Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel

by Geoffrey C Porter

  Dawn said, "We need to hide."

  All the houses on both sides of the street were pitch black, and most were boarded up. I pointed at one that had windows in the basement, and a back door that wasn't boarded up. I ran towards a back window and started wrenching away at the board in the way. No way I'd fit through there, but I looked at Erin. She used the butt of the grenade launcher to shatter the glass. She went in.

  We stood on the back porch and waited. The door creaked open, and we went inside. The house smelled musty and moldy. Erin lit her Zippo giving us a tiny shred of light. I said, "Upstairs."

  There were three bedrooms upstairs, and we picked out the biggest one. Everything was quiet.

  I pulled out my satellite phone and dialed agent nine. He answered, "Hello."

  "I have a problem," I said.

  "You did something stupid again?"

  "Again? When did I do something stupid before?"

  "Irrelevant. What's the problem?"

  I looked around at my team. "The warehouse has been compromised. We went out at night. We're hiding in an abandoned house."

  Agent nine didn’t say anything.

  "Can you detonate the explosives in the armory remotely?" I asked.

  "No!" Erin said.

  "Huh?"

  "Fred is in that warehouse!"

  I shook my head. "We can't let the vampires get all the explosives and weapons." I spoke into the phone, "Can you do it?"

  "I'm trying to find the right passcode right now," he said. "There are over two thousand pounds of TNT hidden in the walls, plus we'll detonate the claymores. Level the whole thing."

  "No," Erin cried.

  I said, "I'm sorry."

  A giant boom sent a vibration through the house we were in. Agent nine said, "It's done."

  "Bastards," she said.

  I turned the satellite phone off.

  Erin extinguished her Zippo. "Did you think to bring cards, Nathan?"

  "We should look for candles or something, so we're not in the dark all night," Dawn said.

  "No. We don't want light," I said. "Those vampires know we're near here. They're going to look."

  What sounded like a small batch of firecrackers sounded from far away. Then more. Then an almost constant rattle of gunfire. Pup was the first to make it to a window. "My God."

  We all went to windows. Fires burned here and there. Vampires were out in droves, going from house to house. Some houses they went inside, and some they lit on fire.

  "They're infecting everybody," Nathan said.

  "Houses where people are shooting back, they're lighting on fire," Erin said.

  My eyes started to pulse as my heart raced faster than ever before.

  Pup said, "This is what war looks like."

  "Report on ammo," I said.

  "I have about 40 rounds in a belt for my M-240. Three magazines for my Glock."

  "I don't know why I'm still carrying this M-240, it's heavy, and I got almost nothing on it," Nathan said.

  "Glock magazines?" I asked.

  Nathan shrugged. "Three."

  "I have one more magazine full of grenades," Erin said. "But I only brought one mag for my Glock."

  Dawn said, "I might have five shots left."

  "Pup, Nathan, hand over a couple of magazines for Dawn," I said.

  I checked my own status. I found a Glock magazine and two magazines for my Colt. I handed the Glock one to Dawn. She stuffed magazines in her pockets and adjusted her backpack.

  I switched the Colt to my left hand and drew my sword. Nathan nodded and did the same.

  "We can't stay here and hide. Our place is in the thick of it," I said.

  "We go down there. We kill as many as we can," Nathan said.

  "This is why I joined up," Pup said.

  "'Blaze of glory,' he said," Erin said with a toothy grin.

  We raced out of the house onto the street.

  Chapter 49

  We did our best to stay hidden, but we came upon groups of vampires in the street. Nathan and I used our blades on most of them. Some we shot. One by one and in pairs, people started coming out of their houses. They joined up with us, and we started marching through the city. We made our way downtown to a park and waited out dawn's early light. There were easily fifty of us in total. Most were sitting down. Nathan, Erin, Pup, Dawn, and myself were huddled around in the center.

  "We got nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Tomorrow there will be thousands of vampires hitting the streets craving blood," Dawn said.

  Pup pointed off at the rising sun. "This whole town is dead. We've got to get out."

  "There's nowhere to go."

  "Anywhere is better than here," Erin said.

  "We do have that settlement," I said.

  Dawn said, "Where they make the moonshine?"

  "Yeah."

  "Cool."

  Fifty pairs of eyes were burning into us. I look out at them. "How many of you have vehicles?"

  About half the people raised their hands. It would be enough.

  I pulled out my satellite phone. Agent nine spoke first, "You been watching the news?"

  I said, "No TV."

  "Yeah. The vampires. They've gone crazy. Everywhere. Every place on the globe. They're turning people as fast as they can. It's over." He seemed to be sobbing, the shit. “There are hundreds of times more of them than we thought.

  "I have bullets left, you piece of shit."

  "How many of you are there? Four?" He asked.

  "I've got fifty people here. We're going to the settlement!"

  Agent nine laughed and laughed.

  "We need weapons, armor, and comm gear!" I said.

  The laughter stopped. "If you can make it to the air force base, they'll have some equipment they can spare."

  "Thanks."

  "Good luck, Sidney."

  Part II

  Chapter One

  My eyes moved from person to person making sure there was no blood, no injuries.

  "Your cars are back the way we came?" I asked.

  People nodded. One said, "Oregon District."

  "Huh?"

  Dawn punched me on the arm. "Dayton's bar district. We just fought a battle right in the heart of it."

  Okay. I walked back the way we'd come. Somebody called out, "Where are we going?"

  "We've got a safe place, safe from vampires at least," Nathan said, "but it's a thousand miles west."

  Dawn turned to face the crowd. "They've got moonshine waiting for us!"

  Every so often a car went by as we walked to Fifth Street. We turned left. We went right at the first street in the bar district. There were bodies here and there. No time to bury the dead. People went in houses for keys and started cars. The rest of us continued to walk.

  "Should we spread out?" Pup asked.

  "I want to keep the group together," I replied.

  Pretty soon we had too many cars to navigate the side streets. I touched Pup's arm. "Take these people with cars to a parking lot. Do you know a place?"

  Pup nodded. "Big apartment building by Fifth and Keowee. They've got a parking lot."

  "Do you know where that is, Dawn?"

  "Yup," she said.

  "Go, go!" I said.

  Somebody I didn't know went into a house and screamed. I ran towards the shouting.

  A middle-aged woman came running out in tears. "My son has been bitten."

  "There's no cure," I said, perhaps callously. "No treatment.

  "How can there be no treatment!"

  "You know what I have to do."

  Nathan stepped forward. "I'll do it."

  "No," the woman cried. "He might pull through."

  "He's going to turn for sure."

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  "Beth." She had crow's feet next to her eyes.

  A young man maybe seventeen stumbled out of the house. He'd been bitten on the neck, and blood covered his front. Nathan swung with precision, lopping off the head. It fell onto the
wooden porch and did indeed make a melon kind of sound when it landed.

  Beth collapsed into me, crying. I patted her on the back. We didn't have time for this.

  "Where are your keys?" I asked.

  "Inside on the counter," she said.

  Nathan ran to get them. She held on tight to me like I was some kind of beacon of hope in a sea of death and pain. We all paused for a moment. Nathan held the keys out. Beth wiped tears out of her eyes and took the keys from him. She climbed in a sedan and started it. We collected more vehicles until once again it was too many to really navigate the streets.

  "Dawn, where is this parking lot?" I asked.

  She pointed. "Go back to Fifth Street, turn right, you'll run into it."

  "Take the people and cars we've got."

  She hopped in an SUV, and they took off.

  Within about fifteen minutes, we reached the end of the residential section. The last car was a convertible, and I asked the driver his name. He had brown hair and was thin.

  "Henry."

  "Nathan, Erin, ride with Henry and me," I said. "I'll feel better with the top down."

  "Vampires around every corner," Erin said, "and he'll feel better with the top down."

  "You'd think as old as he is he'd be smarter," Nathan said.

  I snarled at those fuckers.

  Henry pushed a switch after throwing two levers in the roof. The top cranked down.

  "It's stolen," Henry said.

  "For real?" Nathan asked.

  "For real, but I've had it over a month."

  Henry drove. We found the parking lot with the others no problem. It was quiet. Dayton was always quiet in the daytime, but this was an uncanny quiet of not even a single engine, besides those we were running. I didn't bother to count how many cars we had. We had enough, that's what mattered.

  I realized I didn't know how to find the air base, or which gate to go to or anything.

  I pulled out my satellite phone. Pushed the button. "Agent Nine."

  "Where is the air base?"

  "You're still alive?" He asked.

  "Yeah, we'll likely last until at least nightfall. Then doom."

  "You need to get the hell out of Dayton."

  "Show me the way," I said.

  "Can you find Third Street?" He asked.

  "Aye."

  "Take that until you reach Spinning. There's a gate there. They'll be waiting. Hurry."

  I hung up the phone. I stood up in the convertible and looked back on the masses. "We're going to the air base for supplies and weapons. Follow us!"

  Henry steered out of the parking lot. He took a left on some main road, then a right on Third Street. I looked back, and everybody was following. Almost no cars on the road going either way. Then a car came in our direction. The car twisted into the road to block our path. A kid stepped out. No blood on him, no bites.

  "Where you guys headed?" The kid asked. A second kid sat nervously on the passenger side holding a pistol with shaky hands. I say kids, but they were likely twenty-years-old.

  I once again stood up in the car. I loved convertibles. "What's your name?"

  "Josh."

  "We're heading to the air base then getting the hell out of Dayton."

  "Out of Dayton, sounds like a plan. Can we come?" Josh asked.

  "Fall in behind us."

  "Hell, I'll lead the way."

  He turned his car around and headed up Third Street.

  Chapter Two

  We drove down a five lane road. A major intersection was just behind us, and we were coming to another light, when Erin hit my arm and pointed left.

  Hangars sat in a field. A gate was up ahead on our left. Josh pulled his car in as did Henry. A few box trucks were arranged in a circle, with men in uniform carrying machine guns. The cars that followed ours pulled to the side of the road.

  I climbed out of the convertible. The men in uniform raised their guns and covered the lot of us. "Whoa. Agent Nine sent us. We're the vampire slayers," I said.

  One by one the men lowered their weapons.

  An officer of some sort stepped forward. I mostly figured that because he was older. He spoke in a loud and clear voice. "We have room for the civilians. We have a fort."

  No better than our fort. I waved back at everybody. "You can go with them or come with us."

  About half the civilians stepped forward. One person said, "We would be happier with the military."

  I smiled my best I-don't-give-a-fuck smile. "What does the air force have for us, sir?"

  The officer walked over to an SUV. "Six extra large Kevlar vests."

  "Six?"

  He raised one eyebrow. "You're lucky you're getting six. We've turned away three different groups asking for supplies heading out of town."

  "Okay. What else?" I asked.

  "A dozen 9mm pistols, and 2,000 rounds of hollow point ammo."

  I wasn't going to bitch. Most of our people already had a pistol.

  "Tell me, you've got at least one high powered sniper rifle with a scope," I said.

  Nathan pushed himself forward. "For me!"

  Pup still carried a belt-fed machine gun, although it looked like it had maybe six shots left.

  The officer pulled two cases out of another truck. He pushed one towards Nathan. The other he handed me. I grabbed it. "Who wants sniper duty!"

  A young kid with dirt on his face stepped forward and held out his hands. "This is why I'm not going with the military."

  "What's your name?"

  "Adam."

  I handed him the case. He opened it and started drooling.

  The air force guy spoke again. "We got three two-hundred round boxes of belt fed 7.62mm."

  "Dibs!" Pup shouted.

  "The rounds will fit in those rifles, too."

  I raised my hand. "If I know Agent Nine, you've got more stuff for us."

  The officer pulled a small box about the size of a loaf of bread out of a vehicle. "Water straws, purifiers."

  The officer picked up a laptop and grabbed my arm. He pulled me behind one of the trucks. Pointing at the laptop, he spoke in a hushed tone, "This is a control panel for a satellite based weapon. An array of powerful lasers. The controls are simple. Pull up your location on a topographical map, draw a box around where you are, push the big red button. Hell and brimstone will rain on everything not in the box you draw."

  Cool. Just what I wanted.

  "It's only good for one shot, maybe," he said. "It's actually good for close to twenty shots, but you're not the only ugly fucker who has one of these control panels. Use it wisely."

  I'm not exactly ugly. Okay, maybe I am. "What kind of blast radius are we talking about?"

  "Three hundred yards give or take. And before you ask, yes, it will destroy vehicles in that radius."

  I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. He smiled. "Let's go back to the others. Oh and there's no charger for that targeting device, so it's not a toy."

  "Understood."

  Dawn smiled at us on our return. "Do you have any survival kits? Maybe Mylar blankets? Wound dressings?"

  The officer nodded. "Yes, I should have thought of that. We've got enough blankets for everybody, plus parkas for some of you. I've got five first aid kits I can give you."

  "You're a good man."

  "Tell that to my wife."

  The man next to the officer said, "You mean your ex-wife?"

  The officer wiped a tear out of his eye.

  "Let's get this stuff packed," I said. "Everybody who doesn't have a pistol gets a 9mm and a box of ammo. We don't have holsters."

  People started moving. Dawn made sure everybody grabbed a blanket. The first aid kits went in separate vehicles.

  We were finished. "Now," I asked, "how do we get out of Dayton?"

  "My car has GPS," Henry said. "Plus, if we're heading west, we just need to get to I-70 and take that. It'll take us all the way to Colorado."

  I reached out to shake hands with the officer in ch
arge. "Thank you."

  We shook. He pulled me in close and whispered in my ear. "Kill every one of those fuckers you encounter. Every one."

  "It's pretty much my sole purpose in life. You can count on me."

  We piled into the vehicles. Drove up Third Street until it hit 675. We took that North to I-70. Which seemed like going the long way, as if there should have been a more direct route. We hit the highway and cruised.

  Chapter Three

  The first big city we hit outside of Dayton was Richmond. It seems like the whole city was smoldering. A few vehicles here and there were stopped, but nobody was inside. We came upon a traffic jam, but the emergency lane and side of the road were clear. A few people tried to wave us down.

  "We should stop," Erin said.

  I touched Henry, our driver, on the shoulder. "Let's at least talk to them."

  A handful of people came running. Each one with a bite mark somewhere.

  "Get us out of here!" I shouted.

  Nathan raised his rifle.

  "Save your bullets," I said.

  Henry hit the gas on the convertible, and we made it past the blocked part of the road. A police car was up ahead, with somebody in it. He seemed to be talking on the radio then drove off. Once we hit freeway and corn-fields, I told Henry to keep it under 80.

  "This car was clearly designed to go faster," he replied. The car was, in fact, a GT Mustang, although older.

  "Yes, but we're in a caravan."

  "Oh, right."

  "I haven't eaten today!" Nathan said.

  "I'm hungry, too," Erin said.

  I looked into the distance. Up ahead was a sign for a gas station. "We stop there."

  "Yay!"

  We blocked the road around the station. The door was locked, and the lights were off.

  Was I really prepared to steal? Did we have a choice? I couldn't think of any other options. One of the guys with us raised a shotgun and blasted the window.

  Dawn reached over and kissed me, which was ideal behavior as far as I was concerned. "We may not need gas now, but we're going to need gas," she said.

  People were grabbing snacks and eating them. The drinks were cold, and a few people grabbed alcoholic beverages. Three people stole tobacco. I stopped somebody hauling beef jerky to their car and ate some.

  "Does anybody know how to work the gas pumps?" I asked.