The Night Eternal

“I know,” said Eph. “But we need daylight to do this thing right. Got to hold off the vamps until then.”

“But once we get to the water, they can’t touch us.”

“Getting on the water is another task altogether.”

Nora looked to the dark sky. A cool breeze came along and she shrugged her shoulders against it. “Daylight seems like a long time away. I hope we don’t lose our head start here.” She turned her gaze to the deadness of the street. “Christ, I feel like there are one hundred eyes staring at me.”

Gus was jogging back toward them from the sidewalk. “You’re not far off,” he said.

“Huh?” said Nora.

Gus opened the hatch on the Explorer, pulling out two road flares. He ran back to the street, far enough away from the gas fumes, and sparked them to life. One he tossed end over end into the parking lot of the Wendy’s across the road. The spitting red flame lit the forms of three strigoi standing at the building’s corner.

The other he hurled toward some abandoned cars in an old rental car parking lot. That flare bounced off a vampire’s chest before hitting the asphalt. The vampire never flinched.

“Shit,” said Gus. He pointed at Mr. Quinlan. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

They have been here the entire time.

“Jesus,” said Gus. He went running toward the rental car company and opened up on the vampire there. The machine gun reports echoed long after he was done, and the vampire lay on the ground, not dead but down for good and full of bleeding white holes.

Nora said, “We should get out of here.”

“Won’t get far without gas,” said Eph. “Fet?”

Fet was pumping, the fuel flowing more freely now. Getting there.

Gus fired his Steyr across at the other flare, trying to scatter the vampires in the Wendy’s lot, but they didn’t scare. Eph drew his sword, seeing movement behind the cars in the parking lot on the other side. Figures running.

Gus yelled out, “Cars!”

Eph heard the engines approaching. No headlights, but vehicles coming out of the darkness, underneath the highway overpass, slowing to a stop.

“Fet, you want me to—?”

“Just keep them back!” Fet pumped and pumped, trying not to breathe the toxic fumes.

Nora reached inside both cars, turning on each set of headlights, illuminating the immediate area east and west.

To the east, opposite the highway, vampires crowded the edge of the light, their red eyes reflecting like glass baubles.

To the west, coming from the highway, two vans, figures emptying out of them. Local vampires called into duty.

“Fet?” said Eph.

“Here, switch tanks,” said Fet, pumping hard, not stopping. Eph pulled the tubing from the Jeep’s almost-full tank and quickly transferred it to the Explorer, gasoline spraying out onto the hardtop.

Footsteps now, and it took Eph a moment to locate them. Overhead, on top of the canopy roof, right above them. The vampires were encircling them and closing in.

Gus opened up his gun on the trucks, winging a vampire or two but not doing any real damage.

“Move away from the tank!” yelled Fet. “I don’t want any sparks nearby!”

Mr. Quinlan returned from the roadside, near Eph at the vehicles. The Born felt it was his responsibility to protect him.

“Here they come!” said Nora.

The vampires began to swarm. A coordinated effort, first focusing on Gus. Four vampires, two running at him from either side. Gus fired on one pair, shredding them, then wheeled and put down the other two, but only just in time.

While he was occupied, a handful of dark figures seized the opportunity to break from the adjoining lots, running toward the Mobil.

Gus turned and sprayed them, hobbling a few, but had to turn back around as more advanced on him.

Mr. Quinlan darted forward with amazing agility, meeting three advancing fellow strigoi and forcefully driving his open hands into their throats, snapping their necks.

Bang! A small vampire, a child, dropped down onto the roof of the Jeep from the carport roof. Nora swiped at it, and the little vampire hissed and darted backward, the Jeep rocking gently. Eph rushed around past the headlights to the other side of the Jeep, looking to slay the nasty little thing. It wasn’t there.

“Not here!” said Eph.

“Not here either!” called Nora.

Eph said, “Underneath!”

Nora got down and swung her sword underneath the vehicle’s carriage, the blade’s reach long enough to drive the child back out toward Eph’s side. He cut at its lower right leg, severing the Achilles tendon. But instead of retreating again, the maimed vampire came right out from beneath the Jeep and sprang up at him, Eph’s sword meeting it halfway, cutting down the blood-rabid strigoi in midair. He felt the effort more than ever. He felt his muscles twitch and spasm. A flash of pain ran from his elbow to his lower back. His arm curled in a brutal cramp. He knew what it was: he was malnourished, perhaps even to the point of starvation. He ate very little and very badly—no minerals, no electrolytes, his nerve endings terminally raw. He was coming to an end as a fighter. He fell down, releasing his sword, feeling a million years old.

A wet crunching sound startled Eph from behind. Mr. Quinlan was behind him, bright in the headlights, the head of another child vampire in one hand, the body in his other. The vampire had gotten the drop on Eph, but Mr. Quinlan saved him. The Born threw the dripping body parts to the blacktop as he turned, anticipating the next attack.

Gus’s gun rattled out in the street as more vampires converged on them from the edges of darkness. Eph cut down two more adult strigoi running up from behind the gas station store. He was worried about Nora being on her own, on the other side of the cars.

“Fet! Come on!” he yelled.

“Almost!” Fet yelled back.

Mr. Quinlan lashed out, dropping more sacrificial strigoi, his hands dripping white. They just kept coming.

“They’re trying to hold us here,” said Eph. “Slow us down!”

The Master is en route. And others. I can sense it.

Eph stabbed the closest strigoi by the throat, then kicked it in the chest, retrieved his blade, and ran around to the other side of the Jeep. “Gus!” he called.

Gus was already retreating, his smoking gun silent. “I’m out.”

Eph chopped at a pair of vampires coming up on Nora, then whipped the fuel line out of the Explorer’s tank. Fet saw this and finally gave up pumping. He grabbed Eph’s spare sword out of his pack and took care of another animal-like vampire coming over the Explorer’s hood.

Gus jumped into the front seat of the Explorer, grabbing another weapon. “Go! Get out of here!”

There was no time to throw the gas-soaked pump into the truck. They abandoned it there, gas still drooling out of the tube, slicking the hardtop.

“Don’t shoot this close!” said Fet. “You’ll blow us up!”

Eph went for the Jeep’s door. He watched through the windows as Mr. Quinlan grabbed a female vampire by her legs and whipped her head against a steel column. Fet was in the backseat behind Eph, fighting off vamps trying to get in the door. Eph jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and turning the key.

The engine started up. Eph saw that Nora was inside the Explorer. Mr. Quinlan was the last, climbing into the backseat of the Jeep with strigoi running up to his window. Eph threw the truck into drive and curled out into the street, mowing down two vampires with the Jeep’s silver grille. He saw Nora zoom the Explorer out to the edge of the road, then stop short. Gus jumped out with his machine gun and bent low, firing