, unlimited cattle…”

“Oh shit, Herbie,” Trampoline Man exclaimed.

He smacked his forehead with an open palm. “This is the cattle rustler everyone’s been looking for. For like two years. The one who disfigured Pretty Boy Trench and stole our Downtown food reserve.”

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“We can’t be this lucky. No way.” said Herbie with a slight hesitation. “The elusive Julia Poe, cattle thief and Sainvire’s whore? We’re going to be master vampires, man. No more boat patrol for us!”

“Um, excuse me,” Poe interjected, seething. She massaged her bruised wrist slow-like. “I’m not Sainvire’s whore.”

“Whatevah you say, gel,” Manitoba giggled then turned to Trampoline Man. “Ain’t she small?

Thought she would be a six-footah at least.”

“It’s all propaganda so Trench won’t look like a pussy.”

“Yup. And she don’t look so bad even with the scah,” said Manitoba as he examined her with a critical eye. “Sainvire could always spot the diamond in the rough. I hear his new girlfriend’s a looka. A masta vamp from Nevada. This girl’s hootas ain’t bad.”

Poe’s eyes narrowed from the conversation.

Fatigue exited her body the more insults they threw her way.
And what’s this about Sainvire’s new
girlfriend?

“Um, excuse me, but don’t talk to me,” she said, grinding her teeth, “like I’m not standing in front of you.”

“Oh yeah? What are ya gonna do about it?

You’re gonna do more of that kung fu shit?”

A spiteful uppercut from Poe and a delectable kick in the groin quickly erased Herbie’s smug grin.

Judging by the pain registering on his chubby vampiric face, Manitoba wasn’t as gifted in healing as the Revenents.

“Yup! That kung fu shit.”

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Trampoline Man she attacked in the knee with enough force to break a cement block in half. By the third pounce Poe heard the sweet sound of cracking.

“That’s how I like it,” Poe said happily, her smile dwindling.

She gave it all she had, succeeding in pulping faces and breaking limbs. But since she had no holy water handy, Trampoline Man and Manitoba, the piglet-eating duo, were far from dying permanently.

Her blows became stunted as her anger and adrenaline dissipated and the new batch of Revenents assembled themselves. Every bruise, cut, and sunburn screamed “time out.”

Such was just the moment Trampoline Man was waiting for: A chink in the glass. As Poe prepared to deliver a blow to his good leg, Trampoline Man squatted low, launched into the air, and disappeared.

“Oh shit,” she said testily, looking up into the dark evening sky. The boat flanking hers seemed to be empty.

A haze of movement teased her peripherals. A great hand grabbed a fistful of hair from behind and lifted her the few feet in the air the slack of her shackles allowed. It was a rocky ride as Trampoline Man balanced on one leg.

“Bad move, girl,” he said, his face contorted in antagonism. “Now I’m going to have to hurt you.”

He threw her against the anchor and enjoyed watching her squirm from the pain of hitting solid metal. “Manitoba, you alright there, man?”

Manitoba’s face oozed with tar blood where Poe had targeted his veins especially well. He had trouble getting back on his feet.

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“Fuck this, man,” he said. “Trench ain’t getting her. I’m going to personally drain the little bitch.”