American Vampire. Jennifer Armintrout
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gas tank.
Did it matter, though?
She doubted he would send help back, if he could get out. Even if he did, help might not be able to make it back to their town. No one else had been able to so far. They’d figured at first that people just didn’t need to stop, then later feared what would happen if someone did. They’d feared the town would quickly become overrun with lost tourists, and resources would be obliterated. After a few months, they’d stopped worrying about unexpected arrivals and concentrated on getting out themselves. As the buildings started looking pretty rough and the store and gas station were reclaimed by nature, surely someone outside had to have noticed that Penance had become a ghost town—a missing town!—but still, no one had stopped or sent any help. And everyone left behind had stopped wondering long ago what it was that kept people out or in. They were too busy just trying to survive.
She frowned at the car. The night before, she’d thought it was a Corvette. In the light of day, she realized how wrong that first impression was. Maybe it was a Mustang, but it would have to be a custom job. More likely, it was a fancy foreign import, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste. That just proved what kind of a guy he was, driving around in a ridiculously expensive car.
She tossed the gas can and hose on the grass, figuring she probably wouldn’t even know where the gas tank was, anyway. The windows were open, and she leaned inside. The dew had settled over his leather interior. That wasn’t great. His phone wouldn’t be worth much, but he had to have CDs in there somewhere, and maybe even some convenience-store food. She opened the door as quietly as possible and climbed in. A leather jacket lay crumpled on the floor of the passenger side. Who wore leather in the middle of the summer? There was a pack of cigarettes in the pocket; those would fetch a good price. She rummaged beneath the seats and in the glove box, and found the car depressingly devoid of food. No chips, no popcorn, no beef jerky. Not even an empty soda can. The guy was probably a health nut. “Vanity,” she said to no one, clucking her tongue. Sure enough, he was some slick city guy who thought hard work happened in the gym. She climbed out of the car and closed the door, again as quietly as she could, to avoid alerting him to her snoop search.
Jessa finished her chores quickly, though her muscles still ached from her late-night flight from It. When the chickens had been tended and the garden watered, all the tomato plants inspected, when she checked up on the beehives, when she tacked the siding back up from where It had brushed its huge, scaly back against it and knocked it down, she put on her boots and approached the fallow field that surrounded the yard and headed to the woods beyond.
Though It rarely struck the same place twice in a row, a chill left over from the night before crawled up her spine. The woods didn’t seem frightening now, just a bunch of trees and May apples swaying on the shaded ground between them. “Elf Umbrellas,” Mom used to call them. Jessa squeezed her eyes shut tight as she stepped over the tall-grass border and into the trees. There was nothing in the woods. Nothing but her gun, and she needed that. It was the whole point of coming out here, where it wasn’t safe, where she shouldn’t be. What had brought her out here the night before, though.
She opened her eyes and saw the shotgun, gleaming black and simulated wood grain at the base of a tree. The tree itself was wounded, from where her first shot had missed. She never missed twice. She’d struck the creature, but that had only infuriated it.
She ran to the gun and snatched it up, her hands shaking, heart hammering, and looked for the blood trail. Closing her eyes, she remembered the scene the night before. It had been charging her, and she’d fired the first barrel, hitting the tree and exploding wooden shrapnel into the air, leaving behind an angry wheal of white tree flesh. It had kept coming, and she’d fired again, the second shot hitting its center mass, filling the air with a fine, red mist and the stink of burned flesh amid a disgusting sulfur-and-mold smell. It had roared and swatted at its chest, where the scatter shot had peppered its skin with bloody holes. It hadn’t stopped coming for her, but the wound had given her time to run.
No one had ever stopped It. They knew that evasion was the best they could settle for.
When she opened her eyes, she faced the direction she’d fled the night before. A path of ruined trees and uprooted plants showed where It had chased her, and she followed the trail. Blood stained the forest debris on the ground, volumes of it, but It had barely slowed. Its impossible strength hadn’t faded in the least, leaving it capable of destroying an entire building with its bare hands. No, not hands. Claws.
“Jessa? Jessa, where the hell are you?”
She startled at the voice, and nearly dropped the gun. She sprinted toward the field, resisting the ridiculous urge to look behind her as she charged toward the house. The monster wasn’t behind her, wasn’t chasing her to the safety of her own yard. The impetus to run had just called her name. Derek, the one dependable part of her life for the past five years—if she could really call him dependable—wouldn’t have missed the strange sight of a car sitting in her driveway. If he went inside and found the basement door barricaded, he would go down there. And if he found the guy.
No, on second thought, it might not be so bad for the smug prick in the basement to get beat up by her smug, hillbilly prick ex-boyfriend.
Once past the tree line, she slowed, tried to appear unhurried as she caught her breath. The last thing she needed was for Derek to think she would literally run every time he called for her.
“Stop making so much racket. You’ll upset the chickens, and they won’t lay.” She raised her hand to shade her eyes from the sun and dropped the gun onto the grass as she stepped onto the lawn.
“Jesus, Jessa. You scared the hell out of me.” Derek nodded toward the woods. “What were you doing out there?”
Before she could answer, Derek turned, pushing his Ohio State baseball cap up on his forehead. He hadn’t gone to Ohio State, but still he wore the Buckeye leaf proudly. “Where did that car come from?”
“That all kind of ties into the story of me being in the woods with a gun.” She laughed nervously, hating that she cared if he would be mad at her or not. She rubbed her face and took a deep breath.
Derek turned, his confusion increasing by degrees, as evidenced by the frown that drew his eyebrows down. “You don’t look so good, Jessa.”
“Thanks. I’ve been up all night.” She swallowed. Saying it out loud made her more tired, just like the part that followed made her more scared. “Running from It.”
His expression frozen in shock, Derek looked to the house, then back at her. “Again?”
She nodded, and felt her face crumpling before she realized she was about to cry. It didn’t even matter that she was crying in front of Derek, the one thing in the entire world she hated the most.
“No, no, no, come here,” Derek said, pulling her into his arms before she had a chance to object. Not that she was entirely sure that she wanted to resist him. The instant she was there, in the comforting familiarity of his embrace, she knew it was a mistake. It was too easy to pretend again, to fall back into the fantasy that always hurt her more than it salved her wounds. More than once she’d given in to temptation with him, and it always felt wonderful until reality crashed down on her once more. She pulled away. “How’s Becky?”
Derek couldn’t stand feeling guilty. It was his biggest weakness, and Jessa wasn’t afraid to exploit it. He knew that, and he looked away, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Damn it, Jessa.” His voice trailed away, and he glanced again at the car parked in the driveway. “Are you going to tell me where the hell that car came from?”
She followed him as he stalked across the lawn, relieved for the change of subject. She’d brought up his wife as a stalling tactic. She hadn’t really cared to hear about her, or his kids, at all. Before he could change his mind and start telling her all about them, she started explaining. “You’re not going to believe this, but someone actually stopped at Dale Elkhart’s service station last night.”
“Really?” Derek stood beside the car, hands on his hips. He tore his fascinated