I am a Vampire Who Works Night Shift Finale Content…
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I am a Vampire Who Works Night Shift Finale
Content Warning: Implied Abuse. Self Harm.
I smelled the blood at around 11 at night. I saw the light spilling out through the bottom of the bathroom door in a thin line. Carrie. My father was right, I thought. I shouldn’t be here, I thought.
I felt like someone else had seized onto my body as I sat up on the couch. My legs worked on their own as I stood up and walked towards the door, my mind screaming.
My hand reached out towards the doorknob as every synapse in my brain within my control screamed to stop. A single tear slipped down from my cheek as I felt the cool faux brass knob against my fingertips. *Please be locked.* It wasn’t.
It turned. I heard everything go quite inside the bathroom. The hinges shrieked as the door opened. Slowly beyond the wooden confines of the door, I could see clear the picture of the dimly lit, cramped apartment bathroom.
Carrie was sitting in there, razor in hand, horizontal marks up and down her arms. Blood dripped from her forearm. My heart sank.
I stepped in. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you knock?” she asked, tears forming as her panic grew. “Alex, please, say something.”
I stepped closer, my feet making contact with the mat in front of the sink. “Please, say something!” She put her elbows up on her knees and held her face in her hands. I heard her start to sob. “You probably think I’m a psycho, don’t you?” She cried harder.
*Say something, Alex! Anything! Don’t do this!* All those thoughts played in my head so loud I almost couldn’t hear the pounding of my heart or the sounds of her tears.
I stood over her. She looked up at me. Her hair was a mess. Her makeup was running down her face. The hunger was immense. The blood made my mouth water, but there was something else beginning to build in me. Something far stronger.
I loomed over her, and sunk down, wrapping myself around her.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. I could feel her pulse, her heart racing. Blood, fresh blood pumping in her veins. The other feeling grew stronger.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. You aren’t a psycho, or a freak, or anything else that you want to call yourself, so don’t ever say that.”
I felt her arms around me. “I’m sorry I never noticed how much you were hurting,” I said. I felt the blood on her arms soak into my shirt. I didn’t care. The hunger was gone.
I held her for a while, letting her cry in my arms. Eventually she wiped her tears as we moved to the living room couch. I wasn’t really sure what to say, or if I should say anything. I didn’t have to, because she started.
“You are the first person since my mom died who has been nice to me. Dad treated me like shit. Mark… well…” she didn’t expand on that, and I didn’t press. She could tell me when she wanted to, if at all. I figured he had something to do with why she disliked being touched. I wanted to kill him.
*Could I go back again if I did kill him?* I wondered.
“I saw mom die,” she said. “I never told anyone. They wouldn’t believe me, I’m sure. I think that messed me up more than anything either of them did.”
I leaned in and listened close. “I’m sorry. Did you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know if you’d believe me.” Her voice was a little shaky.
“I think my capacity for doubt has long been nonexistent at this point,” I said, which I could not qualify with the fact that I was a vampire about to hunt down another vampire who participated in the Hundred Years War in the 15^(th) century. There wasn’t much anyone could tell me that would be too fantastical to believe.
“I was looking out the window during first period. The sun still hadn’t reached up over the buildings, so shadows were falling between the councilor’s office building and the main building. I forgot my lunch in the car. I could see mom walking down the sidewalk with my lunchbox in her hand. I saw someone come out from the shadow of the corner of the building. He was wearing a hoodie. His hands were in his pockets. He jumped on her and…” She started to hyperventilate.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to finish.”
“No, I need someone to hear this. He bit her, Alex! He fucking bit her!” She started crying.
I was hesitant to ask her what the man looked like but did anyway. Under the shade of the school. His hood had fallen, so she got a good look at him. I had expected Renaud, but the details of his hair, of his stubble, of his eyes. It was my dad.
I stared at her for a moment. “You don’t believe me, do you?” she said, tears forming once more.
“I believe you.” I said to her. “I’ve got a story of my own that I don’t know if you’ll believe.” So, I told her. I told her everything. She sat there, listening. I could see her face shift from horror, to sorrow, to sympathy. I told her who I thought killed her mother. She looked confused, but I think she understood. When I finished, we stared at each other for a minute.
“I understand if you aren’t comfortable having me around,” I said, diverting my gaze to the floor. It would be safer for her if I disappeared. That’s what I should have done at the start.
“Why would I want that?” Her words surprised me. “You aren’t your father, and I’m not mine. Alex, I need you here.” I looked up and saw her. She was looking at me in a way that I was totally unaccustomed to. I felt her hand touch mine, her fingers wrapping around my palm.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” I said, unable to look at her. “I’m going to kill that old man tonight. I don’t know if you’ll see me again.”
Her eyebrows tilted as she squeezed my hand tighter. “Don’t say that, please. You have to make it back. I can’t do this without you.” Her words made me feel a twinge of guilt in my gut, but my mind could not be changed. I stood up. “Don’t go…” she said, her voice trailing a little as she watched me head towards the door.
I opened the front door. “I’m sorry.” I turned towards her. “I want you to know you’ve always been special to me, and I hope that I can make it back to you. I hope that more than anything in the world.”
“Don’t…” she called out as I shut the door behind me.
I hoped that we were not too late to save Rachel as I drove to the church. The thought of leaving her alone with that creep had made me nauseous, but ultimately Peter was right. The old man had been waiting for over six hundred years for this, and that was six hundred years of experience in killing that neither I nor Peter had.
I pulled into the church parking lot. Peter was beside his silver Honda, an extra flashlight in hand. “What even are those?” I asked, having felt their wrath enough without ever knowing why.
“Anti-bacterial UV light,” Peter said, wiping the lens of the flashlight as he looked up at me, not turning his head. “They emit a wavelength of UV entirely blocked by the atmosphere. They hit way harder than the old standard UV lights we used to use too. The one good thing to come out of Covid was these becoming way more common. I think you’re the first vampire I’ve used it on. Lucky you.”
I had to disagree with his measure for what constituted as luck. He handed me a UV light and a crossbow. He then handed me a quiver, which I put on my back. He shifted it to my hip. “That’s some movie stuff. It goes here,” he said, patting the quiver. “One more thing.” He produced a wooden stake. The tip was incredibly sharp. “Hardened by fire. It should do the trick.” He smiled at me. “I wish we had met under different circumstances, Alex. I would have loved to have shown you the ropes.”
“Yeah…” I said, between agreement and disagreement. The man had tried to kill me, many times at that, but I had trouble faulting him for it. I had been a danger, whether I wanted to admit it or not. I wouldn’t kill him, no matter what happened. I made that determination then and there. I’d live on animal blood. The only one I’d kill would be that old bastard Renaud.
He had me enter his car, which would be something I would never consider in any other circumstance. I imagined it was to keep my options limited after all this was over. *So be it,* I thought.
I pointed towards each street and turn. As I did, something black flickered in the rearview mirror, though I couldn’t make out what it was as we sped along the suburban streets. We arrived at that eerie white two-story house. I stared up at the closed blinds of the windows, expecting movement but finding none. Somehow, I knew that he was watching. He had to be.
Peter exited first, crossbow already in hand. The stake he carried hung at his hip like a revolver ready to be drawn. I followed behind tentatively, the memories of the torment I suffered in the basement played through my mind. Then there was Greg, the twisted anguish on his lifeless face…
I focused on the task at hand. We were going to kill this old man, and we were going to do it tonight. There would be no alternative.
Peter approached the front door. I guessed he and I were of the same mindset, that Renaud knew we were here and there was no sneaking in. To my surprise, the door was unlocked. Peter entered. I followed close behind.
We moved silently through the entryway and past the living room, full of furniture from various time periods. The television was modern, the couch looked like it was from the sixties, and the table looked handmade. He had been in this one spot, in this one patch of land for far longer than we had been alive. We were on his home turf and at complete disadvantage.
We pressed on to the kitchen, a trash bag hanging across the window I had destroyed in my escape. As Peter looked at the staircase, I put my ear up to the basement door. I heard a muffled whimpering. It wasn’t the old man. The voice was a woman’s. I heard her whistle. Rachel.
“Here,” I said, signaling Peter. He approached the door, turned on the UV light, and swung it open, pointing the light straight down the staircase. He flipped the light off as he descended, the creaking of the wood steps returning memories to me that were best forgotten.
I clutched the loaded crossbow in my hands as we descended. In place of the bathtub that had been the location of my demise, there was a rope descending from the ceiling. Tied to that rope, was Rachel. She lay on a grimy mattress next to which sat a table and a bucket. On the table was a sandwich, untouched. She looked up at us in terror, our faces barely illuminated by the moonlight that creeped through the kitchen window overlooking the basement door. As her eyes fell on me, I saw the tension start to alleviate some.
“Alex?” she said. Then she looked next to me, her expression shifting to that of absolute horror. She shook violently. I looked back up the stairs. Standing right above me, holding a sword in his hands, wearing a metal breastplate was Renaud. He shoved me down the stairs. I collided with Peter as we fell, my crossbow clashing against the ground, the bolt flying off somewhere into the darkness.
I rolled overtop of Peter and onto the cold hard concrete floor. I stumbled back to my feet. He jumped from atop the staircase and onto Peter. I saw the flashlight in Peter’s hands flicker to life, the beam touching the flesh of the hand that held the sword. I heard Renaud’s skin pop and sizzle. The sword clattered towards the ground. I crawled towards it, hearing the continued tussle between Renaud and Peter. They exchanged blows, but it sounded like Renaud had the upper hand.
My hand gripped the sword. It had a straight back edge and a curved forward edge. It fit in one hand. It looked like it could cleave a man in two. Seeing the smallest specks of rust along the flat of the blade, I imagined that it had done just that many times before. I picked it up. It was lighter than I thought it would be.
I turned to see Renaud on top of Peter, jaws open. Peter had the stake shoved sideways in his mouth. Renaud’s left hand clawed at Peter’s face. Blood flowed freely from the wound. Renaud grabbed ahold of the stake that so weakly acted as a muzzle and pried it from his teeth.
I raised the sword and yelled as I rushed forward. Renaud turned, stake in hand, and moved with terrifying speed. I swung the sword down, hitting his chest, the blade uselessly sliding over the steel armor he wore overtop. The stake in his hand fell with much more effect and precision, right on my sternum. If I had not fallen, it would have pierced straight through me. He landed on top of me, Stake raised high for a second final strike. I stared up at it in horror, seeing my life flashing before my eyes, picturing mom and Carrie mourning me. Carrie… I’m so sorry…
In the corner of my vision, in the supports running along the basement ceiling, was a little brown bat.
It swooped down, turning into a man, my father. He fell upon Renaud’s back, knocking him down flat on top of me. The metal of his breastplate stung as it fell hard on my chest. My father fought hard with the leather straps and metal buckles on the back of the breastplate, trying to pry it off for a clear shot at Renaud’s chest.
I looked at Peter, who was on the floor. He stared back at me weakly. The flashlight lay next to him. He placed a shaky hand on it and rolled it towards me. I picked it up and shined its blue beam on Renaud’s face. He cried out in agony. The edge of the beam flickered across my dad’s skin, but he pushed through the burning and focused on the straps. They came loose. We had a shot.
I took the stake from my pocket and thrust it at his chest. He redirected it, ducking down. It landed in my father’s shoulder. I let go, hands trembling. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” My words were cut short. Renaud shoved me to the ground once more, stake in hand, ready to strike. My father ripped the stake from his shoulder, blood flowing down soaking his blue button up shirt. He flipped Renaud around. They thrusted the points of their stakes towards one another. I closed my eyes.
The room fell silent, aside from the whimpering and whistling coming from Rachel. I opened them. Renaud and Dad were slumped against one another. They had impaled each other, straight through the chest.
“A double,” Renaud choked out. “I died in a double. I can’t believe it.” He spat out blood. “Such a rookie mistake.” He closed his eyes, never to open them again.
Dad looked at me. “I’m sorry Alex. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
I crawled over to him, hugging my father for the first time in ten years. His blood soaked into my shirt alongside the brown dried stain Carrie had left me. “Why?” I asked.
“Tell me. Did you kill her? That girl?”
“No,” I said. His eyes opened wide with surprise, though the strength of his grip was weakening.
“Maybe, I was wrong. You aren’t like me at all. Praise God for that.” His eyes became empty.He was dead.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, but before they could shed, I felt a hand gripping the back of my collar. “I’m sorry,” Peter said, “but now I need to deal with you.”
My strength was shot. I don’t know how the man was standing after all that. He pulled me with incredible strength. He looked up at Rachel. “I’ll come back and untie you,” he said.
“Please…” she begged. “Please don’t hurt him…”
“I’m sorry. I must.”
He dragged me up the stairs. Sunlight had begun to flicker through the windows. The morning was young, and its golden rays held death in them. He dragged me towards the front door, which hung wide open. Carrie was there, silhouetted by the glow of the sun through the rectangular frame of the door. My darkness in deathly light.
“Let him go!” she yelled. That flash of black in the mirror during the drive over, it must have been her, following us to the house. She held a baseball bat with shaky hands.
Peter snickered. “A baseball bat?” he said. “I fight vampires, mam’. Stand aside. I won’t hurt a human.”
“And I’m not moving,” she said. “So, either let him go or come here and face me. You don’t need to be so gentle. I’ve taken hits from someone far bigger than you.”
Peter smirked. “Young love. A precious thing. Self-sacrificing, like Christ. I’m sorry, truly.” He pulled me towards the light of the kitchen window and ripped off the trash bag that concealed the daylight which so dimly glowed through its black plastic frame. Carrie screamed, begged, pleaded for him to stop. I tensed up, expecting that familiar burn, expecting the agony of charred flesh followed by the cold black emptiness of death, and when the golden rays of sunlight fell against the skin of my face, spreading its warmth over my tight shut eyelids I felt… nothing.
“Huh…” was all that escaped the lips of the man who would have been my killer. “Daywalker? That can’t be right…”
I opened my mouth to speak. “Wha—”
“You’ve developed an immunity to sunlight. I’ve only ever heard of it happening. I’ve never seen it in person. Tell me, have you killed anyone Alex?”
“No,” I replied. Somehow, I had avoided it, through shear luck and, as of last night, willpower.
He released my collar as I crumpled to the floor. Carrie rushed beside me and helped me to my feet. She cried as she clung to me.
“I’ll have to talk with the pastor, Alex. I think you’ll get to live a little longer.” Peter stepped close and put his face right in front of mine. His eyes met mine with deathly seriousness as he said his next words. “But if I ever find out that someone was killed by a vampire in this town, there is no where on Earth you can hide from me.”
Rachel, Carrie, and I still work night shift. I’ve felt terrible for Rachel. No therapist would ever believe any of us about that night, and she needed help more than either of us did. She eventually started acting like her old self again, though I still see her look in the shadows of the aisles, expecting the old man to reappear from the grave to claim her once more. I watched his body burn in the sunlight that same day, dragged out into the backyard of his house by Peter, so I knew he wouldn’t be back.
Carrie and I are taking it slow and going steady. She’s seeking professional help, and I’m very proud of her. We visit mom often, and she made good on that well prepared dinner she so wanted to fix us. It threw my stomach into a fit. At night, I travel outside of the confines of the town and into the surrounding farmland, feeding on cattle. I haven’t killed one yet. They have enough blood to share.
My truce with the church is shaky, to say the least, but they’ve kept me as sort of a study. Crosses don’t affect me anymore. The bloodlust is gone. I can walk free in the sunlight.
This will be my last post for now. I have a feeling that strange times are still ahead of me. I will be sure to update you all if anything happens, though I hope it will be some time before I feel the need.
To all of you who read this, I would like you to take my story as a warning. I was lucky. If you find yourself wandering at night, or helping some old man with his groceries after the sun has set, watch for the fangs. And if you turn into something like me, God help you. Hope one day you don’t wake up, mouth dripping with the blood of a loved one.
I haven’t done it yet, but my dreams are filled with blood.
#entertainment
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Content Warning: Implied Abuse. Self Harm.
I smelled the blood at around 11 at night. I saw the light spilling out through the bottom of the bathroom door in a thin line. Carrie. My father was right, I thought. I shouldn’t be here, I thought.
I felt like someone else had seized onto my body as I sat up on the couch. My legs worked on their own as I stood up and walked towards the door, my mind screaming.
My hand reached out towards the doorknob as every synapse in my brain within my control screamed to stop. A single tear slipped down from my cheek as I felt the cool faux brass knob against my fingertips. *Please be locked.* It wasn’t.
It turned. I heard everything go quite inside the bathroom. The hinges shrieked as the door opened. Slowly beyond the wooden confines of the door, I could see clear the picture of the dimly lit, cramped apartment bathroom.
Carrie was sitting in there, razor in hand, horizontal marks up and down her arms. Blood dripped from her forearm. My heart sank.
I stepped in. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you knock?” she asked, tears forming as her panic grew. “Alex, please, say something.”
I stepped closer, my feet making contact with the mat in front of the sink. “Please, say something!” She put her elbows up on her knees and held her face in her hands. I heard her start to sob. “You probably think I’m a psycho, don’t you?” She cried harder.
*Say something, Alex! Anything! Don’t do this!* All those thoughts played in my head so loud I almost couldn’t hear the pounding of my heart or the sounds of her tears.
I stood over her. She looked up at me. Her hair was a mess. Her makeup was running down her face. The hunger was immense. The blood made my mouth water, but there was something else beginning to build in me. Something far stronger.
I loomed over her, and sunk down, wrapping myself around her.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. I could feel her pulse, her heart racing. Blood, fresh blood pumping in her veins. The other feeling grew stronger.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. You aren’t a psycho, or a freak, or anything else that you want to call yourself, so don’t ever say that.”
I felt her arms around me. “I’m sorry I never noticed how much you were hurting,” I said. I felt the blood on her arms soak into my shirt. I didn’t care. The hunger was gone.
I held her for a while, letting her cry in my arms. Eventually she wiped her tears as we moved to the living room couch. I wasn’t really sure what to say, or if I should say anything. I didn’t have to, because she started.
“You are the first person since my mom died who has been nice to me. Dad treated me like shit. Mark… well…” she didn’t expand on that, and I didn’t press. She could tell me when she wanted to, if at all. I figured he had something to do with why she disliked being touched. I wanted to kill him.
*Could I go back again if I did kill him?* I wondered.
“I saw mom die,” she said. “I never told anyone. They wouldn’t believe me, I’m sure. I think that messed me up more than anything either of them did.”
I leaned in and listened close. “I’m sorry. Did you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know if you’d believe me.” Her voice was a little shaky.
“I think my capacity for doubt has long been nonexistent at this point,” I said, which I could not qualify with the fact that I was a vampire about to hunt down another vampire who participated in the Hundred Years War in the 15^(th) century. There wasn’t much anyone could tell me that would be too fantastical to believe.
“I was looking out the window during first period. The sun still hadn’t reached up over the buildings, so shadows were falling between the councilor’s office building and the main building. I forgot my lunch in the car. I could see mom walking down the sidewalk with my lunchbox in her hand. I saw someone come out from the shadow of the corner of the building. He was wearing a hoodie. His hands were in his pockets. He jumped on her and…” She started to hyperventilate.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to finish.”
“No, I need someone to hear this. He bit her, Alex! He fucking bit her!” She started crying.
I was hesitant to ask her what the man looked like but did anyway. Under the shade of the school. His hood had fallen, so she got a good look at him. I had expected Renaud, but the details of his hair, of his stubble, of his eyes. It was my dad.
I stared at her for a moment. “You don’t believe me, do you?” she said, tears forming once more.
“I believe you.” I said to her. “I’ve got a story of my own that I don’t know if you’ll believe.” So, I told her. I told her everything. She sat there, listening. I could see her face shift from horror, to sorrow, to sympathy. I told her who I thought killed her mother. She looked confused, but I think she understood. When I finished, we stared at each other for a minute.
“I understand if you aren’t comfortable having me around,” I said, diverting my gaze to the floor. It would be safer for her if I disappeared. That’s what I should have done at the start.
“Why would I want that?” Her words surprised me. “You aren’t your father, and I’m not mine. Alex, I need you here.” I looked up and saw her. She was looking at me in a way that I was totally unaccustomed to. I felt her hand touch mine, her fingers wrapping around my palm.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” I said, unable to look at her. “I’m going to kill that old man tonight. I don’t know if you’ll see me again.”
Her eyebrows tilted as she squeezed my hand tighter. “Don’t say that, please. You have to make it back. I can’t do this without you.” Her words made me feel a twinge of guilt in my gut, but my mind could not be changed. I stood up. “Don’t go…” she said, her voice trailing a little as she watched me head towards the door.
I opened the front door. “I’m sorry.” I turned towards her. “I want you to know you’ve always been special to me, and I hope that I can make it back to you. I hope that more than anything in the world.”
“Don’t…” she called out as I shut the door behind me.
I hoped that we were not too late to save Rachel as I drove to the church. The thought of leaving her alone with that creep had made me nauseous, but ultimately Peter was right. The old man had been waiting for over six hundred years for this, and that was six hundred years of experience in killing that neither I nor Peter had.
I pulled into the church parking lot. Peter was beside his silver Honda, an extra flashlight in hand. “What even are those?” I asked, having felt their wrath enough without ever knowing why.
“Anti-bacterial UV light,” Peter said, wiping the lens of the flashlight as he looked up at me, not turning his head. “They emit a wavelength of UV entirely blocked by the atmosphere. They hit way harder than the old standard UV lights we used to use too. The one good thing to come out of Covid was these becoming way more common. I think you’re the first vampire I’ve used it on. Lucky you.”
I had to disagree with his measure for what constituted as luck. He handed me a UV light and a crossbow. He then handed me a quiver, which I put on my back. He shifted it to my hip. “That’s some movie stuff. It goes here,” he said, patting the quiver. “One more thing.” He produced a wooden stake. The tip was incredibly sharp. “Hardened by fire. It should do the trick.” He smiled at me. “I wish we had met under different circumstances, Alex. I would have loved to have shown you the ropes.”
“Yeah…” I said, between agreement and disagreement. The man had tried to kill me, many times at that, but I had trouble faulting him for it. I had been a danger, whether I wanted to admit it or not. I wouldn’t kill him, no matter what happened. I made that determination then and there. I’d live on animal blood. The only one I’d kill would be that old bastard Renaud.
He had me enter his car, which would be something I would never consider in any other circumstance. I imagined it was to keep my options limited after all this was over. *So be it,* I thought.
I pointed towards each street and turn. As I did, something black flickered in the rearview mirror, though I couldn’t make out what it was as we sped along the suburban streets. We arrived at that eerie white two-story house. I stared up at the closed blinds of the windows, expecting movement but finding none. Somehow, I knew that he was watching. He had to be.
Peter exited first, crossbow already in hand. The stake he carried hung at his hip like a revolver ready to be drawn. I followed behind tentatively, the memories of the torment I suffered in the basement played through my mind. Then there was Greg, the twisted anguish on his lifeless face…
I focused on the task at hand. We were going to kill this old man, and we were going to do it tonight. There would be no alternative.
Peter approached the front door. I guessed he and I were of the same mindset, that Renaud knew we were here and there was no sneaking in. To my surprise, the door was unlocked. Peter entered. I followed close behind.
We moved silently through the entryway and past the living room, full of furniture from various time periods. The television was modern, the couch looked like it was from the sixties, and the table looked handmade. He had been in this one spot, in this one patch of land for far longer than we had been alive. We were on his home turf and at complete disadvantage.
We pressed on to the kitchen, a trash bag hanging across the window I had destroyed in my escape. As Peter looked at the staircase, I put my ear up to the basement door. I heard a muffled whimpering. It wasn’t the old man. The voice was a woman’s. I heard her whistle. Rachel.
“Here,” I said, signaling Peter. He approached the door, turned on the UV light, and swung it open, pointing the light straight down the staircase. He flipped the light off as he descended, the creaking of the wood steps returning memories to me that were best forgotten.
I clutched the loaded crossbow in my hands as we descended. In place of the bathtub that had been the location of my demise, there was a rope descending from the ceiling. Tied to that rope, was Rachel. She lay on a grimy mattress next to which sat a table and a bucket. On the table was a sandwich, untouched. She looked up at us in terror, our faces barely illuminated by the moonlight that creeped through the kitchen window overlooking the basement door. As her eyes fell on me, I saw the tension start to alleviate some.
“Alex?” she said. Then she looked next to me, her expression shifting to that of absolute horror. She shook violently. I looked back up the stairs. Standing right above me, holding a sword in his hands, wearing a metal breastplate was Renaud. He shoved me down the stairs. I collided with Peter as we fell, my crossbow clashing against the ground, the bolt flying off somewhere into the darkness.
I rolled overtop of Peter and onto the cold hard concrete floor. I stumbled back to my feet. He jumped from atop the staircase and onto Peter. I saw the flashlight in Peter’s hands flicker to life, the beam touching the flesh of the hand that held the sword. I heard Renaud’s skin pop and sizzle. The sword clattered towards the ground. I crawled towards it, hearing the continued tussle between Renaud and Peter. They exchanged blows, but it sounded like Renaud had the upper hand.
My hand gripped the sword. It had a straight back edge and a curved forward edge. It fit in one hand. It looked like it could cleave a man in two. Seeing the smallest specks of rust along the flat of the blade, I imagined that it had done just that many times before. I picked it up. It was lighter than I thought it would be.
I turned to see Renaud on top of Peter, jaws open. Peter had the stake shoved sideways in his mouth. Renaud’s left hand clawed at Peter’s face. Blood flowed freely from the wound. Renaud grabbed ahold of the stake that so weakly acted as a muzzle and pried it from his teeth.
I raised the sword and yelled as I rushed forward. Renaud turned, stake in hand, and moved with terrifying speed. I swung the sword down, hitting his chest, the blade uselessly sliding over the steel armor he wore overtop. The stake in his hand fell with much more effect and precision, right on my sternum. If I had not fallen, it would have pierced straight through me. He landed on top of me, Stake raised high for a second final strike. I stared up at it in horror, seeing my life flashing before my eyes, picturing mom and Carrie mourning me. Carrie… I’m so sorry…
In the corner of my vision, in the supports running along the basement ceiling, was a little brown bat.
It swooped down, turning into a man, my father. He fell upon Renaud’s back, knocking him down flat on top of me. The metal of his breastplate stung as it fell hard on my chest. My father fought hard with the leather straps and metal buckles on the back of the breastplate, trying to pry it off for a clear shot at Renaud’s chest.
I looked at Peter, who was on the floor. He stared back at me weakly. The flashlight lay next to him. He placed a shaky hand on it and rolled it towards me. I picked it up and shined its blue beam on Renaud’s face. He cried out in agony. The edge of the beam flickered across my dad’s skin, but he pushed through the burning and focused on the straps. They came loose. We had a shot.
I took the stake from my pocket and thrust it at his chest. He redirected it, ducking down. It landed in my father’s shoulder. I let go, hands trembling. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” My words were cut short. Renaud shoved me to the ground once more, stake in hand, ready to strike. My father ripped the stake from his shoulder, blood flowing down soaking his blue button up shirt. He flipped Renaud around. They thrusted the points of their stakes towards one another. I closed my eyes.
The room fell silent, aside from the whimpering and whistling coming from Rachel. I opened them. Renaud and Dad were slumped against one another. They had impaled each other, straight through the chest.
“A double,” Renaud choked out. “I died in a double. I can’t believe it.” He spat out blood. “Such a rookie mistake.” He closed his eyes, never to open them again.
Dad looked at me. “I’m sorry Alex. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
I crawled over to him, hugging my father for the first time in ten years. His blood soaked into my shirt alongside the brown dried stain Carrie had left me. “Why?” I asked.
“Tell me. Did you kill her? That girl?”
“No,” I said. His eyes opened wide with surprise, though the strength of his grip was weakening.
“Maybe, I was wrong. You aren’t like me at all. Praise God for that.” His eyes became empty.He was dead.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, but before they could shed, I felt a hand gripping the back of my collar. “I’m sorry,” Peter said, “but now I need to deal with you.”
My strength was shot. I don’t know how the man was standing after all that. He pulled me with incredible strength. He looked up at Rachel. “I’ll come back and untie you,” he said.
“Please…” she begged. “Please don’t hurt him…”
“I’m sorry. I must.”
He dragged me up the stairs. Sunlight had begun to flicker through the windows. The morning was young, and its golden rays held death in them. He dragged me towards the front door, which hung wide open. Carrie was there, silhouetted by the glow of the sun through the rectangular frame of the door. My darkness in deathly light.
“Let him go!” she yelled. That flash of black in the mirror during the drive over, it must have been her, following us to the house. She held a baseball bat with shaky hands.
Peter snickered. “A baseball bat?” he said. “I fight vampires, mam’. Stand aside. I won’t hurt a human.”
“And I’m not moving,” she said. “So, either let him go or come here and face me. You don’t need to be so gentle. I’ve taken hits from someone far bigger than you.”
Peter smirked. “Young love. A precious thing. Self-sacrificing, like Christ. I’m sorry, truly.” He pulled me towards the light of the kitchen window and ripped off the trash bag that concealed the daylight which so dimly glowed through its black plastic frame. Carrie screamed, begged, pleaded for him to stop. I tensed up, expecting that familiar burn, expecting the agony of charred flesh followed by the cold black emptiness of death, and when the golden rays of sunlight fell against the skin of my face, spreading its warmth over my tight shut eyelids I felt… nothing.
“Huh…” was all that escaped the lips of the man who would have been my killer. “Daywalker? That can’t be right…”
I opened my mouth to speak. “Wha—”
“You’ve developed an immunity to sunlight. I’ve only ever heard of it happening. I’ve never seen it in person. Tell me, have you killed anyone Alex?”
“No,” I replied. Somehow, I had avoided it, through shear luck and, as of last night, willpower.
He released my collar as I crumpled to the floor. Carrie rushed beside me and helped me to my feet. She cried as she clung to me.
“I’ll have to talk with the pastor, Alex. I think you’ll get to live a little longer.” Peter stepped close and put his face right in front of mine. His eyes met mine with deathly seriousness as he said his next words. “But if I ever find out that someone was killed by a vampire in this town, there is no where on Earth you can hide from me.”
Rachel, Carrie, and I still work night shift. I’ve felt terrible for Rachel. No therapist would ever believe any of us about that night, and she needed help more than either of us did. She eventually started acting like her old self again, though I still see her look in the shadows of the aisles, expecting the old man to reappear from the grave to claim her once more. I watched his body burn in the sunlight that same day, dragged out into the backyard of his house by Peter, so I knew he wouldn’t be back.
Carrie and I are taking it slow and going steady. She’s seeking professional help, and I’m very proud of her. We visit mom often, and she made good on that well prepared dinner she so wanted to fix us. It threw my stomach into a fit. At night, I travel outside of the confines of the town and into the surrounding farmland, feeding on cattle. I haven’t killed one yet. They have enough blood to share.
My truce with the church is shaky, to say the least, but they’ve kept me as sort of a study. Crosses don’t affect me anymore. The bloodlust is gone. I can walk free in the sunlight.
This will be my last post for now. I have a feeling that strange times are still ahead of me. I will be sure to update you all if anything happens, though I hope it will be some time before I feel the need.
To all of you who read this, I would like you to take my story as a warning. I was lucky. If you find yourself wandering at night, or helping some old man with his groceries after the sun has set, watch for the fangs. And if you turn into something like me, God help you. Hope one day you don’t wake up, mouth dripping with the blood of a loved one.
I haven’t done it yet, but my dreams are filled with blood.
#entertainment
source
| 4,000 mlx | |
| 10 | |
| 0 |