Turned

by Mazlow, J.

  ‘The group wasn’t long for the world though, that’s what Ole John thought and you could see that it was true. The cold had kept the vampires unorganized and had reduced their numbers in these parts, but it wasn’t going to last. Each year there were more than the last. They’d learned to attack the group as they traveled north It was only a matter of time before the vampires destroyed the group, either in actuality or by simply making their life so hard that they gave up their farming and returned to fully roving. They were too stubborn to move on then as Ole John advised them despite their utmost respect for him and it filled me with incredible sadness to think that their persistence would drive them to destruction.” The door creaked open and a young vampire slipped in and nodded to my brother, his lanky blond hair falling in his eyes as he did so. “I decided to join them, and the rest is history.” My brother pushed his chair back with a screech ad stood. “No doubt you’ve heard the rest. If you haven’t then I’m sure someone can fill you in.” His eyes sparkled as he said that. “Now I’m afraid I’ve got things to do, but I’ll walk with you to your meager cabin. We’ll have to work on finding you a better place, especially before winter gets here, but they’re in short supply.”

  I followed my brother out of the cabin and the gaunt vampire walked silently behind us scooping up a rifle that leaned in the corner of the hallway and nodding to the crazy old vampire that still sat atop his stool. A cold wind rippled across the packed earthen yard around the farmhouse and the vampires shivered. Though it was dark, the camp felt tense. People scurried along the edges of the buildings like rats, averting their eyes and not greeting us.

  A woman’s shrill scream ripped through the night sending shivers running across my skin. My instinct told me to flee in the opposite direction as quickly as possible if I wanted to avoid her fate, but a familiar cadence filtered through the distortion of terror and pain and I bolted towards the sound. After I’d taken only two paces the vampire that was walking with us had his hand on my shoulder and roughly pulled me to a stop. I began to protest but a sharp look from my brother restrained me. I looked around but we were the only thing moving. My brother set a slightly faster pace and we continued walking towards the screaming which was broken with ominous silences returning weaker with each cycle. My brother looked grim but the vampire that walked with us was almost salivating. His eyes were bright, and his attention focused on the screams. My stomach clenched and I felt like vomiting, but at the first taste of bile I swallowed and strode on ignoring my body. We turned onto an even narrower lane just as a wail burst forth from one of the cabins nearby. A pair of vampires stood in front of it pistols in hand shuffling anxiously. A cool breeze blew at our backs. I could hear rustling in the little shacks that stood along the lane and I could see shadows moving through the chinks, but no one emerged. My brother strode past the vampires as if they weren’t standing there and I followed with the vampire close behind me. One of the guarding vampires hissed as we stepped in through the doorway. There was no light inside but even the tiniest light of a cloudy night is enough for a vampire to see clearly so that didn’t surprise me. The screams had subsided, but the cabin was filled with the sound of struggling limbs, cloth whispering haggardly against the plank floor and ragged breathing interspersed with a whimpering voice that begged, “Stop, stop. I don’t want to die.” I rushed forward but my brother grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me to the ground with a force that his size belied. I grunted as I hit the floor.

  Mary screamed louder and kicked her feet at the sight of me. A vampire with his knee on one of her shoulders laughed as another knelt and lapped at her blood as it spilled from her neck. In the darkness of the cabin its color shouldn’t have been visible, but it was, a ripe red running down the gray stretch of her neck. I stood unsteadily and as I did my brother swung his gun around so that the black bead of its muzzle was pointed unwaveringly at me. I stepped forward anyways. “Get off her,” I yelled and prepared to kick the kneeling vampire from behind. Another vampire swung his rifle and the butt caught me in the chest with a crack sending white hot sparks crackling in my vision as I fell to the ground. I fell so that I was staring straight across Mary’s chest heaving in rapid quivering breaths. The vampire that was stealing her life stared at me, his blue pupils so pale that they almost disappeared into his impassive eyes. I struggled to my feet. “What are you doing,” I said. My voice was haggard.

  My brother shrugged his face grim under the shadow of the brim of his hat. I could only see his face, pale and shaven. Mary had wanted me to shave my face, but I did not regret keeping it even if it placed me with the roamers. I felt as if all the civilization of the camp was draining as Mary’s blood drained away from her. I felt cold and distant from my bother standing like a guard with his gun pointed at me and from the vampires with their blood-stained faces and zealous eyes bright in the dark like some feral animals. I even felt distant from own my body as if I were only a floating spirit instead of a living, breathing human being. My brother’s voice was harsh like an old man’s after he’s lived a life of smoking and running through cold foggy mornings. “It’s part of the deal. She knew that. They all know that.”

  “She knew that you were going to feed her to them like some fatted calf.” I moved closer to him so that the barrel of his rifle was pressed into my stomach.

  “The vampires have got to feed. Would you prefer that they rove the countryside and pick up roamers? Someone’s got to die for them to remain strong. This way at least the whole camp knows what it has to pay for the security that the vampires bring us, for the ability to raise crops and livestock and let our children live without constant fear. Besides what do you care? She was just a lackey for that damn preacher anyways. They’re just trying to use you to get to me. Well I hope that it was worth it to his cause. He ‘d be the next one the lottery selected if I could have him eliminated.” I felt as if he’d kicked me in the side in addition to the ache that burnt through my chest. Red crept up the sides of my vision as if I were standing in a pit of fire.

  Mary’s struggles had ended. If her chest still moved, I could not see it from where I stood. The vampire at her throat rose, wiped his mouth with sleeve and grinned at me, flicking his long fangs threateningly. “May I close her eyes?” I asked in a voice that could have been hewn from rock. My brother didn’t answer just swung his head in her direction. I knelt at her side on floorboards that were sticky with her blood. I pushed her hair back and kissed her cold and sweaty forehead. “May flights of angels bear you to your resting place,” I whispered. I pulled her eyelids over her wide frightened eyes and closed her mouth. Then I fold her arms on her stomach. My brother looked at me with a pained expression, and then said, “You’re done. Get out of here.” I stood. Mary was stretched out underneath me like a gray discarded blanket. I turned and walked out into a stifling silence broken only crickets chirping in their anonymous way.

  I wandered in a dismal way, stumbling down the narrow lanes between the cabins and stopping from time to time to lean against their rough walls and sob. The night was filled with shadows that moved like ghosts across the ground. A vampire tailed me flitting from shadow to shadow like a rat scarcely visible as it sniffed the air and looked around with boredom. His face was still coated with Mary’s blood. I moved aimlessly, turning back towards the center of the village when I grew too near its outskirts. I could scarcely remember where my cabin was and I couldn’t have slept, each time my eyes closed I saw Mary’s face and then my mother’s face moving back and forth in a trembling visage. My brother and his vampire coterie’s snarls also moved in the shadows of my mind. I wandered along the rutted paths a child abandoned by the men and women who peered out at me from around the crusty rags and blankets that hung in their doorways, the civilization that heard my sorrow through the cracks in their walls and remained wrapped up in their beds.

  All of a sudden as I walked the night felt claustrophobic, the walls of the shacks were pressing against my shoulders on both sides, th
e ground curved up to stifle me, and the weight of the sky with its white speckling of stars bore down upon me so that I felt as if I was wading through a dark mire. Ghosts rippled in every shadow and I felt as if the stale cold breath of the vampire that trailed me was raising the hairs on my neck. My hands had grown numb with cold and my eyes were dry from tears. I saw three familiar full figures framed along an alley way and I broke into a run. The vampire flitted along behind me like my own shadow looking bored and sated by his feast. His eyes were half closed as if he were half asleep. The preacher and his two sons turned and looked at me. The sons’ eyes widened and one of them swung his shotgun towards me, but the preacher only cursed. “What do you think you’re doing?” I slowed down and looked at him. He was just a little piggy in a den of starving children who would trick a young girl into doing his work so that he could be held blameless. Just a man who hid behind countless others. A great rage mingled with my great hopelessness as I stared into his beady black eyes glinting in the light of a torch he held and his floppy jowls. I was besieged. I snatched the shotgun from his son’s hand before the boy could blink and turned it on the preacher. He didn’t even look down at the gun but simply continued to stare at me with his surprisingly steady eyes, narrowed even further if that was possible. The torch had ruined my night vision and left me floating in a cloud of twisting orange light and far off walls washed out with a yellow light. The vampire looked amused. The son whose gun I’d taken trembled behind his father, but the preacher just began to speak with an amused confidence. “Do you think that you’ll accomplish anything this way? Killing me will only allow the parasites easier access to their prey.” He snorted. “I am the glue that binds these people together in any kind of resistance.”

  My words came out weak and cracked through gritted teeth. “You sent her to her death. You used her.”

  “I did no such thing. A weak-willed girl who would have turned against me at any moment if only your brother had been willing to give her the time of day. She didn’t work for me and you’re a fool to think so.” I stared into him as if my eyes could burrow beneath his skin and discern the truth. “You should be thankful that the Lord has returned her to his bosom instead of condemning her to eternal damnation and hunger, wandering the earth bereft of His presence.” I struck him in the chest with the butt of the rifle. He dropped the torch with a gasp as he doubled over falling onto one knee in the dirt. The vampire behind me cackled and it filled me as if he were some maniacal part of myself finally freed. His sons started forward, but he gasped, “Let him be you fools,” as I turned the barrel to meet them. The moon had grown large and red and settled over the village as I wandered. It pulled at my mind. It filled me with sickening thoughts. A thread of spittle running down the preacher’s chin drew my eye and I turned away in disgust. “He won’t be long in this camp now,” the preacher said breathlessly.

  The vamp smirked at me. His blonde hair was raggedy, unkempt, and oiled futilely in an attempt to disguise the effects that vampirism had had on it. I thought that he might congratulate me, greet me as cheerfully as any buddy would but my face must have put him on. Despite the grimness of my face he continued smiling widely looking past me as the preacher was helped to his feet until I put the shotgun to his chest and pulled the trigger. A froth of blood and flesh, warm and red from his recent feed splattered across my face and clothes. He was blown to the ground several feet away from me before he could make a sound and fell in a crumpled heap reminiscent of the fetal position. His glassy eyes stared up at me as I walked past him. A great energy and satisfaction surged through me so that my heels scarcely touched the dirt as I walked. I pumped the shotgun as it ran around my lips and down my chin.

  A dim rustle went up through the squalid ramshackle huts cobbled together from particle board and sheet metal that surrounded me as men and women suspiciously peeked out for the source of the gunshot and whispered to one another about what they’d seen as they lay back down and hoped the violence would overlook them. Near the village’s center, a door slammed followed by some inarticulate yelling. I ran towards the river, my breath hanging behind me in warm tufts of air. The night was cold, but I scarcely noticed it. Soon I was at the edge of the village and running across the fields towards the copse of trees lining the river. More yells went up from behind me and someone fired a gun into the air near the site of the vampire’s dead body. I felt a dim sensation of fear, but it was overwhelmed by a feeling of release. Once again among the trees I ran along the trail towards Abdul’s cell oblivious to the darkness, my shoes slapping against the damp soil. I slowed as I drew near though there was no doubt that I was being pursued. Either my brother and his vampires or the preacher and his lackeys would want me. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my face as if to protect it against the cold and then pulled my jacket back on. The little concrete shack stood dappled by the tree’s shadows and the water stains that ran up its walls. A large vampire, tall and fat, a gray doughy monstrosity of the night squatted in front of the door shivering over a little orange fire burning fitfully on the damp ground. I walked forward at a normal pace. An owl flew across the small clearing moving like the night coalesced and the vamp stood to meet me. I held the shotgun cradled against my chest. Everything slowed to a crawl and I wondered if vampires always perceived everything at this rate. His lips moved revealing short, barely perceptible fangs. He wore a pistol on a thick leather belt at his waist, but he didn’t reach for it. He seemed sluggish. He held his hand out to halt me. I continued to walk forward whipping the gun around and pulled the trigger. The muzzle erupted in a white-hot flare. His hand shredded and his stomach was ripped open by the shot. He struggled on the ground trying to crawl and reach his gun at the same time as his mouth opened and closed silently like a fish gasping for breath. I put the gun to his head and finished him. Shouts erupted from the camp, some nearer some further. I pulled the pistol out of its holster and searched for keys. The body was revoltingly still alive in some way, the legs and arms moving slowly and the skin twitching at my touch. He had no keys. I swore. I looked at the lock in the moonlight prodding it with the gun’s hot barrel. The door and the lock were new. I pounded it away from the doorframe with the butt of the gun in quick sharp thrusts, but the lock held. I could hear some faint murmuring from behind the door. The lock held despite my attempts to beat it out of the door the metal shining brighter after the beating. I put the gun to the wood behind the latch and pulled the trigger. The door erupted in a flash of splinters and rebounding shot. A splinter scratched my cheek as it flew by and a piece of shot lodged in my arm causing me to drop the gun. I picked it up again and kicked the door open. The inside was as black as a cave. “Abdul,” I said and was greeted with a string of quiet babbling.

  “Denise, Denise. I’ll be good. I’ll be good I swear. Don’t hurt me. Don’t make me take the shot.”

  “Abdul,” I said again loudly and firmly. He quieted. He was hanging limply from his chains, with his chin rolling around on his chest and his tongue lolling. I took one look at his limp form hanging like a sack in the darkness and I knew that there was no way he would be able to even support his own weight. Rats squeaked indignantly and fled into the walls as I approached leaving behind open sores that ran only with a clear thick puss. “Oh shit,” I whispered as I squatted beside him. His eyes flickered opened, rolled into the back of his head as he hissed and then burst open again. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I said. His thin frame contorted as if he had no bones left disturbed me and reminded me of a conversation, we had one sunny day as we’d traveled north.

  “What do you vamps live for?” I’d asked. “What do you want?”

  He’d looked back at me with dark eyes swirled like the grain in a plank of mahogany, shook his head and even smiled sadly. “What do you want my friend.” Each time he’d called me his friend a cold sweat had broken out on my arms, even though it was just some idiom the vampire had picked up or retained from the time before, but I had never been able to
escape the sensation that my humanity was being dragged down simply by my association with him. At the time I felt that as if I were becoming something no longer human but not quite vampire either.

  “I guess I want to survive.” I’d told him.

  “Well that’s more than most of us,” he said, and I never knew if he’d meant just vampires, or he’d meant everyone.

  As I backed out of the room I wasn‘t even sure that I knew what humanity was anymore. The night outside was ominously silent despite the howling of dogs in the distance. I stepped very quietly out into the little clearing as Abdul began to babble again. Compared to his cell lit everything up with a putrid green light. I didn’t see anything in the bushes or up the path but the sense of being watched was pervasive. I went around the concrete building slipping in the growth behind it and down towards the riverbank. The water was cold, so I walked quickly and quietly north along the bank. My brother’s barn weapon caches were somewhere to the east and I could hear people or vamps yelling behind me and off towards the village. I stopped once to pull my shirt back on over my shivering body as the sounds of the discovery of Abdul’s guard rose behind me in an awful bellow. The night’s cold had drawn out my excitement and anger and only left me with a reflection on how weak the camp had left me. I longed for the fireside, a full belly and even some conversation. It wasn’t long before leaves crunching, grunting and barking voices came up along my right side scouring the woods. I crouched against the side of a large tree crushed against the cold earth hoping that they wouldn’t hear my teeth chattering as they passed me. When they’d gone on, I resumed walking north but more slowly and more quietly so that I wasn’t surprised when the sounds of pursuit began to approach me from the south. I pressed northward more quickly but by then voices were coming back down the river. I recognized some of them, the vampires that were my brother’s right-hand men. I turned perpendicular to the river hoping to skirt the vampire’s coming from the north before the vampires from the south caught up to me. I moved as a trot, as quickly as I could in the dark and the underbrush and I still fell several times in a cacophony of crackling leaves and sticks. My legs were trembling, and my throat was burning with the night air when I saw a vampire trotting along under the trees moving like a breeze that didn’t disturb branches or the leaves. I saw his eyes first, two glints of moonlight moving under the trees. I crouched down in some brush as still as I could be, hoping he’d move away, but without warning he dashed towards me and I had sprung away. I’d made it a couple of steps when a bramble caught the bottom of my pants and my chest slammed into the ground knocking the wind from me. I sprung immediately to my feet but could get no air and as I started to run again, ripping the briar through my ankle I was knocked to the ground again my knee and scraped my knee against a rock in a burning burst of pain. Then a white light bloomed in my eyes and my face hit the ground as I passed into darkness.