"GET DOWN!" the man with the axe shouts.
I drop, my knees buckling as much from the command as the icy fingers brushing the back of my neck. The man - Grant - swings his axe in a wide arc. Behind me, a vampire stumbles backward, sluggish spurts of blood jetting from its gaping neck wound.
I turn to the man who has now saved my life twice. He's tall and rugged, with an athletic build and intense, blue-grey eyes. His wavy, dark blond hair is an unlikely match for his reddish facial hair. Along with the plaid farmer's shirt straining against his chest, he's clearly stumbled out of a lumberjack-themed romance novel and hopped a few aisles to the horror genre.
"Follow me," he says, his voice strong and sure. "We'll be a lot safer on the road."
A chorus of chittering gasps and snarls fill my ears. Grant runs for his jeep, motioning for me to follow. As much as I don't want to be in an enclosed space with an axe-wielding stranger, I can admit my options are limited right now.
"Come ON," he shouts. His hand grabs mine with unsurprising strength and together we run. I take the smallest amount of comfort in the fact that his fingers are as shaky and sweaty as mine.
We reach the jeep at the same time and split, me taking the passenger's side. He waits for me to slam the door before jumping behind the wheel. As he turns the key, an infected woman with half a face lunges at the hood. I can't help but recoil at the ghastly sight of her, the exposed flesh and skull bone, the broken jaw sprouting those obscene fangs. Are these monsters even alive? Can they feel the damage done to their bodies?
Grant slams the jeep in reverse, throwing the woman off as she shrieks in frustration. More vampires run at us. The jeep spins away from the playground with a squeal. Grant pulls the wheel left and right, and then we're back on the street. I grip my seatbelt like it's the only thing keeping my insides from exploding. Grant grabs a radio receiver off his belt.
"Darcy, pick up." He waits a beat and then a grumpy sounding woman answers.
"Grant?"
"I found a survivor. We've got some fangs in pursuit. I can probably shake them off, but expect us to be coming in hot just in case. Okay?"
"Fuck," she says before ending the transmission.
Grant clips the device back onto his hip. "That's her way of saying yes."
The monsters are scattered now, but persistent. Dark figures move in and out of the shadows, drawn to the sound of the speeding car. There's still a significant crowd following us on foot. I stare straight ahead, breathing hard. Seeing the city from this perspective is surreal. The destruction, the carnage, the death. Bodies littering the streets. Predators stalking empty spaces. Has this really been my life for the past month? Running, hiding, surviving?
"What's your name?" Grant asks.
"What?"
"Your name. Tell me."
"Why?"
"So we can focus on something other than the bloodsucking freaks." He waits a beat. "Hey, I'm not giving up until you tell me. If I gotta chase you all night, I will."
I give him a sideways glance. The lilt of humor in his voice, and the hint of warmth in his eyes, are not entirely unwelcome.
"Adam."
"Adam," he repeats. "Real nice to meet you. Sorry it wasn't under nicer circumstances."
Silence engulfs the car as we put the downtown core behind us. Further away from the chaos, an empty stillness haunts every road, alley, and shadowed corner.
"Have you been on your own this entire time?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
I glare. "How many questions until this interrogation is over?"
"Sorry. Didn't mean it like that."
Settling back into our tense silence, I admit I understand his surprise. Watch any action-heavy apocalyptic movie, the leading man doesn't look like me. He looks like the man sitting beside me: square jawed, rugged, strong. Something tells me Grant's never been handcuffed to a radiator pipe and had to bluff a sexual favor just long enough to make an extremely narrow escape.
His eyes shift to my handcuffs. "What happened?"
I squirm, trying to cover my sore and bloodied wrists with my hands. "It doesn't matter."
"One of the survivors back at the shelter is a police officer. He's a, uh, interesting guy. A rookie. Still has his duty belt, could probably pop those cuffs off you no problem. What do you say?"
"No thanks."
"Sorry?"
I check the rearview mirror for vampires. Most of them have given up the chase, but still, you can never be too careful. "As soon as the coast is clear, I'm getting out of the car."
"See, I only turned 30 a week ago so my hearing can't possibly be this bad already."
"I can't stay at a shelter. I appreciate the ride and all but I'm going to North York."
"What the hell is in North York? There's no getting beyond Steeles Avenue. The barricades-"
"I know about the barricades," I shoot back testily. "I haven't spent the last month in a coma."
"Awfully jealous of anyone who has." A joke, maybe to mask how nervous he suddenly sounds. "Adam, it's not safe out there on your own."
"It's not up to you."
He searches my face. "Every night there's more and more of those freaks and less of us. And the less of us there are, the more desperate they become."
"I know. Again, not a coma patient."
"Look, playing the badass loner will get you killed. Trust me. The only way to get through this is to stick with other people."
I stare straight ahead, my palms getting sweaty against my lap. Grant sighs and switches up his tone - softer and more understanding. There must be something in my silence that he can read.
"I've been there, okay? I've lost people, too."
I'm struck with an obtrusive flashback to Oliver and I in our apartment. It's all I can see, clear as day, filling my vision. His charming smile, my hand lovingly caressing the soft scruff of his face. He liked to tease me over how I couldn't grow anything beyond a few whiskers. Then he'd say he liked my face just that way it was, that it was the only face he wanted to wake up to every day…
When I emerge from the memory it's as if I've broken through the surface of a lake I'd been drowning in.
"Whatever I lost," I begin, trying to control my breath, "I lost a long time ago. And I don't want to lose anything else."
Grant's look in my direction is brief but meaningful. "Then stay with me. I can protect you."
Then something drops onto the roof of the jeep.
The heavy abruptness of the impact rocks the vehicle to one side. Grant grabs at the wheel, desperately reorienting us back onto the road before we crash. There's a thundering clap of rending metal as a clawed hand tears through the roof. I see the monster, crouched above us on the roof rack crossbars, long black hair dancing wildly in the furious wind. The seven-foot beast that was chasing me…
"The fucking banshee!" Grant shouts.
As its mouth pulls back and unleashes an evil, head-filling wail, I immediately understand the comparison.
"Get down!" I scream as its claws swipe blindly through the inner compartment. Its arm is rail thin yet seems inhumanly strong, with gelatinous skin the color and texture of melted candle wax. It flails around for a few moments before its bony hand finds my arm.
The cars veer wildly to the left, jumping the curb and sliding toward a brick building. Unbalanced, the Banshee loses its grip on my arm. Grant jerks the wheel but it's too late to avoid the wall entirely. Metal shrieks and a brilliant flash of sparks illuminate the leering, ghoulish grin of the Banshee. Its eyes, two bottomless pits of darkness, are trained right on me.
And only me.
The Banshee rears its arm back to take another swipe at the jeep. Grant slams the gas and pulls a hard left. The vehicle fishtails, back end crashing against an abandoned truck in another furious burst of sparks. The implacable demon above us jerks back from the impact, but quickly pulls itself forward again. It pushes its face through the hole in the roof, filling the car with the scent of rotting meat and garbage, that permanently grinning mouth gnashing up and down. Like it's laughing at us…
One hand still fighting the wheel, Grant pulls something from under his seat and aims it upward. Before I can even register the fact that that he's holding a gun, Grant pulls the trigger. A large patch of waxy skin explodes off the Banshee's cheek as the bullet penetrates through to its nose, cartilage separating from bone with a wet crunch. The creature snaps backward, its scream now a liquid gurgle. Then it's gone, flung from the roof and back into the night.
I turn to Grant, feeling a sudden and hysterical laughing fit coming on. There are so many things I could say right now, but my first and most immediate thought is the one that makes it out of my mouth.
"You had a gun this whole time?"
Grant holds up the pistol, tosses it to me. I react like a live grenade has just been thrown into my lap.
"Jesus!"
"I only had one bullet left. I was saving it for an emergency."
I lift the weapon from my lap. It's surprisingly heavy. Even though the chamber is empty, it still makes me nervous. I gingerly place the weapon on the hand rest between us.
"I guess saving my life was an emergency."
"It was," he says with no hesitation. Grant's breathing just as hard as I am, with sweat beading his reddened face. He looks less like a romance novel hero and more like a real person now. My urge to freak out passes.
"Thanks," I manage.
"Don't mention it. You okay?"
Before I can answer, a dark figure up ahead comes galloping toward the jeep. The Banshee again!
A gasp catches in my throat as it pounces onto the hood and smashes the windshield with one powerful strike. I catch a glimpse of Grant's white knuckles on the wheel, that square jaw clenching with effort. The car spins, screeching, buildings and streetlights flashing by so fast that my already empty stomach twists inside out. Everything is a distorted blur, and then-
BLAM!
An explosion of sound, glass shattering and metal tearing as the jeep slams into something solid, throwing me against my seat belt. The impact hurls the Banshee off the hood and sends it sailing through the night.
Silence.
I take in a huge gulp of oxygen, as if I haven't breathed in hours. I look around and try to identify where we've ended up. A neighbourhood street, sandwiched between two rows of low brick bungalow houses. Trembling, I get out of the car. We've smashed head-on into the trunk of a tree. The front of the jeep is totaled beyond all repair.
"Shit," Grant mutters, inspecting the mangled vehicle. "Darcy's gonna rip my nads off for this."
I start to reply when I notice the twitching figure across the road. The Banshee has been impaled on a broken street pole right through the back of its head. Its white body spasms, hands opening and closing, grasping blindly but finding nothing.
I approach, hesitant and slow, trying to get my tangled emotions under control. After a few more twitches, it goes still. I'd almost feel sorry for the thing if it hadn't been so intent on tearing me to shreds. Whatever this monster was, I don't ever want to think about it again.
I turn back to the road when a floor-tilting wave of nausea and dizziness crashes into me. The strength to stand has completely left my body. My mind reels with an inventory of the last few days: haven't eaten in 36 hours; got knocked out with a chunk of cinderblock; jumped two stories off a fire escape, injuring my shoulder; survived a close call with a gas explosion that's still making my ears ring; and my adrenaline has been blasting nonstop thanks to a car chase from hell. I'm surprised it took this long for my body to finally call it quits.
The pavement rushes toward my face - and I'm so fucking tired I can't even brace myself for impact - but then two strong arms catch me before I fall.
"Whoa there," Grant says somewhere in the foggy haze. I take in his scent, woodsy and masculine, with a hint of sweat. Suits him. "I got you. You're safe now."
"No," I start to protest but consciousness is slipping away like water through my fingers.
"You're safe now," Grant repeats.
"Safe?" I sound so weak and confused, like a child. The following words catch on my lips, sleepy and half-formed: "No such thing…"
And then a wave of darkness takes me.