Conquering A Bloodthirsty Earth (Book 3): Vampire Lord 3

by Jacobs, Logan

I had to snap out of it. There were two girls upstairs who still needed my help, not to mention the four girls I had left behind across the river.

  I pulled myself up toward the top floor, but as I climbed the stairs, I realized that I was more injured than I had realized. My flesh still felt like it was on fire, and I figured that based on how sore my ribs felt, Isaac must have landed more punches than I’d realized.

  Still, I staggered up to the top of the stairwell but then walked right past the blonde and the pink-haired girl on my right. Before I dealt with them, I needed to recover the rest of my weapons, so I headed straight for the rare book room, grabbed my rifle and my Louisville slugger, and then limped back to the hallway where the two girls were.

  Brianna and the other girl were on their knees halfway down the hall, and the pink-haired girl was doing her best to hug her friend, even though that was easier said than done since her hands were still tied together.

  “Oh, my god!” Brianna gasped when she saw me. “I can’t believe you’re still alive! Is he-- is Isaac--”

  “He’s dead,” I exhaled.

  “How?” the pink-haired girl demanded. “And how the hell did that asshole not kill you first?”

  “I’m actually a vamp, too.”

  Brianna’s dark green eyes went even wider than they had been, and then she screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

  But just as soon as the blonde started to scream, the pink-haired Japanese girl clapped her hand over her friend’s mouth and held it there until Brianna stopped.

  “Chill, Bree,” the pink-haired girl said. “If he was going to kill us, don’t you think he would have already?”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, “and you’re right.”

  “See?” the Japanese girl demanded. “He wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble with Isaac if he didn’t want to help us.”

  “Sorry,” Brianna murmured. “It’s just-- well, I mean--”

  “It’s okay,” I said as I knelt down beside both girls. “I know that you have no reason to trust me, and you definitely have no reason to trust a vamp, but I promise that I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “How about a little proof?” the pink-haired girl asked. “I’m sure you’re nice and all, but I wouldn’t mind a little reassurance that you aren’t just gonna rip our throats out.”

  Brianna shuddered beside her friend, so I pulled out my pocket knife, grabbed the zip-tie around her wrists, and carefully cut through it. As soon as her wrists were free, I did the same thing for her pink-haired friend, I helped pull both of them to their feet, and put away my knife.

  “I’m happy to explain more,” I said, “but first, I need to get you both somewhere safe. Is it okay with you two if we go into one of the study rooms? I don’t want to be out here in the open, just in case there are other vamps around.”

  “Fine by me,” the Japanese girl said, and then she slipped her arm around Brianna’s waist to help her toward the closest study room.

  I knew that if the Japanese girl hadn’t already trusted me, she would have never turned her back on me, so I figured that the ‘proof’ she wanted must be just to convince her friend that I wasn’t about to kill them.

  Once we were inside the study room, I closed the door, and all three of us sat down on the carpet. There was enough light from a window on the far wall that the girls should be able to see me, but it still wasn’t very much.

  “Okay,” Brianna sighed as she leaned her head against her friend’s shoulder. “So who exactly are you?”

  “You know who I am,” I said. “I’m Sam, Natalie’s boyfriend, and just because I’m a vamp now doesn’t change the fact that I’m still that same person.”

  “But Isaac changed when he…” Brianna trailed off.

  “Let’s start over, okay?” I suggested. “You’re Brianna, right?”

  The blonde nodded and rubbed at her wrists where they had been tied together.

  “And you are?” I turned to the pink-haired Japanese girl.

  “I’m Neko,” she said with a shrug.

  “Okay,” I replied. “So here’s the deal-- I don’t know how it works or why, but most people who turn into vamps turn into assholes, and some of them don’t. Isaac obviously did, but I didn’t.”

  “So does that mean Natalie is, like, still alive?” Brianna asked.

  “Yeah, she is,” I said. “She’s alive, and so are her two roommates, plus another girl that came with us from their apartment building.”

  “Are they really downstairs?” Neko asked.

  “No, I didn’t think it’d be safe to bring them to campus,” I answered. “I left them somewhere safe across the river.”

  “Well, you were right about that,” the Japanese girl sighed.

  “You can text Nat if you want,” I told Brianna. “You can ask her something that only she would know, if you want to make sure that I’m not lying.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Brianna said as her cheeks turned pink. “I don’t really-- like, I don’t really know her that well. Me and Isaac-- we hadn’t dated that long, you know? So I hadn’t really had much of a chance to hang out with Natalie. But I did like her! I mean, I do like her! I just--”

  “Girl, chill,” Neko interrupted her again. “Sam here didn’t kill us, so everything’s gonna be fine. Right?”

  The pink-haired girl turned her dark eyes toward me with a look that seemed to dare me to contradict her, so I just nodded.

  “I’m sorry I screamed,” the blonde said and then bit her lip. “It’s just, like-- I mean, it’s been just one hell of a few days, you know?”

  “Tell me about it,” I laughed. “It’s okay. You’re just a little on edge, right? I totally get it.”

  “I mean-- well, yeah!” Brianna said. “I mean, my boyfriend just tried to kill me, you know? And that’s after he drank, like, half my blood or something. So, like, that kinda makes you not want to trust anybody. You know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “Trust me, it’s been a rough couple days for me, too.”

  “So, are any of your friends vampires, too?” Neko demanded. “You said there’s four girls with you, right? Are they all humans?”

  “Yeah, they’re all humans,” I replied. “None of them got the vaccine.”

  “The vaccine?” Brianna repeated. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh shit,” I groaned. “You don’t know? Isaac didn’t tell you?”

  “We don’t know what?” Neko asked. “What didn’t Isaac tell us?”

  “Neither of you got the AIDS vaccine, right?” I responded.

  “Not yet,” the Japanese girl replied. “I kept meaning to, but I just put it off.”

  “How about you, Brianna?” I asked.

  “No, me, neither,” the blonde said. “I was supposed to get one, but I got super sick a couple days before that, and the pharmacist said they couldn’t give it to someone who was, uh, you know-- not feeling good.”

  “Then you got lucky,” I said. “Because my girlfriend didn’t get it, neither did her roommates, and neither did our other friend. But I did.”

  “I don’t get it,” Brianna said as a little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Neko said with a wave of her hands. “Hold on. Are you saying-- are you trying to tell us that the AIDS vaccine has something to do with all of this?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I sighed. “The vaccine turned everybody who got it into bloodthirsty fucking vampires.”

  “But Isaac didn’t get one,” Brianna said. “I tried to convince him to get the shot, but he said he’d be damned if he let some half-ass med student prick him with a needle.”

  “Then he lied to you,” I said. “He told me that he went to the campus health center and vaccinated himself when he figured out what was happening.”

  “You mean…” Neko’s face turned pale. “You mean he knew what it would do to him, and he still did it anyway?”


  “You mean that he wanted to turn into a vampire?” Brianna bit her lip. “He wanted this to happen?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but that’s what he told me.”

  “Jesus,” Neko swore. “That’s fucking dark.”

  “I never thought--” The blonde shook her head. “I had no idea he was like that. That’s sick.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I told him,” I said with a shrug.

  “But you had no idea that this would happen to you?” Neko asked.

  “Hell, no,” I replied. “I had no idea. I just felt like I had the flu after I got the shot, and I guess it took a little longer for it to really affect me than it did for Isaac.”

  “But, Sam, you don’t--” Brianna hesitated. “I mean, like, you don’t really look like a, uh-- you know. Vampire. Plus you didn’t bite our heads off like we’ve seen other vamps do. Are you really sure that you are one?”

  I smiled to reveal my pointed canines, and even though Brianna opened her mouth like she might scream again, she just took a deep breath and shut her mouth instead.

  “Well, you did kill Isaac, right?” Neko pointed out. “And since I didn’t hear a gunshot, I guess that means you used your bare hands. And I’m pretty sure there’s not a single human alive who could have taken out a vamp like Isaac with his bare hands.”

  “I mean, yeah, that makes sense and all,” the blonde said. “I just meant-- you don’t act like Isaac, you know?”

  “Or like any of the other vampires we’ve seen,” Neko added.

  “So, you’ve seen others?” I asked. “How many, do you think? And where have you seen them?”

  “Hold that thought just a second,” the pink-haired girl said. “We can come back to that, but I’m not done talking about the vaccine just yet.”

  “Okay, what else do you want to know?” I asked.

  “How do you know the vaccine is what turned everybody into bloodsuckers?” Neko demanded.

  “One of Natalie’s roommates actually figured it out,” I explained. “Erika is really good at finding things out, so she was able to do some research and make the connection. She’s also not the only one out there who thinks the vaccine is responsible for all this.”

  “But, like, didn’t they do trials or something?” Brianna asked. “How come nobody knew what the vaccine would do to people?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe it’s just bad luck, or maybe it’s a big government conspiracy. I have no idea, and I don’t know when, how, or if we’ll ever be able to find out more.”

  “I guess that’s not really important right now,” the blonde said. “I mean, yeah, I’d really like to know why and how and all that stuff, but it’s not like we have to know that right away or anything.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It would be nice to know, but it doesn’t change what we have to do. It won’t matter if we find out every last bit of information about the vaccine, if we can’t find a way to survive all this.”

  “Okay,” Neko sighed. “So the vaccine turned everybody into vampires, the vampires attacked all the humans who were left, but somehow, you’re not like all the other bloodsuckers out there?”

  “Well, more or less,” I replied. “I still need blood, obviously, but I didn’t turn into some asshole like Isaac or like most of the other vamps I’ve met. No offense, Brianna.”

  “None taken,” the blonde said and gave a shaky little laugh.

  “But to answer your question,” I told the Japanese girl, “I’m really not sure why I’m different from the other vamps. But I think it’s probably like the AIDS vaccine-- it’ll be nice to figure out more about all that one day, but it doesn’t change the fact that we just need to survive.”

  “Fair enough,” Neko said. “I guess we’ll just have to be satisfied with that explanation for now.”

  “It’s the best one I’ve got,” I said with a shrug. “So Isaac-- when did he, uh--”

  “When did he turn into a bloodsucking son-of-a-bitch?” the pink-haired Japanese girl finished for me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Natalie’s been texting him since all this first started, and he made it sound like he was trapped in a classroom when the outbreak first started.”

  “Well, that was partly true,” Brianna sniffed. “We were all trapped in class together when it started.”

  “You, too?” I asked Neko.

  “Yeah, I have almost the exact same schedule as Bree,” the pink-haired girl replied.

  “Okay, go ahead,” I told the blonde.

  “So, like, we were all trapped in class,” Brianna continued, “but, uh, Isaac-- well, Isaac was the one who trapped us.”

  “We were just sitting in class like normal,” Neko said, “and all of a sudden, Isaac just came in late, walked to the front of the class, and attacked some girl in the front row. By the time anybody figured out what was happening, he’d already ripped her throat out.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “The professor tried to pull him off her,” Brianna said, “but then Isaac turned on him, too, and his mouth was all-- ugh, you tell it, Neko.”

  “His mouth was covered in blood from where he’d killed that girl,” the Japanese girl said. “And then Isaac just tore off the professor’s arm and just… well, he beat him to death with his own arm. So you can imagine the panic that caused.”

  “But you weren’t able to get away from him in time?” I asked.

  “Honestly, we were all so shocked that we all didn’t move as quickly as we should have,” Neko said. “If we’d known--”

  “Nobody could have guessed that any of this would happen,” I interrupted. “So it’s nothing that you should blame yourself for. I just want to know what happened, that’s all.”

  The pink-haired girl nodded, and her dark eyes looked so upset that I wanted to just take her into my arms, but instead, I just laid my hand on her arm and gave her a gentle squeeze.

  “So after Isaac attacked the girl and the professor, what happened?” I asked to try to take her mind off any guilt that she was feeling.

  “We all ran for the door,” Neko replied. “But it was a big class, and there was only one set of doors in and out of the classroom, so it took a while for everybody to run out.”

  “I had almost decided to skip class that day, too,” the blonde groaned. “That’ll teach me for next time, anyway.”

  “I don’t know if there’s gonna ever be a next time,” Neko said. “I think the apocalypse automatically cancels all classes, don’t you think?”

  “That seems like a pretty safe assumption,” I laughed. “So everybody tried to run out of the classroom, and then what happened?”

  “Isaac ran toward the doors to try to lock us in,” the pink-haired girl said. “Over half the class had escaped, but then after he locked us in, we all ran back toward the front of the classroom to try to get away from him. And that gave him time to barricade the doors, so we couldn’t try to break them open.”

  “And that’s when we figured out that Isaac wasn’t the only monster in the classroom,” Brianna murmured. “There were others, and then they all started to…”

  “They all joined in on the attack,” Neko said when the other girl trailed off. “But it’s not like they worked together or anything. They just pounced on whoever was closest to them, and then… it was just a fucking slaughter.”

  “How did you survive?” I asked as I noticed that Neko still hadn’t pulled away from my hand on her arm.

  “The vamps started to turn on each other,” the blonde replied. “They fought over some of the, uh, bodies, I guess. And then they just started to fight each other.”

  “We hid in the storage closet at the front of the room,” the pink-haired girl added. “It wasn’t a very good hiding spot, obviously, but there was no other way out of the room, so we figured that the best thing we could do was to just lay low and hope that they all killed each other.”

  “Obviously, they didn’t,” Brianna sighed.

  “How
many of you hid in the closet?” I asked.

  “Seven?” the blonde guessed. “No, I think it was eight.”

  “So then what happened?” I asked.

  “The sounds of all the fighting finally died down outside,” Brianna said, “but we definitely weren’t about to open up the door. I would have waited in there forever, if I could have.”

  “But Isaac didn’t let us,” Neko said. “Things had only been quiet for about a minute before we heard laughter, and then we heard someone drag something in front of the closet door.”

  “He blocked us in,” Brianna murmured. “He said he could, like… smell us, and he could smell how many of us there were.”

  “And then he just kept us in there until-- well, I guess until he was hungry again,” the Japanese girl said. “Then he opened up the door, grabbed some boy who used to sit two seats down from me, and then closed the door again before any of us could move.”

  “I’m guessing that the boy didn’t come back,” I said.

  “No, but I don’t think--” Brianna paused. “Well, I don’t think he suffered very long, anyway. He only screamed for a second.”

  “Then he just kept us in there, but we could still hear screams from all over campus,” Neko said. “He took two other students out of the closet and killed them, too, and then… well, I don’t know how much time passed, but when he finally opened up the closet, he tied up all five of us and just left us in the classroom.”

  “Where did he go?” I asked.

  “I think he went to see what was happening on the rest of campus,” the blonde answered. “Or maybe he went to check the news or something. He didn’t really tell us when he got back.”

  “Probably because he was too busy killing Jill,” Neko deadpanned.

  “Jill?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “When he tied us all up and left us at the front of the classroom, he told us not to try to escape, or we’d regret it,” Brianna explained. “But Jill-- she was in our study group-- she said that was bullshit, so she crawled over to the door as soon as he left and started trying to open it.”

  “Isaac had barricaded the door from the outside when he left,” Neko added, “and he told us that if we all did exactly what he said, he’d keep us safe from the rest of the monsters out there.”