Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel

by Geoffrey C Porter

  "I heard Dayton gets big nests."

  "Most are only six or seven vampires," Lambert said.

  "Yeah, right," Ben said. "The last one we hit had eleven."

  "I meant how many I have to kill."

  Father Titus cleared his throat. "Now that everyone has been properly introduced, I believe I'll depart."

  Manuel said, "Fair enough."

  "Thank you for the ride, Father," Simon said.

  Father Titus said, "God bless you, each of you."

  Once Father Titus left, Simon started looking from one to the other of us until finally I felt like breaking the silence. "Any thoughts on what you'd like for dinner, Simon?"

  "No."

  "What about pepper? Do you like spicy food?"

  Simon looked at me. "You are the cook aren't you?"

  "I cook, yes. I tried eating what they ate before I came here, and I'd rather cook."

  Ben said, "I'd rather he cook, too."

  "I meant no insult when I called him our cook," Manuel said. "He makes the most delicious spaghetti."

  Simon said, "I haven't had spaghetti in ages."

  "I could make spaghetti tonight," I said. "I'll have to improvise for the garlic bread though as I'm not sure what kind of bread we have."

  Manuel smiled. "You'll figure something out."

  "I'm going to stow my stuff," Simon said. "Will you come get me when it's time for dinner?"

  Lambert reached over and tapped our intercom system. "There's an intercom in each room. You'll hear Sidney."

  Simon wandered off.

  Manuel leaned back in his chair and crossed his fingers behind his head. Ben and Lambert walked off.

  I looked at Manuel and raised one eyebrow. "You won't put Simon through any kind of tests before fielding him?"

  "He has spent the last six years of his life being tested. He's ready. He might choke. Fear might get to him, but likely he'll do fine."

  The spaghetti that night turned out good even though I had to make garlic bread with wheat bread. Simon said a small prayer at the start of dinner. He ate methodologically and politely asked for seconds.

  Lambert pushed his plate away from himself. "I met a girl."

  "How did you meet a girl?" Manuel asked. "You haven't been out of the warehouse."

  "I met a girl on the internet. I want to meet her for real."

  Ben said, "It's against the rules."

  "Screw the rules! This girl wants to have sex with me."

  Manuel spun noodles onto his fork but didn't bite. "How would you meet her? You can't just walk in and out of the warehouse…"

  "There's the escape tunnel. I could go out through it. Please, Manuel. She's a little vixen."

  Ben said, "The rules are there for a reason."

  "Fuck you, Ben. Just because you're too fat to find a girl."

  "Hey!"

  Manuel said, "Rules are rules."

  "I'll resign from the team," Lambert said. "We've got five, I can quit."

  Manuel sighed and finally put the forkful of spaghetti in his mouth. "We can't afford to lose you. Let's vote on it."

  "Nay, if I'm not getting any," Ben said. "He's not getting any."

  "I just got here today," Simon said. "I can't vote on something like this. This spaghetti is good!"

  "Emily changed my life," I said. "I wouldn't want to stop somebody from having that kind of happiness in their life. It's ok with me."

  "So, once again it's upon me. I've never been that much for rules. Perhaps she has friends…" Manuel said.

  Ben said, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that."

  "What's the girl's name?" I asked.

  Lambert smiled. "Samantha."

  There was a bit of a pause, and Simon said, "Do we practice tonight?"

  Ben said, "They had you practicing at night?"

  "Most nights, yeah."

  "He must have been with the Jesuits," Manuel said.

  Simon said, "Yes."

  "We don't practice usually," Lambert said. "We have been to bring Sidney up to speed, and Ben is exercising daily because he's fat. When the team's at full strength, we get enough practice in the field."

  Ben said, "I'm not that fat!"

  "Still, if we don't go into the field on any given day, you'll be running the stairs or the hallway and no desserts," Manuel said,

  Ben growled much like I would expect a monitor lizard to growl.

  Simon said, "Well, what am I supposed to do?"

  Lambert smiled.

  "There's a computer in your room," Manuel said. "Surely there are games, music, and pornography on it. We have cable television."

  "Pornography?" Simon asked.

  Ben said, "Pictures of naked women."

  Simon's eyes went wide. "That's a sin."

  Lambert laughed. "It's perfectly natural."

  "I had to delete so much porn off Henry's computer it was awe-inspiring: he had the stuff buried in almost every directory," I said. "Just delete all of it, Simon. In fact, if you look in the supply cabinet, there's a fresh operating system install DVD, and there's a ton of games in there on the bottom shelf. Just do a clean install of the OS, and install whatever games you want to play."

  Simon looked at me confused. "Huh?"

  "Either delete the porn, or delete everything by reinstalling the computer's base operating system," Manuel said.

  Simon's muscles in his face flexed. "I don't know how to do that. I surely don't want to sort through and delete pictures of naked women."

  "I can help him get a fresh operating system installed," I said.

  "Good. We're going to hit a nest in the morning," Manuel said. "It's been scouted, and we're sure about it."

  Simon asked, "How do you find the nests?"

  "There's a community support network out there," Lambert said. "People can report suspicious nighttime activity. We get hundreds of reports a day. A small handful of them we scout during the daytime, and we take thermal pictures of the houses at night. If we're one hundred percent sure, we hit the nest."

  Simon cracked his knuckles, and an ever widening grin spawned on his face.

  He and I went upstairs, and I showed him how to reinstall an operating system. Put the install DVD in and wait for it to boot. I noticed quickly that he had a faster computer than mine. Once he had internet, he largely threw me out.

  The next morning we all put our gear on and headed out of the warehouse as if we were going to the grocery store or some other errand. The only difference was slight: Manuel and Ben had green bags over their shoulders containing the explosives.

  We turned down a residential street, and all the houses looked the same. The first-floor windows were all boarded up. Most of the second-floor windows were covered with thick curtains, blinds or in some cases blankets. We pulled to a stop, and Manuel said, "House number 5916."

  Ben and Lambert took off between two houses to get to an alleyway behind all the houses. Manuel, Simon, and I stepped out of the van and approached 5916. We stayed in the street and crouched behind a car. Manuel pulled a cone shaped device out of his knapsack and said, "These will blast pretty much any door other than a steel reinforced door open. We put two on the door, one below the knob, and one above the knob. We'll take turns doing it. I'll do it today. You simply remove the wax paper from the end exposing the adhesive to the air. Then you just stick the bomb to the door and arm it."

  I said, "OK."

  Simon nodded.

  Manuel said, "Cover me with your pistols."

  Ben spoke over the comm gear, "Ready to plant."

  Manuel said, "Go!"

  Then Manuel darted around the car and approached 5916. He kneeled down in front of the door and listened. Then he peeled the wax paper off and planted the first device. He paused again, listening. Then he planted the second device. He armed both of them. He stayed low and scurried back to the cover of the car. Ben said, "We're ready."

  Manuel looked at Simon and me. Both of us were watching the door. Manuel said, "You morons. Don
't watch the explosion. You can lose an eye that way. Duck."

  Simon and I ducked under cover of the car.

  Manuel withdrew a remote from his pocket. "Fire in the hole!"

  He pushed the button, and the loudest bang I've ever heard echoed. The sound of the doors hitting the floor followed. Simon drew his blade and charged the house. I was close on his heels. Manuel followed behind me with his 9mm drawn.

  Simon burst into the house, and a vampire showed his fanged white teeth. Simon opened up the vampire's throat and kicked him to the side. Another vampire came charging at us from an adjoining room, and Simon's blade seemed to move with a mind of its own opening up the vampire from groin to sternum. The vampire still tried to bite at Simon, and he punched it in the nose, hard. It fell to the ground and started twitching.

  One poked its head out from the top of the stairs and pointed a revolver at Simon. I blasted him with my 9mm. Three quick shots and the vampire came rolling down the stairs.

  Lambert stepped into the room with Ben right behind him. Lambert's sword was covered in blood, but he was clean. Lambert said, "You guys want the basement?"

  Simon said, "Yeah," with a grin.

  Lambert stepped over the dead vampire on the stairs and started climbing. Ben stayed right behind him. Simon took the lead and headed into the kitchen. He opened the door to the basement, and a shotgun blast from downstairs hit him right on the chest. He fell backward, and I stepped forward aiming down the stairs and squeezing off rounds like they were candy. The shotgun didn't sound again. Simon pushed himself past me and headed down the stairs.

  I slammed a fresh magazine into my 9mm and followed Simon down the stairs. A vampire with a crowbar met Simon at the base of the stairs, and Simon's blade flashed again piercing through the vampire's eye and into his brain. Simon looked for a light switch at the bottom of the stairs, and the whole room lit up. Simon said, "Go left!"

  I turned to my left, and three vampires stood there hissing at me with inch long fangs, one fumbled with loading a pistol, one with a baseball bat, and one with a short sword of some kind. I aimed at the one loading the pistol and squeezed off three shots at his chest in the blink of an eye. Gunfire thundered from behind me, but I didn't dare turn.

  I gunned down the vampire with the sword and then ducked under the baseball bat the other one so kindly swung at my head. I aimed low on him and squeezed the trigger getting him in the gut. He went down, and I sank two more bullets in him for good measure. I turned around to see Simon, and he was just standing there over the bodies of three vampires. His eyes were wild: twitching from body to body.

  I said, "You did good."

  "They look so human."

  "Not if you look at their teeth. And I saw plenty of teeth today."

  Chapter 10

  Once the nest was secure, Manuel called the authorities, and police and ambulances showed up. The police searched the house collecting armaments, and paramedics put vampires in body bags and hauled them out of the house for disposal. The police condemned the house and put tape all around it. We headed back to the warehouse.

  Manuel pulled the van to a stop. "That worked perfectly."

  "As in, you didn't have to do anything?" Lambert asked.

  "Hey, I set the charges."

  "You didn't kill any though did you?"

  Simon said, "Sidney and I got them all."

  "The leader isn't supposed to be in the front," I said.

  We all climbed out of the van, and Lambert shouted, "Dibs on the shower!"

  Simon sighed deeply. He was covered in blood.

  "Let Simon use the shower first," Manuel said. "He got the worst of it."

  Lambert spun around in a tight little circle. "Fine."

  Simon went and showered, and the rest of us stowed our weapons in the armory. I looked at Manuel. "Can I have my .45 back?"

  Ben said, "Why?"

  "One, I'd like to carry it in the field," I said. "Two, when you took it from me, you promised I could sleep with it under my pillow."

  "You're not really going to sleep with a loaded pistol under your pillow," Lambert said.

  "No, but I would like to have it back. I got it from my dad. I want a second gun going into those nests."

  Manuel shook his head back and forth. "You can check it out of the armory when we get our pistols out."

  "Sometimes I can't get to sleep at night because I'm too worried that the warehouse isn't truly safe."

  "They aren't going to breach our defenses without us knowing," Ben said.

  "I'll sleep better at night."

  "I keep sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet," Lambert said.

  "I don't want to take pills. You promised you'd give it back when you took it."

  Manuel stared me in the eyes and then shrugged. "I did give my word to a degree. It's in that filing cabinet over there in the bottom drawer."

  I went to the filing cabinet and bent down to the bottom drawer. I opened it and saw my .45 sitting on top of a pile of assorted handguns. At least ten pistols, mostly high caliber, lay in the drawer underneath mine.

  I grabbed my .45 and holster. "Thanks."

  "If you shoot yourself, we won't even bury you," Manuel said. "We'll throw the body in the woods and let the animals feast on your rotting flesh."

  Huh? What the heck was going on inside their minds? "I won't shoot myself. Do you really think there are that many animals left in the woods around here?"

  Ben rubbed at his chin. "He's got a good point."

  Manuel leaned way back in his chair making me ponder if he was going to fall over. He said, "We may have to drive two or three hundred miles, but we'll find some woods with animals."

  "We could always take the body to a pig farm and feed him to the pigs," Lambert said.

  "Yes, excellent idea."

  "Perhaps throw him in the river," Ben said as he pulled a piece of chocolate out of some hidden pocket. "Or hang him from a tree and let the birds peck out his eyes."

  "You could have me mounted and stuffed for all I care," I said. "I'm not going to shoot myself."

  Lambert pointed at the pistol and frowned. "He's planning on shooting us with it."

  "I am not!"

  "Why do you want it?" Ben asked. "There are only us and you in the warehouse."

  "I think I'll sleep better if I have it." I fingered the cool metal that was the end of the magazine. "I worry about them coming into the warehouse."

  "I can reach my sword from where I sleep, and that's enough for me," Manuel said. "If they come to this place, I'll slaughter them."

  "The vampires don't come into the slayer's nests. That's like a mouse wandering into a rattlesnake's nest. The mouse doesn't make it out." Lambert turned and left.

  "Still, I have bad dreams." The repetitive nature of the dreams bothered me for sure, but more importantly, why did I dream so often of pumpkins when it wasn’t the Emily dream?

  "It's fine. You did good today, Sidney," Manuel said. "I was impressed. I was sure either you or Simon would screw up."

  "Thanks, boss."

  I left the armory, and Simon stepped out of the bathroom headed towards his room. I dodged into the bathroom afterward and showered. Didn't have blood on me or anything, but the killing that day made me sweat. It was late summer, and the armor was a great insulator.

  As I dried off, the helicopter thumped through the building. I couldn't help but wonder what we got in the mail. I ran and dried off only to put my armor right back on over fresh clothes. By the time I made it downstairs to help unload, the helicopter was already taking off. Lambert had a stack of boxes. Ben had one big box. Manuel was empty handed. I said, "None for me?"

  Lambert said, "Did you order anything?"

  "I can order stuff?"

  Manuel's eyebrows raised, and his eyes darted left and right. "You thought when the helicopter drops stuff off that it's just random what they send?"

  "Well, other than my armor the helicopter has only been here twice counting today."<
br />
  "We have a PO box; order whatever you want. You have to wait sometimes, though. I ordered this stuff two weeks ago," Ben said.

  Manuel said, "What did you get?"

  "It's a surprise. Don't worry, I'll share."

  The words, order whatever you want, echoed in my brain, and the sinister engines within started turning ever so smoothly. My first thought was mail order USDA Prime beef. "What about perishables? Will they expedite perishables?"

  "You can't order steaks… We tried," Manuel said.

  "Lambert would have boiled them anyway," Ben said.

  Lambert clenched his fists. "I was going to broil them in the oven."

  Simon stepped into the loading dock. "What the heck was that noise?"

  Lambert said, "Our helicopter."

  "You guys have a helicopter?"

  "Our mail gets sent to the air force base, and they deliver it to us via helicopter," Manuel said. "Dogs go through everything first to make sure nobody tried to sneak in an explosive device."

  Ben left, heading for the kitchen.

  "I'm going to go try this stuff on," Lambert said.

  He left.

  Simon said, "What's our mailing address?"

  Manuel wrote down the address on two pieces of paper handing one to me and one to Simon.

  "What about fruit?" I asked. "Can I order fruit?"

  "When we ordered steak the ice all melted, and they were a bit rancid by the time they got to us," Manuel said.

  Simon said, "Can't you get fruit at a grocery store?"

  "Yeah, but mail order fruit is so good," I said. "Usually vine-ripened, organic, and hand picked."

  Manuel looked at Simon. "He's a glutton."

  "I have to eat!"

  "How do I pay for stuff I want?" Simon asked. "I don't have a credit card."

  Manuel tapped his fingernail on the desk a few times and winked. "You made thousands today. I'll get a credit card for you."

  I asked, "Do I get paid?"

  "Yeah, how much do you want? Remember some of it gets invested."

  "I don't know. Maybe a grand."

  "I can do a grand for you."

  A smell caught my nose, and I sniffed. Manuel and Simon both looked around and sniffed, too. Simon asked, "What is that smell?"