He tore out JC’s throat with his teeth and drained his body of every last ounce of blood. Isidro had died earlier from his injuries. Pedro survived just long enough to die in both Aaron and Michelle’s arms as they fed from either side of his neck––exsanguination––cardiac arrest from high volume blood loss.
She led Aaron back out into the desert to find Kramer. Surprisingly, the man had survived, lying in the blood-soaked dirt in obvious agony. “Please kill me, I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to live like this. Please.” His voice broke with the plea.
She shook her head. “No. He dies slowly.”
She grabbed Aaron’s hand and led him away.
* * * *
Chapter 26
Mike Jamison watched Aaron and Michelle drive way from Demarco’s shortly after Kramer and the other three Hispanic men left with the black-haired beauty. He recognized her from the video security footage Kramer had shown him earlier in the day.
He waited for a few minutes and then followed in the direction they traveled. He didn’t need to follow directly. He had placed a GPS tracker under the Tahoe earlier. He drove down highway 15 till he reached the dirt road turnoff. He parked a mile to the north. With his smartphone tracking app, he pinpointed their location off in the desert and took off hiking with his night-vision goggles. Reaching a nearby rise, he heard the telltale rat-a-tat-tat of assault rifle fire. Sounds like AK-47’s. He knew the sound well. A common weapon all across the Middle East, any militant group on a tight budget went for the AK-47. The Mexican mafias relied on it so heavily they had a nickname for it, cuernos de chivo, horns of the devil.
He took position atop the hill and sighted in on the action with the goggles. He stayed to watch it all, the murder, the cannibalistic feeding ritual, and even the funeral pyre when they burned the black-haired girl’s body. Obviously her death had meant something more to them than the others.
The things he saw chilled him to the bone. As they returned to Vegas in the Black Tahoe, he raced down the hill back to his car. Badly shaken, he wanted to keep a healthy distance. He felt like an interloper slinking around amidst some kind of ritualistic sacrifice. He had no desire to share the fate of the others.
He sat in his car, drinking a warm soda, trying to calm his nerves as he watched their GPS location settle on the La Quinta Inn off Highway 15.
* * * *
Mike awoke at 11:00 a.m., showered quick, and raced out the door with coffee and toast in hand. He drove straight back to Demarco’s house and parked down the block. He casually strolled right up to Demarco’s house and jumped the fence into the back yard. He was about ninety nine percent certain no one was home, at least not alive, considering the events he witnessed last night. He stood there for a moment looking at the busted glass of the back door and telltale bloodstains on the patio. Looking up he noted the patio security camera neatly disguised within the motion detector spotlight lamps. He had installed that very same model in several homes. Few people could tell it was a closed circuit wireless security cam by looking at it.
Inside, he found all the grisly evidence he suspected he might find. He spent an entire hour looking for what he came for. His painstakingly thorough search paid off. He found it in the master bedroom, a false wall in the back of the walk-in closet. A small room about six ft. square housed the closed circuit wireless cameras recorded onto a hot-swap hard drive. A fairly state-of-the-art system several years ago. Probably installed when the house was built. He pulled the hard drive out by the handle, wrapped it in a nearby Rolling Stone magazine and walked out the way he had come. I should write Rolling Stone a letter thanking them for all that useless print.
He considered calling 911 right then, but the cops would get in the middle of the flow of information, making it difficult to find the truth of the matter. He very much wanted to know the truth on the hard-drive. Last night’s show, while shocking, hadn’t been all that enlightening. The mutilated bloated corpses in the garage had one hell of a tale to tell, a story he wanted to watch as it unfolded on video.
He arrived at his home-office at 1:30 p.m. and hooked the hard drive to his laptop.
“This occasion calls for a little something special.”
He cracked open a bottle of fifteen year Balvenie scotch, a birthday gift from his brother-in-law in Seattle. He’d been saving it for the right moment. He poured a liberal dash into a glass on the rocks and sipped the soothing spirit, savoring its rich flavor as he settled in to watch the video footage that would forever change his life.
* * * *
Three hours later Mike sat in the same chair staring at the LCD screen of his laptop. The vivid black and white image frozen in place could have been something from a gruesome horror film. There stood Aaron in all his magnificent fury, Alexander Demarco’s heart in hand. Aaron’s jaw had opened inhumanly wide, long evil-looking fangs bared, preparing to chomp down on the juicy meal.
Mike’s entire world had been turned upside down in the last twenty four hours. He kept returning to the events on the hotel security tape and Demarco’s hidden cameras, culminating with the episode out in the desert night. An endless loop in his mind’s eye, playing over and over again. No matter how many times he analyzed these events, he couldn’t discount the supernatural aspects of it. There was no denying what he’d seen.
He forced himself to face the facts. Aaron and Michelle were not human. The rewriting of fundamental paradigms and beliefs was not an enjoyable process. His head ached with the circular logic that folded back in on itself, the inescapable truth. The scotch helped keep his throbbing temples down to a dull roar.
They’re not human. They look human and sometimes act human, but they are not. So what the fuck are they?
He eventually came to the conclusion that was most logical and yet still sounded insane when he said it aloud, “They’re vampires. Real fucking vampires.”
This being said, the question became what should he do?
His client was dead, the object of the investigation, Alexander Demarco, also dead. The police wouldn’t handle this kind of situation very well. Certain facts would surely be swept under the carpet.
He had put most of it together rather quickly. Aaron was the newbie in the deal. He’d been a nobody in New York a few weeks ago, and suddenly he’s here in Vegas, a rip-roaring badass. Michelle must be the catalyst. She came into his life and made him what he was. Which meant their condition could be passed on, acquired.
In the police investigation, these creatures would probably become the subject of a manhunt … but is that what he wanted to see happen?
“No.”
His own answer shocked him. He no longer cared who they had killed, or even why, though he had deduced more or less the why. What mattered at the moment was the answer to a different question.
How does one become a vampire? That answer mattered more than anything else.
* * * *
“It’s my fault she died. We never should have stayed at Caesar’s Palace. We should have left Vegas. You were right.” Michelle lamented, her face down in shame on Aaron’s chest.
“I was supposed to protect her. I promised. But I was too high and stupid on heroin. I let you bring us back to Demarco’s house.”
“I gave you the drug. Is my fault.”
“The first time, but then after that? We were both stoned out of our minds Michelle. You didn’t force me to do it all night long.”
“I brought us back to the house, because I wanted more heroin.”
“Michelle, I let it all happen when I walked right into that trap like an idiot. I was so arrogant. I thought I was untouchable. And now she’s dead. I lost my wife. I miss her so much Michelle.”
“Make love to me Aaron. We are still alive, we have each other. Je t’aime. Fais-moi l'amour.” Michelle took the initiative, sliding under the covers to swallow him whole.
Lying together in bed at the La Quinta Inn, Aaron and Michelle consoled one another in the only way they knew how, physic
ally. They made love, slow, languorous, sentimental love. They made love like there was no one else on the planet earth besides them, lost in one another.
Resting, hunger gnawing at his belly and calling him out into the city, Aaron’s thoughts inexorably returned to Anastasia. Everything about Vegas reminded him of Anastasia. To set one foot out the door of their hotel was to travel the streets they had come to know with her by their side.
“Let me show you something.”
Michelle brought him out of his morosity with her cell phone in hand. She scrolled through photo after photo of their lovely pet in all her brilliance and splendor.
“And look at this.” Michelle replayed a ten second video clip of Ana twirling and smiling as she showed off one of her brand new dresses at the Gucci store.
“Remember the first night?” She took hold of Aaron’s head in her hands as she broadcast to him a vivid memory of Ana standing gloriously nude for their inspection after having pledged her devotion to them both.
Aaron sent a memory of his own to Michelle via their bond, of Ana laughing and clapping after he bested the security guards in the hallway outside Kramer’s room. He shared his memories of their special moments. Ana holding him close as they danced beneath the strobe lights in the nightclub. Ana smiling beautifully, her eyes closed, her fingers tangled in Michelle’s hair while she administered loving first aid between her thighs. Ana grinning from ear to ear beneath her bridal veil as they said their wedding vows standing before Elvis.
The wonderful memories poured in; washing away the melancholy with the love they felt for her and each other. They shared memories back and forth across their psychic bond for hours. They replayed and relived Ana’s moments of ecstasy, pain, joy, and above all, the unconditional love she bestowed upon them both. She’d been one of the most tortured souls they had ever known, yet her flame had burned so very brightly in their lives for their short time together.
It was decided. They would leave Vegas. Michelle decided it for them.
“We go to Paris. I will show you my homeland. Is très magnifique!”
The vampires fled Las Vegas the following night via airline to New York and on to Paris.
Michael Jamison followed.
* * * *
The End
* * * *
Connect with Travis Luedke: http://www.twluedke.com/
Travis Luedke is a husband, father, and author of Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Contemporary Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, and Sci-fi. He is currently catching a third degree sunburn in San Antonio, Texas, and loving every minute of it. His recent works include “The Shepherd” and “The Nightlife: New York”, the first in a very long series of Nightlife novels.
Publication Release Schedule:
The Nightlife Series:
I The Nightlife: New York
II The Nightlife: Las Vegas
The Nightlife: BLOODSLAVE December 2012
III The Nightlife: Paris February 2013
IV The Nightlife: London May 2013
V The Nightlife: Moscow August 2013
The Nightlife: SAN ANTONIO September 2013
Young Adult novels by Travis Luedke (TW Luedke)
The Shepherd December 2012
BOGUS April 2013
Science Fiction novels by Travis Luedke
BLACKKNIFE 2064 November 2013
Social Media, Book links, Author profiles, blog, & other links
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Amazon UK
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Email [email protected]
Continue reading for an excerpt of his new Young Adult novel “The Shepherd”.
THE SHEPHERD
By T.W. Luedke
Skate punks, a kleptomaniac vampire, clairvoyant visions and reincarnation.
A teen is stalked by a young girl who believes he is her dead fiancé reincarnated. Their mutual obsession leads to violent consequences.
16 year old skater Mike Evans has issues. His alcoholic father's unemployed and he's stuck living in a white-trash trailer park after the foreclosure of their family home. The last two years have sucked royally, one disappointment after another. Worse, he's plagued by clairvoyant visions of strange-grisly events with an annoying tendency to come true. Mike lost his best friend, ex-girlfriend treats him like a leper, and his only remaining friend Anita wants to get in his pants––he's clueless. Since his mother died at birth and his father doesn't give a damn, Mike's on his own.
His fortunes begin to change after helping a 13 year old girl named Nadia, the victim of a hit and run on the highway. A bond is forged between them through an intense night of ministering to her injuries. He suspects Nadia is homeless. An unusual relationship develops as she sneaks into his room nightly for a place to stay.
Mike starts living a double life. His daylight hours at school are filled with his new girlfriend, skating, and working part-time. His nights are spent with Nadia. She's a secret friend, keeping him company all night, listening to his problems when no one else will. Strangeness abounds as they develop a codependency crossing all the boundaries of friendship. Nadia is not your average little girl and she's obsessed with him. He suspects things, but ignores the obvious signs of danger.
The situation comes to a head as Mike struggles to avert his latest vision of gruesome death. He can no longer ignore the evidence leading to the undeniable conclusion that his secret friend is much more than what she appears to be.
Prologue
Thursday September 9th, 9:15 p.m.
Heavily faded on 40 milligrams of Oxycontin stolen from his mother's prescription in the medicine cabinet, Justin Shelby felt pretty damn good. His judgment, questionable even in sobriety, was that much further impaired with intoxication. Goaded on by his friend Tommy Schroeder, one of the wrestling elite of Moses Lake High School, Justin was inspired to new heights of idiocy. He quickly scaled the side of the outdoor playcenter at McDonald’s.
Justin typically spent his free time skating through downtown Moses Lake and the skatepark across from the Aquatic Center, harassing the bathing suit clad girls, enticing them into conversation and who knows what else. Like most skaters, he was thin, toned, and moderately athletic with a strong sense of balance and equilibrium forged by endless hours of skateboarding. Climbing up the playcenter wasn't really any more dangerous than the myriad skate stunts he and his friends attempted while recording videos for posting to YouTube.
Justin quickly reached the apex, standing exalted atop an airplane shaped plastic toy. A seven year old kid gawked up at him from the inside. Tommy encouraged Justin's antics with loud catcalls, laughing at every step of the way. Justin proclaimed his status as king of the hill, arms held up high. A flagrant violation of the rules posted at the entry gate (rule #3: no climbing outside the play center, rule #4: no children over the age of 14 allowed).
“Yeah bitches, hell yeah!” Justin yelled and hooted at the top of his lungs, pumping his fists in the air.
His antics were observed by another, one Mike Evans, who was once so close a friend to Justin they called each other BFFs––Best Friends Forever. Their relationship had suffered as of late since Justin began hangin with Tommy, who hated Mike. The feeling was definitely mutual for Mike, he’d begun to hate them both.
Parked in the McDonald’s drive-thru awaiting his dollar cheeseburger, Mike leaned out the window of his 87 Geo Tracker for a better view of Justin bellowing like an inebriated idiot. Mike shook his head, laughing at Justin––not with him––wondering what could have brought on this latest spell of insanity. Then Mike noticed Tommy Schroeder's up turned face and wicked grin, and the why and how of it became obvious.
Justin was putting on a show for his new buddy.
Tommy was cool, popular, and wealthy, he also happened to be one of the biggest arrogant pricks in the 10th grade. Justin's induction into the cool crowd via friendship with Tommy was fairly recent. Justin was still in the something-to-prove phase, being extra obnoxious at times … like right now.
Unable to resist a jab, Mike called out to Justin, “Hey ass munch, get down before you break your neck!”
Justin's head whipped around to the sound of Mike's voice, causing his body to sway with the movement. He spotted Mike and a nasty smirk bloomed across his face. In a moment of sublime inspiration Justin dropped his pants to moon Mike with a show of lily white butt cheeks. In raucous laughter, Tommy yelled, “How about a double McAss burger Mikey?”
The girl delivering Mike's cheeseburger had her hand over her mouth to cover her braces as she giggled and snarfed at the sight of Justin's naked rump shaking back and forth while he taunted, “It’s a full moon out tonight Mikey, hope you enjoy the view!”
Mike got in the last dig, “That'll make a killer Facebook video!” He held up his cell phone-digital-camcorder to record Justin.
Justin looked back over his shoulder in surprise, attempting to pull up his pants at the same time. The knee-jerk reaction caused him to lose his delicate balance atop the cupola apex of the plastic airplane, and he fell onto his right-side hip, sliding down off the playcenter. Justin let go his pants, hands splayed out wide across the airplane seeking something to grab to slow his fall. There was nothing to catch except smooth plastic.
Justin slid inexorably down the side of the playcenter, pants and underwear still down around his thighs. He tried rolling over onto his belly to get positioned for a feet-first landing. The maneuver would've worked if not for the fence positioned so close to the playcenter. The bright yellow powder-coated aluminum fence that aided his climb to the top now blocked his landing on the way down.
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