Beyond The Walls (NOW ON AMAZON!!!)

The Mansion

Hadley instructed the others to help her move items around in the Harvest Room, clearing the space in front of one of the walls. She started scraping off the wallpaper from the wall. The others joined. Before long, they had revealed the outline of a door with no knob or keyhole. Even Aunt Zee didn't know about this door. Hadley had read about it as a reference in an old, gnarly medical instruction stuck beneath one of the Clinic drawers. This was the entrance to an old loading zone the vampires used to supply the Compound more than a century ago. Hadley turned to Ruq, knowing this was more forbidden knowledge she shouldn't have. The vampire regarded her curiously before sitting cross legged on a crate in the back of the tiny room.

"Let's find something to pry it open," Hadley said, turning to the other girls.

In the end, they decided to try leveraging a machete blade jammed into the outline of the door. There was some progress, but it was taking way too long. Hadley knew the dogs would eventually hunt them down and wasn't confident the Pantry door would keep them out. A river of perspiration poured down her neck, making tracks down her back, and a cold dread settled at the pit of her stomach as she began to accept that this wasn't going to work.

"Here, let me," Ruqwik said, jumping off the crate.

Hadley looked up at the vampire and gave her an appreciative nod. Ruq turned away from her. She punched her hand through the door and yanked it back. The door hinges crumbled like paper in her hands, dropping Hadley's jaw as the door swung open. A light breeze blew in from the dark, instantly cooling Hadley off. She grabbed her new harvest bag – Jamila had switched everything from her old, patched bag to a new one – and secured the heavier bag on her back. Jamila had added a few more supplies, including more food, a tarp and a set of harvest clothes that Hadley could change into later.

Before she followed Jamila and the others out of the door, she turned back to the vampire.

"Thank you," Hadley breathless as she said the words.

"After you," Ruqwik replied, motioning to the outside. Her crimson eyes pierced Hadley's own and suddenly the breeze creating lazy eddies around them wasn't nearly enough to cool Hadley down.

Behind the door was a gravel roadway that led from the Harvest Room to a different section of the Barn. This closed off section was overgrown with weeds, shrubs, and small trees. It would take some time for all the girls to make it around the outgrowths to the section of the Compound wall on this side. Hadley hoped they would make it there before the dogs found them.

Ruqwik was sure footed as she led them through that abandoned area. Hadley didn't know how, but she could tell that the vampire was worried. At first, she thought that she was imagining this knowledge, but this wasn't the first time she'd felt like she could read the vampire. There was something happening between them. Something that Hadley wasn't sure about but couldn't ignore. The same thing that told her she was safe in the vampire's company and that Jamila and the others would be too. Told her, if it was needed, Hadley would defend the vampire with her life.

That last thing worried Hadley.

There was a large sliding door at the end of the abandoned section attached to a part of the Compound wall. It was similar to the gate that Ruqwik had led Hadley into just a few hours ago after they'd left the cabin in the woods. However, this back door gate was as equally unused and rusted over as the hidden door behind the harvest room. Ruqwik didn't attempt to force the gate open. Instead, the vampire broke into the empty, unused security booth connected to the gate. She helped Hadley and the others through the booth to the other side.

Despite everything she'd been through in the last few hours, Hadley couldn't help the thrill that ran through her at the realisation that she was once again beyond the Compound wall, though guilt did follow close to the heels of that feeling.