by Phil Wohl
made sure that she would make each of them feel uncomfortable. It had been hours since the vampires field trip to the blood bank and she was thirsting for a late-night snack. Belinda faked like she was going to punch Sharon, but instead made a break for Agent Blake’s meaty forearm, sinking her teeth into top and bottom and then extracting a little sweet nectar.
When Sharon recovered she lunged at Belinda, but all she wound up with was a puncture mark in her thigh as the vampire had her second cocktail in a row and appeared charged up from the enhanced blood. The intoxicating aroma of fresh blood must have wafted through the air, because it helped Daniel get back in the fight as Nicole and Carla continued to scratch and kick him when he was down. First he took a bite out of his wife’s leg as she kicked him in the stomach, and then he stopped Carla from scratching his face by sinking his teeth through her clothes and into her left side.
Daniel didn’t realize it at the time but he was definitely channeling elements of the high school cat fight through his biting of human flesh. Drew then spun through the fight, only to have a voracious and eager Daniel bite him in the shoulder blade and then send him on his way.
“You fight like a girl!” Carla said as she held her side.
Daniel thought about the comment and then zipped toward her, as his fist connected with her face before she even had a chance to react. Luckily a limping Nicole counteracted that measure with a right hand of her own, or the night might have been over for Carla as Daniel would have surely drained the rest of her blood.
Maggie had more than enough of Kayla beating up on her, so she pretended to be more hurt then she was and played possum as Aaron came lumbering toward them to deliver the knockout blow. Both Maggie and Kayla were on their knees, with Kayla chocking Maggie out from behind her, as Aaron clenched his right fist and then wound up to deliver the haymaker to end all haymakers’.
Just as Aaron’s long, muscular arm started its downward ascent toward Maggie’s face she prepared to break free of Kayla clutch but was meeting with some tremendous resistance. She tried to test the limits of her bounds but was unsuccessful at providing enough space to duck at just the right time. So she did the only thing that she could think of at the time, as the scent of blood continued to infiltrate the nostrils of the five vampires across the park. Instead of continuing to resist to Kayla choke-hold, she simply extended her fangs and took a bite out of her bicep, which reduced the hunters’ strength enough to enable Maggie to duck at the last moment as she felt the breeze of Aaron’s fist whiz past her ear and continue toward Kayla’s cheekbone where it found a more suitable landing place.
NINETEEN
Aaron bumped his head on the ground as he awkwardly rolled after his follow though, and he landed on top of a fully-dazed Kayla who probably wasn’t sure what planet she was on at the time. This gave a suddenly blood-hungry Maggie a chance to take a crack at Andrew, who was reeling from losing most of his blood along the way. She went totally conventional by grabbing him, pushing his head over to the left side, and then sinking her teeth into his exposed neck. A few seconds later, Drew’s blood stopped flowing and Maggie stopped drinking, which told her it was time to move on so she simply let go of him and let him drop limply to the ground. It was now 10 against five in favor of the hunters and protectors.
Grizzly bears Cal and Emily were giving vampire Hartwell all he could handle and more, throwing him quite a beating as a grizzly bear duo. They had rediscovered all of the fun and joy they experienced as teens and it was showing in their brilliant performance. While teens might have energy and willful spirits as their competitive advantages, the one attribute you could potentially view as detrimental is their relatively short attention spans.
Hartwell was not a big fan of eating bear over the years because he inevitably wound up fishing stray hairs out of his mouth for what seemed like hours. Human necks were so much easier and cleaner to extract blood out of, although there always was a lot more blood to be taken out of a bear than a human. Just as Emily and Cal thought they were on the verge of taking Hartwell out of the equation, thus ending the night for everyone, they morphed back into human facades in order to deliver the last cut with their swords. Hartwell smiled with his back to his would-be executioners as the pungent scent of bear was replaced by the faint smell of cologne and perfume. Cal and Emily wound up and were about to complete their infamous ‘x-cut’ on Hartwell’s neck with their swords. The vampire waited until the breeze of the blades coming toward him was at the optimal level and then exploded into the air just above the hunters and flipped his long frame around the two sword-swingers, who didn’t realize what had just happened until Hartwell had already drained both of the bodies of blood and they fell lifelessly to the ground, connecting in a last gasp as their favorite grizzly bears.
Eight hunters and protectors against five vampires was a little more manageable, especially with daddy Hartwell now on the loose and supercharged by hunter blood. Speaking of blood, Belinda had taken a great deal of blood from Agent Blake and Sharon, but that did little to slow Blake who appeared ready to do battle again. He used his superior strength to get close to Belinda and then picked her up over his head and then violently slammed her to the ground, which was both reassuring and pleasing to Sharon who was now ready to reengage back into the fight. She picked up her sword and then raised it over her head, preparing herself for the downward thrust of her blade through Belinda’s back and heart. The vampire was on her stomach in a fuzzy haze when Sharon began her ascent to stamp Belinda’s ticket “GAME OVER.”
Belinda felt the faint prick of a sword on her back and wondered for a moment if dying had become a truly painless endeavor? Of course, Hartwell’s mad dash across the field helped ease her anguish after he intercepted Sharon and then drove her into the ground while simultaneously sinking his teeth into her neck and reducing her blood gauge to empty. Hartwell shielded himself from the dirt and then emerged from the massive divot as Belinda struggled with a determined Blake. Hartwell zipped back over behind Blake and wrapped his arms around the protector so he couldn’t move. The master vampire was difficult to beat under normal conditions, but was almost impossible to stop with a little fresh blood in him. He looked at Belinda and then aggressively looked at Blake’s neck. She was eager to comply as she moved Blake’s head over to his right, her left, and then hungrily fed off him until he was dry. Hartwell stepped back away from Blake and he fell with a thud on his back to the grass.
The six against five advantage was shaky at best for the hunters and protectors, because the blood that was flowing through Hartwell and Belinda’s veins gave the vampires the decided momentum. Hartwell stood by proudly as Max was doing battle with Thaddeus and Garrison. The young vampire had ended his time as a beach ball and was now doing his impersonation of steam-roller, pulling a page out of his son Samuel’s playbook of being able to impersonate just about anything. The vision of a young Samuel playing with a truck came into Maxwell’s head and before he knew it, he was bulldozing his older counterparts.
It looked like Gary and Thad were about to expire, so Grandpa’ Hartwell said, “Maxie, you might want to take a drink before the vintage loses its potency.”
Maxwell was so consumed by his Samuel flash that he forgot that the focus of his existence was the red liquid inside of humans. Hartwell put his arm around Maxwell and pointed to Thad and Gary’s necks, which was the equivalent making a bull see red! Max zoomed down above the men and held them down while he drank the liquid he so eagerly desired. He came back up when he was finished with blood all over his face, so Hartwell pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his grandson clean before depositing the soiled rag in an adjacent garbage can. Hartwell was so meticulous that he only used each one of his cotton handkerchiefs once before throwing them out like tissues. He had tried in vain to clean the garments on several occasions and found it more pleasing to simply replace the accessory after each use.
Belinda was as bl
ood-thirsty as Maggie, as she propped up a drowsy Kayla and sunk her teeth into her neck. Maggie looked at her partner in crime as she hit the mother-load with unsealing of Aaron’s long neck. Her eyes rolled in back of her head from the sheer pleasure and fulfillment of landing such a big catch. The big guy struggled for a moment before the gravity of his blood loss finally took hold. Belinda put her hand up and Maggie slapped it as they both hovered upright and released the useless vessels of Kayla and Aaron.
The four victorious vampires moved over to watch Daniel take on the bash sisters, Carla and Nicole. The fight was winding down as Daniel employed a ‘small bites’ strategy. He looked over at the master strategist of the group, Maxwell, and said, “So, what do you think of my small bites strategy?”
Max then watched his father take small drinks, or bites, out of various parts of the women’s bodies from head to toe, until they were both so weak that they could barely stand. Daniel moved with the speed and hunger of a piranha, puncturing holes in arms, hands and legs, rendering the women helpless and very wobbly. He stood behind them and