Chapter 17

    The lights were on and Derrik stepped inside, before he knew what was happening, there was a knife stuck in his chest. It was beside his shoulder and angled inward, he didn't move a muscle. If he wasn't so hungry, he would be scared.
    “Okay pal, what the hell you doing?” Benny was holding the handle of the knife, they were nose to nose. “You should know better than to scare us like that. One little turn of this blade and I'll cut your f*****g heart in two, you'll be dead before you hit the floor.”
    “Sorry, I'm in a rush, we need to leave.” Derrik was grimacing, it was a while since he actually felt that much pain.
    “Okay, get in the car. I'll even tell you that the closest place out of here is south.” Benny was still staring right into Derrik's eyes. “You get your job done?”
    Derrik only nodded.
    Again, after paying the manager a couple extra bucks for the door, they were off. Derrik sat in the back with his arms crossed, eyes closed and his chin on his chest. The wound was long gone, but he could barely register that he had it in the first place. When he opened them, he noticed that the car was going fast. Very fast. If they met a cop, or passed one, they would be in more trouble than Derrik could afford. He tried to work out how long it was since they left the motel.
    “If you're planning on killing yourselves in an accident, let me out here, I'll make it on my own.” Derrik spoke up, his jaw clenched.
    “No worries, I got it.” Benny signalled a lane change and a logging truck whipped past.
    “Cops?” Derrik leaned forward to look around.
    “Nah, they all have GPS in their cars, we know where they all are.” Benny pointed over at Carl who had his eyes trained on a laptop.
    “Okay. What's the rush?” Derrik knew they wouldn't be rushing for him.
    “Got a call from G. We'll let you out on the gravel road so you can just take off.” Benny pointed south.
    “Okay. How much longer?” Derrik looked at the floor between his feet and took a deep breath.
    “Not long, turn off is about 15 minutes away.”

    Carl only told Benny to slow down once, a cop car passed going the other way. Derrik expected to see the lights flash and the cruiser skidding around to chase, but it kept going. Once it got out of sight, the motor's rpms climbed again. The tires squealed as Benny made the turn off the highway, a few minutes later they were blazing through the bush. Tall fir trees on each side. The car slid to a halt at a fourty-five degree angle.
    “Well, there you go.” Benny got out and pulled the seat up so Derrik could climb out.
    Derrik was just about to sprint into the trees when he heard Benny yelling. He stopped at the edge of the forest and turned.
    “You're probably going to see G before us. Tell her we're on our way, hour and a half at the most.” Benny waved and got into the car.
    Derrik turned and heard the tires spinning for traction on the gravel. The engine screamed as it got speed and shifted up through the gears. Derrik couldn't wait any longer, the next minute he was sprinting through the trees. The drop down into a lake from a steep hillside was the only place he had to stop and swim back to shore to detour around. Other than that, he leapt fences, passed the power lines, went across a hundred small roads, cut across a few fields. He was glad he wasn't in the car anymore, but he wasn't sure he could control himself until he reached the southern border of the safe zone.
    It had to be close, he travelled long enough that the land was starting to change. From the hills of the place Wilkins Lake was to more rugged terrain. He had long climbs and long drops to contend with. Suddenly, just as he was cresting a hill, he heard the pop of a pistol. He was at the upper edge of a huge clear cut. To the right, about a kilometer away, a small frame was sitting on a stump beside a truck. It had to be G, he ran across and stopped right beside her. He was at the border.
    “You make it?” G was sitting with a large box of bullets between her feet, she thumbed rounds into a magazine while she talked.
    “Yes.” Derrik needed to get moving. “I have a message though, the two who were with me would be about another half hour.”
    G reached down and turned up the radio she was carrying, it squawked with activity.

    “S**t. This is Pete, we're pinned down and out of ammo for the AK's.”
    “Roger that. We'll try to get to you, south of you is a old mining tunnel, hole up there. We're ten minutes out.”
    “Okay. F*****g s**t...” A bunch of pistol rounds popped at the same time. “F**k! Jimmy! Jeff! Can you get around top and flank? Draw their fire that f*****g way, we're on the move in the open here!”
    “Yeah, we're already on the way up there. Push them out into the open if you can.”
    “Jeff, you f**k, tell me you got ammo for the fifty on the truck!” Another bunch of pistol rounds crackled on the radio.
    “Yeah, I have to bring it around the other side though. You hole up in the mine, we'll have these f***s in a cross fire.”
    “Okay, hurry the f**k up!”

    G reached down and turned it back down. Derrik finally noticed what he'd been hearing for a while, there was echos traveling along the valley, there was a huge fire fight going on somewhere.
    “Well, I got to get going. You're just a few clicks away from the border.” G pointed with a magazine in her hand. “Couple words for you though. I heard about what's going on out there. For the next while, if we see any of you trying to get in, we'll kill any vampires we see on sight. Keep your war out there, we got enough trouble inside.”
    Derrik nodded, he was about to take off, but decided he better wait until he was dismissed. These people were a little agitated at the moment and it would be a bad time to test their patience.
    “Now, I'm not normally as helpful to your kind as I will be, but it's for our good, not yours. Head straight south from here.” G pointed again. “Keep going until you cross the river. You're in the clear there. Nothing between here and there so just go straight. From what I heard, your guys that went east are next on the list. I don't know much beyond that. Just that this place is off limits until you guys sort the s**t out among yourselves. Go.”
    Derrik was gone in an instant. Soon as he was on the other side of the river, his mind was trapped on one track. He looked at the mountains and saw that there was a highway far across down the valley. He would follow that at a distance, see where it went and find somewhere to feed.

Author's Note

If you wish to know what Derrik does, read "A Little Town Called Hope"

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/fastjeff/814239/