Fat Vampire (Book 5): Fatpocalypse (3 page)

Reginald looked back. He didn’t like Claire’s casual use of the term “waste them,” but the girl had seen plenty of blood in her short life and would need to prepare to see much, much more in the coming months and years.
 

“Even if they don’t come in after us, breaking through the floor and letting the sun shine below,” Reginald told her, “you and the other humans would suffocate in the smoke.”
 

“Let us walk out. We’ll pretend you were holding us hostage. Like… keeping us as blood slaves or something.”
 

“Show of hands from everyone who thinks that’s a good idea,” Reginald called across the foyer. No hands went up. Reginald shrugged at Claire.
 

“They weren’t listening,” Claire said, rubbing the tip of a pink slipper against the marble floor.
 

“Come out, you fucking coons!” yelled the hillbilly voice from outside.
 

“I am
not
going to be done in by the cast of
Hee-Haw,
” Maurice grated. He marched away into the hallway behind them, furious.
 

“Let’s run outside holding sheets of cardboard over our heads,” said Nikki.
 

It wasn’t a serious suggestion, but Nikki didn’t crack a smile. Using the proverbial parasol for protection would buy them a bit of time, but Reginald had baked even in the shade during his first week as a vampire. Obstructions didn’t stop all solar radiation. Enough came through and bounced around to cook you wherever you stood. The youngest vampires in the group might make it into the shadows, but they’d be weak and vulnerable once exposed, and the humans would take them in minutes.

Reginald moved to the unbroken north-facing window beside the front door and peered out, already feeling his eye warm up. The glass was coated with a UV protectant, but he still wouldn’t be able to look out for long.

“Can you see them?”
 

“A few of them. But they’re getting blurry.”
 

“Because of fire haze? Did they light the front of the house too?” said Talia, alarmed.
 

“Because my eye is melting,” said Reginald. He switched to his left eye so his right could heal. He could only see five of them. They had settled in and were standing in direct sunlight. Reginald wanted to rip them apart for their cruelty and complacency…
if
they weren’t in the sun and
if
he were able to catch them. He felt fairly sure that the man who’d been yelling out the wrong slurs was the short one among them, because he was the only one in a Dokken T-shirt with cut-off sleeves and a mullet haircut.
 

Reginald jumped at the sound of a long, low rumbling, then staggered again as the second story of the house’s east wing seemed to explode. Returning to the peephole, Reginald was in time to watch as a silver Mercedes was briefly airborne. The flying car struck the five human men like lined-up bowling pins. Then Reginald heard a hoot echo down the staircase behind him, followed by Maurice’s voice yelling, “BULLSEYE!”
 

Turning, Reginald almost laughed as he watched Maurice blur down from the second story and into the basement. But before he could, he heard an enormous popping sound, then another, and then another.
 

Whatever was happening was happening in the east wing.
 

“Let’s go!” Reginald yelled, and took off in that direction.
 

Everyone ran. Reginald ran too, but he was immediately left with the humans. This seemed unfair, seeing as he’d been the one who’d tried to rally them.
 

Jackie ran past Reginald, who was moving at top speed. She yelled back at him, saying, “Let’s go!”
 

It wasn’t far. Reginald’s eyes had healed; he peered through the shutters from his new vantage point and saw the six remaining humans standing as the others had, eyes up and carefully watching for flying automobiles. Maurice had plenty of cars in the attached garage to throw, but the humans were too spread out, and they’d see them coming.

The humans outside jerked with each loud popping sound, but the pops were harmless, like shots fired in the distance. Nothing was coming at them. After witnessing the flattening of their compatriots, they looked like they were willing to call it a draw and run, but they didn’t know which way to go.

“What
is
that noise?” said Brian. It sounded like grenades.
 

But Reginald had already figured it out.
 

“It’s the foundation bolts,” he said.
 

“What?”

The entire east wing of the house began to move underfoot as Maurice, somewhere below, shoved the frame forward against the blocks that comprised the foundation. Reginald heard the house crack behind him, splitting open at the rear as the entire east wing pivoted ninety degrees. A warm draft came from their backs as sun spilled into the house, but the split was yards back, and they were well sheltered in the east dining room.
 

Reginald was still watching the humans. They were starting to stir and panic, but they seemed unsure where to go. The house had been in front of them. Now, thanks to Maurice’s spontaneous architectural rearrangement, it had folded around them, with the far wing at their sides, now perpendicular to the rest of the house.
 

Blocking the sun in the east, thereby putting the humans in the shade.
 

“Get ‘em,” said Reginald.
 

Nikki and Brian blew through the front wall as if it were the tape at the finish line of a race. Both were young enough that a few seconds of shade wouldn’t slow them down much, and a few seconds was all it took for the two vampires to blur out and grab all of the people on the lawn. Nikki gripped two of them by the arms. Brian slammed into the remaining four in a line, his arms open like a giant claw. Then they hauled the humans back into the house, ducking into a kind of anteroom beside the dining room where the walls were still intact.
 

Brian didn’t hesitate. He ripped three of the humans’ heads from their shoulders as they tried to run, then bit into the fourth and drained him dry. The body that hit the ground was no more than a husk. Brian’s face was dripping with gore, and blood from arterial spray had coated the walls. Maurice arrived just in time to notice a huge glut of red that had splashed across an original Monet on the far wall and say, “Fuck.”
 

The two remaining humans, watching, were battering against Nikki as she held their wrists. Both were men. Moreover, both seemed deeply offended that they’d been subdued by a woman. They were following the lead of their dead compatriot’s colorful and misguided epithets, calling Nikki many things that in one way or another related to her having a vagina. So she broke their wrists.
 

“MOTHERFUCKER!” yelled one of them.
 

The other collapsed to the floor, gripping his forearm and marveling at the way his hand refused to stand erect. Nikki judged him to no longer be a threat and allowed him to lay down, where she kicked him.
 

The other man was more vocal, beating on Nikki with his unbroken wrist, so she punched him in the teeth. Then he went down, crab-crawling backward wearing a mask of blood. He stopped when he met the wall, and once he’d settled, Maurice moved to his one side. Brian moved to the other.
 

“Fucking vamps!” the man blurted, looking up. He spat at Maurice, judging him to be the lesser threat. A glob of red saliva struck Maurice’s pants.
 

Maurice seemed disturbingly calm. He looked down at the quiet man, then the one who’d spat on him. “What did we do to you?” he said.
 

“You fucking eat us!”
 

“I’ve never eaten you,” said Maurice, still calm.
 

“People don’t believe that… that
fucking monsters
are causing all of the killing!” the man gurgled through his throat full of blood. “They will, though! We took video of those three we killed! It’s already uploaded to YouTube! Those motherfuckers blew right up into sparks and ash! That video’ll go viral; you just watch! Shit has gotten too weird. You goddamn bloodsuckers think you can fuck with us forever? Fuck you! We’re not going to take it!”
 

Maurice looked at Reginald. Reginald stooped in front of the man, squatting down on his hams. The ability to squat had come with vampirism and his odd balance skills. In most ways, gravity was still Reginald’s enemy, but squatting was one thing he could do. Woe be it to the vampire or human who challenged him to a squat-off.
 

“Hey,” said Reginald.
 

The man’s head flicked to the side, away from him.
 

“Look at me.”
 

The man kept his head turned away. Brian reached down and easily turned it back, but the human rolled his eyes to keep them averted. Reginald tried to stay ahead of his eye-flicks but couldn’t, so Nikki, who was much faster, squatted to join him, blurred her head around until she caught the man in a glance, and then handed him over to Reginald.
 

“Better,” said Reginald, meeting the man’s pupils.
 

“Better,” the human echoed.
 

“Don’t tell him anything, Sam!” shouted the other man.

Reginald looked at the other human. “No, you want Sam to tell me all about it,” he said.
 

“Tell him all about it, Sam!” the man said.
 

Reginald turned back to the first man and said, “Sam, listen to me. Not all vampires are your enemies. How did you find out about us?”
 

The man, his gaze vacant, said, “Everyone knows.”
 

“
Everyone
knows?”
 

“The big house with all the land is full of monsters. People come and go there, confused. You never see the owners during the day. Folks never met the neighbors. They garden at night, and never seem to leave to shop, for anything.”
 

“We could be recluses.
Human
recluses.”
 

“There are rumors. People say there is something wrong here. They are afraid of you.”
 

“So you came to kill us.”
 

“Exterminate the nest,” he said, nodding.

Reginald looked up at Maurice. “This is your house. What do you want to do with them?”
 

“I’m hungry,” said Nikki, a remorseless look on her face. “I’m told that the moment when the heart stops is exquisite.”
 

“Nikki,” said Reginald. “They’re humans.
We
were humans.”
 

“That didn’t stop Brian.”
 

Brian shrugged and said very practically, “You kill my people, I kill you.”
 

Nikki was staring directly at the men, nodding. “Brian has a point.”
 

“They killed three of ours,” said Reginald, “and we killed nine of theirs.”
 

“Yes,” said Nikki, “but they
wanted
to kill
all
of us. You, me, Maurice and Celeste, Brian and Talia and their son Jeremy. And the humans, too. Jackie. Reginald’s mom. Victoria. Claire and all of the other kids.”
 

“But they didn’t.”
 

“This is war, Reginald,” said Brian, wiping blood from his chin. Then he raised his big hand and flipped it so his thumb was pointing down, like a Roman emperor conveying a death sentence.
 

“It’s not war yet.”
 

“Soon.”
 

“Not yet,”
Reginald repeated. He looked at the three headless bodies and the drained husk. He couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about any of it. The humans had drawn first blood.
 

Or had they? Sure, the vampires in the house had behaved, but what about the rest of the population? How many humans were being picked off in town every single day? It was only a matter of time before people started hanging crosses on their doors at night, painting hex signs, and carrying holy water. If he were still human, he’d want to defend himself and his people too, and often the best defense was a good offense. These people had killed three innocent vampires, yes. But now that the two who remained were glamoured and vacant in front of him, Reginald couldn’t imagine the idea of killing them in cold blood.
 

He looked to Maurice. It was his house, his rules.
 

“What do
you
think, Reginald?” said Maurice.

“It’s a tired cliche, but I don’t know that it helps anything to stoop to their level. We’re bunkered in here because we don’t want to fight on either side. So I vote we blank them and let them go.”
 

“What about their friends?” said Nikki. “Their friends will come back for us. And people will wonder about the nine dumbshits who didn’t come home.”
 

Reginald gave her his “No problem” look. For quite some time, he’d been able to glamour humans and make them extraordinarily influential to other humans. He might not be able to get the dead people’s families and friends to forget them entirely, but he could probably send the last two home with enough of an influence bomb that those who encountered them would come to believe the missing had simply gone off on a long trip.

Nikki shook her head. “You can’t make
all
of them forget. He said, ‘everyone knows.’ So what happens when the next batch comes for us? If just a few of them see through your glamour, they’ll put two and two together and find themselves with an even better incentive to ‘destroy the nest.'"

“The only alternative is to fight,” said Reginald. He felt stupid advocating the closest thing to a pacifist position that was currently possible, but right now the world was like a constellation of soap bubbles. Soon, those bubbles were going to start popping, and anyone caught in the middle would have to choose sides. Reginald didn’t want to choose sides because there seemed to be no way to win. He couldn’t put the decision off forever — side with the vampires to appease the angels or side with the humans and become traitors — but by sparing these two men and sending them back with heads full of poison misinformation, he could put it off for another day.