The Life, Death, Life, Life and Death of Martin Keller (Dark Season V)

by Amy Cross

  As I started, the vampire looked up at me. I made eye contact with it and for a moment I felt sure it was going to kill me. But just as I was ready to die, the vampire simply ran off in the opposite direction.

  I went to look at the dead body. I had never seen a corpse before, but instead of being repulsed, I found it fascinating. Kneeling, I looked at the gaping hole in the neck and the fresh blood flowing from the injury. As I stared, I realised something shocking: the man was still alive. His eyes were flickering open and shut, but he was clearly focused on me.

  He probably thought he’d struck lucky, and that I was going to rescue him.

  Instead, I leaned down and licked blood from the side of his neck. It tasted warm and rich. I licked more, and more. My whole body was tingling. I knew this was wrong, that it was contrary to my whole life of careful, safe boringness. But I had never felt a thrill like this. Finally, after licking up as much of the blood from the side of the man’s neck as possible, I moved my mouth to the wound and began to lick it. After a while, my tongue began to lick inside the wound, and soon I was sucking out blood. With the blood came small pieces of flesh, which I swallowed anyway.

  And it felt good.

  Suddenly there was a sound from nearby, and I looked up. A human had come down the alley, just as I had a few moments earlier. And now he was staring at me. It was exactly what had happened just minutes before, except this time I was in the role of the vampire and this new fool was in my old position.

  But instead of running, as the vampire had done, I stood slowly and started walking towards the man.

  To my surprise, he seemed frozen to the spot, unable to flee. For a moment, I wondered if perhaps he would join me in feasting on the dead body. But I finally realised that he was simply horrified by what he saw, by the blood around my mouth.

  It was at that moment that I disconnected from humanity. In this man’s face, I saw the ‘normal’ human reaction: horror, fear, disgust. These were the emotions I should have felt, but didn’t.

  As I reached the man, I knew what I had to do. If I delayed, I would fail. So I grabbed him and, as he finally started to try to pull away, I bit as hard as I could on his neck. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but even with my pathetic human teeth I cut deep into his flesh. I felt chunks of meat crush in my mouth, and I felt hot blood spurt against my tongue. It was all welcome. In just a few minutes, I had become a creature that craved such sensations. So I forced the man against a wall, held my body against his, and chewed on his neck.

  He struggled a little, but for the most part it was much easier that I could ever have expected. Within minutes he was dead and I was holding him, chewing on his neck just as I had chewed on the neck of the other guy. The difference here, however, was that this time I had performed the kill. And as I chewed on his flesh and held my body against his, I felt my erection pushed hard into his hip.

  I let his body fall to the ground, and then I decided to embrace my new existence. I took off all my clothes and I knelt on this dead man and I ate at his neck. I smeared my hands in his blood and wiped it all over my body. Soon, I was covered in blood and I had eaten almost all of his neck, my teeth grinding against bone. And as I pushed my body against his, I felt a rush of excitement and finally, unexpectedly, I reached orgasm. My blood-covered cock spat hot sperm into his wounds as I held on tight to his body. When I was done, I rolled of and lay on my back, staring up into the night sky. I looked down at my cock, and saw sperm dribbling down the side and mixing with blood; it was bigger and harder than I had ever seen it.

  This is when I became a vampire.

  Later, there would be operations and injections, hormones and transplants. I would go on to become stronger and more powerful than any human. At first, I tried to mix with the vampires, to become part of their families. But I soon discovered that they had nothing to offer me but rejection, so I began to kill them. Over time, as I recovered from the surgery that strengthened my body, I found it easier and easier to destroy them. Had the vampire war not reached its peak and taken them away from me, I would have killed them all. But then I realised that I had a chance to create a new breed of vampire, one that would proudly take its place as the dominant species, rather than skulking in the shadows.

  That all happened so long ago. Tonight, I’m sitting in a bar in Dedston, contemplating the fact that my long plan is about to come to fruition. The last vampire is dead, and all I have to do is find his body so that I can extract its secrets. And I have to kill Vincent, the ‘father’ who is not a father at all, and the girl who knows too much about the vampires and their ways.

  I finish my drink and go to the bathroom. There’s a guy in there, an old and scruffy guy who has clearly wasted his life. He is standing at a urinal, pissing. I walk up behind him, grab his head in mine and squeeze with all my power. Within seconds, his skull cracks and caves in, and I keep squeezing. He struggles, but he cannot shout out. I keep squeezing, and plates of bones slip away, leaving his brain between my hands. As I squeeze still more, his brain splits into two pieces. And still I squeeze my hands together, letting the rest of his head fall away until my hands close together as a double-fist. Finally, with the head completely destroyed, his body drops to the ground.

  There was no need for that kill.

  It was needless and opportunistic.

  But it was necessary.

  I leave the bathroom and leave the bar, heading along the street and looking once again at the diner. Vincent is still there, lost in thought. He looks like a man who knows that the end is coming. Like a man who knows that he will be defeated. I smile and walk away, into the night. I must find the most painful and humiliating way to kill him when the time comes.

  11

  I tap on the window, careful not to make so much noise that Shelley’s parents might wake up in the next room. After a few more taps, the curtains are parted and a face stares out. Unfortunately it’s not Shelley at all, it’s her wannabe-vampire goth boyfriend Rob. He peers at me, apparently not even recognising me at first.

  “Open the window,” I hiss.

  “Why?” he asks.

  The curtain opens further and Shelley appears. She immediately opens the window when she sees that it’s me. “Party?” she asks.

  “I need something,” I say.

  “Anything,” she says.

  I look at Rob, waiting for him to get the hint and go away. He just stares.

  “Rob, go back to bed,” says Shelley.

  “Maybe I can help,” he says, before being shoulder-barged away from the window by Shelley.

  “Shoot,” she says.

  “Funny you should say that,” I reply. “I need your thing”.

  “My what?”

  “Your gun,” I say. “I need the gun you bought a while back. And I need bullets”.

  “Fuck,” says Shelley.

  “Can I have it?”

  “Babe, I’d give it to you in a flash,” she says, “but I haven’t got it any more. I sold it”.

  My heart sinks. Grabbing a gun was pretty much my only idea, and now I’m back where I started, except now I’ve only got about 18 hours before Keller goes through on his promise to get revenge on both Vincent and me.

  “What’s wrong?” Shelley asks.

  “Nothing,” I say, already concentrating on coming up with another idea.

  “You need a gun this late at night and nothing’s wrong?” she asks. “Seriously?”

  “I have to go,” I say, turning.

  “Hang on,” Shelley says. “I’ve got an idea”. I wait while she vanishes into her room for a moment. She returns with a cardboard box, which she hands to me. “Take these,” she says.

  I look into the box and see twenty, maybe thirty large knives, all of them looking extremely nasty and dangerous.

  “Where did you get these?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Let’s just say going to have some unusually boring sex tonight,” she says. “But seriously, what’s going on?”


  I look at the knives. They’re insane, but they’re better than nothing. “Don’t worry,” I say. “Thanks”. I turn and start walking away.

  “Hey!” Shelley calls after me. “I’m gonna need those knives back when you’re done with them, okay?”

  I don’t look back.

  The knives are way too heavy, so I ditch most of them behind a bush and take just the three largest ones. I can’t help remembering that just a year ago, I’d never thought about vampires and the most danger I’d ever been in was when I went to parties in a bad neighbourhood. Now look at me: crouched by a bush, examining a series of large knives, and preparing to go to the forest in the middle of the night and take on some kind of souped-up monster.

  I look down at my hands and realise that they’re shaking again. I could die here. I could square up to this Martin Keller guy and end up dead. I’ve come close to death before, but never like this. I’ve never had the choice to run away. Now I can... I can just turn and leave. I can grab my things and leave town, or I can just leave the whole thing alone and hope that Keller decides it’s not worth the bother to kill me. After all, Patrick’s dead, Vincent’s almost dead. What am I fighting for?

  Where would I go if I left? What would I do? It's not like I've got any money, or any qualifications, or any real work experience. I've got nothing. Hell, without Patrick and Vincent I'd just be another girl hanging around Dedston. That's the problem: there's nothing special or unique about me. I'm just me. I'm just Sophie Hart, and I have no skills. I'm not particularly smart; I'm not particularly attractive; I'm not particularly interesting to talk to; I'm not even remotely athletic or good at physical work. Standing face to face with destiny, I've got to admit it: I've got nothing.

  Eventually I stand up and start walking towards the forest. There’s no point being scared now, no point backing out. I feel as if Patrick is inside my head, telling me to keep fighting. And what was it that Vincent told me, just yesterday? No matter how bad things look, there’s always a way out. You just have to be smart enough to find it. The question is: am I smart enough?

  When I get to the forest, I head straight to the entrance the leads down to Patrick and Vincent’s home. I’m assuming that Keller is down there, waiting. He probably expects me to show up. This is probably some huge trap. And isn’t it just... revenge? No, it’s not revenge. It’s the only way to make sure that this Keller asshole doesn’t track down Patrick’s body.

  The walk down the tunnel to the cavern is long and dark, but eventually I reach the large cavern with the house in the middle. So far, so good. The whole place seems to be deserted. It feels so strange to be so scared down here, when I’d got used to seeing this place as a place of refuge. I thought this underground world with Patrick and Vincent would last forever. I kind of thought that one day I’d leave the world above and come down here permanently. But now, as I step across the rubble towards the house, I’m filled with dread and fear, and with a feeling that this place will never be the same again.

  I get to the house, and I’m not sure what to do next. Fuck, what am I here for? I look down at the three knives in my hand. Martin Keller killed Patrick, a vampire with centuries’ of strength and experience. Am I really supposed to somehow defeat him with, what, just a few knives? I should just turn and leave this place right now. I should run away.

  But I don’t.

  I go into the house.

  12

  It's time to kill them all.

  13

  The whole house feels empty, as if no-one has been here for so long. I go straight through to Vincent’s study, where I find his books and papers have been thrown about the room. Someone has clearly been searching for something, perhaps for some secret that Vincent knows. Did they find it? I hope not. I can imagine Vincent knows some pretty huge secrets, and Martin Keller doesn’t seem like the kind of person who should know too many important secrets.

  Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do. I have the knives, and I have a vague idea that I’m ready to take on Martin Keller. But I also know that I can hardly just launch myself at him. Slowly, realisation dawns on me: I’m completely alone down here, about to come face to face with the man who had the strength to kill Patrick. What the hell do I think I can do?

  I look at the knives I got from Shelley. They suddenly look so pathetic. Damn her. Why couldn’t she have still had that little pink handgun?

  It occurs to me that I should have waited. I should have come up with a better plan. There was no need to come straight down here. I should have taken time and worked out how to take on this asshole. But now that I’m here, there’s no time. I’ve chosen my course of action, and I have to stick to it. I have to trust that Vincent was right: no matter how bad things seem, there’s always a way out.

  You just have to be smart enough to spot it.

  “I’m surprised you came,” says a voice behind me.

  I turn to see Martin Keller standing in the doorway, smiling with confidence.

  “I assume,” he continues, “that you believe you have a plan. Probably involving those knives in your hands. The truth is: you don’t. You can fight if you wish, but I’m willing to offer you a deal. Don’t bother, and I promise to let you go. There’s nothing you have that I want”.

  I re-position my grip on the knives.

  “I’m serious,” says Keller. “I’m a harsh man, but I’m true to my word. I’ll let you walk out of here. You don’t know where the vampire’s body is. It’s Vincent I want, and you can’t save him. He’s already dead, he’s just waiting for the final moment”. He smiles. “So you’re free to go”.

  The funny thing is, I believe him. I think he genuinely would let me go. I’m nothing to him. I could just walk out of here, forget all about Patrick and Vincent, and live my life. What else can I do? If I try to fight this guy, I’ll lose and I’ll die. Fuck. I wish I was smarter. I wish I could think of a better plan. All I’ve come up with is to come down here with knives and hope against hope that I manage to get lucky in a straight fight. What an idiot.

  Although I keep expecting myself to get scared and run, I don’t. I stand my ground. Though I’m terrified, I feel as if there’s no other option. It’s as if I can feel Patrick watching me, urging me to make a stand. But why would he want me to start a fight I can’t possibly win? Is it because he believes I can win? Or because I’m just imagining that he’s there?

  “If you don’t leave now,” he says calmly. “I can’t promise you a quick and painless death. I might decide to use you for sport. It’s so much fun, ripping a human apart. It pleases a vampire’s soul”.

  “You’re not a vampire,” I say. Sure, it’s probably unwise to make him angry. But then again, perhaps this is the only way to get him to make a mistake.

  He bares his teeth, letting me see the needles he has had surgically implanted as his own version of vampire fangs.

  “Still not a vampire,” I say. “You’ve still got the heart of a human”.

  He smiles and pulls up a shirt sleeve, revealing a half-flesh, half-metal arm.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “You can have all the surgery you want, you still won’t have the heart of a real vampire”.

  “Not yet,” he says. “But once I get hold of the vampire’s corpse, I can sequence the DNA and complete the transformation. I’ll be the first of a new generation of pure vampires, ready to take control of the entire world. We won’t hide in the shadows like the vampires of old. We’ll become the one true dominant race”.

  “Still,” I say, “you’re not a real vampire”. I figure this guy has all the advantages, the only thing I can do is make him angry and hope I can somehow take advantage of his loss of control. I know: it’s a big risk. But it’s all I can think of right now.

  He steps towards me. Part one of the plan is working: he’s clearly angry. But part two? The part where I work out a way to take advantage of his anger? Not sure how that part’s going.

  “Is a real vampire a coward?” he asks.
“Does a real vampire hide in a cave? Or does a real vampire take control? Is a real vampire strong and powerful?”

  “A real vampire is born a vampire,” I say, stepping back to get away from him. “A real vampire has vampire parents”. I’m not sure that’s true. After all, Vincent is Patrick’s father and Vincent isn’t a vampire. So I’m on really, really shaky ground.

  He lunges for me, grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me close to him. “Welcome to the new paradigm,” he says. He looks down. Instinctively, I pushed the three knives into his stomach, but there’s barely any blood coming out. He looks up at me and smiles. “I hope you have a Plan B”.

  I try to struggle free, but Keller has me held too tightly.

  “The offer of freedom is rescinded,” he says. “I’ve decided to kill you”. He smiles, baring once again the needles embedded in his mouth. Each syringe is filled with the same dark brown liquid that he injected into Vincent. “But in the interests of mercy, I’ll kill you before I rip your body apart”.

  So this is it. This is the moment when, if Vincent is right, I should see a way out. I have maybe a few seconds before Keller starts carving me up. But instead of coming up with a plan to get out of this, all I can do is think about everything I’ll be leaving behind: my friends, my family, the town...

  Keller leans in, opening his mouth ready to deliver an injection from his syringe-teeth. But as he does so, his left shoulder suddenly explodes, showering me with blood. He grunts in pain and pulls away from me, turning to face the door. Because I’m behind him, I can’t see what he’s looking at.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asks.

  I lean out from behind Keller, and I can’t believe what I see standing in the doorway. With a shocked but determined look on her face, and holding up a little pink pistol pointed straight at Keller, is Shelley.