Chapter Five
The flashlights were a gamechanger. Tanner hadn’t realized how much he’d been relying on sound and smell to navigate the woods before. With the flashlights, he and Romy could actually see the ground in front of them, not just guess the best direction based on the faint clues and the fainter sky.
But even though they were way less likely to trip on roots or rocks, they still didn’t have a way out. And that was getting on Tanner’s nerves.
Once again, they heard the sounds of multiple people, high above them, shouting and screaming like people do on roller coasters. But Tanner and Romy couldn’t yell loud enough to get anyone’s attention, and they couldn’t get out of their valley to where the crowds of people were.
“What the hell is with this place?” Romy asked, craning her neck toward the noise. “We’re stuck in this no-man’s-land. I know there are hundreds of people really close by, but why can’t we get to them?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t like it. Romy’s presence had kept his attention in a lot of ways, but even so, he could feel his body reacting to the strange circumstances.
They were trapped, and worse, he felt like it wasn’t an accident.
No business has giant swathes of land that paying customers can just wander into.
And sure, Hellgate Hollow was supposed to be scary.
But not this kind of scary. Unless there was something else going on.
The soldier side of Tanner was tense as hell, just like he used to get before combat conditions. He should not be feeling like this at some backwater haunted house in rural Georgia.
“We have to cross a path or a road or a gate at some point,” he said, trying to keep calm. How soon was sunrise? Why did that feel like it would be way too long to wait?
He glanced toward Romy. If they had to, they could just stop moving. Find some sort of shelter and hole up till it got light. He wouldn’t mind keeping her warm for a few hours… though she might not trust him enough to let him. Hell, he wouldn’t trust a random stranger he met in the woods.
Just when he was thinking of mentioning the possibility of staying put for a while, Romy squinted as she peered ahead of them on the path. “Oh, my god, are those people up there? Halle-fucking-lujah.”
Tanner followed her gaze. There were two figures, making out.
One was a woman. It was easy to tell because she was dressed as a sexy pirate wench.
The other person was dressed in black, though he couldn’t tell much beyond that.
The woman gave a sort of breathy shriek, and the person in black laughed. The making out continued.
Tanner was about to yell out a hello, but something made him choke off the greeting. “Romy,” he said in a low voice. “Hold up.”
“Why?” Even as Romy looked over to Tanner, confusion on her face, he took her by the waist and actually lifted her up against him. She was so startled she didn’t even try to push him away. He moved both of them behind a nearby tree. It wasn’t great cover, but it was better than nothing.
He let her go and crouched down.
Romy looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “What’s wrong with you? We need to talk to some people to get out of here.”
“Keep your voice down. Something’s off about them.” One of them, anyway.
“You don’t know that.”
“Call it instinct.” Instinct that was blaring alarms at him. Tanner watched in silence, holding Romy by the arm, because she seemed ready to bolt toward the couple.
That would be dangerous. He’d just realized what was happening. The man suddenly lifted his head and dropped the girl to the ground. She fell in a heap, with no reaction and no power. She fell like a sack of potatoes. She fell like something dead.
Dread rushed over him, very familiar, very unwelcome. Yeah, this was happening. And he hated it.
Then the figure in black rose to its full height, stretched its arms out wide, and laughed toward the night sky. The sound sent ice through his veins. It wasn’t human.
The figure started moving, away from them, for which Tanner thanked several saints.
Romy inhaled, her breath stuttering and uncertain. “What just happened?” she whispered.
“I’ll tell you in a sec.” Tanner kept his arms around her, sensing how much the chilling laughter had affected her. “Let’s go. Get up and walk in front of me. Don’t look back.”
“But that girl was attacked! She needs help.”
“We can’t help her,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No way.” She pulled out of his grip. “I’m helping her.”
“Romy, wait,” Tanner said. But he let her go. She wouldn’t believe it till she saw it for herself. And if they were going to get out of this place, she had to understand what they were up against.
He gave her a few seconds’ head start, then followed. Romy rushed to the girl’s side and knelt down. She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and rolled her torso so she was facing up. Open, dead eyes stared at the sky, and the skin was eerily pale.
“Oh, my god. I think she’s dead,” Romy whispered.
“Yes.” He reached down and pointed at the girl’s exposed neck without touching the body. “See.”
Romy looked at the two marks from the fangs. “No way.” But this no way wasn’t the defiant one she’d spat out before. This was the no way people said when they very much knew it was the way. “Maybe she’s just… stunned.”
Romy put two fingers to the woman’s throat, and held them there. Moved them once. Twice. “I can’t find a pulse.”
“There isn’t one to find. Romy, stand up. Walk with me.” He kept the orders short, easy to follow. He’d toss Romy over his shoulder and run if he had to, but he’d much prefer it if Romy could walk under her own power. From the stunned look in her eyes, she needed all the grounding she could get.
He managed to steer Romy back down the path, probably forty or so yards, back to a low wall that was left over from some long-gone building. It wasn’t far enough, but it would have to do. He sank down against the wall, and pulled Romy’s hand till she sank down next to him. She turned to face him.
“What the fuck was that back there?” she gasped.
“Vampire.”
“It was some kind of serial killer that bites people? What the—?” Romy started shivering. He knew it was shock, not cold.
“It was a vampire,” he said again. “Not a person with mental issues. A literal vampire.”
Romy blinked several times, then just said, “What?”
He got it. It was hard to accept after a lifetime of being told monsters aren’t real. “A literal vampire. Sorry you had to find out they’re real.” He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. “Fuck, I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“This place. All those news stories about missing people. I brushed it off as viral marketing because the truth was too fucking obvious to believe. Some fucking vampires set up a perfect hunting ground, and their victims actually pay to get in.”
“Victims.” Romy looked nervously back toward where the body had fallen, even though it was out of her sightline now. “Is that girl going to… get up again? Is she going to be a vampire?”
He shook his head. “She was just a meal. They hardly ever create another like them. They’re predators, and they want to keep their numbers low. To help hide them from the world, but also for less competition.”
“Jesus. So it’s just that one? One vampire feeding here?”
Tanner sighed. “I wish I knew. We have to assume there’s more than one, though.
This scream park thing is a big operation.
Fuck. I am not prepared for this.” He didn’t have fire, other than the box of matches.
He didn’t have any tokens of power or blessed items. He didn’t have a wooden stake, which was the really important thing.
Why would he? He thought he was going to a place where the biggest threat was overpriced alcohol.
“We have to get help,” Romy said. “Ambulance. Police. We have to get everyone out of here.”
He nodded. “We have to get back to where the main group is. And get to a phone.”
“I’m freaking out,” she whispered. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m not scared.” Tanner was telling the truth. He was alarmed, but not terrified. “I’m angry.”
Funny thing was, at the moment the thing that pissed him off most was that the vamp scared Romy. He did not approve of girls getting scared.
“What do we do?” she asked, watching him. Her eyes were rounded, her breathing fast. But she was holding together, and he loved that.
And she was trusting him to tell her the next move.
He inhaled. “We’re going to follow the path the vamp took…
but keep our distance. It hunts people, so it will be going for where the people are.
As soon as we find out the route it’s using, we do the same and get to a real person and real access to 911.
Romy, promise me you’ll stay close and do whatever I say, even if it doesn’t make sense. ”
She nodded. “Promise.”
He kissed her once, fast. “Let’s go.”