by P. J. Day
“I was hesitant in letting you rescue Jack,” he said. “However, it was the right thing to do as he’s demonstrated to me that he is a vampire worthy of being a Jiang-Shi. You are right, Milton. We will not run and we will face those who wish to eliminate us.”
Lucretius placed his hand on Milton’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.
“Get everyone ready to go down to Guilin City. Grab every weapon we have in the armory. Make sure everyone has their daylight gear on too. All the masks, goggles, gloves, boots... everything. We cannot let the elements be these bastards’ greatest ally. We will face the sun as well as those who wish to terminate us.”
Chapter Twelve
It was 4 a.m.
Cicadas chirped in the dense, thick coppice that lined the outskirts of the main city. We were on a hidden path between a grove of thick, noisy bamboo and overgrown ferns. It was a path beaten hard by farmers who entered the city to sell the fruits of their labor, and a path recently beaten by convoys of Chinese soldiers who had been ordered to locate, capture, or kill what was not human. Milton, Lucretius, and Kai lay low in the green, humid overgrowth, all wearing matching leather outfits which could handle the grazing of a dagger or sword but not the piercing velocity of a bullet or the aftereffects of a nearby explosion. Their gloves kept their hands from burning up in the morning sun. Wraparound sunglasses shielded their eyes from the morning glare, and black cotton masks covered their mouths and heads.
Lucretius, who was behind us with Kai, noticed a patrol up ahead.
Jack, stop moving, he let me know without saying a word.
I closed my eyes and nodded my head. I couldn’t believe Lucretius was talking to me telepathically. Milton was crouched next to me.
I asked him, “What do you want to do with those soldiers?”
“What do you think?” he said, giving me a sinister smile, his teeth sparkling in the moonlight.
Jack, you flank right and Milton, you flank left. Do not make a sound. Get ahead of them up the path. If they suspect you, I will let you know, Lucretius said.
Milton and I nodded at each other. I was amazed that Lucretius communicated with us simultaneously, without uttering a single word
I took a step into the thick vegetation on the right of the trail, and Milton swiftly disappeared into the forest on the other side. I moved carefully, every step methodical and deliberate. I stepped over twigs, rocks, dried leaves and anything else that could make a sound. I moved right past the soldiers; one of them had an AK-47 underneath his armpit, the other, just a handgun. I stared at their eyes, trying to see if they suspected my position. They never did. I ended up waiting behind a large tree, ten meters up the trail. The soldiers kept chatting with each other, oblivious to what lay ahead. Milton’s head popped up in the tall grass on the other side of the path. He showed me his palm, telling me to wait until it was the right time to pounce.
The soldiers abruptly stopped about two meters down the trail.
Wait, Lucretius telegraphed.
One of the soldiers took out his chrome Zippo and the other placed a cigarette inside his thin set of reptilian lips. Milton gave me a nod and we both quietly moved up the trail. We positioned ourselves right next to the men. Right as the man with the cigarette tilted his head toward his partner, Lucretius ordered, Go.
I leaped out from the brush and landed on the soldier’s back, immediately dropping him to the ground with my aerial impact. I put my arms around his head. My left hand pulled back on his forehead and my right forearm put pressure on his windpipe. I heard him gasping for air, so I tightened my grip even more, preventing him from vocalizing for help. I did not want to kill the young man. I was hoping to make him pass out from asphyxiation. I continued to coil my forearms like a boa constrictor around the man’s head and neck, I saw Milton stab his victim in the neck with a dagger. He opened his mouth and began to feed on the listless body of the soldier, fallen prone on the forest floor and bleeding profusely from the gash on his neck. The man’s left leg began to kick up and down uncontrollably, due to neurological breakdown.
“What are you doing?” I whispered at Milton.
Milton threw down the soldier’s body and jabbed his dagger into the stomach of the soldier who I had in a choke hold. I quickly let go and the soldier fell to his knees. Milton pulled his dagger out from the soldier’s stomach and struck his neck with his fangs. I looked away in disgust. Milton had fulfilled his bloodlust on the two soldiers in front of my eyes. I heard the other Jiang-Shi come out from the brush and begin to surround the soldier’s bodies on the ground. They began feeding on them. Grunts and the tearing sounds of flesh echoed and bounced off the trunks of the surrounding trees. I walked away from the feeding and leaned against a large rock that sat on the side of the trail. I focused my eyes straight toward Guilin City. I was approached by Lucretius while my back was turned away from the frenzy.
“We are at war, Jack,” he whispered, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Their intention was to murder us. This is a justified killing.”
I turned around and looked into his blue eyes.
“Let them quench their thirst. I didn’t come down here as an excuse to feed on fresh necks. I came here to find Holly and Ted.”
“We’re going to help you, Jack. Don’t worry,” he said, backing away slowly from where I was standing. He turned his back and casually lowered himself into a crouch, joining his brothers at the trough.
Chapter Thirteen
Milton had convinced me to join him atop of the rooftops of the city.
He wanted to take me to his friend, who was an electrical engineer at the university. His friend had the ability to hack into the feeds of every security camera in the city. Milton thought this was the best way to locate Jenny, Holly, and Ted without relying on a possibly hostile populace. Guilin City was tightly compacted. There was minimal space along the banks of the Li River, which was prone to flooding during the monsoon season. Roofs of businesses and homes were separated by only three feet of space or less. The inclined gabled roofs were decorated with blue shingles, some red, and others greened with moss. The ones with moss were slippery and could not be traversed at a rapid pace, as evidenced by Milton, who slipped and fell onto someone’s weight bench that was placed on one of the resident’s jutted balconies.
“You fool,” I yelled, as his contorted body laid on the resident’s rusted barbell. “I told you it was slippery.”
“Fuck, my back,” he said, as he slowly lifted his upper torso from the cracked, leather bench.
A muffled voice from inside the house began yelling.
“Come on. We were supposed to be inconspicuous,” I said.
I reached down and helped Milton back up onto the roof. He dusted himself off and we continued to cross the rooftops under the cover of the morning darkness, this time, a little bit more carefully.
We stopped and hid behind a large smokestack, which stuck out from the roof like a warship’s cannon. An old lady across the street stepped out on her balcony for an early morning smoke. Milton cocked his neck and pointed toward a thin, two-story home with hanging planters and red shingles three houses ahead.
“That is where Hu lives. Trust me, he’s amazing. We’ll bust through the door in the balcony which leads to his room. He smokes a ton of pot; hopefully, he’ll be so high he’ll just let us do whatever we ask.”
The old lady, dressed in only a robe and slippers, leaned over the railing, watching the cars pass by on their early morning commutes. Two soldiers with AK-47 rifles hanging on their shoulders walked past her house. One of them stopped and looked up at her. He held up the same flier Kai had brought up in the mountain.
“What’s he saying?” I asked.
“He’s asking if she’s seen any of the people on the flier.”
The old lady shook her head and the soldier lowered the flier. The other soldier, who looked rather emaciated and no more than 140 pounds soaking wet, asked her another question.
“Come on,
Milton, I need some play by play,” I anxiously said, peering from behind the chimney.
“He asked her to keep on the lookout for suspicious, pale, nocturnal men.”
“They really are sweeping Guilin City, aren’t they?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Milton.
The old lady flicked her butt toward the street below and retreated into her bedroom. The soldiers continued on their beat, looking in between alleyways and peering inside residents’ windows. I stood still and the morning sun began to illuminate the concrete streets and buildings of the city.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Milton, as he scaled the rooftops in front of him, effortlessly and nimbly landing on the lady smoker’s home. I followed him onto Hu’s rooftop, which had a ten-foot-tall parabolic antenna. We slipped onto the balcony, which was rather unkempt. Styrofoam containers were strewn about the floor. Empty cans of coconut juice were lined up on the balcony’s edge.
Milton slowly rotated the doorknob to Hu’s room.
“It’s open,” he gleefully said.
We walked in. Hu’s room was a disaster. More Styrofoam containers, this time with nasty old noodles sitting inside them, more cans, dirty clothes, and of course, Hu snoring away on his stained mattress, which had no linens to speak of.
Milton and I took off our masks. Milton kicked Hu in his lower back, startling him from his slumber.
“Hey... whoa, whoa,” he said, as he went from agitation into a state of panic. “Wait, Milton... please, I... I was going to pay you this weekend; no need to bring your sword.”
Hu was skinny, but had a small protruding gut. He had a full head of nappy dreadlocks, and a wispy goatee. His teeth were exceedingly yellow and looked like they were on the verge of decay.
“Oh, this thing?” Milton said, grabbing the handle of his sword which was tied to his back. “I wouldn’t use it on your pathetic, deadbeat bag of meat.”
Hu rubbed his eyes and squinted at me.
“Hey, you’re that guy the news has been talking about.”
Milton looked at me and smiled. “You’re famous, Jack.”
Great, it looked like all of southern China knew what I looked like, based on a shitty drawing.
I turned to Milton.
“I’m sorry but that picture looks nothing like me. They gave me a double chin. I don’t have a double chin.”
“It’s okay, Jack, we all know you’re good-looking,” Milton said facetiously.
“You’re not here for my money?” asked Hu.
“No. We need you to tap into all the security cameras around Guilin City. We are looking for some friends who have gone missing.”
Hu stood up and was only wearing a pair of black underwear. He picked up a joint from his nightstand and began lighting it.
“I don’t know, Milton. If the government finds out I’m hacking into the city’s surveillance cameras and aiding you freaks, I’ll be imprisoned. Or you can, you know? Forgive my debt?”
Milton smiled, realizing the morning sun was minutes away from rising, he gave into Hu’s suggestion.
“Debt forgiven, but you still know those students from the exchange at UCLA?” Milton asked.
“Yeah, what about them?” Hu took a long, deep toke from his joint.
“Jack here has given me an address to something I need to get my hands on; think they’d be up for the task?”
“They do need to pay off their loans,” Hu said, raising his joint at us.
“We’ll talk details later. You just need to prep them for their next job,” Milton said.
“No problem,” Hu said.
“Can you tell us a little about your setup?” asked Milton.
“With the system I have, you can see everything,” Hu said proudly.
Hu put on a black robe and led us down the stairs and into his living room. He had large gray receivers stacked up on top of each other against one of the walls. A stack of old 9-inch Philips and Magnavox screens sat in a pyramid formation on top of an old wooden table. With one flick of a switch, all ten screens immediately turned on, initially showing static. Hu began rotating a knob on one of the receivers and coherent images began to appear on the screens. “Just keep turning this knob to get the frequencies from a different set of cameras. I need to get ready for work,” he said. “Have fun, guys.”
Hu ran upstairs, presumably to get ready for another day at the university. Milton and I grabbed a couple of chairs and sat in front of the cameras.
“Let’s see, Binjiang is empty, not a soul on Nanhuan, Putuo, the Ximen Bridge, also no one. Zhongshan, too,” Milton said, as he scrolled through the cameras. “Jack, keep on an eye on those screens,” he said, pointing to the stack on the right-hand side.
“How many cameras does the city have?” I asked Milton.
“There are over a thousand active security cameras in Guilin City. We are under constant surveillance. Most of the residents are used to it or unaware,” remarked Hu, walking down the stairs while buttoning his shirt.
“When was the last time you were looking at these cameras?” asked Milton.
“Yesterday afternoon, why?”
“Did you happen to see a Chinese woman with a blonde woman and a scruffy, slightly overweight white guy?” asked Milton.
“Was the white woman very pretty?”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“Was she wearing a gray sweater and black tight yoga pants?” asked Hu.
“That’s her. Where did you see her? Was she with someone?” I asked.
“Nope, all alone,” said Hu. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“No, well... it’s complicated,” I said.
“Good job,” Hu said, giving me a fraternal punch to the chest.
“In all seriousness, you need to tell me where you saw her,” I asked.
“There is a campground on the northern outskirts of the city. There is a camera right outside one of the bathrooms where the female campers can take showers and freshen up. I love that camera because there is a small window where you can peek into the showers if you focus in with the camera,” Hu said with glee.
“You’re a sick pervert; you know that?” remarked Milton.
“Technology is powerful, my friend,” said Hu with a smile.
“We must go there now,” I said to Milton.
“No, we will wait until sundown. We can keep an eye on the campground,” said Milton.
“You can stay here then,” I said. “I’ll just go by myself.”
“Jack...”
“Listen, I will go get them. Their faces are plastered all over Guilin City. It’s just a matter of time before someone finds them,” I said.
“Are you kidding me, Jack? There are patrols everywhere in the city. The daylight is too risky, not only because it will fry you, but it will also be easier for them to recognize you in the daytime.”
I looked at Hu with an intense gaze.
“Do you have a car, a motorcycle... anything I can use to drive there?”
“I have a scooter in the garage,” he said.
“Let me use it?” I asked.
“Um... no,” he said.
Milton scowled at Hu. Hu drew down his eyes in submission.
“Fine, the keys are on the counter behind me,” Hu said. Hu looked at Milton, “Your friend better take care of my scooter; it’s the only transportation I have. I am not going to take the bus to work. People give me weird stares.”
“It’s because you look like a stupid pothead,” said Milton.
I grabbed the keys and bolted toward the stairs that led down to the garage. Milton didn’t put up any resistance as he let me go without a challenge.
“Jack?” he said loudly, immediately garnering my attention.
“Yeah,” I responded, halfway down the steps.
“I’ll keep an eye out for you. We’ll join you at the campground once Lucretius and Kai finish scouting the area and meet us here... be careful.”
I nodded my head and ran down the
steps toward the garage.
I grabbed Hu’s helmet, which rested on his workbench, and put it over my head. I made sure my gloves were tight and snug, as I didn’t want the emergent sun scorching my wrists. I sat on Hu’s red and white Vespa and pressed the garage door button on the wall. The door slowly lifted, revealing crisscrossing traffic, pedestrians on their way to work, and the blinding fog of the morning sun.
Chapter Fourteen
I arrived at the campsite after a thirty-minute ride outside the city.
The morning sun was in full effect, and I was roasting inside my black leather outfit. I parked the scooter in the empty parking lot of the campground. It was apparent that the park was in the midst of its off-season, as there were only a few cars scattered in the muddy lot. I looked behind me and I found the camera that Hu used to find Holly. I gave it a playful wave as I dismounted the scooter.
Across from me a large sign read, Seven Star Park, East Campground, in English and Mandarin. There was a trail that led to the campsites up ahead which lay at the base of one of the seven mountains that towered over the park. The group most likely got spooked after seeing their faces on the posters spread throughout the city and ventured into the heart of the park. I lowered the tinted visor of my helmet and walked onto the trail in search for clues.
As expected, the campsites were empty. Small wooden signs greeted me with a single character at every chain. Unused woks straddled the fire pits. I scanned the surroundings of the lush park as I moved through the campsite then approached one of the trails, which had a sign of a waterfall at its entrance.
After ten minutes of walking up the trail, I heard the sound of water splashing onto the rocks. I could see the mist from the cascading rapids emanating from the thick overgrowth of plants, trees, and flowers down the side of the trail. The main waterfall was just up ahead.
I heard the sound of an engine and looked behind me. I could see the parking lot from above. A small white produce truck pulled in right next to my motorcycle. Two black masked men got out of the cabin of the truck and one of them proceeded to go to behind the truck. A tall lanky man suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
