Infinite Vampire (Book 1): Blood 4 Life

by M. Lorrox

  He nods, takes a deep breath, and holds it in.

  Charlie chuckles. “You have to breathe, kiddo. You can’t hold your breath; that won’t do.”

  Eddy exhales. “Alright, I’m ready.”

  Charlie brings his knife down on his son once again. He first focuses on the three healing holes in his abdomen. Between each one, he slices a thin line, but he doesn’t connect the line to the wounds entirely; he leaves a portion of unmarred skin between this cut and the wounds.

  Eddy tightens his body and breathes, but he doesn’t cry out or make any noises.

  “The wound you received tonight will be a constant reminder that you sacrificed yourself for others.” Charlie moves up to the collection of six wounds on Eddy’s chest. He cuts thin slices between them in a similar fashion, again not connecting them. “The wounds I’m giving you now are something different, though. Something…separate.”

  He finishes the lines in the sickle shape between the wounds in Eddy’s chest, and then he cuts one more line, connecting the two groupings of healing wounds. “What I’m giving you now—these new scars—will always remind you that your sacrifice has a purpose and a meaning that’s greater than yourself.”

  Charlie finishes. “Alright. All done.”

  Eddy relaxes his rigid body.

  Charlie looks down at the constellation he carved in thin lines. The first cut is already healing into a thin scar. He watches as his son’s flesh reseals the openings he had just made. His eyes track line after line as they each seal shut.

  Within a minute, all the new cuts are replaced with scars. Charlie smiles. Damn. That’s cool.

  Sadie walks over to stand alongside Charlie, who kneels beside Eddy. She places her hand on Charlie’s back and looks down at Eddy’s new scars. “Oh, wow. Congratulations, Eddy.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Just so you know, you’re definitely grounded for lying to us, and also for being such a dumbass.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She reaches her hand out to him. “Come on, stand up.”

  Charlie stands up as Eddy gets pulled up. “Doing alright there, Eddy?”

  “Yeah.” He looks down at his body to see how he looks. His tattered shirt and vest are soaked in blood, so he takes them off. He gets his first good look at his chest and stomach. “Whoa, you made it into a constellation!”

  Charlie nods. “Can you tell which one?”

  Eddy thinks for a second, then shakes his head. “I can’t tell. It’s a real one?”

  “Yep. Here.” He turns around and points above Skip’s head. “It’s Leo, the crouching lion.”

  Eddy looks at the constellation and remembers the myth of Hercules and the Nemean lion. Ha! I’m also really hard to kill, I guess. Eddy smiles at the stars. He follows them down with his eyes to Skip, then continues down to the ground where he sees June. “How’s she doing?”

  Sadie smiles. “I think she’s going to be okay.”

  They walk over to Skip, who sits and pets June’s hair.

  Charlie kneels down next him. “Sadie thinks she’s going to be alright.”

  “I hope so.” He looks up and is surprised to see Eddy standing beside him. “Eddy! You’re okay?”

  “Yeah, Dad fixed me up.”

  Eddy stands with his shirt off, and in the moonlight Skip can see his fresh scars.

  “Whoa… Oh wait, that’s…that’s Leo! Right, Sadie?”

  She nods.

  Skip shakes his head and looks down at his daughter’s chest rising and falling as she breathes. And now you’re a vampire? Like them? Maybe someday this will make sense. He looks up at Sadie and Charlie. “What do we do now?”

  “Well—” Charlie takes a breath, but he’s weak and he loses his balance from his crouching position. He catches himself with his unbroken hand and sits down. “I’m fine. Just a little weak.”

  Sadie walks over and puts her hand on the top of his head, rubbing his hair like he was a pet. She looks at Skip. “June will wake up tomorrow with a really bad headache, and her digestive system is going to be out of whack for a day or two, and, well…”

  “What?”

  Sadie frowns. “And she’ll need blood. Her body is going through a lot of changes, and she’ll need some good, fresh blood.”

  Skip’s expression is blank while he stares at Sadie.

  She gives him the time.

  He blinks and takes a deep breath. “What kind?”

  Sadie tilts her head and squints. “What do you mean?”

  “Good blood, like from humans?”

  “Oh no, not necessarily. Any mammal will do, as long as it’s fresh.”

  He nods, glances away, then raises his eyebrows before he furrows them. He looks back at Sadie and sighs. “There are some rescue dogs at the kennel, and I think the Jacksons still haven’t picked up their goat yet, so…”

  Sadie shakes both her head and her index finger at him. “No, no, no, that’s not necessary. Doesn’t your office stock any transfusion cells and plasma?”

  Skip’s eyes widen. “Yes. We got a shipment from Atlanta this week.”

  Charlie licks his lips and smiles. “Perfect.”

  Skip shakes his head. “Gross.”

  Eddy looks at his mom. “Our order of blood should be here tomorrow afternoon, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Hmm… We’ll have to have it forwarded.”

  Charlie tilts his head to look at her as he grumbles. “I agree, but thanks for consulting with me.”

  “Shush.”

  Skip looks back and forth between them with his brow raised.

  Charlie leans toward him. “Skip, we can’t stay in this town. Not anymore.”

  Eddy drops to his haunches. “What?”

  Charlie sighs. “You saw how they reacted. The people here won’t accept us.” He looks up at Sadie. “Besides, we’re needed elsewhere.”

  She gives him a smirk.

  Eddy stands back up. “DC?”

  Charlie nods.

  Skip looks down at June, then over to Charlie. “Umm, what about, uh…”

  Charlie reaches his arm out and puts his hand on Skip’s shoulder. “You and June should come with us.”

  Skip nods. “When do we leave?”

  Charlie stands up and extends his good hand out to Skip. “Immediately.”

  Sadie bends to lift June. “Before sunrise.” She slides her arms under June’s knees and neck and picks her up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Eddy walks alongside her back to the Jeep. Charlie and Skip walk behind, shoulder to shoulder. Minnie is asleep inside with Rusty curled up on her lap. They wake her when arranging everyone in the back, but she falls asleep again once she’s settled on Eddy’s lap. Skip holds June upright in the middle of the backseat, Sadie gets behind the wheel, and Charlie sits in the front with Rusty.

  Sadie starts the Jeep, but before she puts it in gear, Charlie remembers something.

  “Wait. I’ll be right back.” He opens the door, and Rusty hops out with him.

  The little critter runs over to a nearby pile of zombies, climbs up on them, and pees. He starts to climb down, then turns around, climbs back up to the same spot, and takes a dump.

  Charlie walks to where he and Eddy made their stand and grabs his go-bag. Then, he walks past the Jeep to where Victoria had shot Sophia.

  In a minute, he and Rusty jump back into the Jeep. “All set. Thanks.”

  Sadie looks over at him. “Everything alright?”

  Charlie looks at her, then glances into the backseat at his growing family. He smiles when he looks back at Sadie. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  As the sound of the Jeep’s tires rumble down the road, Mike, who never really lost consciousness, decides it’s safe to get up. He had played possum the whole time in the silent stench of the zombie pile, waiting for the vampires to leave. He sits up and looks down at his pants. “Fucking asshole dog.”

  Sadie pulls into their driveway and parks the Jeep in front of the garage
. “Alright, let’s get to it. We leave in…about six hours.”

  When Eddy gets out with Minnie, Skip positions June across the backseat. “She’ll be fine here for a few hours?”

  Sadie nods and shuts her door. “I promise she will be. We’ll look out for her.”

  “Alright... I’ll go, rob the office, then come back to pack.”

  Charlie pauses while Skip walks over to his pickup. He can’t think of what to say. Skip opens the door to the cab while Charlie watches. Before he gets in, though, Charlie calls out to him. “Skip? I’ll see you in a couple hours. We’ll talk.”

  Skip nods loosely and hops in his truck.

  Eddy carries Minnie to her bedroom and sets her under the covers of her bed before he heads into his room. Time to enact the emergency plan.

  In addition to their own needs, every member of the family has a responsibility designated in the plan. Eddy’s additional responsibility is to take care of the family’s technology.

  They’ve run through their plan at least a dozen times over the years since Eddy was old enough to take part in it. He’s had plenty of practice, and he knows exactly what must be done. He takes a deep breath and smiles now that he’ll get to execute it for real this time.

  The main items Eddy must prepare are the network-attached backup hard drives, his laptop, and Sadie’s laptop. After those are secured, he needs to grab chargers for the phones, the power-out flashlights, the rechargeable batteries, and then he needs to grab the memory cards from the mining computers in the garage. After he’s taken care of those tasks, then he can move on to pack his clothes and other necessities.

  Sadie’s additional responsibilities include getting her secret thumb drive that Eddy doesn’t need to know about, all of Minnie’s needs, and the trunk in the basement that holds the family’s heirlooms and her old “equipment.” She walks into her office and looks on the shelf for the thumb drive’s hiding spot. Did I move it? Oh, that’s right. There you are, Dante. His three books—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—stand next to one another. They’re very old, and they’re tied together in a black ribbon.

  After taking the books from the shelf, she pulls the ribbon off and puts two books back, retaining only Paradiso. She smiles as she looks at the tattered cover. The hardest one to get to… She opens it up two-thirds of the way through. Lying in a hole cut in the old pages is her thumb drive. She pulls the drive out and puts the book back next to its siblings.

  As she leaves the office while looking down at the drive in her hand, she notices something between the open door and the wall. Huh? Oh, Mary. She picks up the kimono and brings it to her nose. She takes a deep inhale, savoring the scent.

  She walks out of the office with the thumb drive in one hand, the kimono in the other, and a smile written across her face.

  Charlie’s extra responsibilities are the emergency equipment. He’s responsible for rations, gear, and weapons. The first thing he does when he gets in the house is head to the basement.

  Under the stairs in the basement he has stored all the rations for the family. In their stockpile, he has enough of most supplies to last about a week. He has a box of prepackaged MREs of various menus, but none that he thinks are tasty. He has two sets of wine boxes filled with plastic bottles, where each bottle has been filled with different dried goods: rice, beans, oats, macaroni, popcorn, powdered milk, flour, sugar, and a bottle filled with Mylar baggies of various baking supplies and spices. There is a box of canned meats, vegetables, and fruit. Another box is filled with freeze-dried camping food. Finally, he has two gallon-size jugs of juice—for emergency use only—and a total of twenty gallons of water.

  Washington, DC hasn’t been hit by the zombies yet, so water and food shouldn’t be an issue, but it might be overpriced. He pulls out and stacks one of the wine boxes filled with the dried goods, the box of MREs, and the freeze-dried camping food. He also sets out the two gallons of juice and five-gallons of water.

  He piles the rations in the empty garage. He notices some oil stains on the concrete where he used to park his Harley. Anicca. Impermanence… Oh well.

  He looks at the piled rations. Check. He then moves on to the next task: gear. In the shed in the backyard he has a large purple, plastic storage trunk that holds their camping equipment and outdoor gear. It’s obscenely heavy, but he’s ridiculously strong. He brings the trunk into the garage and sets it by the rations.

  And now it comes down to it. He looks up at the shelf at his swords, and his eyes settle on the katana made for him by Muramasa. Why did I ever take you? I could have just told the old man, “No,” or drowned you in the ocean or something, but…you’re just too damned useful, too deadly. He sighs as he takes both the katana and wakizashi down from the rack. He sets them across the trunk with the camping gear.

  Last but not least. C’mon, big guy. Charlie lifts the steel monk’s spade out from where it leans and looks at it under the overhead light in the garage. He runs his fingers over one of the deeper gashes along the shaft. Let’s hope we don’t have a repeat of Red Pines. Charlie sets it down, laying it against the trunk.

  From the toolbox near the bay door, he grabs some bungee cords and bolts of rope, and he tosses them onto the pile as well. He looks around the garage at his old souvenirs and relics. I wonder if I’ll ever see any of this again. This last century has been good to me.

  He walks toward the kitchen, but then remembers one more thing. His go-bag, which is still on the floor of the Jeep. He walks outside and grabs it, and while he’s leaned into the Jeep, he checks on June. She’s sleeping peacefully in the back.

  He starts to close the door, but then looks back at her. “Sorry you really didn’t have much of a choice, June.”

  He closes the Jeep’s door and sets his bag on the worktable. He opens the small duffel and pulls out the leather hip bag and knife he found with Sophia when he checked for her ID. The knife is still coated with zombie blood. Charlie looks down at his clothes—he’s still coated in zombie blood.

  He wipes the blade on his shirt then slides it back into the sheath that’s lashed to the side of the bag. He opens the bag and finds a wallet, but there’s nothing with her identification inside: no ID, no cards, no pictures, just a little cash. Maybe it’s a dummy wallet. She must not have brought her real one with her.

  He sighs. I can’t find your family without knowing who you are. He puts the wallet back and closes the bag’s flap. He smooths out the leather and frowns. He sets it to the side on the worktable before he grabs his duffel, zips it shut, and tosses it on top of the pile to get packed.

  Skip laughs to himself as he relocks the door to his veterinarian office—that he’s just robbed. So criminal. He ransacked the storage fridge and loaded an empty copier-paper box with bags of packed red blood cells. Transfusions for dogs are easier to do than they are for cats, and there’s a greater supply of canine blood available for transfusions, so he only took dog blood. He left a note at the vet tech’s station:

  He loads the box into his truck and makes one last commute home.

  Charlie finds Eddy in his room; he’s packing his bow and some clothes. The door is open, but he knocks on it with a knuckle. “Hey, Eddy, have a minute?”

  He sets some pants on his bed. “Sure, what’s up?”

  “Come down to the garage, will ya?” Charlie turns and leads the way.

  When they’re both in the garage, Charlie points to Sophia’s bag. “This is everything she had on her.”

  Eddy’s eyes widen. “Sophia.”

  “Who was she?”

  Eddy swallows. “She was traveling from out west. She said she was headed to a commune or something in Atlanta. She was staying at Jess’s cousins’ farm, at Craig’s and Bill’s.” Eddy stares.

  Charlie shakes his head. “That family was devastated tonight.”

  Eddy thinks of Jess, and Joe, and of the brief time he spent with Bill in the truck. “It’s awful. I…I never imagined something like this could have happened.”<
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  Charlie nods and starts to say something, but Eddy continues talking.

  “I’m really sorry, Dad. If any of it was my fault, you know?” He looks up at his dad with wet eyes.

  Charlie shakes his head and takes a step toward him. “That’s not why I brought you down here, Eddy.” He puts his arm across his shoulders. “The cleanup crews will just torch the bodies.” He motions to the bag. “She didn’t have any ID on her. Do you know her last name?”

  Eddy shakes his head.

  “Well, you knew her, and the gear looks like it’s really high quality.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, but I bet she’d rather you put it to use, than it just getting burned.”

  “I bet she would... I’ll always take really good care of them.” Eddy pulls the bag toward him and touches the handle of the knife. Full tang blade, file work on the spine, some type of hardwood handle, and brass pins. He pulls out the blade an inch. Looks like carbon steel—handmade. Wow. He slides the knife back into its sheath and opens the bag. Inside there’s a small velvet pouch with a gold ribbon, a thin wallet, a small hard-shelled case, a stainless-steel lighter, and another strand of beads.

  Eddy closes the bag and looks at the remnants of the bracelet he still wears. “Dad, these beads—”

  “You said they’re dried blood?”

  “Yeah. Sophia said she made them, and that each bead was about a pint’s worth of hemoglobin.”

  Charlie scrunches his face. “Really? That’s kind of hard to believe.”

  “I know, but when I was first fighting the zombies, I chewed up a few. They really work.”

  “Wow. She gave that to you, huh?”

  Eddy nods, remembering her hand gently closing around his with the bracelet in his palm.

  “That’s quite a gift. She must have liked you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Charlie gives Eddy a second or two before kicking him back into gear. “Go on now. You have to finish packing.”

  Eddy nods. He carefully lifts Sophia’s bag and starts to walk into the house.

  “Eddy?”