Flight or Fight Response by Xakara

[Karenne]

Flight or Fight Response

Jodie ran between the gravestones, her eyes scanning the darkness in the newer section of the cemetery for trip hazards. The low, flat, granite chunks that looked so nice and uniform from the road were in fact slightly out of line when you had to run through them. You wouldn’t notice immediately, but the layout of the modern edition of St. Sebastian Cemetery was on a diagonal rather than the square it appeared. It was as if the plans had been tilted to the left just a bit before they laid down the grid for the headstones. But it was the kind of thing you’d only figure out if you had to run through it at night, four or five times. This was Jodie’s seventh.


The zip-front sweatshirt trailed in the wind, a collection of black tatters from where undead claws had ripped through the fabric searching for flesh to rend and consume. She’d lingered too long and been caught setting the zombie traps. It was stupid to have pushed for that last dozen, but she couldn’t get the news report of the preschool van forced off the road while returning from a field trip, out of her head. That extra dozen had seemed important at the time.


Now she was left trying to get to the original cemetery grounds with death on her heels. She could lose them among the crypts where the stronger traps were set. If she could get to the large one in the center of what was affectionately called, “The Ruins”, she’d survive the night and significantly more of them wouldn’t. The only drawback was that she’d never been to the center of The Ruins at night.


Rumor had it a Vampire had staked claim in that area and was keeping the zombie horde from entering the old cemetery. Never one to stereotype, Jodie knew it could be a perfectly sane and genteel person of the Vampire persuasion protecting The Ruins, she just didn’t feel running into their mystic territory while covered in blood from the deep scratches along her torso was the right first meeting.


She had an extra second to think about it as a row of calf-height headstones rose up before her, a visual demarcation between the old and new of St. Sebastian. She leapt forward to clear the center headstone, the rags of her top snaking out behind her. In mid-flight she was jerked backwards by the powerful grip of rotted hands tangled in her clothing.


It slammed her to the ground and she lost her breath. Common sense, however, stayed fully in place, and she rolled to her left before the macabre travesty of what had once been someone’s son, brother, or husband, could fall upon her. Hot, fetid breath licked along her side as it tried to grab her back into place, using the cloth as a handle. Jodie snatched at the zipper and surged to her feet, leaving the tattered remnants of her lucky sweater behind. It’s mojo was still working, as the zombie paused to stare at the handful of cloth, confused as to what had happened to it’s prize.


Her feet dodged traps and snags by sheer muscle memory alone, her mind too busy listening for the sounds of pursuit or the livid bellow of transgression by her Vampire host. For Jodie had no doubt he was there, the air was thick with the mystic energy of suspended animation. The captured potential of the Vampire state was potent and unmistakable once you knew what to look for.


She knew she must look a sight. Milk chocolate skin, paled and ashen from the scuffles, black braids coated with grave dirt, grass, and leaves, body clad only in a bra, bloody gouges, and torn jeans. At least her motorcycle boots had held up remarkably well. She just hoped the Vampire she was intruding on would be more interested in her footwear than her half-naked, blood covered state.


She was gaining ground and let a wild smile take her lips as she thought she might make it to the center crypt without another zombie groping or Vampire encounter. The door of the modest but powerful stone monument was in sight and Jodie knew the door would be unlocked and everything she needed waiting for her inside. The wild smile because a soft wild laugh. Then the door opened and Jodie was too stunned to laugh.


Dominic Saint-Claire stood in the crypt’s archway, one hand holding the heavy door aside effortlessly. Jodie skidded to a halt in the new, slow-motion perspective the world had plunged into. Of all the Vampires in town, it had to be the lab-partner she’d had a mad crush on all throughout high school that claimed the cemetery in her old neighborhood. And now she was going to be in a small, dark, space with him, with the intoxicant of adrenaline and imminent death to perfume the air between them.


Helluvah first date.


Why did I have to look like crap tonight of all nights?

* * *

Goddess, she’s beautiful.


Dominic forgot about the rushing undead breaching his mystic borders along the boundary marks of the old cemetery. For a moment the only thing that mattered was the fact that Jodie Lachlan was finally before him. He’d come back to St. Sebastian after college to look her up only to find his hometown overrun by an infestation of undead flesh-eaters. That hadn’t left a lot of time for social calls and renewing old acquaintances. The closest he’d come to reconnecting with her was checking out her old neighborhood and catching her scent in St. Sebastian’s namesake cemetery. Now she was right before him after weeks of trying to figure out his next step. And Dominic had absolutely no idea what to do.


The relentless scuttling of the dead, bent on eating his object of affection, helped him refocus. He extended a hand to her in invitation. His heart leapt when she glanced behind her and then took it, allowing him to pull her inside. Wherever else things might go, he was a better option than the zombie hordes and that was a step in the right direction.


The stone door swung closed with a note of finality and Dominic was immediately hit with the scent of Jodie’s blood in the small space. It was tempered by the scent of spoiled death and rich earth which made it appetizing but resistible. He knew now why the horde had risked his energy to come into The Ruins. They were creatures of instinct and the dinner bell had rung with blood a touch more than human.


Jodie cleared her throat and Dominic knew it meant something, but he was busy watching the channel of blood flowing down her collarbone and over her left breast, to soak into the black satin bra…Oh. He quickly turned around and looked through the grate in the door into the graveyard as he spoke.


“It’s small enough in here that my scent will mask you. Since they don’t eat Vampires they won’t approach this closely. When the majority have gathered and they start to hunt for your scent again, I’ll take advantage and wade through them. In the confusion I should be able to cut down half of them before they can decide to break and run, or tear me apart. It’s worked in the past.”


He pressed his body against the door, the hand that had been hidden from her gripping a broadsword he’d learned to wield with startling ease. Bullets just passed through the creatures. Blunt force trauma was the best thing on the undead. He spoke again without looking back.


“You’ll be safe here if you hide until dawn while I chase the others down.”


The movement of chalk on stone sound-tracked her reply.


“Sure, Sparky. Whatever you say.”


He turned to look at her, pulled around by the dismissal in her voice. He found glowing runes on the far crypt wall, growing brighter as she frantically scribbled and added smears of her own blood, muttering under her breath.


“You weren’t looking for a place to hide.”


“Nope.” She scribbled on.


“You were looking for a place to recharge and fight.”


A quick nod. “Yep. The new section isn’t consecrated the same.”


Dominic let his gaze worship over her as it had from afar all through high school.


“You always did amaze me, Jodie.”


“Is that why you didn’t ask me to prom after four years of being lab partners? I amazed you into silence?”


She abandoned the walls and drew a circle around her herself.


“I didn’t ask you,” he began, “because your father, the sheriff, had a Human and Near Humans only policy and a license to carry a gun. Since I’m only humanish during the day and the prom was being held at night, and he owned a gun…”


He shrugged off the rest, watching her dust her hands on her jeans.


“Nic, my dad’s retired now. He’s also dating a werewolf down in Skokie who likes to be put in silver chains during the full moon while they have sex because the danger excites her. I’m not thinking he’s in any position to judge any longer.”


He nodded, watching the way her blood glowed against her skin. He spoke so that she knew he was more than one large Vampire instinct.


“I see. So if we manage not to get eviscerated before dawn, do you want to grab a shower and some breakfast afterwards? Maybe see where that kiss you gave me at finals leads? Now that your father can’t legally shoot me and all.”


“First, you kissed me.” She said, feverishly scribbling the last of the runes and calling on the distant Fae blood that make her only Near Human. “It was for luck on my way to exams. Second,” she touched a bit of blood from her arm to the central rune and power washed up from the circle and bathed over the wall. “You’re buying.”


Jodie stepped out of the circle, eyes glowing and skin thrumming with energy that sealed the scratches and gouges along her body. Dominic could feel the physical warmth of it as she drew near and he inhaled her, tasting her power on his tongue.


“You know where this will lead, right?” He smiled. “Two people, bonding over shared traumatic experience, standing at Death’s door and wanting to reinforce in their minds how alive they are, after longing for each other for years. I predict sex by brunch, a proposal in six weeks and married in six months time, with little Dhamphyrs on the way.”


He watched Jodie study his face and wondered if she’d fantasized and dreamt of him as he had of her.


“I’ll hold you to that, Nic.”


Vampire perception gave him time to thrill to the anticipation just before she kissed him. Her body pressed him to the door and her power mingled with his own as it always had when they were too close to each other. But without the awkward, adolescent confusion.


She pulled back after, breathless but exhilarated by the flush along her body.


“For luck.” She smiled.


Whatever Dominic was about to say was lost when both looked to the door as if able to see through it.


“Company.” They said in unison.


Dominic stepped back and grabbed the door handled. “Shall we? I’d like to hurry to the breakfast, sex, and marriage part of this night. The zombie part has gotten old.”


“Let’s do it.” She stepped back and concentrated power into her hands. Orbs of phantasmal fire brightened the crypt as she spoke. “So, Dhamphyrs in six months, huh?”


Dominic hefted the sword and nodded.


“Twins run in my family and we’re all highly fertile. We can discuss names over breakfast.”


He pulled the door open and they waded into the solid mass of slavering bodies side by side.