by Joe Fowler
“If you know where they live, can’t Josh go there during the day while they sleep?” Beth’s words were a shock to all of us.
“That could solve the problem! Wow, great idea Beth.” Josh was excited as he turned to Rosalyn. “Tell me where.”
While Rosalyn pointed the vampire lair out on a map, I began to relax for the first time in days. Rosalyn and Josh were here to make the decisions. I didn’t have the responsibility of Beth and her little brother on my hands. I still didn’t know if things would go right but Rosalyn and I were together and we had a fighter’s chance.
I began thinking back to my little trailer in Hurley. I would go months at a time without a deep thought back then. I worked, then drank, and then slept. That wasn’t a real life. I finally understood that now. Here I was in Paris of all places fighting hordes of vampires. At least my life had purpose again.
“I will go as soon as they come for Beth and Heath. They probably won’t be there but it is worth a shot.” Josh sounded hopeful. “We might be able to end this quickly with no one being at risk.”
“Then it would just be more clean up. We could go home soon.” Rosalyn said. She sounded unconvinced but wanting to hope.
Since there were still a few hours before sunrise, we began watching the news. Beth took Heath back to bed and got some sleep for herself. Josh watched with Rosalyn and I for a bit then took a nap since he had work to do during the daytime.
Rosalyn and I went in search of an apartment we could enter. We needed to prepare a room against the sun. We found one on the same floor as Beth’s apartment. We watched television in the new apartment so we wouldn’t disturb them. Just before sunrise, Rosalyn went to make sure Josh was awake and ready to meet the car when it came. She came back and we prepared for sleep.
“Whatever happens, try not to scare me like that again.” She said quietly. “Josh used his visions to see that you were alive, but he couldn’t tell where you were.”
“Believe me, I did all I could to get back to you guys. I will try to be more careful though.” I said to comfort her. We both knew there wasn’t anything I could have done to keep from being carried away.
“That’s the biggest problem with caring so much. It hurts when you lose them. I’ve lost everyone I ever cared about eventually. I at least want more time with you.” She was so sad it broke my heart.
“I will stick around as long as I can. I promise.” The sun rose cutting off any more talking.
Chapter 20
We woke to the sound of the news in the next room. Josh was kicked back with a beer in hand. He saw us and pointed toward the kitchen. After grabbing us a beer I returned to sit next to Rosalyn. We sat for a minute waiting on Josh to tell us of the vampires’ lair he had checked out. When I realized what the newscasters were saying I paid more attention.
“…this new threat. It seems the ghouls are now defending vampires while they sleep. This has caused the deaths of many soldiers. The President’s new advisor, Seth, tells us what to expect from this newest danger.” The anchor turned as a video of Seth walking up to a podium took center screen.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our efforts to kill vampires as they sleep has hit a snag. Vampires have a new ally. Ghouls.” Seth looked uncomfortable in front of the cameras but he soldiered on. “They are eaters of the dead and they usually eat well when they work side by side with vampires. Ghouls take the form of the last person they consumed. The bad news is that ghouls are incredibly strong and they are hard to kill. You must cut their heads off, like with vampires, but their skin is much tougher which makes that difficult. The good news is the low numbers of them. They have difficulty breeding so their population is kept low naturally. While strong, they do not have the speed of vampires and werewolves. This helps. I am working with the President and military leaders trying to come up with different plans of attack. As with the vampires, we will find a way to end this threat.”
“That was recorded earlier today. We have been researching…” The anchor welcomed some new professor looking man as they debated the new development. Josh turned the volume down as we took a moment to regroup.
“Let me guess, you spent the day killing ghouls instead of vampires.” Rosalyn stated as we downed our beer.
“Yep. Killed maybe twenty of them, then took out the hundred or so vampires they were guarding. The separate sleeping area you pointed out was there, but no old ones like Austin described. I guess these four you told us about weren’t taking any chances.” Josh drained his beer and went and got us all another.
“They are smart, especially Isaac. He would have taken precautions against you. It was worth a try though.” Rosalyn opened her second beer.
“How tough are these ghouls?” I asked. I hadn’t faced one and only knew what I heard Seth say during his speech.
“They aren’t so bad. You don’t want to let them get their hands on you though. Keep moving and slice a little harder when you go for their necks. You may want to trade in your knife for a machete.” Rosalyn suggested.
“The problem becomes keeping the soldiers safe from the ghouls so they can kill the vampires while they sleep. Ghouls are more dangerous to werewolves than they are to vampires. Wolves have to use their teeth to kill a ghoul instead of a machete.” Josh informed us. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Why doesn’t Seth tell them to use flamethrowers? Fire is effective against both ghouls and vamps.” Rosalyn said off hand.
“That sounds good to me. I need to call him anyway so I will ask while I have him on the line.” Josh reached for the phone.
“I wonder if this puts us back into play for more cities.” I thought aloud. “Of course, we still have to finish Paris eventually.
“It’s hard to say. The humans will want us to handle as much as we can so it will be less risk for them. At the same time, I think they see they will have to help or this will never go away. I would expect at least one more city for us. Rio most likely.” She drained her second beer and I did the same.
“Hey Seth. I see the ghouls are there too.” Josh had gotten through. With our heightened senses Rosalyn and I heard Seth’s side of the conversation as well.
“So you ran into them there, huh? They are showing themselves everywhere now. We lost over a hundred soldiers and two dozen werewolves.” Seth sounded more angry than sad. He wasn’t taking this lightly.
“Rosalyn had the idea of flamethrowers. Would that work?” Josh asked.
“The military is passing them out to the search parties now. Tomorrow morning they will have a test run in a few cities while having the rest wait until we see how it works. How many did you run into?”
“About twenty this morning. They were guarding a nest of about a hundred maybe a hundred thirty vampires. I killed them but the four older vamps Rosalyn warned us about weren’t there. They are playing it very carefully. Rosalyn says they are smart. We will get them eventually I guess.” Josh sighed.
“What’s wrong? You don’t sound too good.” Seth’s concern was evident in his voice.
“Paris is turning into one of the disaster comedies. Every time we get through one problem, another arises. Plus, I really miss Alicia. I don’t like being away from her this much.” Josh hung his head for a moment.
“I will try to make sure you guys get some time here before they try to send you to another city.” Seth promised.
“Thanks Seth. I better go, we need to get some work done tonight.” Josh didn’t look too thrilled about it though.
“Be careful, Josh. Make sure you three make it home.” Seth said and hung up. Josh put the phone back into his pocket as he stood.
“Well, you guys ready to go to work?” His words seemed to sum it up. We were on our way to risk our lives in a foreign city far away from the people we cared about. We weren’t excited about our job but we knew it was necessary.
As we were heading out of the apartment building, we saw our night getting started more quickly than expected. The street was packed to ov
erflowing with vampires. Up and down the street as far as you could see were undead eyes staring back at us. Luckily Rosalyn and I were in front. I heard Josh disrobing behind us so he could change. I saw Rosalyn smiling out of the corner of my eye. She took a couple of steps out the door and I followed, standing just to her right. Josh was in battle mode now and stood to my right. All was prepared except they didn’t attack.
“Rosalyn, why are you fighting this? We could finally stop hiding. You should want to be free. I know we had our differences in the past but we should be working together now.” The speaker was the casually dressed older vampire. He was standing on top of the steps leading into the apartments across the street from us.
“Isaac, I wanted nothing to do with you then, and it is the same now. If we don’t stop you today, then the soldiers will come with flamethrowers and finish the job.” Rosalyn didn’t seem bothered by this conversation.
“You are one of the greatest of us. You should be leading us against the humans, not the other way around. Why have you turned on your own kind?” The female was wearing a different gown this time as she walked out of the building to stand beside Isaac.
“I was sick of ‘our kind’ centuries ago. Why can’t you quit living in the past is a better question to ask. When was the last time you and the Dobbs brothers dressed in clothes that were not over a hundred years old?” Rosalyn was getting tired of talking. She seemed ready to fight and so was I.
“We tried to give you a chance Rosalyn. You are going to die and it is all your own fault.” Isaac stated. He then yelled loudly, “Attack!”
The time for talking was gone. Slow motion or not, these vampires were getting close to killing me as the fighting hit full swing. I slashed and kicked trying to create enough room to continue to slash and kick. I had to put a lot of force into every motion or their sheer numbers would have kept my strikes from doing any damage. I was pushing myself so hard I once took two heads with one swing of my knife. I couldn’t turn to check on Rosalyn but I kept seeing the attacking vampires surge in and out. I took that to mean she was okay and fighting well. Josh was easy to keep track of. Body parts were flying from his area regularly. Heads, arms, and even a limbless torso would go flying into the mass of vampires. After fighting for a while their attack had to slow down some because of the corpses that were in the way.
I was doing my thing and managing to stay alive when I saw a flash deep in the horde. Then I saw the same flash again, only closer. My brain shouted a warning that my mouth repeated loud enough for Rosalyn and Josh to hear. “Old one coming among them!” That was all I could say as I narrowly dodged one of the suit wearing old one’s swipe at my head. I couldn’t turn as he darted past me in that attack because of the vampires in front of me.
“One down, three to go.” Josh’s creepy ass, even in this situation, voice let me know what had happened.
That was the good news so far. The bad news was we were just getting started and there were three more old ones. The thousand or so average vampires weren’t slacking up. They were being slowed some by the ever increasing mounds of dead bodies but that didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. I went back to what I had learned in St. Louis about kick sliding my feet so I wouldn’t lose my balance stepping on body parts.
I was doing well enough until I heard a cry from Rosalyn. I half turned and saw the woman in the gown closing in on Rosalyn who was facing the other way. I made a desperate leap in that direction stabbing the old vampire through the back. Unfortunately she whirled so fast she tore the knife from my hand. Rosalyn had recovered and took the woman’s head off just before I became a headless corpse.
I had to scramble to try and regain the edge against the attacking horde. I wasn’t making any progress until Josh threw a body into my section knocking down three approaching vamps. I shouted “thanks” and kept fighting. During the fight I was able to replace my knife with one from a vampire whose head I had just ripped off. It wasn’t as good, but it helped. I was trying to keep an eye out for one of the two remaining old ones, but all I saw were the unending mass of ordinary vampires. The fight continued.
How long we fought, I don’t know. I kept thinking that one of us, probably me, would make a mistake and fall eventually. We held strong though. Josh was leading in the most enemies killed department. I actually heard him laughing at one point. Rosalyn was all business as she built a very impressive size pile of the dead and now lifeless bodies. The glimpses I would get of them were reassuring.
“Switch places with me Austin” I heard Josh say. A body flew into my section of attackers giving me the chance to back away.
I went to where Josh had been and saw why he wanted the switch. The vampires couldn’t get through except one or two at a time. The corpses were chest deep. This was easy. I almost felt bad about the smallish pile of bodies from my section. That led to me wanting to laugh at myself. So I wasn’t the badass that Josh was, big deal. Who was?
I began to worry that the other two old ones had not made themselves known. I kept my side clear while trying to keep an extra eye out for them. This went on for some time. Even Josh and Rosalyn were not under constant barrage of attackers now. I almost didn’t know what to do when no more vampires replaced the two I had just killed. I looked around and Josh and Rosalyn were finishing off the last of them. Where were the older ones? Was this all the younger vampires they had at their disposal?
“I want to say ‘that was awesome’ but something doesn’t feel too right about it.” Rosalyn said what I was thinking.
“Where are the other two? Did either of you see them?” Josh asked. I was thinking and wondering too much to even be bothered by the super duper creepy voice.
“I didn’t. Since we switched I kept an eye out for them but didn’t see a thing.” I said as I cleaned my new knife and started looking for my old one.
“Like I said, Isaac is very smart. He either saw we couldn’t be beaten or he has another plan. He is probably running but we need to stay alert.” Rosalyn stated as she grabbed me and kissed me. “Great timing with that knife in her back. You saved me.”
We kissed a bit more while Josh sifted through the bodies making sure we hadn’t killed one of the other old ones and not realized it at the time. He came back toward Rosalyn and me as we separated from our kiss. He looked around one last good time before returning to human form. He looked worried.
“We will need to move all of these bodies into the very center of the street. When the sun rises, we don’t want the buildings to be set on fire. I need some food first, though.” Josh started getting dressed.
“We can get started on the bodies. Take your time eating.” Rosalyn said. I would have sworn that she winked at Josh. Josh gave an almost imperceptible nod as he headed up the stairs. I knew better than to ask.
Rosalyn and I did as she said. We moved body after body. It was actually more like body part after body part since they mostly crumpled or pulled apart as the rapid decay set in. We were only at this for a few minutes when I caught a flash of movement across the street headed in our direction. I moved to alert Rosalyn but she had seen and before I could cry out Josh’s monster wolf form had pounced. This was the reason for the wink and nod. They knew what the old vamps were planning.
“So predictable Isaac.” Rosalyn was face to face with Isaac and Josh was belly button to face with the other one. Josh’s wolf form seemed even larger than usual.
“There isn’t much you can do against that.” Isaac said pointing to Josh.
“I have a name.” Josh was trying to be funny but that damn voice caused more shivers than laughter.
“Shit that’s creepy.” The other old one spoke. I broke the tension by laughing my ass off. I couldn’t help it.
They went ahead and fought while I tried to compose myself. Josh killed the suit wearing one in about three seconds. Rosalyn took a good twenty seconds, although a few of those were spent holding Josh back so she could kill Isaac herself. I was wiping the tears from my face when Is
aac fell.
“Sorry guys but that was funny.” I apologized.
“I’ve been making fun of this voice since the first night I turned. I’m glad to have someone else laughing with me.” Josh said in good spirits.
“Let’s get these bodies into the street and go drink some beer. I think we’ve worked enough tonight.” Rosalyn said.
“Agreed” Both Josh and I said.
We tried to hurry but the bodies were falling apart so badly that we might have done better with a broom. Once we were done we headed back to our room and started on the beer. I looked in the fridge and saw that Josh had stocked it well while Rosalyn and I were asleep that day. It looked like two cases minus what we had already drank earlier.
We flipped on the news to see soldiers using guns and flamethrowers against the vampires in Berlin. It was mostly a stalemate. Some of each side would fall on occasion but neither side could get the upper hand. I was surprised to see the soldiers fighting them at night anyway. Why not wait for daylight and kill them as they slept? The flamethrowers were more for the ghouls than the vampires.
“Why are they fighting them at night? Wait for daylight dummies.” I said aloud. Before Josh or Rosalyn could answer, the news anchor did.
“We have this footage from Berlin of the soldiers who were still within the city area when the sun went down. Their transport vehicle broke down and they were stranded. Authorities are unable to send in a rescue team for fear of losing more men. We are told…” She droned on without knowing the scenes on the screen had changed behind her. A huge werewolf began slaughtering the vampires. The camera was only showing a blur as the wolf moved but in the time since he had appeared almost all of the hundred or so vampires were dead. The soldiers began cheering wildly.
“Seth! I didn’t know he was over here in Europe but it is a good thing. Those soldiers got lucky.” Josh clearly enjoyed seeing his old friend in action.
The anchor woman wasn’t speaking anymore having become aware of what was happening. The image went to full screen as Seth killed the last of the vampires. He turned and was walking back to the soldiers when another wave of vampires attacked. I would have been in awe if I had not spent the last week watching Josh in action. Still, Seth was very impressive. He must have killed another hundred or so until the remaining vampires stopped attacking. They saw clearly that death came on four legs if they stuck around. Before long it was only Seth and the soldiers in view.