Read Online Vampirus (Book 1) by Jack Hamlyn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Hamlyn
Tags: Vampires
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doubtful she would ever open them again.
He could almost feel the icy shadow of what waited for her lying over the bed, growing longer, closer, darker with intent. The knowledge of which made him want to lay his wrists open.
23
Peggy sent him another YouTube video.
It was called “The Walking Dead of Whisper Lake.”
This one showed a bunch of people walking through a nighttime snowstorm in some little decimated town in Utah. It was captured by an automated night vision device that was similar to the NVDs he himself had used in the Gulf. The picture was green and pretty grainy, but there was no getting around one thing: many of the people in it were naked. Naked in the snow, marching along with their heads cocked weirdly to the side like they were listening for something. It gave him the shivers. There was something very creepy, very strange about them.
He watched it three times in a row and it must ’ve been a trick of the light or some kind of digital encoding error, but at times many of them faded into the shadows or shifted from shadows into people. The ending was the killer, though: they all stopped, turned and stared at the camera. Then, one by one, they just faded away and were gone. Then the image of the street whirled about like the camera was being violently jostled. And right at that point, there was one quick, fleeting glimpse of what looked like the face of a teenage girl—part of it anyway. Luke saw hair hanging and a single eye that was very black and shiny like something from a Japanese horror flick. Then the feed went dead.
It was the eye that haunted him.
He freeze-framed it and just stared at it while his skin crawled.
Never had he seen such a blank, soulless eye in his life. It was like staring into the eye of a stuffed elk.
24
Megan died on the morning of December 17 th .
She died in Luke ’s arms.
She was trembling badly and he held her, clutching her thin disease-wracked body to his own as if his own strength and health might shield her. But it did not. At the end she opened her eyes and looked into his face. There was pain in those eyes, pain and horror and confusion…yes, certainly confusion because he was her daddy and he had always chased away the night terrors, any fears she had or threats to her well being. But now…at the end…when she needed him to protect her this one last most important time, he was impotent. He was weak. He could not fight off the death that was taking her and laughing coldly in his face. He could not save his little girl and that ’s how a great and necessary part of him died with her, leaving him soft and helpless, less than a man in the final analysis.
Megan reached out and brushed his cheek with her cold little fingers as if to comfort him, as if she knew this was something that not even he could fight. She trembled one last time and died staring up at him.
His baby was gone.
His heart was fr ozen, stopped dead.
He could not let go of her for hours.
All that was left was a cheated hatred, an angry remorse colored by guilt and framed in grief. He lived after that day, but he was never truly alive again.
25
Two days later, he still could not straighten out his head.
He could not get a grip on reality.
He could not sleep.
He could not eat.
The world had a grim gray sameness that matched the color of his soul and he could only lay on Megan’s bed and cry. The pillow and blankets smelled like her, and the loss of his angel made him shake and cry out, his eyes red and wet and bleeding.
He heard Sonja wake up in the late, late afternoon and he stumbled to her side, doing his best to pretend nothing was wrong, that their child had not died, that there was not a great empty hole eaten through him. Sonja was barely holding on. She did not need the shock. It would kill her. Megan had been the only thing she was staying alive for , the only thing that gave her misery meaning.
Sonja ’s hand was cool and soft to the touch.
Luke held onto
He could almost feel the icy shadow of what waited for her lying over the bed, growing longer, closer, darker with intent. The knowledge of which made him want to lay his wrists open.
23
Peggy sent him another YouTube video.
It was called “The Walking Dead of Whisper Lake.”
This one showed a bunch of people walking through a nighttime snowstorm in some little decimated town in Utah. It was captured by an automated night vision device that was similar to the NVDs he himself had used in the Gulf. The picture was green and pretty grainy, but there was no getting around one thing: many of the people in it were naked. Naked in the snow, marching along with their heads cocked weirdly to the side like they were listening for something. It gave him the shivers. There was something very creepy, very strange about them.
He watched it three times in a row and it must ’ve been a trick of the light or some kind of digital encoding error, but at times many of them faded into the shadows or shifted from shadows into people. The ending was the killer, though: they all stopped, turned and stared at the camera. Then, one by one, they just faded away and were gone. Then the image of the street whirled about like the camera was being violently jostled. And right at that point, there was one quick, fleeting glimpse of what looked like the face of a teenage girl—part of it anyway. Luke saw hair hanging and a single eye that was very black and shiny like something from a Japanese horror flick. Then the feed went dead.
It was the eye that haunted him.
He freeze-framed it and just stared at it while his skin crawled.
Never had he seen such a blank, soulless eye in his life. It was like staring into the eye of a stuffed elk.
24
Megan died on the morning of December 17 th .
She died in Luke ’s arms.
She was trembling badly and he held her, clutching her thin disease-wracked body to his own as if his own strength and health might shield her. But it did not. At the end she opened her eyes and looked into his face. There was pain in those eyes, pain and horror and confusion…yes, certainly confusion because he was her daddy and he had always chased away the night terrors, any fears she had or threats to her well being. But now…at the end…when she needed him to protect her this one last most important time, he was impotent. He was weak. He could not fight off the death that was taking her and laughing coldly in his face. He could not save his little girl and that ’s how a great and necessary part of him died with her, leaving him soft and helpless, less than a man in the final analysis.
Megan reached out and brushed his cheek with her cold little fingers as if to comfort him, as if she knew this was something that not even he could fight. She trembled one last time and died staring up at him.
His baby was gone.
His heart was fr ozen, stopped dead.
He could not let go of her for hours.
All that was left was a cheated hatred, an angry remorse colored by guilt and framed in grief. He lived after that day, but he was never truly alive again.
25
Two days later, he still could not straighten out his head.
He could not get a grip on reality.
He could not sleep.
He could not eat.
The world had a grim gray sameness that matched the color of his soul and he could only lay on Megan’s bed and cry. The pillow and blankets smelled like her, and the loss of his angel made him shake and cry out, his eyes red and wet and bleeding.
He heard Sonja wake up in the late, late afternoon and he stumbled to her side, doing his best to pretend nothing was wrong, that their child had not died, that there was not a great empty hole eaten through him. Sonja was barely holding on. She did not need the shock. It would kill her. Megan had been the only thing she was staying alive for , the only thing that gave her misery meaning.
Sonja ’s hand was cool and soft to the touch.
Luke held onto
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