Free 30 Days of Night: Light of Day by Jeff Mariotte Page A

blowing and he couldn’t tell for sure.
    Then another idea struck him. “Dude, what if he’s one of them?”
    “One of who?”
    “A vampire!”
    “You think we’re going to meet one so soon?”
    “I don’t know. They could be all over the placearound here. Maybe he’s been following us for a while, and was just watching to see what we did.”
    “So what?” Mitch said. “You want to go introduce ourselves?”
    “Not if he isn’t one.”
    “You think there’s a way to tell before he’s close enough to shove a gun in your ribs?”
    “A gun?” Walker repeated.
    “What if he wants to rob us?”
    “You’re right,” Walker said. “I guess we shouldn’t take the chance.”
    “He’s coming fast, man.”
    Walker looked back over his shoulder. The jug almost slipped from his sweaty hands. That would be just perfect, to dump all their blood on the street after what they had gone through to get it. But Mitch was right, the guy was gaining fast. Walker still couldn’t see his face, but he was more sure than ever that he was whistling as he came.
    Did vampires whistle? Could they, with all those teeth crowded into their mouths? He didn’t know. “Come on,” Mitch said. “Run!”
    Walker tried to run himself. He was out of shape and he knew it, and the jug was so awkward and getting heavier by the second. His gait was somewhere between a trot and a fast waddle, he figured, and he was sure the guy in the hood was right behind him, maybe just inches away. He couldn’t hear anything over the rasp of his own labored breathing. If the guy was a vampirethen everything would be okay, Walker could explain what they were up to, offer up the blood as a gift, work things out. But if he wasn’t, if he was some garden-variety Chicago street thug, then they were in trouble.
    The car was right there, though, parked on a dark, still street, neighborhood businesses closed up tight. They had left it unlocked, in case a quick getaway was needed. But Walker had the keys in his pants pocket, and he had the blood in his hands. “Damn it!” he said. “Damn it, damn it!” He got to the car, afraid to look back again, to see how close the guy was. He pawed at the driver’s door, got a finger under the handle, yanked it open, and tossed the jug into the backseat. It hit the seat with a heavy thump, but stayed there and didn’t split open.
    He shoved in behind the wheel and slammed his door. On his third try, he managed to get the key into the ignition. Silently pleading, he turned it. The car started. Walker shoved it into gear and it bucked away from the curb. His face was slick with sweat, his shirt plastered to him. He was breathing through his mouth, his lungs on fire, and he thought his heart was trying to break out through his ribs.
    Walker yanked hard on the wheel, wanting to get turned around even though it meant going past the hooded man. As he did, he remembered Andy Gray’s video from Barrow, Alaska, in which a vampire had jumped up onto a hovering helicopter and smashed through the windshield.Maybe turning had been a stupid idea. He should have gone the long way, around the block. He should just get out of here any way he possibly could. He no longer cared if the guy was alive or undead—he was terrified and simply wanted to be gone, to get home to his comfortable little house in the suburbs as fast as the car would take him.
    His headlights caught the guy, who stood on the opposite sidewalk. A white guy, in his early twenties maybe, with a scraggly red goatee and narrow slits for eyes. He grinned at them from under that hood, showing a gold tooth right in front—but they were normal teeth, human teeth, not vampire. Pulling his right hand from the pocket, he made it into the shape of a gun and snapped it at Walker, once, then pretended to blow smoke from the barrel.
    The headlights moved off him, and he was lost in the shadows again. Walker floored the accelerator and the car raced down the street.
    “That dude