Closer (Story Sunday)

She knew she was being followed and her heart pounded, mind racing.

Echoes came to her. She was outnumbered.

Her steps faltered and she took a quick look over her shoulder to verify it but the street was in total darkness except for a dim, cloud-covered moon and her tiny flashlight. 

She moved a bit faster, sure it was the four men from the stadium. She'd only needed a moments escape from the thousands of tensely beating hearts crammed into the Super Dome and instead, had found a young girl's abused body and her attackers standing nearby, talking about how to hide it. All fresh from the act, they'd turned to see her and when she'd fled, they'd followed. Now, they were stalking her, getting closer.

The New Orleans street was debris-covered, empty except for broken tree limbs and power lines, and she heard the footsteps on her trail change. They'd split up, she realized, trying to surround her, herd her. She walked faster, sharp eyes still unable to pick even a single shadow from the darkness but it didn't really matter. She was a witness. They couldn't leave her alive.

Soft laughter rang out on her right and she flinched to the left, almost running now, and hit something heavy lying in the street. She fell hard, light flying out of her grasp and smashing against the ground. Blood dripped from her hands and she pushed herself up began to run through the total darkness.

A shape appeared on her right and she spun left again, running through a muddy yard, and glass crunched under her feet as heavy footsteps echoed openly, closely. 

She threw herself over a high fence and hit the ground again, almost dazed from the impact. She stayed still, hearing them close in, and then she was surrounded, looking up at four angry leers. 

Her cloak had fallen open to reveal a short, black dress over pale, flawless skin, and she felt the air shift. Their eyes darkened with need and she closed her eyes, listening to them decide who would be first and how they would clean up after.

Shadows moved silently in the darkness as the first man knelt in the mud, and unseen hands moved toward for his companions as he dropped his body onto hers. The woman immediately slid her hands around his neck.

"Closer." She whispered hungrily, lips searching, and then she was plunging her fangs into his sweaty skin and he was screaming. Her grip was like stone, relentless, and the shrieks of the other men echoed his as the small family of Hunters fed.

The woman belched loudly and giggled at herself as she pushed the body over and staggered to her feet, intoxicated with her meal. Hunting during the aftermath of human suffering was always the best. Few lights to give them away, no authorities patrolling every alley, and best of all, a perfect food supply. Tragedies brought out the worst mankind had to offer and with no one to protect their rights, these remorseless Killers were finally serving a purpose and getting what they deserved at the same time.

Mother Sarah (Story Sunday)

Sarah was a puritan healer who worshipped the Goddess Isis and yet, shunned the heathen rituals of her friends and neighbors. Barren since birth from illness, she wore no garlic strands or crosses and feared not to walk in the night, even after the attacks started. She believed she was under the protection of the goddess and could often be seen strolling the main paths, as if to prove her outrageous claim.

And so it was she found him on the side of the dirt road, a bloody pile of charred robes and skeletal hands, and instantly recognized him for the creature he was. Vampyre.

Instead of trying to finish him off, as her fellow townsmen would have no doubt done, she stepped to him lightly and began examining his wounds. Weak, dying maybe, he still tried to grab her, glimmering eyes attempting to seduce but Sara was a sturdy girl of even sturdier determination and she simply shoved a potion down his throat and waited.

When he slept, she painstakingly took him home, to the area she’d prepared, unable to believe her good luck. On her first try, she had gotten what she wanted and it had only taken three lives. She’d expected that number to be much higher.

The emaciated Vampyre came awake all at once and Sarah could feel his sunken black eyes suddenly watching as she took rats from one wire cage and placed them in another. She chose only the plumpest specimens and the last, she kept a hold of, turning to look at her captive.

"Blood for blood."

The weak creature hissed his rage, his denial of her offer, and she shrugged, puritan brown eyes shrewd.

"You will give me what I want or you will never leave here."

He really struggled then, twisting and shouting gibberish threats and curses. His thin body tensed against the chains, testing them but he found no weakness, nor would he. These restraints had been forged with just this purpose in mind.

Sarah moved closer, gentle fingers calming the nervous rodent in her grip.

"Blood for blood!" With a vicious jerk, she snapped the rats neck and kept twisting, pulling hard, and its head came off with a wet, sickening crunch, sending scarlet drops of lifeblood splattering across the Vampyre’s pale face. It gushed against the bars of his cage, close enough to drip, to allow for only a taste and the rest poured onto the dirt floor of his underground cell.

"Nooo!" The Vampyre slammed himself against the chains, head straining to get his forked tongue on the splatters, and Sarah laughed at his obvious desperation.

"I will come back in a few days to ask again." Seconds later, she was climbing the wooden ladder, pulling it up behind her.

His furious struggles ceased to exist as soon as she lowered the earthen plug and the young widow moved toward the well to wash, humming happily. John would be very pleased with how far she had gotten with the research. He had never been able to capture a live specimen to experiment on, had died trying, but Sarah had done it simply by following the notes in his journal.

"Vampyres are solitary and will often attack any of their kind who threaten to expose them."

Sarah had understood this would apply to even rumors and it had been her tools that plunged into those girl's necks, not a Vampyre’s fangs, her own mouth that had removed the coppery blood and dumped it far from the attack. After two deaths, the village people had started hunting and more than one night walker had been staked, burned, and decapitated. Not to mention the innocent villager that had been mistaken for a creature of the night.

The townspeople had been near panic then and all she had to do was watch and wait for whatever black sheep the rest of the Vampyres believed to be guilty. With John's sleep potions in her apron, she had prowled the woods and met with success. Her specimen was weak, likely why the others had thought him guilty in the first place, and she had no doubt he would relent under her torture without the month's long battle of wills that she had prepared for.

Sarah smiled, a hard, glinting grin of triumph. With the Vampyres willing donations, she would have the blessing of Isis and the transformation would heal her barren womb and create a new species of monster. She would be their maker, their Mother.

Her hand rubbed at her empty belly, eyes glittering with insanity. It was the one thing John had not been able to give her. Children of her own.