End of Days Read Free

was working overtime. Charlie smiled at her. She smiled back. Then her boyfriend stepped closer so the two of them were chest to chest.
Here we go,
I thought. Charlie’s eyes were like two black disks. I hadn’t seen anything like it since Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.
    Then something bizarre happened. A shadow fell to the floor on the far side of the hall. It happened quickly. With the lights doing a kooky flash dance above, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually seen anything, but then the people on that side of the floor began to part. They were staring at a man who was moving toward us. With the light behind him, all I could see was a tall silhouette, but it was enough. His movements were fluid. Effortless. Perfectly balanced. Driven by tremendous strength. There was none of the stiffness you see withnormal people. It was another vampire. He’d obviously spotted us. If he was one of those elders who didn’t like kids, we were going to go straight from rave to grave.
    I wasn’t about to take any chances. “Charlie, we’ve gotta go.” I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and started pulling him to the door.
    â€œThat’s right, pretty boy, take a walk,” the guy with the fan-shaped hair said.
    I’d hoped Charlie would just fall in step, but I should have known better. He resisted. Fortunately, I was a lot stronger and jerked his shoulder back. He shot me an angry look, but when he noticed I was staring past the guy with the fan-shaped hair, he turned and saw what I did. Right in front of him, the girl with the red lampshade hair was smiling and waving. Her boyfriend was smirking. Then the tall vampire, little more than a shadow, shouldered past a guy just behind them, spinning him like a turnstile.
    Charlie looked back at me, panic all over his face. “Zack, that’s a vampire.”
    â€œI know!”
    We raced for the door.
    â€œHow did he know we were here?”
    I had no idea. But it didn’t matter. We’d been spotted. So we ran.

— CHAPTER 3
RUNNING SCARED
    We were just outside when I heard a sound like a flag rippling loudly in the wind. I looked up to see a second shadow drop from the far corner of the building, about a hundred feet away. He was wearing something that might have been a cape, or a loose cowl. It snapped in the night air as he fell.
    â€œThere’s two of them,” I said.
    Charlie put it into high gear and I followed. Neither of us spoke. We were both terrified. Our lives were at stake, no pun intended. Our fear was so strong I could smell the sharp tang of it in the warm night air.
    To avoid being seen, we didn’t follow the road, but stuck to the banks of the river. When we reached the Riverview Park and Zoo, we stopped.
    â€œAre they following us?” Charlie whispered. “Do you hear anything?” He pushed so little air past his lips that it made less noise than a pair of moth wings, but to my ears, it was crystal clear.
    I tested the air. Smelled sweat. Charlie’s cologne. Zoo animals and rotting straw. Our strained nerves. The wind in the trees was loud. So was the babble of the river. I heard nothing else and didn’t expect to. Vampires are predators. Fast, silent, and lethal. We wouldn’t hear them until it was too late. Not if they were elders. Over time, the pathogen responsible for making us vampires changed us in ways that stretched the imagination. Talents, they were called, but they were more like the special powers you’d expect to read about in comicbooks and fantasy novels. Turning into mist. Blending into shadows. Reading people’s thoughts. Shape-shifting. Even flying.
    I scanned the treetops overhead, then started running again. In minutes we were downtown. We headed for the rooftops. Up and down, block to block. Trees, fire escapes, phone poles, and fences, we scampered over all of them, sticking to the shadows, jumping store to store, row to row, house to house. We