“I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough room back here,” Elizabeth said. “I could have brought more weapons if I’d taken the SUV.”
“Or a minivan, perhaps.”
“Vampires don’t drive minivans.” She then removed a large black firearm from the trunk.
“What the hell is that?”
“Atchisson AA-12. Selective-fire twelve-gauge shotgun. Takes a twenty-round drum magazine or eight-round boxes.” Elizabeth found the large drum and rammed it home. “It’s loaded with warheads, of course, combination of three-inch magnum sabot slugs and triple-aught buckshot. Guaranteed to kill everything, living or not, in its path.”
As she held the huge shotgun with one arm, Elizabeth reached in the trunk and found another sword, a replica of a Roman gladius. She tossed it to Jeremiah. He caught it and then drew it from the scabbard.
“This is a good sword. It handles very much like an original,” Jeremiah said.
“Yeah, you would know.”
“Wait a moment. Don’t I get any guns?”
“If you wanted to play, you should have brought your own toys. I think you should sneak up on those creeps in the Chevy. I prefer a more direct route. Wait for my signal; it should be obvious.”
“Very well. That works for me. What’s the plan, then?”
“The plan? Simple: kill them all,” Elizabeth said as she chambered a round into the Atchisson.
The Norway rat strayed into the cage looking for new sources of food. He paid no attention to the human female or the vampire, which was much to his misfortune. Scott grabbed the medium-size rodent and lifted it, squealing, to his mouth. He deployed his fangs and bit into the creature, ending its life and sucking its essence. By the way, rat tasted exactly like Scott thought it would—gross and definitely unhygienic.
“Eeewwww!” Dawn exclaimed. “You’re eating a rat?”
Scott looked at her, his lips moist with rodent blood. “Well, it beats eating you! I’m not proud.” Disgusted with the taste of rat blood, he tossed the little corpse out of the cage.
“You’d rather eat a rat than me? I don’t know how to take that,” Dawn said, an awkward grin appearing on her lovely, tear-stained face.
“Making lemonade from lemons, or something like that, I guess. I sure wish someone would come in here soon so we can see if this plan works.”
“Yeah, this chair is really unstable. I hope it holds together long enough.”
Scott noticed that Dawn was trying to balance the chair, which had been made structurally unsound a few minutes earlier as part of his plan. “Well, you’re lightweight and well balanced,” he said.
“Wow, you sure know how to compliment a girl.”
“Does that give me any points?”
“Not really. You’re really not good around women, are you?”
“No, I’m really not. Most of my life, I’ve been too shy, too unsure of myself, to approach girls. Heck, I can’t even talk to them.”
“Scott, you know how to talk to girls? Like they’re people. That’s all.”
“Even the pretty ones, like you?”
Dawn blushed. “Pretty? You think so?”
“Yeah, doesn’t everyone? You know, I don’t know how I ever got Laura to notice me. Well, she fixed that, didn’t she?”
“You didn’t deserve that. You’re a kind, caring, humble man who deserves to be loved as much as anyone.”
“I don’t know about that. I mean, I am a murderous monster now.”
“How many people have you killed?”
“Well…I almost killed one guy. But he’s okay, I guess.”
“Almost? Scott, you are not a murderer. Not even close. Your heart may not be alive, but what’s in there is still good.”
“You actually see that in me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“And I see things in you, too, Dawn. I see your character. I see your strength.”
“Me? Strong? I’m not strong.” The tears came to her eyes again. “In fact, I don’t think I’m taking this very well at all.”
“You’re taking it like a human being. And that’s the best anyone can ask for.”
The door of the room opened. Bill and Sheila entered, Sheila carrying a small white bag and a sword. She was wearing thin leather gloves. She lay the sword on a crate that was situated between the door and the cage and then removed a key from her pocket. She unlocked the padlock on the cage and opened the cage door wide, her gloves protecting her vampiric hands from burning. She stepped in, pulling the Taser from her belt and pointing it at Scott. She dropped the bag at Dawn’s feet.
“You like moo goo gai pan, sweetie?” Sheila asked. “I hope so, ’cause that’s what we got.” She then dropped to her knees in front of the girl. “We need to keep you fed, spice your blood up a bit, so Mr. Campbell here will really enjoy it.”
Scott stepped forward. “Knock it off, now!” he demanded.
Sheila thrust the Taser at him. “Now, calm down, Scott. There’s another reason why we’re here, and that’s to encourage you. Jack thought that, just maybe, if we motivated you a bit, you might be a bit quicker to comply with the agenda.”
“Motivation? How’s that?” Scott asked.
“Well, Bill and I are going to do a little bloodletting. I mean, Dawn is going to do a little bloodletting. We have some scalpels—surgical grade, so she doesn’t get an infection. Don’t want the poor dear catching some disease and dying before you get the chance to taste that sweet, fresh blood. So, Bill, if you would…”
Bill checked his pockets but did not find what he was looking for. “Uh, I don’t have ’em.”
“You don’t have them? Where the hell are they?”
“I think I left them in the room with the TV. Yeah, pretty sure I did.”
“Well, go and get them, you moron!”
Bill immediately left the room, the door shutting behind him. Sheila rolled her eyes. “That white boy is so stupid! But he’s cheap, I guess. Anyway, we can still have us some fun, honey.” She once again bent over, her face close to Dawn’s.
“Like hell!” Scott roared as he moved to attack Sheila—just in time to get hit by her Taser. He dropped to the floor as Sheila stood over him, not continuously holding the trigger but occasionally jerking on it, sending waves of electric pain into his twitching body.
“You know, Jack thought another way to motivate you may be through the application of pain. Maybe I’ll give it a try.” Sheila jerked the trigger of the Taser again, and another deluge of pain ripped through Scott. “Well, motivating or not, I’m havin’ fun. Aren’t you?”
“Leave him alone!” Dawn cried.
Sheila laughed. Dawn then stood forward, rocked the chair back, and slammed it against the floor, much as she had before. Only now the compromised chair shattered, allowing Dawn to free herself as her arms and legs slipped from restraints. She grabbed a broken, jagged chair leg and lifted it high above herself. She lashed out at Sheila, who turned to face Dawn, only to watch Dawn plunge the chair leg into her chest, exactly where it was meant to go. Sheila released the Taser, dropped to her knees, and then collapsed into a pile of ash and dust.
“Suck on that, bitch!” Dawn growled. Scott lay there staring at her, his eyes opened wide in awe and even a little bit of fear. Sweet little Dawn, the choirgirl, the nice girl, had just single-handedly taken out a vampire. He couldn’t have been more proud.
“What?” Dawn asked him.
“I didn’t say anything.” Scott pulled the barbs out of his chest and rose.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay, but I’m going to have to ask you to hold the door for me. Silver and I don’t get along these days.”
Dawn made sure the cage door was opened wide as Scott stepped out and went over to the low wooden crate where Sheila had left her sword. He picked up the blade, a reproduction of a medieval single-handed arming sword. “Okay, follow me,” Scott said. But then he stopped Dawn in her tracks, his senses picking up on quiet mo
vement out in the hall. “Someone’s coming.”
“I don’t hear any—”
Dawn was silenced by the creaking of the door to the large room as Donegan stepped in, saber in hand, cautious but unaware. He did not notice Scott behind him as he suddenly felt the tip of the arming sword against the flesh of his neck.
“Don’t move, Father,” Scott advised. Of course, Donegan disregarded the advice, spinning around to parry Scott’s blade. He then lunged at Scott, who sidestepped the attack and brought his sword down upon Donegan’s right arm, severing it completely. His saber clanged to the ground. Donegan cried out in agony and then fell to his knees. Once again, Scott’s blade was at the fallen priest’s throat.
“Please, have mercy on me,” Donegan begged. “I was weak. I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”
“Well, I’m sorry—but, oh hell. No, I’m not,” Scott said as he brought the sword down upon Donegan’s neck, severing his head. The priest disintegrated.
“You killed a priest,” Dawn gasped.
“Correction: evil vampire priest.”
“Good point.”
Scott poked his head out of the open door and looked down the hall. “Okay, I see a door down there. That must be the lobby. Ready?”
“More than ready.”
“Okay, on my count: one, two, and three!”
Scott took Dawn’s hand and led her down the long, dark hallway to the lobby. The offices that lined the hallway were all dark, including the one Bill had entered to look for the surgical scalpels, where he had been distracted by an old copy of Hustler that had been left by a long-since downsized employee. His attention was drawn from that by the sight of Dawn and Scott running past the window. He looked down the hall in the direction of the lobby to where the escaping couple had run. Seeing that Scott now had Sheila’s sword, he thought it better not to engage Scott by himself but bided his time in the office, waiting. And looking through that issue of Hustler once more.
CHAPTER 34
The BMW skidded to a stop, squealing tires fanning water across the lot. Seven of Jack’s sirelings issued forth from the lobby of the Amalgamated Cast Parts Plant to greet the visitor, all carrying swords of various descriptions. They all wore the same dark-gray suits with black shirts with banded collars. Their leader, a tall, skinny man with high cheekbones, carried a katana sheathed in its black saya. The seven of them lined up in a row, hoping to menace with their numbers whoever had arrived at such an odd hour of night. Elizabeth got out of her car and stepped over to the trunk.
“What do you want here, sweetheart?” the leader asked.
Elizabeth ignored the slight and counted the men. “Seven. Seven of you. Okay. Not a problem.”
“I asked you, what do you want?”
“What I want is world peace, a kitty, and all the chocolate I can eat,” she replied as she unlocked the trunk of the BMW. “But right now, I’ll settle for Scott Campbell.”
The leader slowly drew the katana from its saya. “Well, you can’t have Mr. Campbell.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to take him, now, won’t I?”
“Take him? Sure,” the leader laughed. “You and whose army, sweetheart?”
“I am not your sweetheart. I am Elizabeth. And I need no army.”
She pulled the AA-12 from the trunk, flipped the selector switch to full automatic, and unleashed a hailstorm of death as the twelve-gauge warheads ripped through the bodies of the assembled vampires. The leader and three others were slain instantly, their bodies disintegrating, steel weapons crashing to the ground. The three remaining vampires all took some very nasty wounds from which blood, pieces of internal organs, and smoke from the burning of vampiric flesh caused by the projectiles poured forth.
Elizabeth tossed the automatic shotgun back into her trunk and then drew her falcata and easily beheaded two of the wounded illegitimate vampires. She stopped at the third, a youngish-looking male who was trying to keep his intestines from leaking out of a large, steaming wound to his abdomen, in much pain and confusion as to why the injury wasn’t healing as quickly as Jack had promised. Elizabeth held her sword to his neck.
“Where’s the obelisk?” she asked. “Tell me now. I hate having to repeat myself.”
“D-do you promise n-n-not to kill me?” the young vampire stammered.
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s in the foreman’s room above the main factory floor. There are some stairs on the south and north sides of the floor that lead right up there. It’s surrounded by vampires, so it won’t be easy to get.”
“Good. I like challenges.” Elizabeth then brought the sword up and prepared to finish him.
“Wait, wait! You promised!”
“Whatever,” she said as she lopped off his head.
Jeremiah crossed the slough and was dripping wet, but he reasoned he would be wet anyway in the heavy rains. He stealthily approached the Caprice. Its two operators stood outside, one of them lighting a cigarette. As he approached, he listened to their stupid conversation.
“Can I have a smoke, too?”
“Sure, here ya go.”
“Ya know, my wife used to nag me about this shit. Said it was bad for my health. Said it was a bad influence on the kids.”
“Oh no shit, really?”
“I shit you not. So, anyway, you know the first thing I did after Jack turned me?”
“No fucking clue, buddy. What did you do?”
“I lit up my cigarette and blew the smoke right in the wife’s face!”
“Cool! Then what?”
“Well, then I drained the bitch.”
“Damn! That’s some heavy shit. What about your kids?”
“I drained them, too, little fuckin’ brats. ‘I want a pony!’ Well, here’s your pony, you little shit.”
“Wow, dude, that is hardcore. Mad respect!”
“Amen, brother!”
The deafening series of shotgun blasts from Elizabeth’s frontal assault got their attention. It was also the sign Jeremiah had been waiting for.
“What the fuck was that?” one of the vampires asked.
His partner did not have time to guess, as Jeremiah was upon him, severing his head. The second vampire tried to get into the car to avoid certain death, but Jeremiah killed the creature where he stood. Jeremiah then headed to the roll-up doors. Although he could not enter, he could toss in one of the grenades he had secretly “borrowed” from the trunk of Elizabeth’s car as they had been planning their assault earlier, with the intent to either signal Scott that the cavalry had arrived or at least kill a few of Jack’s bastard children.
However, the roll-up doors opened before Jeremiah could reach them, and a swarm of gray-suited, sword-armed vampires boiled out of the factory toward him. He decided that now would be an appropriate time to use a grenade; he pulled the pin and threw it directly into the crowd. The blast knocked several of the attacking vampires down, eliminating but a few. Jeremiah waded into the survivors, cutting and hacking, severing limbs and heads. While he was preoccupied with the carnage before him, he scarcely noticed the next squadron of vampires rounding the building, headed toward Elizabeth.
Dawn and Scott cleared the hallway and entered the lobby, where they saw Elizabeth standing before the closed doorway. Scott approached the door. “Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Window shopping. What do you think I’m doing here?”
“I don’t really know, to tell you the truth.”
“I’m here with Jeremiah. He thought I might be able to help rescue you.”
“You’re here with Jeremiah? And you’re here to rescue me?”
“Yeah, but truth be known, I’m really just here to kill Jack. Rescuing you is a coincidental by-product.”
“Can we trust you, Elizabeth? Can I trust you with Dawn?”
“Of course not. But do you really have a choice? Look, the girl is safe with me. I’ve had my B positive for the day, so I’m not really hungry. Besides, Je
remiah would never let me hear the end of it.”
“Then why aren’t you coming in and actually doing the Jack-killing thing?”
“Protective obelisk. It prevents Jeremiah and me from coming inside. It casts a protective spell over the place. You’re gonna have to find a way to shut it off.”
“Oh swell. What’s this thing look like, and where is it?”
“It’s a big black stone egg, about three feet high, with ancient writing on the sides. You turn it off by removing the Solomon key, which is a large brass key on the top of the stone. You just twist the key until it disengages and then pull it out. It’s supposed to be in the foreman’s office above the factory floor. It’s guarded, so you’re going to have to kill some vampires.”
It did not sound like a good plan to Scott. To get to the stone, he’d have to fight his way through a maze of vampires on his own, and he could see several things going wrong in that scenario. Eventually, he’d probably run into Jack. That made Scott change his mind. It was exactly what he wanted: a chance to confront Jack and get his vengeance. That thought canceled out any fear he had of fighting other vampires. Scott knew Elizabeth might be angered that she didn’t get to kill Jack, but he didn’t really care at that point.
“I’ve got a better plan,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You take Dawn. I’m going to kill Jack.”
“Hey! I wanted to do that!”
Scott placed his hands on Dawn’s shoulders. “Dawn, this is Elizabeth. You need to go with her.”
“She’s a vampire, too?” Dawn asked. “Is she a nice vampire?”
“Well, ‘nice’ is a relative term. Just go. I’ll see you guys later.”
Scott let Dawn go and ran down the long hallway away from the lobby.
“Why, that son of a bitch! I wanted to kill Jack!” Elizabeth then looked at Dawn. “Oh well. Come with me if you want to live, I guess.”
Bill watched from the darkened office as Scott ran back down the hall. He peeked out, seeing Dawn about to leave. He knew he wasn’t going to let that happen. He stepped out of the office and then ran with vampiric speed down the hall toward her. Elizabeth screamed a warning to Dawn, but it was too late. As Dawn reached for the handle of the door, Bill grabbed her right shoulder, hard. Dawn howled in pain.
Suburban Vampire: A Tale of the Human Condition—With Vampires Page 33
