Vampire Lord | Book 5 | Vampire Lord 5: Conquering A Bloodthirsty Earth

by Jacobs, Logan

  “Yeah, that’s why I came back,” I muttered. “We’ve gotta get the fuck out of here.”

  “Why, what was inside the van?” James asked.

  “New human prisoners,” I said. “Not from Red House, though. I think they said Poca?”

  “That’s south of here,” James said. “Shit, are you sure we can’t help them or something?”

  “Not a chance,” I replied. “There’s way too many bloodsuckers, so all we’d do would be to get ourselves killed, and then Red House would end up in the same boat as Poca.”

  “So we just have to leave them?” Natalie murmured.

  “The vamps won’t kill the humans right away,” I said and then reached over to squeeze her hand. “They want to use them, so they’ll probably keep them alive for a decent amount of time, and who knows? They might still be alive once we figure out a way to deal with all these vamps.”

  “I hate to leave anybody at the mercy of those monsters,” James said, “but I know you’re right. Besides, I’d hate it more if we did anything that put Red House in even more danger.”

  “Hopefully, the humans can just hang in there,” I said, “but I guarantee that we wouldn’t be able to do them any good right now. We’ve gotta wait to make our move.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” Natalie said. “The sooner we get away from here, the sooner we can start to plan our attack.”

  “Then James, go ahead and lead the way,” I said, “but remember, let’s try not to make any noises while we move.”

  After Natalie and James both nodded, the gray-bearded man started to lead us back up the slope deeper into the trees. We paused every few minutes to listen for any signs of vamps, but the deeper we got into the forest and the further we got up the mountain, the less worried I was about the vampires behind us.

  Sure, they would be a problem for another day, but at least for the moment, it seemed like we might be in the clear.

  When we were about halfway back to the Jeep, James suddenly stopped and held up his hand in a fist. Natalie and I stopped but didn’t say anything, and instead, I just scanned the trees all around us for anything that might have tipped James off. I didn’t hear or see anything, but then I realized that might be exactly what an experienced mountain man like James was worried about.

  Despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, there was absolutely no sounds in the trees except for the rustle of the wind in the leaves. Even the birds had suddenly fallen silent, and I didn’t have to be an expert on the great outdoors to know that probably meant something was wrong.

  “I think there’s something up ahead,” James whispered. “Some kind of predator, and it’s got all the other animals around here spooked.”

  “Could it be a vamp?” Natalie asked as she reached one hand back to grab her rifle.

  “Maybe, but I think I’d probably be able to sense it,” I said as I laid my hand on hers to keep her still. “Whatever it is, we can’t use guns.”

  “Fuck,” my gorgeous girlfriend muttered.

  “I know,” I said, “but we can’t do anything to draw the attention of the bloodsuckers in Black Betsy, especially since we don’t know if they have scouts posted throughout the woods or anything.”

  “So what do we--” James started.

  Catherine’s uncle didn’t get to finish his question because just then, the three of us saw exactly what had spooked all the animals in this part of the woods.

  A full-grown black bear crashed through the trees directly ahead, stood on its hind legs as soon as it spotted us, and then roared like we had just crossed into his personal kingdom, and now we would pay the price.

  I had never actually seen a black bear in person before, but something about this one told me that it was a little bit different. It looked easily a foot taller than me, and it was also probably over double my own body weight… maybe even triple. But I wasn’t quite so worried about the size of the bear’s body or the massive size of his claws as he extended them toward us with another growl.

  Instead, I was a lot more worried about the fact that he was foaming at the mouth.

  I immediately yanked James and Natalie behind me, and I spread my arms out wide to try to seem bigger than I was. James and Natalie quickly did the same thing, but I had a feeling that it might not make a bit of fucking difference to this particular black bear.

  “Sam, I think he’s rabid,” Natalie whispered. “We won’t be able to just scare him off.”

  “I was afraid of that,” I muttered and then slipped off my shotgun to hand it over to Natalie. “Remember, no guns unless it looks like I’m about to be his next snack.”

  “But I can shoot him,” my girlfriend replied. “If I fire until I’m empty, it should bring him down, and--”

  “We can’t take the risk,” I cut her off. “Not unless it’s absolutely desperate, alright?”

  “I think it’s about to be desperate,” James murmured.

  The rabid black bear had hesitated for just a second when we all spread our arms wide, but his hesitation quickly disappeared. He roared again, dropped down onto all fours, and then barreled toward us at full speed.

  “Stay out of the way,” I growled, and then I gripped my Louisville slugger with both hands.

  I ran toward the bear at the same speed he ran toward me, so he wouldn’t immediately throw me onto my back and then rip out my lungs in one fell swoop. Instead, I held the bat like a sword so its end pointed forward, and when I reached the black bear, I slammed the metal forward into his stomach.

  It was like I had just rammed my bat into a brick wall.

  I jumped backward as I felt the force of my blow ripple up my arms, and then I instantly had to drop to my stomach to avoid a swipe from the black bear’s massive paws. His claws looked like they could slice me right open, and I didn’t want to see how long it would take for my body to heal itself from a wound like that.

  After all, I had a feeling that it would be long enough for the bear to rip Natalie and James to shreds, too… only their bodies wouldn’t be able to stitch themselves back together like mine could.

  As soon as I dropped onto my stomach, I heard the bear drop back down onto all fours again, and he was close enough that I felt his breath on the back of my hair. I rolled to the side before he could swipe at me, jumped back to my feet, and then pivoted around to face him.

  He managed to push himself back up onto his hind legs a second later, but I noticed that he moved a little slower than I would have expected. Maybe he was so big that his reflexes just weren’t as quick as they would be in a smaller animal, or maybe the fact that he was rabid slowed him down a little.

  Either way, I intended to take advantage of his slower reflexes. After all, I normally had fast reflexes as a vamp, but something about all the blood I had consumed this morning made me feel like my reaction time had never been faster.

  I didn’t plan to strike his stomach again, since clearly, any blows against the black bear’s torso would be a dead end. I would have to concentrate on his face and maybe his limbs, but if I could at least injure his eyes or his nose, then I might stand a chance and be able to take him down.

  The guns were a nice backup, but since we had just left a whole town filled with well-fed bloodsuckers, it didn’t seem like the best idea to empty a bunch of rounds into a wild animal and advertise our location to everyone in the area.

  When the black bear lunged at me again, he swiped his front right paw at my chest, followed by his left, but I was able to duck back out of the way both times. He looked angry as fuck, so as flecks of foam and spit dripped out from the corners of his open mouth, I ran backward a few more steps, so the bear had to drop down and come at me on all fours.

  The bear was halfway to me when I made my move.

  I sprinted toward him like I had when he first charged me, but at the last second, I swerved to the side so he trampled past me before he could stop himself. Then while he skidded to a halt in the thick underbrush, I spun back arou
nd and crashed my slugger right into the center of his open, foaming mouth.

  I jerked my bat out of his mouth before the black bear could close his jaw around it and rip it out of my hands, but from the way that the animal shook his head, it looked like I had actually managed to injure him. It wasn’t enough to stop him in his tracks, of course, but it gave me enough time to retreat before he turned toward me with his full fury again.

  When the black bear rose up onto his hind legs again to roar into my face, I knew that I had two options. On the one hand, I could continue to chip away at him little by little with moves like the one that I had just done, but that would take a lot of time and energy, and there was always the chance that he might go rogue and run after James or Natalie instead. Sure, they had hidden themselves at the moment, but he might be able to sniff them out and chase them down before I could catch up to him.

  My second option was to try something a little more… extreme.

  If I was able to jump onto the black bear’s back, then I might be able to get a good enough grip on his skull to twist it and snap his neck. It would be harder to break than a human’s since it was thick muscle, and I would probably definitely get a swipe or two from his claws while I clung to his back, but it was the fastest way that I could think of to bring down the huge creature.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered, and then I sprinted straight at the animal again.

  The black bear lunged for me with his jaw wide open this time, so I decided that I might as well take advantage of that before I hopped on his back. When we had almost reached each other, I shoved the Louisville slugger out in front of me, and the bear’s foaming jaws crunched down onto the metal.

  I was able to thrust it a little further down his throat before I had to dance back out of his reach, but as the rabid bear swiped at the bat and tried to shake it out of his mouth, I made my move. I ran toward the creature again, but at the last second, I jumped up and caught the lowest branch of a maple tree.

  I used the branch to swing myself forward over the huge bear, but I didn’t just drop down onto the other side. Instead, I flipped the grip of my hands on the tree limb so that I faced the back of the bear, and then I pumped my legs back and forth one time to get a good swing.

  As soon as I had enough momentum, I launched myself forward, released my grip on the tree limb, and landed squarely onto the back of the seven-foot tall beast. His body was thicker than a fucking linebacker’s, but I managed to grip his torso with my thighs before he started to try to shake me off.

  I dug my elbows into the top of his shoulders so I could grip his head, but when I had almost got my hands on either side of his skull, the bear managed to spit out the Louisville slugger and instantly turned all his attention toward how he was going to get me off of his back.

  He immediately went up onto his hind legs, twisted his front left paw backward, and swiped at my face. I kept my grip on his torso as I ducked my head to the right, but he immediately followed up with a swipe from his right paw.

  As I watched his massive claws move straight toward my face, everything seemed to slow down for a second, and I knew there was no way that I could get my head out of the way in time. So I did the next best thing, and that was to raise my forearm in front of my face to block the blow.

  The black bear’s claws tore through the flesh of my arm in a second, and as I felt the blood start to stream down my skin, I wondered if he had cut it all the way to the bone. I didn’t stop long enough to look, and instead, I grabbed a hold of his skull while the bear tried to ready himself for another strike.

  I started to twist his head around, and I could already feel how much strength it would take to snap the vertebrae in his neck. I could do it, but it would take more than just a couple of seconds, and that was plenty of time for the bear to swipe at me again. The next time, he might get a little luckier with his strike, so I would just have to be as fast as possible.

  To my surprise, the bear didn’t try to swipe at me again.

  Instead, as I continued to try to snap his neck, the big motherfucker dropped down onto all fours and started to try to shake me off. He was powerful enough that he would succeed in a second, so I gripped the fur on his head with one hand, and then I reached around to punch his snout with my other fist as fast as I could.

  After I jabbed my fingers into his eyes and popped him a couple times on the nose, the black bear roared and staggered back onto his hind legs. I started to try to break his neck again, while the rabid animal stumbled backward and promptly slammed my body into the closest tree.

  It was enough of a jolt to make the teeth rattle inside my head, but it also told me that I should just keep doing what I was doing. I could hear the vertebrae in his neck start to crack like I was the world’s first chiropractor for bears, so if I just pushed a little harder and held my grip on him a little longer, I might actually be able to bring this big fucker down to the ground.

  The black bear shook himself again, but when I didn’t let go, he just rammed me into the tree trunk again. It made me see a few bright flashes of light for a second, but then the rabid creature decided to just press me up against the trunk and slam his whole body weight against me, so I was wedged in between the tree and the huge bear.

  Instantly, I could feel my lungs start to deflate from the pressure on my chest. At the same time, the stability of my back against the trunk gave me just enough extra leverage to put a little more force into my grip on his skull. I started to see more bright spots swim across my vision, so I pushed as much strength into my arms as I could and then gave one final twist to the creature’s head.

  Just as my vision started to go black, the black bear’s neck cracked underneath the force of my hands, and the creature crumpled to the ground underneath me.

  I dropped down right on top of him, and when he didn’t move again, I just closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The black bear’s fur was soft against my skin, so I just let myself lie there for a few seconds until the breath returned to my lungs and the bright spots finally disappeared from my vision.

  I had just pushed myself up onto my hands and knees on the back of the huge bear when I heard Natalie and James hurry toward me through the undergrowth of the woods. I glanced in their direction and gave a little wave to let them know it was safe, so then they ran toward me even faster.

  “Sam!” Natalie said as she hooked one of my arms over her shoulder.

  “That was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen,” James said, and then he slung my other arm over his own shoulder. “And that includes everything I’ve seen in the vampocalypse.”

  “I’m really fine,” I said. “I just lost a little blood, but you don’t need to do all this.”

  “You. Just. Killed. A. Bear,” Natalie growled. “With your bare fucking hands!”

  “That son-of-a-bitch was easily what, four hundred pounds?” James whistled. “Maybe even five hundred or more. The biggest damn black bear I’ve ever seen, and you just took him down like it was nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t say it was nothing,” I chuckled as they both helped me off of the black bear’s body until I could stand and lean up against another tree trunk.

  “Plus, he was rabid!” Natalie said. “I kept wanting to shoot him, but you said not to, and he was moving so fast that I don’t think I would have been able to get a clear shot, anyway.”

  “Let’s just hope he doesn’t have any family members around here,” I sighed. “I think the sooner we get back to the Jeep, the better.”

  “Not until you get a little blood in you first,” Natalie said. “I know you had a lot this morning from James and everybody, but like I said, you just fought a goddamn bear, and… fuck, your arm looks bad.”

  I glanced down at my forearm where the black bear had torn through my flesh, but it had already started to heal over. The gashes from his claw marks were still deep, but they weren’t down to the bone, so my body was healing nicely. Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to recharge just a little bit in case
we ran into any more trouble on the way back to the Jeep, so I nodded.

  “Alright, Nat,” I said. “Have you had enough to eat and drink for me to take some more blood from you?”

  “Yeah, I had plenty for breakfast,” my gorgeous girlfriend replied, “so just go ahead and drink from me, would you?”

  She held out her arm toward me, so I used my uninjured hand to hold her wrist up toward my lips. As soon as I sank my canines into her soft flesh, I felt her blood gush into my mouth, and it sent a flood of warmth through my whole body.

  Apparently, I had needed her blood a little more than I realized.

  While I drank from my beautiful girlfriend, Catherine’s uncle stood off to the side and glanced away, as if he felt like he had interrupted a private moment between us. But as much as I enjoyed the taste of Natalie’s blood, and as much as I knew she enjoyed it when I drank from her, we’d have to save anything private for another time.

  After all, we still had to get back across the mountain, back to the Jeep, and back up the road to Red House.

  When I saw that the skin of my forearm had completely healed over, I figured that I had taken enough blood from my girlfriend, so I backed off and licked her skin to heal her. I cracked my neck first on one side and then on the other, shook out my limbs to get the blood really flowing, and then took my shotgun back from Natalie.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here, shall we?” I smirked.

  “Whatever you say, Sam,” James said as he hurried over to grab my slugger for me. “After everything I’ve seen of you so far, and especially after what I just saw, I’d… well, I’d just about follow you straight into the pits of hell, if you said it was a good idea.”

  “Well, I might ask you to, before this is all said and done,” I laughed, “but for the moment, I’ll settle just to go back to the Jeep.”

  “You got it,” James replied and then started to lead the way forward again.

  I swung the Louisville slugger around in my hands a few times as I followed him, but the bat didn’t really seem damaged. The black bear had managed to scrape his teeth along the end, so there were little scratch marks all along it, but that sure as hell wouldn’t prevent me from using it on someone or something else.