6

REVELATION 20:13

And Death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them.

~ * ~

C.J.'s bow found its second kill of the day.

The vampire, a young, clean-cut man who might have been a store clerk in his former life, gave a loud gurgle as black, oily fluid spewed from his mouth and nose onto his shirt, dripping from the arrow embedded in his chest. He dropped to his knees and the two following him up the stairs bared their teeth and ducked behind him, then yanked his twitching body upright as a shield.

"This way." Stephen jabbed a hand toward the stairway door Vic had used. "This will—"

Gunfire shattered the plaster above their heads. C.J. spun against the wall with a yell as buckshot peppered his right hand and he dropped the bow, then grabbed it again.

"What the hell has he got!" Alex cried. The woman Vic had freed crawled frantically for the stairwell and Alex planted a hand on her backside and shoved her forward, then rolled and brought up Deb's Winchester, pointing it toward the vampires at the end of the hall.

"Shit!" the vampire holding the gun raged and primed it again. "I can't control the aim of this bast—"

Alex fired, pumped, and fired again and again, his aim wild as he pushed himself backward along the floor. One of the creatures reeled with a howl.

"Motherfucker shot my ear off! He almost killed me!" His companion hurled the semiautomatic shotgun across the hall in fury. "Cocksucker's empty!"

The other vampire, one side of his head spurting blood, pulled something from his jacket and tossed it to his friend as he swiped at the fluid spilling across his eyes. "Try this."

"Go!" Stephen screamed. He dragged the woman the rest of the way, then swung the thin man who'd been released last around and tossed him bodily into the stairwell. Louise and C.J., his right hand punctured in a dozen places and nearly useless, stumbled forward and fell into the doorway as submachine gun fire hammered through the air.

"He's got an Uzi!" yelled McDole. "Keep moving!" Alex pumped the Winchester again, then swore as the chamber came up empty.

"Got you fuckers now!" cackled one of their attackers. The linoleum in front of Alex splintered as bullets streaked across the floor and McDole stumbled into the stairwell. Stephen, his face red with exertion, leapt after them and slammed the metal fire door, throwing them into darkness as the bar-lock slipped smoothly into place. A second later the vampires began pounding on the other side.

"This will lead you to the main floor. Turn left when you come out; you'll have to go all the way down to the Wells Street doors. Don't go right—the Franklin Street doors are locked. Now go!"

No one needed further urging. They tripped blindly down the stairs, C.J.'s bow dangling worthlessly from his left hand.

"Come on!" McDole demanded when Stephen made no move to follow. "That door won’t hold much longer!”

“I'm not coming."

"What!"

"You're wasting time—they won’t hurt me anyway. Get going!"

McDole was unprepared for the hard shove the man gave him. He stumbled backward, fighting for balance on the dangerously dark stairs. When he regained his footing, the hallway was silent except for the pummeling on the door, and McDole knew he'd never find Stephen. "Last chance!" he said desperately. When there was no answer, he fumbled after the others.

On the first floor, the deepening darkness made the hall seem endless, made their shambling, terrified steps little more than attempts to run on ice. When they finally flung themselves through the main doors and onto the Wells Street sidewalk, McDole groaned. Only a trickle of daylight still bled along the tops of the buildings, not nearly enough to keep the vampires inside. At the far end of the hall behind them, the stairwell door banged against the wall as the two vampires spilled out. The underweight man Alex had been pulling along whined in fear

"Take this!" C.J. shoved the bow into Alex's hands. "I can't shoot anyway. You've got enough time to break into the alley entrance of another building. Choose a small one, barricade yourselves in, and the bow will give you even odds."

"Where are you going?" Alex's face went white. "Wait!"

"The only chance you guys have is if something takes their attention away from you."

McDole grabbed his arm. "A decoy—absolutely not!"

"You don't have any choice!" C.J. wrenched his arm free and suddenly waved both hands high above his head. "Hey, you rotting little fuckers!" he screamed. "See if you can catch someone who'll fight back!" He laughed then, an insulting giggle teetering on hysteria. "Go!" he shouted over his shoulder as he sprinted in the opposite direction. He glanced back to be sure and saw the group finally flee northward and cut between two buildings, then realized Louise was running alongside him. "What are you doing?" he cried. They wrestled in midstreet as he tried to force her to turn back

"Stop it!" she yelled. "We've got to go now!" She sprang ahead, her slender legs pumping frantically over the Wells Street Bridge. He chased after her, shouting angrily.

"It's too late for that, C.J.," she panted. He followed her pointing finger and saw the two vampires burst onto the sidewalk. “And how many more are coming?'

"Oh, no," he hissed as the two nightbeasts turned toward the direction in which McDole's group had fled. He jumped at a sharp crack! when Louise pulled the pistol she'd retrieved upstairs and fired it, knowing she couldn't hit anything from this distance. The vampires' heads whipped toward them.

"What's the matter?" Louise taunted loudly. "Afraid you can only catch the old ones?"

Even from a block away, the teenagers could see their nasty grins as the vampires surged toward them. C.J. clutched Louise 's hand and they began to run in earnest.