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Nightfall 1X05
By VampireHunter_D
NIGHTFALL
"Comes The Night"
Bill was relieved to find that Roy’s injury was not fatal, a lone bullet had torn through his upper left arm, leaving a ragged hole and spilling a fair amount of blood. Bill cut the sleeve off of his jacket and used it for a tourniquet, stanching the flow of blood as Roy became semi-conscious.
"I know you ain’t no doctor," spoke Roy as Bill helped him sit up. "But how bad did it look?"
"It went clean through, but we’re going to have to find some antibiotics for you, and some real bandages. I don’t have any idea about stitches, though."
"Soldering gun," replied Roy. "We can cauterize it."
"I’m really starting to wonder about you, Father."
"Don’t worry, I’ve seen many rebel soldiers do it for field dressings. Some times it’s the only choice you’ve got."
"Exactly what missionary services did you perform?" asked Bill, thinking that he was really only acting on faith, accepting what ever the others told him.
"Mostly in third world countries," replied Roy, rising groggily to his feet. "I usually ended up in areas where there was a lot of fighting going on."
Roy’s knees buckled and Bill had to grab him to keep him standing. Bill helped Roy along, directing him back to the copter, then had to actually pick him up and place him in the passenger section. Considering Roy weighed nearly two hundred, and Bill was in less than perfect shape, it was not a task easily done.
"Stay with me, Father," coaxed Bill, grabbing a blanket from under the seat and covering Roy with it. "I think you’re going into shock, you need to keep talking."
"Radio Ron," gasped Roy, his breath getting a little shallow. "We’ve got no choice, we need to get out of here."
"Okay, but keep talking so I know you’re still with me, okay?"
Roy nodded and started singing in almost a whisper, bringing a smile to Bill’s face. Bill climbed into the pilot’s seat, turned on the electronics of the copter, and began calling on the frequency they had all agreed to use.
"They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love…" came Roy’s soft hymn.
"Come in land," called Bill, thankful he had remembered the code names they had decided to use. They knew the vamps could be monitoring them and they didn’t want to give the creatures any more information about their group than they had to. "Air to land, come in land."
After five minutes, Bill was beginning to get worried. He knew Ron was a self centered jerk, but the man had help develop this plan in case of an emergency, he should have had his radio on. Figures he’d let us down, damn it! Thought Bill, his anger with Ron rising up again.
Roy had quieted, the fact suddenly hitting him, and Bill moved to check on the man. Asleep, at least Bill hoped that was all he was, Roy was once again breathing steadily and soundly, his bleeding apparently having stopped. He had no idea what he was going to do now, but he knew he had better come up with something soon.
Looking about the area, hoping for some divine indication of what he should do, Bill’s gaze fell on the still form of the man that had fired on them. No one else had come from inside to investigate, a good sign that the man had been alone, and a myriad of questions began running through his head.
Why did this guy shoot at us? Who is he? Is this place filled with sleeping vamps? Do the vamps have human servants like in the old movies? Is there anything in there that we can use?
"Car keys?" wondered Bill, aloud.
He ran to the closest vehicle and peered inside, not surprised to find no keys in the ignition. Two more similar discoveries confirmed his theory that the keys for the vehicles must be inside, hopefully organized or labeled in some manner.
It was just a little after three, at least four or five hours of sunlight left, and Bill made up his mind. He reloaded his rifle, grabbed a .45 from their small stockpile, and headed towards the building. He would waste no more than two hours searching the place, hopefully leaving enough time that he could get Roy to the distant stand of trees on the other side of the large parking lot where they could wait out the night.
* * * * *
Ron felt as if someone was smacking him in the head with a baseball bat, a feeling he had experienced before, and slowly opened his eyes in anticipation of finding himself in the middle of a bar fight. He groaned as the memories came flooding back, realizing that it was not a dream, he was in a world overrun by vampires.
He looked at his watch, the darkening shadows causing him to fear that he had missed the rendezvous with the others back at the airport. He cursed when he saw that it was broken, the crystal shattered and one of the arms missing.
That’s okay, he thought. I’ll radio them and they can pick me up.
He reached down, painfully, and grabbed the handle of the portable radio to set it on the seat next to him. The handle came up easily, part of the radio casing hanging onto it, but the rest of it a pile of broken pieces. He slammed the handle down, cursing, then threw it through the open passenger window.
"It’s because I give the preacher so much crap, isn’t it?" he asked, looking upwards.
Ron had to force his door open, slamming his shoulder into it a few times before it finally began to budge with a creaking resistance. He found that he had a greater problem when he went to get out; his leg was pinned by the smashed dashboard. A whole slew of profanities escaped his mouth this time, cursing everyone and everything, as he smashed his fists against the crumpled dash.
A wave of nausea washed over him, and he knew he was still in no shape to be carrying on like he had. Venting his anger had just depleted some of his strength, leaving him in worse shape than before. He had to calm down and think. He had to figure away of his predicament soon, the shadows were growing deeper.
Looking around the cab of the truck for anything that could help him, Ron saw his shotgun laying between the seat and the passenger door. Leaning over as far as his pinned leg would allow him too, Ron’s fingers barely touched the stock of the weapon. Taking off his belt, he looped it then lassoed the end of the gun. Using gentle tugs, Ron was able to inch the shotgun around the seat so that it fell towards him.
Retrieving the shotgun, Ron ejected the shells from it, then stuck the barrel down beside his leg. He wanted to use the shotgun as a crowbar but he didn’t want to blow his foot off in the process. Sweating profoundly, straining with all of his strength, Ron budged the shattered dash enough that he was able to pull his leg out from the twisted metal.
Ron grimaced as he saw that his leg had a nasty gash in it, his jeans ripped from his knee past the cuff to show the ragged wound. He then realized that he had been out for a while, the blood on the gash had already dried to start forming a scab.
How much time did he have left before sunset? He doubted that it was much, his own sense of time conveying that much to him. He had to get to cover, find some place to hide out the night.
Climbing out of the truck, grimacing as pain shot up his leg, Ron looked around at his surroundings, hoping to spot a decent looking place to hole up in. Most of the buildings were stores or service outlets, and he decided that one was as good as another. He tried the closest business, a copy/fax/mail service place, and was glad to find it unlocked.
Does that mean they’re already in here? he thought. I’ve got to quit second guessing everything!
Ron made a quick survey of the establishment, satisfied that it was empty, then began trying to figure out how he would hide himself. The business was just a small part of the first floor of a tall building, about twenty-five stories, and Ron found a door in the back of the shop marked ‘Maintenance’. The door was secured with a heavy lock, but like most businesses, the key was hanging right next to it.
The door opened on a small hallway and Ron followed it, his flashlight illuminating the hall in whiteness. He soon came to a room barely bigger than the hall, three more doors located there. The only door not locked from the other side was one that gave access to stairs heading down, Ron’s light unable to reach the bottom.
Trudging down the metal steps, Ron found himself in the large basement of the building, the entire area filled with mazes of pipe and machinery. Following the main isle through the pipes, Ron came upon a sort of office, just setting in a wide open space.
Several file cabinets sat next to a large desk, over which was draped a body. A closer examination revealed it to be the corpse of a man, probably a maintenance worker, and that he had died from a self inflicted gun shot to the head. Ron pried the gun from the nearly skeletal fingers and added it to his inventory.
Three large, metal cabinets sat to one side of the work area, and Ron stepped over to inspect their contents. He found only tools, cleaning solvents, and cans of oil. The items were exactly what he needed to help hide himself for the evening.
Moving deeper into the maze of pipes, Ron climbed into a thick grouping of the metal tubes and sunk down behind them. Removing the lid on one of the cans of oil he had taken from the cabinet, Ron began pouring it over himself. He doused his pants, his shirt, and even his hair. He wiped it over his arms, hands, and face, hoping that the heavy scent would mask his own.
Down here, among all of the machinery of the building, saturated in oil, he doubted that any passing vamps would scent him out. It had worked with the buck scent in the woods, so he figured it would work just as good here.
Of course eight hours spent cramped up between a bunch of cold pipes in the dark wasn’t going to be much of a picnic either.
* * * * *
"It’ll be feeding time soon," said an anorexic looking man next to Diane.
She had spent the last few hours walking around the pen, finding that it was nothing more than the floor of some stadium, covered with piles of straw and filled with several portable pits for fires. What light was given off from the fires showed a twelve foot high wall encircling the floor, the many exit doors fully secured from the other side.
"How many of us will they take?" asked Diane.
"Depends how many of them are here tonight," he replied, turning to look at her with sunken eyes. "Sometimes only a few, other times…."
9/16/2002 9:47:07 PM
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