The Blood Talisman

by Kim Culpepper

  “What the hell?” Selene asked them both.

  “You really didn’t listen to your father’s predictions, did you? He said that the dead would rise,” Alex answered.

  “I thought he was talking about vampires and werewolves, not humans,” Selene said.

  “Yea, I kinda thought that too but it made sense when John rose with an appetite.”

  “This isn’t good. I mean, we are under a graveyard. How are we going to get out of this place?” Selene asked.

  “Well, let’s see. You have an immortal vampire and a werewolf at your disposal. I think you stand a decent chance. It’s a good thing your boyfriend here didn’t kill me, after all,” Ram said.

  “I still just might figure out a way to,” Alex warned.

  “I think our safety in leaving is most important right now. Don’t you?” Ram asked.

  “Ram makes a good point. We need to get back to the hospital and let Amalia know what’s happened, but first I need to get my dad’s Book of Shadows from his office. Won’t take but a second,” Selene said.

  “What’s a book of shadows?” Alex asked.

  “It’s like a witch’s guidebook. Usually has every spell they’ve ever done recorded in it. I should be able to figure out how to end all of this,” Selene answered.

  Alex watched her run off and return in minutes with a bag with the top of a large book sticking out of it. She stuffed the canister containing Hyperion’s ashes down into the bag as well and threw it over her shoulder.

  Alex led them back to the stairwell. Ram was last. He picked up all of the dropped guns in the room, shoving some in his pockets and carrying the rest.

  Chapter 30

  The winding stone stairwell was just and quiet as they ascended. They reached the very top and stepped over a pile of what was left of the armored guards at the doorway.

  Ram peered over into a coffin that had been cracked open and was on the floor. The bones were still inside and immobile.

  “Maybe we got away with this one. They’re still in there and not moving,” Ram said.

  Alex glanced out of the mausoleum doorway and said, “I don’t think so. They’re rising up all over the place out there.”

  “My ancestors were of the immortal blood line. They wouldn’t be affected by this curse,” Selene said.

  “Let’s run,” Alex said.

  They followed behind him closely as they jumped over hands grasping out of the dirt and dodged round half rotted bodies that had broken fingers and hanging flesh from their arms. The resurrected dead grasped at their feet and clothing as they ran through the graveyard. Ram made a point of kicking and punching as many of them as he could along the way.

  Selene tripped, skinning her knee on a footstone. A hand grabbed her by the ankle and wouldn’t let go. She screamed and frantically hit it with her hand repeatedly but the zombie wouldn’t release its grip. Ram stomped on the arm, breaking it into releasing Selene from its grisly hold. He helped her up from the ground and ran, trying to catch up with Alex, who had kept running ahead of them.

  They reached the black wrought iron gate that led into the cemetery. The two vehicles that had brought them were parked where they’d left them. Ram fumbled into his pants pockets and pulled out a set of keys to the SUV.

  “I only have the set to the SUV. John has the keys to the car,” Ram said.

  “What about our stuff?” Alex cried.

  “Get new stuff. Let’s go,” Ram responded as he ran to the driver’s side and hopped in.

  The undead had nearly caught up with them. Alex and Selene joined Ram in the vehicle just as a couple of the corpses placed their hands on the windows. They banged on it and moaned. Ram nervously placed the keys into the ignition and started the engine.

  One of the undead had the nerve to attempt climbing on top of the hood of the SUV. Ram placed the car into drive and took off with the corpse still in tow. He tried the windshield wipers but it didn’t seem fazed by the new motion.

  Ram slammed on the brakes, slinging the corpse off of the hood and then stamped on the gas, running it over. He looked at the corpse in his rearview mirror. It was still wriggling and pulling at the ground, attempting to come after them.

  “I don’t know why you’re so scared. You’re immortal now,” Selene pointed out to him.

  “I don’t know what their bite would do to me. I don’t think walking around with zombie bites all over will allow me to enjoy much human blood.” Ram answered.

  “If this invasion spreads much further then you may not have many humans left to choose from.”

  Ram hadn’t considered that. He worried more about that than actually looking presentable. Human blood was now his life force. He wouldn’t be able to live without it.

  “Do you know how to end this?” he asked Selene.

  “Haven’t a clue. I don’t understand why it started, much less how it ends. We have a lot of research that we need to do. We need to get to a safe place first.”

  They fell silent and the miles rushed past. Selene noticed Alex rubbing his bare arms. There was a chill in the air and the fright that they were feeling made everything seem even colder. She searched in one of the bags that remained in the back seat with her and fished out a plain white t-shirt. She handed it to Alex and he took it happily.

  The clean white shirt was a stark contrast to his bloodstained, dirty body.

  “You got any wet wipes in there?” he asked.

  “I can look.”

  Ram chuckled slightly and said, “Do you honestly think a vampire is going to carry wet wipes? We don’t waste a drop of the blood we spill.” He glanced over at Alex’s blood stained arms. “Just lick it off. That’s what we do.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Selene pointed out.

  “I’m not doing that,” Alex said.

  “Just trying to help.” Ram shrugged his shoulders and eyebrows, ignoring their disgust.

  “I don’t see any wet wipes in here. Sorry. But there are more white shirts in here and here’s a bottle of water.” Selene handed him a clean white t-shirt and a half drank bottle of water.

  Alex poured water on the t-shirt and wiped his arms, neck, and face with it until the remnants of his kill were gone. He dropped the dirty shirt to the floor.

  The SUV started to slow as they pulled over to the side of the road.

  “Why are we stopping?” Selene asked.

  “I’m hungry,” Ram answered.

  “You only ate half an hour ago. What’s your problem? We need to get back to the hospital.”

  “There’s a hitchhiker just up the road. Can’t you hear her?” Ram asked, looking at Alex.

  Alex nodded yes slowly with a confused look on his face. He wandered if he had become the new temporary John. He hated Ram with every fiber of his being. There wasn’t anything within him that could remotely care about Ram and his hunger.

  “C’mon, I’ll let you have my leftovers,” Ram joked.

  He turned and opened the driver’s side door and began to exit the SUV when Alex grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving. Ram shrugged his arm away and got out anyway.

  “Don’t do this. We need to go,” Alex yelled at him

  “Try and stop me,” Ram said in a deeper, more menacing voice. He slammed the driver’s side door to, leaving them both behind.

  Alex and Selene looked at each other, Alex questioning what he should do.

  “Don’t go after him. Let him be, Alex.”

  “I can’t let him keep killing people. I have to stop him.”

  He turned to open the passenger door and saw Ram walking back with the hitchhiker. She was tall and skinny with long brown, almost black, hair. She was laughing and smiling at him like they were long lost friends. She wore blue jeans so tight that they looked painted on her skinny body and a deep red and grey striped, nearly see-through sweater shirt that left no room for imagination as to what her perfectly perky breasts looked like underneath. They jiggled happily as she laughed at his obnoxious jo
kes.

  Ram opened the back passenger door where Selene sat looking at him with a most distasteful look of concern and resentment.

  “Will you drive?” he asked her. “I have some more stories that I want to continue telling my new friend.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Selene whispered to Ram.

  He looked at her as if she had three heads on her shoulders. She rolled her eyes at him and complied with his request. She slammed the door shut behind her and he reopened it to let their new guest inside. He climbed in behind her and she scooted over behind Alex.

  It made Alex uncomfortable to have someone sitting behind him that he didn’t know.

  Selene put the SUV back into drive and continued their drive towards Texas.

  “I’m Jolene bah the wahy,” the hitchhiker said.

  Her Southern accent immediately irritated Selene. It sounded fake, like she was intentionally using it to get attention.

  “This is Selene and Alex,” Ram said.

  “Oh, I knew ah Selene once. She was mah babysittah when I was ah lil baby,” Jolene said.

  “Where did you say you were headed to?” Ram asked her coyly.

  “Oh, I’m headed to Calie-forn-i-a. I heard you can get some good jobs out that wahy.”

  She stomped her brown cowboy boots down on the floorboard beneath her feet. The white shirts that Alex used to clean himself up with were smashed up under her boots.

  “What in tha worl?” she said, picking up the bloody shirts from the floorboard. She turned them over with a horrified look on her face. She started screaming and Ram reached over and put his hand over her mouth.

  “Shhhhhhh.” he whispered to her. “Now this won’t hurt much.”

  He bit into her neck softly and she screamed again. Selene winced at her screams and wished she could cover her ears with her hands. Ram pulled back and looked at Jolene’s face of horror. He smiled at her, revealing his menacing fangs and she screamed more.

  Alex, unable to remain silent any longer said, “Don’t play with her. Kill her if you’re going to or we can stop and let her out.”

  Ram shrugged and said, “Pull over.”

  Selene pulled over the SUV, a mile up from where they had stopped before. Jolene’s screams and cries hushed with the hope of getting out alive. She fumbled, trying to open the door. She practically fell out of the door and Ram pursued her. She crawled backwards on her hands and feet, watching every move that Ram made.

  He reached down and snapped her neck.

  Alex got out of the SUV and slammed the door behind him.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? You act like if you’re not killing someone every five seconds, then you’re not living.”

  Ram smiled at him and said, “Just get back in the car, wolf.”

  Alex pushed him on the shoulder and said, “I’m not John. I refuse to serve you in any shape or form.”

  “Get in the car, wolf,” Ram said again, pushing him back.

  Alex punched him across the face and Ram did the same. Before long they were rolling in the dirt on the side of the road next to Jolene’s dead body.

  “Stop it!” Selene yelled at them. They refused to listen. “Stop it!” she yelled out again. They ignored her and continued to roll around on the ground, punching each other. She got out of the car and slammed the door.

  She looked around at the woods behind them, frustrated. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The trees grew to gargantuan lengths and widths. Their branches spread towards the road. One of the limbs reached out and grabbed Ram by his ankle. Another limb reached out and grabbed Alex by his. The trees hoisted them up in the air and Selene opened her eyes.

  They dangled there looking at her, confused.

  “What did you do to us?” Ram yelled out at her.

  “I am separating you two before you kill each other! The world could potentially be going to hell and you get into a fist fight? You’re both being very childish!”

  “I’m sorry. Can you let us go?” Alex asked.

  “Promise not to fight anymore?”

  “I swear,” Alex said.

  Selene looked over at Ram, expecting the same promise from him.

  “I promise to try,” was the best Ram could do.

  “I guess I couldn’t expect more from a vampire.” She lowered them both the ground. She sat Alex down gently but dropped Ram on his ass.

  The trees receded back into the forest and stood at their normal height and width as if they had never been touched.

  They all loaded themselves back into the SUV peacefully and Ram put it into drive. He spun a little dust at take-off. The dust billowed up into a small cloud above Jolene’s body. Her undead body sat up in the cloud and climbed to its feet. Jolene’s neck started bobbing around on its broken pedestal as she slowly began walking down the road towards the disappearing SUV.

  Chapter 31

  Several hours had past and the sun had covered the southern skies. They had traveled all day. The sun threatened to set again as they pulled into Blearney Hospital’s parking lot. Chaos had been set about amongst the empty cars and trucks that remained. Some were burning embers and others remained untouched except with broken windshields and bent-in doors.

  “Surely this curse hasn’t spread this quickly.” Selene said to Ram and Alex.

  Ram parked the SUV right outside the front doors and they cautiously got out. Selene grabbed the book bag with the canister that contained her father’s ashes and his Book of Shadows. They were both too important to leave unprotected.

  A wheelchair prevented the doors from completely closing to. They slammed back and forth in unison, making the wheelchair pop and squelch each time. Ram pulled the wheelchair out of the way and pushed it over to the side. He caught the doors before they closed back to, and an eerie silence greeted them as they walked in. The front lobby of the hospital wasn’t much different from the parking lot. The deserted nurses’ desk was covered in pools of blood. A dead patient lay on the floor by the station. He was a completely hollowed-out shell of a human. Even the cheeks on his face were missing.

  They all walked slowly through the hall, carefully viewing the disarray of it all. Alex clicked the elevator down to take them to the basement. If it looked this bad on the first floor, he wondered how Amalia had gotten through it all.

  The elevator doors opened to two female nurses enjoying a hospital visitor as a snack. They were ripping through his bones and tearing at his flesh. One was working on chewing up his forehead and the other was eating what was left of his right arm. They stopped chewing to look up at Ram, Alex, and Selene.

  Ram pulled one of his many guns and shot them both in the head. They crumpled onto their meal.

  “I think I’ll take the stairs,” Ram said.

  Alex opened the door leading to the stairwell and followed Selene and Ram into the dimly lit area. It seemed mostly quiet as they descended down into the basement. They matched each other step for step with Ram leading the way. Selene was sandwiched safely in between them both.

  They reached the basement door and Ram pushed it carefully open. The lights in the basement flickered furiously. Papers lay disheveled along the ominous grey floor. Every door in the basement had been left open. It looked like criminals had ransacked the place looking for loot.

  They all ran towards the room that Amalia had been in. They found an empty bed with many dead doctors and nurses lying near the bed. They all lay there in black pools of blood. They were all burned to the point of being unrecognizable.

  Alex knelt down by one of their bodies and took in their scent of burnt blood. It gave him flashes of Amalia alive and feeding on them all. When the bodies dropped to the floor, Sol burned their corpses with the light of the sun.

  Alex stood up from the dead, burned bodies and backed away from the room.

  “What did you see?” Selene asked him.

  “She’s with Sol. They did this together,” Alex answered.

  “Is she still here
?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see past their deaths,” Alex said, pointing towards the corpses.

  A noise from behind startled them all. Selene let out a small scream at the loud rustling. It was coming from the monitor room a few doors down. Ram ran quickly towards it. He jerked the door completely open and the small man with glasses that cowered inside yelled out, “Please don’t hurt me. Don’t let them kill me too.” He struggled to get farther into the room, away from Ram.

  Ram picked him up off the floor and the man struggled to run.

  “Stop it. I’m not going to hurt you. I need to know what happened here.” The man continued to struggle, ignoring Ram’s calm request. “I won’t hurt you,” he replied as he gently released him from his grip.

  “She… she woke up and… and started feeding. He was here with her. A powerful witch or something. He just showed up and… and they… please let me go. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “What’s your name? Selene asked.

  The man calmed slightly at the mundane question.

  “It’s Henry.”

  “Well, Henry. Why don’t you have a seat?” Selene stood up one of the many overturned chairs in the camera room. “Get yourself together and then we can talk about what happened okay?”

  Henry shook his head yes in compliance and took a few deep breaths. “I was coming down here to mop and there was some commotion within that room where she was, you know, the vampire. She woke up and started ripping through the people that were helping her. She was unyielding. It was like she had no remorse. A complete shell of a person. As she was finishing up on the last man in the room, a bright light flashed and the witch burned them all up. I came in here and watched on the monitors as they went floor to floor feeding and burning through the patients and nurses and visitors. It was sick. They didn’t completely kill all of them, though, ‘cause some of them that were bitten by her got up after she’d finished with them and started eating some of the ones that she missed. It was like watching a horror movie unfold right before your eyes.”