Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead (20 page)

She hiked back up to the road and scanned the horizon for more brightly colored vehicles.
Any
vehicles. But the roads were empty. She wasn’t sure if they’d been spotted; it was hard to tell at a half kilometer distant. Thankfully she’d turned off the car so there weren’t any lights to attract unfriendly notice.

She popped the trunk and transferred the jerry-cans, blow torch, and axe to the floor in the back. Leaving the trunk open, she half-slid back down the hill to retrieve the barely conscious Tau. Unlike the hospital staff,
she
knew just how much it would take to sedate him. But it wouldn’t last long.

It took every ounce of her unimpressive strength to drag him from the ditch, inch by slow inch. Dirt and grass clung to his hair and his ankle scraped raw. The sight of pale pink flesh beneath his dark skin, his blood, red and flowing, nearly brought Linh to tears. His body still struggled to live.

No time for weakness.

She cursed to dislodge the lump in her throat then dug-in her heels, threw herself back, and hauled his dead weight the last bit of the way up onto the lukewarm asphalt, rivulets of salt-sweat blinding her.

She lugged his torso up onto the bumper then lifted under his legs and pushed him into the trunk, cringing as his head slammed into the floor, the blow softened only slightly by the comforter she’d placed there. She arranged his prone form into what she hoped was a comfortable position and brushed debris from his cheek.

Before closing the trunk, she paused.

She could do it now. While he wasn’t awake, couldn’t look at her accusingly, was unable to beg. It would be so quick; so
humane.
But … no. She wouldn’t take these, his last hours, from him.

She slammed the lid, enclosing him in darkness for a moment. She flipped down the back seat behind the passenger side to open the trunk pass-through, now separated from the car’s interior with hastily welded basement window bars. He’d still be able to breathe freely and see out. Talk to her, if he wanted; if he could.

Linh jammed the car into gear and they were on the move. No music played. She needed to be able to hear.

An hour passed, every second marked by the blinking dash clock.

A groan and then, “Linh? Linh. Linnnnnnh!” An anguished wail.

Any relief at the sound of her friend’s voice was short-lived. A loud thump-thump-thump as he used his unrestrained legs to kick violently against the trunk hood. Linh swerved to throw him off-balance.

“Tau! You have to stop doing that! It’ll … be okay.”

He didn’t answer but complied at least. Linh adjusted her rear-view mirror to see the back seat. Tau’s livid face pressed against the bars, eyes bulging, lips pulled back in a snarl.

Linh stifled a scream.

“Tau, please. I’m just doing what you asked! What we agreed! You don’t want to end up in one of those labs. Or loose, infecting and
… feeding
on people. Or shit-kicked by thugs! Think of your Aunt—”

She risked another glance. He’d retreated.

But it wasn’t long before Linh wished she’d given him more drugs. Or just finished things. He alternated between kicking — forcing her to swerve ever more wildly, tricky on the now-pitch black roads — and wailing, a high-pitched sound straight out of hell. Linh wasn’t sure if he was in pain or just wanted to torture her with the only means available.

Distant headlights — three sets — appeared in her side mirror.

“Oh fuck.”

Tau wailed again.

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

Linh wrenched the wheel back and forth wildly to send Tau tumbling around the trunk compartment.

She waited until they rounded a corner then killed the lights and slowed. After a couple of painfully long minutes her eyes adjusted and she scanned for side roads under the glow of a half moon.

Please God.

On the next straightaway she saw lights again in her mirror, closer, but still a ways off. They wouldn’t be able to see her anymore but that wouldn’t stop them from following. If anything they’d come faster now that their prey had gone dark.

The road continued with no sign of an intersection, gravel offshoot, or even a deer track.

“Dammit!” she whispered.

Then she saw something, veered onto a barely visible ATV path, so narrow that sharp branches screeched against the car as they claimed paint. They flew along the trail for a few minutes before Linh wrenched right into a field, jerking and bumping over heavy ruts. They crested a hill and came to a sucking stop in thick mud. She stomped the gas but the wheels just spun. She turned off the engine.

For a minute they sat, Linh with her forehead on the steering wheel, Tau eerily quiet in the blackness of the trunk.

Then a weird whining. She stilled, listened.

Tau sang. Or hummed. She couldn’t tell. She didn’t recognize the song, if it was even a song.

She breathed but couldn’t pull air deep. It just swirled shallowly at the top of her lungs and seeped back out. She had to do it now.

The axe felt heavier than it did last night, more unwieldy. She hefted it over her shoulder and pushed the trunk button on her remote, prepared for Tau to spring out.

He didn’t.

He remained sprawled in the twisted knot of comforter humming idly to himself, snatches of a tune, like a radio station with poor reception. She couldn’t see him well but dark, wet spots glistened on his forehead and chin; injuries from his wild ride with no hands to brace himself.

Linh tensed, axe ready, but was unable to move. She couldn’t just… A sob escaped her throat and she blinked furiously to clear tears.

“Don’t cry. It’ll be okay,” he said, mimicking her words.

Or, maybe not. Maybe a lucid moment. It was just like him to try to soothe her.

His humming resumed, then, “I know the plan, Linh. It’s okay. But … come here first. Last time.” His voice purred, soft and deep. Just like Tau of old. More.

The axe head thudded to the ground and the handle came to rest against the bumper. Longing flooded her; a needful throbbing. There was something wrong; something alien in her attraction to him, but she ignored it, heard herself moan, but was still aware enough to feel embarrassed. Didn’t care. Climbed onto the bumper, one knee inside the car, one out, hands on Tau’s chest, his hard pectoral muscles straining against the bonds behind his back. She pressed her face to his.

He met her insistent desire with tenderness, seduction; nothing like the intense moment in the pub bathroom. Their lips melted together and the soft motions of his tongue tickled out more tears, this time of bliss. She’d wanted this so for long.

He bit. Pain seared through Linh’s lower lip. She tasted iron, felt him drawing on her, sucking deeply. Numbness. She started to sag.

Tau’s lips had been warm. These were icy cold.
Tau’s gone.

“No!” The word came out half-formed, her bottom lip still his.

She punched his temple and ripped free.

She grabbed the axe. One swing and the blade sunk deep into his collarbone. He screamed. She rocked the blade to loosen it then swung again, a sickening crack as head separated from body. Not stopping, she doused the trunk, the body, and the seats with gas, emptying the cans, then ignited the blowtorch and tossed it in. Wild flames exploded.

“I’m sorry.” Nothing else to say. No one to hear.

The bonfire burned, fuelled by gas, plastic, and her friend. Aunt Lesedi would have no ashes to mourn.

Orange flames reached ever higher into the black sky, a beacon for searching eyes. She swallowed the blood pooling beneath her tongue, knowing she should throw herself on the flames, too. No one would cut off her head. She stepped closer and heat seared her skin. She couldn’t. Only one choice then.

Run like hell.

* * * * *

Erika Holt writes and edits speculative fiction and has stories upcoming in
Shelter of Daylight and Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales.
Recently she co-edited
Rigor Amortis,
a flash fiction anthology of zombie erotica, and her current anthology project,
Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring ‘20s
, is now out. She also interns for award-winning anthologist Jennifer Brozek, reads slush for
Scape,
and contributes to the Inkpunks blog. Born and raised in Calgary, Erika has included a few local landmarks in “The Deal.” This story was inspired by two songs from the quintessentially Canadian band
The Tragically Hip,
namely, “At the Hundredth Meridian” and “Locked in the Trunk of a Car.”

Homo Sanguinus

By Ryan T. McFadden

The walls of the army cargo truck vibrated under the impact of thrown bottles and rocks. The mob hurled insults in a language Remmy didn’t recognize, maybe a Balkan language, and he closed his eyes, wishing that he could just wake up back in the compound. He didn’t like encountering the survivors. These accidents brought out the worst in Homo sapiens — looting, raping, and murder. And yet they feared him and his kind.

It will be dark soon,
his internal voice taunted him.

The human soldiers in the truck fidgeted with their automatic rifles, faces hidden behind gasmasks. Remmy wasn’t sure if their nervousness was from the angry mob or from sitting so close to him — a Homo Sanguinus.

Remmy’s Handler, a man named Okami, checked his timepiece, then startled as a particularly large projectile dented the metal wall near his head.

“It’s going to be dark soon, isn’t it?” Remmy asked.

“I’ll take care of it.” Okami’s voice filtered through his gasmask. He stumbled along the hanging hand straps to the back and glanced out the reinforced tailgate window into the wake of locals, most not wearing environmental suits.

“We’ve run out of time, Corporal,” Okami said, voice muffled from the mask. “Fire a warning shot above their heads.”

“Sir?”

“We’re late. Does that mean anything to you?”

The soldier glanced back at Remmy, then nodded.

Remmy’s stomach coiled painfully but not because he wasn’t wearing a gas mask to filter the heavy concentration of chlorine or phosgenes. His last infusion had been two days ago and already his hands was so tight that his fingers curled into claws.

Okami unlatched the window and the soldier took his position. He fired a quick burst along the horizon. The crowd fell back, momentarily.

“Jesus,” Okami muttered. “I said
over
their heads.”

“Sir—”

As Okami fought to fasten the window, a flaming bottle sailed past him and exploded on the metal floor, spraying liquid flames across the hold.

A soldier yanked one of the fire extinguishers from its bracket but fire roared up his leg and he dropped the cylinder. The truck jolted, gears grated. It slammed to a sudden stop and Remmy pitched forward. Another flaming cocktail burst against the back window. The fire spread, black, oily smoke pouring up the walls. The soldiers would be suffocated within moments.

The truck rocked.
They’re going to tip us,
Remmy realized. He wanted to hide, to curl into a little ball and tuck himself away. Even as the flames burned hotter, he was paralyzed with fear; beyond the flames were the locals and beyond them the deepening night.

Okami threw open the tailgate. The soldiers dove from the truck into a wall of people. The crowd boiled over them with tire irons, two-by-fours, axes. Okami, too close to the edge, was dragged under. Brief machine-gun fire colored the night sky but that only emboldened the crowd.

Remmy huddled at the front of the cargo hold, preferring to face the fire than the mob. The black smoke hid him. And while he didn’t need to breathe, the flames would soon cook him. He tried to peer through the smoke, hoping that Okami had escaped and taken control of the situation, because that had always been Okami’s job.

He’s dead. So are the soldiers. Only we’re left now,
his inner voice said.

Even if he got past the mob, he had nowhere to go. He’d be lost in the dark.
The dark.
He had never been alone and never without his Handlers. He wondered if perhaps burning here was a better alternative.

You’re not going to die here. Run! Run!

Before he could reconsider, he ran and leapt from the tailgate, sailing twenty meters past the front ranks of faces bearing startled looks. Then he was running, fear pushing him faster than he had thought possible. Their surprise was temporary and they gave pursuit.

Remmy ran through petrified trees twisted upon themselves like broken skeletons. Flashlight beams bobbed around him. He didn’t know if the pounding in his ears was from fear or from his hunger. Even when he lost sight of them, he kept running despite wanting to hunker down in a crater and wait for the Handlers to find him. Remmy stumbled onto a roadway that was no more than two hardened ruts. His stomach contracted with such intensity that he collapsed. He beat his hands on the ground and screamed at the sky because he knew he wouldn’t survive the night.