Dark Corner Page 44

  What if the seer's prediction was correct? What if he found Manama again?

  No one had ever confirmed his long-held hope that he would one day be reunited with her. No one until now.

  He did not believe in coincidence. Coincidence was a symptom of man's unwillingness to believe in fate. For him, signs of fate at work were the compass of his existence.

  Was it fate that he would see Mariama once more?

  He yearned to believe that it was true.

  But until the truth was revealed, he would have to pursue his mission.

  He cast a final glance over the dead. Then went outside the house, where his son awaited him. It was time to find David Hunter.

  As David drove down the narrow route toward the swamp, a dense cloud of fog swallowed them. He tried to raise the brightness of the headlights, but they were already on the highest setting.

  "David, be careful." Nia watched the road, warily. "You can slow down, we have a good lead."

  "Yeah, but I don't want to drive too slow." He squinted through the windshield at the roiling, silvery waves of mist. He was driving only fifteen miles an hour. The vampires had been distracted by their torched comrade, but they would not give up. He had to press forward at a good pace.

  The leather-wrapped wheel stuck to his sweaty hands as if melded to them with glue. A persistent itch above his right eyebrow agitated him, but he didn't dare to take his hand away from the wheel.

  Thankfully, at this leg of their journey, the trail was straight, though in the fog it was a challenge to stay on course. Patches of mist floated like aimless spirits, and gnarled trees loomed like giant hags in the murkiness.

  Fine condensation coated the windshield. He turned on the wipers to clear the glass. They skidded across the window with a harsh whonking noise.

  "We're in the clear," Jahlil said. "I don't see those assholes coming after us. All you gotta do is get through this swamp. That's it."

  "We'll make it," Nia said. "Hang tight."

  David gnawed his lip. Their optimism was encouraging, but he would feel better after he'd reached dry land.

  The path dropped out of sight.

  Terror leapt in his heart. He twisted the wheel, in a desperate attempt to reconnect with the road.

  But it was too late. The Pathfinder plunged into the water with a tremendous splash. A giant tree hulked ahead of them. David pumped the brake, but he was too late for that, too. The truck smashed against the tree, the impact throwing David forward, the seat belt tightening across his chest. Nia and Jahlil shouted in surprise. David rocked back into his seat, and that was when he heard the engine cough, sputter, and die.

  Chapter 24

  avid sat still, and silent, stunned by their predicament. Nia and Jahlil even King had fallen quiet, too.

  Water gurgled underneath the vehicle. Floating serpents of fog slithered across the windows.

  "We are not stuck here," David said firmly. "Everyone stay cool."

  Nia clutched the armrests. Jahlil muttered under his breath. King whined.

  He refused to accept that they were trapped. Only minutes ago, he had felt destiny touch him, like an electric charge. They were not meant to stay in this situation, no way.

  In the distance, he heard barking dogs.

  He twisted the key in the ignition with nearly enough force to snap the key in half.

  The engine stuttered, but did not catch. He pushed the gas pedal.

  "Be careful, you don't want to flood the engine," Nia said.

  "Don't you think I know that?" he said. But then he eased his foot off the accelerator.

  "Sorry, only trying to be helpful."

  On the dashboard display, the engine light burned. What could be wrong? This truck had only forty thousand miles on the odometer, and he kept it superbly maintained. And he had only bumped the tree. The damage should be minimal.

  He tried to start the truck again. It fluttered, then caught. He urged it into a steady thrumming.

  "I told you," he said. "We're not getting stuck here. Sorry I snapped at you, Nia."

  "We're all on edge" She smiled nervously.

  "Enough talk, let's get out of here," Jahlil said.

  David shifted into reverse.

  The wheels spun, but the Pathfinder did not budge.

  "Oh, no," Jahlil said. "We're stuck in the mud."

  "Damn," David said. Tension squeezed his chest, as if steel bands were tightening across his torso.

  "We'll have to get out and push it," David said. He looked at Jahlil. "You and I. Nia can get behind the wheel and work the gas pedal."

  "Man, you're crazy," Jahlil said. "There're snakes in this swamp, remember what Pearl said? Water moccasins. Those things are deadly."

  "Yeah, I remember." David peered out the side window at the dark water. "But we don't have a choice. We've got to do it now They'll be on our ass again, soon."

  Even as he spoke, the vampiric dogs' barks grew louder. King whined.

  "Take weapons with you," Nia said. "Ones you can strap over your shoulder. Just in case"

  Jahlil hefted the bulky flamethrower out of the rear cargo area and offered it to David. David grabbed the weapon's strap, and carefully opened his door.

  The swamp water was tar black. The murky surface purled only an inch beneath the truck.

  He stepped outside, and it was like plunging his feet into a tub of ice cubes. He sucked his teeth.

  Nia scooted behind the steering wheel. David shut the door and strapped the flamethrower on his back, as Mac had instructed him.

  "Hit the gas when I give you the signal," he said.

  Behind them, the mist prevented him from seeing more than ten feet ahead. However, he heard the hounds getting closer. Their snarls echoed through the night.

  "Let's go!" he shouted to Jahlil. On the other side of the truck, Jahlil, his shotgun hanging over his shoulder, sloshed toward the front of the SUV.

  David trudged through the water. He knew virtually nothing about water moccasins, but he was alert for any sinuous movements. Driftwood littered the marsh, and green vines floated here and there, like disembodied tentacles.

  He came around the front of the truck. Insects fluttered in the headlight beams. The gnarled oak with which the vehicle had collided grew on a muddy wedge of earth. He stepped onto the island, and his feet immediately sank into the muck.

  "Put a leg against the tree for leverage," he said to Jahlil. "We'll push on the count of three"

  Nodding, Jahlil braced his body against the tree trunk. They put their hands on the hood, above the Pathfinder's headlights. David squinted against the glare.

  "One, two, three!" David raised his fist so that Nia could see the signal and punch the gas.

  They pushed. The tires squealed. David grunted, his muscles burning. The Pathfinder inched backward, the wheels spitting up mud.

  After they had moved the truck about a half foot, they hit another rut.

  David gave Nia a sign to hold off for a moment, so they could catch their breath. He sucked in great gasps of air.

  The bloodsucker mutts had stopped barking. Odd.

  He put his hand on the flamethrower, peered into the layered fog.

  A vampire charged out of the mist.

  It was Kyle. The fiend appeared to be floating on air. In truth, David realized, he was running on the surface of the water.

  Jesus.

  "Look out!" David said, to warn Nia and Jahlil. He sloshed away from the Pathfinder, to keep from blowing up the truck when he fired the flamethrower.

  Kyle bore down on him. His eyes blazed like the flames of hell. "Hunter!"

  This is what it comes down to, David thought. Finally, the big face-off.

  He swung the weapon toward Kyle and pumped the trigger.

  The flamethrower emitted only a puff of harmless air.

  Roaring, Kyle backhanded David across the face.

  David soared through the air as if slugged by a giant. He hit the water and sank underneath, muc
k pouring into his nostrils and mouth.

  He flailed his arms. Gasped for air. Thought he wouldn't make it, he was going to drown, but then he broke the surface, coughing violently. Blood streamed down his chin, and a numb pain spread from his nose and fanned across his face. Bastard had probably busted his nose.

  A gun banged. David wiped mud from his eyes, and saw what was going on. Jahlil had stepped away from the truck and taken a shot at Kyle.

  God, don't let that kid die. Please.

  The vampire took the hit without slowing. Kyle surged forward and smacked the shotgun out of Jahlil's grasp. Jahlil screamed in rage and threw a fist at the monster. Kyle seized Jahlil like a parent grabbing a petulant infant. He tossed the boy across the swamp. There was a resounding splash, somewhere in the misty darkness.

  Gotta kill that bastard, David thought.

  But he had lost the flamethrower in his fall. The weapon lay against a nearby oak, half submerged in the water.

  Still woozy from the blow he had taken, he started toward the tree.

  Then he stopped.

  A large black-and-green serpent slithered across the marsh: a water moccasin.

  It was coming toward David.

  When David shouted his warning, things began to happen so quickly that Nia grew almost faint with fear.

  Paralyzed in her seat, she watched David try to fire at Kyle, then fail as the vampire hit him, sending him flying through the air.

  Then Jahlil, the brave kid, fired his shotgun at the vampire. But it was in vain. The vampire threw the boy across the marsh.

  Nia wanted to grab her gun, leap outside, and drill the monster between the eyes. But her good sense overcame her fury. Shooting this vampire would be a waste of time.

  In the backseat, King barked madly. The windows steamed up from both her and the dog's frantic breathing.

  Quickly, she rubbed clean a spot on the driver's side window, so she could check the side mirror.

  The vampire was partly visible behind the truck. He had his back to her.

  From the sudden clamor of thunderous barks, she thought that he was summoning his minions.

  Certainly, he would know that she was in the vehicle. Perhaps he believed that he could handle her so easily that he could take his time. He underestimated her.

  You go right ahead, she thought. Write me off you asshole.

  She gritted her teeth. Then she slammed her foot onto the gas pedal.

  Please, please, move for me, please!

  The truck roared out of the mud.

  Kyle whirled, caught off guard.

  The vehicle crashed into him, knocking him backward, into the fog.

  The snake slithered across the water.

  David froze, hands raised. He held his breath. He attempted to refrain from even blinking.

  His heart pounded so hard and painfully that he feared that it would be like a drumbeat calling the snake closer.

  The long serpent swam to him.

  Holy God, Father in Heaven, save me, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ...

  The reptile, its venomous fangs an inch away from his pulsing heart, seemed to see through him.

  David's lungs ached from holding his breath.

  The snake curled around his torso, scales glimmering. He feared it would wrap around him like a python and squeeze him to death. He saw himself sinking into the mud, chest crushed, face purple, eyes bulging.

  The water moccasin circled him, once, as if embracing him. Then, it swam away into the soupy darkness.

  David exhaled explosively.

  Across the swamp, the truck bellowed.

  He looked up in time to see Nia ram into Kyle, who had turned around too late to move. The collision blew the vampire into the water.

  David seized the opportunity. He rushed forward, to the flamethrower. He grabbed it, and, as Mac had taught him, opened the ignition valve and punched the button to activate the spark plug.

  The small flame at the front of the nozzle hissed, ready to burn.

  Splashing furiously, Kyle started to rise out of the swamp.

  David chopped through the water, closing the distance between him and the vampire.

  Wobbling into a standing position, Kyle suddenly saw him. The vampire raised his arms protectively, and his eyes enlarged with fear. "No!"

  David had never killed anyone, but he did not hesitate. He pulled the fuel release trigger.

  A swooshing stream of flames struck the vampire and swallowed him, like a set of fiery jaws.

  The creature screeched. Insane with pain, Kyle rocketed into the air, to the crowns of the trees. The burning vampire leapt blindly from branch to branch. His howls-so humanlike, yet so alien-chilled David to the core of his soul.

  A splashing sound drew David's attention. Jahlil stumbled out of the darkness. The boy looked a mess, mud streaking his face and slimy vines in his hair, but he was alive.

  Nia rolled down the window. "Let's go, guys! Before the rest of them come"

  High in the trees, the dying vampire continued its cries of agony.

  "You drive," David said. He grabbed the rear passenger door.

  Before he climbed inside, he glimpsed myriad shapes in the fog, behind them. But the figures were still. They appeared to be entranced with Kyle's fiery demise.

  One shadow in the mist stood taller than the others: Diallo.

  He's really going to have it in for me now, David thought. I killed his son.

  David hustled into the vehicle, beside King. Jahlil got in the front.

  Nia blasted forward. They found the trail and followed it through the rest of the swamp.

  All of them were silent. The silence was finally broken by a sound that did not come from them. It came from behind, reverberating through the night.

  A horrible, wrenching cry of grief.

  None of them questioned the source of the cry. They knew: it was Diallo, mourning his son.

  The muddy path that weaved through the marsh changed into a dusty trail that curved between thick shrubbery, and finally ended at a paved road. David was relieved to see dry land.

  His dog was relieved, too. King tried to stand in his lap and lick his face, and David had to put the dog back on the other side of the seat.

  The thunderstorm had passed. Thin patches of clouds scudded across the sky. Moonlight silvered the lonely road and the dense bushes that grew alongside it.

  "I know where we are," Nia said. "We're on the west side of town. This is Rice's Bottoms Road. It'll hit Main Street about a mile ahead"

  "Good," David said. "From there, I'll know the way to where we want to go next"

  "Where are we going?" Jahlil said.

  "To my father's hideaway," David said. "It's a cabin on the north side of town, in the hills. We'll be safe there until morning."

  "You hope," Jahlil said.

  "Think positively," Nia said.

  "Only being realistic," Jahlil said. "I didn't expect any of the shit that we've been through tonight. Neither of you did, either, did you?"

  David did not answer his question, and neither did Nia. They rolled along, quietly.

  The street lamps were burned out. Broken tree branches covered the pavement, like bones emptied out of a mass grave.

  They reached Main Street. David asked Nia to turn left. They drove into the small business district.

  "It looks like a ghost town," David said.

  "You aren't lying," Jahlil said.

  Wind ushered leaves and severed branches across the abandoned sidewalks. Every storefront was dark. There were only a few traffic lights in town, and they gazed at the night with dead, unblinking eyes.

  Theirs was the only moving vehicle on the street. A few cars and trucks were parked along the curb, but judging from the film of condensation on their windshields, they had not been driven recently. When they passed the deserted police station, David and the others looked away.

  "I wonder where everyone's gone," Nia said.

  "I don't wanna know," Jahlil said. />
  "They're safe in their homes, hopefully," David said. "At the meeting, we gave instructions for people to stay in and lock their doors. I hope they listened to us"

  "With those bloodsuckers on the loose, it might not matter," Jahlil said. "They can bust in anyplace they want"

  David blotted sweat from his face, leaned back in the seat. Jahlil was right, of course. These vampires didn't follow any silly fictional conventions. In their hunt for blood, the monsters would tear into as many homes as they could to satiate their thirst. And David and the others understood that once someone was bitten, the terrible transformation would begin.

  The town might be saturated with gestating vampires that would venture into the open tomorrow evening. The possibility curdled his stomach.

  We can't take much longer to finish this, David thought. Tonight, we nearly died. We'll never survive another night.

  "Hey, look out," Jahlil said.

  In the middle of the road, a trio of hulking, vampiric dogs crowded around what appeared to be a large carcass.

  "Oh my God, that's a person," Nia said.

  David bent forward. "Don't slow down, Nia. Go around them, fast"

  The vampiric dogs began to snarl. They moved to block the roadway. Nia swerved around the beasts, tires squealing. A hound leaped at the truck; its blood-smeared snout thumped against the side window, drawing a shout of terror from Jahlil and a bark from King. David gripped Nia's shoulder.

  "We're past them," Nia said. David relaxed his grip on her. A glance through the rear windshield confirmed that the fiends had returned their attention to their unfortunate victim.

  He wondered who the hellhounds had attacked. He decided that he did not want to know. He had reached his limit of anguish; any more, and he would lose his mind. Better for the victim to remain a nameless stranger.

  "Tell me where to go, David," Nia said. "Give me directions. I want to get the hell out of here"

  High in the forested hills, Nia parked in the driveway beside the log cabin.

  "Well," Jahlil said. "Looks like you were right, David. I don't think anyone will find us here"

  "My dad used to come here when he wanted complete privacy," David said. "I checked out the place about a week ago. We'll be safe here for the rest of the night."