Chapter 03: Trust

"Nothing said could change the fact
My trust was blind
You broke the pact
If God's my witness, God must be blind…"

- from "As Heaven Is Wide" by Garbage

Now, being a first class trouble maker, Mark was educated in the art of sneaking around and, of course, sneaking in. It was natural that he would find the least conflicting way to get inside of the shelter...
He avoided the front door and the workers who were stationed there, just in case they'd caught on to him faster then they would have expected or some sort of thing, by going to a side window he knew was beside the koyt of a smoker.
He was in luck! The heavy black woman had been at that window recently, her cigarette butt still lying on the sill, and forgotten yet to close it. All he had to do was climb into the low braches of the tree, and from a limb he could stick his legs through the window and slip in.
He went about his business, unnoticed by the inhabitants of the shelter even as he slipped from the sill and tumbled to the ground with a hollow thump. He got to his feet briskly, and scanned the room for Sam's koyt. She was there, her blonde hair shielding the half of her face on the opposite side of him and hanging over one shoulder.
Her eyes were slowly scanning something in her lap, but Mark had no time to ponder. He jogged over, stopping at her bedside, and grabbed her wrist.
"Sam," she looked up, startled, and dropped the book from her lap. Mark looked down at it, and saw Ben's face staring back up at him from the cover. He winced, and looked away. "I've gotta get out of here... will you come with me?"
"What? Why?"
"I'll tell you everything, just not here."
"But I don't understand--"
"--Sam, please!"
She stopped, looking his face over now. His wavy hair was crushed under his beanie, his skin was pale, the color of sour milk, and his lips were chapped. His eyes were worst of all, with the dark brows burrowed around his sunken eyes, so big they seemed as if they could light up a room... but now they were darkened and baggy, from stress and lack of sleep and poor nutrition. He looked like hell... and he looked desperate.
"... Okay," she replied, throwing her legs over the side of her koyt.
She grabbed up a black and red CANADA zip-up hoodie from the ground and pulled it on over her reddish brown camisole, as well as slipping a dirty white scrunchy around her wrist for later. Watching her do this, Mark noticed a sharp tare in the left knee of her faded and stained jeans, but discarded it quickly as she'd zipped herself up and stuck her feet into her sneakers and was now ready to follow him out.
He led her out the front door, for he could not escape back out the window as the heavy black woman had returned to her koyt and shut it, and out into the night...

Creeping down back streets under light of moon, the pair eventually found themselves quite lost, and growing rather weary and weak; especially Mark, whose long and troubled day was catching up with him, moments coming back to him like flashes of lightning.
Finally, they came upon a place where they could hide out for the night... a bridge arched like a cat's spine in a fright, thick and sturdy. Underneath it, a tiny stream was frozen over with a layer of ice, water trickling along far beneath it. On either side of it, there were banks coated with dead leaves and twigs, which were coated with snow where the bridge did not stand... but beneath the wooden structure, the banks were dry and safe.
They crawled underneath, careful not to slip down the slopes and break their skulls on the ice bellow, and hid on the side they'd already been on so they wouldn't have to cross the ice. They sat upon the crackling ground, close to the wood that protected them from the elements to minimize the possibility of being seen.
Sam pulled her sleeves down over her hands and brought her legs up, holding them to her body. Mark sat Indian style and rubbed his cheeks with his hands, trying to bring the life back into them. Neither of them spoke for quite some time, shivering in silence and darkness lit only by the moon beams that filtered through the spaces between the boards, until...
"... What happened?" Sam asked, at length.
Mark sighed, hanging his head, and tried to decide where to begin. "I don't know how long ago it was, but I know it was in October--"
"--Last month."
"What?"
"Today was Thanksgiving," Sam informed her, speaking in a voice just above a whisper. "October was last month..."
Mark nodded, and thought sarcastically, good to know... "Okay then, last month it all started. These two guys, Straker and Barlow came into town... they bought the Marsten house. Weird, right? You have no idea..."
He went on to tell her of the night he, Danny, and Ralphie had snuck into the Charlie Roads's yard and peaked in on his glove compartment pornography, entirely with the intent to get rid of the bus driver for good, when they'd been forced to run for it, and the Glick boys thereafter went missing. He told her of his success, up until Danny came to his window, and then the days that followed, battling Barlow and his fledglings, uniting and falling with others, until Ben and him thought they'd won and split, only to find that Father Callahan survived, and follow him back to Detroit. He told her where he went with Ben when he hadn't been at the shelter, and finally, finished the story with the events of the dead, including putting the priest down, and watching Ben, his only ally, fall... He told her all this and she listened, solemn faced, with little to no comment.
When at last his tale was done, silence befell the friends, and Sam's eyes were on her hands, which toyed with her shoe laces... until, finally, she found the courage to say; "So you've fought them, too..."
"What?" Mark gasped, that being the last thing he'd expected her to say.
She smirked, in a kinda of miserable irony, and went on without raising her eyes. "I thought I was crazy... probably because everyone else was dead, so there was never really any proof that I wasn't."
Mark watched her with brows twisted in confusion and concern, and she relayed for him a similar sort of tale...
She didn't know who the origin was, didn't know how it started or where it came from... when the disease had spread to epidemic proportions, like on the night between the sixth and seventh of October for Salem's Lot, she'd been at a party to mourn the end of the summer.
She'd been out late into the night, drinking and dancing, until finally the group she'd come with had decided it was time to leave. She was a little bit drunk, only half-sober maybe, when she hopped into the back of her friend Drew's car. Her cousin Emily was staying with her that weekend while her parents were off on business, so he took both the girls back to Sam's house. He waited outside to make sure both the girls got home safely, but when they went inside, Sam's mother, Terry, and her boyfriend, Greg, attacked them.
"... You know how Em's always been real religious and shit, right? Well, she made the sign of the cross at them and they backed off, hissing and showing their fangs and stuff... that's when we realized what they were."
She went on to tell of how they ran out of the house, jumping into Drew's car again, and tried to explain to him through their hysteria what had happened. He had not believed them, so he went back inside to check it out, much to the girls' disapproval. Emily had cracked the window, and they both store out anxiously for some sign of him... when they heard him screaming, a blood curdling scream that could force the urine right out of a man's body.
Emily, who was the older of the two, climbed into the front seat at this point, and started the car. Sam was screaming, "What about Drew? What about Drew?", but Emily ignored her, pulling out of the driveway and down the street. They went speeding to the end of town, but the exit was blocked off by a hoard of the undead. Emily and Sam were horrified, but came up with a plan quick.
They would both run opposite ways to confuse the vampires, and sneak out down the train tracks jumping on one of the carts. They could hear the train coming, even at this point. They agreed, and jumped out of either door of the front seat. Emily went running off in the opposite direction of the tracks, being as her legs were longer and she could run faster, while Sam made a sprint for the goal.
"What happened then?" Mark asked, as Sam had suddenly stopped the telling of her tale.
She shrugged, keeping her eyes down, and repeatedly wetting her lips nervously. "Nothing... we tricked them, kept them out 'til dawn, and then hopped the train... Emily didn't make it, I did... when I came through again, the train had stopped in Detroit. I got off and found the shelter, made a few new friends, and the rest you pretty much know..."
Mark, although, was not yet satisfied. "But they're all dead?"
"Yeah--"
"--You're sure?"
"Damn it, Mark, I said yes! They're dead! Just like Emily, and Drew, and everyone else; they're all fucking dead!"
Mark withdrew, wounded by her tone... but, at the same time, he felt guilt. He should have been more gentle... he knew how hard it must be on her, simply by knowing how hard it was on him... but she came down, and apologized for shouting, before putting her arm around her dear friend's shoulders.
"We're all right now," she told him. "The worst is over... let's just get some sleep..."

The morning came in slow, like syrup slipping down a tree... the first rays of sweet, yellow light that pierced the gaps between the boards and tickled at Sam's eyes brought her to waken.
It took a moment for her to remember running off with Mark and hiding under the bridge the night before. Another moment and she remembered the conversations that had followed, exchanging their horror stories like well read fiction. Another and she'd remember working with Mark to keep them warm and alive through the night; zipping their hoodies together, pulling their arms within, and curling up close like two kittens abandoned together.
Her head was resting on his shoulder and his on a smooth rock. She felt no urgent need to get up, though cold and hungry and sore, knowing that it would change nothing; and waited patiently for Mark to wake up before pondering a course of action.
Instead, she let her mind wander... back to the night before, and the stories exchanged. She focused on Mark's tale, trying to piece it together, to form images in her head like and put them in motion. She knew the names and the faces to match, and understood what reasoning would stand for their actions, so it was not too difficult... she, too, had grown up in the Lot, before her parents divorce. Her mother had taken Sam back to her own home town... Terry never liked being treated differently for being an outsider, anyway.
How stingingly sad it seemed to Sam, now, that no matter whether she'd gone or stayed, they still would have come; she still would have had to face them... but she still believed it would have been better in the Lot, with Mark and others she knew and trusted... but, then again, she also believed that everything happens for a reason.
But what was the reason behind this? What was the reason behind any of it?
Before the hour was up Mark, too, would find his eyes opening against the pale rays of sunlight. It reflected off the snow around him, creating millions of tiny sparkles like thousands of tiny diamonds, diamonds crushed and sprinkled upon the earth.
The two collected themselves, before crawling back out from under the bridge. They stood together, and surveyed their surroundings through narrowed eyes... without realizing it, Mark had led them back to the park where he'd stopped the night before, and deeper in yet still. They could hear cars rushing along slick roads and horns honking offensively, but could not see anything through the white-topped trees, except the higher reaches of silver buildings beyond.
Steadily, with their arms wrapped around themselves for warmth and comfort, they sulked out of the park and back into city streets.
They spent most of the day just trying to keep warm. Sam suggested they go off to see her friends, the friends he'd seen her with the morning before, for the day. They were, apparently, three 18-year-olds, one of which who was pregnant with another's baby, that shared an apartment. Mark refused, though; saying that he didn't want to get them involved... and Sam, reluctantly, had to agree.
So they stayed in stores and public buildings, until someone noticed they'd been there an unusually long time, and had no acquired the services, and ultimately; they were kicked out. Sometimes they were kicked out on sight just because they looked like street kids! They continued this all the day long, until night fell, and most places closed, and it was almost impossible to seek refuge in a building.
They began to forfeit that fight, and sulk back into the shadows where they would find another hiding place like the night before, or maybe try to find their way back to the park, to the bridge... they crawled back streets, trying to find some direction, some path to tred that would lead them to salvation, when a voice came to them through the darkness.
It called to them, and they turned, realizing that a side door to a dingy apartment building was open. A tall, scrawny yet muscular man stood in its frame, smoking a crumpled Marlboro cigarette. His black hair was long and combed back, and he had a tattoo of a dragon on his upper arm. They stopped walking, but stayed close together, waiting for the man to speak.
"Y-you guys got a place to go?" he asked, shifting his weight.
"No," Mark told him, uneasily. "Why? What do you care?"
The man smiled, sadly. "You could stay with me... I've got room."
The younger pair looked at each other, then back at the man. Sam proceeded, as cautious as Mark before her; "You serious?"
"Yeah," the man said warmly. "Look, if you got a problem with strangers, my name's Dante. Now tell me yours and we won't be strangers anymore!"
Sam smirked, her eyes lighting up at last. "I'm Sam, and this is my buddy Mark. Now that that's out of the way..."
She proceeded in walking foreword towards the man, Dante. Mark followed her, eased by her trust, forgetting just how bad a judge of character Sam was... besides, he'd never been outside of the Lot. It never occurred to him that there were bad people out there, certainly not! Bad vampires, yes, but not bad people...
Dante gave Sam a cigarette, which she smoked down with pleasure, much to Mark's displeasure... then they followed him back up a long, narrow flight of metal stairs, back to a red-painted door in a hall of many red-painted doors with "34B" written on it, which brought a giggle to the girl who understood the double meaning.
"Why I got it," Dante smirked at her. Aww, he understood, too!
Mark, confused, followed them in after Dante opened the door, and went right to the kitchen. He prepared warm soup for the homeless kids, and brought it out to them with a bag of greasy potato chips. They both gulped it down gratefully, thanking Dante many times for his kindness.
Afterwards, Dante arranged the fold-out couch and told them, throwing pillows and blankets on it, that they would be sleeping there. They thanked him again, and he said, "Oh, stop! You're gonna make me blush."
Sam was ecstatic, jumping upon the fold-out bed and rolling around in the covers like a crazed dog. Mark laughed, realizing now just how much he'd missed Sam's reckless stupidity while they'd been away from each other, but banished the thought from his mind for tonight. Tonight, they had food in their bellies and a roof over there head! What was there to complain about?
After a while, Dante bid them goodnight and locked himself in his room, and Mark strayed off to go take a shower. He hadn't had one in a month, and he was disgusted by the feel of his own hair... Sam stayed behind, wrapped up in blankets and bouncing in her own space, she sat in front of the TV clicking buttons like they would disappear if she didn't keep her fingers on them.
After almost a half an hour of being alone, Sam jumped when she heard a voice in the doorway. "You know, you can't watch everything at once, Sam..."
Her eyes shot up. Oh, just Dante... no worries. Her muscles eased beneath her skin, and she turned her eyes back to the screen. "I know, it's just I haven't watched TV in, like, a month! Not since they went off sale at Radioshack, anyway... Do you remember that? I remember that."
Dante smirked, walking over and sitting on the bed beside her. "So... how long have you been away from home?"
"A long damn time," Sam said, nodding, with her eyes still absorbing the screen. "Why?"
"How long has it been since somebody touched you?"
She arched a brow at him. "A minute ago... Mark tapped me on the shoulder to tell me he was going to take a shower."
"That's not what I meant," he whispered, leaning his mouth close to her ear.
She stiffened, dropping the remote, and jerked around. "Hey, man... I'm not legal, alright? And I can tell you're above eighteen, so--"
"--I'm not interested in what's legal," Dante shook his head, and Sam's eyes shot wide.
"Oh fuck," she moaned, and tried to sprint off the fold-out, but Dante grabbed her legs. In the other room, she heard the shower shut off, and tried crying out, but Dante slammed a hand over her mouth. "What? You thought you could stay here for free? Everything comes with a price, darlin'!"
She thrashed desperately, feeling his fingers pop the button of her jeans open. He just laughed, and continued trying to remove her pants. She bucked even harder, and he slapped her a crossed the face so hard it brought tears to her eyes, his ring cutting into her cheek and leaving a tiny gash.
"Hey!" Dante jerked his neck around, looking over his shoulder, and Sam angled hers to see, too. Mark stood in the doorway in his shirt and jeans, hoodie and beanie on the floor beside him. He lunged at Dante, punching his stiffly in the jaw. "Get the fuck off her!"
Dante sneered, stood up, and punched Mark back, sending the kid flat on his ass. Mark kicked Dante in the knee, causing it to bend unnaturally and painfully. Dante grabbed Mark up off the floor by his collar and threw him against the way. Sam watched in horror as Mark's body tumbled to the floor, out cold at the least.
"You son of bitch!" Sam cried, trying to get up to help Mark, but Dante jumped on her again, pinning her down at the wrist and thighs. She struggled, but to no avail.
"I told you," Dante snickered, pulling her pants down to her knees. "Nothing comes without a price..."
And then he stopped short, his head shooting back with a gasp. Sam watched in terrified confusion, as blood began to drip out of his mouth. She saw it pooling around a hole in the front of his shirt, and then screamed when he fell limp on top of her pushing him off her frantically.
She fell to the floor, pulling her pants back up with one hand, and crawled to Mark's side, immediately trying to shake him awake. It didn't work. She checked his pulse... he was still alive, thank god! She breathed a sigh of relief and rested her head against his shoulder, feeling her stomach turn inside her.
"Miss? Miss?"
"Huh?" she looked up, and to the source of the gun shot wound to Dante. It was a police officer, African America, very muscular, with his hair in cornrows.
"Are you alright, Miss? Did he hurt you? How about your friend?"
"I'm fine," she said, shakily. "I don't know about him... I think he's just out."
"Okay," the officer pulled out a pad of note paper with a tiny pencil attached to it on a string. "I'm gonna need your names and--"
"--No!"
"Excuse me?"
"You can't have our names, we can't tell you anything, we can't say anything for the court, and we can't be a part of this."
"But you already are, Miss, you--"
"--You don't understand!" she cried, stopping the officer short. The room fell silent, and a sort of dark foreboding feeling feel over it. She whispered, too afraid to speak any louder, "... We can't be found."
The silence continued, growing thick and heavy, and Sam continued to aid to her friend, who seemed as if he were coming through, his eye-lids twitching and his brows narrowing, his fingers beginning to clutch something invisible "... Please, help us. Let us go."
The officer seemed to be fighting within himself, weighing the decision that was laid before. Finally, he sighed... "Alright, but I can do better then that. You come down stairs with me and let me call this in, and I'll get you kids in a room for the night."
Sam tried to force a smile, though hope had been beaten out of her by the morbid events that had just passed through her. "Thank you..."

Next chapter; Sam has to make a hard decision...