There was a dead, white as a ghost, blood-drained, and stiff carcass of a native female lady lying on the cold metal floor of the dredge, which Dietrich had fed upon. She was dressed in a white nurse’s outfit and had a name tag pinned to her blouse, which read, “Shirley.”
After further investigation of the inside of the dredge, Titus found a small notebook on a bench, which Dietrich had used as a small diary of his previous activity in Circa and had left it behind; whether on purpose or by accident was unknown to Titus. As he read through a few pages, he discovered that his brother was infatuated with a village girl in Circa named Phyllis, who he intended to turn into a vampire just two nights earlier, making her his eternal mate and minion in servitude to him for an eternity. As he read through more, he saw where Dietrich had written of two infidels named Carl and Brian, who Dietrich had suspected were attempting to hinder his plans for Phyllis, and one infidel named Ron, whom he killed, when Ron attempted to stop him from talking to Phyllis. And he read of Dietrich’s abduction of the nurse, Shirley, from off the clinic’s loading dock after she came outside to smoke a cigarette, and scurrying her to the dredge to feed upon her, and how he was unable to learn what she knew about Circa, for her years of chain smoking had corrupted her blood.
Titus tucked the small notebook into the side pocket of his black leather suit. “Something tells me, if I find Phyllis and these other two infidels, I’ll get some answers!” he said to himself. “I promise you, my brother, that when I find them, drinking their blood will be too easy on them. But instead, they will be forced to talk! And if they had anything to do with your death, they will die a very slow, tortured, and agonizing death, along with their village being wiped off the face of the map!” he angrily exclaimed as he left the dredge.
CHAPTER 22
Simon, Angus, and Lukas followed the footprints of Buck and Phyllis for as far as they could before their tracks faded away after crossing over the wooden bridge to enter Circa.
“Whoever made these tracks are definitely somewhere nearby in this village, and it shouldn’t take us very long to locate them,” said Simon.
“I want whoever ran over and escaped Thomas for myself!” exclaimed Angus. “I’ll give them what’s coming to them when I cripple them and run them down with their own truck!”
“Just let me take a quick drink from them first before you waste a good blood supply for us all,” exclaimed Lukas.
“I’ll do what I want with them,” barked Angus as he shoved Lukas with supernatural power and speed up against the wooden guardrail on the left side of the bridge, causing that part of the guardrail’s beam to snap and break.
Lukas quickly regrouped and responded by grabbing onto the leather over Angus’s chest with both his hands, shoving him in return up against the guardrail on the right side of the bridge with such speed and force that it snapped and broke a truss, which nearly propelled Angus through the guardrail and off the side of the bridge. Angus quickly managed to grab onto a large splinter of wood from the broken truss, which resembled a sharp, pointed stake, and attempted to aggressively shove it through the chest and heart of Lukas in retaliation, trying to kill him in a fit of rage, while Lukas managed to block the forward swing of Angus’s arm with his own arm, preventing him from doing so.
“Knock it off both of you, now!” shouted Simon to them as he jumped in between the two, attempting to separate them while also angrily displaying his fangs as a show of his authority. “Our fight is with whoever killed Dietrich and with Circa, and our goal is to kill them, not to kill each other! Save your strength for them, because something tells me that you’re going to need it!”
Angus and Lukas immediately ceased their fight, and Angus tossed his stake over the side of the bridge and walked away from Lukas. “What is your plan now?” he asked Simon.
“We’ll keep walking down the highway and through Circa, which shouldn’t take long, and see if we’ll notice any sign of activity inside one of these buildings,” he answered. “It’s still light outside, and it surprisingly looks and sounds unusually quiet here. I can’t even hear any children playing outside.”
“Maybe Titus and Billie will find someone to kill, or better yet, bring someone kicking and screaming for us to feed upon,” replied Lukas. “When Titus is finished destroying this place, this village will be dead quiet.”
“Did you hear something, Buck?” asked Phyllis, noticing that he had stopped and stood motionless for the past minute, intently listening for something that even Phyllis herself didn’t hear with her vampire’s enhanced sense of hearing.
“I thought I heard some commotion, somewhere near the bridge, I believe, and it possibly could have been from them,” answered Buck.
“Wow! That’s around one-eighth of a mile away,” Carl said. “Very impressive and no way will we ever talk behind your back.”
“Buck’s hybrid sense of hearing is twice as strong as mine,” said Phyllis.
“We better take up our defensive positions now and assume they’ll be here any moment,” Buck said, glancing at his wristwatch, which read 4:30 PM. “It shouldn’t take them long to spot us, as this should be the only building in the village with the inside lights on.”
“Should we shut our lights off and try to hit them with a surprise attack?” Brian asked Buck.
“Normally, I’d agree to that as being a good idea, but I want them focused on us, so they won’t notice and hurt anyone else in the village,” answered Buck.
“Agreed,” Brian said, thinking to himself how selfless Buck was and how he was willing to put himself in harm’s way rather than chancing someone else from his village being harmed. He quietly opened the left-side wall window of the garage high enough for him to fire Ron’s rifle out of, and had a decent sight radius and shooting distance of up to 100 yards.
Carl likewise opened the front window of the garage, to the right of the large bay door, high enough to easily take a snap shot out of with the shotgun, while Phyllis blew a kiss toward Buck and remained at the closed right-side wall window, watching and intently listening. Buck had his compound bow leaning in the front corner, near the main door, as he stationed himself at the opened front window to the left of the large bay door, watching, listening, and sniffing the air for their vampire scent.
CHAPTER 23
Simon led the way as he, Lukas, and Angus continued down the small highway and through Circa from the front, while watching and listening for any sign of human life.
“There we go,” said Simon as he noticed the red garage to his left with its inside lights on.
“Finally!” responded Angus with excitement.
“Just be cautious, you two! I wouldn’t be surprised if it were some sort of trap, since it’s the only building around with any sign of life. I’ll approach from the front, and Lukas can circle around the right side, while you, Angus, can circle around the left side of the building,” said Simon as the three of them slowly began to advance on Ron’s garage in attack mode.
“Here they come!” exclaimed Buck to the others as he noticed three of them beginning to circle around the garage. “I thought I had gotten a whiff of their vampire scent, and it looks as if Titus and another minion are still missing, so everyone, keep your eyes peeled and watch your backs!”
Brian began to feel himself shake with nervousness as adrenaline began to pump through his body, speeding up his heart rate during the process.
“Are you going to be okay, Brian?” asked Phyllis with concern. “Believe it or not, I can hear your increased heart rate.”
“I’ll be okay in a minute after I take some deep breaths,” he replied. “The last time I was this nervous and afraid was when, well, you know, when Buck’s werewolf attacked us.”
“Everything will be fine, Brian,” responded Buck. “Phyllis and I will do most of the dirty work, and we got your back.”
Brian nodded with approval to both Buck and Phyllis as he felt his nerves calm down again, and began focusing on the battle that was
about to take place.
“If we make it through this unscathed, I’m going to tell everyone that I fought and survived the battle at Ron’s garage!” said Carl with a chuckle, trying to humor himself.
“Hello!” shouted the blond-haired, muscular, white male minion from the front of the garage as he noticed Buck and Carl staring at him from inside and through the small front garage windows. “My name is Simon,” continued the minion, who appeared to be the average height of a normal person, to Buck and Carl.
“What do you want?” Buck asked.
“My car broke down just down the highway near the bridge, and I was looking for a garage to help me, and I am very cold now! Could you please invite me inside, sir, or could you come outside and help me?”
“Is it just yourself?” Buck asked again.
“Just me, yes, but I have a wife and two children in my car waiting for help,” he answered.
“If that’s the case, then why are your two friends, whom you walked into the parking lot with, circling this garage as we speak?” asked Buck cleverly and with sarcasm. “You’re lying, so why don’t you tell me who you all are and the real reason why you’re here?”
Simon became instantly enraged and lost his poise. “Because we’re going to kill you. That is the reason why we are here! Come out now and I’ll introduce you to my other two friends, Lukas and Angus, and we’ll kill you swiftly, or choose to hide inside, and we will burn the building down, with you trapped inside, if necessary!”
Buck was starting to reply when he was interrupted by the screams of Phyllis, as Lukas had broken through and shattered the glass window where she stood, grabbing onto her with both his hands and forcefully pulling her outside in an instant, and slamming her to the ground. His surprise attack happened so quickly that Phyllis dropped her sword onto the garage floor during the process.
“Phyllis!” shouted Buck with alarm as he quickly ran outside through the main door to help her, but barely made it to the outside front of the garage when Simon leaped in front of him, grabbed him, and tossed him into the large front bay door of the garage, which put a giant-sized stress crack into it from top to bottom. Buck responded by kicking Simon in the chest with his right leg as he charged toward Buck, which propelled Simon through the air, crashing into the front grille of Carl’s truck, which was parked ten feet away. Simon charged at Buck again, which resulted in Buck scooping him up and slamming him hard onto his back on the ground.
Brian rushed over to the window where Phyllis was previously standing and picked up her sword from the floor. “Carl, you go help Buck and blast that Simon character!” he shouted. “And I’ll help Phyllis!” He glanced out of the broken window and saw that a tall and skinny white minion, with the physique of a basketball player, and with reddish-colored hair, had the stunned Phyllis pinned to the ground, and was sitting on top of her and straddling her, with his back turned toward the window and Brian.
“You’re really pretty,” said Lukas to the still semi-dazed Phyllis, and began to taunt her. “I’m not going to kill you just yet, but maybe I’ll have a little fun with you first!” He barely finished his demented taunting of Phyllis and was starting to stroke her hair when a loud noise erupted behind him from the garage window, and an intense, sharp pain flooded the back of his neck and head, which dazed him, blurred his vision, and nearly knocked him off Phyllis.
Brian had fired the.308 rifle from almost point-blank range into the back of Lukas’s neck before running toward the front-side main door with the rifle and sword to help her.
Phyllis had now fully recovered and responded with her own taunt, saying, “You’re really ugly,” before she managed to buck and kick Lukas on his back with her left knee with such extreme force that it propelled Lukas off her ten feet through the air, sending him crashing into a small patch of willows.
As Brian had made it outside and around the front corner, running toward Phyllis, he saw that Buck was now preoccupied with fighting against two minions, as Angus had now joined the fight with Simon, while Carl was watching and looking for the right spot to fire the shotgun at one of the minions. Angus was on Buck’s back, trying to bite into the side of his neck, when Buck grabbed him by the side of his head and ears, yanking him off his back and slamming him onto the hood of Carl’s truck, buckling the hood with a giant-sized dent in the process. Buck didn’t have a moment to enjoy his move before Simon was attacking him from the front again. Carl finally found the moment he had been waiting for, as he began firing the twelve-gauge shotgun into the chest of the minion named Angus from ten feet away, before Angus had a chance to leap onto Buck again.
“I’m sick and tired of vampires like you damaging my truck, you bastard!” shouted Carl at Angus as he fired the shotgun at him, pumped another shell into the chamber, and fired again, repeating the process five times before the shotgun was finally empty.
Angus slid off the hood and fell onto the ground, trying to recover from his weakened condition, but was severely wounded from the combination of the shotgun blast and from the wounds he received during his fight with Buck. He was in desperate need of blood to feed on. Angus struggled to move but also hoped to entice Carl into a sloppy, careless, and overconfident approach, getting close enough for him to counter attack Carl and drink his blood for instantaneous replenishing, healing, and strength.
But Carl wisely was cautious and kept his distance. “Now would be a good time to try this out and hope that it works,” he said as he pulled one wooden stake out from his belt and, with great courage and bravado, leaped onto the minion, who was now reaching up and attempting to grab and bite him, anywhere that he could! Angus seemed to sense that his long time on earth was about to end, so with intimidating furor, he hissed loudly at him, while also revealing his terrifying and deadly fangs! He was intending to terrorize Carl with fear, but instead, he quickly thrust the sharp stake as hard as he could through the black leather that covered the chest of Angus, into the heart of the wounded vampire. The world seemed to stop for a moment, and Carl breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the face of Angus shrivel up into a decaying, wrinkled corpse, followed quickly by his body shriveling up, and then into dust, melting away into the snow. He was dead, but unfortunately for Carl, the stake had disappeared also, meaning that he was down to one stake left, with two minions presently attacking and a third one still missing somewhere, and possibly nearby. He began to reload his shotgun and saw that Buck had Simon pinned to the ground and was about to kill him by twisting his head off with his powerful hybrid hands.
“What are you?” Simon asked Buck, as he thought that his life was about to end. “You caught me off guard because I assumed you were human, but I’m 300 years old and you’re stronger than me, which means you’re either an older vampire or something else!”
Buck didn’t think to respond before Lukas, who had now recovered after Brian’s shot to the back of his neck, abandoned his attack on Phyllis and, instead, leaped onto Buck to help save Simon, knocking Buck off Simon and onto the ground. Lukas was on top of Buck in an instant, attempting to shove his right hand through Buck’s chest and rip his heart out. When that failed, Lukas tried to snap Buck’s neck, but Buck managed to bite into his right arm, which caused Lukas tremendous pain and distracted him enough for Buck to grab on to his right arm and hurl him off, slamming him onto the ground hard enough to briefly knock the wind out of him.
Buck’s beginning to slow down and will need blood, thought Carl to himself. I better hurry up and blast and stake another one! He had just loaded his last shotgun shell and began to ascend upon Lukas when he caught a blur from the corner of his right eye from a fast-approaching female, who hit him with extreme force, knocking the shotgun out of his hand, hurling him through the air and crashing hard into the front of the garage wall, causing him to black out.
Brian was already around the corner and checking on Phyllis, who seemed to be okay but just shaken up.
“I’m fine! We need to help Buck!” she shouted when sh
e saw Buck fighting against two minions.
Brian handed her the sword and he readied the rifle as they both ran back out front to help Buck. When Brian rounded the corner, he saw another minion, a female vampire who looked like a petite Goth girl, with her short, thick, black hair, a gold earring in her left ear, and lots of dark eye shadow makeup on her white face. She was straddling Carl’s unconscious body, revealing her fangs and seconds away from biting into his neck. He thought, I hate to shoot a woman, but... He fired the.308 rifle into her upper body, which momentarily knocked her off Carl.
“So you’re the one who shot me from behind!” said Lukas as he raised himself up from the ground after Buck had slammed him down hard just seconds earlier, but was now occupied with fighting Simon again. “I owe you big time!”
Brian raised the rifle, pointed it toward Lukas, and squeezed the trigger. Click! The empty sound seemed as loud as cannons, when he realized that he had forgotten to chamber another round in the rifle after shooting the female minion just moments earlier.
Lukas had a big smirk on his face as he was about to pounce on Brian, when his smirk suddenly turned sideways as his head rolled off his body and to the ground, followed by his body collapsing in a pile and disintegrating into a corpse of dust.
“And I owe you big time also!” said Phyllis, who was standing just behind where Lukas was standing, with the sword held high in the air after just beheading Lukas with it.
“Sweet!” responded Brian as he gave Phyllis a high five with his right hand before chambering another round again, and looking toward Carl while Phyllis turned to look for Buck and Simon.
Village of the Full Moon Curse Page 16