Jeremy looked at him, "I know, I'm sorry." Jeremy glanced at Myron's hand, or lack of hand, and said, "You can sit this one out Myron. No one will fault you for not fighting. You've lost enough
today."
Myron shook his head vehemently, "NO, no, I'm with you until the end. Me and my bad sword hand." He raised his sword, offering up a quirky smile.
Jeremy grinned, "You're a good guy Myron, but I don't want you dying for me."
"I'm not dying for you. I'm not dying for anyone but me, if it comes to that."
I'd die for anyone of you, Myron thought, and Jeremy said, "You're lying.”
"Yes," Myron admitted.
"Thank you."
3
"Do you think he'll be all right?" Eve asked Blake at the back of the procession.
"Yes," Blake said, "If we get out of this. He's stronger and more resilient than any of us.”
Eve smiled, "He is, isn't he?"
"You love him don't you?"
“What?” Eve was surprised. She regarded Blake and saw that he was serious. “I’d say love is a very strong word. I like what I’ve seen. I guess I’ve taken a shine to him.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that dear girl.”
“How did you…?”
“Know?” Blake finished for her. “You wouldn’t have struck him, or been so upset with him about what you saw as disrespect toward me, or yourself for that matter, did you not.”
“He didn’t mean it,” Eve said, “I know that. He needs to blame someone. I shouldn’t have hit him.”
“But I am to blame. It’s all right if he is angry with me. He has every right to be.”
Eve shrugged. “I just hope we make it through this, and get a
chance to…” She couldn’t find the words.
“Forgive, forget, reconcile?” Blake offered. “Some things are too painful. Time will tell I suppose.”
4
Staci stopped.
“What is it?” Johnny asked.
“Something’s not right.”
Johnny looked around. “Is this like one of your premonitions; some kind of trouble?”
“Yes,” Staci said.
Johnny warned the others to back up. They kept their weapons raised.
“There’s something in the tunnels with us,” Blake said.
“You can sense them too?” Myron said.
“No, I can smell it.”
Eve nodded. “Smells like dog.”
“We have to get through it to get to them,” Blake said.
They walked until they heard the low growling, and eventually they could all smell it. The padding of enormous animal feet rumbled through the rock, shaking the ground.
“Does anyone else feel like a complete idiot walking toward the danger?” Johnny said. The growls grew more intense, nearly becoming roars. Beneath that, panting. The thudding of its gait continued to vibrate the floor, and though they were still in the tunnels and moving forward, it felt as if the thing were pursuing them; though they hoped, not from behind.
That question was answered sooner rather than later when the beastly thing turned a corner and faced them.
It was all fur and muscle and teeth, with the head of a wolf, but the arms and legs (albeit covered in fur) of a man. It roared, revealing razor sharp teeth at least three inches long, and a maw that was larger than each of their heads. It stood about eight feet tall, just
barely clearing the cavern ceiling. Staci fired off three shots from her
crossbow, hitting its shoulder, then abdomen, and then its chest, where its heart would have been. This just seemed to enrage the creature. It ran at them.
Blake blasted off the machine gun, and it ran through the barrage to sweep a large, furry taloned hand at Johnny, who was closest. Its claws gouged a large furrow through Johnny's gut, spilling his intestines. They hung from his stomach like ropes of bloated sausages. Johnny, in shock and disgust popped off a shot point blank into the creature's forehead. It whimpered, falling onto its back.
"Johnny!" Staci screamed.
"I'm all right," he grimaced. "Vampire, remember? Nothing a little needle and thread, and a year's worth of R&R can't heal."
The beast sprang up, using the same claw to cleave the air again. It happened so fast, leaving the group no time to react. Its talons tore through Johnny's neck, lopping off his head in one swift movement.
Blake fired, Jeremy fired, and Staci fired, screaming. It convulsed with the shots, riddled with bullets and arrows. Still it squirmed across the tunnel floor as they reloaded.
"Jeremy, your whip! Myron, your sword! It has to be silver!" Blake shouted at them.
The whip whooshed through the air, Jeremy whirling like a dervish, until it caught the beast's throat, wrapping around it, and digging its silver hooks into the meat of it. It gurgled blood as Myron ran up to it, thrusting his sword forward, stabbing it in the chest, and through its gut, and whatever passed for genitals behind the patch of fur between its legs. He stabbed it repeatedly in anger as the creature howled and roared in pain, now visibly weakening.
Jeremy held it there on the ground by its neck, an oversized dog on a cruel leash.
"The head Myron!" Blake shouted, "Get the brain."
Myron nodded, making Johnny's bullet hole his target. He lifted the sword up over his head, broad side flat, and jabbed it down into the beast's forehead. It went all the way through, cutting through the back of its head, vibrating and ringing as it sparked against the rock floor.
The creature cried out, whimpering as it died. Myron pulled the sword out so swiftly an arc of blood shot several feet through the air, splattering the walls.
He fell on his knees, weeping.
5
No one spoke of Johnny, or of Tony. They continued on toward the end, whatever that might mean. Eve picked up Johnny's gun. Jeremy picked up the machete he'd pulled off Tony. Finally, when someone spoke, it was to ask a question.
"Was that really what I think it was?" Staci asked.
"Yes," Blake said. "They were using it as a bodyguard, a daylight familiar. If we hadn't had the silver..." He trailed off. "Now there's nothing left between us and them."
Only had to lose two of our group to get there, Jeremy thought, but didn't say.
"Eve, you have the rappelling gear?"
"Yes," she answered Blake.
"If anyone still wants to leave, the time is now. We don't have much time left, and all the dangers are done behind us. There is only forward, or back."
“Shut up Blake,” Jeremy answered him. “Save the long winded speeches. There is no back now. We have to end this.”
Blake nodded. They rounded the corner into the largest cavern yet. There were easily over one hundred vampires standing there, waiting for them.
In the back, on a throne of skulls sat Lucio; Arianna and Walter to either side of him. An additional semi-circle of vampires provided a defensive wall around them. In front of that, many more.
"Welcome," Lucio said.
Blake started firing. The others followed suit.
6
Vampires fell and rose again, but for the ones in which Staci's arrows hit their intended target. Myron sheathed his sword momentarily and began lobbing vials of holy water into the crowd. Eve and Jeremy fired their revolvers, blasting holes in their heads, Blake's machine gun providing cover fire each time they had to reload, tearing through the bloodsuckers like paper.
Eventually they were all going to run out of ammo, even Blake. They were low already. As predicted, the weaker, newer vampires were sent out first. Lucio watched with smug confidence. He foresaw their ammo being spent before they even got close to him. He was whispering something to Arianna, bending down from his throne to reach her ear. Walter was joking with Misty, and Rusty glared at them all with contempt. Blake watched through the gunfire he lay down, anticipating the moment he could wipe that look from all of their faces.
They'd plowed through at least a quarter of them, but the r
est kept coming, the odds appearing insurmountable. Jeremy was completely out of ammo; nothing left to reload. He started to toss holy water along with Myron.
Staci ran out of ammo next, her quiver and her backpack depleted of arrows. She dug into her bag for holy water while Eve covered Staci with her own revolver. For a while it was just Blake and Eve shooting, and the others tossing holy water vials like firebombs, melting vampire faces, chests, and torsos, until the holy water too ran out. Then Eve was out of ammo, and Blake fired his last round of shells. Half of the vampires down; if not dead already, slowly dying. There was a carpet of bodies standing between the rest of the vampires and the Misfits.
Jeremy, Staci, and Myron pulled out their crosses. Lucio clapped.
"Well, well, impressive display!" he clamored, "Exactly how
long do you think those crosses will hold them back before they
decide to just rip your arms off?"
Jeremy had one hand on his whip, ready to go. Myron was ready to drop his cross to unsheathe his sword with his one good hand. Staci retrieved her stake. For now the crosses held the vampires at bay.
Blake looked at Eve. "Dear, I think it's time we fully embraced our nature."
For a moment she stared at Blake as if she didn't understand, and then she did. Eve nodded.
It was a bit frightening and disconcerting to the others when Blake and Eve both growled, teeth stretching and growing before their eyes, mouths widening in a snarl. They didn't wait for the crosses to not frighten the vampires, or for the vampires to step over the bodies of the fallen. They leapt over the bodies, into the fray.
7
Trying not to hit Blake or Eve, Jeremy cracked his whip, swinging it into the oncoming crowd. They all put away their crosses, seeing them as futile now. Staci stood poised with her stake, and Myron with his sword. They would have to wait for the vampires to come to them.
Eve grabbed vampires at random, sinking her fangs into their necks; not just biting or drinking from them, but ripping their throats out with her teeth. With each bite and taste of blood she felt herself growing stronger, faster. The energy coursing through her was a kind of high she'd never felt before, like she could do anything- as if she were invincible.
Blake was quick, but not as brutal. He bit and then staked, feeling himself get stronger, but otherwise numb, his soul objective to kill as many as he could. He was like a machine, chomping, spinning, staking every creature around him, a model of calculated balletic efficiency.
Every creature they didn't get that threatened them, Jeremy
caught in the snares of his whip, tripping them, choking them, and
tearing into them with its barbs. He pulled out what would have been Tony's machete with his other hand, readying himself for when they rushed him.
Lucio had been laughing, but with every vampire that fell, his expression turned more worrisome. No, not again. They can't defeat us again!
"Get the girl, and the one-armed boy!" he screamed. Myron wasn't one armed. If anything he was one handed, but they got the point. A few of them were decapitated on their way to Staci and Myron by Jeremy's machete.
Myron pierced one through the gut, another through the throat. They both fell. Staci, literally having the short end of the stick- namely a stake, only managed to plunge it into one of their hearts, before another grabbed her by both arms. Jeremy heard her scream and turned, slicing its head off.
Staci nodded, smiled.
"Here!" Jeremy shouted back, tossing her the machete, "I'll stick to my whip. You need this more than I do."
No sooner had he tossed it than a vampire rushed at her. She swung wildly, the machete made a diagonal slash in the thing's shoulder, slicing all the way through, and severing the arm. The vampire screeched and wobbled, and she swung again, this time severing its head.
Myron was holding his own for a while, thrusting his sword into every vamp he encountered, but the stress of using an arm he was unaccustomed to was tiring him. Jeremy ran to his side, now that Staci was better equipped, and lashed out with his whip at anyone running toward him or Myron.
8
In the thick of it, Eve and Blake were taking hits. For every
blow they took they hit back harder. Getting stronger on their
enemy’s blood, every bite imbued them with renewed power. Where
she couldn't bite, Eve snapped their necks. When Blake couldn't bite, he staked their hearts. It was amazing the vampires didn't bite them, but then they weren't giving them much of a chance. Blake felt so strong that when one came at him toward his face, fangs bared, he punched the vampire in the mouth, and the vampire’s teeth fell like snow.
Eve continued biting, tearing throats out, spitting. But when she spit out one particular vampire's throat she all of a sudden felt dizzy and weak.
"Oh God," Eve said, "Not now."
Blake saw her eyes roll back in her head, as he staked another vamp. "Eve?"
They were surrounded, and Eve was falling back, fainting.
9
Jeremy saw. "Oh no, Eve's in trouble! Myron, you stay with Staci! I have to help Eve!"
Myron agreed.
Jeremy raked the barbs of his whip across two vampire’s faces that were coming toward him, then whipped it around their legs, tripping them up, as he ran toward the vampires encircling his friends.
They were already leaping on Eve's body. He cracked the whip, hooks digging into the back of the topmost vampire on the heap. Blake tried to help, but he was surrounded too, fighting off the ones still attacking him.
Jeremy knew the whip wasn't going to be enough at this close range. He held out his stake, whipping them to get their attention. If the hooks didn't sink in, he staked them when he could as they turned around. He killed five in this manner. Four were still atop her, but he could see her now. Just as he was about to whip them, the vampires were thrown away from her. Eve was awake, and strong. One of the vampires flying through the air nearly knocked him over. He felt its leg
brush his side.
Eve was awake, and smiling.
"Eve?" Jeremy said, confused.
"Oh Jeremy, I'm human again! I'm human!"
"Then how...?" He turned to look at the vampires she'd thrown off of her. "It's their blood! I've been feeding off it. I'm still strong, but not for long."
"Right," Jeremy said. He whirled the whip around at the four vampires, approaching again. Jeremy managed to trip three of them. The fourth that got through he staked. He almost wished he'd had the machete to quickly get to the ones on the ground, but more were already coming toward them.
Eve no longer had fangs to tear their throats out, not that she wanted the taste of blood in her mouth, or had the need for it, now that she was human. She had to rely on the strength she still possessed. Eve punched and kicked her way through.
Blake was faring well not too far from them. He was still staking and drinking their blood. A vampire came toward him, and Blake was so strong that he punched through the vampire's chest and ripped out its still beating heart. The vampire continued to move toward him, hole in its chest, lumbering like a zombie. Blake squeezed the heart in his hand, jabbing the stake in it with the other. The vampire paused in its lurch, jolted, as if it had short circuited, and dropped dead.
10
"Myron! Stay behind me!" Staci shouted.
"I don't need you to protect me!" Myron yelled back, trying to get around her. She was slicing off heads as the vampires came toward them, but Myron felt useless.
"This is no time to be stubborn!"
"Yes," Myron said, "It is!" He went around her and started stabbing, thrusting his sword forward. The pain and ache in his left arm was gone. The awkwardness was gone. The only thing he could focus on was his anger toward Tony and Johnny's deaths, and the loss of his other hand. He began swinging the sword wildly until he got control of it. Very quickly they were both decapitating vampires, one with a sword, one with a machete, standing side by side.
For
a while it was like a bloody suicide dance, as if the vampires were willingly rushing into the sharp blades, kamikaze style. Soon there was nothing and no one left charging them.
Blake, Eve, and Jeremy too were surrounded by a sea of dead bodies, with no one left to challenge them. No one but the six near the throne, including Misty and Rusty, surrounding Lucio, Arianna and Walter, and they weren't budging. Rusty and Misty stood gawk-eyed, looking at the five of them, beat up, bloodied, and bruised, but still standing over a carpet of bodies strewn about the cavern floor.
Lucio rose from his throne. "Don't just stand there! Attack!"
Staci and Myron moved forward, toward their friends, and the five of them stood side by side, a wall of resistance.
Eve was human, but Blake was still a vampire, so the one that turned him must be among the still standing. But that no longer mattered. They would all die.
The six vampires guarding the three at the throne did not move. They didn't appear to want to fight at all. They witnessed what had happened to their friends, yet there was nowhere to run, if they chose to. Their only choice lay in doing nothing, and waiting to be killed, or fight and probably be killed. It wasn't much of a choice at all. The good guys had weapons, the bad guys had teeth.
"Lucio, Walter!" Blake shouted, "Though I long to see you suffer, the way you've made those I love suffer, I want this over quickly. So come forward and die you cowards!"
It was Arianna that stepped forward, but just to the outer circle.
Jeremy realized, "That's the bitch that turned Johnny!"
"Not just Johnny," she said, winking at Blake. "And such death and destruction you've left in your wake. How wonderful."
"I'll kill you," Blake warned.
"You should join me," Arianna said, "We could make such wonderful blood music together."
"You're insane."
Lucio glared at her. "Why did you turn him? You've made him even more hell-bent. Look what he and his friends have done!"
The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos Page 60