Vampire Dancing (23 page)

“Fuck you.”

“You already did,” Laura replies. “And so did your father. I guess fucking people over runs in your family.”

Amber slaps Laura.

Laura touches her stinging face. “Tell me, how did it happen? You barely had a scratch on you from what I recall.”

“Your blood got in my eye. Satisfied?”

Laura can't help but laugh. “I love the irony. Poetic justice and all that. And you never once thought to
save the innocents
from what you had become?”

“You don't know what I did or didn't do,” Amber retorts.

“And yet there you stand,” Laura replies. “You know, I wish you could live long enough to see what's going to happen to Michael.”

“What're you talking about now?” Amber says.

“This train wasn't part of the plot,” Laura continues. “
You
weren't part of the plot, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Anyway, they're on their way for him now.”

“Who is?”

“It's already too late.”

Amber turns to leave. “We'll see about that.”

“No you don't.” Laura grabs Amber by the hair and swings her against the nearest window with so much force it cracks.

Amber flops onto the seat below the window, dazed, and with a bleeding forehead.

“Leave her alone!” Wendy cries.

Ignoring Wendy, Laura takes a fistful of Amber's hair and drags her to her feet. “What do you care about Michael anyway? You only just met him.” She forces Amber's head through the weakened window.

Broken glass showers the floor of the car.

Wendy steps forward. “Stop it!”

Laura turns to the distressed girl. “You should seriously consider shutting up, unless you want me to choke you with those beads you're wearing around your neck.” She throws Amber to the floor.

“Stop hurting her,” Wendy pleads. “She hasn't done anything wrong.”

Laura approaches Wendy. “Oh really? And you've known her all of, what ... five minutes?”

Screwball raises his hands and steps between the women. “Okay, ladies, I don't usually like to get in the middle of a cat fight, but this is way past weird.”

“Oh, you think?” Laura says.

“Well, yeah,” Screwball replies. “Ain't used to seeing women fuck each other over like that.”

“Would it sit better with you if it was men fucking us over?” Laura asks.

Screwball's body language turns awkward. “Not exactly.”

Laura steps into Screwball's personal space. “Not exactly?”

“I mean not at all.”

Laura slides a hand around the back of Screwball's head. “Of course you do.”

Screwball looks into Laura's pale, soulless eyes. “I gotta say, lady, you freak me the hell out.”

“I know,” Laura says.

Without warning, she grabs hold of Screwball's hair, pulls back his head and slashes his throat with the thumbnail of her other hand.

Wendy starts to scream.

Screwball, understandably, looks shocked and horrified. He tries to say something, but the only thing passing his lips is blood. He holds his hands over the gaping wound on his neck. Blood escapes through the gaps between his trembling fingers and covers his Yankees jersey.

Laura pushes Screwball over and approaches Wendy. “Oh, do shut up. You're giving me a headache.”

“Please!” Wendy cries, “I haven't done anything to you!”

“I find life isn't always balanced in that respect,” Laura responds.

Suddenly, Amber appears behind Laura and stabs her in the back with a large piece of broken glass. Laura cries out and collapses to the floor with the glass still embedded in her flesh.

“Quickly,” Amber says, “warn Michael someone's coming for him.”

Wendy looks like a rabbit caught in the headlamps of an oncoming vehicle.

"Wendy!" Amber shouts.

The girl snaps out of her paralysis and flees the car.

Laura reaches round and pulls the shard of glass from her back. She rises to her feet. Hair is covering half of her face. Her visible eye is blazing red. “You know what it felt like? Pinned under that burning roof with an ax stuck in my chest? Knowing the child growing in my belly would never be born, and that I would never see Pavaine again? Praying for death but it never coming?”

“Launa, don't do this,” Amber says.

“I was under there for almost two days before I finally had the strength to get free. That's how long it took the infection to repair my body.”

“Please, Launa.”

“Don't ‘
please Launa
’ me.” Laura throws the shard of glass to one side. It breaks into several pieces. “You've no right to anything you took from me.”

“I don't
have
anything,” Amber retorts. “My life is a fucking mess.”

“I'm sure it's been tough for you,” Laura says. “Now, allow me to put you out of your misery.”

*

The last glimmer of life fades from the Wiley-Thing's eyes. Part of the handrail Amber had broken in two is protruding from its chest. More specifically, its heart.

Michael hears someone call his name and turns from the body.

Wendy runs into the car.

Hurrying to meet Wendy, the first thing to grab Michael's attention is the mild blood spatter on the girl's face and hair. “Wendy, what happened? What's wrong?”

Wendy notices she has some blood clinging to the end of a blonde bang. “It's not my blood.” She tucks the hair behind her ear, not expecting it to remain there for long. “It's Stan's.”

Michael can see Wendy is trembling. “Did Amber do this?”

“Amber? No. She met her sister - only, it's not her sister. Its some crazy person, and she says there's people coming for you.”

Everything Wendy has just said sounds like a jumble to Michael. Except the last part.

“She told Amber she pretended to be a client,” Wendy continues, “and that you followed her into a club. She said it was all about you, but seemed to already know Amber, and really hates her.”

The lights in the car flicker briefly, causing the reflection of the car's interior to momentarily disappear from the windows.

Michael sees movement outside the train from the corner of his eye.

“Get down!” he shouts, and pulls Wendy to the floor.

A spray of bullets pepper the car. Windows explode and the Jeff-Thing's lifeless upright body jerks and spasms like an impaled rag doll.

Wendy screams.

“Stay on the floor and don't move,” Michael says. “Understand?”

Wendy continues to scream over the tearing sound of gunfire.

“Wendy, do you understand!”

“Yes!”

The gunfire stops.

Keeping low, Michael reaches for the other half of the broken handrail. He knows exactly who is after him. The woman Wendy spoke of – whoever she is - will have allowed them to track the GPS on her phone. With his head down, he moves swiftly to the end door. He passes the Wiley-Thing's corpse on the way. Once he's at the door, he peeks through a window and spots the shapes of two men moving through the adjacent car. They're holding assault weapons and dressed in full tactical gear. He looks back at Wendy and places a finger to his lips.

Michael springs to his feet and shoves the metal bar straight through one of the door's windows. Glass shatters and the bar finds the face of a man in the process of moving between cars. The man releases a cry and collapses with the bar still embedded in his face. The semi-automatic in his hand goes off.

Michael drops back to a crouch. He's taken a bullet in the upper left arm.

Just a flesh wound. No big deal
.

The second man sprays the contents of his clip all over the place, punching holes in the door and shattering the glass panels on either side.

The clatter of the weapon expending its clip fills Michael's ears.

Wendy curls herself into a ball.

Michael reaches for the bar embedded in the Wiley-Thing's chest and pulls it free. The moment the bullets stop flying, he stands up and throws it, as if it were a javelin. It sails cleanly through the broken panel on the adjacent car's end door and catches the man standing behind it in the throat. He goes down quickly and without fuss.

The lights in the adjacent car flicker and then go out. The door at the far end of the aisle opens and a standard laser sight sweeps the area.

Michael joins Wendy. “You okay?”

“I'm scared,” she whimpers.

“Me too.”

But what Michael doesn't tell Wendy is that he's more afraid for her than for himself. “You need to get out of here. Back the way you came. They're coming from the front of the train – for now, at least.”

“But what if I get shot?”

Michael wants to tell Wendy she's absolutely going to get shot if she remains where she is, but decides she's scared enough. “You'll be okay if you keep low, but you have to go.”

The lights in the car suddenly go out.

Wendy gasps.

“Wendy,
you have to go
.”

Wendy doesn't need any more convincing. She dashes to the end of the aisle and exits the car.

Michael hears the intruders drawing near. If he keeps low near the middle exterior door he'll be in a temporary blind spot thanks to the Jeff-Thing's hanging body.

The first man to enter the car has the laser sight on his M4 Carbine turned off in favor of an aiming light which can only be seen through his night vision goggles. He stops at the body of the Wiley-Thing and looks at it through his high-tech eye wear. Another man steps out from behind him. He, too, is wearing goggles. He targets his sight on the upright figure of the Jeff-thing and approaches it with caution. Standing before the strange, impaled corpse, he looks back at the other man, his body language questioning. The man opposite cries with alarm and raises his rifle. Before either man can further react, the one standing closest to the Jeff-Thing has had his neck twisted and broken.

The remaining man starts firing.

Michael uses the dead man as a human shield, but feels at least one bullet sink into his right side. Wincing, he squeezes the dead man's trigger finger and sprays bullets into the other man's face.

Moments later, both men are lying dead on the floor.

Michael checks the bodies for signs of verification. There's a badge displaying the head of a unicorn sewn onto the left arm of their black uniform.

Unicorn. It's been a while
.

He grabs one of the rifles and makes his retreat.

*

02:15 am
...

Wendy is trying to appeal to Barbara. “You're going to die if you don't move.”

Barbara looks at Wendy with a vacant gaze. Her liver spot covered hands are still clutching the small white vase.

Just then, there's a sound to their right. A set of exterior doors are forced open and a man wearing a helmet and clad in body armor steps into the car. Barbara doesn't seem in the slightest bit perturbed. Which is more than can be said for Wendy.

“Don't shoot!” Wendy cries, and throws her arms into the air.

The man approaches Wendy. His weapon is pointed straight at her. “Where is he?”

Wendy shakes her head. “I-”

“Right behind you,” Michael says, and snaps the man's neck with a quick twist.

Wendy gasps.

Barbara watches the man fall to the floor. “My Harold loved this shift.”

Wendy shakes her head. “She's completely lost it.” Then she notices Michael's wounds. “Oh my God, you've been shot.”

Michael touches his side. “I'll heal.”

Wendy is perplexed by Michael's nonchalant attitude towards his wounds. “I don't suppose the one on your arm is bothering you either?”

Confirming Wendy's query - in a round about way - Michael asks: “Is Amber in the next car?”

“The one after,” she replies.

“You need to take Barbara out of here.”

“Huh uh. There's men with guns out there.”

“If there was more of them out there, we'd already know. For now, it's safe. But you have to get moving.”

Michael squats in front of Barbara, making sure not to step in the ashes around her feet. “Harold was your husband?”

Barbara nods.

“He wouldn't have wanted this, Barbara. He would want you safe, back at home.”

“But I can't leave him,” Barbara says, looking at her feet.

Michael thinks Barbara should have thought about that before emptying what was left of her husband all over the floor. “Barbara ... do you believe in an afterlife – life after death?”

“You mean Heaven?”

“Yes. Heaven.”

“Oh yes, we never missed Church on a Sunday. But Harold isn't in Heaven.”