Rebirth Read online

  My stomach heaved, my mouth filled with saliva. If he puked again I’d lose that battle. I turned my head and spat on the ground.

  We aligned the shoulder, attached the muscle, that arm was healed.

  We got the other arm the same way. I repaired bruising to her torso and some internal abrasions. The baby was whole and well. I released the blocks and stood.

  My knees gave out, I fell on her. I rolled off and apologized. “My god, I‘m sorry, you all fixed. The baby is fine.”

  I got to my feet and leaned on the car for support, letting my legs get blood to them. Late afternoon, the day run out, shadows lengthened, and the light dimmed.

  Carl wiped his mouth “Rosalee, I’m sorry, I ain’t worth a damn.” He wiped his mouth and spat. “You doin’ just fine, now let’s get Armando and we’re done.” I looked at Megan from the outside and got a shock. Tight stretched skin and bones, down to nothing, tits empty, face drawn and sagging, loose skin sagged all over her. We needed to feed her. I used her body for materials and starved her, I hadn’t realized how much.

  “We got to feed them up soon as we can. The healing is eating them up.”

  Carl muttered “damndest thing I ever saw. She shrunk as you healed her.”

  I nerve blocked Armando; he sighed and went limp. Carl pulled and twisted as I needed, we finished as full dark came on. I didn’t realize until we finished and I sat on the ground.

  Squatting in the same position so long made my muscles stiff and sore. My dry mouth made it hard to talk and hunger twisted my guts in knots. I moved to loosen my muscles but we had no food and nothing to drink.

  Armando and Megan’s bones showed through skin everywhere I looked. We needed to get them fed before they starved to death. They slept now at least. We hadn’t got more than a grunt or a groan out of either of them. The back seat of the car might be a loss from the nasty stuff…. worry about that later.

  It was dark.

  “Carl, let’s get everybody loaded up and get the hell out of here. Full dark, man we got to MOVE, right NOW!”

  Carl hung on the car to help him stand. “Yeah, been dark for a little while.” He stretched, moaning as he released tension.

  “The vamp gets up at night, Carl! We’re close to where he left Megan and Armando, right? I’m not getting juice from dirt, somethin’ wrong there.”

  He stiffened for a second, then turned and caught Megan by an arm and shook her.

  “Oh shit, we’d better get movin’. Come on, we gotta move, let’s get in the car.” He tugged at her. She sat up.

  I shook Armando, slapped him lightly in the face, and got open eyes. He helped, but damn slow. Urgency loosened my tight muscles.

  Something thumped at the front of the car. I jerked around, a dark, shapeless man sized mass swung and hit the car again.

  Carl had Megan inside and the door closed, Armando was mostly inside, I shoved him and got him far enough to wedge him in the rest of the way with the door.

  Dirt had been getting more insistent. I should have listened. Dirt expressed anger and disgust, ‘Blank.’

  “Yeah, no doubt. Hey fucker, back off the car unless you want to paint it.”

  I didn’t need the news bulletin. Wasn’t much else going act like this. And I didn’t have speed and power. Bad enough he might mess me up, and this was a rapist bastard, but Carl and the rest of them needed to get away.

  Fuck this, whining didn’t help.

  “Bring yo bad ass self on and let’s do this shit. I’m fixin’ to show you bad ass. I reached in the car window and grabbed the shotgun where it leaned, barrel down, against the front seat.

  For a wonder it didn’t snag on the way out, I turned and pointed, slid the safety off, and shot him in the face with both 8 inch barrels, those babies spread shot nicely. I forgot tired and stiff, I thought, throat punch, then nut kick, unless the shotgun runs it off.

  The thing bent sideways and mostly dodged the blast far as I could tell. Shame, that was most of the last of the silver and salt I had.

  Carl disappeared. One second near the front of the car opposite me, the next instant gone. I saw a blurred afterimage, his head unmoved while his body snatched away then his head moving. His scream cut off. I ran to the sound and found him on the ground on his back with one arm bent under him, still breathing. A car door flung open and slammed into the side of the car with a squeal of bent metal. The vampire threw Megan. She landed on the bank of the filthy creek and slid half way into the water.

  The vampire reached into the car and caught Armando, pulled him out and tossed him. Yeah, he was faster and stronger than Andy. The shriveled up thing I met in the basement didn’t compare. This thing oozed horrible and overwhelming. I reached to Dirt for speed, strength, needing. Dirt complied, energy entered my body through my feet but the energy didn’t work.

  The other presence offered strength, speed, energy, but distant, weak. I took what it offered and got a sense of direction, where it was. It was a part of me, but numb and distant, confusing, I didn’t have time.

  Megan called to me. If I got the thing I’d be stronger. I ran toward them. The vampire caught me at the second step.

  He put his hand on my back between my shoulder blades and pushed hard. If he’d hit me he’d have broken my back. My feet drug behind me in the air, I hit the ground and slid head first. The earth and slick mud cushioned me and saved my skin mostly. I stopped with my head under filthy water near Megan.

  I raised up, reaching, “Megan, something in the water, get” The vampire casually picked me up by one arm and turned me to face him. He grabbed my throat with his other hand.

  He stood a foot taller than me, draped with stinking, rotting, hairy stuff. The mouth strangely wide, his tongue ran out between large teeth and ruined whatever looks he might have had. The mouth opened like a snake’s, all the way back to its ears.

  He ran his nasty slimy tongue thing down the side of my face and I punched with my free arm, in the neck by the chin. He ignored my punch. His head didn’t even move. Thin, six or eight inches protruding, the tongue wiped at my face, tasting. I kicked hard and hit his shin with my toes, which hurt me. He didn’t seem to notice. I swung at him again, he squeezed the arm he held and I lost all sensation in that arm.

  The thing opened its mouth wider and covered my chin and mouth, the teeth scraped my cheeks, its head opened too far, a mouth shouldn’t open like that. I shook my head and pulled away. He squeezed my neck with crushing force, my neck froze up, unable to move.

  I got my fingers in the edge of his mouth and pulled at the skin trying to get it off me. The stench made me gag, putrid, rotted. In the midst of getting killed I thought ‘Somebody gimme a cat’s ass to lick and get this stink outta my mouth.’ I blew out a gust of almost laughter or scream, he sucked away my breath, oh god I didn’t want to inhale that filth, I inhaled through my nose and smothered for lack of enough air.

  The tongue pressed against my lips. He ignored my kicking and clawing and kept up his explorations. I tried to turn my head to the side. He held my face with his mouth. The tongue tickled, creeping from one side of my lips to the other, pressing and prying, trying to part my lips. My mind gibbered, I couldn’t scream with my lips pressed together, I smothered, I needed to breathe.

  He turned his head sideways and covered my nose with his mouth. The tongue tip tickled my nostrils. Selecting the right nostril he pushed, entering and stretching as far as it would go and then a little more, like a snake pushing up my nose. I bent my neck away from him far as it would go. The hand on my neck squeezed a little tighter and I heard crackles and things popping.

  He turned loose of my neck and hugged me against his filthy coverings with one arm, then the other, and grabbed my ass with both hands. I felt a pressure against the front of my thigh. He pushed against me and I knew what that was. I prayed, begged, gibbered, whined, I needed to die. I didn’t want to live through this. I wouldn’t. He kept on.

  A thunderous boom split the night wide ope
n, he jerked and dropped me. I hit the ground rolling, crawling, I needed distance and my arm didn’t work. My universe shrank to nothing but getting away.

  Carl fired, a rolling set of explosions that ended after five or six shots. I watched the thing slap the pistol to the side while I scurried away. A shot hit the ground under my good right hand, Carl’s hand flopped back against his arm, the pistol flew into the dark.

  A sledgehammer hit me in the middle of my right hand. My hand! Carl’s hand! Oh fuck, shit, my hand!! A hole in the middle of my hand size of my little finger showed white around the edges, not that bad at a glance. The impact and numbness promised the pain would come.

  I rolled away from Carl and the booger, I glanced at my palm while I moved. Shiny white splinters stuck out of a fucking hole I could put two fingers in. My guts heaved. Somebody made a steady high pitched whining noise with occasional grunts, I didn’t slow down. I hit cold, wet water creek. The back of my mind listed the filth in the creek, a waste reclamation place upstream filled the creek with little green-brown balls of treated feces. Mullet grew big as a person. Fuck it, die later of infection, whatever, I had to get away. I scrabbled into the water thinking hide, go under, get away. I dove into Megan head first which bent my poor creaking damaged neck to the breaking point. Head under water, I crawled over. She grabbed me, my side stung. I looked behind me and saw the shiny knife sliced into my side.

  I grabbed her hand with my gutted right hand. She focused on getting to the vampire. She didn’t want to turn the knife loose. I caught the blade.

  Everything slowed down.

  The blade slid into my index finger then my ring finger. No pain. I needed, something to cover the hole in my hand, the knife to hurt the vampire.

  I was the knife. I was me… I molded to my hand and forearm, covering my wounds with a tight fitting, comfortable glove of metal that moved like my skin and held my hurts closed. A blade stuck out of the glove, a continuation of my fingers. The knife, insubstantial, dripped away from Megan’s hand.

  Everything paused. I regained the ability to think. I quit the whining and closed my mouth. The glove covering in my gunshot, cut, bloody hand fit exactly. My/our blade extended a foot past the end of my fingers. I didn’t hold a handle or a hilt. The blade became a big sharp metal fingernail, I’d change as and when and how I needed. I didn’t need to look. I lived in the shape, the point, the edge, part of me. I looked for the vampire. He kneeled by Carl, he slapped him on the shoulder precisely. Carl kicked, arms limp and splayed. I walked up out of the water.

  I saw fur on the coverings, finally understood; he wore animal hides.

  The vampire rose and ran at me fast- but not invisible fast. I walked to meet him. Nowhere to run but that applied to this thing too. Done with running, I intended to destroy this bastard.

  The vampire reached toward my knife hand with a slap, I turned and met its hand with the blade. The blade changed as I swung, got longer and thinner and curved in a half moon, the perfect shape.

  I sliced through three fingers and a part of the palm off. It floated away as the rest of the hand continued to move. Drops of blood hung in an arc that followed the hand. The vampire turned with the force of its blow.

  I swung back the other way, the knife thinned and became sharp on the backside as I moved. The vampire continued its spin. I cut its back from belt level up across the lower ribs and out his right nipple. Meat and hides parted, the blade bumped through bone. I didn’t get the spine.

  The booger hit the ground and scrabbled away from me hunched over on its feet and one hand, then regained its feet and got faster. The world sped back up. The vampire ran out of sight. I turned to see to Carl and collapsed to my knees panting, unable to move.

  Armando helped me to Carl and went to get Megan in the car. I kneeled and put my half working left hand on Carl’s shoulder. I had the glove/knife on the right. I found the shoulder dislocation, the broken wrist, bruises. The other shoulder showed only bruises. I fixed the bleeding inside those places and got the pain blocked. We put him in the car. Armando got in to drive, thank god.

  I looked at the knife as we pulled out. The cutting edge of the blade disappeared into mist. I worried about bumping into something. I needed to free my hand.

  I held a necklace, thick black links; a shiny black stone the size of my hand hung from the midpoint. I had a hard time deciding it I changed or something else did. The hole in my hand was sealed, the bone no longer visible. My cut fingers didn’t leak blood. Had I imagined how bad I’d been hurt?

  Too tired to be astonished, I reached toward my neck. The necklace was suddenly in place. No fastener, a single piece, warm to my skin; comfortable.

  I put my hands on Carl and worked to fix his wounds. Then Armando was driving around the side of the house to the back yard.

  I lost chunks of time. Armando handed me a plastic jug of warm water and I sucked it down in one long, gasping swallow. I needed to heal the worse of the wounds on Megan and Carl and me. Then eat and rest. Mags danced around the injured parties and whined.

  I kneeled down and held my bloody hand out.

  “Mags, baby, I’ve healed everybody once tonight. I need help. If you’d change back I sure would appreciate it. Can you do that for me?”

  She sat down, stood up, wagged her tail and walked in a circle. Then she lay down and parts of her looked like they vibrated. In her original shape, naked as a blade of grass. I didn’t even pretend to care.

  “Oh, thank you, please, can you fix them? I’ll deal with this.”

  She said “Yes, I fix” and started on Carl.

  We wound up ravenous but healed. Andy trotted into the yard. He had a lot of questions, he‘d wait, it grew lighter by the second. He’d stay at my house during the day. Or not.

  I wounded Chen. I hoped enough he wouldn’t show back up. “Y’all come on in, find a place to lie down and let’s call it a night or a day or something.” I headed for the door.

  Mags said “Need clean.” She walked at me with the water hose. I held my arms out, she washed me down. She was right. Stuff covered all of us. Nobody argued, we took turns using soap and dishwashing liquid to get clean.

  I staggered inside exhausted, I wanted my bed. The rest of them settled wherever they wanted. I told them to make their selves to home and left them.

  I noticed when Carl climbed in bed with me and Mags. She rolled and scrootched him. Did he notice she was stark naked? Should I get between them? I was naked too… I stopped thinking, my lights were out.

  Two

  O f course somebody beat on the door. I think I had just laid my head down and closed my eyes when the thudding and pounding started.

  I got up and grabbed a robe on the way to open the door. If someone wanted to attack me, they got a free shot.

  Wanda said, “Rosalee, is Elizabeth over here?”

  “No, I ain’t seen her since… let me see, she came over day before yesterday I think, cooked some cornbread, she and Carl played a board game.”

  “She comes and goes like she wants. She’s been getting better, but she didn’t come home last night.”

  “Had a bad night, Wanda. Gimme a few minutes to get my shit together. Christ, what time is it?”

  “It’s after two in the afternoon, what y’all been up to?”

  “Been getting beat to hell, cut, stomped, shot, shit all over, puking, you know. Same ol’ shit.” I headed in to the kitchen to make coffee. I gestured to Wanda to come on in.

  “What the hell. You serious? What happened?”

  I thought a minute; too early in my day for this. “Let me start coffee and you tell me about Elizabeth.” I got the pot set up and hit the button, then walked out into the front yard with Wanda. I connected with dirt , strong and immediate.

  Thinking about Elizabeth, I saw images, no particular sequence, all over the neighborhood. In many she was with a man or an older boy. Then she walked at the back of a house and I got closure; the last time she was outside. I recognize
d the area. She and a man walked up the steps. The door closed behind them.

  “Wanda, she went into a house with a man yesterday and she hasn’t come out that I can tell. A couple houses down from you. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

  We hustled over to the house, Wanda knocked and Vernon Price opened the door. “Hey Wanda, Rosalee, what y’all up to?” He stood in a pair of pants and a robe, sleepy eyed. I felt a little better about wearing my robe.

  “Elizabeth didn’t come home last night. She was over here the last we knowed, we’re hunting her. What’s she doin’ here?” Her tone accused Vernon; she wanted answers.

  Vernon huffed a little “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, they ain’t no Elizabeth here.” He stepped back, ready to slam the door in her face.

  I pushed my way beside Wanda. “Vernon, somebody brought her in the back door yesterday evenin’, not you. She’s inside, she ain’t but fifteen and she’s had hard times. Why don’t you check and make sure she ain’t here?” I tried for conciliatory. If it didn’t work this was fixing to go downhill.

  “They ain’t nobody here but Terry and me, hang on.” He turned away from the door, shouting, “Hey! Terry!” He glanced at Wanda, “Y’all wait here a second. I’ll be right back.”

  He closed the door, I walked up beside Wanda and heard a door open inside, then “What the hell you doin’, man, that girl ain’t but fifteen! They’s people out here lookin’ for her!”

  A man spoke back to him. “Tell them to go the hell on then! Ain’t nobody’s business what go on in here.” I heard a female voice, low, quiet then

  “You get back in here.”

  Wanda shoved the door open and pushed her way in with me on her heels.

  “I heard her, you trot her on out now! Elizabeth, get yoself out here this instant!”

  Vernon stood with Terry in front of a door Terry had evidently just closed. A pair of boxer shorts hung from sharp hips, “What you mean comin’ in here like this! Y’all get the hell out!”