Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel

by Geoffrey C Porter

  A kid no more than nineteen raised his hand. "Name's Larry. I worked in one of these gas stations. You're going to need a key in the register, or a credit card at the pump. And I looked, there's no key. Or a hose."

  I had a credit card in my wallet. Henry's convertible was already parked at a pump. Swiped my card. Pump worked. We filled up every car. I walked through the gas station. The only things that were left behind were automotive stuff like canisters of air and glue to refill a flat tire, motor oil, and anti-freeze. I filled my arms up with that stuff and told everybody else to grab those things.

  By the time we did all of that, the sun was starting to set. I didn't want to be right at the gas station we just pilfered. We drove a bit down a country road then followed a dirt road off to the side. We had blankets. We set up a watch order. Two people on watch for two hours at a time. I took first watch with Dawn. A few others stayed up and drank beer while it was still cold.

  After two hours, we woke two sober people and made sure they had a watch. I snuggled with Dawn. No sex, though, no space, no room, not even a grove of trees to hide in.

  In the light of morning, Pup realized we were parked right next to a stream. We used the drinking straws from the air force and saved our bottled fluids. The sound of a helicopter carried through the plain. It was some kind of news helicopter: it had a 12 painted on it.

  "Saddle up!" I shouted.

  We got the caravan going. The helicopter followed us. We navigated our way backward to I-70 again and hit highway. I did my best to ignore the helicopter, but it wasn't going away. I knew from GPS that the next big city we'd come to was Indianapolis.

  Signs counting down told us we'd be there soon. We reached the edge of the suburbs. The highway was a graveyard. Cars stopped every so often. Some of them were burned out husks, others had corpses in them. The road was never totally blocked. We just had to slow down.

  At one point, the dead cars were in both lanes, and we used the emergency lane. After a while, that was blocked, too, but only by one car.

  The helicopter flew away. Nathan and I climbed out of the convertible. A corpse waited in the back seat of the car in our way. I climbed into the driver's side, released the emergency brake, and put it in neutral. A groan came from behind me. Nathan fucking around. No, something in the back seat was moving. The body was clearly bitten repeatedly, and I stabbed it in the skull with my short knife.

  I shouted back to Henry, "Give me a push."

  He pushed forward with the convertible, and I steered the car far enough off to the side that our caravan could barely squeeze past.

  Chapter Four

  We reached a point where the road was blocked, with no clear emergency lanes. We would have had to play a bock shuffling game with hundreds of vehicles to make any progress. We backed out of that mess. Henry steered the convertible around and passed everybody, so our car was at the front again. I tried to watch the GPS in our car, while watching for bad guys.

  Burned corpses were tied to similarly burned trees. We drove around vehicles that were stopped. Most of the cars were blackened out husks. Henry pulled to a stop. Vehicles were lined up on both sides of the roads, but most were not burned out. They were, however, bloodstained in a lot of places.

  "Nathan, keep an eye out," I said.

  Nathan had his sniper rifle out. "This thing has infrared."

  "Erin, you're with me."

  "Righto," she said.

  Pup came running up with his machine gun, and a belt of ammo waiting around his neck.

  I stepped up to the first car. It was empty. It was also locked. I pulled my .45 and removed the magazine. I unchambered a round and put it back in the magazine. The butt of the pistol smashed the window pretty good. An alarm went off.

  The shrieking was annoying. Nathan shouted, "We've got problems!"

  He started firing with precision timed shots. Bitten vampires came at us from every direction. I reloaded my .45 and drew my blade. Pup started burning through ammo. Erin stood ready with sword in hand.

  The vampires were getting closer. They seemed mad in a rage like they'd been bitten so many times they were just animals, but farther into their crowds, were vampires who had their wits about them, and these vampires were shooting at us. The mass of the creatures came on us, and I did my thing with the sword. Pup stuck to his machine gun, and both Pup and Nathan seemed worried about shooting the ones shooting at us.

  Since it was broad daylight, the vampires were essentially blind. I cut down monster after monster, with clean cuts to their throats. Some of the civilians with us hid in their cars, others blasted away. Henry was ducked under the dashboard. Josh had armor on and was hopping from one foot the other dodging and shooting.

  Dawn stayed in her SUV, but she fired through an open window.

  One or our people screamed, and I knew they'd been bitten. A shotgun blast pelted me on the chest, knocking me down. I pushed myself up and put a bullet in that one's brain.

  It seemed like the vampires were a never-ending horde. But finally, the guns fell silent. Three of our people were bitten. I really didn't know what to do for them. Was there anything we could do? Finish them came to mind. All three people were down. I walked up to the first one.

  He sat up. It was obvious he was in a daze from the venom. Eyes half open. Twitching. I pointed my .45 at his skull. He whispered, "Save your bullet. Use a blade."

  "You're sure," I asked.

  "Don't let me turn." He slumped over.

  I holstered my pistol. My blade moved as if it had a mind of its own and lopped off the man's head. His eyes opened, and they seemed to stare at me for ages. I looked away.

  The other two were conscious enough to choose the blade over a bullet. In a way, I was thankful, because I felt bullets might become quite scarce soon. At the same time, I didn't like the duty that seemed to be my calling as our leader.

  I looked at Pup and Erin. "We still have to move all these cars."

  I walked up to the one with the alarm going off and climbed inside. I put it in neutral. Pup, Erin, and Nathan pushed. I steered. We got it moved.

  Just getting through that bottleneck took the rest of the day. We got back in our vehicles and drove for a while. The sun set on the horizon. "We need a place," Nathan said.

  We came on a little cluster of shopping centers, hotels, and bars. We found keys to the doors in the hotel, and fresh sheets and blankets greeted us. It was super lucky that they weren't electronic keys, because all the power was out. A few people raided bars for liquor. Dawn whipped up a batch of Long Island Iced Teas and forced me at gunpoint to have one. I kind of needed it after that day.

  I had maybe thirty days worth of Lithium with me, and I'd been taking that, but I wondered what was going to happen when it ran out. It was a common medicine, so maybe pharmacies. I didn't know. The Long Island tasted perfect, like Dawn had practiced making them a thousand times. We set up a watch order, and I made sweet love to Dawn.

  We made it through the night. The watch held up, nobody fell asleep. I wondered how long we would be that lucky.

  Chapter Five

  We ate our stolen food from the gas station for breakfast. Cheese curls and warm soda were getting old. Some people were eating chocolate, and I stole a bar. No, they handed it over happily. Just down the road was another gas station. The doors were unlocked this time, and I made sure I grabbed some candy. Somebody came out of the back room, and it wasn't one of our guys.

  He had a massive revolver in his right hand, but he was shaking badly.

  "Relax, kid," I said.

  "You're not v-v-vampires?" He stuttered.

  "No."

  "You just about cleaned my shop out. I'm going to starve."

  The guy was still pointing his gun at us.

  Pup raised up his belt-fed machine gun. "Mine's bigger. Put that thing away and join us."

  The man holstered his pistol. "Where are you guys headed?"

  "A walled in farm in Colorado."

 
"I'm George."

  Pup nodded. George picked out a car to ride in. The road was clear enough the rest of the way out of Indianapolis. Not clear enough that we could drive fast, but clear enough we didn't have to stop.

  We paused to use the bathroom, which was actually just the side of the road. People had been smart enough to steal toilet paper at the gas stations. Erin said, "I want real food."

  "You mean, like a nice strip steak fried in butter?" Nathan asked.

  "Butter goes on a steak after it's grilled at high temperature!"

  "Don't fight, children," I said.

  Erin snarled at me. "We're not children."

  "No, but I always want to say those words, 'don't fight children.'"

  Pup took a bite out of an apple. "We could look for a farm. We're surrounded by corn fields."

  Where did Pup get an apple?! I hadn't seen any fresh fruit at either gas station.

  "What we need to find is a grocery store. It's only been two days. If the refrigeration is still working, the meat will be good," Dawn said. She was a smart woman.

  "Dawn has an excellent point," Erin said.

  We pulled off the highway at the next pretty big town. The GPS we had didn't show stores or anything. Most of the houses in this town, whatever its name was, were burned out. Just ash. It wasn't every house, though. The street lights were still working. We came upon a grocery store.

  They had a row of charcoal grills set up in front of the store. We parked in the parking spots. No logical reason to park inside the lines, and in rows, but habits die hard. I drew my .45 in my right hand. My left hand rested comfortably on my sword hilt.

  I raised my voice a bit. "Half of us go in, the other half stand watch out here. Keep your eyes and ears open."

  "I'll stay out here," Erin said. "Get the steak and charcoal and lighter fluid and some of that nice grass fed Irish butter. And salt and black pepper."

  Nathan grinned like a stupid horny teenager. "You go inside. I'll wait out here."

  I led the way into the store. The automatic door moved out of my way. The lights were on in the store, too. I grabbed a cart. A few candy bars were scattered on the floor in the front of the store, but otherwise, it didn't seem looted. I went straight to the meat aisle. Steaks, ground beef, gross stuff like ground turkey, and delicious bratwurst were right there for the taking.

  Erin grabbed all of the grass fed butter. We found charcoal and lighter fluid easily enough. Sea salt and black pepper went on the steaks and ground beef. Bratwurst went in buns. The produce section of the store was loaded with fresh fruit, and we packed all of it into our cars. They had a wide assortment of snack cakes and cookies, too.

  "You're going to get fat," Dawn said.

  I looked at the peanut butter sandwich cookie in my hand. "I need stores for the coming lean years."

  "I can't date a fat guy."

  She wasn't exactly model thin herself.

  I pulled her in close and kissed her. "I promise I'll only eat them if I'm really starving."

  "I was fucking with you anyhow," Dawn said. "I'd like you even if you gained some weight, just not too much."

  Not too much. Yeah. Bitch.

  Beth, the woman who's son Nathan killed, stepped forward. "We should stay here tonight. Have a real breakfast tomorrow of eggs and bacon."

  Henry had a can of alcohol in his hand. "The beer is cold, man. We should stay the night. Maybe just live here forever."

  It was nice to have a full belly. Dawn punched me on the arm, hard, like her intent was to hurt me more than get my attention. "They have a camping section. We can pitch tents in the parking lot, plus sleeping bags."

  I had noticed that, but I wasn't sure if there was enough for everybody. Twenty-seven in our group. Some would want their own tent, others would likely pair up. End of the world, everybody should be having as much sex as possible.

  Chapter Six

  Some people were drinking alcohol. Some smoking. It hit me like a brick dropped from a tall place. We were vulnerable with no cover.

  I shouted, "Listen up!"

  Eyes and ears turned on me.

  "We need to move all these cars into a circle around us. Bumper to bumper," I said.

  "He's right. We're sitting ducks," Pup said.

  People got moving. Erin stepped up to me. "I drew first watch. But what am I supposed to do if vampires come?"

  She could fire off a few rounds, but that's a waste of ammo. The store we'd been looting had trash cans. Metal ones. With lids. I said, "Come on."

  Erin walked with me to the trash cans. I smashed two lids together. "Good enough?"

  She smiled at me. A kind of smile that made me think she was planning something. What, I didn't know. She picked out two lids for herself. "Bring those. Two people on guard duty."

  Nathan reached out to get the trash can lids from me.

  "You drew first watch, too?" I asked.

  Nathan nodded.

  Something was afoot. But I gave less than a rat's ass. There really weren't enough sleeping bags for everybody, so Dawn and I unzipped one and slept on top of it. She reeked of expensive wine. We were scheduled to be the second to last watch. I drifted into a kind of nightmarish sleep where I was surrounded by vampires and out of bullets.

  The loud bashing of garbage can lids woke me. I was out of that tent so fast. Bright spotlights jammed on, all around us. Somebody spoke on a loud speaker.

  "Drop your weapons. You'll be treated fairly." This was said by one of the vampires surrounding us.

  Nathan was next to me, looking through his scope on the sniper rifle. "How many are there?" I asked.

  My people were still getting out of tents and lining up behind cars. We needed time.

  "A lot," Nathan replied.

  Adam, our other sniper, was crouched behind a pickup truck three cars down from me. I leaned into Nathan's ear and whispered, "Go for the vampires. We'll take out the lights."

  The loud speaker went off again. "You're running out of time. We're offering you a fair deal. You don't have to die."

  I scooted down low over to Adam. He jumped when he saw me. Skittish. I said, "Aim for the vampires. We'll get the lights."

  I looked around. Everybody was in position. Gun in hand. Taking aim even, the ones that knew enough to aim. Some of the guns, quite sadly, were pointed skyward.

  The loudspeaker again, "Last chance."

  I shouted in my best angry voice, "Aim for the lights!"

  We opened fire first. One by one lights popped. A scream sounded on my side. Nathan was no different from a machine with perfectly timed spaces between shots. Adam was good, but not a precise instrument. Pup was burning through belt fed ammo. Another scream on our side. The vampires didn't scream, but they were behind cars too just like us. I reloaded first. I also recognized I had one magazine after this one. We should have been looking for gun stores along the way, not snack cakes and chocolate bars. I took careful aim, not wanting to waste even one bullet. Boom, a vampire fell. I was aiming for his head, but my shot landed on his chest kind of where his neck connected. I shouted, "Watch your ammo!"

  Our rate of fire slowed. A sickening sound of one of my people getting shot in the head crawled into my ears. I had only been thankful for the moon a few times in my life, but it was the only light we had that night. I took aim again. The vampire ducked under the car. Our guns fell silent. I looked around. Six of our people were on the ground. Including Beth who had lost her son so recently. Two of them were still alive, trying not to scream. Shot to the chest. Dawn was wrapping bandages around a shoulder on a seventh person. His name was Bill if I recalled.

  I knelt down to one of the ones shot in the chest. I held his hand. Tears streamed out of his eyes. I said, "You can scream. You don't have to be quiet."

  He didn't scream. His eyes closed, and the tears stopped. Damn it all.

  "Be careful," I shouted. "There could be more of them. Use flashlights. Look for guns and ammo!"

  People scattered about. I ha
d a flashlight of my own, and I approached the line of cars. A wounded vampire got a shot off, but it bounced off my armor. I might regret it later, but I used a bullet on that one. With so few .45 rounds, I was seriously considering adopting a 9mm. The vampires all had 9mm and shotguns. They were all dressed like police. The cars they'd been hiding behind were police cars.

  Another shot echoed. One of my people fell. Somebody shot that injured vampire with a shotgun. The person shot was Jen. It just grazed her leg. An inch inside farther into her middle, and she'd be crippled. Instead, it was just a simple bandage. The surprise of it is all that knocked her down.

  We recovered over five hundred 9mm rounds, and I stole a utility belt with holster, cuffs, extra magazines, flashlight, pepper spray, and pistol from one of the vampires.

  Dawn had blood on her hands and dried out tears on her cheeks. "We should bury the dead."

  No way. I mean, maybe we should, but I have an idea what it takes to dig a proper grave, and it's not a small feat. No time. I shook my head.

  Henry, the guy who drove the convertible, spoke in a low tone. "We've got to do something, say some words, do something."

  Nathan said, "I agree."

  "If we make a big enough pile of charcoal, put the bodies on top, and light the fire, would that be ok?" I asked.

  "That would be better than letting them rot," Dawn said.

  Chapter Seven

  Nathan, Erin, Pup, and I started hauling bags of charcoal. We made a stack maybe twenty inches tall, in a uniform circle. I bent down to reach for one of the bodies.

  "Let us do it, boss," Pup said.

  Nathan put his hands on a body's ankles. Pup lifted on the corpse's arms. They gently tossed the shell of a human onto the charcoal. This process was repeated five more times.

  Erin elbowed me. "Say something."

  I stepped forward. "I don't have any prayers memorized. Wish I did. I didn't know these people as well as I would have liked, but in my heart, I know they were good people. May they rest in peace."

  Erin lit the fires with her lighter. We stood around the flames for some time, watching.