Desiree considered them useless and was going to move on until she realized they had to have a means of transportation!
Desiree still had several hours until she needed to feed again. If she got hold of a vehicle, she had ample time to feed and try to find Clayton’s location. The latter concerned her. Trying to find Clayton when even the resources of Maryl proved useless told her the enormity of her predicament. And how would Clayton react to her presence? Would he want to kill her on the spot or allow her to speak her mind based on three hundred years of friendship? She still did not know why she was going to warn Clayton, and that fact concerned her.
The hikers had set up camp and had started a fire, which was strange given the animals she could hear nearby.
Desiree zipped to the trail the humans were on and appeared at their base camp as the sun slowly veered over the horizon.
The two human men were sitting at the campfire. Both of them had shorts on with light jackets, zipped up.
One of the men had a full beard. He was the one that noticed Desiree first.
He was poking a stick in the fire when he looked up and saw her.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” Desiree asked with confusion.
The other man, who was clean-shaven and had a hat on advertising a trucking company, spoke. “Your white dress has blood all over it, and it has rips and tears.”
“Not to mention you have blood on your forehead, cheeks, mouth, throat… are you okay? Where did you come from? Were you attacked?” The bearded man asked.
“I was visiting my friend, who lives on top of the cliff.” Desiree pointed to where she had come from.
“Did she throw you off?” the bearded man laughed as he jabbed his friend in the ribs with his elbow.
“Yes,” Desiree said before she flew to the bearded man first and snapped his neck.
The clean-shaven man backtracked several feet with his hands up in the air. “I don’t want no trouble, lady.”
“You won’t get any if you give me your keys and your wallet.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a set of keys. “Here you go.”
“Where is your car?”
“Just over the small hill about a quarter of a mile from the trail.”
“Throw the keys to me,” Desiree said as she put out her hands.
The human chucked the keys to her, and she grabbed them. “Now, your wallet.”
“Why do you need my wallet?”
“If you must know, I need gas money.”
“It has a full tank.”
Desiree put her hands on her hips. “I have trust issues. Throw me your wallet.”
The man took out his wallet from his back pocket and threw it to her, but it fell short. Desiree walked a couple of feet and bent down to pick the wallet up. The man rushed to her. He put his arm around her neck and had his other arm around her waist.
“A pretty lady like yourself shouldn’t be roaming trails by her lonesome, asking for keys and money without some sort of compensation,” he whispered in her ear.
Desiree could smell alcohol on his breath. “Typical macho human response,” Desiree replied. She took hold of the man’s arm and twisted it until the man fell, withering in pain. She let go of him and forced him to stand. She punched him in the chest that hurled him several yards. Desiree raced to him before he could flee.
“What are you that makes you so fast?”
“A vampire,” she said as she snapped his neck. And for being a jerk, she sliced his throat too.
Desiree raced to the car. She didn’t want to see the coyotes consume the human hikers. Desiree had heard them sneaking dangerously close to the campsite. She smelled two of them nearby and more, moving quickly toward the campground and their next meal. She was sure they would eat the dead vampires that were piling up half a mile toward Maryl’s.
She climbed a small hill and came to a clearing. She found two pickup trucks parked in a small makeshift parking area off to the side of the road. Taking the keys, she pressed the unlock button to see which car she would have to drive. She dared not go back to the campsite and get the other set of keys. It was a feeding frenzy; she could hear them snarl and growl at each other. She heard vicious fights break out over who was going to feast upon the humans first.
Fortunately, the newer blue pickup truck’s lights light up and unlocked. Desiree saw the truck had an extended cab and opened it. On the seat were a few packs of cigarettes with several books of matches. The clean-shaven man would more than likely have returned to his truck sooner or later to retrieve them.
Right past the cigarettes and matches, Desiree found a huge brown duffle bag and opened it. She smelled inside to make sure the clothes within were cleaner than the ones the humans were wearing at the fire. Desiree took out a flannel shirt and shook it in case bugs had crawled inside. The shirt was too large for her, but it would do.
She reached in and found a pair of shorts that were too big for her. And underneath the shorts was some rope with some spelunking equipment. She scanned the terrain. There were no caves that she knew about around here, so why the equipment?
At that point, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of the bloody dress. Desiree used her hyper hearing to make sure no cars were in the vicinity. Satisfied, she took off her dress and put on the shorts. Desiree grabbed the rope and looped it around to make a belt. She snapped the excess with ease and tied a bow to tighten the shorts.
She grabbed
