Vampire Worshippers [Part 1]_Gods of our Souls Series

by Mira Crest

  Illuminated by the light of her phone, which had been knocked out of her hand when she fell, she watched as Axel stood up onto his feet in front of her.

  Just as suddenly, an unseen force wrapped itself around her, moving her like a puppet until she stood beside Axel. The smell of blood filled the air, which left a metallic taste in her mouth and tickled her nose. It was everywhere. She looked down at her clothes. She was covered in it too.

  While only moment earlier, her ears were filled with Axel’s smooth sexy voice, now they ached against the silence of the room. The only sound was the rustling of the shadow as it pounced from its prone position on the ground and reached for Virginie. She staggered backward. The shadow stopped and turned, grabbing Axel instead.

  “Axel,” she called, her voice returning to her.

  He spun back and forth, trying to shake loose, then finally grabbed the darkness with both hands and threw it back. The shadow slammed its back against the stage. The force echoed through the empty hall.

  Virginie took her phone in her hands and shined it toward the shadow. She wanted to know what it was. It wasn’t just a void, it had to be something. And it was. The dark ominous figure melted away, revealing a policeman under the cloak of the shadow. His mouth was covered with blood and he slumped limply against the wall, staring directly at Axel. His eyes twitched ever so slightly.

  “He’s still alive,” she said softly.

  ‘’Come!’’ Quickly, Axel grabbed Virginie’s hand and dashed toward backstage area at an inhumanly fast speed. Virginie’s legs tried to keep up as Axel pulled on her arm. They flew down corridor after corridor. Turning her head, Virginie could see the shadow in her periphery. It gave chase, swirling through the gloom behind them like a black ominous blanket. ‘’Don’t look back,’’ Axel says.

  They both stopped abruptly at a door at the end of the corridor. She stared at the bloodied push bar of the door. The glowing exit sign hung above it. ‘’Go now,’’ he said, his voice commanding.

  ‘’But...what about you?’’ Virginie said.

  He answered her with silence as he turned and stared down the way they came. The shadow was closing in on them.

  ‘’Run.’’ His eyes were focused on the shadow behind her.

  The sound of the door shutting behind her as she ran outside to safety rang in her ears. It wasn’t until she was outside, away from the carnage, that the fatigue hit her like a football to the face. She fell to her knees, landing on the hard cement sidewalk with a thud. The sound of hurried footsteps brought her eyeline from the ground up. Two cops were rushing toward her. She tried to get up and run but only got as far as standing before she fell again. Were they one of them? Like the cop inside. The cop inside the shadow? One of the men caught her before she landed and lifted her up.

  “I gotcha,” he said. His calming, friendly eyes met hers. “Miss?” he said. “Miss? Are you okay?”

  A wave of relief washed over her as her shoulders relaxed. They weren’t vampires like the shadow creature inside. He was just a cop. The image of his worried face was the last thing she saw before everything faded to black.

  * * *

  “I should have just run,” Virginie said, her arms crossed in front of her. After waking up in hospital, the cops had the doctors give her a once-over before taking her to the station, so she could answer some questions. So, there she sat, surrounded by cops who were all looking at her like she was crazy.

  They had been at it for about an hour as they interrogated her about what happened at the concert hall. She knew that it was hard to believe but she didn’t know how else to explain what happened at the venue. After all, it was the truth.

  “Sometimes,” a detective said as he leaned back in his chair. He was seated across from her at a table in an interrogation room. They had moved there because the chaos in the police station was too much for Virginie. “Sometimes it’s hard for victims to remember what happened, right after it happened. Our minds see things in the dark. Our ears hear impossible things.” He leaned forward again. His hand reached out and patted her elbow. “When you start remembering what really happened that night, I want you to give us a call here at the station.”

  The problem was that she did tell him exactly what happened. But no one believed her. It was a frustrating situation to be in and yet the only thing she could think of was her missing best friend, Olivia. Not to mention, Axel and what became of him: her knight in shining armor.

  Chapter 2

  -World Behind The Poster-

  The image of Axel taking a bullet to the head was burned into Virginie’s brain. The look of shock on his face… The horrible sound as he fell into a heap on the stage… It was all there, and it was all that she saw when she closed her eyes. Was that really Axel that saved her? Did she imagine it all? How was he still alive if he took a bullet to the head? Virginie was sure that she watched him die. Everyone at the concert saw it. And what the heck was that shadow thing? The question kept coming back to Virginie. It acted like a vamp… No matter how it seemed, she couldn’t say the word or even think about it. Vampires didn’t exist. Right?

  The police offered to take her home since her mom was working the graveyard shift at the diner. Virginie refused to call her at work and worry her since she was all right. Her mom had enough on her plate without having to worry about her daughter.

  A baby-faced rookie cop with bright blue eyes led her to his squad car and opened the door for her. She thanked him. As they pulled out of the station and headed toward her house, her heart skipped a beat for Olivia. She wanted to stay at the station in case Olivia showed up but there was an equal chance that she ended up at the hospital instead. Her thoughts swirled around in her head.

  “Where’s your dad?” asked the baby-faced cop.

  Virginie stared out the window. Between them were communications rigs, buttons, screens, and other police gadgets that she knew nothing about. She also knew nothing of her father. Over the years, she had thought of fantastical and wonderful things that would lead her father to abandon her when she was a toddler. Perhaps he was a spy, going undercover - James Bond style - in some foreign exotic country. Maybe he was the heir to some big fortune and he had to leave in order to keep his family safe. With all that money and gold, he would need to take extra precautions from kidnappers and bad men in fitted suits, right? The only thing that these stories had in common was that one day he would come back and tell them that everything was going to be okay.

  She sighed to herself. “I don’t know where my father is,” she said softly.

  “Oh.” The cop awkwardly cleared his throat. “My dad left too,” he said. “When I was a kid.” He reached over and patted her shoulder.

  Virginie flinched at the sincere gesture. She turned to him and offered an apologetic grin - hoping that he didn’t think that she was rude for flinching - but he was too busy watching the road.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said. “There are a bunch of great programs out there if you need another role model in your life. The big brother program helped me. Maybe you got an uncle or something?”

  “I’m fine without all that,” she said. It had been Virginie and her mom - Gloria Bell.

  The squad car pulled over in front of her house. Virginie’s eyes gave her small two-story home a once-over. It felt familiar and that was what she needed at the moment. “Thanks,” she said.

  “You want me to stay out here?” the cop asked before she could open the door. “I mean, since your mom’s not home or anything.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” Virginie said. “Her shift’s over in a couple hours.”

  As soon as she stepped foot into her home and closed the door behind her, she felt better - if only minutely. Tears streamed down her face.

  “Olive,” she cried. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, but it wouldn’t even turn on. The battery must have been dead after she used the flashlight at the concert hall. She took a step toward the kitchen but stopped and
turned toward the door. She couldn’t put the chain on or her mom wouldn’t be able to get it. So, she locked the doorknob and the deadbolt, then double checked them to make sure.

  There were two landlines in the house: one in the kitchen and one in her mom’s room. She ran to the kitchen and quickly dialed Olivia’s cell. The phone beeped in her ear and went straight to Olivia’s voicemail. “You’ve reached Olive. I’m busy doing something super important, I’m sure. So, leave me a message after the beep!” Virginie hung up and quickly dialed Olivia’s home number, then sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Hello?” It was Olivia’s mom and she didn’t sound worried at all. She must not have known what happened. “Hello?”

  “Oh,” Virginie said. “Hi, Mrs. Cassidy. Is Olive….” What was she supposed to say? “Is Olive home yet?”

  “No, not yet. Is everything okay, dear?”

  Virginie couldn’t believe that the cops hadn’t called her after the fuss that she had thrown at the police station. Olivia was missing. They hadn’t contacted her parents yet? She could feel her palms getting sweaty. She had to be the one to break the news to them. Before she could stop herself, she began to talk about the events of the evening. The concert. The gunshot. The chaos. Her missing daughter. She couldn’t lie to anyone, especially Mrs. Cassidy who was like a second mother to her. No, everything wasn’t okay.

  “I’ll have to call you back, dear,” Mrs. Cassidy said, her voice panicked. Virginie could tell that she was crying. “I need to call the police. Is your mother home with you now?”

  “No,” she said, her voice crackling as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Do you want to come over here? I’ll have Donald pick you up and I’ll go to the station.”

  “The police station is crazy right now. Besides, I’m sure that Olive’s fine and that she’s headed home right now.” Virginie wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince Mrs. Cassidy or herself. “And I’m fine; Mom should be home soon.”

  After saying quick goodbyes, Virginie hung up the phone. She felt horrible, worrying Olivia ’s mom like that. But she needed to know, right?

  She sat in silence as she tried to gather her thoughts. It was a strange realization to know that the last time she heard absolute silence, she was completely terrified. Her eyes closed tight, and she tried to picture something happy so that her mind wouldn’t go back to that dark place. Her happy place used to be at a Night concert but now… Now she didn’t have a happy place. Virginie tried to focus her mind. She rested her head down on the table.

  The sharp ring of her house phone woke her up. Her head shot up off the table and she suddenly felt dizzy from the frenzied movement. Her hands reached for the tabletop to steady herself. It only took a second before she came to her senses and picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said, her voice frantic. “Olive?”

  “Hey.” Olivia’s voice was as clear as day and Virginie had never been happier to hear it.

  “Olive,” she said, her voice cracking again.

  “None of that,” her friend said. “We just went through hell. If you break down now, so will I.”

  “I’m so glad that you’re okay. I looked for you. At the concert hall and the hospital and the police station.”

  “It was freakin’ crazy,” Olivia said.

  “What happened to you?” Virginie asked. She looked down at the table and realized that her phone was still dead. Picking it up, she listened to Olivia’s story as she walked to her bedroom to plug her phone in.

  Olivia’s phone broke during the chaos. After she was separated from Virginie by the frantic crowd, she was pushed up the staircase and out of the way to a row further up from theirs. She fell, and her phone slipped out of her hand, tumbling to the lower seats. The crowd continued to push but she couldn’t keep up, nor did she want to break a rib, so she crawled toward the row of seats to get away from the stampede.

  “I heard a scream,” Olivia said, her voice steady and monotone. “Then I felt this weird spray across my face and when I touched it… It was blood. I was covered in it. Some guy’s blood…”

  Virginie had never heard her so morose or frightened.

  Olivia continued. She then saw the light from her phone, which was still recording from when she was recording the concert. It was further ahead down the row, so she crawled toward it. “Then there was this… This shadow that flew over me and I quickly stopped moving. I scrambled onto my belly, face down, pretending to be dead.” She paused then, to regain her composure before continuing with her story.

  She had heard something land a short distance in front of her. She waited for as long as she could, even after she felt the shadow was gone before she dared to move. That’s when she looked ahead of her and realized that her phone was broken. “It wouldn’t turn on. When I picked it up later, there was a huge crack across it. The shadow must have stepped on it when he landed.”

  “Wait, so how did you get to safety?” Virginie asked. “How did you get away?”

  “I didn’t know where the shadows were. I didn’t know when it was going to be safe again so I just laid down on the floor and pretended that I was dead until the police came and found me. By then, I just felt-” Her voice faded for a split second. Her eyes went to a distant place as she pondered. “I just felt numb.” A tear streamed down her cheek. The sensation must have brought her back to reality. She cleared her throat and composed herself. “I looked for you but I couldn’t find you. Then the medics were all over me, trying to get me to sit down and stop moving. They were all talking at once, it felt like. Something about shock and how I needed to stay with the other survivors. But all I could think about was you and where you were.”

  There was a silence as they both tried to comprehend what had happened to the both of them.

  “So,” Olivia said. “What happened to you?”

  “I….” Virginie thought about the shadow, and then about Axel. “It’s crazy,” she said. “It’s going to sound too crazy. You’d never believe me.”

  “I was sprayed by some guy’s blood,” Olivia said. “And almost died at the hands of some shadow creature. Believe me, I’m pretty open-minded about anything and everything right now.”

  “The shadow creature tried to attack me,” Virginie said. “It lunged for me and tried to grab me but when it got knocked out for a second I saw that it wasn’t just some shadow, it was a cop.” Virginie’s voice rose with excitement as the words left her lips.

  “Woah, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks to Axel.”

  “Axel? Axel Night, Axel?”

  “Yeah…” Virginie’s voice faded.

  “The guy that got shot in the head? He saved you?”

  “Yeah, I know it sounds crazy.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t just some guy that looks like Axel?”

  “I know what I saw,” Virginie said. “I’m certain. It was Axel. I saw him stand up from where he was laying on stage and he saved me from the shadow. Then he took my hand and we ran down the back corridor until we got to an emergency exit. He told me to run and he stayed behind to fight off that weird…shadow thing.” There was a pause. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “No, no- I mean, yes, of course I believe you. It’s just a lot to take it in.”

  “I know it sounds crazy.” Virginie had a hard time believing it herself, and it was her own story.

  “I’ve known you for a long time and I know that you wouldn’t lie to me. Even when you try to come up with a crazy story about where you think your dad is right now, you always say that you’re not really sure because you haven’t seen him in forever.” She took a breath. “You don’t lie. It’s just not in your nature.”

  “I just can’t help wondering,” Virginie said, “about what happened to Axel after he saved me.”

  “I can’t believe that he’s still alive,” Olivia said. “I saw him. I saw him get shot in the head.” She went quiet as she thought over it. “Maybe it just grazed him? Stunned him? Maybe
it wasn’t a gun after all?”

  “Olive, you and I both saw it, clear as day. He got shot in the freakin’ head!” Virginie said. She pondered over what Olivia had proposed. “But I guess it could have just grazed his head.” The scene replayed in her mind. The blood spatter. The blowback. Axel’s body falling into a heap on the ground. What was he? No one could have survived that, Virginie thought.

  “Well, a head wound is a head wound. If he can survive a headshot, I’m pretty sure that he can handle some stupid shadow thing.”

  Virginie could tell that Olivia was trying to make her feel better and she was grateful for it. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m….” There was an audible exhale from the other end of the phone. “I don’t know. I guess I’m okay. I wasn’t dinner for some shadow creature but - Man, I wish that my phone wasn’t dead and that the video I had on it was all right.”

  “Just focus on the whole ‘I’m alive’ part,” Virginie suggested. “You can always get another phone.”

  “I guess you’re right.” There was a rustling at the other end of the phone. “We should get some sleep. Maybe the news will have more information in the morning.”

  They said their quick goodbyes. She hung up the phone and tossed it onto her bed. Her gaze landed on the poster of Axel on her bedroom wall. “Was that really you?” she asked it. “Was it really you at the concert?”

  “Virginie?” called Gloria from the foyer. “I’m home, sweetie. Are you back from the concert?”

  “Yeah,” Virginie said as she dashed out of her room and ran down the stairs. “And I’ve never been happier to see you in my life.”

  * * *

  The atmosphere at the school assembly the next day was heavy, as the principal addresses the death of several students who attended Night concert. The stuffy principal said that it is likely a work of terrorists and police investigation is underway. He advised those who witnessed the horrible attack to contact the counselor or any teacher for assistance. After he finished his speech, he dismissed the students and told them to go to their first-period class.