Releasing A Vampire

by Jacky Dahlhaus

  The three of us didn’t watch any more news that weekend as we were all too busy making teaching plans and strategies for the coming week. When we arrived in the staffroom on Monday morning, there was a buzz with news about vampires, chaos, and death. Mrs. Sloan, the history teacher, was crying and snottering while others tried to calm her down. Apparently, her daughter was lost; she lived in Portland. Other teachers stood in little groups, whispering, as if in a conspiracy about something. Charlie wasn’t there as he always went straight to his classroom in the morning. His excuse was that he needed time to set up equipment for the first lesson, but I knew better.

  When Mr. Finkle emerged from his office and entered the staff room, everybody became quiet and looked at him for guidance. He wasn’t a bulky man nor particularly handsome, more of a weasel really, and as such didn’t entice any respect from his looks. However, as he stood there, with his hands on his hips waiting for everybody to be quiet, he knew that we would listen to him. He was after all the Head Teacher. It was obvious from the grin on his face that he enjoyed this role. He changed his facial features to a more serious one.

  “I know they say there is a grave situation going on. However, I don’t want to give in to mass hysteria. We must think of the children. We mustn’t worry them with grown-up’s problems.” His gaze went around the room again. “Therefore we’ll continue teaching and not talk about it at all in the school.”

  The majority of teachers nodded in agreement and told each other ‘not to worry the children.’ Mrs. Sloan burst out into another crying session, her morbidly obese frame shaking with every sob.

  Mr. Finkle’s speech blew my mind.

  This is such old-fashioned ostrich policy!

  I raised my arm in protest, but Sue grabbed it before my hand went past my head and held it down. I turned to her, frowning.

  “It’s of no use,” she whispered, “nobody will listen.”

  I looked around and saw everybody already leaving the staff room as if nothing had happened.

  “We’ll talk at lunchtime,” Sue said as she left for her class as well.

  Over the next few days, it became clear that this epidemic was actually a pandemic. On TV they showed us reports of attacks coming from all over the world and they said that the number of victims was rising steeply. I thought this terminology of ‘victims’ was very inappropriate. These suckers don’t seem in the least disabled, physically or mentally.

  It appeared that somehow the affliction had spread under the radar and had burst out all over the planet. They couldn’t find patient zero. At first, they didn’t know whether it was caused by bacteria or a virus or something new entirely. Some quickly-done research made it clear it was caused by a virus. A bioscientist on TV told the public they named the unknown virus the ‘Succedaneum’ virus as this meant ‘substitute.’ The virus didn’t turn people into the living dead but into another, blood-sucking form of humans. People began calling them ‘suckers’ from then on.

  Is this disease finally going to be the end of humanity?

  When not teaching, we were glued to the TV screen, hungry for more information. Little by little more information was released.

  Next, they told us that the suckers had their own form of ‘kryptonite’; it was sunlight. They were extremely photo-sensitive. We already knew that they were shunning daylight and only coming out at night, but they hadn’t told us why in the beginning. It appeared that when exposed to sunlight, they would instantly have an epileptic seizure, the full tonic-clonic one. You never saw movies where vampires had epileptic seizures when they were exposed to sunlight. They usually disintegrated into a pile of dust, some faster than others, depending on which movie you were watching and what budget they had been able to acquire. I pointed out they would have to clean up whole bodies now, instead of using a brush and dustpan, which was going to be a lot more costly. Charlie and Sue nearly rolled on the floor laughing. It was a release of tension we all needed badly. It wasn’t so funny when they showed us images on the TV of suckers having epileptic seizures when exposed to the sun.

  On Thursday it all of a sudden became very close to home for me and so much more real; I couldn’t contact my parents anymore. They didn’t pick up the phone, weren’t online, and they didn’t own any cell phones. Earlier in the week I had told them to come to my place, but they insisted it was just a fad and that it would soon fly over. I became afraid of their fate. I wanted to jump in my car and drive home. Sue and Charlie fortunately physically stopped me and argued that it would be senseless as the army had closed off the roads into and out of the cities, trying to contain the situation. So I frantically tried to contact my sisters, to find out if they were okay and if they had heard anything from Mom and Dad. This had no result either. The naval base Maxine was living on was probably in lockdown and I felt relief in the thought that at least she would be safe. I couldn’t get a hold of Julie, which worried me. Her cell phone kept going to answering machine mode. As she was living in a country town not far from me she was probably okay. She probably just forgot to charge her cell.

  She is a very self-sufficient girl, I shouldn’t worry about her.

  Sue couldn’t get a hold of her family either and to drive south would be too dangerous. Charlie didn’t have any real family to be worried about. His parents had died years ago in a car accident and he wasn’t in contact with his aunt, his only living relative. He didn’t even know where she lived.

  By Friday all communications had stopped. During the week, one TV station after another had ceased to broadcast. Then the radio went silent. The internet still worked, so to speak, but there were no broadcasts, no news flashes. Less and less people tried to contact one another. People giving out locations of safe places ceased to communicate and we could only speculate that the suckers had followed their directions. By this time, Bullsbrook was in total chaos. People were rampaging through town. Some were trying to fortify their houses, some were plundering the supermarkets for food, and others were looting as much as they could. As if a large flat screen TV could save you from suckers.

  The End

  Suckers Trilogy

  Book 1

  Living Like A Vampire

  Friday Evening - Deciding To Leave

  On Friday night, October 15th, 2004, Sue, Charlie and I, three new teachers at Bullsbrook high school, sat in The Celtic Frog, the local bar. We occupied the corner booth that we had made our own since we had arrived in town two months ago. The bar was the only place that appeared to continue as usual since the start of the sucker pandemic a week ago. The bar owners, a couple called Abby and René, still served drinks and the usual patrons hung off the bar or sat in their usual seats.

  There were, however, a large number of new customers. They were refugees escaping the city. The first ones arrived six days ago, but their number had steadily grown. In the beginning we didn’t think anything of it, just an unusual time of the year to get vacationers. As the news reports became increasingly scary, more and more arrived and today the biggest wave hit. Their conversations were hushed and anxious. We could hear snippets of horror stories about people being chased, herded, and slaughtered like cattle. We, too, sat huddled in our corner booth, whispering, discussing what to do next.

  All of a sudden, we heard a commotion. I had heard a man talk loudly minutes before, but now people shrieked and cried. The three of us raised our heads to find out what was happening and I could see a cluster of people had gathered around one of the newcomers.

  “They’re watching a camcorder,” Sue said.

  I pushed her to move as I wanted to know what was on the camcorder that would make people cry like that. “Come on,” I said, “get going. I want to see it too.”

  She stood up, followed on her heels by me. Charlie got up as well and followed us to the wailing people.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Oh my god,” said Abby. She wiped tears from her face with one hand as she grabbed my shoulder with the other. “You’ll ha
ve to see it to believe it.”

  She pushed me to the front of the crowd. An old man, I guessed in his sixties with a rather saggy build and a haunted look on his face, was holding a camcorder with its viewing screen out. More people tried to see the recording, but the ones who had already seen it were reluctant to move. They apparently needed to see the footage for a second time to convince themselves that what they had seen wasn’t a figment of their imagination. The old man backed up the recording and restarted it. What I saw scared the hell out of me.

  It started off with a younger couple in a happy pose at a restaurant. The camera was then handed, I presumed by a waitress, to the man of the couple. He continued filming the woman. It must have been her birthday or some other celebration as the man gave her a present and, after a big hug to the man, she began unwrapping it. I couldn’t hear what was being said.

  From that one scene of happiness, it turned into one of chaos and slaughter. Suckers stormed into the restaurant, their fangs clearly visible, grabbing customers and waiters alike. The lucky lady who had been unwrapping the present screamed when one of the suckers grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away. She struggled. The camera movement became erratic, as if it was being used to hit the attacker of the woman. I saw the arm of the sucker move in the direction of what I think was the camera man’s neck. The camera then followed the movements of the man’s hand as he fought to get the arm off himself. You could see the sucker laugh, he actually laughed, before pulling the woman he was still holding in front of him. Her eyes were glazed over, she was in shock. The sucker then sank his teeth into her neck, watching the man as he did it. The camera movements became more erratic as the sucker dropped the woman and turned his efforts to the man holding the camera. We couldn’t see what happened next as in the struggle the camera was launched and landed on one of the other tables, in a plate full of pasta. Over the top of spaghetti, I saw the people in the restaurant become the dish of the day.

  “Where did you say you found the camera?” someone in the crowd asked.

  “Two days ago in Needham, halfway down the road to Portland,” said the old man loudly. “I was looking for food and found it lying there, in the pasta. Nobody but dead bodies there anymore, the suckers had already left.”

  “Why didn’t you stay there? How’d you get past the suckers?” someone else asked.

  “With a big, fast car,” he replied. “I was lucky to have missed the sucker attack, working in my cellar and my hearing being bad, but my wife didn’t survive.” There were tears in his eyes now. “I’ve come to warn you. I’ve lost my reason to live, but you still have a chance to save yours. I want people to know what’s coming for them. Y’all have to get outta here! They’re coming!” His voice was thick with emotion, his eyes wild, as he frantically looked around at the gathered crowd.

  I looked over my shoulder at Sue, then at Charlie standing beside me. They seemed as shocked as I was. More questions were called out to the old man, but I wasn’t interested in them. I’d heard enough. We returned to our corner booth, too traumatized by the images to speak for a while.

  School had been suspended until further notice earlier that day. Most people had taken their children out of Bullsbrook during the past week anyway. So far the threat had seemed far away and we all thought it would be dealt with before it spread. These people and these images told a different story. It wasn’t going to be safe here for much longer.

  “We have to get away,” I said. “We have a better chance of survival if we get away from the crowd.”

  “Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be better if we stayed here?” Sue’s dreadlocks bounced as she spoke. She shifted in her seat.

  I scanned the bar’s customers. “You saw the tape.”

  So many new faces. So much fear.

  “I think,” Sue said, her southern accent thicker than usual, “that we have a better chance if we stand with the people from the town. More manpower.”

  My eyes went back to Sue. I let her words sink in and pursed my lips.

  “I don’t agree. What do you think Charlie?”

  Sue and I both turned to look at Charlie. Being a dwarf didn’t diminish his presence and, being ten years our senior, I gave his vote more weight. The low lighting cast dark shadows on his face, accentuating his dark mood.

  “I agree with Kate. Even if all the people in town worked together, we could never stand up to the numbers that the suckers must have gathered by now. Let the army take that fight. We need to get out of here and hide until this is dealt with by the authorities.”

  I followed Charlie’s stare and waited for Sue to respond. Finally, she nodded, dreadlocks bouncing again.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, he’s right. Better to hide than to fight.”

  “Okay, so where do we go?” Charlie asked.

  I put my lips on my thumb as I’d bitten too much skin off next to my nail while I was listening to Charlie and it was bleeding now. I shut my eyes to deal with the pain and the image of my parents and sisters flashed by. I still didn’t know their fate. Last night I’d hardly slept, being tormented by nightmares of possibilities, and the resulting tiredness didn’t make me think any clearer. There was nothing I could do for them at the moment, so I tried to concentrate on deciding where to go. Even though Charlie, Sue and I had lived in Bullsbrook for over two months now, we still didn’t know the town or the surrounding area well.

  “Hey, maybe we can go to the campground!” Sue burst out. Charlie and I raised our eyebrows at her.

  How in heaven’s name does she know a campground? She’s not what you call ‘the camping type.’

  “I’d asked around about where to find an affordable place for my parents to stay. They want to come and visit me over the Christmas break,” she explained. “My neighbors told me about it. They said it’s along the river north of town. It has cabins for rent at reasonable prices and a small cabin could easily sleep the three of us.”

  My face lit up. “That’s a great idea. They might have a camp store too, with long-lasting food supplies.”

  My thoughts drifted to movies with underground fallout bunkers. God only knew how long this sucker pandemic was going to last. When my attention came back to the conversation, I realized both Sue and Charlie didn’t comment on my practicality. They were too excited about the campsite.

  “Yeah. Best of all it’s off the main roads,” Charlie said, staring into his own private universe while rubbing the stubble on his chin. Then his eyes snapped back to us. “We better go there as soon as possible. We probably aren’t the only ones who came up with the idea.”

  “Are we going right now or tomorrow morning?” Sue asked. She shifted in her seat again.

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. A surge of fear gripped me. It was as if a giant hand squeezed my insides, pushing adrenaline into the far corners of my body. This was really happening and it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. The idea of leaving Bullsbrook, my beautiful new hometown, made the whole dreadful situation so much more real. However, Sue’s question was pressing and a decision had to be made.

  “I’d sleep better if we left tonight,” I said.

  Charlie slammed his hands flat on the table. Sue and I jumped.

  “Okay,” Charlie said. “Let’s go home, pack our stuff and meet at Kate’s. She’s the only one with a car.” He stared us down until we both agreed. “And only pack the essentials!” he added as he leaned toward Sue. I turned my head to see Sue’s reaction.

  “What?” she asked innocently, shifting her eyes from Charlie to me, seeking back-up against his insinuation.

  “Don’t get carried away, Sue,” I said. “My car may have five doors, but that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of space in the trunk.”

  Sue opened her mouth in protest but couldn’t find a good excuse. Charlie chuckled.

  The two of them hurried to finish their beers while I left mine untouched since I was going to be the driver. We paid our bill and went on our way.

/>   Suckers Trilogy

  Book 2

  Raising A Vampire

  It's ten years after Black October, that time when the Succedaneum virus turned people into vampire-like blood suckers. Fortunately, everybody was vaccinated and turned into humans again. Life went back to normal.

  Kate leads a happy life in Bullsbrook with her partner and her daughter Sue. For years they have been hiding the true identity of the girl and nobody but her closest friends know her secret.

  Until one dark day when Kate invites a colleague into her home and Sue is exposed for what she truly is.

  The situation quickly spirals downhill from there.

  Can Kate keep her family and her wits together?

  Suckers Trilogy

  Book 3

  Killing A Vampire

  The past is back to haunt Kate. Will her partner survive this evil?

  Kate thinks her relationship is on the rocks because of her past infidelity. She’s wrought with guilt and wants nothing more than her missing partner back. When the police don’t believe there’s foul play at hand she’s on her own to find him. A horrifying parcel on Kate’s doorstep brings the situation to a whole new level. The police are now willing to help but can’t due to lack of evidence.

  There is one person able to help Kate, but everybody warns her not to accept his helping hand.

  How far is Kate willing to go to save the one she loves?

  Killing a Vampire is the third book in the introspective Paranormal Suspense series Suckers that explores the emotional bonds between mother and child, sisters, and lovers.

  Follow the hints and clues as Kate explores the depth of her emotions while trying to save her love.