19. Christopher
Chapter nineteen
Christopher
Itwist the throttle, and we roll forward, gaining speed. I can’t do anything to mask the whining noise created by the cycle’s motor. Glancing in the cracked rearview mirror, I spot two renegades following us.
Dammit. I hoped sacrificing the truck would wipe out the whole nest.
The decision to destroy the truck wasn’t made lightly. I planned on trading half the stuff we scavenged to keep Maria fed, so that compounds the sacrifice. I’ll have to figure out what to do if we survive this.
Maria is pressed tightly against my back, her thighs squeezing my ass and her fingers dug into my abs, hanging on with all her might. Through my t-shirt I can feel the fastest vampire pulse I’ve ever counted.
“It’s okay, baby. I have this.” I slow and swing the bike around to face the renegades coming our way, hoping beyond hope our combined bracelets shield both us and the motorcycle.
Rolling to a stop, I raise the rifle to my shoulder.
Silver bullets fill the magazine because renegades are the only threat out here.
The two motorcyclists pass by like they have no clue, so our invisibility bubbles must be working to hide the bike.
Tracking them through the rifle’s sights, I fire twice.
The first silver bullet slices through a rider’s chest, and the second through his skull.
He loses control of the bike, sliding across the freeway lanes to smash into the concrete barrier.
One down.
The other rider—I think it’s a guy, not sure—guns the motor and shrinks into the distance.
If I had more time, I’d make sure the guy on the ground was well and truly dead.
But I don’t have a choice. I can’t take the risk that the distant rider finds a place to hide and follows us when we zoom past. Even if he didn’t follow us, he knows the direction we’re headed, allowing him and his buddies to set up roadblocks closer to the ark.
I turn the throttle on full and skid, the back wheel almost sliding out from under us on the sand-covered asphalt.
Maria hangs on to my waist, and I’m grateful she doesn’t have long fingernails. Wrestling the bike into submission, I follow the single, fat track in the sand and we soon pass the—hopefully—dead biker.
When we come to the off-ramp, the one I’d normally take to the ark, I keep driving. I can see the loner off in the distance ahead of us. We’re gaining on him, and I pray there’s enough juice in the bike’s battery to keep us going at this speed.
The road rises in front of us, and he disappears from view. When we reach the top of the rise, he’s gone. But his tire tracks swerve down the next off-ramp. I can’t follow on the bike—he’ll hear my motor’s whir.
Besides, I’m sure it’s an ambush and I can’t take Maria into that. He’s turned off his bike, as I can no longer hear his motor. I’d bet everything in the ark that he’s waiting at the bottom of the off-ramp to trap me. I bring the bike to a stop a safe distance away and let it rest on its kickstand.
“Stay here.”
“Where are you—”
“I’ve got this. Trust me.”
“Just tell—”
“Trust me.”
Maria huffs, but goes silent as I slip off the bike, sliding the rifle’s strap off my shoulder, and whoosh to the off-ramp.
The fat line in the sand runs straight down and turns right.
I inch down the steep ramp’s sidewalk. The sand shifting under my boots creates an unsteady descent and a light scraping sound.
The key to invisibility is silence, so this isn’t ideal.
But with any luck, my quarry will get impatient and come looking for me before he hears me struggling to stay upright.
When I reach the bottom of the ramp, I ease ahead to see around the brick wall. The toe of my boot catches on something, and my weight shifts, pitching me forward. I reflexively curl my fingers around the trigger, firing the rifle, as I scrabble for purchase on the sand-covered asphalt.
Screw me. Monofilament fishing line. The asshole strung it low, from one light pole to the other. I guess he had a few more brain cells than I imagined a starved vampire would.
Grit fills my mouth. I spit it out and bring one foot forward to rise, struggling to speed away from the spot where the gun fired. The biker can’t see me sprawled out, but the loud blast gives him an approximate target to aim for.
And that’s exactly what he does. Before I can move, he appears from the other side, takes a running jump, and tackles me like a football lineman. I’m knocked onto my back, my skull thumping against the broken asphalt.
With him inside my invisibility bubble, we can see each other.
He’s emaciated, and I’m well fed, so I guess I’m stronger, but he points an eight-inch knife blade at the base of my ribcage, ready to shove in the tip and angle it up to pierce my heart.
What’s worse, I can feel the telltale buzz on my skin.
Silver.
Fuck. If I die, Maria will never make it back to the ark alive. Knives are one of the hardest weapons to defend against. I’ve got to get him outside of my invisibility bubble now.
He’s fast, but I’m faster. I block his knife hand, sliding my arm to grip the inside of his wrist, pushing it away, while triple-punching his jaw with my other fist. In a move Tig taught me, I reach over his arm to grasp my wrist, trapping his knife hand in a triangle formed by my limbs, pushing the knife away from my chest. With my legs wrapped around his hips to give me leverage, I roll him over and use the triangle lock I’ve created to crank the knife arm behind his back to his shoulder until I hear the joint pop, and the knife clatters on the ground.
Releasing his hips, I spin in the opposite direction, grabbing the rifle and the knife and taking them with me.
He jumps to his feet and runs away, but I can’t let him flee. I raise the rifle, aim, and shoot him dead center in his back. The propulsion arches his spine, his arms fly into the air, and he falls face forward. His skin begins to mummify. No second shot is required.
Only then do I realize blood is running down my arm and reddening the t-shirt. Fuck. One of my favorite band shirts is toast. Then the pain hits. The silver knife sliced my chest as we grappled, but I was too focused on surviving the fight to feel it. I bite my lips together to keep from screaming.
“Chris, are you okay?”
“Ack!” I jump and pivot. The slight shimmer on the edge of the invisibility bubble reveals Maria’s still on the off-ramp. “Don’t take another step. I told you to stay on the bike.”
“I heard the gunshot and couldn’t let that guy kill you.”
“Just what do you think you could do about it?”
“Uh, I snatched your handgun from the backpack.”
I stomp over to where she is, carefully stepping over the fishing line that tripped me. “Do you even know how to fire a gun?”
“Sort of. Enough to scare off a single guy.”
I transfer the knife and rifle to one hand and step into her bubble. She gasps. I must look a mess.
“You’re hurt.”
“The wound isn’t that bad. Your arrow did worse, and I healed fine.
My t-shirt is a total loss, though,” I say with some sadness, then kiss her, because although I’m pissed she disobeyed my directions, something warms in my chest. She risked herself to come to my defense.
And the look of concern she’s wearing makes her even more adorable.
Then I grab her wrist and haul her up the off-ramp.
“We need to get out of here before the rest of the gang finds us.”
We ride past the first biker I shot, and he’s mummified. I don’t know how Maria would feel about killing a wounded enemy who’s not a present threat, and I’m glad I don’t have to find out. She had no qualms over killing me when I was wounded, but at that point she was protecting her daughter.
I take the off-ramp to the ark. The dome’s skin looks like a desert landscape with a night sky above it. At least, that’s what vampires would see at night. They’d have to walk right into it to know something wasn’t right.
During the day, the dome turns bright white to reflect sunlight and heat, reducing the need for air conditioning. The attached solar panels create the electricity that powers the dome. At night, the surface transforms to mimic the surrounding landscape.
I lean into the turn, tearing right beneath the freeway overpass.
Behind us, hidden blowers erase our tire tracks from the sand, and we arrive at the tunnel’s door, which looks like a ground-level three-dimensional pile of desert boulders.
I show Maria where to enter the code that slides the rock illusion away to give us access to the tunnel.
She needs a way in even if I’m not with her.
The driveway gently slopes for two hundred yards, and we reach the underground garage.
Once the metal roller doors are lowered behind us, we dismount, and I check what I have in the garage refrigerator. A few bags. I hand her two, and keep the third for myself. “They’re better heated, but we don’t have time. I have to contact Tig, and this is the longest you’ve gone without feeding.”
She nods and collapses onto an old stuffed chair I keep there in case I’m doing repairs and have to wait for something to dry. I limp over to the workbench. I want Maria to easily hear and watch the conversation, so I activate a large virtual screen to vidcon.
“You look like shit.”
Tig was never one to mince words.
I look down at my bloodstained t-shirt.
“Not that.” She mimics drawing a circle around her face. “The clown makeup?”
I’d forgotten all about Zinnia’s artwork. “It wasn’t my idea. But if you can spare any non-permanent markers for our budding artist, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Anyway, we ran into trouble on our way back from scavenging tonight. A lot of it. Twenty renegades. We had to abandon the truck—”
Tig scowls as only she can. “You gave them a weaponized vehicle—”
“I didn’t give them anything. They had a gun-mortar and a machine gun—which the Lux should have stripped from the nearby military bases decades ago.
But the trouble started when we blew two tires and landed in a ditch.
Couldn’t drive any farther. So we abandoned the truck, and once the renegades came in close and climbed on it, I blew them up—along with their weapons. ”
“That’s how you got the cuts?”
“No. A knife fight with a survivor. Or should I say, former survivor? We stole one of their motorcycles, and I killed the two that followed us.”
“Why didn’t you radio for help?”
“No time. They were on top of us before I could even activate the comm.”
Tig points a finger at me. “The cost of that truck is coming out of your contract—you’ll work an extra six months to pay for it.”
“Hey, the renegade problem is yours. The council should have forced them to join a community when the Collapse came.”
“The ones living out there today likely didn’t have a choice. They were probably turned after the Collapse.”
“Doesn’t change my argument. The council’s inaction is turning me into a killer. That’s not the gig I signed up for. It’s not who I am.”
While in the moment I’ll do anything to survive, afterward the trauma and stress are making it harder for me to scavenge again.
Maria rises from her chair and comes over to the vidcon screen, the second donor bag in her hand.
“You need a better solution to deal with the renegades. Can they…be taught? I thought vampires were monsters.” She glances at me.
“But not all vampires are monsters. Maybe no one taught them that. No one invited those vampires—the new renegades—to be part of your larger community.”
“She’s right.” I prop my fists on my hips.
“Feed them. Rehabilitate them. Do something. We can’t ignore the situation any longer.
They’re getting more aggressive, more organized, and more active.
I’ve had violent run-ins with them three out of the four times I’ve been out this week. This can’t continue.”
Tig shakes her head. “I’ll talk with the council. Explain the escalation. It’s the best I can do. No one wants to deal with the problem. They don’t want to kill them, and they don’t want to invite them into a mixed dome.”
I glare at her. “The council’s refusal to act is creating an impossible situation—you have to do something or I’m not going back out there.”