Suckers Read online

  Still running, I just let my duffel bag fall from my shoulder, and soon I was speeding across the fields, feet absolutely flying through the tall bluegrass. I could have laughed for joy. I could have let loose with peals of laughter. I was going to outrun the four dirty bastards behind me, and easily, too. Once I got into the forest, they'd never catch my dust.

  My internal celebration suddenly came to a grinding, screeching halt, however. Not sixty or seventy feet ahead of me, a large group of at least eight or nine men stood on the crest of a gently sloping hill not far from the treeline. Having just been clearing a gently-sloping hill near the edge of the grassland myself, I'd gasped when they'd come into view, and now I couldn't breathe,

  couldn't draw even a single breath even though my lungs were burning from exertion. The fact that I'd immediately slowed, losing ground, allowed me to hear the voice of the leader of the smaller group still behind me in the distance.

  "Just stop now, honey! Our friends got ya blocked! Might as well save your energy for what's about to happen!"

  I would just dart around. I would just dart right around the larger group of men and head right into the forest where I could lose them. But now I saw two additional men jogging in from the east. To the west, two more were sprinting at me.

  It was over. I knew it. At the very least, I was going to be taken captive and surely gang-raped. At the very worst, I knew I might lose my life in an attack by sixteen or seventeen men. I would never see Jessica and Ebony again. My journey of nearly two years would be for nothing.

  I wasn't about to just lie down and accept this, though. After coming to a dead stop, I frantically shrugged off my backpack and pulled my well-used Phillips head screwdriver from my jeans pocket.

  Brandishing it at the men racing toward me from all directions, I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Come on, then! Meet Phillip. He's going to kill at least one of you before you can do what you want." Breath coming in ragged gasps, I tightened my grip on Phillip's handle. "Come find out which one of you it's going to be!"

  *

  I owed it to Jessica and Ebony to not give up until the last. I knew they'd want me to fight just as hard as I'd fought to try to get to them.

  Several hours after the red-haired bear-shifter man had shouted up to me on my balcony, I'd finally been able to get through to Jess. After I'd stifled a near-scream of joy at hearing her voice, the conversation had been a very brief one before the line went dead. However, by that point, I'd heard all I needed to know.

  She and Ebony were okay. Neither of them had gotten the virus. They were in the same situation I was in, holed-up in Ebony's apartment, watching all the horror unfolding from the fifth floor. I told Jess that I was fine, too, then, with tears streaming down my face, told her that Sandor and Marta were gone. I went on to briefly tell her what the red-haired man had told me, and then told her to stay put with Ebony.

  "I'll come to Nashville. I'll find my way down to you guys, no matter what, and no matter how long it takes me. Just stay put, both of you."

  With both of their competitive figure skating careers over, the two of them had decided on a radical career change two years earlier, moving down to Nashville to pursue stardom as a country music duo. And before the world had gone to hell, they'd been well on their way to realizing their dream. After a year or so of struggle, they'd attracted the attention of a small record label, who'd just released their first full-length album a few months earlier.

  Two of the songs from it had made a national chart list called "Country's Hottest 100," with the second one climbing as high as number forty-four and holding steady there for two weeks before dropping, earning them a photo and a mention in the "Newcomers to Watch" section of the nation's best-selling country music magazine. The record label had already signed them on for another album, and a large-scale national tour was planned.

  My own voice wasn't half-bad at all, and in the early days of their endeavor, Jess and Eb had begged me to make their duo a trio, but I'd remained in Detroit. My own competitive figure skating career wasn't over yet, because I couldn't let it be. I felt like I still had something to prove. I was going for my third Olympics, and this time, I was determined to not return home with anything less than gold. Fate and random misfortune weren't going to snatch it from my hands this time.

  Besides, I still had my scholarship program in Detroit to run, and it had become as important to me as my dream of Olympic gold. Maybe even a bit more important. It had all started after my first Olympics, when I was seventeen. Along with a dozen other skaters, I'd done a national exhibition tour called "Champions on Ice," and our final stop had been an events center in suburban Detroit.

  A sold-out hometown crowd had come to see me and my Olympic teammates, and after the show, I'd made my way along the boards, signing autographs, collecting teddy bears and flowers, and letting people take pictures of me with my bronze medal around my neck. One little girl of about ten or eleven gave me a pink carnation, saying that when her mom could afford it, she was going to take figure skating lessons so that she could learn to skate like me.

  The comment kind of stopped me dead in my tracks, hurting and melting my heart at the same time, and I'd reached to take the little girl's hand to give it a squeeze, but the swelling, jostling crowd down by the boards had already pushed her along.

  For the next several weeks, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the little girl, what she'd said, and the fact that I had enough money in the bank to pay for figure skating lessons for tens of thousands of kids who might never be able to afford them otherwise.

  At seventeen years old, I was a millionaire ten times over. The bulk of the money was from inheriting my parents' estate when they'd been killed. My dad had been a world-renowned neurosurgeon, and my mom a pediatric cancer specialist, and together they'd not only made a very good living, but had also made a few incredibly brilliant stock market investments.

  However, a good chunk of the money, at least two million, I'd earned myself, through post-Olympic appearances, skating shows, and product endorsements. I'd even done a TV commercial for a popular breakfast cereal and had my smiling face plastered all over millions of boxes. With old rules preventing pro athletes from participating in future Olympics having long since been abolished, I'd been free to earn as much money as I'd wanted.

  I'd had many long talks with Sandor and Marta. I'd spent many nights researching nonprofits and different charity groups, and making plans, and I'd spent many more nights wondering if I was doing the right thing with my money and my parents' money, or if my plans were foolish and pointless and would all end in failure.

  I fired my business manager when he'd called my plans "absolute idiocy" right to my face. I fired my agent when I'd overheard her telling Sandor and Marta that I was a "very talented but very silly girl." I even fired my home-school high school tutor when she'd asked me if I couldn't think of anything better to do with my money than "give it to icky, grubby city kids." I'd spent a few weeks crying, off and on a lot. I'd had more talks with Sandor and Marta, and a few of my parents' friends.

  Ultimately, several months after my eighteenth birthday, I'd cut a red ribbon at the opening of Evangeline Blake's Figure Skating Academy, a massive facility with a double rink right smack in the heart of Detroit. Though the neighborhood was definitely a bit on the sketchy side, it wasn't the absolute worst by any means, and I'd insisted upon this location so that all kids in the city would at least have semi-easy access to the academy. Busing kids in and out of the suburbs had seemed too time-consuming and problematic to me, and besides, I wanted all kids who skated at the facility to have some kind of a sense of ownership of it, to feel that it was theirs.

  The scholarship program was simple. If they demonstrated economic need, which most people did in Detroit, then kids, or their parents for very young kids, were simply asked to write a note or letter stating why they wanted skating lessons. There were no wrong answers. They also had to state that they would abide by the rules
of the rink.

  Very young kids were off the hook as far as scholarship eligibility via school performance, but all kids in first grade through high school had to sign a contract stating that they would keep their grades at Cs or above and would provide rink staff with copies of all report cards.

  If their grades fell below Cs, there would be many chances to get grades up to par. Free tutoring and educational counseling would also be offered. Only in the case of clear-cut willful refusal to raise grades would a skating lesson scholarship be terminated.

  In exchange for compliance with these things, each child was given a lifetime scholarship that would cover everything from skates to skating clothes to lessons by highly experienced instructors, all the way to costumes and travel fees once a child reached competitive level.

  Several dozen kids did reach that level after the rink had been in operation for a few years. One of these kids was Michelle, the little girl who'd set the whole academy in motion with what she'd said to me after the post-Olympic show. On the academy's opening day, she and her mom had been the very first ones in a line of kids and parents that snaked down blocks. They'd been waiting since five in the morning, fearing a first-come, first-serve basis for a limited number of scholarships.

  In addition to having two rinks, the skating academy also boasted a cafeteria where any kids from the city could come for a free daily dinner, as well as free breakfast, lunch, and dinner on weekends. The food definitely wasn't gourmet, but it was nutritious, and on days when school wasn't in session, a meal at the rink might be the only meal a child would get all day. The cafeteria staff also handed out take-home "go-packs" filled with fruit cups and packets of trail mix to kids who were insecure about their food situation at home.

  The facility also had an after-school tutoring center, a part-time mental health counselor that any child or parent could make an appointment to talk to, and a large karate studio for community kids who weren't into figure skating.

  Drug and alcohol-free teen parties and dances were held twice a month in a three-thousand-square-foot "rec room," which was always supervised by the academy's own security team, who were also in charge of walking kids from and to various city bus stops before and after lessons.

  Building all this had cost millions, and the remainder of my money, which I'd invested, would keep the rink and its various programs up and running indefinitely. Which was a very good thing, since the number of kids enrolled in the scholarship program only grew and grew with each passing year, eventually swelling to six hundred, keeping my four full-time skating instructors insanely busy.

  All that was what had been going on in my life when the world had gone to hell. I'd been twenty-three years old, in my fifth year of running a large, non-profit enterprise, the only one of its kind in the nation, and two years away from likely competing in my third Olympics.

  With many in the figure skating world saying I was in the best shape of my life, I was training up to thirty hours a week while spending almost as many hours a week running the academy with Sandor and Marta, even teaching several weekly skating classes myself. Also, for the fifth time in my life, I was the reigning senior national champion, which required occasional travel for appearances.

  After I'd repeatedly told Jess to stay put with Ebony in Nashville, the phone line went dead, and that was the last of the phone service. It would never be restored.

  After waiting a week for the animal shifters to return, I began running low on food and knew I couldn't wait for rescue any longer. I packed a suitcase with clothes, the remainder of my food, and other supplies, and left my apartment, bound for Nashville, where I intended to drive in my large SUV. The fact that I hadn't seen many vehicles on the street below my apartment since the undead had risen had almost encouraged me, because I figured that I'd have a quick, clear drive down south. How wrong I was.

  But even before getting on the road and figuring out exactly how wrong I was, I did something else first. After leaving my apartment building and making my way to the parking garage with my suitcase, mercifully not encountering any of the undead, I got in my shiny white SUV and started driving to the rink, immediately encountering two Husk People that I swerved to avoid, shuddering.

  I encountered many more of them in the incredibly eerie, nearly-empty, sunlit streets on the way to the rink, but I didn't see any shifters. Whatever had become of them, I could only imagine, and what I imagined wasn't good.

  When I got to the rink around four in the afternoon, I parked right up by the main entrance, just praying that I'd find some of my skaters and staff members inside. Being that business break-ins were all too frequent in Detroit, the rink was never without one of my security team members on patrol, twenty-four hours a day; and I hoped that when the virus had hit, one of them had been there to lead survivors inside, to safety.

  I'd always told all my skaters that the rink was a "designated safe space," where they could come no matter what time of day or night it was, and they would be protected. Over the years, many kids had sought refuge at the rink after being threatened with violence in their neighborhoods or after experiencing violence at home; so I was confident that even in the midst of all the absolute chaos of the previous couple weeks, some of them had remembered my promise of safety at the rink.

  However, when I unlocked the double doors of the main entrance and stepped inside the vast foyer, the only thing that greeted me was perfect silence. The lights were on in the building, though, probably running on the generator, which I took as a positive sign, so I began making my way to the cafeteria, hearing distant noise that encouraged me further.

  I found one of my security team members lurching around between the numerous long tables, still in uniform, gray-faced and groaning, clearly undead. If his appearance hadn't convinced me, the stench of his rotting flesh would have. When he saw me, he began stumbling over to me, groaning even louder, and I clutched the screwdriver I'd brought in with me to use as a weapon in case of the worst.

  With my heartbeat accelerating and my heart breaking at once, I lunged and stabbed Mr. Marcus, as all the kids called him, right in his left eye the moment he got close enough for me to do so. A muscular, tall older gentleman with a deep, resonating laugh, he'd been working security at the rink since the day we'd opened. Before that, he'd served as a Detroit police officer for thirty-one years.

  In Rink A, I found two of my skaters, ten-year-old twin sisters, undead, and I killed them both, weeping. Nearby, I found their fifteen-year old brother, who'd recently earned his black belt at the academy's karate studio and planned to become a karate teacher himself someday. Hissing, fangs bared, he lunged to bite me at the same time I was lunging at him, but he wasn't fast enough.

  I buried the silver of my screwdriver in the left side of his chest, stabbing him through the heart, before he could bite me, drink my blood, and transmit the virus that would turn me into one of the undead as well.

  In Rink B, lurching around near the bleacher area, I found one of my instructors, a young woman my age who'd been a junior national pairs skating champion before a back injury had ended her career at age eighteen. Beneath the bleachers, a twelve-year-old girl who was a new student at the karate studio greeted me with a hiss. I did what I needed to do to both of them, still weeping.

  A further search of the vast building soon yielded three more members of the undead, two of them snarling toddlers with ashen faces and tiny glinting fangs. Not far away was their mother, a petite young woman who'd recently signed herself and the two kids up for parent-tot skating classes.

  She was only nineteen, and had told me she was making a fresh start after a lifetime of "getting knocked around," as she'd put it. I'd told her that if she felt threatened ever again, to come to the rink for safety, day or night, if she couldn't or didn't want to go to the police.

  In the "rec room," I found and dispatched a thirteen-year-old boy who was the best male skater at the academy. Further into the building, I found and dispatched a slender young man
I didn't recognize and two children, a boy and a girl, I didn't know either.

  My tears began falling anew when I noticed an index card inside a plastic bag hanging from a slender chain around the little boy's neck. The card read: My name is Davion, and I'm four years old. My grandma has the fever and can't take care of me anymore. Please help me and take me someplace safe.

  In a staff bathroom, I found another of my skating instructors, this one hanging from a rope attached to a stall, though she was clearly undead, kicking and hissing with fangs bared. On the mirror, with a bar of soap, she'd written I know it's all just a bad dream, but I can't wake up.

  After stabbing her through the eye, I undid the knot securing her noose to the stall and lowered her corpse to the tile floor. In the karate studio, I found Michelle's mom and dispatched her with a screwdriver stab to the heart as she tried in vain to grab my throat, groaning and gurgling.

  Being that my office was the only place I hadn't looked by this point, I knew this was where I'd find Michelle, and I did. Moaning, she was staggering around, gray-faced, flesh showing clear signs of rot. She hissed when she saw me, revealing razor-sharp fangs.