“The purpose of life is not to be happy.
It is to be useful, honourable, to be compassionate,
to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Ralf Waldo Emerson
Copyright 2012 Albert J. Gallant
All rights reserved
Special thanks to Piers Anthony
No part of this novel may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Purchase only authorized editions. This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, incidents and places are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
“The strange thing about growing old
is that the intimate identification with
the here and now is slowly lost.
One feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone.”
Albert Einstein
DRACULA: HEARTS OF STONE
THE SUICIDE RATE had never been higher and the city’s morale never lower.
The New York night was alive with traffic and harsh noises. It was brighter than the stars in the sky and almost as pretty. The city’s huge buildings made some people feel inconsequential and a little like mice. The bright lights were overwhelming to first-time visitors. The place seemed a bit like a monster to tourists from small towns accustomed to the country life. And from space the metropolis was alive as it marched toward its unknown destiny. It was fascinating and a great place to explore. Genuine treasures were there to be found if one looked hard enough. Stretch limos held actors from the stage and the big screen. The traffic was both maddening and intriguing.
It was a city scrutinized by the whole world.
But now it was an atmosphere of fear and unpleasantness. Faces were stressed and uncomfortable. Multiple sirens wailed from different parts of the city. Dreams were shattered and minds set to oblivion. Thoughts were racing with unpleasant scenarios of horror. Nightmare scenarios were numerous. Hearts were torn between hoping for a better future and fearing a future that would perhaps be ever more corrupt and ruthless. Hope was almost always suspect of being false. The future was thought to be headed for a harsh existence where one’s life was almost certain to be cut short without notice of ill health. It was trying times of suspect and confusion.
The year 2011 was shaping up to be a treacherous one. The weather added discomfort to an already uncomfortable situation. With the humidity it felt as if it was over a hundred degrees, and combined with the pollution that hung over the area it made for a restless evening. Perspiration stuck to hot faces like stamps on envelops, except that the stamps were effective. A hot and stifling air saturated the entire city as it attempted to smother it. The wind was light and ineffective. The unforgiving nature of the weather was torturous. The statue of liberty would have jumped in the water to cool off if she could have managed it. Rolling blackouts added to the despair, with the dark never more gloomy. Vampires were knocking out power grids to make the night that much darker and difficult, and to facilitate the hunting of humans. Three or four hours without electricity to power the air conditioners seemed like days.
Vampire sheriffs were patrolling the night but unfortunately were outnumbered. Their presence in certain areas appeared to be enough for the evil biters to avoid those areas, but they had insufficient numbers to cover such a large place. Their valour and dedication admired by many, yet some were suspicious of their ultimate motives. The bad ones simply avoided the areas where it was likely that they would be hunted by a red sheriff. Some could actually sense the sheriffs, where others had to rely on word of mouth to avoid certain places that were patrolled by the law. The red sheriffs banded together when necessary, and were dedicated to protecting humans from the monsters that prowled seeking their blood.
The night was scarier than it had ever been.
It appeared that evil vampires were being created every single day, and even though plenty of good biters also existed, they were also being looked at through apprehensive eyes. People wondered if it was possible for the good ones to also turn evil. The scales of justice were toppled heavily to the left because of all the unsolved murders. Hearts pounded at the realization that vampires were in their neighbourhood. Some worked in their stores and tended their children. They were checked against the myriad of vampires wanted for murder.
“Look at that!” said the old man to his wife near the Broadway theatre, having just watched The Lion King. He kicked the skeletal remains to the side. “That was not there when we went inside. New York is going to hell with those crazy vampires.”
Some days more than fifty people were being slaughtered in New York City alone. Wanted posters were turning into wanted novelettes. An atmosphere of anxiety and uneasiness was smothering many cities and towns throughout the world. Vampires had made themselves known and weren’t about to remain inconspicuous entities any longer. Special cameras to detect the vampires were popping up everywhere and were now big business; even some vampires had invested into them.
The brutes slunk into the night like rapists on the prowl for fresh young meat. Every shadow contained the possibility of death and horrible mutilation. Here there were genuine monsters that waited for opportunity. Some wouldn’t wait, or couldn’t wait, preferring to take their own possibilities and turn them into probabilities. Someone was always foolish enough to wander the streets after dark, as if walking in a group made any difference to vampires. It was simply six chicken nuggets instead of one. The people of New York in particular were a stubborn breed and not inclined to be bullied, even by vampires. But the numbers were adding up and the people were insisting that the government do something to stop them.
A ninety-year-old woman shouted out her Bronx apartment window into the darkness. “Get the hell out of here you vicious bastards! I see you!” She was in her blue butterfly nightdress with curlers in her white hair. Clara shouted at no one in particular; she thought that it would make the concealed vampires, if there were any in the area, flee upon being discovered. It had succeeded one night and so she now repeated the process to such an extent that she was becoming exhausted, losing much needed sleep. She shouted on the hour, every hour that she managed to stay awake. Clara had even attempted to stake her husband one midnight hour; because he had told her in jest that he was a vampire. He now resided in the Bailystoker nursing home where she visited him once a month, always carrying a stake in her big black purse, just in case. On this night she did manage to annoy a racoon that was attempting to get into a garbage can and two rats in the vicinity but no vampires were frightened. The poor woman eventually dozed with her head partially out the fifth story window.
Edgy people stared out of their windows into their own depths of being. What if tonight was their last night? How painful was death by vampire? What if they were turned into one of the undead creatures themselves? Would they end up eating their own neighbors? Would they have their own relatives over for lunch? People feared strangers more than ever before, and accidental shootings were higher than ever.
Opened spaces to the nocturnal air seemed useless; the air was equally saturated in or out without an air conditioner. The warm current was stifling and greedy with moister. The night itself was a sassy antagonist not opposed to gushing blood or screams from the innocent. It simply concealed without judgement the things that went on under its sunless sky. Most noises now made most people jump, even the usually courageous ones. Collective sighs rolled throughout the state, escaping through frustrated mouths. Angst was as plentiful as perspiration. Some people had accepted their fate and simply waited to be killed and drained of their blood.
Bands of brave mortals patrolled the night with guns that contained wooden tipped bullets; however the velocity and might of t
he vampires were usually adequate to take care of those courageous human defenders. Yet they tried their best to defend their neighbourhoods and on occasion did succeed, but usually the gangs ended up being killed and eaten. Some had direct lines to the sheriffs which had saved them on multiple occasions, although sometimes it was simply too late. The sheriff would arrive to discover the bodies and grisly scenes of blood and gore littering the sidewalks.
A positive future was becoming more and more difficult to envision. Hope had turned into a nasty four letter word. Tempers rose like millions of see-through kettles of boiling water without the possibility of turning the heat down. People all over the city feared being pursued by unknown shadows. A young couple had driven off the cliffs at Sodus Point Inn where he thought the man behind his car in a black coat was a vampire, and they ended up drowning in the lake. With almost eight hundred languages spoken it was one of the most linguistically diverse cities on the planet, with some areas a little like the ambience around the tower of Babel. And everyone talked about those damn vampires.
Those that did manage to nap awoke from nightmarish visions of bloody fangs pursuing them.
Two male teenagers stood on 46 and 7 Avenue. They were high on liquor and marijuana and were afraid of nothing. One had a Smith and Wesson .357 tucked into his belt under his shirt loaded with wooden tipped bullets. The other relied on his friend’s ability to secure his safety as well, and was always walked home after twilight. They had youth on their side, which was no protection at all against the biters. Of course they were more foolhardy than brave; they risked their lives on a nightly basis and now felt quite comfortable out after dark.
“It’s a quiet night man.” Ace was more or less a happy-go-lucky fellow with brown hair down to his shoulders. He was in a rock band called Eat Me and the entire band had about as much talent as a piece of pine wood.
“It’s those stupid vampires. Can’t even find someone to pinch.” Henry was the band’s drummer, but they were so bad that they were now getting tired of themselves. One could only scream for so long. A band needed to mesh and they hadn’t accomplished that.
“Never even seen a vampire. You?” Ace considered what he said. “Maybe I saw one. I mean they’re not so easy to spot when they act normal. I mean, you could be a vampire. How would I know unless you showed me your fangs, or you picked up a car or something?”
“Yeah, no. All over the news but I ain’t seen one in person. Maybe it’s all a bunch of crap!”
A bat hung upside down from a nearby building and listened intently and showed a slight smile at their ramblings. The light caught its eyes just right and illuminated them. It adjusted its position ever so slightly.
“I’ll blow the damn thing away if I ever see one. Bang, bang, bang. Pete has the skeletal remains of a vampire hanging on his wall. They could be fake but they sure look real.”
Ace took a drag of his weed and then passed it to Henry. “What the shit is that?”
The bat flew down and flew between the two of them as they both backed up several feet. Ace took the gun out and fired four shots at it, but missed and put three of the four bullets into his friend’s chest. Henry fell dead onto the sidewalk as the bat morphed into a genuine vampire. The gun was knocked out of his hand as the vampire enjoyed the fact that Ace was now hyperventilating and ready to pass out from fear. He was so frightened in fact that he couldn’t run. He couldn’t move an inch.
“What do we have here? I like the taste of fear, therefore you should be delicious my fine fellow.
Ace managed to glance down at the gun but that was it. The biter tore into his throat and commenced to drink his blood. He drank noisily and turned as he ate, scanning the area for red sheriffs. It was like drinking the finest wine. Blood splattered onto the sidewalk with some landing on the shiny Smith and Wesson.
Numerous silhouettes of the undead concealed themselves into the obscurity of the night, and the steamy atmosphere didn’t oppress them. They waited with the patience of a three thousand-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine tree. They were ever vigilant for their opportunity to strike. Their hungry eyes glowed red when they permitted them to do so. Over eight million souls fed energy and personality into the United States largest metropolis. An almost full moon hung over the city, indifferent in its beauty that usually went unnoticed.
Some New Yorkers slept with shoguns loaded with shells that contained oak dust to kill the monsters, some went off accidentally during the long night and some didn’t. Kids scared the hell out of their parents and thought it was hilarious. Some survived the encounters and some didn’t. It was an awful thing to live with, having accidentally killed their children out of fear. Some lived on past the horrible incidents and some didn’t.
A single rumble of thunder and rod of lightening teased of a rain that would perhaps cool the area, but it produced nothing significant. It was a lot like the shallow promises from the authorities. It sounded good but the end result was nothing to talk about. Then a misty drizzle that made the area even more sinister looking, as if every single shadow contained a monster, and some did. The fog contained shades of gray that was like a mirage in the desert.
The night was alive with worried minds and frightened faces.
An aberration of a vampire bat flew over the neo-gothic Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River; he was looking down upon the traffic, and searching for his opportunity to feed. The bat was three times larger than the normal Desmodus rotundus, with different abilities as well, and with the most important being its ability to transform into the so-called undead. It flew through one of the pointed arches thoroughly enjoying the sights below. Flying through the sunless sky was pure pleasure. The smell of all those human blood bags down there was an exciting event. The heavy traffic was like snakes slithering to their next destination. After several more hours of exploring the bat flew over the Queensboro Bridge, and the United Nations Headquarters.
The bat’s wings cut through the warm air as it searched for its prey, and it could detect human blood from a thousand feet up. Lance preferred people that had consumed rare sirloin steaks because he liked the taste of iron rich blood, and could sense what he wanted from several hundred feet away. Obese people were some of his favourites and vegetarians were left alone to perish of their own natural causes. Being a vampire his echolocation combined with supernatural vision helped him to locate preferable targets, and his echolocation was not reduced as that of a normal vampire bat, but actually almost ninety times more potent.
New York City was a spectacular place at night as the city could be mistaken for no other. The skyscrapers impressed upon the humans their smallness, and the bitters made them aware of their vulnerability and mortality. The night was now the enemy to most people, with parking lots lit so brightly that some people could barely stand it. The supernatural advantage of the vampires was as an adult fighting a toddler, so for most humans no chance to prevail. Wooden tipped bullets killed a few, but hesitation to pull the trigger and mind control was responsible for many more human deaths at the hands of the vamps. The creatures were simply too damn fast and powerful.
Circling the city made the vampire feel crazed with bloodlust, especially since Lance had purposely gone almost a week without partaking to get to that frenzied state. He simply loved the enthusiasm of his inner monster. The beast enjoyed the uneasiness and anticipation of what was to come, and would risk death to taste salty human flesh and blood. After the vampire fed, it would sleep with the contentment of flowers in the sun; otherwise it was an uneasy slumber. The bat had observed a red transport truck that was pulled by a Kenworth tractor with a full load of ice cream in its refrigerated trailer as it pulled off the highway to take on fuel. The bat flew in and hung upside down upon the power line that led into the station and watched with the eagerness of a starving lion. The driver’s scent was maddening to the vampire, even from inside the cab. A red sheriff in a white Chevy Malibu had been detected as he passed on the highway and so the attack was te
mporarily postponed. Those sheriffs could detect a scream a hell of a long distance away.
Back in the truck and back on the highway the vampire continued to pursue from the air. But on First Avenue the bat morphed and attacked the speeding rig, smashing feet-first through the driver’s side window and feeding on Marty the driver, with only the briefest scream having been emitted. Poor Marty was drained and killed in seconds, and his wife would regret the fight they had that morning for the rest of her life. The heavy truck barrelled out of control into the candy apple red Dodge minivan, killing the family of five instantly, including twin seven-year-old boys. Gravity, velocity and the weight of the large transport had made the carnage inevitable. It was a horrible scene for all those that would be forced to view it.
Being a fairly new vamp, nineteen-year-old Lance Walker stopped to lap up some of the blood that was dripping down from the van’s door before fleeing the scene. His long blond hair made him look as though he should have belonged to a heavy metal band. Covered in skull tattoos, he had been a bad boy prior to being turned, killing dogs and cats and anything else he could get his nasty hands on, but now was a genuine nightmare. It had been his fifth kill in a month. Lance blurred away into the darkness that he was so comfortable with and vanished.
Many calls went into the station of the local red sheriff, a law enforcement office in the Bronx which was set up to deal with criminal bloodsuckers, both trained and approved by Dracula himself. Few had seen the king in over two decades and there were plenty of new vampires that even doubted his existence. Because of the limited number of vampire sheriffs the situation had deteriorated dramatically as humans were being killed by vamps every single day. Wooden-tipped bullets were selling like popcorn at the movies.
Alexander Coleman entered his small white office and saw that his dell laptop computer was lit up with incoming calls. He had thick black hair and a perfect muscular body. A photo of Bruce Lee hung above his desk. His female German shepherd Tessy, also a vampire, blurred into the space so rapidly that she knocked The New York Times newspaper onto the floor having pushed the air current to such a degree. She kicked at the dog dish under the sport section and accidentally drove it into the wall; Alexander hadn’t been paying attention and so didn’t have the opportunity to intercept the bowl.
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