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

“Rose,” Francesco said. He grabbed her arm and ran on, but she’d seen the way he looked at her. He knows. He can sense the blood on my breath . But that didn’t matter right then.

They descended two flights of stairs, Francesco swinging around the junction without pause. It was too late for care or caution. This was a running fight now, with the Bane as prize for whoever reached the end first. Rose hoped that Marty had not got in the way already, but she knew it was a vain hope. Even if they had kept him alive upon arrival, once they had the Bane they’d have no purpose for him anymore. He’d die. Or maybe they’d turn him, to replace one of those she and the Humains had killed.

She would do whatever she could to stop either possibility, but if it was a choice of two, she would give him death.

At the bottom of the stairs they emerged into a junction of three corridors. Francesco faced one corridor, turned, took a few steps along another. Rose scanned the floor for any trace of the vampires’ presence, trying to sense which way they had gone, where they had disturbed air in their passing. She wanted to run and fight, but she knew these few seconds were vital. If they chose the wrong direction, that might lose them the prize.

Francesco paused and tilted his head to one side. Then he nodded to Rose and rushed off along one of the corridors. She followed, and after turning one corner Francesco stopped outside a room, pointing at the ruptured lock.

“Hope you choke,” she heard from within, and it was Marty, and she burst through the door and located him instantly, hunkered down in a corner with one of the male vampires crouched over him, his arm raised and fingers clawed ready to deliver a hacking swipe.

“Eyes!” Francesco said softly. She closed her eyes and clapped her hands over them, heard Click click, and then the vampire’s screams.

Her own exposed skin burning, Rose ran, opening her eyes to the vaguely lit room and smelling the stench of the vampire’s scorched eye sockets. Marty was a shadow in the corner—she could smell his blood, feel his pain—but she could not let that distract her. Not yet.

She struck the vampire hard and shoved him across the room, heels plowing furrows through piles of ransacked boxes and their shattered contents, her fingers curling into his throat and closing, fingertips touching in cool wetness.

He hit a tier of shelving and grunted, and Rose punched him hard in the face. She felt her fingers and hand shredded by his teeth, but she grasped his jaw and pulled down on it with all her weight. He thrashed, hands battering her back and shoulders, and then her head. But by then she’d unhinged his jaw and all but torn it off. She let him fall and kicked him over onto his side.

“Head,” Francesco said, but he didn’t have to tell her. Rose knew very well how to finish him off.

Afterward, she went to Marty and knelt before him. He was bleeding from a dozen places, and his eyes were only open a crack.

“Marty?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Dandy.”

“What room, Marty?” Francesco was beside them now, and for an instant Rose resented the fact that he wasn’t at all interested in her brother’s well-being. But there was so much more going on here.

“Seventy-two.” His voice was fading, and his eyelids fluttered as they closed.

“Marty, did he bite you?” Her brother didn’t answer, so Rose grabbed him by the shoulders and shook, ignoring the warmth of his blood on her right hand. “Marty!”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head and wincing at the pain it caused him.

“Rose,” Francesco said, stern. “You have to leave him for now.”

Marty had slipped into unconsciousness. Blood loss, pain, shock, fear—they’d all combined to usher him into the dark, and even if awake there was little he could do to help them anymore.

“I’ll come back for you, Marty,” she said. She picked him up and slid him onto an empty shelf at eye level, shoving some torn boxes in after him. It was poor camouflage, but it would have to do for now.

As she turned, she caught Francesco looking at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Come on.”

They left to find room seventy-two.

He’d thought that he would have time. But he almost didn’t.

The door smashed open and Lee spun around, glimpsing Patrick falling beneath a shadowy shape and two more vampires entering behind him. One of them was tall and bald but for a tied-back Mohawk, and he was the least-human vampire Lee had ever seen. His eyes were black pits in his pale face, like coals pressed into the face of the most grotesque snowman ever built, and his long arms tore the air before him as he went for Connie. It was her size that prevented her from having her throat torn out immediately; she fell between the shelving tiers she was working and scampered away out of sight.

The third vampire scanned the room quickly, growled, and came for Lee.

He dropped the box he’d been holding. Something inside shattered as it hit the floor, and he held his breath, knowing that the next two seconds would decide his fate. Quickly but calmly, he drew the pistol from the holster beneath his left arm, dropping into a shooting stance as he brought it up and out, cupping his right hand with his left, and firing before consciously taking aim. He’d been a crack shot ten years before when he’d left the SIS, and he’d kept up the practice in his soundproofed basement, working so hard that gunplay eventually became natural for him. The gun was an extension of his hand and he punched with it, once, twice, tracking the shadow as it thrashed in midair and fell amongst a mess of torn boxes and spilled contents.

The gunshots were explosive, the recoil punching back into his shoulder and chest, and his hearing only faded back in slowly, whistling and humming as sound returned from a distance.

Lee gasped and sucked in another breath, then took two steps forward. The vampire was writhing on the floor, arms thrashing through the detritus as it tried to drag itself away. One bullet had blasted away most of its left hip, taking out a chunk of meat and bone that spattered somewhere across the room. The other had struck its stomach; judging from the exit wound on its back, Lee guessed it had shattered the base of the creature’s spine.

Good. Fucker. One more shot and—

A whole tier of shelving to his left started to tumble, frame tilting, shelves falling like scattered playing cards. Lee retreated a little, left arm held up to ward off the metal falling toward him. He let off a wild shot at the crippled vampire, but his line of sight was already blocked by the fallen shelving, its base now lifted from the floor and propped against the next tier.

Lee ducked down as the tier jarred to a halt at an angle just above his head. Then he went on his hands and knees and followed the vampire. He could hear the noise of fighting from elsewhere through the hum of his damaged hearing, but he could do little to help Patrick and Connie. His only hope was that they were stronger than the vampires… but surely that was a vain hope? Humains denied much of their nature, and that could not help but make them weak.

He squeezed beneath the tilted tier, gun hand held before him, and when he saw a shadow shifting to his right, he fired twice. There was no sign that he’d hit anything. On the other side, he felt around on the floor to heave himself upright. He felt the edge of a broken metal container and his hand slipped inside, touching something wet and thick.

Blood. But warm?

In the poor light it was difficult to see, but he thought the box had likely fallen from the very top of the shelving tier as it had been knocked aside. Right then, many things should have crossed Lee’s mind: What pushed the tier over? Where did Connie and that vampire go? I should take it and run, hide, because I know what this is really, don’t I? I know what this is . But instead he tipped the box and spilled its contents, then tugged at the thick wet cloth that wrapped a heavy, circular object. The cloth fell apart in his hand. Wet, rotten, it crumbled in shreds to the floor, exposing a glimmering arc of metal underneath.