Vampire Lord 6 Chapter 9

Raindrops the size of quarters splattered on the windshield as we made our way back to I-64 north, and they were huge and unlike anything I’d seen before. Thankfully, the storm clouds above rolled slowly across the sky, and I hoped we could make it back to Red House before it picked up much more.

“Take exit 45 into Nitro,” Valerie told me as we drove past a green sign for the exit.

“How far off the exit is Town and Country Supply?” I asked as I slowed slightly to take the exit ramp, and I gazed up at the dark clouds that covered the sky.

“Um, about a mile and a half, maybe two,” Valerie answered as she leaned back in her seat, and she suppressed a huge yawn.

“Okay, thanks.” I smiled at the farm vet and glanced inconspicuously at the little clock that glowed green on the dash. It read 3:48, and I guessed it was way past the dark blonde’s usual bedtime.

I checked on Catherine and Erika briefly in my rearview mirror, and they both looked as alert and focused as I felt. I still hoped we could make it back into Red House before dawn, and so long as we didn’t encounter any more trouble, we should be able to without much delay.

“Go right.” Valerie pointed as we approached the end of the exit ramp. “Town and Country is further down on the right.”

“Mhm.” I nodded and rode down the street until I spotted the store’s sign. Then I pulled the jeep into the gravel parking lot and parked right up by the front door.

The glass fronts of this store were just as intact as the one’s at Spring Hill Rod and Gun had been, and I saw this as a good sign that maybe we could avoid trouble here.

“Come on sleepyhead,” I teased Valerie and poked her gently on the shoulder. “We’re almost done.”

“I’m okay,” the freckled vet replied as she rolled her shoulders and stretched out her arms.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Catherine said with a little grumble.

“What? Not excited about more shopping?” Erika giggled at her friend. “Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?”

“Yeah, sure shopping for dirt and manure,” Catherine said sarcastically, and she rolled her eyes. “My favorite.”

“Come on,” I chuckled as I closed the driver’s door of the jeep, and I grabbed my Louisville slugger in one hand and my crowbar in the other.

Erika held her axe propped on one shoulder, and Catherine’s clawfoot hammer swung lazily from her right hand. Valerie looked more awake now that she was out of the car, and she held her axe casually with both hands in front of her.

I led the girls up to the front door and gave a little tug on the steel handle. It didn’t budge, which was another good sign that we might be able to make this stop quickly and efficiently.

“Erika, could you please?” I turned to the dark-haired girl, who had already pulled her leather pouch of lock picking tools from her pocket.

“One minute.” The techy girl knelt in front of the door and made quick work to defeat the little deadbolt that stood between us and the supplies we needed to feed the human population of Red House for years to come. “Got it.”

“Excellent,” I praised Erika and shot her a grin.

“You’re getting good at that,” Catherine said with a smile.

“Thanks,” Erika replied and tucked her lock picking tool kit back into her pocket. Then she lifted her axe to the ready again and led us into the dark farm supply store.

The shop was quiet and smelled like hay, and the air inside was thick with dust.

“We’ll want at least two of these,” Valerie said almost immediately, and she grabbed a pitch fork from a small display near the cash register. “If we had more room, I’d say take the whole lot.”

“Okay, what else should we look for?” I asked the vet as she laid the pitchforks pointy-side down in a shopping cart that she grabbed from beside the door.

“At least two shovels, and as many hand trowels as we can find.” Valerie tapped a long finger against her perfect lips, and she led Catherine and me up and down each aisle. “They’re small but super useful.”

“I got ‘em,” Erika called out from where she’d wandered away a few rows over. “There’s only six here.”

“That’s okay, this is all just to add to what we already have in town,” Valerie replied as she added five more small hand tools with sharp prongs like a fork into the cart, and she shrugged a shoulder at me. “Cultivators, really good for tearing out weeds and churning the soil.”

“Okay, where are the seeds?” I nodded at her choice of tools and gazed around the store.

“That whole back row is filled end to end with seed packets.” Valerie pointed over her shoulder, and then she laid two large plastic watering cans into the cart. “Let’s check this last row before we go over there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I smirked at the freckled blonde, followed her around the last row, and nearly knocked us both to the ground.

“What the--?” Catherine stopped just in time behind me and let out an exasperated huff.

Valerie stood dead in her tracks at the end of the aisle, and I peaked over her shoulder and spotted the cause for her sudden stop.

An emaciated vampire lay curled up on the floor at the far end of the row. It used to be an older man, and he wore a red plaid button down shirt and khaki pants. A John Deer cap perched precariously on his balding head as he turned slowly to look at us, and his blood red eyes almost shone in the darkness of the store.

“Oh, Carl,” Valerie sighed, and her shoulders sagged at the sight of the old man turned bloodsucker. “You poor son of a bitch.”

“You know him?” Erika asked as she came up behind us, and her arms were full of small tools and a thick roll of chicken wire.

“Carl, he owes this place.” Valerie nodded sadly and took a small step forward.

“Uuuggghh,” Carl groaned quietly, and his voice scratched in his throat like sand ground between two panes of glass. He reached an arthritic hand out to drag himself toward Valerie and the smell of her blood, but suddenly the bones in his fingers snapped like toothpicks and bent in every direction.

“Fuck,” Valerie sighed again and stepped closer to the old bastard. “I’m so sorry, Carl.”

“V-V-V--,” the decrepit vampire hissed through his needle-like teeth and looked up at the farm vet like he remembered her.

“It’s okay, man,” Valerie murmured as she raised her axe slowly above the dying bloodsucker. “It won’t hurt now.”

She swung her axe down swiftly and split the old vampire’s skull in half like an overly ripe watermelon. His moldy brains dribbled down the flaky, wrinkled skin of his face as his last breath hissed slowly from his lungs, and I could’ve sworn he’d smiled just a bit as Valerie put him out of his misery.

“He must have been barely hanging on here for weeks,” Erika sighed and wiped a hand down the side of her face.

“What a shitty way to go. Slow is so much worse than fast.” Catherine’s lips turned down, and her brow furrowed with pity. “My granddaddy died slow like that. Alzheimer’s ate away at him until there was nothing but a shell of him left.”

“Horrible.” Erika nodded and laid a gentle hand on the auburn-haired girl’s elbow.

“Come on,” Valerie said as she turned back to us, and her eyes shone with unshed tears for the old man. “Let’s get back to work.”

“Where’s the fertilizer?” I asked to distract the vet from the mercy killing she’d just had to provide.

“I was thinking about that,” Valerie replied, and her voice was a little stronger. “We have plenty of cattle and sheep and goats in town, and they’ll provide all the manure we could ever need, and then some. I think we should save the space in the jeep and load up on other things we don’t already have in town.”

“Whatever you say,” I murmured and touched my fingers gently to my new lover’s freckled cheek. “Let’s go check out the seeds.”

A sudden crack of thunder rumbled close over head, and the sky let loose a deluge of water that pounded the store’s tin roof in a deafening cacophony.

“That’s not good,” Valerie declared as she looked up at the steel rafters above us. “We need to hurry.”

“Seeds?” I asked and started to pull the shopping cart backward away from Carl’s limp corpse.

“This way.” Valerie pointed, and we rounded the last aisle to find a display of little paper envelopes that was easily fifty feet long.

Every single inch of the wall was filled with little packets of Burpee seeds with bright photos of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers on the front.

“Grab the borage, marigolds, cosmos, lavender, and sunflower seeds, but skip any of the other flowers.” Valerie started to pick handfuls of vegetable packets from the rows and tossed them into the cart. “Grab all the vegetable and fruit packets you can get your hands on, also all the herbs and spices. Even the ones that don’t look good may be useful for making herbal medicines. Oh, and perennials are preferable to annuals, since they grow back every year by themselves.”

“What do we need flowers for?” Catherine asked as she tossed packet after packet of sunflower seeds into the cart. “Like, sure lavender, and I get sunflowers, the seeds are a great snack, but marigolds?”

“They’re good for the ecosystem of the garden,” Valerie answered. “They attract helpful insects like bees and other pollinators. Marigolds actually work great as slug, hornworm, and nematode repellent, too.”

“Nematodes are real?” Erika laughed. “I thought it was just something nineties Nickelodeon cartoon made up for a funny storyline.”

“Oh my god, yeah, Doug!” Catherine cackled and slapped one hand on her thigh. “I loved that show.”

“Focus,” I chided lightly and dumped an armful of packets that consisted of borage, basil, cilantro, tyme, coriander, parsley, lemongrass, and rosemary into the cart. “Hang on, this is going to be a bit of a nightmare to move into the jeep.”

“Lemme grab a bunch of bags,” Erika suggested and jogged off to the front of the store.

“Awesome, thanks,” I told the shy girl when she returned with a bunch of plastic shopping bags.

Erika held a bag open for me as I scooped all the seeds out of the cart and dropped them in.

“Good thinking, Sam,” Catherine said, and she dumped another load of paper packets into the bag the dark-haired girl held open for us.

“Here, take these,” Valerie said and started to toss countless packets of squash, cucumber, carrots, broccoli, green beans, asparagus, colliflower, three kinds of corn, and every kind of pepper that existed into another bag.

“Geez.” Erika whistled as she quickly tied the handles on the bag she held, and she shook out another for us.

“Not done yet,” Valerie chuckled and began ransacking the rows of fruits.

I spotted cantaloupe, watermelon, tomato, and fig as she dropped them into another bag.

“Let’s see,” the farm vet murmured and wandered down to the end of the aisle. “Perfect. Come here, you little beauties.”

I took the handful of bags that Erika passed me and followed Valerie to the far end of the aisle where seedlings in cardboard boxes filled the shelves.

“Thanks.” Valerie smiled up at me and gently placed sprouts of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, elderberries, blackberries, and both red and green grapes into the bags I held open for her. “We’re lucky these still look okay. It’s pretty late in the season to find sprouts like this in the store.”

“Does it make sense to grab these?” I asked the freckled girl. “I know we can’t exactly plant them in the ground right now and expect them to last until spring. It’s nearly November already.”

“Mr. Jones has a huge greenhouse we can cultivate them in, and then we can transfer them to our new fields in May,” Valerie explained. “There are usually sapling trees out front, too. I spotted some on our way inside. If we have any room left, we should try to grab at least a few.”

“That’s a good idea. We’ll make room for a couple.” I set the bags down at my feet and laid a hand gently on her upper arm as I looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah,” Valerie sighed, and she glanced in the general direction that Carl’s emaciated body still lay crumpled on the floor. “I’ve known Carl my whole life. My dad used to bring me here every weekend. They’d been friends longer than I can remember. He was such a nice old man, I just hate that he had to suffer like that.”

“You did the right thing,” I murmured as I pulled the freckled girl into my arms, and I stroked one hand soothingly down her back. “He’s not suffering anymore thanks to you.”

“Thanks, Sam.” Valerie’s shoulders trembled with a heavy sigh, and she gave me a tight squeeze before she pulled away to swipe a single tear from her eyes.

“Come on,” I said as I picked up the bags of sproutlings at my feet, and then I turned back down the aisle to rejoin Catherine and Erika where they pulled the last few seed packets from the pegs on the wall.

“I think we cleared them out,” Catherine said with a smirk, and she glanced up and down the empty wall in front of us.

“Good, we’ll have plenty to plant and keep the people of Red House well fed with all this.” I smiled at my women as another clap of thunder rumbled loudly outside. “Come on, we gotta get going.”

We walked quickly to the front of the store and hesitated just a second before we pushed out into the torrential downpour that had pounded the tin roof for the last several minutes. Large puddles had already started to accumulate in the gravel parking lot as we rushed over to the jeep, and we flung open the back to load our haul in as quickly as we could.

Just a minute or two later, I climbed into the driver seat. Valerie sat up front with me again while Catherine and Erika hopped in the back, and they each held at least two plastic shopping bags filled with seeds in their laps.

“Don’t worry about the trees,” Valerie said as water dripped down her freckled cheeks. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“If you’re sure…” I replied and lightly quirked one eyebrow at the farm vet.

“Yeah, some of my neighbors have some apple and pear trees, so we can use the seeds from their fruit to plant more.” Valerie nodded and brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes. “It’s better if we get going now than hang around any longer.”

“Yeah, Drac,” Catherine agreed from the backseat, and she twisted her wet auburn hair into a single rope over her shoulder. “Let’s get outta here before this whole parking lot floods.”

“Mmhm,” Erika hummed and nodded her head in agreement.

“Alright, back to Red House we go, then.” I started the jeep’s engine and flipped the wipers onto their highest setting. The girls were right, the rain had started to dump on us in buckets, and the sound of water as it battered against the roof of the jeep rang in my ears.

Even with my vamp sight, I found it difficult to focus on the road in front of us. The storm clouds covered every last speck of sky and buried us in a darkness that consumed my senses. I had to drive slower than I wanted down I-64, and it took us twice the time it should have. At this point, I almost hoped the sun would rise quickly behind the thick wall of storm clouds and shed even the tiniest bit of light on the path before us.

After what felt like an hour, I managed to spot the sign for route 35 that would take us back to 34, and then to Red House.

“Finally,” I heaved a sigh of relief as I turned off the interstate and followed along the state route.

The rain was unrelenting and continued to douse the car in buckets of water unlike anything I’d experienced before in my life. I’d heard stories about the insanity of weather in the south, but because I’d lived in New York my entire life, I’d always assumed it was a little exaggerated. I learned quickly there was no such thing as exaggeration when it came to late autumn storms in West Virginia. It was like the biblical flood that forced Noah to build his ark poured down around us, and I wondered if we may be washed away with it.

Little did I know how real a possibility that was until shortly after we crossed back over the Winfield Bridge just west of Red House. Route 62 ran close along the Kanawha River, and only a lonely railroad sat between us and the raging water of the river that had quickly overrun its banks and flooded out onto the road.

“Shit!” I shouted and slammed my foot on the brake to bring the jeep to a screeching skid, and we slid to a halt just a few feet from where the road had been completely consumed by rushing water. “Fuck.”

“Damn,” Valerie cursed. “I was afraid of this.”

“Oh shit,” Catherine agreed as she leaned forward to look at where route 62 used to be.

“Well, what do we do now?” Erika asked and chewed on her full bottom lip. “We can’t exactly go this way, can we?”

“No, this way is totally fucked,” Catherine grumbled as she gestured a hand toward the rushing water.

“Val?” I asked and turned to look at the farm vet. “Is there another way around? Or do we have to go all the way back and take that road through Black Betsy?”

“Well, there’s a residential back road that loops around and comes out on McLane Pike.” The dark blonde chewed on her lip and twirled a loose strand of hair around her fingers, and then she pointed straight ahead of us. “But it connects just about fifty yards up that way.”

“Shit.” I gripped the steering wheel and weighed our options for a minute. Then I turned and looked at the girls in the back seat. “What do you think? Should we risk it?”

“What’s our other option?” Erika asked and fiddled with a long strand of her silky black hair. “Going all the way back and through Black Betsy?”

“Pretty much,” I confirmed.

“Fuck that,” Catherine groaned. “Let’s give it a shot, worst case we can leave the jeep parked there and head back into town on foot, right? And then we come back for it once the water clears out.”

“You got a point there.” I nodded at the auburn-haired girl. I knew Natalie and the others would start to worry if we didn’t get back before much longer. “Alright, let’s give it a try.”

“We gotta turn around and head back past where we turned onto 62.” Valerie pulled her damp hair down and twisted it back up into a new bun on the crown of her head.

“What road am I looking for, Val?” I asked as I made a three point turn and headed away from the part of route 62 that had turned into a gushing river of rain water.

“You want Summer Point Drive, it’ll be on the right, there’s a big concrete gray sign shaped like a hill, you can’t miss it,” the farm vet answered as she moved her hands through the air to draw out the shape of the sign.

“Got it,” I said and drove on for a few more minutes until I spotted the sign Valerie described.

“Woah, this looks fancy,” Catherine commented and glanced around at what had been finely manicured grass until the vampocalypse turned all the groundskeepers into bloodsuckers and their lunch.

“Look at the size of that house,” Erika gasped softly as we passed the first home on the quiet street.

The house was much larger than anything we’d seen so far since we’d arrived in West Virginia. There was a huge arch over the front door, and there were several expensive cars and at least one boat parked in the driveway.

“Yeah, this is where the professionals live, away from the rest of us,” Valerie drawled, and I could practically hear her eyes roll back in her head with exasperation. “Go right at the end, onto North Woods Drive.”

“Okay, got it.” I didn’t even bother to stop at the sign at the end of Summer Point Drive before I turned onto the next street. Rain continued to cascade in buckets down the windows, and I was thankful James had good wipers on the jeep. They swiped silently across the windshield and pushed the water away almost as quickly as it came.

We passed by another two dozen or so Mcmansions with fancy shrubbery and driveways filled with fifty thousand dollar cars. I wondered for a moment what had happened to the rich families that lived in these houses. Had they turned into vampires or been eaten? How many still huddled behind the sheer curtains I spotted in more than one front window?

I shook my head to clear away the useless thoughts. What mattered now was my women and the fine people of Red House.

“The next turn is coming up,” Valerie said softly and pointed to her right. “Luikart Ridge, and we’ll follow that all the way to McLane Pike.”

“That’s the road that comes back out onto route 62 just after where we hit the flash flood?” I asked as I turned right onto the new back road.

“Yeah,” Valerie answered. “Hopefully, it’s not flooded that far down.”

“Even if it is, at least we’ll be closer to the right side of it there,” Erika added.

“That’s a good fucking point,” Catherine laughed lightly as she twined her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. “I’m looking forward to getting out of the car.”

“Soon enough,” I chuckled and continued down the road for another ten minutes or so before I spotted a sign for route 34, and I turned to the woman beside me. “McLane?”

“Yeah, this road will end, and you’ll turn right, then after another mile or two we’ll see how far the flooding comes up,” Valerie replied.

“Great.” I took the turn and glanced at the dark blonde farm vet out of the corner of my eye. “Maybe we’ll have a little luck.”

We drove down the road in silence for a bit longer, and there was nothing but thick trees on either side of us as the rain continued to beat on the roof of the jeep. The mountain side blocked us in on the right, and the ground dropped into a steep slope on our left as we got further down the road, and I was thankful for the guardrail that ran along the edge of the asphalt.

“The turn is coming up really soon,” Valerie said. “We should be able to see how bad the flooding is in just a moment.”

“Cross your fingers,” I murmured as I took my foot off the gas and let the jeep coast slowly down the road. The last thing I wanted was for another flash flood to creep up on us.

“Oh fuck,” Catherine groaned a moment later.

“Fuck, indeed.” I gripped the steering wheel and stepped on the brakes, and the jeep stopped just a few feet before another flood of pooling river water.

The flooding was way worse than we expected. The Kanawha River had overflowed its banks and swamped the very end of McLane Pike as well as the entirety of where it met route 62, and a mudslide of boulders and uprooted trees had fallen down from the mountainside on our right to consume the last hundred feet of the road between us and the flooded state road. The pavement was cracked, and half of it had been washed away in huge chunks. The shingles of a roof that stood just above the racing river water was the only indication of a house that had been swallowed up across the street from what used to be the end of McLane Pike.

“Fuck.” I pounded a fist on the steering wheel in frustration, and I glared at the mess that mother nature had dumped on our doorstep.

“Well, what do we fucking do now?” Catherine demanded as she tossed her hair over her shoulder in annoyance.

“We could still backtrack all the way to the Kanawha River Bridge and pass through Black Betsy,” Valerie suggested, and she chewed her bottom lip as she knotted her hands in her lap.

“That’ll take us at least another hour, and I’d really rather avoid risking our supplies by bringing them through that hive of bloodsucking fuckers,” I said.

“Uh, I may have an idea,” Erika spoke up and twisted a long strand of dark hair around her pale finger. “But you’re probably not going to like it.”

“I’m open to all suggestions at this point,” I stated and turned to look at the shy girl in the backseat over my shoulder.

“Well,” Erika started and took a deep breath. “There was a break in the guardrail about a thousand feet back.”

“How does that help, exactly?” Catherine asked, and she squinted her eyes at her roommate.

“There weren’t any trees there, and I could see the road down at the bottom of the hill,” Erika explained as she shrugged her shoulders. “It was kind of steep, and I’m sure it won’t be a pleasant or even a smooth ride, but maybe we could do a little, you know, off roading? This is a Jeep.”

“Damn, that might just be crazy enough to work.” Catherine smiled at the dark-haired girl.

“Well, let’s have a look, at least,” I said, and I threw the jeep into reverse to turn back so we could see just how steep the hill was. Then I drove slowly up the street so we didn’t miss the break in the guardrail.

“Right here,” Erika said as she leaned forward and pointed at a spot on the right side of the road where there was a gap in the guardrail about twelve feet wide.

“Hmm, let me get out and get a better look,” I said, and I put the jeep in park.

I stepped out and slammed the door behind me. Then I tugged the collar of my jacket closer around my neck, stepped over to the edge of the road, and stared down the slope that led to route 62.

Erika was right, I could see a fairly passable path all the way down to the other street, and there weren’t any trees or buildings in the way. It was a pretty steep incline, maybe a forty degree angle. Not the kind of path I would normally take, but this wasn’t exactly normal circumstances, and I thought the jeep could probably handle it.

“Alright,” I said as I climbed back into the jeep and shook the rainwater from my hair. “I think Erika’s right, this is a pretty decent option.”

“Holy shit,” Catherine said. “Are we really going to drive down this fucking steep ass hill?”

“Yes, we are.” I shot the auburn-haired girl a smirk, put the jeep into drive, and turned to face the gap headon. “Let’s do it.”