by N. P. Martin
So I wasn’t exactly thrilled that Frank was driving us into that area, passing by the projects and youths hanging around on every street who looked at us like we were their mortal enemies. “What the hell are we doing here, Frank?” I asked. “This place sucks.”
“Well, you’d better get used to things sucking,” Frank said, seemingly unaffected by the stares we were getting from almost everyone we passed. “Because this job sucks big time.”
“That’s encouraging, Frank. Thanks for that.”
“Just telling the truth. Did you think chasing monsters was going to be a walk in the park?”
“No, obviously.”
"Well then, welcome to the job." He pulled the car up along a stretch of wasteland on the edge of the projects. Across the street was an old abandoned factory building that was just about the grimmest thing I'd ever seen. It was long and sprawling, and every window in the place had long since been broken. Through the windows, all you could see was impenetrable darkness.
“What’s in there?” I asked. “You still haven’t told me what we’re doing.”
“I’ve been chasing a vampire for months now,” Frank said, looking out the window at the factory building. “Normally I don’t bother too much with vamps, not unless they do something to get on my radar.”
“Like killing people for blood, you mean?”
“Vamps do what they gotta do. I’m not going to chase every one of them down. This one turned a senator’s daughter a while back.” He pulled a photograph out of his jacket and handed it to me. The picture was of a young girl, pretty with long blonde hair and big blue eyes, dressed in riding gear and standing by a stable with a horse in the background.
“Poor girl,” I said, handing the photo back. “Still, a senator’s daughter is more important than anyone else, is that how it goes?”
“No, but I got asked by the senator to kill the vamp who did it. It pays to keep in good graces with these guys sometimes. Now he’ll owe me.”
I shook my head. “Politics.”
"Politics makes the world go ‘round. Don't be so naïve." He got out of the car, and I followed him to the trunk. When he opened it, he lifted a false bottom, revealing an entire array of weapons underneath.
“Holy shit, Frank.”
“I like to be prepared.” He reached into the trunk and took out two machetes, handing me one. “Here.”
“No stakes? I thought you needed wooden stakes to kill a vampire.”
“Decapitation is the best way. Cut the sucker’s head right off. No pun intended.”
I hefted the machete in my hand, took a few practice swings. It was heavy and very sharp, and I wondered how many vamps Frank had killed with it over the years. He also took a gun and put it in the waistband of his jeans. "I thought guns couldn't kill vampires," I said.
"It makes me feel better carrying it." He closed the trunk and looked around to make sure no one was watching us. We were pretty much alone it seemed, though I still felt jumpy. "A few ground rules before we go in there," Frank said. "Number one, stay behind me at all times and don't wander off on your own. Number two, if we meet any vamps in there—which we will—you don't hesitate, you use that thing to kill them, or they'll kill you."
I nodded, the reality of the situation we were about to walk into now sinking in. Fear whispered in my ear as it waited in the wings. “What’s number three?”
"When we find the head vamp, you let me take care of him. No heroics. This vamp is old and very cunning. You wouldn't be the first hunter to die at his hands."
“What if you need help? Am I supposed to just to stand there?”
“Hopefully, I won’t need help, but if I do… just be careful. I don’t want a teen vampire living in my cabin.”
I laughed nervously. “A teen vampire, seriously?”
“This vamp enjoys turning people more than killing them. He’s got a serious grudge against humanity.”
I didn’t like the idea of having to feed off human blood the rest of my life. “Just make sure you kill him then.”
Night was descending as we entered the old factory building through a set of double doors that were swinging open in the wind. As I followed behind Frank, stepping into the darkness of the factory, my stomach turned over, making me nauseous. I switched on the flashlight Frank had given me and was glad when I felt the buzz of the Light Energy pulse in me, helping to alleviate some of the fear that was making its presence felt in ever greater amounts. I gripped the machete tight, ready to swing it at anything that came near me. My breathing was shallow, so I forced myself to take a deep breath. "It stinks in here," I said in a hushed voice. It was the smell of decay. Rank. Awful.
“No talking,” Frank admonished.
I shut up and moved my flashlight around as I followed behind him. The place was quiet, ominously so, apart from the ambient sounds you would expect to hear in such a building—creaking metal, the scurrying of rats and pigeons, dripping pipes. I was thoroughly creeped out by the situation already, and I wished I hadn't been so insistent about coming along. I was also full of admiration for Frank, at the fact that he would even consider going to such a place alone.
Had my mom been that brave?
Probably. Not too sure if she passed her bravery on to me, though. It didn't feel like it as I moved through the dark factory, wondering what I was going to do if I ran into any vampires. Scream maybe. Run like hell. The latter wasn't an option, not if I wanted to build any credibility as a Watcher.
We moved down a wide corridor with doors on either side that led to old office rooms that still had furniture in them. Frank quickly checked each room, shining his flashlight into the dark. I kept expecting some vampire to suddenly appear in the light, all fangs and burning eyes, ready to come at us, but nothing did. “They usually stay together in a nest,” Frank said as we moved deeper into the factory. “I don’t know how many there are, so stay alert and ready.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, trying to come across like I had my shit together. On the inside, I was a bag of nerves, and at one point I almost screamed as a pigeon came flying out of one of the empty rooms, swooping past my face, making me jump back in alarm and almost drop the flashlight. What an idiot! Frank didn't pass any remarks. It seemed he expected such amateur behavior from me.
The air seemed to get thicker and the smell more pungent the further into the factory we went. We had covered most of the place already, and I was starting to wonder if Frank had gotten his facts wrong, that there was nobody in that place except pigeons and rats. But then as we turned the corner of the corridor we were walking down, Frank suddenly stopped, and I nearly slammed into him. "What is it?" I whispered.
He pointed with his machete towards a set of swinging doors to the right of the corridor. "In there," he said. He moved towards the doors, and I followed him, wondering what sound he had heard because I heard nothing. Maybe he just sensed the presence of a vampire. I didn't know. I just know that as we walked through the swinging doors, my heart was pounding so loudly in my chest that I was sure any vampire nearby would be able to hear it.
The room we ended up in used to be some kind of storage area. It had racks of shelves in it, some of which still held boxes, though I didn't know what was in them, nor did I care. The only thing on my mind at that point was staying alert and sharp enough so I wouldn't get killed. As we shone our torches around the room, my eyes widened, and I felt a rush of adrenaline when I noticed a face and two burning red eyes in the light. The creature snarled in our direction for a second, showing its fangs.
Holy shit. So they do exist.
The vampire didn't look like I expected it to. I always thought vampires kept their human appearance, but this one didn't. It looked more like a creature than anything human. It was completely naked for a start, with waxy white skin that reminded me of the fat on a cut of beef. Underneath the skin I could make out blue veins like dye had been poured into the things blood stream, causing every vein to stand out in the light. The
re wasn't a single hair on its head either, and its mouth seemed too big for its face, stretched grotesquely to accommodate the multiple rows of sharp teeth in there. Some sort of fluid also dribbled from its mouth, maybe saliva, I didn't know or care. The thing scuttled out of the light, and I heard it hissing as it retreated.
Frank and I shone our flashlights into the room, trying to locate the creature again as we stood with our machetes at the ready. I swore to myself that if that thing came near me, I would cut it to pieces rather than let it touch me. The Light Energy was straining within me, and I took comfort from it, despite the fear that made me shake like a person on a narrow ledge a thousand feet up.
"Look out!" I heard Frank's voice and looked around me in a panic, but couldn't see anything. Something made me look up, and there was the vampire crawling down the wall towards me like some grotesque spider, its huge mouth open and drooling, its razor teeth bared. I looked into its fiery red eyes and froze as it detached itself from the wall and jumped down to land in front of me in a crab-like position, its long talons clacking on the hard floor.
Before I could even think about raising my machete, I felt a rush of wind and saw Frank's machete swish past my face, missing me by inches. His blade connected with the neck of the vampire, slicing right through until its head fell from its shoulders. I could only stand in shock as the headless body fell to the floor in front of me, blood pumping from the stump where the head used to be. "You all right?" Frank asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
"Stay on guard. There's probably more of them." No sooner had the words left Frank's mouth than the swinging doors burst open and two more vampires came running into the room. The creatures both looked nearly the same except for their decrepit genitalia.
Obviously, one was a man, the other a woman. Both had burning red eyes and bared teeth. So many teeth. If they managed to get a bite in, they would do major damage.
Frank immediately rushed forward and swung his machete at the two vampires, one of whom—the woman—climbed one of the shelving units and crouched on top of it, staring down at me like an angry gargoyle. I knew it would pounce, so I took a defensive stance, raised the machete over my head, and prepared myself.
The vampire launched itself off the shelving unit, hurtling down towards me, its arms outstretched with clawed hands ready to grab and tear me to pieces. I jumped back as the vampire landed in front of me. "You're dead, bitch," it snarled in a garbled growl, all those teeth making it hard even to talk, then it stood up and ran at me. Instinctively, I stepped to the side and swung my machete high and fast, felt it hit something a second later with a squelchy thud followed by an inhuman screeching sound that made my ears hurt. Frantically, I shone the flashlight into the gloom looking for the injured creature. I spotted it crouching in the corner like a wounded animal, blood pouring from a deep gash in its neck.
I didn't think. I charged towards it and brought the machete down hard on the creature, hitting it with a downward slash that connected with the open wound in its neck. The machete went halfway into the vampire's neck, and it screamed again, its claws swiping at me as I kicked it in the chest to keep it down. Pulling the machete out, I took another swing and finally took off the vampire's head before staring half in shock at what I had done, adrenaline blasting through me, my stomach heaving at the bloody carnage I had inflicted. It was the first time I had ever killed anything, and my mind struggled to deal with the fact.
“Leia, you okay?” Frank appeared beside me, blood splatter on his face.
“I’m okay,” I said, still trying to decide if I was.
Frank put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Good job. The other one is dead as well.”
I looked over and shone the torch to see the other vampire lying dead on the floor, dark blood still spurting from its headless body. “This is fucked up, Frank.” I was wired with adrenaline and Light Energy, my eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. I’d never felt so switched on, so anchored in the present moment. As scared and confused as I was, I was also exhilarated. I realized then why my mom was so into hunting monsters. Aside from the bloodletting, the hunt was the biggest thrill I’d ever felt in my life.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Let’s go. We have to find the senator’s daughter and the head vamp.”
Frank moved out of the room. I followed behind, the floor awash with blood, so much so that I slipped and almost fell, the wall saving me from tripping and getting covered in vampire goo. Frank stopped, threw me a look, and then carried on out the door.
Idiot, Leia.
Out in the corridor, we made our way carefully to the heart of the factory, which turned out to be a large open space full of huge rusty machines that were all cogs and gears and levers, the kind of machines you couldn't help but be awed by for their size and feat of engineering. Like the rest of the factory, the room was deathly quiet, not even any animal noises. My gut told me the head vampire was holed up in there somewhere. I gripped the machete tighter, especially when I heard faint scuffling sounds in the room like something was moving around in there, stalking us.
Frank and I both acknowledged the noises in the background, and he nodded for me to stay on guard. I followed behind him as we did a search around the perimeter of the room first, finding nothing. Then we moved between the machinery, Frank checking every machine: under it, over it and in it.
I was about to say to him that maybe the head vamp dude was hiding somewhere else when a screaming vampire jumped out of one of the machines beside Frank and leaped on his back, clawing at his face, causing him to drop his torch. "Frank!" I raised my machete, ready to strike.
“No!” Frank shouted as he tried to get the creature off his back and I realized it was the senator’s daughter clawing at him, the girl’s wild mane of hair whipping into Frank’s face as he tried to get a grip on her. The girl still looked human, not like the other vamps we killed. I didn’t know what to do as I stood and watched Frank struggle with the fledgling vampire girl. Finally, he flipped her off his back and slammed her down on the factory floor. He then pulled a bottle out of his coat, quickly popped the cap, and threw some sort of liquid that I guessed wasn’t whiskey all over the girl vampire, who screamed like she had just been burned by acid before scurrying off like a cockroach under one of the machines and out of sight.
Frank breathed hard as he bent down to pick up his flashlight. His face was scratched and bleeding, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Holy water,” he said. “Never leave home without it. Now we just have to find…”
I frowned when he stopped talking, and his eyes widened in shock.
“What...?” I asked, but I knew.
I felt the creature’s cold presence behind me.
The head vampire.
Before I could even turn, a sinewy arm snaked around my neck, and I was pulled back and pressed against a hard, cold body that felt like a hunk of hanging beef. I felt the vampire's hot stinking breath by my face.
This is it. I’m going to die.
The vampire tore the machete out of my hand and tossed it away. I heard the blade clang against one of the machines before hitting the floor, the sound echoing around the room.
Frank stood, seemingly calm, his torch pointing towards my captor and me. I kept wondering why he wasn't panicking more, as if panicking was going to help me. "Don't hurt her," he said. He placed his machete on the floor. "Let her go. Take me instead."
“You’re in no position to make demands, Watcher,” the vampire said in the most guttural and god damned scariest voice I had ever heard, a voice that chilled the blood in my veins. The closeness of it made me shut my eyes as fear tightened its grip on me. All I could think about was that I was going to die and then I would never be able to save my brother. “You killed my children, so first I’m going to turn this child here, then I’m going to tear you limb from limb, Watcher.”
I could see the panic in Frank's eyes now, even in the dark. Terror gripped me, and I felt tears
roll down my cheeks. I was screwed, I knew that.
I’m sorry, Josh.
The vampire's other cold and waxy hand took hold of my face and turned my head to one side, exposing my neck. I looked up and got a glimpse of the creature's face. It wasn't pleasant. You could tell it was human once. It still had the same features of eyes, nose, and mouth, but that's as far as the similarities went. Its skin was a gray blue color, like a corpse under a mortuary light. The creature's eyes were sunk into its face and burned a deep scarlet color. The mouth was massive, that was the worst part for me, knowing that all those teeth were about to chomp down on me and infect me with their virus.
"Frank," I whimpered just before I felt the shock of the vampire's teeth sinking into my neck. I cried out in pain at first, but after a second my neck went numb as the vampire kept its mouth clamped there, sucking the blood from my carotid artery. My head went light, and I slumped down, the creature the only thing holding me up.
Consciousness was slipping away when I heard two loud bangs that caused my body to buck reflexively. I saw two bright flashes of light where Frank was standing. The vampire holding me cried out and the next thing I knew I was released and dropped to the floor. Frank ran past me at that point as he roared a battle cry. Then I heard a heavy thudding sound as something hit the floor behind me.
That’s when I blacked out.
The first thing I saw when I came to was a bright light shining on my face. The light moved to the side as I recoiled at the glare. "What…" I started to say.
“It’s okay.” Frank’s voice. “I’m here. You’re going to be fine, don’t worry.”
“You’re alive,” I said, sitting up.
“And you’re not a vampire,” he said. “It’s all good.”
"What happened?" My head was groggy, and there was a weird tingling sensation in my neck. I instinctively rubbed my neck and felt a number of small holes there, slightly raised around the edges.
