Snowdog's Untitled Western Vampire Story - Chapter 5

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 6/19/09

"Snowdog's Untitled Western Vampire Story - Chapter 5"
by snowdog

The sky over the desert which had started out a stark blue that morning sagged overhead now like a dirty grey blanket. Eddie cleared away the last of the paper plates and sandwich bags, using the cooler as a makeshift trashcan. He glanced at his iWatch and translated the binary in his head.

"Two thirty-three," he announced.

Bob was leaning against the side of the pickup. He stopped wiping down the shotgun long enough to survey the horizon.

"Should be any time now," he said, "if memory serves." He opened a trunk in the back of the truck and started sorting through the ammunition. Even in the subdued daylight, his skin was mottled with red patches. If the transformation were to ever complete itself, even overcast skies would be too much.

Eddie rubbed the day-old stubble on his head and wondered again what it would be like to never feel sunlight on it. It wasn't like he was the outdoorsy type himself, preferring cathode-rays to the solar variety. To be trapped indoors, though, that was altogether different.

Tess came walking from behind some dry brush near the front the truck, buckling her gun belt, somehow making it look fashionable.

"If you knew what time it was going to happen, why'd you bring us out here so early?"

"'Cause I don't know," he said, tossing her the shotgun and grabbing a second for himself. "I'm only guessing."

Another truck pulled up alongside. Richard had brought Josh and Eli along, but the brothers were looking bad. They were drenched in sweat and breathing heavily as if they had jogged to the site rather than riding in air-conditioned comfort.

Bob put his arms on the bed rail and leaned. "Thought you might not show after last night."

Richard didn't look at him as he flipped open the corrugated chrome toolbox in the back of his truck. "I said I'd he here," he said, reaching deep inside. "I still think you're nuttier than all my mother-in-laws put together, but I'm here. Not sure what that says about me."

"Look!" Tess shouted, pointing ahead to the West.

Eddie followed her gesture and cursed. A dark gray curtain of rain had obscured the distant mountains and was advancing in their direction at a startling speed. At that moment, green streaks of lightning reached toward them from the towering thunderheads.

Richard pulled the double-barreled shotgun from his toolbox and shoved some shells into it and handed the rest to Josh who had managed to get out of the truck behind his brother.

"Here it comes." Bob muttered, turning up the collar of his long rider coat, then taking several steps forward.

Eddie grabbed his pistol and went to his sister's side. Tess seemed mesmerized by the approaching tempest.

"I've..." she began and faltered for a moment. "I've never seen anything like it."

"That's because it's unnatural," he answered, pulling the antique revolver from his waistband.

As the storm grew closer, large drops of rain began to pelt them in advance of the main wall. Weapons were loaded and cocked. Hammers were drawn. No one breathed. One hundred yards. Fifty yards.

POP!

A bolt of blinding green lightning kissed the ground, just about thirty yards ahead. Another one followed immediately. Eddie was forced to shield his eyes as a third streak seemed to bend the air around it. Deafening thunder cracked and bounced among the mountains.

With another flash, a young woman fell to the ground in front of them.

"Suzette!" Bob shouted and dashed toward the still figure.

Then the rain was on them. Gusts of wind and water drove Eddie backward several steps before he was able lean into it with enough weight to stay in place.

Bob had made it about half way to the woman when another flash dropped a dead horse only a few yards away. He stopped in his tracks.

"Bob!" Tess shouted and ran after him before Eddie could stop her.

Then there was more green lightning. Several flashes in succession, each brighter than the previous, lit up the valley. Five figures stood between Bob and his lost love: four men and one woman.

Eddie found himself rushing forward with the others, revolver raised, aimed between the eyes of the closest man. He cursed again and wished for a hat as the rain ran from his bald head ran directly into his eyes.

"I thought he said only one of them would be a vampire," Richard's voice came from behind.

For the first time, Eddie was able to focus on their faces. Even as he watched, the small amount of daylight that filtered through overhead had begun to blister their skin.

One of the men leaped high into the air, turned, and started running at an impossible speed toward the shelter of the mountains to the North. Another grabbed the lifeless figure of the woman and all four vampires followed the first.

Bob took off after them, but it was useless. In a fit of irrational rage, he opened fire with the shotgun. One of the fleeing vampires staggered briefly as he was hit with one or two slugs of buck shot. But a moment later, he was up to full speed again.

A low rumbling started. Lightning began to pop off again flickering so fast this time that it created an almost constant wall of light and noise. It was if the raindrops had turned into human figures dropping to the ground. A few of them lay still, but most took off across the wet desert after the others as if by instinct. Hundreds of them, Eddie guessed, streamed toward the shadows to the Rockies. Toward...

"Denver," Richard completed the thought for him.