Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series Book Four) Read online

  A bath would be good too! I thought to myself.

  So we passed the deserted homes to the left and right and I walked towards the town. As we grew nearer we could see more deserted houses. The world seemed so quiet, only the sound of our bare feet could be heard smacking off the tarmac. Looking down, I was shocked to see that the road surface had split and cracked in places, leaving wild and untamed weeds and plants to sprout from them. Nearing the town, I noticed a sea of lights twinkling on and off up ahead. As we drew nearer, it became clear to me what these lights were. It was the glare of the pale winter sun glinting off the cars that lay strewn across the deserted road.

  We walked slowly towards the cars. The wind blew amongst them and I could hear the creak of a car door as it swung open and closed. I took my hand and covered my mouth and nose as a rancid stench wafted towards me. A gasping sound came from behind me and I spun around to see Isidor doubled over getting sick. His sense of smell was far greater than mine and Kayla’s, so the stench must have been overwhelming for him. Going to him, I rubbed his back, and his flesh felt burning hot.

  Brushing my hand away, Isidor straightened himself and whispered, “It’s okay, Kiera, I’ll be fine.” Covering his nose and mouth with his hands, he walked on.

  Passing amongst the rows of cars, I dared to glance into some of them and then looked quickly away. There were people in them – dead people. Their faces were bloated and purple in colour. Black crusty lumps of blood had dried in streams around their noses and mouths. It was obvious they had been running from something – trying to escape the town with the people that they loved. I saw the broken windshields, the scratches running across the hoods of the cars, the hanging bumpers, the upturned faces of the dead, the desperate fingers forever frozen as if clutching the air. I could see the black tire tracks on the road and then my head was thrown back as if invisible hands had grabbed at my hair. And, closing my eyes against the glare of a cold winter sun, I could see what had happened to these people as if being played out like a movie on the inside of my eyelids.

  They had come…

  …at dawn, just as the first shades of pink had spilt over the mountaintops. But there was something wrong! Why, on such a beautiful morning, were there black clouds in the sky? The clouds were moving fast, racing over the horizon as if a storm were coming. Black and threatening they came, and as they grew nearer they changed shape. It was as if the clouds where breaking up – falling apart – and the shadows they created on the fields below were just as black and moved faster if that were possible. But they weren’t clouds or shadows. It was Vampyrus that raced through the sky and Lycanthrope that sped over the mountains and fields towards the town. Swooping low, their giant black wings splayed on either side of them, the masses of Vampyrus flew over the town, their white fangs glistening like knives. The werewolves howled and barked as they bounded through rivers, leapt over gates and crashed through people’s front doors.

  Children sat up in their beds, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, as they stared in fear at the giant wolves that stood licking their giant snouts.

  “Mummy…!” the boy cried, but before he’d had the chance to raise the alarm, he had been snatched away, carried like a rag doll in the giant jaws of a werewolf as it raced back across the fields and between the mountains with its prey.

  The town of Wasp Water didn’t wake to the sound of alarm clocks, letters being delivered, toast popping out of toasters, or the rustling of newspapers at kitchen tables. They woke to the sound of screaming, running, barking, howling, tearing and the ripping of flesh.

  Half asleep, they ran from their homes, scrambling into their cars as the Vampyrus dropped through the air like stones above them. Windscreens imploding in showers of crystal glass as the Vampyrus ripped the occupants from the vehicles and fed on them. Blood jetted from throats, ears, and noses as the Vampyrus fed in a frenzy of excitement and hatred for these humans.

  Cars crashed into each other as their owners fought like demolition derby drivers to get out of town. Some managed to get onto the main road, but the wolves were quick – super fast, and they raced along beside the cars, smashing their giant skulls into them. The cars crumbled as if made from cardboard, veering off the road and into ditches where the occupants were dragged kicking and screaming, until their life’s blood was drained from them. And those who managed to outrun the werewolves were set upon from above, as Vampyrus ripped open the roofs of the cars as if opening a can of sardines. The families inside were snatched away into the sky where they were torn to pieces by the Vampyrus.

  More Vampyrus and Lycanthrope came like a plague of rats, their squawking and howling deafening, making me tremble and shake like a tree in a storm. I lurched to and fro as…

  …Isidor shook me.

  “Kiera! Snap out of it!” he shouted, shaking me from side to side. “Kiera – you’ve got to stop Kayla!”

  Snapping my eyes open, I felt my knees buckle, and Isidor steadied me. His eyes were grey and dark smudges circled them.

  “Kiera – look at Kayla!” he shouted at me.

  Still dazed and disorientated from my vision, I turned slowly and looked at Kayla. She was standing in the centre of the road and staring into one of the cars. Her arms hung motionless by her sides and the wind blew her hair from her shoulders. She appeared to be transfixed by the hideous sights hiding inside the cars. Then slowly, she reached out and opened one of the car doors, spilling one of the dead occupants onto the road. It lay half in and out of the car, its head lolling to one side at an awkward angle as if its neck had been snapped. But looking more closely, I could see that the corpse’s neck hadn’t been broken, it was bearly there at all, ripped away by one of the Vampyrus or Lycanthrope.

  As if waking to find myself in a nightmare far worse than the one I’d just woken from, I watched Kayla drop to her knees, brush the hair from her face and lower her mouth to the festering hole beneath the corpses chin.

  Then, as quickly as blinking, I was pushing her off the body, sending her crashing onto the road.

  “No Kayla” I yelled. “You mustn’t!”

  Kayla sprung to her feet, and with fangs sprouting from her gums, she launched herself at me. Isidor leapt at the same time as Kayla and dragged her out of the air.

  Wrapping his arms about her, Isidor screamed, “Help me, Kiera!”

  Kayla kicked and clawed at Isidor, spittle flying from her fangs as she fought against Isidor who tried to restrain her. “I can’t hold her for much longer!”

  Seeing the desperation in his eyes, I raced towards him and pinned Kayla’s arms to her sides.

  “Get the fuck off me!” she screamed with uncontrollable rage. Then she snapped her head forward as if to take a bite out of my face. Jerking backwards, I felt the spit from her fangs spatter against my face, and it burned like acid.

  “Kayla!” I screamed back at her. “Calm down!”

  “I’m thirsty!” she screeched, and her eyes rolled back, revealing the whites.

  “She’s burning up!” Isidor shouted. “And I’m too weak to hold her.”

  With Kayla’s arms held fast to her sides, I looked into her face, and it looked flushed, like she had had too much sun. “Kayla, listen to me!” I roared at her. “You can’t have that red stuff – it isn’t going to help you. We’ve got to fight this!”

  “Thirsty!” she screamed back and this time her eyes rolled down and she stared at me like she had gone insane.

  Lowering my voice, I shook her by the arms and said, “Kayla, listen to me. I want that stuff as much as you do and so does Isidor, but we can’t have it anymore.”

  “Thirsty,” she groaned again, but this time her voice sounded weaker, as if the anger was leaving her and I guessed that her raging fever was beginning to sap her strength.

  Sensing that she was no longer a threat to us, Isidor loosened his grip on her, and stroking the side of her hot face with my hand, I said, “Trust me Kayla, that red stuff you’ve been eating isn’t like normal
meat – its human flesh.”

  “Flesh?” she mumbled her eyes half open.

  Knowing that I had to get her away from the corpses and the stench of their rotting flesh, I didn’t answer her. Instead, I looped my arm around her shoulders and helped her up the road and towards town. Isidor followed and I could hear his teeth chattering in his gums as if he were freezing cold.

  As I weaved my way amongst the parked cars, I came across corpses splayed from their vehicles as if they had tried to make a last, desperate attempt at escape during the remaining moments of their lives. Some had their hands gripped about their throats as if they’d tried to stop the blood that had pumped from them. Others clutched their chest with bony hands and I saw a sickening image of Murphy’s heart being ripped from him. Pushing the image of Murphy away, as it was too painful, I looked down at the bodies as I stepped over them, and was sickened at the sight of the flies crawling in and out of their open mouths and maggots wriggling from their nostrils and out of their ears.

  I looked away in revulsion, shoving Kayla into Isidor’s arms. I ran to the curb and puked what little of the red stuff I had left in my stomach into the gutter. It swung from my lips in clotted streams and I brushed it away with the back of my hand. My stomach cramped and I heaved again, but this time nothing came out. When I felt able to go on, I took hold of Kayla again, keeping to the edge of the curb. I tried desperately not to look upon those dead people again. I wanted to get away from them as quickly as possible. Not because of the way they smelled or how they looked, it was because I knew that if some of them had been bitten by Vampyrus, there was every chance that before long, they would wake as vampires.

  Chapter Twenty

  The town seemed closer now and I could clearly see the individual outlines of buildings in the distance. Another mile or so and we would be lost amongst them. I continued to support Kayla; her fever had eased a little and she shuffled onwards, her head down, chin resting against her chest. Isidor walked silently beside me, his hands pressed over his mouth and nose to block out the smell, and every step he took was sluggish. The cars grew in number as we reached the outskirts of the town, and they stood either empty or contained dead passengers.

  I spotted a police van, and with my heart leaping in my chest, I raced towards it. The word ‘POLICE’ seemed to scream ‘HELP’, ‘SAVED’ and ‘AUTHORITY’, but did I really believe that if there were any police officers left alive in that van, wouldn’t they have tried to help these people? But we had to pass it if we were to reach the centre of town. So without thinking, I started off towards it as if it were calling to me like a mirage in a desert. Before taking too many steps, Isidor grabbed my arm and stopped me from going any further.

  “What are you thinking of, Kiera?” he asked, his eyes wide and fearful.

  “I’m going to checkout that police van,” I told him. “There might be some police officers in there and they might be able to help us.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” he snapped. “Remember those vampire-cops we ran into? The ones who tried to run us off the road? The cops who shot at us?”

  Realising that Isidor was correct, I shook my head and said, “Isidor you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking of.”

  “It’s okay,” he whispered looking over at the police van. “I guess we’re all going to be a bit cranky.” Isidor hunkered down between two abandoned cars. I helped Kayla down into the gap, and we crawled amongst the cars towards the police van. As we drew near, I could see that its back doors were open and several of the cops, who were wearing boiler-type suits, were hanging out. They appeared to be lifeless and still.

  “Look after Kayla,” I said to Isidor, as I crept forwards on my hands and knees, not daring to get up in case it was a trap. Dropping onto my stomach, I inched my way further towards the van, not taking my eyes of those bodies hanging out of the back.

  When I got as close as I could without being detected, I peered around the rear wheel of one of the cars. Several of the cops had managed to climb from the van, but had landed in a heap on the road. To my horror, some of them stared up at the sky with half of their faces and throats missing. The lower half of their heads appeared to have been eaten away, leaving a huge, fleshy hole. Then, from behind me I heard a noise. Looking back over my shoulder, I could see Isidor crouching down with Kayla propped beside him. I sensed that Isidor had also heard the sound as his eyes were darting from left to right. The sound came again and I froze. Daring not to move an inch, I listened intently to the noise. The sound was coming from one of the cars several rows away.

  Was it one of those corpses waking up as a vampire?

  But what if it were a survivor – some child who had managed to survive the Vampyrus and Lycanthrope attack? Shouldn’t we help them? It could be someone from the town, come in search of their family and they might know where other survivors are – there could be more – several more – even hundreds more who might be able to help us.

  With these thoughts spinning through my mind, I got up slowly and crept between the cars. The noise came again, a shuffling sound like feet on concrete. I headed towards it. Then the noise came again, but from the opposite direction. I wheeled around.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Is there anyone there?”

  Silence.

  I glanced back at Isidor, and he shrugged.

  Crouching again, I shuffled deeper between the line of cars.

  Then the sound came again and it was close. I gingerly poked my head over the edge of one of the car bonnets and found myself looking into the eyes of a tiger.

  Its upper lip crumpled as it snarled at me. The tiger’s teeth were like ivory daggers and they were covered in blood and flesh. Long, silver whiskers twitched around its snout, and it’s orange and black coat glimmered in the sunlight. Seeing the blood smeared around its powerful jaws, I knew it had been feeding on the bodies strewn across the road and had probably escaped from the zoo when the Vampyrus had moved in.

  I threw myself backwards in terror and clattered into one of the many cars. Regaining my balance, I darted between them and away from the tiger. It growled behind me, which was followed by the sound of its paws pounding against the roofs of the cars as it raced over to catch me. I saw Isidor peek out from over the hood of a car.

  “Get down!” he screamed at me, as he raised his crossbow. But, in his weakened and frail state, Isidor looked as if he were having trouble taking aim. The crossbow wavered up and down and from side to side in his hands.

  I weaved between the cars housing dead people and I had no intention of becoming one of them. My feet snapped off the tarmac, and as I rounded the front of a large four-by-four, I slipped and lost my balance completely. I hit the ground hard, knocking the wind from me. The tiger appeared on the roof of the four-by-four and snarled. Without taking my eyes off it, I inched backwards. The tiger looked down at me, and with a flash of those bloody teeth, it leapt from the four-by-four and flew through the air towards me. Closing my eyes, I waited for the tiger to sink its teeth into me.

  There was a thud and a high-pitched wailing sound and as I opened my eyes, I saw something large and grey fleet across my line of vision, knocking the tiger out of the air. I turned my head to follow it and could see that the tiger had been bought down by another creature. They rolled about amongst the abandoned vehicles in a flash of colour and claws. The sounds of the creatures’ woofing and howling were terrifying and I slid underneath the four-by-four for safety. From my hiding place, I could see the two animals clawing and biting at each other, but it was such a violent blur of rage, that it was hard to see exactly what was taking place.

  Manoeuvring myself, I watched as a huge set of jaws came clamping down on the tiger’s throat as it howled in agony. The other creature shook it violently to and fro and the tiger kicked out with its back legs. But its efforts were useless. The other creature was bigger and stronger and within moments had completely ripped open the tiger’s throat in a spray of crimson. The tiger twitch
ed and jerked for a few more seconds then became still as the other animal nuzzled its face into the open wound and began to eat.

  I lay under the four-by-four and covered my ears against the sounds of ripping and tearing as the creature devoured the tiger. Not daring to move, I stayed there until I thought it was safe to open my eyes. Looking sideways, I gagged at the sight of the dead tiger now lying on its side, its stomach torn open and a mass of entrails spilled onto the tarmac. Then I heard the sound of woofing and breathing beside me. I slowly turned my head to see the bloody face of Nik staring at me.

  “Are you going to lie under there all day or are you going to start looking for a way out of here?” he barked, licking away the blood and sinew that dangled from his whiskers.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him as I pulled myself out from beneath the four-by-four.

  “To help you,” he woofed.

  “But I thought…” I started.

  “You thought what?” he said, fixing me with his bright yellow eyes.

  “But I thought you were dead back there,” I said.

  “And I probably will be if I ever go back, but it’s too late for me to worry about that now. I don’t think it took too much for them to work out it was me who gave you the chair and that book.” Nik looked at me then turned away.

  “Where you going?” I called out.

  “I have something I need to do,” he said with a swish of his pointed tail.

  “What about my friend, Luke Bishop?” I asked.