13 Bullets

She lifted her rifle to her shoulder and fired a quick burst of three shots but the half-deads were obscured behind dozens of rows of cornstalks, and moving-she didn't hit anything, nor did she expect to. With the power of the weapon in her hands she could mow down half of the corn field but she'd been trained better than that. A rifle bullet could travel half a mile before gravity brought it down. Unless she could guarantee there were no innocent bystanders within a half-mile radius she couldn't fire blind like that.

She could only watch, then, as the half-deads dragged their coffin through the corn. "Arkeley," she said into her radio, "Arkeley, please come in, I have sighted a group of half-deads carrying a coffin, please advise. Arkeley, what do I do?"

"...bones, human bodies in... no sign of recent... a lot of dust," he said. She figured he must be talking about the basement of the switch house and what he had found there. He must not have been able to hear her-she could barely make out a fraction of what he was saying. Presumably the signal was being partially blocked by the layer of dirt between them. That was immaterial, though. The half-deads were getting away. She looked back through the fence and saw the armored vehicle just sitting there. One member of the ART leaned out of an open door, staring at her open-mouthed.

"Captain Suzie," Caxton said, "I need backup over here. They're getting away!"

"My orders are to stay with the vehicle, no matter what. Our safety is more important than catching your vampire. Those are your orders, too, trooper."

"Reyes will escape if we don't get him now," Caxton said. "If we get him now, by daylight, we can destroy his heart with no danger to us at all."

"No danger? You said there were maybe seven of those creatures. There's only three of us. You come back here right now, Caxton. If you won't take an order from the Commissioner, maybe you'll take one from me. Come back right now."

Caxton looked from the armored vehicle back to the corn field. She could still hear the stalks rustling but the sound was growing faint. She didn't know what to do. She knew what Arkeley would do, however, in her situation. She knew exactly what he would do.

She pushed through the papery stalks and ran after the half-deads, her boots sliding in dark mud.

The fibrous leaves of the stalks slithered across her helmet and lashed at her exposed wrists. The thick stems of the stalks resisted her and she was certain that if she didn't catch the half-deads soon she would trip and twist an ankle, maybe even break it. How stupid would that be, she thought, to cripple herself because she was so intent on revenge? After the third time she fell and caught herself on her hands in the clinging dirt she forced herself to slow down. The half-deads couldn't be moving as fast as she did, could they? Weighted down by the coffin their frail bodies just couldn't make that much speed. She pushed through a line of stalks with her rifle and it snagged, just for a moment, but enough to make her sway. Weariness rose in her like a ghost filling out her body, seeping into the her nooks and crannies. She had to accept the fact that she was working on no sleep, that she couldn't trust her body. Gasping a little for breath she tore her rifle off the cornstalk and slung it over her shoulder. It was a liability in that close space. Standing still she looked around herself, trying to get her wind back, trying to get her bearings. She was well on her way to getting lost in the tall corn. Already she wondered if she could find her way back-there were no landmarks, no way to tell one patch of plants from another.

That kind of thinking didn't help her, though. Shaking her head she sucked breath into her body and refused to give up, not when she was so close. She raced down one row of cornstalks and quickly found what she was looking for, a swath of vegetation that had been crushed by the passing coffin. She moved alongside the track, keeping to a crouch, sure she was getting close. Soon she could hear the coffin dragging on the papery corn trash that littered the ground. A moment later she heard the half-deads whispering, not more than twenty feet from where she stood. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying. When the sound of the moving coffin suddenly stopped she stopped, too.

"Do you see her, is there sign of her?" one of the half-deads hissed. There was no reply.

Slowly, careful not to make a sound, she brought her rifle around to a firing position. She grasped the shotgun attachment slung under the barrel with one gloved hand and moved forward slowly, steadily, her boots making very little noise in the soft mud. Ahead, through the close-planted stalks, she could make out shadowy figures. She took a step closer and parted the corn with the barrel of her weapon. Through the narrow gap she made she could see open space, an aisle cut through the field as a firebreak. The clearing was full of half-deads. They were standing around the coffin, their heads low. One of them stood atop the casket, probably trying to get a better view of where she was.

She pointed the shotgun attachment and yanked the trigger. The half-dead on the coffin flew apart in filthy rags and shards of broken bone. The others started howling and running around in terror. One ran right past her, close enough to reach out and grab. She let it get away-she had more important business at hand. She stepped into the firebreak and spun slowly around, looking to see if any of the half-deads had been brave enough to stick around. She didn't see any. She forced herself to ignore the coffin until she was sure she was alone. Then she bent to take a closer look.

It was a casket, as opposed to a coffin-unlike the hexagonal pine boxes the other vampires used, Reyes had switched up to a deluxe model, rectangular and surrounded by turned moldings. It had been, once, a handsome assemblage of polished cherry wood. The brass handles had probably been bright and metallic before the casket had been dragged through acre after acre of soggy dirt. Now the wood was splattered with dark earth, so thick on one end it looked as if it had been dipped in mud.

She stepped closer and put a hand on top of the wooden lid, half expecting to feel some evil presence beneath, but there was nothing. She remembered the cold feeling she'd gotten near Malvern, the absence of humanity. This could be the same. She licked her lips and tried to open the lid. Something held it shut. Well, she supposed that made sense. The half-deads wouldn't want it flapping open as they moved it around. She felt around the edges and found three nails holding the lid down.

She tried her radio but got no response. Had she run so far that she was out of range? It seemed impossible. She felt as if she'd run no more than a quarter mile. She looked around. She couldn't really remember which direction she'd come from. She didn't think she'd be able to find her way back-and even if she did, that would mean leaving the casket behind. The safe thing, the smart thing to do was to accept that, to just head back, try to make contact with the ART, and hopefully bring the others to the casket. But it sounded like such an impossible errand. If she left the casket even for a few minutes, surely the half-deads would come back for it. Wouldn't they?

Her vision blurred for a moment and took its time sharpening up again. She was really going to need to sleep soon. As soon as Reyes was dead, she decided. As soon as she'd killed him. She took the clip out of her rifle and emptied out the bullets. The empty container had a sharp metal edge she could use to break the nails. She would probably ruin the clip in the process, effectively destroying the rifle. She still had her Beretta, which she placed on top of the casket where she could grab it at a moment's notice.

She slid the edge of the clip between the lid and the body of the casket and tried to saw at the first nail. The clip moved back and forth a few times before it slipped right out of the gap and across the back of her wrist, gouging a tiny cut into her skin. Tiny flecks of blood spattered the casket and her breath solidified in her chest for a moment. She half expected to hear Reyes stir inside, that the blood would call him somehow. But the casket remained motionless, as if it were completely empty. She didn't relish the prospect of looking inside and seeing the maggots, the bones, the deliquescent remains like those she had seen in Malvern's coffin. Still. Reyes' heart would be in there, dried and shrunken until she could crush it in her hands. She took up the clip and wedged it under the coffin lid again. She put her back into it and the nail broke, the wood shrieking as it came loose. The second nail parted almost instantly when she put some pressure on it. Sweat was collecting under her helmet and running down the back of her ears. Her back ached and she knew that when she stood up straight again it would scream with pain. Just one nail left. She got the clip under the lid one more time, but before she started to saw at the final nail she closed her eyes and thought of Deanna, bloody and helpless on the kitchen floor. It gave her back some strength, to think of just how badly she wanted to destroy Reyes. The third nail came out in pieces so that she had to hack at the wood to get it free, but she did it. The lid was open, she could just throw it back and look inside.

Some basic fear possessed her and she stopped for a second, goosebumps breaking out all over her arms. She stood up, and the stiffness in her back made her groan. She picked up her Beretta from the top of the casket and she looked around, looking for any ruined faces peering out of the corn. She didn't see anything. The heart. She had to destroy the heart. With her boot she pried open the lid, then kicked it wide. She raised her weapon and pointed it down into the red silk-lined interior of the casket.

Nothing. It was empty. In her fatigued state she could hear the vampire laughing at her, cackling in cold delight.

Then something cut her across the back of the legs, slicing right through her uniform pants and making her body sing with pain. She collapsed, falling forward, right into the casket. It all happened in the time it took her to switch off the safety on her pistol. The lid of the casket came down across her back and knocked her down onto the upholstery. It had all been a trick.