The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel (3 page)

     Jameson placed his pack and briefcase beside the balcony door. A second floor balcony was no problem to jump down from for him. With the door blocked by the rabid men, he would have to leave via the balcony. He was thankful for his vampiric strength, which would ensure he had no need of a tied sheet ladder in order to get down from their apartment.

     He lifted Joselyn’s body with as much tenderness as he had ever shown her. He knew that leaving a vampire body alone and unattended for any human to find would be a betrayal of their kind. As much as he hated to do it, he would have to dispose of her physical form before he could leave.

     The apartment complex was owned by vampires, though Jameson had never met them and Joselyn had never mentioned any of them by name. Jameson didn’t know what had happened to the rest of the world, but he knew his own had changed and been destroyed in the past hour. He was sure any vampire who found him after what he planned to do would understand his reasoning for his actions.

     Joselyn had told him before he’d even been turned that the risk of extermination was too high for their species if the humans found out about them. The safest course of action was to destroy a dead vampire before a human could find the body and detect the abnormalities. Humans were good at eradicating other species. Jameson knew he wasn’t the only vampire who didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the humans’ talent for devastation.

     Jameson placed his blue-eyed beauty on the bed they had lovingly shared each night of their time together. He didn’t have accelerant of any kind, but he did have several kinds of alcohol, nail polish remover, and papers. He intended to start a blaze on the bed that wound consume her lovely form and all evidence of her uniqueness. Vampires burned much better than human bodies. When the fire was done with Joselyn, there would be absolutely nothing left to identify her by.

     He went to the kitchen to retrieve alcohol bottles from atop the fridge. The nail polish remover would be found in the master bathroom attached to their bedroom. While he gathered magazines and loose-leaf paper from Joselyn’s desk in the living room, Jameson became increasingly incensed by the noise of the men slamming against the door.

     Fury ricocheted within him. The hand gripping the papers he’d collected crushed closed until he’d crumpled them all. Luckily, enough presence of mind remained within him to avoid making a fist with his other hand. He didn’t need alcohol-soaked glass lodged in his skin.

     Though he was certain the aforementioned poison had been responsible for Joselyn’s death, Jameson felt the men outside the door had something to do with it, as well. He would figure out what had happened to her, and then he would punish whoever had been involved. He didn’t know how, but he vowed to avenge her no matter how long it took.

     Jameson kissed Joselyn once on the cheek. He avoided her mouth, where blood had pooled around her full lips. If he tasted even a drop of her blood, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking the tainted liquid into himself.

     “Love you, sweets,” he whispered against her cool skin.

     He doused the bed with the two half-full bottles of nail polish remover he found under the bathroom sink. He left Joselyn’s skin dry. He knew that the vampire body would torch at the first touch of flames. The Everclear bottle was full, and he poured the entire contents around her. Three bottles of miscellaneous liquor soaked the floor around the bed. His sensitive sense of smell began to rebel against the abrasive scents mingling in the fabric of the room.

     The long-handled lighter Joselyn often used to light her scented candles was on the nightstand. Jameson took it in hand and touched the flickering flame to three pieces of crumpled paper. He left them fall on the floor. Three more, and then another four, joined Joselyn on the bed.

     When several of the lit papers touched the floor where the alcohol had been poured, a belch of nearly invisible blue flame puffed up and licked at the dry bed skirt. The fabric caught and soon the entire bedroom had become engulfed in hungry fire.

     Jameson walked backward out of the bedroom, keeping his eyes on Joselyn until her skin began to dissolve under the heat of the blaze. With her body caught in the inferno, it burned hotter and brighter. The rest of the apartment would catch soon, he knew, so he made his way to the balcony.

     The rest of what he knew of his world burned around him.

Chapter Four – Leaving the Daycare – Phoebe

     It took three hours before the men pounding on the door lost interest in Phoebe and the three children with her. Eli and Hannah, for once, had fallen asleep without problem. Phoebe assumed the stress of the situation had gotten to them. Carmen remained on Phoebe’s lap. She drank a juice box and ate some crackers, but otherwise appeared catatonic.

     Phoebe found she couldn’t handle the silence, but feared for her life if she risked breaking it. Instead, she strained her hearing. She sought sounds of police and rescue vehicles, or the evidence of someone else coming into the building. There was nothing. She wondered how there could be nothing. Shouldn’t someone have seen what had happened at the daycare center and reported it? There had been a massacre of children and there should have been at least someone to see it and do something about it. Instead, there was nothing. No police sirens in the distance. No emergency vehicles wailing through the streets. In their quiet neighborhood, it appeared the world had ended without even the prophesized whimper.

     The “Sleep Tight, Silly Bear” book was in Phoebe’s hand. She didn’t remember grabbing it when she ran with Carmen toward the closet door. She couldn’t imagine how she’d grabbed the book yet not another child. She’d saved three kids, but she hadn’t been able to do anything to help her mother. Her tears splashed on the binding of the book as she squeezed it to her chest. Her mother had written the book. Maybe that was why she’d instinctively taken it when she ran for the closet with Carmen.

     Eli stirred and awakened with a small cry. Phoebe shushed him, wide-eyed in the darkness. She knew he couldn’t see her or anything else, but he heard her voice and recognized her.

     “Phoebe, what happen?” he whispered.

     Phoebe waited for several seconds before she answered him. Nothing had been alerted to their presence by Eli’s cry or voice. It was possible, she thought with a shimmer of hope in her heart, they had been left alone. Perhaps, Phoebe thought, the crazy men who’d attacked the daycare had found easier targets in other parts of the neighborhood.

     “I don’t know, but we have to try to get you guys home, okay?” Phoebe said back in her quietest voice. Carmen moved off of her lap, but didn’t say anything. She stood motionless in the darkness as Phoebe moved with one hand out toward Eli and Hannah.

     Eli yelped when Phoebe’s hand found him in the dark. She winced and froze. If anything was going to be notified of their hiding place in the closet, Eli’s boyish shriek would be the thing to do it.

     Nothing recommenced the assault on the door. Phoebe didn’t hear any movement in the room outside the closet. She would bet her life the daycare was empty. With a thick weight in her throat, she realized she would be doing just that when she opened the door.

     “Sorry, honey.” With a gentle shake, she roused Hannah. The girl began to cry as soon as she woke. “Hannah, you have to be a big girl for me. Can you be a big girl?”

     Hannah continued to cry. Both of the girls were going to be difficult to handle in what was to come, Phoebe realized. Even if Hannah exhausted herself with her tears, she would have to be carried if she wouldn’t follow instructions.

     “I’m going to go outside,” Phoebe said in hushed tones. “You need to stay in here and lock the door back up when I’m out.”

     She tried keeping her instructions short and direct. The kids were going to have a hard time as it was, she reasoned. The less she confused or upset them, the better chance she had of doing what needed to be done to ensure their safety.

     “Eli,” Phoebe said as she stood. “Lock the door when I leave, buddy.”

     Her feet felt as though they moved through freezing mud as she made her way to the door. She twisted the handle, which unlocked the door. The click sounded like a rifle shot in her straining ears. She froze with her hand on the knob and waited for some maniac to be inspired to a new frenzy by the sound of the door unlocking.

     Nothing responded, as Phoebe insisted to herself nothing would respond. They were alone in the daycare. There would be no one to object to them leaving. Though she walked herself through these reassuring statements, they didn’t encourage her to turn the handle any faster.

     “As soon as I go,” she repeated to Eli.  She heard him move up behind her. His arm brushed against her hip as he held it out to the door. “And let me back in when you hear my voice. Don’t open it for anyone else, okay, bud?”

     “K, Phoebe.” His little voice inspired confidence and fear in Phoebe in one fell swing. She wanted to wait in the closet forever. Instead of giving into the fear, she pushed herself forward with the door.

     Phoebe slipped out, silent and quiet. She heard Eli re-engage the lock as soon as the door swung shut. Instantly, Phoebe found herself transitioning from the darkness of uncertainty to a splash painting in the pits of Hell.

     Pieces of children’s bodies were scattered from the rainbow colored shelving units to the shoe cubby on the opposite side of the room. The newly-red floor squished as Phoebe moved through the carnage. She fought her gag reflex as she made her way to her mother’s desk. The van keys and her cell phone were there.

     While she made the effort to step over the abused corpses of kids she’d known and liked for many months, Phoebe realized there weren’t enough bodies, in part or in whole, to make up everyone who’d been in the daycare when the men attacked. She wanted to allow the flame of hope to swell inside of her that some of them had made it out alive, but an insidious voice inside whispered darker alternatives to her. Phoebe was certain whatever had happened to the missing children, it wouldn’t be found to be a happy ending.

     Phoebe shuffled through the papers on her mother’s desk. She moved folders and drawings from some of the children. The artwork made her tear up again. It felt to her as though she would never stop crying.

     The squeak her mother’s top drawer made as she opened it caused Phoebe to jump and quickened her panicked breathing. Her mother’s keys were inside and she claimed them. She hadn’t had many driving lessons but she thought in a pinch she could get the kids home and then get herself somewhere safe. She didn’t know where she would go. Maybe one of the kids’ parents would take her in, she mused. That is, if she could get the kids home.

     Phoebe returned to the closet and tapped lightly on the door. She didn’t feel she should risk any loud noises, even though she hadn’t seen anyone threatening outside when she’d peeked through the windows and the front doors. It appeared to her as though she and the kids had been abandoned in an uneasy world.

     “It’s me, Eli,” she whispered through the wood. “Open up, bud.”

     The door handle turned. The click didn’t sound nearly as loud to Phoebe from the outside.

     “Give me a minute here, guys,” Phoebe said as she kept the door mostly closed. “I’m just going to do something real quick and then we’ll work on getting you home, okay?”

     Two pairs of solemn, wide eyes moved with bobbing heads as Hannah and Eli nodded. Carmen stared at the floor, unresponsive. Phoebe decided she would take Carmen home first. Out of the three of them, she would benefit most from the presence of her parents.

     Grabbing the spare blankets, the picnic sheet, and the wide, rainbow colored stretch of fabric used outside for the parachute game, Phoebe held up one finger to indicate to the children she wouldn’t be long.

     “Close the door again and lock it until you hear me,” Phoebe told Eli. “Just in case.”

     Eli pulled the door closed without objection or question. Phoebe heard it lock and nodded, satisfied with Eli’s attention to her words and ability to follow through on her orders. He would be her most important resource on her way to get the kids home.

     She covered the torn bodies as well as she could. Blood soaked instantly through the fabric where the pools were deepest, but it couldn’t be helped. At least now the kids wouldn’t see dismembered, mangled, and blood covered forms.

     Pulling her phone from her pocket and sliding her mother’s there instead, Phoebe checked her service. She still had full bars. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t affected her cell.

     She dialed the number for emergency assistance and got a busy tone. No instructions telling her what to do; no pleasant but brisk voice to give her help or take her information. Once again, they were alone in the universe without anyone to turn to. Phoebe tried calling her Uncle Shaun. The call went through without redirecting or giving her a busy signal, but he didn’t answer. When she got his voicemail, her voice froze in her throat. How to explain what had happened? How could she even try?

     Her Uncle Shaun was the only family she had in the whole state. He was her father’s brother, and Phoebe hadn’t talked to her dad in over three years; since he bailed on her eleventh birthday party. Without her mom, her Uncle Shaun was the only person she knew how to reach who might possibly care about the situation she was in.