Todd couldn't help thinking about her eyes. And about her indigo blue place settings and the chill of her air conditioner and the way D.B.'s arm hairs touched his and the sweaty, wrinkled feel of the plastic dry cleaning bags beneath them. He couldn't seem to focus his thoughts on vastly more important issues, no matter how hard he tried.

And that was a good thing. There was much he hadn't the strength to confront.

"Your shoulder," she said.

He wet him mouth. Shrugged. "Rat got me."

She nodded. "Sure. Lots of them. You got nibbled on your arm and wrist, too, I see. Damn things got most of the others, too. I passed around a first aid kit and disinfectant. But that one on your shoulder. I noticed it before you dressed it. It looks...different."

"It was a rat."

"Okay," she agreed quickly. But her eyes kept returning to it.

Todd had spent the earlier part of the evening squatting in front of a fire and scowling at the tops of oaks and sycamores in the ravine below, miffed at D.B. for not stationing him by the pool. At least there he could dip his feet in the stinky water to cool off some of the night heat.

The smudgy flames were supposed to ward off vampires. Todd supposed they might do the trick since no vampire in his right mind would come close to their damn bonfires when the outside temperature was still running in the heatstroke zone even with the sun gone.

Jermaine said, "I dunno, Pete. Just 'cuz movie vampires don't like fire don't mean the real ones react the same way."

"Don't mean they don't." Ponytail Pete piled on more dry pine needles and the fire crackled with fresh life and less smoke.

"Vampires," Duke Gates snorted.

He'd never gone away as promised. Todd could only guess how Kathy Lee had gotten him to change his mind. Now the kid cradled his nine millimeter Mauser on his knee as he sat Indian-style, staring into the flames.

"I don't like it here," Tonya Whittock said in a voice as soft as a night breeze. She stared off into the black woods that dropped before them.

"Ain't nothing to worry about," her husband reassured her, but none too loudly.

Todd thought about Joy and the girls, locked into a single motel room with orders to only open up to a knock that came in a prearranged code. He hadn't even taken a room key with him, in case it should somehow fall into enemy hands.

Something rustled in the brush.

"Jesus," Jermaine said, gasping. He whipped his Smith & Wesson .38 into a two-handed shooter's stance aimed at the black trees.

As Todd and the others sprang away from the noise, Duke hiccuped with quiet laughter. "Look at y'all. Jermaine's all 'ain't nothin' to worry about,' and now look at him. He's gonna blow holes in the first tree branch that moves."

"Shut up," Todd snapped and, surprisingly, the kid did.

Night is never still. Todd heard twigs snap, creek water run and the breeze-he hoped to God it was the breeze-rustle the trees. Deer and other lightfooted animals skittered over deadfalls while bats flitted low overhead. Insects screamed for love and sparse traffic sounded invisibly through the town beyond the woods.

"What is it?" Jermaine whispered to Todd.

He had no idea what he was supposed to be listening for. The others, particularly the Whittocks from downtown Detroit, seemed to think of him as some West Virginia mountain man, able to identify insects by their mating calls and a mammal by its footprint. In reality, he'd spent his nights in bars and bowling alleys or at home vegging in front of the TV like everyone else. He hadn't camped out since Boy Scouts, and hadn't liked it then.

Now, everything he heard in that dark ravine was a threat.

He shuddered at the memory of Jim Zeebe in his garage, and those hungry cops outside his jail cell. He knew exactly how bad it could get out there.

"It's nothing," he told Jermaine, maybe lying. He pawed sweat from his face and said, "Musta been a squirrel or rodent or-"

"Rats are rodents," Tonya whispered. "And according to Denver Dugan, rats hang out with vampires."

"And he's the expert," Todd muttered.

"What's that?" Ponytail Pete was pointing an unsteady finger at a spot in the woods below them.

The spot looked to Todd no less black that everything else down there. He peered intently at the dark and was about to chew Pete out for scaring everyone when he saw it.

"Eyes," Tonya whimpered.

"I don't know," Todd said, barely breathing. He shivered, chilled by the shirt plastered to his skin.

Twin dots of light that flickered like tiny white-hot flames.

"It might be eyes," he reluctantly agreed. Reflecting moonlight, maybe.

Jermaine whispered, "Another pair," and this time Todd had no doubt. More white-hot eyes, and now the others were hoarsely pointing out pinpricks of light in several places in the ravine. The lights moving slowly, steadily uphill.

"Stay cool," Todd said with a calm he could barely muster. "They're too close-set and low to the ground to be human."

"Yeah...rats," Tonya whispered.

Todd said, "Stay close to the fire and they'll leave us alone."

Which was when he learned just how little he knew about the subject.

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

The first thing he later recalled was the way Duke Gates scrabbled away, pushing off, crablike, elbows and feet in motion, moving him quickly away from the fire. Todd wanted to warn him to stay close, but all at once he had his own problems to deal with. Lots of them.

The first one landed softly in his lap, knocking him onto his back. The weight of its fat, hairy body sent dull pain settling into Todd's stomach and groin. It smelled like the dead dog Todd had found in a ditch near his home when he was a kid, but it was the sharp little teeth gnashing at the clothing protecting the soft of his belly that disturbed him most.

He felt his bruised groin involuntarily retract, away from the teeth. He arched his back to keep his face out of peril as the rat scrambled up his torso. The hands he flung up in front of his face drew quick stabs of pain. Grabbing the attack rat in a loose grip, its teeth already pink with his blood, Todd flung it like a cow chip back down the ravine.

"Goddamn," someone squealed in high-pitched male panic.

Shaky flashlight beams crisscrossed Todd's vision in drunken patterns. A muffled scream came from Tonya as three of the things tried to shimmy up her legs. Jermaine was beating Ponytail Pete about the head and shoulders with a thick stick in an effort to dislodge a snarling rodent that had hold of an ear.

Todd felt heat close to his face as Duke Gates swung a crackling tree limb snatched from the flames. With a quick fanning motion he swooped it low over an invading platoon of bright-eyes rodents. One of the creatures sprouted flames and screamed in near-human agony as it dashed for cover.

Todd threw himself on Tonya. He grabbed a sleek rat that had nearly won the race to her face. It wiggled from his grasp, slashing the back of his wrist. He dropped it, poked at it with an off-balance sissy kick that couldn't have done much damage, but sent it down the gully with a squeal of rage.

Todd could hear gunshots in the distance, the sounds coming from the front of the motel. He thought wildly, Gunshots? How do you fight rats in the dark with bullets? Then came the footsteps crashing through the underbrush, climbing up out of the ravine and coming for him.

Shadows. Large, bulky shadows. And the same guttural growls he'd heard when Judd Maxwell was taken down behind the post office building on Main View.

At least three human-shaped figures climbed out of the ravine. They made odd rasping sounds as they charged the flailing Sundowners.

Todd rolled away as one headed straight at him. The figure froze in a predatory crouch, waiting for Todd to come to a stop. As he did so, he saw Tonya Whittock kick at the campfire, scattering ashes and flaming branches right at the crouching shadow. The thing stumbled backwards, grunting, as sparks grabbed its socks and bare legs.

It was the most ludicrous sight of the evening, the arthritic old vampire in shorts, black socks and preppy boat shoes jerkily dancing to put out his hot foot.

Something exploded, roared, and a red spot grew in the center of the elderly attacker's chest. Arms jerking, it crashed to the ground.

Todd rose shakily and watched more of the creatures scramble up and out of the ravine. He smelled burning flesh as campfire sparks took hold of another downed vampire's leg. More gunshots sounded in the distance.

The Sundowners were facing attack from all sides.

Duke Gates' Mauser roared again and again and again, three flat explosions that knocked a pair of charging vampires on their asses. One was flung back down the ravine while the other, a frail, white-haired woman, remained in a seated position, clutching her stomach and gasping for air.

A hand seized Todd's ankle, and his muscles froze rigid. It was the old fart with the shorts, black socks and gaping chest wound, but the carnage didn't look half as bad as before. On hands and knees, the night creature dragged Todd toward him with one unexpectedly strong arm. His mouth hung slack, displaying two rows of ragged teeth. From his throat came a growl of animal lust, a gurgle of pain and carrion desire.

Todd braced himself and lashed out to free his leg. The vampire's grip was loosened, but his other arm whipped out to lock Todd's ankle in a two-handed embrace. Then the first withered hand let go long enough to snatch a better grip just below Todd's knee, and in this way the vampire pulled itself steadily toward him.

Ponytail Pete struck like a placekicker, his running shoe making solid contact with the old vampire's face. Bones snapped, teeth flew, pink spittle sprayed the air from a suddenly slack mouth. The creature's snarl turned to a pitiful gargle, Todd momentarily forgotten. He scuttled out of the way as the vampire's hands explored its own ruined face.

Branches broke like rifle shots. The creature who'd been shot and launched into the ravine had laboriously regained altitude and now its head could be seen over the top as it clutched, with a muddy fist, a maple sapling that bent under its weight. Jermaine jogged several steps toward it to swing a charred log that made excellent contact with the thing's face. It toppled back into the ravine with a howl of injured fury.

The Mauser went off several more times, until the white-haired woman on the ground stopped twitching. Her bloody housedress covered her like a shroud, her spindly pale limbs grotesquely twisted beneath her.

Nothing else moved.

Todd heard the rhythmic, hydraulic hiss of machinery and realized it was him and the others, gulping air together in harsh, frantic gulps. Someone picked up a flashlight and its shaky yellow light outlined their terror. They bled from an assortment of tiny punctures. Clothing torn, faces streaked with sweat and dirt, eyes black with shock.

"They get you?" Jermaine gasped, bending to cradle his wife while his eyes never left the ravine.

Tonya shook her head, her spasming lungs choking on a more verbal reply.

"Bastards," Duke croaked, head craning and body twisting to see everything everywhere. The Mauser turned with him, the hammer locked back and ready for another assault wave.

"You did good," Todd muttered to him, not believing he'd said it.

"Damn right," the kid replied.

"What about the others?" This came from Ponytail Pete, who held the flashlight.

They seemed to realize together that the distant gunfire had ended. Then the muffled cries broke the night. Shocked Sundowners calling for help, pleading for the safety of loved ones.

"I gotta get back," Todd said. "Make sure my wife and kids-"

Someone screeched in a voice so high-pitched that at first he thought it was Tonya, but it wasn't. It was one of the men, and he never did learn which one. Todd saw their eyes first-Jermaine and Tonya, Duke and Ponytail Pete-wide and horror-struck, and Todd's world slowed so that he seemed to have all sorts of time to wonder what it was that had terrified them so.

Whatever it was, it was right behind him.

Before he had time to fully execute a turn, something crashed into the center of his spine, pile-driving him to the ground and punching the air from his lungs. Todd could hear a ruined jaw flopping open and shut close to his ear. He caught a sideways glimpse and found that the old vampire's mouth wasn't half as broken as he'd remembered it. The thing had recovered quickly.

They can't be killed, he thought, just before the thing sank its teeth into his shoulder.

Todd closed his eyes, kept them shut, didn't even much care when Duke Gates' gun roared again and again, blasting his hearing to hell and running warm wet matter down his cheek and neck. The vampire bucked and was lifted off him by the force of the multiple blasts.

"Jesus, they keep getting up," Todd heard Ponytail Pete say. All sounds were bass-heavy, muffled in cotton, the upper ranges lost in the incessant ringing. "What're we gonna do if we can't keep 'em dead?"

Todd still kept his eyes shut, rode out the ringing. He remembered slipping his dad's new Buick out of the garage one night, releasing the brake and rolling it down the driveway before getting shitfaced with his friends and wrapping it around a telephone pole. He'd kept his eyes sealed the next morning on that occasion, too, in the impossible hope that when he opened them again the old man's Le Sabre would be unmarked and back in the garage where it belonged.

"Hey man," said Duke. "You okay?"

He opened his eyes. His cheek nuzzled black grass. He smelled the rich, wet aroma of the neglected lawn, but also the acrid scent of gunpowder, the sour odor of body sweat and the metallic tang of blood. He felt a solitary tear trickle from one eye and roll into his ear. And in the distance the voices, drawing nearer.

"Todd, you all right?"

Tonya dropped a warm, sticky hand onto the back of his neck, a hand that shook in delayed reaction to her wide-awake nightmare.

The vampire lay motionless on the grass and weeds at the edge of the ravine, its skull as shattered as a stolen pumpkin.

Todd nodded slowly, though it was a motion that would be difficult to see. He heard running footsteps drawing near and rose to his feet to see a biped shadow approaching fast. Duke had his Mauser pointed, Jermaine a burning torch cocked over one shoulder. Tonya said "Don't," just as Pete took aim with his flashlight and the shadow turned into Carl Haggerty.

"Over here, there's five of them," Carl shouted to someone out of the light, waving a smoldering log like a beacon.

Jermaine asked what had happened elsewhere, and Carl rattled on about rats and vampires and gun battles, a tale that, for all its familiarity with their own situation, Todd had a hard time following.

"We kept hitting them and they kept coming," Carl was saying, but Todd found that he could repeat the words verbatim without fully comprehending the message.

He couldn't concentrate, couldn't form or hold a thought. Couldn't care. His shoulder throbbed. He felt warm drool form a trail from the corner of his mouth to the end of his chin. He shuddered, gasped, sobbed.

Tonya Whittock laid a hand on his undamaged shoulder, but didn't seem to know what to do when the sobbing didn't stop. "I don't think no one got killed," she said, as if that addressed his concerns.

"The goddamn thing's still moving," someone called out hoarsely, and that's what cut Todd out of his personal fog.

He leaped to his feet to watch with the others as the ancient vampire stirred yet again. It was on its back, flailing its wrinkled limbs like an overturned turtle. The old woman who'd taken a bullet in her chest had crawled into the ravine and they could hear her stumbling away.

"You can't kill them," Todd said with listless calm.

"You're not doing it right."

If motel owner Mona Dexter had been a vampire, they would have all been dead. No one knew she'd joined them until she spoke. "You have to take more permanent action," she said.

On her hip she balanced a long object that suddenly roared to life. She advanced slowly on the wounded vampire, holding her snarling chainsaw in a two-handed grip as gasoline fumes filled the still night air.

The vampire rose on two elbows to utter a growl that changed to a squeal of panic as she kept coming. A plea heard even above the gas-fueled roar of the chainsaw.