by Greg Hair
The trio soon found themselves standing at the gated entrance to Bonaventure Cemetery, the dead-end, so to speak, of the trail. The moon neared its zenith as they opened the squeaking gate.
Everyone moved cautiously through the graveyard, splitting up as they had at the abandoned house, again only two in their beastly form, hidden by the exorbitant amount of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees, making their way toward the rear, the source of several voices that drifted over the many beautiful headstones and statues that decorated the premises. A large electrical current ran through Landon’s body. The others conveyed the same feeling.
They wound their way through the grave markers, until they coalesced on a group vampires, thirteen to be exact—a coven. The Wilmington River made no sound as it meandered behind the group. The two werewolves changed shape, all three staying hidden among the dangling moss.
“We know you’re there,” said one of the vampires. “You can come out now.
Nicholas came through here, but he’s gone.” All thirteen vampires began spreading out, flanking the werewolves.
“We don’t want any trouble guys,” said Allen, stepping out from the shadowed moss.
“Well, showing up in a cemetery full of vampires while hunting your own kind seems to be the epitome of seeking trouble, if you ask me.”
“You’re obviously not who we’re looking for,” said Landon. The annoying sound of a zippo lighter constantly being flipped opened and closed, bore into this ears. “We’ll go.”
“Too late. He told us what you did under the Pirates’ House. And to that girl on the other side of town. Did you think there wouldn’t be any consequences for that? I may not be fond of your kind, but I don’t go around slaughtering werewolves for the fun of it.”
“What if I said that was Nicholas, and not me?”
“He’s traveling with vampires. You’re alone with two other werewolves. Who do you think I’ll believe?”
Landon looked around to see he was standing in the middle of a vampiric ring.
His dad and LillyAnna stood next to him.
“Dad?” Landon asked.
“I’m ready son.”
“LillyAnna?”
“Ready.”
“Stick next to me or Allen. You’ll be—“
Landon’s advice was suddenly broken by an outstretched arm from the vampire nearest LillyAnna who, grabbing her, threw her back into the trees, giving chase. Another vampire followed. Allen bolted toward them.
Landon bore his teeth, the grisly transformation taking place, and leapt from within the ring toward the closest vampire, slashing through the throat with a foreclaw then, turning around, decapitated the vampire with a hind kick.
Allen found LillyAnna, impaled on a fallen limb and unchanged, but also undressed, the vampires attempting to rape her. Without a second thought, Allen changed into a large grey werewolf. His cancer was instantly cured. Then, grabbing the first vampire he came to by the legs, he swung their body like a bat, breaking it on the side of a tree, pulling the head off. Allen gave LillyAnna the chance she needed to pull out the limb.
The second vampire, hissing, jumped at Allen, only to find himself jerked back by LillyAnna’s claw as it merged with his spine. He crashed to the ground, dead.
Suddenly, a third vampire entered the fray, carrying a lighter. The vamp flipped open the lighter a final time, flicked it, and tossed the open flame toward LillyAnna.
Allen jumped in front, shoving her out of the way, as he burst into flames.
The burning werewolf emerged from the trees, spraying light upon the shadows that surrounded him, back to the waiting vampires who moved away from the fire. Allen fell to the ground.
Landon and LillyAnna, both now changed, watched in horror as the old werewolf shifted back and forth, screams becoming howls and back again, trying to put out the fire.
The smell, whether burning fur or flesh, was the same. The statues in Bonaventure seemed to move in the dancing light.
LillyAnna emptied a nearby flower vase and ran toward the river. She returned in seconds, dumping water on Allen, and repeated, over and over, until the fire was out. But the damage had been done.
Landon walked slowly toward Allen, and bent down. He heard a low chuckle come from those standing around him.
“Dad. Dad,” he said, quietly, as if trying not to truly wake him. Landon reached out to touch his dad, but drew back. “Dad, please.” Landon tasted the salt that ran over his lips. He listened to his father’s labored breathing. The end now came quickly.
Landon watched his father’s eyes stay open as the rest of his body shut down.
Allen died in his son’s arms. Landon gently lay his father’s head on the ground, afraid he might break something, hurting the dead man. The chuckles continued.
Landon stood, turning toward LillyAnna who had remained just outside the trees.
His eyes glowed a dark red, a color he’d never shown before. He looked in her direction but didn’t notice she was even there. LillyAnna backed up, away from what was about to happen.
Two vampires approached Landon from behind, one putting his hand on the werewolf’s shoulder. Placing his opposite hand on the vampire’s, Landon extended his claws through the vamp’s wrist, disconnecting the hand from the rest of the arm.
As the first vampire cried in pain, the second grabbed Landon’s other shoulder, apparently not having learned from the first. The werewolf, again with the opposite hand, held onto the vampire’s, claws extended, and flipped him with incredible speed into the tree near LillyAnna. His skull and bones in the neck broke into hundreds of pieces.
Returning to the one-handed vamp, Landon grabbed him in a bear hug, and jumped high into the air, like he was taking off in flight. A moment later he landed, his formed changed from human to beast, facing the remaining vampires. The one-handed vampire also returned to earth, though in a rain of falling body parts.
Suddenly, with a fierce howl, Landon propelled himself through the air at one vampire, slicing his enemy in half with his front claws, then, continuing through the halved vampire, met another whose torso was on the receiving end of the werewolf’s claws, flying back and coming to rest at the foot of one of the cemetery’s statues. The remaining vampires rushed in.
Landon, using his elbow with blinding speed, beheaded a statue standing behind him, then reached forward with the same arm, grasping and removing the head of an attacking vampire, thereby replacing the missing stone cranium with the vamp’s.
Suddenly thrown backwards by the force of a leaping vampire, the werewolf used his attacker’s momentum against him, flipping over and straddling the vampire on the ground. Holding the vampire down with his front appendages, Landon used his back claws to rip through the fanged man’s stomach and tear out his entrails.
Attacked from behind by one of the few remaining vampires, and still disemboweling their friend, Landon kicked his hind quarters back, like a mule, throwing the vamp through the air whereby he then landed, impaled, on an iron fence that surrounded a statue.
With two more attacking from the front, Landon vaulted from the disemboweled vampire, flying overhead and landing behind them, and reached through their backs with both arms and removed their lungs. Then, catching and hoisting them, before their bodies fell, by the gaping holes he’d created, he flung them into the river.
Landon then turned and, catching a fleeing vampire, proceeded to quarter him with his massive jaws, tearing the limbs away, gnawing on the flesh and bones.
Finally, facing the coven’s leader and spokesperson, the two enemies ran at each other, full force, colliding with a loud impact, and Landon gaining the upper hand. He again used his razor-sharp teeth, and ripped the skin, muscle, and anything else he could grab from the vampire’s face, piece by piece, chewing and gnawing on each part, then spitting it out before going back for more.
Soon, all fell silent, save for the heavy breathing of the werewolf and the trickling of the river of blood that flowed out of
the garden of the dead and merged with the Wilmington.
Emerging from the cloud of dust that had been kicked up during the melee, a nude Landon approached a visibly shaken LillyAnna. He turned to see his dead father.
There, in Bonaventure Cemetery, Landon and LillyAnna buried Allen in an unmarked grave on a riverbank that bordered the Wilmington. Landon searched the surrounding area and found the zippo lighter used to kill his dad. He examined the logo on it closely. Marlboro, thought Landon. Even the brand he smoked. Speaking no words for the dead, they left, nude, and headed toward downtown Savannah.
Chapter 15
Landon and LillyAnna entered downtown on foot a little after midnight. They’d found some unwatched clothes in a nearby laudromat. The night had produced a sweltering heat. As they filtered through crowded Bay Street, the people around them might as well have been contestants in wet t-shirt contests. The overpowering smell of sweat, liquor, and pheromones made Landon nauseous. He’d intended to trek to the Pirates’ House on River Street, where Frank the Waffle House vampire had mentioned an incident taking place, but his mind kept getting sidetracked.
Every few minutes, Landon forgot where he was, still back at Bonaventure Cemetery in his mind, remembering how he found Celeste, and Allen, Landon’s dad, his newly reconnected dad, had been felled by a number of vampires.
Holding her hand, Landon pulled LillyAnna down a dark alley to the rear of a bar, the Moon River Brewery Company. He found the back door unlocked, probably, he figured, to allow trash to be taken out through the night. They entered swiftly and headed upstairs.
“You been here before?” she asked.
“No, but I need to get off the street, and I can tell there’s no one up here.” Before she could ask why, he led her to the top floor, let go of her hand, walked to a large window that looked out on the crowd below, and sobbed. He jolted when she walked over and touched him, not hearing her carefully approach, his ears tuned to other sounds, other voices. Son. Dad. The words kept repeating in Landon’s perfect ears, those titles given to fathers and sons, that he and Allen had used at Bonaventure. The loss and search, again, for his children. The monster, named Nicholas, that lurked at the heart of it all.
LillyAnna ran her hands up and down his back, then around to his face, wiping his wet cheeks. She kissed, and lay her head on, his shoulder. Her arms wrapped around his torso and hands covering his chest. He pulled her hand up and kissed it, wetting it further with tears.
She turned him around, the moonlight breaking through the window giving both their faces a celestial aura. He put his lips to her forehead. She, on tiptoes, putting hers to his cheek.
Then, somewhere in the middle of anger and grief, he found the desire for LillyAnna that he had always denied himself. LillyAnna had been his quiet desperation.
He bent forward, kissing her lips, her perfect, full, small lips.
Downstairs, Landon could hear live music, a soundtrack for all of the emotions he was feeling. He heard the beginning bluesy chords of Lucinda Williams’s Essence as he ran his hands down her backside. Then the lyrics that so encased his feelings.
Baby, sweet baby, you’re my drug; come on and let me taste your stuff. It only increased his mood and his actions. The aching in his heart transferred to his body.
She unbuttoned his pants, his stolen pants, as they moved from the windows to the dark of the upstairs storage area.
Landon pulled her pants down, while she still stood, kissing her stomach, her outer thighs, her inner thighs. He felt her swoon with each touch of his lips.
Baby, sweet baby, whisper my name; shoot your love into my vein.
He rose back up, brushing her breasts with his face, when she suddenly pulled him fiercely down to the cold, dusty, hardwood floor where he lay on top of her. He pulled her panties off as her moaning momentarily drowned out the band. He’d been with women before, but never another werewolf. He wasn’t sure what exactly would be triggered.
Landon attacked her throat like he’d been aching for blood for a hundred years.
The way he imagined vampires attacked their lovers.
Baby, sweet baby, I wanna feel your breath; even though you like to flirt with death.
Suddenly, with a force that elicited a haunting, carnal howl, Landon thrust his way into her.
Baby, sweet baby, can’t get enough; please come find me and help me get fucked up.
Landon heard everything. LillyAnna’s racing blood, quickened breathing, ice clinking in glasses at the bar downstairs, the band, the conversations.
“What the fuck was that?” asked a patron. Landon presumed the customer meant LillyAnna’s not-so-quiet howl.
“The ghosts, probably,” answered the female bartender.
“Ghosts?” Obviously, a tourist.
“This whole town is haunted. And you’re sitting at ghost central.” Landon then tuned out as much as he could, focusing only on LillyAnna.
As their momentum increased, the triggers he’d wondered about began to occur.
Various body parts shifted and reshifted as he and LillyAnna continued. The floor boards creaked and caved as the weight of the two werewolves fluctuated, increasing and decreasing, as they became beast, then human, then beast again, their shifts finally occurring in sync.
The entire top floor shook as they neared climax. Landon, now taking in every sound in a certain radius, heard the bottles clank together from the vibrations that moved like a tsunami down the walls. The heat in the room had increased dramatically over the temperature outside.
The crying, driving guitar closing the song fell in line with the werewolves. As Landon and LillyAnna came together, they shifted to human form, each set of burning red eyes locked onto the other.
Landon picked up on the sounds of the street outside as a synchronized howl emanated from the top floor of the Moon River Brewing Company.
“Yep, that’s Savannah,” said a passerby.
Landon heard the momentary, quiet hush that filled the bar downstairs, then subside as the crowd dismissed what they just heard. The band left the stage for a break followed by music from the jukebox.
Landon kissed LillyAnna hard on the lips, each tasting the blended sweet sweat of the other. Tufts of fur lay everywhere.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I love you. Go downstairs. I know you want to. Normally, I wouldn’t advocate it, but, given what happened earlier tonight.” He gave her one of his usual, half smiles.
He looked around and, finding a worn blanket in a far corner, covered her, kissed her forehead, and snuck back out the same way they came in.
Landon found one empty seat at the bar as Sometimes, by the band Ours, began playing on the bar’s overhead speakers. He wondered if the people around him, even without supernatural senses, could smell the sex on him.
“Jameson,” he said, not giving the approaching bartender time to ask.
Taking slow sips, remembering for a second how he told LillyAnna and his dad he was ready to quit drinking, then, just as quickly, forgetting that statement, he heard her breathing upstairs. He felt her pulse. They were now more in tune with each other than ever before.
As the song neared its end, Landon pictured his dad dying in his arms. Pictured it over and over. His claws grew around his rocks glass as the vocalist screamed. He quickly switched hands, hiding his elongated hand under the bar.
Landon finished his drink, then had another. He heard LillyAnna sleeping soundly several floors above. He sat at Moon River Brewing Company consuming drink after drink as the memories and feelings of the day’s events consumed him. Each time he wanted a refill, he slammed the empty rocks glass down a little harder.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees several patrons staring at him from down the bar.
“What are you all looking at?” he asked, staring at the bottom of another empty glass then, setting it down with such force, the side cracked.
The other customers mumbled to themselves, unaware that Landon hea
rd every word they were saying.
“Damn drunk,” said one man.
“What an asshole. I knew as soon as he sat down, he was an asshole,” said his friend.
Landon wobbled up from his stool, preparing to walk to the other end of the establishment where the gossipers sat, when he noticed the bartender motion for one of the bouncers sitting at the entrance to come over. The werewolf didn’t turn around when the man placed his hand on Landon’s shoulder. Instead, Landon sized up his would-be opponent in the mirror reflecting all the liquor bottles behind the bar: 6’6”, about three-hundred pounds. Mostly fat.
With the hand opposite the shoulder the bouncer was touching, Landon grabbed the overweight man’s wrist and twisted. Bone broke through the skin as the large bouncer dropped to his knees. Still facing the others down the bar, Landon kicked the man kneeling behind him, sending him rolling backwards, past the other bouncer, and out the front door.
The second bouncer, about the same height, though leaner with more muscle, sprang toward Landon. The latter spun around, catching the former by the throat, then picked him up and slammed him on the bar as if he were an empty rocks glass. This time, the bar cracked.
Landon’s perfect ears heard the cocking of a gun from behind the bar. He turned, finding himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“I hope, for your sake, you’re faster,” said Landon.
“Look, just go,” the young bartender said, the gun oscillating quickly, in short bursts, as he shook.
Landon looked at all the faces in the bar. No one spoke, but he knew they were thinking the same thing— freak. He then focused his ears on the room above, on LillyAnna. Still sleeping. He was afraid that any further action on his part, might wake her.
“I was finished drinking, anyway.” Landon walked to the door and stumbled outside, nearly tripping over the first bouncer as he left.
He made his way toward the harbor, and stood at the water’s edge, watching the quarter moon’s reflection dance on the rippling water. Where are you, you coward? He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, and headed back to LillyAnna.