United Service

by Regina Morris

  Moving over to the second window, Sterling took a look inside. “She’s praying by candlelight. She doesn’t know the energy has been cut.”

  “She’s also alone.” Kekoa’s eyes widened; his body stiffened in resolve.

  Sterling saw Kekoa’s eyes blacken and his fangs extend. “No. We save the girl first,” he said as he grabbed Kekoa by the arm to get his attention.

  Kekoa shrugged from Sterling’s grasp. “We won’t have time to do both. Taking out the generator was like sending up a red flag.”

  In a threatening voice, Sterling commanded, “We save the girl first. Let my team deal with this Victoria woman.”

  Unphased by the tone, Kekoa asked, “Can you kill the guard holding the girl alone?”

  Sterling grimaced. Of course he could, but he didn’t want to leave this boy alone. Looking into Kekoa’s eyes, Sterling could sense the need for revenge, and he could understand it. “Of course I can,” he replied.

  Looking Sterling in the eyes, Kekoa asked. “How are you going to kill him?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No,” Kekoa said. “Just make sure he suffers. Victoria is mine.”

  *******

  Sterling continued alone until he found Henry’s cabin. It stood like all the others, being made of wood with four tiny windows– two on the front and two on the back sides of the building. The solid door had an old style key lock. It was the last cabin in the long row of buildings and Sterling paused outside the door to listen for any sounds from within. There was only silence.

  Sterling tested the door’s rusted lever and found it locked. Still not hearing a sound from inside the cabin, he fiercely kicked in the door, placing his boot just to the right of the lock. The noise alone from the splintering door was an alarm in and of itself, but he didn’t worry about the noise. There were now screams from the humans from elsewhere in the camp. The humans knew they were being attacked.

  He rushed in to surprise Henry, but the human wasn’t there. The room was dark and had a musty smell to it, like a locker room stank. His eyes adjusted and he scanned the tiny room. There wasn’t much for furniture, just a small desk, a dresser and a table. What caught Sterling’s eye was the bed in the corner. The bed wasn’t empty.

  It was Kate.

  He rushed to her, calling out her name. But, no reply came. Kneeling beside the bed he noticed her eyes were a glossy gunmetal gray and they remained fixed on the front door. She showed no reaction to his breaking in. She didn’t even appear to be aware that he stood beside her right now. Her face had been badly beaten, with fresh bruises and cuts on the side of her head and jaw line.

  “Kate?” He brushed through her long brunette hair and looking into her dead eyes. She had not turned to dust, but was she alive? His heart raced as his mind avoided what surely was the answer. He was too late to save her. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He was too late. Her shield must have kept her body intact, not allowing her to have a vampire’s death in the end.

  She was tied by rope to the bed and dressed in an all white robe. She had been severely beaten, which caused her to look in her mid to late twenties. He grasped at her arms, which were covered in the white silk, and shook her on the bed. She lay still. He called out to her repeatedly, but to no use. Taking a deep breath, his jaw clenched in utter defeat. His hands balled and he beat his fists into the mattress screaming the word “no” repeatedly.

  He could still hear the cries of the humans as they died outside the cabin. The smell of their blood ripened in the air. “Good,” he thought. “They all deserved to die. Hopefully their souls will rot in Hell for all of eternity.”

  Glancing back down at Kate he could not bear to see her eyes so lifeless, so he gently touched her lids with his fingertips and closed them. His fingers ran down her pert little nose and glided across her bruised cheek so that he tenderly caressed her face with the palm of his hand.

  He had let her down. She trusted in him to save her. A tear threatened to escape his eyes when he realized that his hand, the one touching her cheek, enjoyed a sense of peace. The itchiness had waned. His skin of his palm felt normal.

  There was hope.

  Both of his hands now lay on her face, rubbing and caressing each of her delicate features. He held his breath as he frantically brushed down her arms and pulled the silky sleeves up to reveal more of her skin. He grimaced at the sight of fresh bruises and continued stroking her skin.

  Placing his ear to her chest he heard her heart beat. It was weak. That’s when it occurred to him what was going on. She was unpinned.

  He took his knife from his boot and made a cut in each of her palms. Her purplish blood dripped down and soiled the sheets, but her hands still appeared lifeless. The barrier was always the strongest at her limbs. If she were awake and unpinned, perhaps it would take a while for her to feel those areas. He tore at the ropes and freed her feet and hands.

  The slightest movement of her lips forced his eyes once again on her lovely face. Her eyes were no longer looking like a dead woman’s, but they weren’t sparkly and full of life either. Leaning in, he kissed her gently on her soft, pale lips. His hand gently touched the side of her face as he did so.

  The kiss was soft. At first there was no movement when he applied pressure to her lips, but that soon changed. She responded to his kiss and her lips came back to life, kissing him back in return. Her hands lifted, in an ungraceful manner, and held onto the back of his head, her fingers entangled within his shoulder length hair, as she held him closer to her.

  The kiss was electrifying – even more so than if Sterling had walked directly into the fence along the perimeter of the camp. Every inch of his body was on fire for her.

  She was alive. But, she wasn’t safe. Not yet.

  He opened his eyes and looked into the radiant beauty of her blue ones. “I thought I lost you,” he choked out as he grabbed her tightly towards him and embraced her. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Derling …” she stuttered. “De guard …”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Sterling heard the fast moving steps of a human behind him.

  *******

  Kekoa watched Deacon Victoria from the window for another moment. The window was smudged with dirt, but clear enough to see through. The woman inside wore a white religious alb and a broad, black stole which hung from her left shoulder and swayed as she crossed the heavily stained wooden floor. He watched as the woman picked up a hymnal and walked back towards the Alter. Her face picked up the glow of the candlelight and looked sinister to him.

  Her lips were moving. Kekoa could tell she was deep in thought by the way she practiced for tomorrow’s sermon. With his new vampire hearing, he listened to her words. His breath caught as he heard her mention his name. Listening more intently, he picked up some of her prayerful words and shuddered.

  She wasn’t practicing a run–of–the–mill sermon. She was delivering his eulogy.

  He listened as the woman spoke of evil living within the bodies of the weak. She said the evil must be eradicated and that is why Kekoa had been smited by the Lord before the evil lurking within him could take hold. It was a sermon Kekoa was well aware of since he had heard it too many times in the past. It was different this time. This time, the eulogy was for him.

  Kekoa cringed as he heard the words flowing from her twisted, evil mouth. He was to be killed before afternoon prayers tomorrow. Killed in front of the next oldest boy to serve as a warning as to what would happen if he, the oldest, did not dutifully obey the Hands of God. Brian was the next in line. He would be the one to witness Kekoa’s death. After Brian, there would be another boy, and then another.

  Brian had already witnessed Tyrone and Jemal’s deaths in Kekoa’s absence. Brian had been the one charged with burying the boys among the graves of all the others.

  Kekoa’s jaw tightened and his hands balled into fists as he thought of that. Those two boys would be the last victims of the Hands of God. Kekoa picked up the on
ly weapon he could find, which was a large rock. He held the stone in his hand tightly in anticipation, his knuckles turning white. The well rusted lock on the chapel door had not worked in years. Silver plating on top covered the rust, but it was a shoddy job to prevent his kind from entering. Regardless, Kekoa pushed the door open effortlessly with no need to touch the silver.

  The door swung in, making an eerie creaking sound. The warm lighting of the room was welcoming, and he was not afraid to shed blood in the House of the Lord. Victoria’s eyes met his. He knew he looked a fright, and was glad for it. From the blood soaked clothing he wore, to the extended fangs sticking out of his mouth, all the way down to his blacked mad–struck eyes – he was pleased that her end would be horrific.

  She screamed. Her eyes lit up and she backed up closer to the Alter. He could hear her heart racing and the shallow breaths she took. A whiff of something in the air caught him off guard, but pleased him. It was fear. Fear, mixed with sweat, as she knew her end was near.

  He took a few steps closer to her and noticed that she was reaching down behind the pulpit. He ran up to her, but before he could reach her, she sprayed Holy Water in his face. At least, he assumed that was what it was. It startled him and it made him drop his rock.

  “Holy water doesn’t work,” was all he said to her before he beat his fists against the wooden alter causing it to fly across the floor and against the wall, taking away her shelter. Grabbing the screaming human, he lifted her from the ground and flung her into a table filled with unlit candles. The table crumbled and she fell to the floor.

  Her screams were now in Latin, not that he listened to her pleas in the first place, but did she really think the Lord would save her now? Noticing that she clutched her left arm closer to her body, he assumed it had been broken in the fall. He reached down and pulled her up by the hurt arm, which caused her to shriek out in pain.

  “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed …” she began. She stopped the prayer when he belted her across the face.

  Kekoa held her tightly as he made his way to the paperwork, which lay scattered across the floor and no longer on a standing Alter. “Kekoa was an evil spawn of a vampire. The evil within him was ended by the Lord earlier today,” he read. He then crumpled the papers up and shoved them in her face.

  “The boy Michael was right. You were turning. Killing me won’t bring you any salvation,” she said in a defiant voice.

  He stood, lifting her body nearly effortlessly. Dragging her across the tiny room by her neck, he walked towards the piano. In his path, he crossed over the reddened splotches staining the wood floor. Tyrone. Tyrone’s little brother Jemal. All the older children that Kekoa had known here at the camp. Their blood had soaked through these boards as their end had come. All in the name of the Lord.

  With his keen vampire senses, Kekoa could smell the blood mixed with the bleach and cleansers. No matter of soap and water could wash these boards, or Victoria’s hands of her deeds. The permanent stains marked her sins.

  Victoria’s eyes were wild with fright. “Don’t turn me!” she trembled.

  Kekoa tore his stare away from the floor and bored his blacked eyes down to her very soul. He could hear her heart as it pounded. He could even smell her blood as it coursed through her veins, but wasn’t tempted in the slightest to feed from her. “You’re not good enough to be one of us. Evil has rooted itself too deep in you. Besides, I would rather starve than have a single drop of your blood in me.”

  Kekoa glanced down at the upright piano with its worn and faded wood panels. Most of the keys worked, but they too showed signs of their age. He had been forced to listen to this sad instrument being played for hour upon hour during prayers in the chapel. He had been commanded to sing songs praising the Lord while Victoria and her motley crew of religious zealots watched. With his fist, he broke the wooden top. The old wood cracked under his knuckles and revealed the piano wires beneath. He plucked a long spring steel from the piano and wrapped it around her scrawny neck.

  He thought only of the faces of the boys and girls that died in this room as he tightened the wire. “You will now pay for all the lives you took. You will die the same way they did.” He heard the gasping noise as Victoria struggled for breath. Her arms and legs frantically tried to pull away, but he was much too strong for her. Pulling as hard as he could on the ends of the wire, he heard the snapping of her neck. Her body slackened as he continued pulling on the wire. A thud sounded as her head severed from her body and fell to the floor in a gush of blood as justice was finally served.

  *******

  Sterling had turned just in time to stop a wooden stake from plowing into his back. The human appeared as shaggy and as unkempt as the room they were in, with a stink all his own. Sterling quickly stood and grabbed the man by his throat and slammed him into the dresser with a thud.

  The man’s head hit the drawers, but he quickly recovered. He grabbed a dagger from the top of the dresser and turned to face his opponent. The dagger was marked in Latin with the name “Hands of God.” It also had the same Latin prayers on it as the other knives Sterling had seen.

  “Put the dagger down,” Sterling said, trying to compel the man. The human didn’t make eye contact, and Sterling noticed that he avoided looking directly at him for that very reason.

  “You’re nothing but evil,” he cursed at Sterling. “A creature that needs to be put down.”

  Circling the blade, Sterling said, “And a man like you, who rapes innocent girls, is a creature to admire? I don’t think so.”

  “That girl is human,” Henry said looking past Sterling and to where Kate lay on the bed. “She is pure as long as she doesn’t turn into the likes of you.”

  “She’s a living being.”

  Henry’s brow dripped with sweat. He gripped the blade tighter between his fingers. Then, with expert precision, he flung the blade through the air towards Sterling. It lodged firmly into Sterling’s side causing him to growl in pain.

  Sterling felt his blood pour out of him, but kept his eyes on Henry. The man looked smug. But as precise as his aim was, the dagger did only minor damage. The silver blade hurt more than the puncture of the wound since it was poisoning Sterling and keeping his body from healing.

  Preparing for an attack, Sterling quickly tore a piece of his shirttail off and wrapped it around the hilt of the dagger. Before he could pull the blade out, Henry rushed him. Sterling’s wound dripped blood as he blocked the attack with his arms and flung the man once again back into the dresser.

  As more and more of Sterling’s blood spilled out, his cells aged. His hair was graying. His eyes creased with wrinkles. His skin lost its shine. Sterling pulled the dagger out, which caused even more blood loss and aging. He crossed over to the dresser where Henry had frantically opened a drawer and was digging through it. When Henry turned around, he had another dagger in his hands. Before he could fling the blade through the air, Sterling grabbed his wrist. He squeezed hard enough for the man’s hand to release the weapon and for him to scream out in pain. His lone scream was matched by other screams outside as the human massacre continued by the other team members.

  Henry struck out to Sterling, but Sterling’s body was like hitting a brick wall. The man’s efforts to kick were equally not effective. “Enough,” Sterling said as he plunged a dagger into the man’s heart and watched as life left his body. Even before the last heart beat faded, Sterling dropped the rag doll human husk to the ground and quickly returned to Kate.

  Again her eyes were glazed over. She had turned her head to watch the attack. He found his knife on the bed and pricked her hands and feet. Rubbing her arms and legs, he broke down the barrier and brought her back to life.

  Noticing her head tilt towards the window he realized that she too was picking up the sounds of the slaughter outside. “We’re not alone. My team is out there taking care of the humans. The screams are dying down, so I’m guessing they’re almost done.”

  Kate cleared her throat
and in a raspy voice said, “De shildren?”

  Placing his hands on her face and jaw he helped reawaken those areas. “The team knows about the kids. They’ll get them out.” Sterling scanned the room. “Where are your pins?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Dey took dem.”

  Her tongue was falling asleep once more. Sterling knew that he could carry Kate from this room, but it would be better if she could walk and talk. He opened the nightstand drawer and found nothing that would help. Sterling walked to the dresser, kicking Henry’s lifeless body out of the way.

  Sterling opened the top drawer and found a watch, another dagger, some clothing and a couple of lapel pins in the shape of crosses. He put the pins on top of the dresser and continued onto the middle drawer. There was nothing but clothes in that one, so he tried the bottom drawer. Inside, he found pictures. There were several pictures. They were all of naked young girls tied onto Henry’s bed. Their eyes showed the terror they had felt. Sterling’s stomach twisted as he saw the images, especially since nearly two dozen existed. He tossed them back into the drawer and let out a sigh of relief when he realized there were no pictures of Kate. He looked over his shoulder towards her. She was on the bed and still dressed. At least he had saved her from being violated by such a sick bastard.

  Continuing to fumble through the drawer, Sterling found what he could only guess was memorabilia from the girls. A small doll, a dirty teddy bear, bracelets … the man took what he wanted and kept prizes for his sick efforts.

  As his hands shifted between the items in the drawer, Sterling saw a small metal pin. Picking it up, he recognized it as one of Kate’s. It was the one she wore normally on her eyebrow. He tore through the drawer until he had recovered all the pins.

  The cries of the humans’ had stopped by the time Sterling had Kate pinned. Now that they were ready to leave the cabin, Kekoa stood in the doorway. His clothing was drenched in even more blood than the last time Sterling had seen him.