Afghanistan, millions of people dying, dead.
“Hey!” I snapped back to the present.
“Yeah? What’s up?” I dropped my duffel bag, as I turned to face him, new shirt, white, no tear.
“You screamed… or roared, whatever, then head-butted my window. You put a hole in it, and now you’re bleeding on my… where’d the cut go?”
This was brought up a long while before I wanted to bring it up, “Um… Well… You see, I’m a… With the sharp teeth, and aversion to sunlight…”
He stared at me, jaw hanging, I managed a nervous smile which made him jump, “Hey, dude, I’m cool, I’m not going to kill yo-” He threw a book at my head, “Ow! No!”
He threw another, “Back up! Not ok! You can’t be! No, you’re not, it’s not possible.”
I caught the next book, “Really, your room-mate just tried to eat you, there’s a giant space ship outsi-”
He pushed past me and looked out through window, “There’s a space ship!?”
I rubbed my head, “Yes, my point is, with all that happening you question the validity of a vampire?”
He turned to look at me, “Then why aren’t you bursting into flames and burning?”
I shook my head and laughed, “I don’t know, because we’re in the shade of your apartment?”
He pointed to my arm, “You’ve been standing in that sunbeam for at least two minutes now, you don’t feel that?”
I looked down at my arm, normally I would’ve felt something by now, a tingly feeling. As I said before, I can stay in sunlight, it’s just not good for me. But this? I wasn’t being affected adversely whatsoever. This little beam dancing from in between the dark clouds wasn't affecting me at all. Beyond a warmth that I hadn't been able to truly experience for over two hundred years.
I remained entranced until the beam disappeared as the storm encompassed the rest of the sky, “Again, that’s interesting.”
A gunshot brought me back, “Hey dude, any chance that you got those guns from a security truck?”
I nodded and walked over to look out through the window, “Yeah, truck from my mi- my truck… Why?”
I heard an engine clicking over through the crack in the window, “Someone’s got it, and I don’t know if I’m comfortable with them with guns.”
Leaving that van wasn’t my best idea to say the least, it started backing up before spinning around, “You said you’re moving out of this place right?”
I took a few steps back while he continued to keep an eye on the van, “Yeah, how come?”
I could hear the van picking up speed, “Wondering if you were going to miss that window.” The revving became louder as I marked the compromised glass in my field of vision, “Watch my bag.”
I closed my eyes, launched shoulder first into the window and was in the air. I ignored the splinters of glass wedging into my body and opened my eyes, the van coming up fast. I landed on the roof and grabbed the antenna. The air in my lungs exploded out as the surface below me came to a screeching halt. Sending me flying over the roof and landing on the hard gravel. The doors opened and I heard footsteps,
“Is he dead?” I felt something poke me in the back.
“No…” I stood up slowly, the rain causing the blood to pool around my feet, my accelerated healing working wonders, it was amazing. I cracked my neck for no good reason, other than to seem scary as I turned to face a young bald guy and his even younger friend in a snap-back shakily holding a pump action.
I pointed to the van, “That’s-” I spat out a bit of blood, “That’s mine.”
The kid in the snap-back brought the gun up, “Not any more, you step off man.”
I looked up to the window where Harry stood clutching his head, he wasn’t going to like this “Shoot them now!”
He dropped as the two in front of me spun to find him, giving me the opportunity I needed. I moved for the bald guy's neck first, snapping it on its axis. I grabbed the snap-back kid, pushing his neck to the side and ripping his throat out with my teeth. Draining as much blood as I could as it bubbled and gushed out of the wound.
I threw the limp corpse over toward the horde that was nearing me and they went crazy for it. While I wiped my mouth, kicked the other guy under the truck and scooped up the shotgun, “Climb down! They ran off!”
He peaked over the ledge, “That’s a while down!” I looked around and saw the van was still running, jumped in and backed it up against the wall. I looked forward and realised I’d uncovered the body, I nearly panicked but a group of zeds immediately swarmed his still twitching corpse.
“Jump down now! And bring my bag!” I waited a few seconds, heard one loud thump, then a yell and another thump. “You alright?”
I heard some shuffling then he dropped down onto the bonnet. He climbed in the car, slamming the door behind him and angrily tossing the duffel in the back.
“What's up with you?” He pulled his seat-belt on after several failed attempts.
“I broke my mattress.” I started to drive away before he punched me in the arm, “Fuck you dude! Goddamn, you are such an asshole!”
I started chuckling under my breath and he punched me again.
“Don’t you laugh at me! I nearly died because of you! Twice!” He kept hitting me.
“That you did, it’s good though, we’re alive and now we have a car, a big car with a lot of guns.”
He slammed against his seat, “Dick.”
Trying to maintain a steady speed was becoming difficult with the thickening traffic. We moved through the city roads toward the highway and before long we were crawling at twenty. I could feel the eyes of the living and the not so much living boring into the truck. “I don't like this, dude. Get us out of here.” I nodded and threw it into reverse; I’d rather take our chances in the city for the day. “Hold up, you hear tha-”
A body slammed against his door, I floored the accelerator and kept watching out of the hole from the shotgun blast, shotgun…
I took one hand off of the wheel and began feeling behind my seat, the sound of the zed slamming his head against the window thumping in my ears.
There!
I tossed Harry the heavy barrelled beast, “What the Hell am I supposed to do with this!?”
I spun the van around when we were mostly clear and proceeded to squelch the dead under us, “You’re riding shotgun, figure it out!” I heard him cock it, “Whoa! Wind down the window first, I like my ears.”
He growled under his breath, and went to unwind the window as the guy clinging to the side sent his forehead through. “Rescind that, please shoot.”
An arm came through the hole in the rear of the van's back door and caused it swing open. “Shoot now!”
I heard the bang as I got elbowed in the shoulder, “Sorry!”
I turned down a street, “Don’t apologise, just keep shooting!” He aimed between the seats and fired, hitting one of the back door hinges. Causing the door to snap off and bounce along the road behind us, taking the zed with it.
“Where are we going?” That was a good question, somewhere high seemed like a good idea. The van was going to give out eventually and it was no longer secure.
“I have no idea, somewhere high where we can board up for a while.” I felt another body slam into the side of the truck, “Get in the back, fill up that duffel with everything there.”
He unbuckled himself and climbed through, “Holy crap... This is a lot of stuff, what were you going to do?”
I noticed the dead were forming into groups like the one at the hotel, “I’m an… agent… thing. I had a team but we got separated after the mission.” A crying man sat in the gutter as we passed. He appeared uninjured but what can I say? More people, more problems, the only reason I kept Harry along for the ride is because he didn’t try to kill me with that lamp.
“Is this C4?” A small brick of C4 popped up next to my head.
“Yes, don’t play with it.” I turned a
round the corner.
“How about Fortitude Valley? I know the area pretty well and it might be a good place to hold out for a few days.”
It sounded as good as a plan as any, “Alright then, you keep them off us and I'll move us as far as this wreck will take us.”
Damn I was feeling good, stronger. I was processing faster, things were making more sense,
“So what's your name?” I hit two more zeds,
“John, John Prince.” He gave a sound of interest, “What?”
He shrugged, “I don't know, I expected some crazy name, like Vladimir or something.” The road was thinning out again, people must've got the idea and were hiding. Or they were dead, or running away from the city. Or, again, and more likely, dead.
“I'm from England originally, not Russia or Transylvania or some alternate plane of existence. I'm just a dude like you... Kind of.”
The engine was starting to make clunking sounds, “How old are you?”
I could feel the steering wheel start to shake, a few more kilometres and we'd be in the clear. “Two hundred and sixty five soon.” There was a muffled bang in the engine bay, “Grab the guns, we're leaving in a few seconds, and I don't think we can afford to walk just yet. We're running.”
My hands were starting to shake. Alright, I'm going to start to explain what's happening; think the first energy drink you had. That moment where everything seems the same, this isn't affecting you. But then you notice there’s something different, you're picking up on more, your reflexes are slightly better, you feel buzzed up.
Now imagine that you already think at an
The Mulligan Planet Page 20
