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

“Francesco?” she whispered.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait.” She heard the caution in his voice as well, and realized that he had no idea what was about to happen. Then: “When I give the word, we rush them.”

“Yes,” Rose said, and she glanced at Patrick to see if he’d heard. He nodded strangely. His left arm was twitching, left leg seemingly hanging limp and taking no weight. She thought perhaps his neck was broken.

“Ready…” Francesco said, and then there was a sound behind them.

Rose spun around and Marty was there, shuffling into the room with an old spearhead clasped in one hand, the other hugged his chest, holding in the pain. Rose was so shocked that for a second she couldn’t move, and that was all her brother needed to pass close to Patrick and start along the aisle beside the tumbled shelves.

Duval sighed. “If a job’s worth doing…” He nodded at Bindy, and she grinned horribly as she advanced on the bloodstained boy.

Marty paused and dropped the spearhead. It clanged off a fallen metal shelf, the sound surprisingly loud. He swayed, looking down at the floor, and Rose knew that he was about to faint.

“Leave him,” she said, pleading. “He’s just a—”

Bindy leapt, hands reaching, jaws stretching, and Marty stepped to one side faster than Rose could follow. He punched the falling woman, using her own momentum to drive his clawed hand into her stomach, and as she doubled over his forearm Marty growled, new teeth bared in pink, split gums.

“What—” Francesco said.

Marty chewed away the back of Bindy’s neck with one massive bite, exposing her spine and the base of her skull. Then he drove his other hand up through the wound and pulled, dragging out a handful of brain.

“Oh, Marty,” Rose said, but he was not looking at her. As he shoved the dead vampire aside, flicking the mess of her brains from his hand, he turned to face Duval.

“You killed my parents,” he said. “So come on, then, fucker.”

Duval grinned, lifted the Bane, and did as he was invited.

Maybe it was the rage that made him unbeatable.

Upon waking back in that deserted ransacked room, and realizing what had happened, Marty’s first instinct had been to exult. The grief of his parents’ deaths, which he had somehow been keeping at bay, was lessened now, a remote thing that seemed as if it had happened years ago, not days. The pain from Duval’s tortures, both physical and mental, had similarly faded. He had slid from the shelf and stood tall, taking in his surroundings even though the lights were now off. And he had felt more in control than he ever had before.

And then the rage had started to build as he thought of that vampire biting into him. He’d thought he wanted it, but the vampire had given him no choice. He had asked Rose to turn him, and that would have been his long-lost sister—his guardian angel—not that monster. Choice had been taken from him, along with whatever was left of his life. Undeath stretched before him. And, knowing that, he wasn’t at all sure he had ever wanted it at all.

It was only a short walk to room seventy-two, but in that time his rage built and his old, human self remained, an angry force that he was not sure he could ever shed. Humain? he thought, and he wondered at Rose’s turning. Had she felt like this? Perhaps he would get to ask her.

But first, the monster needed to pay.

On the way, he slipped through a door into a darkened room, all pains and injuries vanished, now that he was something else. He’d never felt such power. It took seconds to find what he was looking for, an unremarkable old weapon wrapped in oilcloth. He would not need it… it was just a part of the play.

Then room seventy-two, and his easy killing of the vampire bitch, and Rose’s gasped Oh, Marty as he stood facing the monster Duval. Those two words cast one sliver of doubt, but he flicked the mess of brain and shattered bone from his hand and said, “Come on, then, fucker.”

Duval lifted the thing in his hands and came at him.

Marty stepped quickly to the side, kicking out at Duval’s legs and hearing bones snap. The vampire screeched and swung the Bane again, and Marty held up his right arm to deflect it, feeling flesh part and bone rupture as it passed through with ease. His forearm and hand flopped down useless, but he did not back away. With the Bane still swinging away from him, Marty leapt for it, closing his good hand around Duval’s on the handle and letting his weight do the work.

“No!” Duval screamed, and as they toppled the Bane fell away from both of them.

Marty sprawled on his stomach. The ancient artifact rolled away from them, coming to rest against the tilted shelf tier, and as he got to his knees to go after it Duval fell on him. Pressed against the floor, the vampire’s weight forcing him down, he was powerless to protect himself against the assault.

Duval was a ravening animal, claws slashing, teeth piercing, legs coming up to kick and pummel. Marty felt the impacts but the pain was remote, a vague niggle in his vampiric brain. The damage being wrought on his body registered more, but even that was something distant and obscure, as if he were watching someone else being attacked. He gathered his strength, pulling his senses inward until they concentrated on one point. Even being torn to shreds, Marty could not help but wonder at what he had become.

“Marty, gimme ten!” Rose shouted, and as distant memories of hide-and-seek sang in, Marty squeezed his eyes closed.

Straddling his back, Duval screamed as UV light filled the demolished room.

“Found you!” Rose said, her own voice pained, and Marty opened his eyes again and bucked the vampire from his back. Duval was holding the burnt remnants of his eyes within their sockets with the splayed fingers of one hand while the other thrashed at the air, searching for Marty and ready to deliver the killing blow. And Marty could have taken one step closer and killed him then. He felt the power in his good hand, the astounding strength that would enable him to punch through the older vampire’s head and scatter his brains across the floor. But instead of one step, he took three.

One, to pick up the Bane.

A second to turn and hold the object to one side, hand curled around the handle, and the sudden impact of what he was holding—the object of these last few days’ trials and deaths, including the brutal murders of his parents—struck him hard, adding to the strength gathered at his core.

And the final step back toward Duval, swinging the Bane and meeting the vampire’s neck even as he launched himself at Marty. The dull, blood-smeared edge of the old weapon passed through Duval’s throat and shattered his spine, and as he completed his leap his head tilted back and rested between his shoulder blades, and he fell and writhed on the floor at Marty’s feet.

Marty looked at the others, the three of them watching him with some measure of amazement and, from Rose, both pride and sadness. With one kick, he parted the remaining scraps of flesh and skin and the tied Mohawk, and Duval’s head bounced away beneath the fallen shelving. His body slumped down into a sitting position, seeming to shrink from the darkness.

The Bane was heavy in Marty’s hand. The weight of Duval’s smeared blood made it heavier.

“Rose,” Marty said, and his voice was deeper than ever before.

“Oh, Marty,” she said again. And for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why she was so sad.

ROSE WATCHED THE HEAD roll away, its thin rope of tied hair flapping at the floor. Then she looked back at Marty. His right arm hung limp and useless by his side, but she knew the healing would already be starting. His clothing was shredded by Duval’s brief, vicious attack. His throat was raw and torn. The Bane swung from his left hand, heavy and bright in the poorly lit room. Every particle of light in there seemed to be reflecting from the wet blood around the object’s edge.