Tim Lebbon - 30 Days of Night - Fear of the Dark

The two Humains, torn and in pain, ran as fast as they could after the vampires.

With the room a mess of upturned boxes, spilled contents, and tumbled shelving, Duval came at Marty and snatched him from where he knelt. Marty would have gasped if the hold around his throat was not so tight. The vampire’s face was inches from his own, terrifying, a nightmare given life in these deathly shadows. He lifted the boy, stretching, and pressed Marty into the suspended ceiling.

Tiles fell around him as Marty was pushed higher. He kicked his legs, waved his arms, feet and fists connecting with the vampire but having no effect. He struggled to draw breath, but none would come. Metal struts dug into his back and thighs, and he felt blood flow as his skin was pierced in several places.

He’ll smell that, he thought, and then in the pale light he saw rosettes of his own blood splashing on the vampire’s face.

Duval’s tongue snaked out and licked each splash away with a delicate dexterity. And then he growled, “Where is it?”

Marty shook his head because he could not speak. His vision was blurring, and he thought he might die up here in this dusty, spider-infested crawl space. Then the vampire let go and stepped back, and Marty fell into a pile of smashed porcelain jugs and torn cardboard. He just managed to bring his arms up before his face, slashing his hands and forearms. More pain bit in. His body was a map of pain.

“I… I don’t know…” he managed before the vampire grabbed him again. He was thrown across the room, flung with the ease of a grown man heaving a puppy. He crashed into shelving, smashing his lips against his teeth. He tasted blood. It was sickly, and he spat it out, thinking as he did so that he should have swallowed.

As he sat upright, he saw Bindy watching with wide eyes, coiled like a snake about to strike. She wants to feed from me, he thought, and the idea disgusted him more than anything else. This was what he had to endure. This was giving the others time, and with every new pain inflicted upon him by the bastard vampire, he felt that much braver.

Duval glanced at Bindy, who moved quickly to the door and exited the room. A moment later she came back in, nodding.

Duval then walked to Marty, grinning. “We have your bitch sister,” he said.

Rose! Marty blinked, sweat and blood dribbling into his right eye. He wiped at it, only smearing in more blood from his slashed hand. Duval squatted and stared hard at him.

“I’ll tear her limb from limb myself,” he whispered.

“No.”

“Yes. I’ll let you watch.”

“She’ll fight you. She’ll die before you can—”

Duval leaned in closer. “You have no idea who I am, have you? And neither does your sister, nor her weakling friends. I’ll make you drink her blood.” He snatched up a chunk of ancient pottery. “But first, I’ll fuck her with this. Bring her in!” Bindy left the room again, and Marty closed his eyes in desperation, knowing what he should do but knowing also what he must .

“Room seventy-two,” he said. “It’s in room seventy-two.”

Duval grinned and tipped his head back, letting out a horrific howl that rattled shelves, brought dust from the ceiling, and seemed to seat itself in Marty’s deepest parts. It went on and on, and after he stopped he looked down at Marty one more time.

He stared, as if examining the boy, turning his head this way and that, watching the blood seep from Marty’s wounds. What is he thinking? Marty wondered. Does he think I’m brave? But no, there was nothing of that in the monster’s eyes. There was little there at all. He was a hawk playing with a mouse. When the door opened and the other two vampires entered, Duval stood and turned his back on Marty for the last time.

“Kill him slowly,” he said to one of the new arrivals. “Make it hurt. And when you’ve finished, make sure you take off his head. Meet us in room seventy-two.” He moved quickly to the door, and the other male vampire followed. Bindy glanced back once, and Marty read her expression: she wished it could have been her.

“Wait,” Marty said, but he bit back anything else. They’d fooled him about Rose: they didn’t have her at all. A stupid trick that he’d fallen for. He was fucked, well and truly, and there was nothing he could do about it. The last thing he’d give these bastards was the satisfaction of watching him beg.

Duval and the others left the room, and the vampire knelt before Marty and eyed his various wounds. His tongue slipped from his mouth like a giant slug, wet and heavy, tasting blood on the air. His teeth were many.

“Where to begin… ?” he said.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS that ?”

Lee was dragging a box from the back of the third tier of shelving when the howl filled the room. He felt it deep inside, caressing his spine and ribs, setting his hair on end and chilling his balls.

Connie and Patrick shared a glance. “We don’t have long,” Connie said.

Lee let go of the box and pulled his guns. They felt good and heavy, grips backed with rubber to cushion against their heavy recoil. He’d read about these .454 rounds stopping a buffalo, and he couldn’t wait to see what they did to a bloodsucker’s face.

Patrick stared at him from across the room, where he was still standing by the door and listening for danger. “Put them away,” he said. “Keep looking. Something happens, I’ll give you time to draw your toys.”

“This toy could take your skull apart.”

“How good’s yer aim, human? How steady’s yer hand.”

Lee laughed, holstered his guns and started searching again. He trusted Patrick that much, at least. If and when the vampires hit this room, he’d have prior warning while the Irish Humain took them on, time at least to draw his guns and get off a few good shots. Body shots first, hopefully, to blast out their spines so that they couldn’t move anymore. Then the head shot.

He dragged a box out and emptied its contents across the floor. They’d stopped trying to search quietly, ceased the orderly hunt, because with the noise going on elsewhere in the building it was only a matter of time before they were found. Lee had thought about why the vampires hadn’t reached this room already, and there was only one explanation: Marty had lied to them about where the Bane was. If Richards had told him the right room number, he’d managed to keep it from the vampires, the consequences of which would be dire for him. He admired the kid’s guts. He felt close to the kid. They were the only humans involved in all this, apart from those scumbag servants the vampires had taken to themselves. And “human” wasn’t a name he’d honor them with.

Even Stella Olemaun.

“Fuck it,” he said again. It was becoming a refrain, and for some foolish reason it brought a trace of comfort. Fuck it. Fuck everything. He couldn’t let what had happened affect what would happen, however much he’d been deceived, lied to, and manipulated. And really, the Humains had only used him for purposes he’d support, hadn’t they?

Kicking through the box’s contents, he saw nothing that might be the Bane, or contain it. He moved on to the next shelf. Connie was drawing closer, and soon they’d meet in the middle of the room, searching the last shelving stack together, reaching the final box, and if nothing came to light, then they’d have to assume the Bane wasn’t here at all… or they’d missed it.

From Ashleigh Richards’s archived blog, he’d gleaned only the vaguest of descriptions: damned round thing .

Next box.

Through Assyria, into Greek and Roman sculpture, and Rose saw a fleeting shadow disappearing into a stair area. She followed, the smell of blood bringing her up short. A guard lay dead at the feet of a Greek god, taken apart like a lion’s kill.