by Phil Wohl
felt they were making progress.
“We almost got into a real fight!” Aaron half-boasted as the men walked up to the house.
“I think you should call that guy Ellison out tomorrow night,” Andrew said to his Grandpa’ Thaddeus.
“Did you even see him in the middle of that gang tonight?” Brandon Justice asked.
“No, you’d think that he would be all about revenge and getting back at us,” Garrison added.
“What kind of protector is he?” Cal asked. “I might let you knock me down once, just to get the blood flowing, but anything after that would lead to a beat-down.
Blake said to his new buddy Joe Winters “ I told you this would be a disaster.”
Joe, who was trying to think peaceful thoughts, said “At least it was fast.”
“That’s the best sleep I’ve had in a long time,” Blake added.
“I’m with you on that one,” Joe concurred.
Hartwell was overjoyed that the boys still had plenty of fight left in them after they were annihilated in what amounted to a five-second fight. Without a strategy call from Maxwell, they were merely 10 men strong looking to go old-school against more than 2,000 vampires and protectors. They stood in place with their fists at the ready position and were diced and sliced like a bunch of carrots and used as colorful garnish in a salad.
But the first night that turned into the day was not a total success in Hartwell’s eyes. He could see that Daniel and Maxwell were quieter than usual, which meant that they had probably checked out mentally and shut down the things that made them amazing. His resolve to keep everyone in the dark remained intact, but the hold he had on secrecy was loosening with every nap in the park.
Night two without the women wasn’t much different than night one, but the group did yell, “Ellison!” in unison, which seemed to get the attention of Lowery’s protector on the way back to the Beach Haven Inn.
“Were they calling my name?” Ellison said to a vampire that was giving him a ride home.
“I believe they were,” the man replied.
Ellison was flattered with the gesture, even though he had remained a distance observer to the actual fight, of you want to call it that. He quickly grew tired after the first two nights of waking up in the middle of a moist field. So, he decided to place himself in the latter third of the siege when less than a third of the manpower was utilized in successive days. He was so far back, in fact, that he didn’t even notice that the women had stayed home and there were only 10 unarmed men standing in the way of the group and a massive karaoke party that started to become a nightly thing back at the Inn’s pool area.
Alexander Lowery so enjoyed listening to karaoke and signing really bad Easy Rock ballads, that he had his minions steal the best equipment on the planet. Lowery felt so invincible after the third night that he started karaoke night complete with kegs of beer and packets of human blood as far as the supernatural eye could see.
He serenaded his returning troops with songs from the 1970s and 1980s that many of the artists would have gladly taken their own lives, in return for Lowery’s promised silence. Lowery’s minions loved him and were eternally loyal to him because of the big party he always threw when they were together, which was obviously an effective smoke screen. It appeared that the only person that figured out his rolling hit list was Ellison, probably because no one else of significant age and experience was around to tell the grim tale because they had been eliminated.
Lowery didn’t have a care in the world because no one had ever challenged his authority except Braden Lawrence, who was Lowery’s hunter. But he had been buried in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the past 25 years, so the chance of meeting with any resistance was slim. Once Lowery felt the extinguishment of Hartwell’s energy source each night, it signaled the end of any potential danger for him and a jumping-off point for the party to start. It didn’t take long after that for his people to return and begin the nightly celebration.
The minions partied all night and then slept all day until it was time to go out and do it all over again. They had never been defeated and had barely been challenged in an individual battle, although the tussle of the first night against Hartwell’s bunch represented the closest anyone had ever been to beating them. The loss of more than 1,000 people was unheard of before then, but the masses chalked it up to faulty strategy that was quickly amended. It had become so easy by night five that Ellison was not even needed to call out the charge order. The troops simply got up at the stroke of midnight, flew in the air to the desired location and then flew back only minutes later. It was barely worth even getting dressed for.
Night five’s location was the Beach Haven High School football field, just as it had been the previous night. The Friday and Saturday night battles were at the high school because school was out for the weekend and the venue was basically deserted. Lowery’s gang made quick work of Hartwell and company the first night, but took full advantage of the field the second night as many people reminisced about their high school days. Heads of the 10 men were used to simulate winning football plays or field goals that won championships in days gone by. Some men stayed on the lighted field for a good 20 minutes after the battle had officially ended, while being cheered on by the group of former cheerleaders in the bunch.
“The party started,” one protector alerted his quarterback vampire.
The vampire then threw the head in his hand, which just happened to be Hartwell’s, 100 yards down the field through rain and the bright yellow goal posts, and thudded and then rolled through the end zone.
“It’s time to fly!” the vampire dressed in his old uniform said to the rest of the team as they took to the sky and headed back to home base.
The morning came and light filtered through the trees of the extensive school property and onto the professional turf field. Hartwell’s head rolled back to his body, which was on the 50 yard line. The heads of all the other men made a similar bowling ball-like journey, as the transformation on this cloudy, dreary day was taking at least an hour more than it normally would on a sunny day.
Hartwell was the last to wake up and experienced pain that he hadn’t felt since his early days as a vampire.
“Wow! My head feels like it was used as a golf ball!” he said as he sat up and strained to regain his equilibrium.
“Yeah, what happened last night?” Daniel asked.
The mystery of everyone’s headache was solved by the hunters, who were able to view things around them for a limited time after they were killed during a fight.
Cal stepped up, “Football.”
“What about football?” Blake questioned as he tried to adjust his neck to alleviate the pain.
Andrew had his first after-life vision as a hunter, “Holy moley! They were playing football with our heads!”
Garrison needed confirmation, “Is that right, Thad?”
Thaddeus flashed back to being punted and then spinning through the air before everything went black.
“Yeah, I believe I was punted.”
“That’s not right!” Hartwell yelled as he was still being bothered by a splitting headache.
Aaron usually wasn’t the one to challenge Hartwell, but his migraine propelled him to say, “There he is! I thought you left us for dead!”
Hartwell was in no mood to be mocked by a rookie.
“What did he say? Was the tall piece of wood mocking me?” Hartwell asked Cal and then zipped over to Aaron and knocked him out with one titanic punch.
“Cool!” neophyte Maxwell said as Andrew took exception to the positive reference to one of his own getting hurt. Since Drew wasn’t related to Maxwell, even though he was almost his father, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Someone has to teach that kid a lesson,” Drew said as he came at an unsuspecting Maxwell from the side and sucker-punched him.
Daniel couldn’t believe his eyes, “Oh no, you didn’t!” he said as he went at
Drew and gave him a good beating.
It wasn’t long before a few errant comments turned into a full-scale brawl that lasted a good 30 minutes. There wasn’t one change of external façade during the whole fight, giving this band of men with raging levels of testosterone a chance to finally vent their desire to fight. By the end of the half-hour of flying fists, there wasn’t a man amongst them that carried any ill will. They walked back together from the football field to Hartwell’s house, taking their time via a remote route. By the time they walked into the house it was nearly 9:00 am and everyone was up and eating in the main room.
Not only was it later than usual for the men to be coming in but they were all bruised and bloody, which never had occurred previously following a reawakening.
“What is going on?” Nicole asked the girls at the table.
Emily smirked, “I think the boys are ready to fight again.”
THIRTY-ONE
Hartwell was now within range to fully execute his plan and let the others in on his big secret. But he needed help in determining whether Samuel was ready to back him in this plot, and he knew just the person to provide that precious intelligence.
“Hey son, you have a minute?” Hartwell asked Daniel internally from another room after breakfast.
Daniel was doing a whole lot of nothing, so he glided into the main room and spoke out loud, “Sure, what do you need?”
Hartwell was always paranoid, which was