"What are you?" Peter asked. The man only looked at him with a dark expression. Peter didn't wait for a reply. He leapt into a double somersault, busting a hole in the low ceiling, and landed behind the man. Then, he turned and put the man in a choke hold. The convict was still just as strong though and for a moment Peter seemed to forget this. He began elbowing Peter in his side and it actually caused the vampire pain. He hadn't felt this much pain in nearly a century. Peter gasped with the force of it. The man, taking advantage of Peter’s shock, stomped on his foot. All the pain in the universe throbbed from Peter's foot. He let go and knelt forward to reach for it as if his touch could heal it. The man ran forward and began scrambling around on the floor.
Peter didn't really care what the guy was doing. All he could understand was his foot felt like it had actually broken. He cried out in a high pitch that he had never heard himself make before. He vaguely noticed the man's rustling around on the floor had become more rapid. After hundreds of years without it, the pain was strong. He looked down at his foot. It finally started healing. But the healing hurt even more than the break itself. He screamed out in agony again. Then, he heard a loud yell from directly in front of him. He looked up to see the man running full force toward him, yelling ferociously, with the machete pulled back to strike. It was all he could do just to lift up his arms to stop him. But his arms didn't reach. The machete ripped through his side and then his abdomen, cutting his body in half. The last thing Peter saw before everything went dark was the lower half of his body separate from him and fall to the floor as he fell on top of it.
* * *
Hank stood holding his ribs and looking down at the two halves of vampire crumpled together on the floor. He moved forward and kicked the thing just to be sure. It seemed to be lifeless. He tried not to analyze that thought too much. The pain in his ribs grew worse, but he was pretty sure it was the vampire blood healing him. He turned in a complete circle, scanning the debris on the floor for his backpack. When he found it, he knelt down to the floor and unzipped it. Rummaging through the backpack for the thermos, he found and opened it, making the usual sour face as he forced himself to take a big gulp. Then, he closed the thermos and put it back in the bag.
A few excruciating minutes later, Hank's ribs seemed as good as new. If he had been absolutely sure the vampire who just attacked him was dead for good or there weren't possibly others coming, he would have sat in awe of his circumstances. But the need to flee electrified his every nerve. He put the backpack on, jumped through the gaping hole in the back of the house, and ran westbound. It wasn't until Hank barely missed smacking into a stop sign fast enough to end it all that he realized his ability to run had also been intensified. He looked back at the house he had run from, zooming in to make sure it was the right one. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen blocks he had crossed in a matter of less than a minute.
He wondered how long it would take him to make it to the edge of the city at the rate he’d just run. He was pretty sure at that speed he wouldn't need to wait for the dawn. Overwhelmed with excitement by this thought, he acted on it by breaking into another all-out run. He counted the blocks as he passed them. The wind was blowing on his body as rapidly as it had riding on Toby’s motorcycle. It was soothing to feel on his face and arms. He thought he was starting to get the hang of it when just after the 47th block his right foot hit the inside edge of a pothole. He catapulted up and to the right, slamming violently into a telephone pole. He fell back down onto the sidewalk with a loud crunch. After a few minutes of not being able to move, Hank rolled himself over slowly and painfully. Evidently vampire blood could do just about anything except improve coordination.
After a while of staring up at a dim, yellow street light, Hank sat up and positioned himself against the pole that just broke his right collarbone, wrist, and knee. It was excruciating just to move, but he managed. Then he sat, waiting for the healing to finish. It was going much slower this time. Right as the pain went away, so did the feeling of power. He rose with great effort. Even though he was healed now, he still felt pretty bad. Hank tried dashing forward experimentally. His legs moved just as slowly as always. He sighed. His best guess told him there were probably only three or four more good gulps left.
Hank fought the urge to take another swig immediately. If that bastard wasn't dead or more were to show up, he would need what precious little bit he had left at his disposal. He looked back to the east. So far, no one seemed to follow him. He walked on the sidewalk at a light pace to the west, pulling the backpack in front of him and opening it. When he found one of the cans of chicken noodle soup and the can opener, he pulled them both out, opened the can, and threw the lid down on the road. Then he started walking again, taking a large swig of broth from the can. It might not have been the tastiest thing on earth, but it sure seemed so to him at the moment. When the broth was drained, he began knocking back the can so noodles and bits of chicken went into his mouth. He chewed them victoriously, grinning all the while. It sure beat the taste of vampire blood. When he gobbled the last bit, he threw down the can and retrieved the water thermos from the bag. He took several decent swigs. For a brief second, he wondered where Toby was and what he was doing. Then, he made himself forget the thought and started walking a little faster.
* * *
When Peter woke up, his entire abdomen screamed in absolute fury. He could feel nothing below the pain but a slight pulling. He opened his eyes to see one of his shoes taking up his entire field of vision. Still laying on the floor on top of the lower half of his body, he lifted his arm to grab hold of his right leg and move it away from him so that the shoe disappeared, revealing a debris scattered dining room on its side. He felt a strong tingle with the pull he was already feeling below his torn abdomen. He pushed hard against the floor with his right hand and rolled his top half over so that he was laying on his back. Then, he looked down at the huge open wound that was his bottomless torso. He could see shredded organs hanging loosely from it. It was also where he felt the pulling from.
He looked to his left and saw he was now lined up with his lower half, his feet parallel to his head, and the two open wounds parallel to each other. He pushed his fists into his chest, bending his elbows and pressing them hard against the carpeted floor. Then, using his elbows, he started to slowly scoot his body at an angle to put the two pieces of his body back together. After several rough scoots, he got close enough and the shredded organs began finding their other halves as if they were magnetically attracted to each other. Then, when all of his organs were healed, his flesh and spine did the same. He lay there a while letting his body heal itself. Once he knew he was strong enough, he leaned up and let out a shrill scream in the ancestor's tongue, calling for the help he knew he would need. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done. By calling out for help, he was giving up his seat on the vampire council. It would take a lot of work and maybe even decades to get back in. But, more than anything else, he valued living, and he had to admit to himself he had met his match. This strange human was much more than Peter had bargained for.
Peter cringed with self revulsion when he heard the sound of four ancestors returning his call from various places in the sky within a three-kilometer radius. He could hear the friction in the air from where they were flying as they began circling above the house. He rose to his feet and jumped onto the open wall where he had entered the house and then onto its roof to confirm what he heard. Directly above him, circling round and round, were four ancestors, watching him. Their dirty black rags rustled in the wind as they floated effortlessly on the air. Peter struggled to bury the enmity he felt for the creatures. He would never understand the reverence the others had for them. Sure they were the source of his longevity, the source of his strength and power. But even being these things, they were also aimless creatures. Like human babies, only existing, only carrying out the needed functions to survive.
Peter called out to them in their strange, screeching tongue. He descr
ibed the man to them. He told them about his strength and abilities. He also told them about the blood, a subject they seemed indifferent to. They certainly are mindless, he thought. When he finished explaining, they each took a long taste of the air and darted west, just as Peter had expected. Even if the quickening from Simon's blood was over, having been wasted on healing Peter's severed body, Peter could still smell the convict. He decided to get back to the Stratosphere as quickly as possible and alert the others. He had no way of knowing how bad the consequences would be if this man made it across the city limits. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Chapter 6
Simon the Zealot
Simon looked down at his lifeless body, feeling more grief than he ever had. He knew what it meant. He, Simon James Withers, was dead. Dead. Simple as that. And he hadn't woken atop a ground made of fluffy clouds at the pearly gates of heaven. There was no St. Peter waiting to take his name. Sure, a vampire named Peter took his life, but that wasn't quite the same. He merely floated above his own body.
He wondered, were the Catholics right? Was this some sort of purgatory? He floated there watching himself in misery, wishing he could kill himself, if it weren't for the fact that he’d already died. A few minutes later everything around him began to glow. After a moment or so, he could see a brilliant white glow. Then came a flash of red and everything changed. He felt solid again. Looking down, his body was much smaller than he expected. It sat on what looked to be the front seat of a car. He recognized his best Sunday suit from when he was eight years old. He fingered the buttons and put his hands in the jacket pockets. He could feel the fabric. Then he put his hands up and felt his own eight year old face, just as he remembered it. He ran his hands through his hair. It was all so wonderful until...
"Now, listen honey, don't you go messin’ up that beautiful little hair of yours, ya hear? Mama spent too damn long gettin’ it just right for Sunday school," a female voice said.
Simon swallowed. Then very slowly he turned and looked. Beside his eight-year-old body, gripping the wheel, smoking a cigarette, and dressed in a red dress that could give any preacher a cardiac arrest, sat Simon's mother. She smiled at him with her bright red lipstick-covered lips, her curly brown hair lightly bouncing in the wind, and Simon fought back the urge to vomit. Of all the places Simon had never expected to end up when he died, this was by far the last. It might as well be hell, to end up eight years old in a car with his whore of a mother and on the way to church, no less.
A few minutes later, they pulled into the gravel lot of a small white church surrounded by wheat fields. She pulled him through the door and once again he went through the humiliation and torture of seeing all the good people of the church look at her. The women (and some of the men) looked at her with contempt. The rest of the men looked at her with lust in their hearts. His mama was causing all these poor men to sin and she didn't even care. She enjoyed it. He felt his face go scarlet as she pulled him along the aisle between the pews. He couldn't help but think of his father. It took everything he had to keep from weeping. No wonder he had left her. If only he’d taken Simon with him.
Simon sat down quietly next to his mother, where she had patted the seat in expectation. When it was time for church to start, the Reverend Joseph Bells spoke a powerful sermon on the dangers of the flesh. Simon wished his mother would have actually learned something from it. But this wasn't his first time going through this day. He knew what would happen and if it wouldn't change her ways, what would?
After the sermon, Brother Thompson, the Sunday school teacher, stood up and Simon took his cue to escape from his mother's dirty presence and run to be with his friends in line to go to class. He did his best to enjoy every sweet moment of playing with the other kids. He relished the teacher's lesson about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He especially enjoyed the part where Lot's wife looked back even though the angel had told her not to and she turned into a pillar of salt. He pictured his mother when the teacher told the story. He wished that God would turn her into a pillar of salt. He felt a great surge of guilt then fought it back, reminding himself she deserved what was coming to her. He knew from experience that God punishes the weak and unfaithful.
When they arrived back home, he went to his room and slammed the door as he did many times in those days. He took off his suit and changed into a T-shirt and shorts, telling himself he would just stay in his room while it happened. He found his favorite toys and sat down to play with them. The minutes went by like hours and after what seemed like forever the sunlight finally started to dim outside. Then, while waiting, lying on the floor in his room, he fell asleep, just like he did that very day. He dreamed about hell and demons just like he had that day. He tossed and turned in his sleep and in his dream he held up the cross and the demons kept on coming. He cried out to God to come and save him from them, but God didn't come. They chased him up mountains and through deserts and no matter how fast he would run, they were always right behind him. Then, he tripped over a large rock in the desert and fell on his face. The biggest demon looked down at him with its blood-red face and its black goatee and smiled as it reached out to grab him. He woke up in a cold sweat and made a mild whining sound, the same as he had that day. And just like that day, that was when he heard her screaming.
He didn't have to listen to recognize his mother's voice. He knew it was coming. He wanted to stay in his room but something pulled at him. Some force he couldn't resist. It pulled him up to his feet. Then, it pulled him to his bedroom door and made him open it. As the door opened, the screams were no longer muffled and began to fill his room. Then, it gave him a push and he started walking out into the living room just outside his bedroom. The sound of growling made him jump. When he landed, just like that day, his feet made a loud thump on the old, hardwood floor. His mother's screams stopped. She pled in a whisper.
"Please," she said. "Please don't hurt my son," she added, her voice almost breaking out of the whisper.
"Don't worry baby, I only came for you," a deep voice returned in a mocking whisper.
"Then please, don't let him find me like this. Please, go away" she begged, barely holding on to a whisper.
"No," the voice said loudly.
A rush of loud movement began and Simon heard bed springs creak violently as the man's voice breathed loudly and deeply. Then, the voice moaned. His mother made no noise at all. Then, after a few minutes, Simon thought he heard a faint whimper from her as the bed creaked even louder. The force that pulled him seemed determined to make him relive this nightmare all over again. He could feel it pull him toward the hallway just past the living room leading to his mother's bedroom.
He knew what he was about to see. He’d seen it hundreds of times throughout his life in his worst nightmares. He never saw all the man's face. Only the teeth behind that vicious smile. And the black eyes as they stared back at him. Everything else about the man, in every nightmare, had been a blur. The real memory long since buried in his brain. The force pulled him to the left and into the hallway. The sound of movement echoed off the narrow, paneled walls as Simon walked barefoot down the hall toward his mother's room.
He could see the door at the end of the hallway. It was currently ajar. Light spilled out onto the hallway floor from within the room. The floor creaked again as he walked and his mother whispered a prayer, stumbling over her words. The creaking and the man's moaning voice continued as if nothing had changed. Simon felt an anguish fill his body in anticipation of what he was about to see for the second time. He felt like he was crying but when he put his hands to his face, it was completely dry of tears. When he got to the door, his hands reached out against his will and pushed the door forward. He fought with all his will but his hands just kept on pushing, until finally the door went wide open.
There before him someone he hadn't expected to recognize laid on top of his mother. The monster had messy blonde hair and a vicious smile Simon wouldn't forget this time. Peter. Peter had rape
d his mother all those years ago. He looked at her and saw the pleading in her eyes. Peter only smiled at him, continuing his assault. But for the second time, Simon felt only hatred for his mother in response to those pleading eyes. How could she let him do such a thing and not fight back? He was sure she enjoyed it and only pretended to be unwilling. It was, in Simon’s eyes, what she deserved. Even as horrible as it was to observe. But even more, he hated this vampire who not only raped his mother, he now knew, but also took his life and forced him to relive this hellish night once again. Though he was sure Peter couldn’t have done these things knowingly to him, it made no difference to Simon.
After what seemed an eternity watching this traumatizing scene, everything around him began to glow again. There was another red flash and everything changed. Now he was just one year older, in his living room, standing and watching the television as his mother sat right up in front of it, watching intently. She smoked a cigarette, sitting Indian style with a large round, black ashtray on the floor in front of her. Simon knew immediately what he was watching. It was the first of many live evening press conferences called by a man named Joseph Caesar. Joseph Caesar was the leader of a militia called the Seven Seals of God. On the TV, he raised his arms to hush the large crowd and began to speak as Simon listened with excitement.
"I am the lamb of God," Joseph Caesar said. "I have been found worthy by the Lord of all of heaven and earth to break loose the Seven Seals of God and open the scroll of life!" he yelled as he beat his fists on the podium before him. Simon felt a chill of pride run through his entire body. This was much better to relive than what he’d just endured. Right here, he was reliving history in the making. He was watching the first step marking the beginning of events leading to the Empire. There before him on the screen, speaking behind a podium to a crowd of reporters and spectators, stood America's future Emperor. Simon could hardly contain the pleasure filling his heart. As he listened to Emperor Caesar continue his speech, Simon noticed the glowing again. He didn't want to go.
Empire of Blood: A Dystopian Vampire Trilogy (Bundle, Boxset) (Plus Two Empire of Blood Short Stories) Page 6
