Cavendish frowned. ‘But I’ve still got the cancer. I can feel it.’
Camille Bourdais laughed. ‘That’s the beautiful irony of immortality. If a vampire turns a one-legged man, you get a one-legged vampire. He’s not a lizard, you know. He doesn’t grow a new leg. Life – or unlife – can be so funny sometimes, don’t you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed. ‘You’re such a fool. The serum does work but the cancer is a part of you. The tumour cells aren’t some foreign body that’s invaded you, they’re growing from you. They’re a part of you and they are now as immortal as you are. They’ll grow and grow and your tumour will become ever more painful and ever more debilitating – but it won’t kill you because it can’t. There might come a time when you’re more tumour than human; when your body is turned almost inside out, but you’ll still be alive. Isn’t that what you wanted? To live forever?’
‘Not like this!’ Tony Cavendish cried as he realised the implications. ‘Not with all this pain. What kind of life is that?’
She laughed. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you that life is judged by its quality and not its length?’
‘What can I do?’ he wailed.
‘You could get somebody to chop off your head or drive a stake through your heart. You’re half-vampire now – almost family if I’m honest – but immortality does have its limits.’ She glanced at the horizon. ‘Dawn’s coming. Must dash. See you around, Tony dear.’
Her mocking words faded as she moved out of the porch light and into the shadows. Then, she was gone. Tony stood in the entrance, numbed by the revelation. An eternity of illness and pain? A metamorphosis into a living lump of misshapen tumours? He slumped against the doorframe in despair. Is this how it would be? Could he live with such a condition? He staggered on to the porch clutching at his side in a futile attempt to lessen the fresh ache that emanated from his cancer. Standing in the cool air, he breathed deeply and attempted to gather his thoughts. He was tired of fighting. The price for life was just too high. With a heavy sigh, he looked up and saw that the sun was just beginning to rise. Red spread across the sky, coming ever closer like the gradual spreading of spilled blood. Tony Cavendish wondered just how much of the vampire existed within him. Perhaps if he stood here long enough in the new dawn light, he would find out…
THE END
VACATION’S END by Shawn P. Madison
Charlie Rohring smiled as the swift breeze blowing off the Nile swept past his face. He looked over at Kate and saw that she was enjoying this brisk ride down the majestic river just as much as he was. The speedboat held five other people besides he and his wife, four of them associates of his with Gemstone Financial Services and the other their Ugandan Guide. The business trip into the heart of Africa had been the perfect opportunity to take some well-earned vacation time and bring Kate along for some adventure in the Dark Continent. The two planned on staying for another week after the business end was wrapped up, hopefully to tour both Tanzania, to the south, and Kenya, to the southeast, before returning home. So far, between their room at the luxury Nile Jinja Resort and the partnership meetings being held in the Rwenzori Ballroom of the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, Africa didn’t seem all too dark and dangerous. Hell, he and Kate had been in much worse accommodations back home in Jersey.
The boat was a speedster and much larger than most he had ever been on before. The powerful engines propelled them along at a very brisk pace during the river’s straightaways, although they slowed considerably once the river began meandering into its’ many twists and turns. Charlie had his camera at the ready, snapping pictures of every pretty bird and exotic animal that came into view.
The sun was up high and the heat was often times unbearable but the sheer beauty of the African landscape made suffering through it more than worthwhile. He caught his associate Khalim Fonteneau looking his bikini-clad wife up and down out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but follow suit. Kate’s tan was deep and dark, her long blond hair hung halfway down her back. Her firm breasts swelled against the skimpy blue bikini top and the thong showed off her toned butt. He patted her rump lightly, causing Khalim to turn away, and suddenly couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel.
They had been in Uganda since Saturday, five days ago, and although he had been tied up for most of the weekdays in meetings with executives of the Bank of Baroda, Kampala was a large enough city to keep his wife entertained until work was over. Today’s meeting had been the last and a successful partnership agreement had been reached just two hours ago. To celebrate, the team from Gemstone Financial Services had decided to take a local tour of the Nile before the big celebration tonight at the Fang Fang Restaurant back in Kampala.
Now they were heading for the Buwenge Animal Sanctuary, about twenty kilometers north of Jinji, with hopes of getting some outstanding pictures of animals he and his associates had only seen on television or in the movies. This part of Uganda was famous for its picturesque landscape and seemingly abundant wildlife. They had been warned at the marina to stay in the boat at all times, especially due to the dangers of the Nile, and they had all agreed beforehand to heed this warning.
The boat banked hard as it entered another sharp turn in the river and Charlie grabbed firm to the railing with one hand and grabbed his wife just as firmly with the other. The swell of her breast pressed firmly against his arm and he could see the nipple get hard beneath the silky material of Kate’s swimsuit. He leaned in close to kiss her but felt her body stiffen as she pulled back and unleashed a scream that briefly deafened his right ear.
As the boat came out of the turn, the engines quickly cut off, forcing all seven occupants to lunge forward off-balance. Charlie pulled his wife closer as she continued screaming but couldn’t yet see what was causing her terror. When he regained his footing he looked quickly forward and his eyes grew wide at the sight. The boat’s engines stalled and Madru Balumba spat something unintelligible as he tried frantically to get the vessel moving again.
The scene was incomprehensible, right out of a nightmare. Charlie had to remember to breathe as his brain desperately tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. On the riverbank, about thirty meters away, a group of men and women were standing dressed in simple white robes and were very calmly pitching young children into the water amidst a swarm of hungry crocodiles. It was a feeding frenzy, the huge reptiles seemed to be waiting their individual turns as, one after another, more children were being sacrificed.
“What in the hell is this?” Charlie heard Paul Atherton yell. The tall balding man grabbed Madru by the collar, “Christ Almighty, get this boat moving!”
“I am trying!” The young Ugandan cried back and tried to start the stalled motor for the second time. Charlie could see the intense fear in Madru’s eyes as he fumbled at the controls.
Several of the men and women on the riverbank looked up and saw the boat slowly drifting toward them. The screams of the children were enough to drive anyone insane, their wails pierced through Charlie’s ears as the vicious crocodiles ripped into their still living flesh. Kate pressed herself as deeply into his chest as she could possibly go, unwilling to watch the dreadful spectacle any longer. He held her close, but could not tear his eyes away from the bloodbath now only twenty meters away.
The crocodiles were so numerous he could hear them banging against the bottom of the boat in their efforts to get a meal for themselves. Madru and Khalim were both trying to get the boat started now and Charlie watched as several of the people on land began to gather ropes together and move toward their boat. At least twenty children had been thrown off the banks and into the waiting mouths of the voracious beasts in the few seconds since they had come around the turn. At least that many more seemed to be gathered along the riverbank, standing in line and waiting for sure death.
Blood and muddy water were spraying everywhere as the powerful jaws snapped into small heads and bodies. The crocodiles then dragged their victims beneath th
e water where they rolled over again and again, trying to break off small enough chunks to swallow. Charlie could hear himself screaming over the sobs of his wife. He watched as a crocodile grabbed one young girl by the thighs and dragged her into deeper water while she shrieked in sheer terror. Her eyes found his in the instant before she went under and tears began to flow freely down his face.
“Christ!” He swore. “You murderers!” She must have been no more than five or six, too young to suffer such a horrible death. “What are you maniacs doing?”
“Make them stop, Charlie, make them stop,” Kate sobbed again and again against his chest. All he could think to do was stroke her hair with his trembling hands. His heart pounded viciously in his chest, he could barely breathe. How do we stop them? How do we survive this? Got to get the boat moving. How? These thoughts raced through his tortured mind. He couldn’t help with the repairs, he didn’t know anything about boat engines. The boat was coasting closer to land...just meters away from the carnage in the Nile.
More men and women on the shore were moving closer to the boat now, being careful to stay up on the riverbank and out of the water. Charlie could see several of them flinging ropes around like lassoes, as if getting ready to launch them towards the boat. Things that looked like large metal hooks seemed to be attached to the ends.
“Khalim!” Charlie shouted. “Get this boat started now!”
The point of a rusty hook suddenly planted itself into the right eye socket of Steven Manhern. The small and chubby Head of Loan Origination shrieked at the pain as bright red blood gushed out of his ruptured eyeball. “Jesus Christ!” Charlie heard Paul Atherton yell just as the person at the other end of the rope yanked hard, sending Manhern tumbling over the side and into the water.
The ugly brown and green reptiles were on him very quickly. Manhern’s screams grew louder, more frantic, as he realized that he was going to die and be eaten alive by crocodiles near this muddy riverbank. His screams were mercifully cut short as one gargantuan crocodile brought his jaws down on Manhern’s neck. Charlie watched the body of what used to be one of his co-workers slink beneath the surface, held securely inside the large reptile’s mouth.
Another hook thunked home inside the boat and Khalim left Madru to try and pry it off. The people on shore used the rope to pull the boat in closer to the riverbank. Charlie felt panic begin to settle in. Many of the white-robed people held large curved blades, machetes right out of a horror movie. There were no particular emotions in their eyes, no crazed blood-lust or murderous rage. Only serene, matter-of-fact, businesslike looks as if they were only doing their jobs out here, deep in the jungles of Uganda.
“It is a ritual!” Madru exclaimed as he abandoned the controls and slunk to the back of the boat. “They kill all children under six years old this way in order to make room for the next generation to come. I have heard that they do this once every two decades! No one from outside the tribe is allowed to witness this cleansing act – they will kill us all!”
“Fuck that!” Atherton snarled and jumped to help Khalim Fonteneau dislodge the planted hook. The boat was close now, within reach of the tribal members. One man slashed his weapon towards Atherton who just managed to lunge backwards and out of reach. The hook wouldn’t budge and another had just hit home. Many hands were suddenly pulling the boat toward the riverbank. Two of the tribesmen jumped aboard and pointed their blades at Atherton to back him off. Gregory Cellini screamed as the largest of the two men grabbed him by the forearm and began to drag him toward the edge of the boat.
“Shut up, Cellini!” Atherton shouted and put his hands up and outward in a gesture of surrender. The man holding Cellini said something in his native language and the group looked at Madru for a translation. “He says that we are to go off of boat now.”
“Ask him why,” Atherton said and Madru spoke a few unintelligible words.
“He says do not question, just get out of boat.”
“Tell him we just need to get our boat started and then we will be on our way,” Atherton said. “This is none of our business, we just want to leave this behind.”
Madru began to translate but this just made their captors more angry. The two of them started screaming, swinging their blades in the air, and Atherton dropped to his knees. “They say enough talking, we all go to riverbank now,” Madru shouted above the still screaming children being eaten alive just meters away. A splash of blood from a child’s open jugular washed over all of them from the other side of the boat, most of it hitting Kate in the face and hair.
Kate started screaming again, as loud as she could, a noise more shrill than any sound Charlie had ever heard her make. He tried to calm her down but it was no use, she was completely hysterical. The larger tribesman released Cellini and moved toward Charlie and Kate. With one massive hand he reached out for Kate and Charlie roared, “NO!”
“Jesus Christ, no,” Atherton said. “Not the girl, please God.”
The large man rambled quickly and motioned for Kate but Charlie pushed her behind him and out of reach. Madru translated, “He says give the girl or die, Mr. Rohring!”
“Fuck you!” Charlie snarled and smacked away the outstretched hand. Kate was still shrieking hysterically and more screaming was still coming from the children in the water. The sounds bouncing around inside Charlie’s skull, along with the pounding of his heart, made it hard to focus but he knew he had to save his wife from these butchers. “You can’t have her, Goddammit!”
The tribesman took one step backwards and knocked Gregory Cellini off the boat with one swipe of his arm. Cellini was too terrified to scream and plunged into the Nile head first. He was able to surface one time, gasping for breath, before a crocodile bit down hard into his skull, splitting his head open and releasing the man’s brains into the murky river.
While Charlie watched in terror, the robed man lunged forward and smashed him against the face with the blunt side of his weapon. Charlie went numb and briefly let go of Kate before he was able to come to his senses. In that one instant, strong hands had seized the remaining members of the Gemstone Financial Services party and managed to wrestle them off the boat.
The men were quickly bound with thick, rough rope and drug over to where the last of the children were being prepared to be thrown into the water with what sounded like prayers. Kate was quickly separated from the four men. One of the two remaining children looked over at Charlie and smiled. A woman held the child by the wrist and led him over to the edge of the riverbank. He was still smiling as she flung him into the water amidst the hungry crocodiles.
Soon the screams dissipated and the sounds of the jungle were all that could be heard. While Charlie thought about the smiling child with tears in his eyes he felt rough hands slice the clothing from his body.
Charlie Rohring knew that he was going to die today, but, if he could choose, it would be by one of those sharp blade edges and not by the sharp teeth of a hungry reptile. Two tribesmen stood Kate up and held her arms out as another used a much smaller knife to cut through the strings of her blue bikini. Kate wasn’t tied and was offering no resistance. She seemed to be in a semi-conscious daze, in a deep state of shock, her brain unable to process all that had just happened. The small silky strips of cloth that made up her swim suit fell to the green earth and Kate’s naked body seemed to glow in the sun.
The man with the small knife was standing in front of Kate and began to probe her body methodically with his hands, cupping one breast then the other, then moving further down her body as if taking measurements. They were all going to die soon, Charlie knew, but he would not let them rape his wife in front of his co-workers.
“You leave her alone you son of a bitch!” He yelled across the small space separating Kate from the rest of them. “Take your hands off her!”
The man began to speak in low soft tones and the larger tribesman grabbed Paul Atherton by the arm, hauling him to his feet. “Shut the hell up, Rohring!” Atherton exclaimed as a sharp blad
e edge nudged him closer to the riverbank. “For Chris’sakes, Charlie, they’re going to kill me!”
“They’re going to kill all of us,” Charlie yelled back and shouted for Kate once more.
The man with the small knife took his robe off and settled it neatly on the grass while the two others holding Kate gently lowered her to the ground as well.
“Charlie!” Atherton screamed in protest one more time before they pitched him over the edge. Charlie tried to drown out the gruesome sounds of Paul Atherton’s death and struggled against his bonds to get to his feet. The ropes around his legs held him tightly and he fell over hard. Grunting he began to squirm closer to where the man had dropped to his knees between Kate’s now open thighs.
“The man says that your wife will be used to bring new blood into the tribe, Mr. Rohring,” Madru explained, his voice barely a whisper. “He wants you to know that she will be spared. She will be made one of them.”
Charlie ignored him as the large man walked over to Madru and hauled him to his feet. Madru began pleading with him in his own language but succeeded only in making the man haul him over to the river’s edge that much more quickly. The unintelligible words continued to spew forth from Madru’s mouth as he was flung into the water.
At that moment, while the large man looked to make sure that the crocodiles were eating Madru Balumba, Khalim threw himself at Charlie’s side and began to work at the ropes that held him fast with a hand he had miraculously gotten free.
Charlie suddenly had limited mobility and gained his footing enough to begin a slow march across the grass. “Go get your wife, Charlie,” Khalim said with a vengeful gleam in his eye. Charlie could see Kate halfway come-to as she realized what was about to happen, that what was supposed to have been a fun afternoon outing had turned into a murderous bloodbath out here deep in the jungles of Africa, that she was about to be raped and her husband killed. She looked over to see Charlie slowly making his way toward her then turned to look at the man who was forcibly entering her and screamed for her husband to save her. The large man who had just thrown their tour guide to his death turned at the sound of Kate’s voice and raced back towards Charlie. Khalim was able to stick a foot out just in time to trip the man up and Khalim rolled over on top of him in an effort to pummel the man with his still bound fists.
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