30 Days of Night: Light of Day (23 page)

The past six months had been the worst she had ever seen at Shuckey’s Shoes. People had been let go one at a time, to the point that for the last half of her shift, after five, she worked alone. That meant if she wanted anything to eat after that she had to have it in the store with her and wolf it down during slow periods—which, unfortunately, were all too common—or she had to lock the store while she went to the food court. Even there, the options were getting more limited all the time. Just last week the A&W had closed, and she heard the Subway might be next.

She had just been turning the corner, past the jewelry store that had been there forever until two months ago, when she heard the raucous crowd rushing toward the food court door. For an instant, it sounded like a bunch of kids from the high school she had graduated from two years earlier. But school was out for the summer, so it wouldn’t be the football team or anything like that. Maybe summer school kids?

Whatever it was, she wanted no part of it. High school had been a bad time for her—so bad that she had decided to take a couple of years off before starting community college or a trade school, in hopes that nobody she had known would be in attendance. Her parents had hated that; they believed in education, the more of it the better, and still harbored hopes that
Maryann would become a doctor, or at the very least would marry one. She still knew people at the school, and she hated when they happened into the shoe store; if they were part of this crowd she didn’t want to be seen.

She froze there at the corner and watched them come in.

They didn’t look like high school students. Nor did they act like them—not even at their worst. They charged into the food court, slamming back the doors so hard Maryann was surprised they didn’t shatter. Some of them wore rags, others black leathers, others jeans and T-shirts and heavy boots. They were varying ages, which was strange—usually one didn’t see old people screaming and laughing along with kids, and certainly not in such an aggressive manner.

Maryann took a step back, then another, watching through the corner store’s double layers of window. When one of the newcomers jumped onto the counter at Sbarro, she was shocked. When that newcomer, a middle-aged blond woman, reached out and tore off most of the face of Janis, the Sbarro cashier who gave Maryann her mall discount without ever having to be reminded, she was terrified.

Fighting back the urge to vomit, Maryann ran back to Shuckey’s. Her hands were quaking so much she could barely get the keys from her pocket, and then she dropped them on the floor. They fell with a loud clatter, but no one at the food court would have been able
to hear it because there was too much screaming going on there now.

The people—the gang, Maryann thought, that’s what this had to be, some sort of gang deal—who had attacked must have been killing everyone there, showing no mercy, no humanity, really.

Maryann scraped up the keys and found the right one, shoved it into the lock, and turned it. The bolt slid back with a click. She pushed on the glass door, accordioning it back just far enough to slip inside. The store was brightly lit, with everything in its place—she’d had plenty of time that evening to straighten up, and few customers to hamper her efforts. Shoes on podiums, shoes on shelves, boxes stacked beneath display counters … it was lovely, but it felt very open, very exposed. She hurried in, closed the door behind her and locked it again, leaving the keys hanging in the lock.

She ran through the store to the back room, where the light switches were, hoping that whatever was going on in the food court was keeping the gang occupied so they wouldn’t notice a brightly lit shop suddenly going dark. She swiped her open palm down over the switches and the lights went off, except for the emergency light mounted high on one wall that always came on when the others were out.

In the semi-darkness, she upended her purse on the floor. Everything came out, and she pawed her phone away from the other things and snatched it up. She dialed 911, hoping she would have a voice when someone
answered. She felt like terror was shutting her body down, bit by bit—like the darkness was really just her vision failing, and the fact that the screams had diminished was not because she had shut out the noise when she closed the door, but because deafness was overtaking her. The pounding of her heart was like a sprinter’s footfalls, and she knew that fear-spawned adrenaline was coursing through her but didn’t feel like it gave her any strength. She could barely manage to hold the tiny phone to her ear.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a voice asked with startling suddenness. Maryann hadn’t even heard it ring.

When she spoke, her voice had a quiver she hadn’t heard in years, although it had been fairly common her first years of high school. “I’m at the mall, and—”

A banging sounded at the door. “Oh God!” Maryann shrieked.

“Hello?” the 911 operator said. “Are you there, ma’am?”

“Yeah, I’m … hold on.” Maryann shifted her position so she could peek out the back room door and up the store’s central aisle. The banging continued, and Maryann saw Saleem Jennings, her friend from the Pro Sports sporting goods store across the way, his palms beating on the glass, evident terror etched on his face. People thought Saleem was gay, because he dressed nicely and was a little effeminate, but she had gone out with him a couple of times and knew he wasn’t.

All he looked now was scared.

“Ma’am, what’s your emergency, please? Are you still there?”

Maryann had almost forgotten about the phone in her hand. “Yes. Yes, I’m here, it’s just that my friend Saleem—”

“Has he had an accident?”

“No, it isn’t that. It’s … someone’s attacking the mall, killing people I think.”

“There’s a shooter at the mall?”

“No, not a shooter. It’s—”

Maryann paused, waving to Saleem with her free hand. He saw her, and she expected relief to show on his face. It didn’t.

If anything, his fear grew and he pounded on the glass with new ferocity. His mouth worked but Maryann couldn’t hear anything he was saying. Tears streaked his face and saliva glistened on his chin.

“Please, ma’am, tell me what’s going on,” the operator said.

“It’s—hang on, I have to get the door.”

“If there’s a shooter, you should stay out of sight, and keep the door locked if you can.”

“It’s not a shooter! Saleem’s out there, and I have to let him in.”

She was halfway to the door when they came.

Saleem must have heard their approach, because his eyes went wide and his mouth opened in a scream that the glass only partly muffled, and then he turned away from the door like he was going to run.

But he didn’t have a chance, because two of them caught him there (one looked like a child, no more than eleven or twelve, the other a biker type with a gray beard and ponytail). The child grabbed Saleem around the hips and slammed him up against the store’s display window. Maryann thought for a second that he would go right through the glass, but he just crashed into it and blood spurted from his nose, and then the biker guy had a hand caught in Saleem’s hair and he shoved Saleem’s face into the window over and over. Blood smeared the window with a thick red film.

Maryann uttered a strangled cry and dropped the phone. The operator’s voice came through, sounding very far away. Much too far to help.

The biker guy yanked Saleem’s head backward. He must have snapped Saleem’s neck, because suddenly his body went limp in the man’s hands. The biker lowered his head to Saleem’s broken neck, and the little girl— and this was the worst part, the worst thing Maryann had ever seen, the part that made her lose control of her bladder and soak the snug black pants she was wearing—the little girl pressed herself against the window and a snakelike tongue emerged from inside a mouth bristling with teeth and lapped the blood hungrily from the glass.

Maryann screamed then, screamed good and loud, a cry of pure horror.

And the little girl heard her, sucked that monstrous tongue back into her mouth, stared through the glass,
and saw Maryann standing there in the middle of the store, illuminated by the emergency light.

She said something to the biker. The biker replied. Maryann couldn’t hear them, but she got the gist of it.

Had there been any doubt, it would have vanished when the biker guy used Saleem’s body to smash through the window. He left Saleem there, draped over the glass, and used him like a carpet to walk inside the store. The little girl followed. Maryann was rooted to the spot.

She couldn’t make her legs work until they were just feet away, and by then it was too late. They closed the distance in seconds, and then Maryann learned what terror really was, terror and pain, and they both stayed with her until the moment she died.

“Let’s go, everyone! Move out!”

Rocco had given them five minutes. The authorities would be on the way, and he didn’t want full-scale war. Not yet. Not tonight. They had to get out now, while they could make a clean escape.

Shiloh was curled over a young woman who had been working in a mobile phone kiosk. Rocco had seen her briefly at the beginning—short dark hair, nice build, glasses, kind of Goth-looking but not too much. He had been interested in her himself, but Shiloh had been positively smitten so he’d let her have the girl.

Now he shook Shiloh’s shoulder. “Babe, we have to boogie.”

Shiloh looked up at him with sad eyes and ran the back of her hand across the crimson slash of her mouth. “I’m not finished yet!”

“Yes you are. It’s time.” He closed his fingers on her shoulder, drawing her to her feet. “Come on.”

She went along, reluctant but ultimately obedient. One of the things he appreciated about her. He clapped his hands, whistled, and called out for the others again. Finally, they all came. The mall was a wreck of shattered windows, overturned benches and trash cans, and bloody corpses.

They left it all behind, running back to the RV. When they piled in, they brought the scent of carnage with them, the steely bite of fresh blood, and they were laughing, happy, fed.

Rocco’s children.

As he drove away, police cars barreling past, pride swelled his chest, and he squeezed Shiloh’s hand and knew the world waited to hear more from him.

Very soon, it would hear plenty.

L
ARRY
G
REENBARGER STOOD HALFWAY
across the Michigan Avenue Bridge, looking down at the dark water of the Chicago River. Moonlight sparkled on the surface in spots, and the lights of nearby high-rises, but most of it was black. It was, he thought, like peering into a vein as it carried blood through the body, bringing oxygen, nutrients, and life. A breeze off the water touched his face like cool, fast-moving fingertips.

He had been to Chicago a couple of times, as a human. He had enjoyed the Field Museum of Natural History, Shedd Aquarium, and especially Adler Planetarium, at which he never failed to learn something about the universe that he hadn’t known before.

It was a different city now, or
he
was different, or both. Museums and the like were mostly off-limits to him now, and meaningless anyway. His intellectual pursuits had narrowed in focus. He no longer cared about the world humans inhabited and how they related to it, except to the extent that a rancher might be interested in environmental sciences so he could maximize the output of his grazing lands. When he passed people on the sidewalks, he no longer felt the comfort
of familiarity he once might have, or that tingle of fear, never knowing if this one or that might secretly harbor a knife or gun and homicidal thoughts. All he thought was that they were meat, beneath him, and should be showing more respect.

They would, soon enough. When
nosferatu
could inhabit these same streets and sidewalks by day, things would change. Instead of
undead,
vampires would have to be thought of as
formerly dead
. They wouldn’t need affirmative action programs or special handouts, because they would take what they wanted. From legends to the dominant species, overnight—such an evolutionary leap had never before happened. Never before didn’t mean never would, though.

Larry Greenbarger was on the cusp of history—history that he would make, by doing what he had always done. Only now, his efforts would be appreciated.

He left the river behind, walking north on Michigan. Although the hour was late, there were people around, and cars rolling past, steel cocoons in which humanity felt safe and protected. He watched them go, hungry but not famished. He heard blood flowing, smelled sweat and salt and flesh. The world was a restaurant and nearly everyone in it was on the menu, and they didn’t know it. The thought made him laugh out loud. A man sitting with his back against a building averted his gaze. Once Larry might have feared him, but no more.

Not that Larry didn’t still know fear. On the
contrary. He had only met one other vampire, and he had never walked into a den full of them. When he met the group the next day, he had no idea what would happen. They might embrace him as a brother, but they might just as easily decide that he was a threat, competition, and try to destroy him.

He was stronger than he had ever been, but that strength was in contrast to humans. He didn’t know how he compared to other vampires. And once they had taken his formula, if somehow he had miscalculated, and the rage took them over … what might happen then?

Another possibility nagged at him. What if Walkin_ Dude wasn’t a vampire at all, but another group of hunters, like the band he had destroyed before? Over the internet, he couldn’t be certain. This time, meeting in an enclosed place just before daybreak, he would be trapped. He could escape into the daylight from ordinary vampires, if it came to that, although because he took the stuff in its earlier incarnation the rage would certainly overcome him before long. And if they didn’t attack him until after they took it, or if they were human all along, then the daylight would offer him no advantage.

The whole situation was a sticky one, but he had to face his fears and keep the appointment. The whole point of his experimentation was to allow him to meet others and to share his findings. Without wide distribution, his work meant nothing.