by M. Lorrox
He’s willing to die for his family, for his friends like Skip, and clearly even for June…but he won’t have to this time.
Eddy has the same reaction as Charlie, but he’s faster. He sees Charlie jump to try and take the onslaught of lead, but Eddy knows it isn’t Charlie’s responsibility. If it’s anyone’s, it’s his. He’s not going to let anyone else get hurt because of him. He leaps into the path of the pellets, grabs Charlie by the shoulder and waist, and pushes him down and out of the way. Eddy launches himself toward the blast.
Charlie feels the sudden force pushing him down and knows it can only be one thing, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
Eddy catches all nine of the double-aught buckshot’s pellets in his abdomen and chest. He wasn’t flat against the blast, but instead aimed at an angle toward it, so the lowest pellets land on the side of his abdomen while others stretch up across his chest toward his opposite shoulder. All nine of them tear and rip into his body.
A direct hit.
Sadie turns just in time to see her son get blasted backward by the shot. Pieces of flesh and blood explode out from the nine impact sites—her son’s flesh, her son’s blood. Sadie turns to David, grabs the gun and rips it out of his hands, launching it through the air. It lands a dozen yards beyond Roger’s truck toward the middle of the field.
Her entire essence is one of barely contained rage: a fire-breathing dragon inside a woman’s body. Her arms and fingers flex and lock into great curving sickles tipped with clawed fingers. She feels like her limbs are made of flames, that an energy courses through her body and shoots out from every joint. The bones throughout her body crack and ache at the strain from the tension put on them from every muscle being flexed. Her eyes blast wide, glowing green and flashing glints of blue from the moon, making them seem aflame with occult magic. She roars and hisses at the humans like a desperate and furious animal that has resigned itself to fight to the death.
And she has.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
Everyone not unconscious or leaping in the air to be human shields is scared shitless. Victoria grabs hold of Jess’s shoulder and pulls on it. Jess kicks with both legs—even the broken one—to recoil from Sadie. She winces in pain, but it’s nowhere near enough to distract her from her desperate retreat. David stumbles backward in shock, afraid to look away from the beast of a woman in front of him to see what terrible damage he just caused with his gun.
María shudders and tosses her gun in the air. She turns around to run without giving the gun another thought.
Hermix picks it up from the ground and wraps his arm around Tomas. “C’mon!”
Tomas is stunned. Eddy?
June is falling back to the ground now—silent with her eyes closed—and Skip scoots forward to catch her.
Sadie is breathing hard, taking huge breaths in and out. “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!”
Craig stows the .44 Magnum down the back of his pants, grabs Joe by the hands, and starts to drag him backward. Roger jumps up and helps him, grabbing an arm and pulling, running with Craig back to the truck.
David and Victoria grab Jess by the shoulders and hoist her up. David steals a glance at what he shot. Eddy is lying on the ground, the shreds of his shirt now nothing but threads of red. The buckshot hit him dead on, and he’s covered in his own blood. What have I done? “I’m so sorr—”
“VAFFANCULO! TI AMMAZZO!”
David shakes so hard he nearly falls over, then he turns and scurries with Victoria and Jess to the truck.
As they pass by Sadie’s Jeep, Rusty is standing on the hood. He’s growling ferociously at them, louder than what would seem possible. Minnie, scared by the gunshots and screaming, is crying in the backseat.
Victoria glances in at Minnie for only an instant, then she looks forward. She’s following the silhouette of Craig and Roger dragging her dead son by the hands toward the truck. The headlights hurt her eyes. She looks at David.
He’s gasping for air while tears fall off his chin.
Hermix and Tomas still remain behind. Charlie has rushed to Eddy and is holding his hand, talking to him. Sadie continues to scream and howl after the people leaving.
Hermix grabs Tomas by the biceps. “¡Hermano, vamos!”
Tomas looks at his brother sternly. “I’m not leaving my friend, goddamn it!”
Eddy pushes against Charlie’s arm. He looks up at Tomas. He speaks slowly and weakly. “Tomo. You gotta get out of here, man.”
Tomas shakes his head. “No.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this…please. For me?”
Tomas’ eyes grow wet, and his head gets cloudy. He starts to turn his head, and his lip quivers. He’s held himself together until now, but he’s starting to break, and he’s not sure what will be left of him after he does.
“I’ll see you later, Tomo. Go.”
Tomas tries to resist movement for another moment, but then realizes he can’t handle it another instant. He turns and runs fast toward the hill and his mom’s car, gasping for breath between his outpouring emotions. The orange hazard lights flashing in the night pulse in his eyes and push into his mind the same thought over and over again. My friend is gone. My friend is gone. My friend is gone…
The Kingstons pile into the truck, laying Joe’s body across the laps of Craig, Roger, and Victoria in the back. Jess is put into the front where she can extend her wounded leg. David kicks the truck into four-wheel drive, backs up, then turns and starts to climb up the hill.
Sadie gives them one last hissing scream as they go. “AAAGGHGGHH!!”
In the truck, they’re surprised at how loud Sadie is; David checks his mirror to make sure she isn’t rampaging right behind them.
She isn’t.
They get to the top of the hill, and now that they’re on good solid pavement, they speed off toward the hospital. David doesn’t swerve to avoid the corpses that litter the road, and when the truck bounds over a few, all the passengers inside—none of which are wearing seat belts—fall and flop around. Jess cries out in pain as her weight rises and falls on her leg. Joe’s body catches a little air during the turbulence and his arm flops alongside the door and into the front seat against Jess. She looks to see what had hit her, sees his lifeless open palm, and starts bawling.
David slows and swerves to avoid the next corpse.
Skip sets June’s head down on the ground. She seems to be sleeping calmly now. He clears some hair away from her face. Please, baby, be alright. Please…
Sadie relaxes when she sees the last vehicle’s headlights disappear down the road. She focuses and slows her breathing.
Charlie looks up at her and away from Eddy for the first time since he reached his son’s side. “Well, that did the trick.”
She looks down at him. “It wasn’t all show, just so you know. That asshole friend of theirs is lucky my first thought wasn’t to rip his fucking head off because I didn’t have time to weigh options.”
“Yeah, I don’t like that guy.” Charlie glances to where Sadie had knocked him back. “Oh shit! He’s still here! They left him!”
Sadie turns around to look. Mike lays motionless in his fancy clothes, splayed out upon a pile of smashed and rotting zombie corpses. She scoffs. “Fuck ’im.”
Skip stands and rushes over to Charlie and Eddy. “Oh my god.”
Sadie turns to face Charlie and Eddy. “How’s he doing?”
Charlie looks up. “Ask him.”
Skip looks panicked. “We have to get him to a hospital immediately. Or maybe they can send a helicopter from Asheville?”
Charlie raises his hand to Skip. “Calm down, buddy.”
Sadie walks over and bends down. “Eddy, you’re going to be okay.”
Eddy looks up at her. “Ow.”
Charlie nods. “Believe me, I know.” He looks at Skip. “There’s a bag behind me. Grab the bottle in it.”
Skip fetches the bottle and hands it over. It’s nearly empty.
&n
bsp; Charlie looks up at Sadie as he opens the bottle. “Did you bring any more?” Eddy opens his mouth, and Charlie pours in the blood.
She pulls a flask out of her back pocket. “This is all I’ve got.”
Eddy lifts his arm. “The beads are dried blood.”
Charlie looks at the bracelet on his wrist. Hmm. That could help, but not solve the problem. “You need fluids, Eddy; dried blood won’t be enough.” He grabs the flask from Sadie and sets it at Eddy’s side.
Skip is frantic. “Shouldn’t we get him to the Jeep? I mean, he’s lost a lot of blood!”
Sadie moves over to stand next to him. “Skip, Charlie’s got this. Let’s go check on Minnie.”
He shakes his head but turns to walk with her. She loops her arm through his and pulls him along.
Eddy looks up at Charlie and speaks between breaths. “Dad…I’m sorry…about all of this.”
“We all make mistakes. Except for me, of course.”
Eddy can’t help but laugh, then wince. “Ow… This really hurts.”
“Listen, Eddy, I’ve got to get the shot out. We can’t have you heal up all the way with them still inside you.”
He nods.
Charlie pulls his pocketknife from his belt again and opens it with one smooth motion. “It’s going to hurt like hell, like nothing you’ve ever felt before.” Charlie positions himself so that his knee crosses over Eddy’s thighs, and then he puts his weight down on them, holding his son down.
Eddy looks at him blankly, then responds. “Okay… Thanks for coming—to help, Dad.”
“You owe me one. And your friends owe you; you probably saved their lives.” He smiles down at Eddy. “Now open your mouth.”
Eddy opens his mouth and closes his windpipe, expecting Charlie to pour in the contents of the flask.
Instead, Charlie takes his left hand and presses the meaty part—the portion between his pinkie and his wrist—sideways into Eddy’s mouth. “Bite down on this.”
Eddy raises his brow in confusion, until he feels the white-hot pain of Charlie’s knife cutting into his chest. He bites down hard as he groans, breaking two of the bones in Charlie’s hand between his teeth.
Charlie grimaces and continues cutting into Eddy’s flesh; he knows that he has to do this for his son.
A vampire’s body will try to heal itself as quickly as possible, even if it heals in unnatural ways. As a Knight of the Order, Charlie has seen a lot of weird shit, but the weirdest might be the battlefield injuries. He’s met vampires with holes straight through their bodies because they healed around an object. Many times, vampires will reinjure themselves without the obstruction in place in order to spur additional healing, with the hopes of healing back to their original body. The process is slow; it doesn’t work completely—and never perfectly—so they literally rinse and repeat.
Vampires’ bodies, and their wills, can be amazing.
Back in the darker times, some vampires would even mutilate their bodies in order to heal into new sorts of configurations. Although most vampires didn’t modify themselves, lots did. Besides the kinds of body modifications that are mainstream today—decorative things like piercings and gauging—vampires made some functional modifications. The most common of these were to change the teeth, and then to a lesser extent, to modify the hands.
By pulling out their own canine teeth then returning them to their original position in the jaw while holding them out—just slightly—while they heal, a vampire could effectively grow them longer. The practice was to lengthen them significantly to turn them into fangs. It takes about a dozen cycles of ripping the tooth out and then holding the tooth while healing again, spaced out over a couple hours for each tooth. Besides being useful for piercing and drinking blood from game and animals, for a while it was also just a badass thing to do. Charlie even had his teeth like that for a time.
This process can be done to any teeth, not just the top canine teeth. Because the outside of a tooth is not living tissue, some alternative vampires would even file their teeth into points. This worked only so well, because a person with a piranha’s grill would be instantly flagged as a monster or demon by regular humans. A mouth like that also makes certain interpersonal relations more prone to injury, so it wasn’t common to see a vampire with a face full of filed teeth.
If the vampire’s jaw structure wasn’t changed in the tooth-lengthening process—if only the tooth was changed—then all it takes to return to normal is to yank out the teeth, jab something pointy into the sockets, and scrape at the jawbone. The injured jaw will regrow the tooth in its original length.
Sadie still has Charlie’s fangs, somewhere.
The next most common body modification was to change the length of the fingers and palms. Functionally, this made it easier for vampires to grab on to things, and with a vampire’s increased strength, this modification was rather useful. The process to extend the lengths of the hand and fingers—although similar to that for the teeth—is much more grotesque and was only done by the most hard-core of the body-modifying vampires.
Each bone must be severed, pulled slightly apart, then allowed to heal back together, lengthening it. After the bone heals, the muscle and flesh is pulled tighter by the ligaments and tendons, and so those tissues must be extended as well, in a similar process. Sever and space, sever and space, sever and space. The hands are extremely scarred by the process, and it’s significantly more painful than it is to make fangs.
Just like those who go through with tooth extension, most of the vampires who do hand extensions only modify them a little. However, there are always some who want to push the limits. Arms and legs can be extended in a similar fashion in order to make the vampire taller or to extend their reach. Basically, any part of the body could be lengthened, shortened, or reshaped through this painful process.
Right now, Charlie is making sure Eddy heals without the lead buckshot embedded in him. All the pellets must be removed before his body heals around them, and his body has already started to do just that. Charlie has to cut through healing flesh and fish the pellets out.
A couple pellets had hit Eddy in the ribs and sternum, shattering and breaking off pieces of bone. Charlie cuts out the pellet pieces and bone fragments suspended in already-healing flesh. Bone takes longer to grow, so Charlie doesn’t need to do much more than just scrape the edge of his blade against Eddy’s bones that were injured. He wants to make sure that the regrowth will be natural.
Eddy writhes in agony as the vibrations rocket through his entire body—his living bones themselves being scraped on with a knife’s blade. If it wasn’t for the stream of blood from Charlie’s hand and the pressure of Charlie’s weight holding him down, he’d have freaked out and jolted away in fits of pain.
Charlie finishes with all the buckshot that hit bone, and now he digs into Eddy’s abdomen. He cuts these pellets out more quickly; each one is unbroken and easy to find. He pops out the last ball of lead and carves out a hole around the divot in his flesh. Alright, finished.
Charlie looks at Eddy. “You can let go of my hand now.”
Eddy releases and breathes heavily. His body and mind are overflowing with endorphins, and he feels like he’s on some sort of high.
Charlie brushes the pile of flesh, pellets, and bone fragments off of Eddy’s belly and looks down at him. Nine bloody holes with crisscrossed cut marks at each one speckle his chest. Charlie lifts the flask and unscrews the lid. “Down the hatch.”
Eddy opens his mouth, and Charlie pours in the blood from the flask. He swallows it anxiously with fast little gulps, every one making him feel better and better.
Charlie withholds a little of the blood in the flask and drinks it himself. He looks at his hand. It’s badly crushed. I’ll have to set this later. That’ll suck… He looks over at June.
Sadie and Skip are with her. They are sitting beside each other—facing away from Charlie and Eddy—with June propped up on Skip’s lap. Sadie points up to the stars and tells Skip
the stories behind the constellations. She points to Virgo in the east.
Charlie notices the constellation Leo above them. No way. Charlie looks down at Eddy’s wounds. They almost look like stars with the little crisscross cuts around them. Charlie is amazed to see that the layout of Eddy’s wounds is similar to the constellation Leo. There’s a group of three wounds on the right-hand side of his belly, and then a curving group of six wounds that travel up the left-hand side of his chest that looks like a backward question mark. Just like Leo. He smiles and can’t help but laugh.
Eddy looks up. “What’s funny?”
Charlie looks down at him. The boy’s grown up. He’s a warrior. Like me. Charlie takes a breath. “I’m proud of you, Eddy.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Charlie’s smile fades as he bites his lip, thinking. Finally, he nods. “Eddy, whether or not you want to be a Squire to the Order, you can be a squire to me. Would you like that?”
Eddy opens his eyes wide in excitement. “Yes! Very much!”
Charlie can’t help but feel a great sense of satisfaction, and gives Eddy a big, toothy grin. Good. I thought so. “Eddy, there’s this really old tradition where a squire is cut by their knight. If you trust me, I’d like to do that. I’d like to add something to your wounds.”
Eddy’s smile fades and his brow furrows. “Uhhhhhhhhh—”
“I promise you that you’ll be proud to wear it.”
Eddy studies his dad’s face. His eyes are glinting, and he’s smiling. “Yeah, I trust you, Dad.”
“I’m going to add a couple cuts. It’ll hurt, but I’m not going to hold you down. This is your first test.”