let go when he winced at the burnt hand glued to his forearm and neck. “We’ll take care of those later.” She opened her pack and handed out five handguns to the most alert of the bunch. She had swiped as many firearms as she could at the restaurant. Her pack was certainly getting lighter, and they weren’t even at the destination yet.
“Just point and squeeze,” she instructed the awakened cattle.
She hobbled as fast as her injured body would take her. “You have Penny to take care of. You can’t die just yet,” she whispered. There was no way that she would allow her dog and only family to starve to death.
Besides, the ocean was waiting for them.
She hopped over debris. With the goggles on, the sound of her breathing, screams, and gunfire in the background were amplified like Darth Vader’s asthmatic wheezes. Poe was stuck in a nightmare, a bilious, underwater dream full of unwanted swim partners with fingernails that had raked their own dead asses.
Every two seconds, she’d glance up the moldy ceiling to look for Gerber ghoulies. Just remembering those creatures made her feel foul and truly grossed out. She found herself saying, “Sainvire, be safe.”
The trail of dead cattle and vampires gave her the impression that she was nearing the batch. She recognized one of the vampires lying dead on the tracks as one of the library chefs.
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She was looking down at the fallen Petra when the body next to it sat up and karate chopped Poe’s good leg until she fell on her butt.
Next thing she knew, her opponent yanked off the goggles from her face and flung them against the moldy wall. She was blind. Highly aware that she was in big trouble, Poe pushed herself to remember where the goggles landed, praying that she wouldn’t get disoriented.
The whole world became one dark mess. Every time Poe tried to stand, a very silent and unseen enemy would trip her up. It was toying with her.
“This fight is unfair,” Poe accused lamely.
The creature didn’t even gloat or make noise, so she had no idea where to aim her weapons. Her backpack was yanked from her back along with the knives on her wrists. Because it was a matter of life and death, she glued her fingers to the Astra.
It occurred to her that she still had a miner’s lamp around her neck. She pulled it to her forehead and clicked it on just when the creature’s foot smashed her mouth, nearly cracking her jaw. She fired, but at the empty, dank air. Groaning and slurping her bloody spit, Poe stood up on wobbly legs. The creature wasn’t done with her. It savagely smacked the side of her head.
Dizzy as hell, she forced herself to point the light.
What she saw was worst than the Nosferatu of her dreams. Before her was a drooling malevolent beast with an enlarged eye and one tiny imitation of a normal eye that sported a blood red pupil. Its movement screamed hate . I’m going to die!
The creature was Milfred, the Council’s butler, standing straighter than usual with a deranged look on his face. His one bulbous eye was horrific, blinking and winking at her light. His hunch did not protrude 307
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from his back anymore, and his tiny eye was no longer closed.
“Milfred, you faker,” she accused, sounding garbled. Poe shook her head. “You’ve chucked the meek and supplicating act, I see.” Before he could come at her again, Poe pulled the trigger, striking him in the chest.
The impact downed him, but he quickly recovered. He straightened his stained cloak and picked up his stride toward Poe. The butler’s impervious to bullets? Poe shot him twice more on the same spot, but he continued walking. Fear tasted salty.
Saline tears, together with blood, runny nose, and garlic sweat resembled the flavor of death.
Milfred tackled her, screaming a fleet of rubbish.
His severely aged claws encircled Poe’s neck. The back of Poe’s head collided with slimy gravel. She would have passed out if it weren’t for the words that came out of the butler’s mouth as he squeezed her neck even tighter.
“Mum mum mum. Ya killed me mum, ya stupid girl. I’ll fukin’ kill ya till ya can’t be killed no more ya–” he droned like a foul-mouthed British sailor in the movies.
Poe kicked his shin, kneed his balls, and pegged a bullet at his left lung, but he just kept on squeezing.