whimpered, her eyes bulging with fear. As Monroe watched in stunned helplessness, the man opened his mouth, displaying elongated incisors. Fangs…my God, those are fucking fangs. An animal rumble issued from the man’s throat. Then his head snapped toward Kira’s throat, his fangs ripping into the tender, exposed flesh.
Monroe felt nausea at the sight of the suddenly spurting blood.
Kira’s blood.
He felt lightheaded again. He pitched sideways in the seat, unconscious.
The door wouldn’t open.
Greg frowned and tried it again.
Same result.
Lashon wasn’t here. He couldn’t understand it. He tried to think. Kira’s Hyundai was outside. That was undeniable. So she was here. But perhaps Lashon had changed her mind about coming. Maybe she’d opted to mope around her apartment again instead. It was what she did most days.
Then again…
There was one other possibility. He knew from Lashon’s blog that Kira was seeing the vampire movie first. Perhaps she had decided to stick with her friend and see that one. The prospect of searching another auditorium didn’t excite him. Yet he felt he had to do it.
But this situation with the door was getting in the way.
He reached for the handle again, but this time his hand fell limply upon it and slid slowly off the slick metal. He felt woozy and screwed his eyes tightly shut in time to miss that first flash of blinding white light. When he opened them again, the auditorium doors were still right in front of him, but something was different. He felt sick. Nauseated. But his curiosity overrode these physical symptoms a moment longer. Long enough to peer through the door’s vertical window.
The lobby was dark.
Completely dark.
He could make out a dim outline of the concessions stand and a portion of the ticket booth. And something was moving out there. A man. Probably one of the weird theater employees. But even this person was just a vague outline, a form that was becoming dimmer with each passing second. Wow. That was just really strange. It was almost as if the world outside the auditorium was…
…fading away.
The world grew fuzzier as he staggered backward down the aisle. So strange. He felt almost high. Stoned. Like he was floating away on a silky-soft white cloud.
There was yet another flash.
And then he felt nothing at all.
For a while.
The first flash of white vaguely troubled Brix. It seemed to originate from nowhere and wasn’t a part of what was unfolding on the screen. The movie was just beginning and what was happening there was happening in near-total darkness. And she had never been to a theater where the house lights would produce that kind of sudden, blinding flash. Given the absence of any logical external source of the light, this left the possibility that it had been triggered by something internal. Something in her brain. Synapses misfiring. That was scary as hell, but when she glanced at Trevor she saw him staring blankly up at the screen, his face twisted in an expression of confusion and worry she suspected mirrored her own.
Her body tensed and all her senses went on full alert. She had shifted into fight mode without even thinking about it. It was the way she’d taught herself to react and it was second nature by now. She had long believed an apocalyptic event of some nature was just around the corner and that it was every right-thinking person’s duty to prepare themselves for survival in a world gone wrong. She had no evidence to indicate anything of the sort was happening now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. She thought of her Glock, shut away now in the glove compartment of the F-150. Never in her life had she more wanted to feel its reassuring weight in the palm of her hand.
Trevor looked at her. Opened his mouth to say something.
And that was when the second flash came.
Someone screamed.
As the second flash passed, Brix became aware of a deep wooziness. She also felt mildly sick. Jesus, something was really
Monroe felt nausea at the sight of the suddenly spurting blood.
Kira’s blood.
He felt lightheaded again. He pitched sideways in the seat, unconscious.
The door wouldn’t open.
Greg frowned and tried it again.
Same result.
Lashon wasn’t here. He couldn’t understand it. He tried to think. Kira’s Hyundai was outside. That was undeniable. So she was here. But perhaps Lashon had changed her mind about coming. Maybe she’d opted to mope around her apartment again instead. It was what she did most days.
Then again…
There was one other possibility. He knew from Lashon’s blog that Kira was seeing the vampire movie first. Perhaps she had decided to stick with her friend and see that one. The prospect of searching another auditorium didn’t excite him. Yet he felt he had to do it.
But this situation with the door was getting in the way.
He reached for the handle again, but this time his hand fell limply upon it and slid slowly off the slick metal. He felt woozy and screwed his eyes tightly shut in time to miss that first flash of blinding white light. When he opened them again, the auditorium doors were still right in front of him, but something was different. He felt sick. Nauseated. But his curiosity overrode these physical symptoms a moment longer. Long enough to peer through the door’s vertical window.
The lobby was dark.
Completely dark.
He could make out a dim outline of the concessions stand and a portion of the ticket booth. And something was moving out there. A man. Probably one of the weird theater employees. But even this person was just a vague outline, a form that was becoming dimmer with each passing second. Wow. That was just really strange. It was almost as if the world outside the auditorium was…
…fading away.
The world grew fuzzier as he staggered backward down the aisle. So strange. He felt almost high. Stoned. Like he was floating away on a silky-soft white cloud.
There was yet another flash.
And then he felt nothing at all.
For a while.
The first flash of white vaguely troubled Brix. It seemed to originate from nowhere and wasn’t a part of what was unfolding on the screen. The movie was just beginning and what was happening there was happening in near-total darkness. And she had never been to a theater where the house lights would produce that kind of sudden, blinding flash. Given the absence of any logical external source of the light, this left the possibility that it had been triggered by something internal. Something in her brain. Synapses misfiring. That was scary as hell, but when she glanced at Trevor she saw him staring blankly up at the screen, his face twisted in an expression of confusion and worry she suspected mirrored her own.
Her body tensed and all her senses went on full alert. She had shifted into fight mode without even thinking about it. It was the way she’d taught herself to react and it was second nature by now. She had long believed an apocalyptic event of some nature was just around the corner and that it was every right-thinking person’s duty to prepare themselves for survival in a world gone wrong. She had no evidence to indicate anything of the sort was happening now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. She thought of her Glock, shut away now in the glove compartment of the F-150. Never in her life had she more wanted to feel its reassuring weight in the palm of her hand.
Trevor looked at her. Opened his mouth to say something.
And that was when the second flash came.
Someone screamed.
As the second flash passed, Brix became aware of a deep wooziness. She also felt mildly sick. Jesus, something was really
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