13 Bullets Part 33

"Five," he mumbled.

"Shh," she said. It wasn't going to happen. He wasn't going to fight the half-deads. He wasn't going to walk out of Arabella Furnace. It was up to her to get out, to run and get help. Maybe-maybe-she could save his life but it was all up to her.

"Five." "Okay already," she said. "Five what? Five half-deads? I think there were more than that when I came in. If you tell me there are five active vampires here I'm going to soil my uniform." She smiled and patted his good hand.

He sucked in a painful breath and then spoke all in a rush. "There's only one more active vampire," he said. He waited a moment, then finished. "There are five bullets remaining in your clip."

Slowly she removed the Glock from her belt. She ejected the clip and counted the remaining rounds. There were only five left, just as he had said. That was impossible-she couldn't possibly have already fired eight bullets, could she? She went over the recent combat in her head and realized she had.

She slipped the clip back into the handgun and holstered it again. "Be more careful," he said, his head rolling back and forth. "From now on." She nodded in agreement. He probably didn't see it, though, because just then the lights went out.

It happened so quickly Caxton thought it had to be in her head. She blinked her eyes but the blue light didn't come back. Featureless darkness filled all the available s.p.a.ce around her, so thick she felt as if it were rubbing on her dry eyeb.a.l.l.s.

"Oh G.o.d," she said. "They know. They know something's up-what do we do now?"

Arkeley didn't answer. She reached over and grabbed his b.l.o.o.d.y wrist. He had a pulse, still, but he must have fallen unconscious.

Caxton searched her pockets, hoping she had some kind of light source on her. Something-anything. Scapegrace had taken most of her gadgets away from her, cellphone, PDA, handcuffs. "Oh, thank you," Caxton whispered, not knowing who she was talking to. The vampire had ignored her mini-Maglite. He'd probably figured she couldn't hurt anyone with it. She took it out and pointed it at Arkeley. The miniature flashlight spat out a foggy cone of pale blue illumination that dazzled her eyes for a second. It gave off just enough light for her to see that he was still breathing.

There was a telephone mounted on one wall. She grabbed the handset and pressed it to her ear. No dial tone rewarded her. She flicked the hook a couple of dozen times, trying to make it work, but no dice. Whoever cut the power must have cut the sanatorium's phone lines, too.

Which meant they had to know everything. They knew where she was and what her first move would be.

If the half-deads-and the remaining vampire-knew she was in Malvern's ward then her first goal had to be to get away. She couldn't move Arkeley-he outweighed her considerably and she couldn't drag him-so she decided she would have to leave him there on the floor. If the bad guys killed him out of spite she would hate herself forever but she imagined they would be too preoccupied trying to kill her.

Waving her light around she found the exit from the ward and slipped along the wall of the corridor beyond. The Glock stayed in her holster so she wouldn't waste a bullet if she jumped at the first sight of her own shadow. That was an Arkeley kind of thing to do and she was proud of thinking of it. Of course, Arkelely would already have a plan by this point. He would already be putting it into effect.

"Think," she said, trying to break the layer of fear that covered her brain like frost. "Think." What could she hope to realistically achieve? She didn't consider herself tough enough to take on another vampire and an unknown number of half-deads on her own. She'd only beaten Reyes because of Vesta Polder's amulet, and Scapegrace had died of surprise, not any special quality she possessed. So if she couldn't fight, what could she do?

She could run. She could get out of the hospital, get to some place where she could call for backup. It was the only realistic plan. The half-deads would try to stop her, she knew. She tried to think like a faceless freak. They hadn't attacked her directly yet-no, they wouldn't. They were cowards. Arkeley had told her as much. They would fall back, take away her ability to see and her ability to communicate. They would try to flush her out, to make her walk right into their traps. The half-deads would have secured the main entrance. Going out the way she came in would be suicide. She ducked down the first side corridor she saw.

She remembered her first visit to the sanatorium. She'd thought it was a big spooky maze then. With the lights out it was a lot more unnerving and a whole lot harder to find her way around. She knew generally what direction she was headed: southeast, toward the greenhouse wing. Yes, that would be good. If she could just get outside she would feel much safer. The moonlight might actually let her see something useful.

Her flashlight speared out before, illuminating a lot less than she would have liked. The corridor it lit up was a gallery of dim reflections and long shadows. Anything could be ahead of her, waiting for her. Anything at all. She kept her back to the wall and edged forward, a step at a time. There was nothing else for it.

She was halfway down the corridor, her eyes watching every doorway, when she began to hear a noise like something moving around inside the wall at her back. She shied away from it and heard it dash away from her, as if they'd scared each other off. It was a rhythmic skittering sound, or rather a whole group of sounds, the patter of tiny claws on wood, the thumping of a soft body dragging across broken plaster. Ahead of her, down the hallway, something oozed out of the wall and dropped to the floor.

She swung her light around and speared a rat with her flashlight beam. Its tiny eyes blazed as it looked back at her. Its nose twitched and then it bolted away.

"Nothing," she said, trying to rea.s.sure herself. It came out a little louder than she'd meant it to. Ahead of her, at the end of the corridor, a half-dead hissed, "What was that?" She stopped in her tracks. She stopped breathing. She switched off her flashlight. There was a tiny bit of light coming in through square inset windows in the double doors at the end of the hallway. A shadow moved across that light, a shadow like a human head.

"Did you see that?" someone else asked, with the same kind of squeaky, rat-like voice. Another half-dead. "Somebody had a light on and they switched it off."

"Get the others," the first voice said.

The double doors slammed open then and what looked like a never-ending stream of human silhouettes flooded into the hall.

Caxton reached for her weapon but then stopped. She could hear dozens of feet pounding down the corridor towards her. She only had five bullets left. There was no way she could take on all the half-deads using the gun.

She switched on her light and pointed it at them. Their torn faces and their gla.s.sy eyes reflected the light perfectly. They were dressed in filthy clothes. One wore eyegla.s.ses. A couple were missing hands or arms. There had to be at least twelve of them and they were all armed with kitchen knives, with sharpened screwdrivers, with hatchets or cleavers. One had a pitchfork. When the light hit them their mouths went wide and they ran at her even faster.

If she stayed where she was they would simply cut her down. She flicked off the light and dashed sideways, toward an empty doorway. The door itself lay flat on the floor of the room beyond as if its hinges had rotted away.

There was a window at the far end of the room but she could see instantly that it was barred. The room looked like a jail cell-what had it been, the psychiatric ward?

She could hear them coming. She'd run into the room on pure instinct, just trying to get away. Had they seen her? She didn't know if half-deads saw any better in the dark than human beings. Had they seen her? She threw herself against the wall to one side of the door and breathed through her mouth. She heard them outside in the hall, their feet pounding on the linoleum tiles, their hands thumping against the plaster walls. Had they seen where she went? They had to be close. They had to be getting closer.

They went right past her. She couldn't be sure but she thought they'd walked right past the door-she had to be sure. She leaned out a little into the doorway to get a look and found one of them staring right back. His face was striped and raw where he'd torn away his own skin. His eyes were less hateful than pathetic, full of a weary sadness more profound than anything she could imagine.

Without even thinking about it she reached up with both hands and grabbed his head and twisted and yanked and pulled. He screamed but his flesh tore. It felt less like grappling with a human body than as if she were pulling a branch off a tree. Bones crackled inside his neck as his vertebrae gave way and then she was suddenly holding a human head. The eyes looked right into her-sadness transformed entirely into fear-and the mouth kept moving but it no longer had the breath or the larynx to scream with.

"Ugh," she said, and threw the head into the room's shadowy corners. Out in the hall his body kept walking but it had lost all its coordination. It was just muscles twitching with no purpose. Guilt and disgust erupted inside of her and she thought she might throw up. She glanced in the dark corner, wondering if the head was still moving. Wondering how much that hurt, to be beheaded but not killed outright.

Then she remembered the half-deads who had taunted her on the roof of Farrell Morton's fishing camp. She thought about the one who attacked her with a shovel-and the one who had stood outside her window and tricked Deanna into cutting herself to ribbons. Then the guilt flew away on moth wings. The headless body kept walking and soon enough it came up against a wall and started beating itself to pieces, its shoulder digging into the wall as if it wanted to push its way through.

The rest of the half-deads turned to look. They stood in the hallway in loose formation, their weapons out and ready but not pointed at her. They had walked past without knowing she was in the room-if she hadn't looked, they might have gone right past her. It was hard to tell in the deeply dark hallway but she thought they looked surprised.

The pitchfork the headless body had been holding on to fell to bounce with a jangling sound on the floor. She scooped it up in both hands and felt its weight. It was heavy and over-balanced, the metal tines drooping low to the floor when she tried to lift it. It was a ludicrous weapon and one she'd never been trained to use.

She dropped it. It clanged on the linoleum. Then she drew her Glock. The crowd of half-deads moved backwards. Away from her. That was good. Some of them raised their hands, though they didn't drop their weapons. She pointed the handgun at one of them, then another. She made them wince. They couldn't know how many bullets she had left. She stepped out into the hallway, keeping them covered. She would shoot the first one that moved. Maybe that would scare them enough that they would scatter like frightened rats.

She really hoped so. One of them had a pair of kitchen shears. He worked them nervously, the blades glinting in the few stray beams of moonlight. Another one wore a dark blue Penn State sweatshirt with the hood up around his ruined face. He was carrying a ball peen hammer. He could break her arm in a second if he got too close.

She took a step backward. The half-deads took a step forward. It wasn't going to work. They would stop being scared in a second or two and they would rush her. There was no way she could survive if they all attacked her at once. If she didn't shoot one of them soon they would call her bluff and it would be over. She picked one. The one with the pitchfork. He didn't look as scared as the others. Taking her time, lining up her shot, she aimed right at his heart and fired, thinking even as she squeezed the trigger, "four."

The half-dead's chest burst open and a stench of rotten meat rolled across her. For a second the others drew back.

Then they started moving toward her again. Their weapons brandished in their pale hands they advanced on her as if they knew exactly what she was thinking. As if they'd been counting her shots too and they knew she didn't have a chance.

She fired again, wildly, cursing herself even as she snapped off an unaimed shot. If it hit anything she didn't stick around to see. She ran back along the corridor, back the way she'd come. She could feel them behind her, chasing her. She could hear their feet slapping on the linoleum in the dark. Could they see better in the gloom than she could? She didn't know. She didn't know at all. She flicked on her light, more interested in seeing where she was going than in not giving away her position.

She pushed open a door and skidded around a corner, nearly collided with a filing cabinet somebody had left right in the middle of the hall. She pushed it over, adrenaline giving her the strength, and its clattering fall echoed all around her. Maybe one or two of the half-deads would trip over it.

Her breath froze her throat as it rushed in and out of her, and she ran, the light of her flashlight jumping up and down on the walls and floors ahead of her.

Caxton rushed around a corner into a narrow hallway with no windows. She crouched down in the dark and tried to control her heartbeat and her breathing. Her blood was beating so loudly in her ears she thought anyone nearby must be able to hear it. Blood. That was the problem, wasn't it? She was full of blood. The half-deads wanted to spill it, maybe in revenge for what she'd done to them and their masters. Maybe because when you were undead all you had in your heart was jealousy directed at the living. They wanted her blood. Then there was the vampire, the unknown vampire haunting the sanatorium, also searching for her, also wanting her blood. But for a different reason.

She heard a half-dead moving nearby. Its feet made less sound on the linoleum than a cat might make padding through a garden, but she heard it. Nothing like fear to concentrate the senses.

She had three bullets left. She knew better than to think they would be any use to her. She could put one of them in her own heart-that way she would at least not come back as a vampire.

Alternatively she could put one in her head. Then she would come back. Would that be so very terrible? It would be a betrayal of Arkeley, true. But then he had never liked her. If she made herself a vampire at least her life wouldn't end. It would change in many ways. But it wouldn't end.

"Yes," Reyes said, inside of her head. He'd been quiet all night. Either he was losing his grip on her, fading away, or he was just biding his time.

"Yes," someone else agreed. "In the head." Someone else.

A full-body shiver made her twitch in the shadows. She heard the prowling half-dead stop not ten feet away. She held her breath until he walked past her hiding place. When he was gone from earshot she let herself exhale a little.

Somebody else had spoken to her from inside her head. It hadn't sounded like Reyes at all. Somebody else was in there. "All of you can just shut the h.e.l.l up," she told them. A splintered chuckling sounded in the back of her throat as if she'd been laughing to herself. Not nice, she thought, but she didn't want to give them the satisfaction of a response.

She got up and made her way to end of the dark hallway, using little bursts of light from her mini-Maglite to find her way. The corridor opened out at its end to a wider hallway full of flats of building supplies-stacks of shingles and neat bundles of replacement floor tiles, pallets of lumber, row after row of sealed white plastic buckets full of plastering compound. Moonlight streamed in through a hole in the ceiling and painted everything a ghostly silver, but even in that eerie light Caxton could see the supplies must have been left there untouched for years, bought for some project that never really got started. Maybe they'd planned on fixing the hole in the roof. The wood was worm-eaten and slimy to the touch while some of the buckets had corroded away and spilled white powder in long sinuous drifts across the floor. She approached carefully, knowing that anything could be hiding in the shadows just outside the patch of moonlight. She glanced down at the powder spread across the floor. The wind coming down from the ceiling listlessly stirred the plaster. Slowly it worked at filling in a line of footprints. Laura was no tracker but she could see the feet were no bigger than her own. The tracks were fresh, too, sharply defined. A barefoot woman had come that way recently.

"Laura," someone said in a room nearby. Or had they? Caxton's mind wasn't just playing tricks on her, she had a whole Vegas-quality magic show going on in there. She couldn't be sure of anything. What she had heard sounded like a cough more than a word. And it sounded more like the building settling than like a cough. If she hadn't know better she could have convinced herself it was just her imagination.

The footprints lead her eye to a wide set of double doors across the hallway. Black paint on the doors said INVALID WARD. Someone was sending her a message-she was supposed to go through those doors. It was a trap. Arkeley had taught her about traps. Shaking more than she would have liked, Caxton stepped up to the doors and pushed one of them open. It slid away from her easily, its hinges creaking just a little.

The room beyond was cavernous and extremely dark. Her light showed her that it had been stripped bare of anything that could be moved. All that remained in the room were cast iron bedframes painted with flaking white enamel. There were dozens of them, maybe a hundred. Some had been pushed into a corner and some effort had been made to stack them on top of each other. The majority remained exactly where they'd been when the sanatorium was abandoned, standing in neat rows that ran away from her into impenetrable darkness.

How many people, how many generations of people had died in that room? How many men had lain in those beds coughing away their lives until someone came to cart their lifeless bodies away? How many ghosts did they leave behind? Caxton's father had died like that, one little hitching cough at a time. He had died in a bed like- Feather-light and soft something tapped her shoulder.