Vampire Roller Derby Women

Young lady in a roller derby league in a town in Russia turns to the supernatural so she can become a faste and better skater. She get's more than what she bargained for....

“The Hoia-Baciu Forest (World’s Most Haunted Forest) is situated near Cluj-Napoca, Romania covers an area of over 250 hectares and is often referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of the country.” �" www.wikapedia.com.au

 

Roller Derby started in the US then spread to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, UK, China, Singapore, Finland and Russia.

 

Fang wasn't very athletic...she was always very thin, petite, weak and slow.  It’s no wonder she didn’t like sports!  Being a Goth also meant that sports wasn't her thing but she loved to roller skate.  Most of her alternative friends didn’t like sports either but were involved with roller derby.  Fang discovered this game through her friends and to her surprise she loved it!  It was the closest to being a sports fan and Fang wanted to learn to play.  Sure enough her friends encouraged her and she signed up as a ‘freshie’ (recruit) in the league of her local Russian town.

 

Ten weeks into training and Fang quickly learned the tactics and yet she was slow and clumsy.  During the endurance test (skating around the track to do as many laps in an amount of time) she randomly remembered a line in Dracula.

 

'The dead travel fast.'

 

This distracted Fang and she clipped her skates, tumbling off track, rolling sideways and crashing into the wall.  Awkward silence was broken with laughter followed with cries from her trainers.

 

"Are you alright!?"

 

Fang failed her endurance test and called it an evening.  That training session was over for her.  Fangs heart sank, her head hung low and feeling like she had a physical disability was very frustrating.  Anger, frustration and sadness swelled up inside her as she slowly took off her chunky, thick, black knee pads and untied her skates.

 

“You’ll get there eventually you just need to keep practicing.”

 

Fang jumped a bit at the friendly voice coming from behind her right shoulder.  It was her ‘derby wife’ and good friend, on and off skates, Anyankarl Marx.  Fang turned around and gave her half smile she did when trying to cheer up.  Anyankarl Marx was the ‘life of the party’ and always there to cheer up Fang.  Her mundane name was Anya and despite the derby name everyone referred to her real name.  Being in Russia the others felt the name was in poor taste as they wanted to leave the stigma of the Soviet Union behind but Fang and Anya both were a bit left wing at heart.  Anyanka put a warm hand on Fang’s shoulder.

 

“You okay Sugar Booger?”

 

Fang laughed and in an instant started to cheer up.  She just turned to Anyanka and said.

 

“Sugar Booger, that’s the snot that came out of the ginger bread man’s nose!”

 

They both laughed and Anyanka took off her skate helmet revealing the late nineties hairstyle of spikey bun and brown her with red streaks.  Anya was also the alternative type but too afraid to style herself too much into the Gothic sub culture as her parents were conservative.  She would push boundaries but only go so far.

 

Later that night Fang arrived home, the house was empty as her parents were still at work.  She breathed a sigh of relief, it was nice to have the place to herself.  She stripped off her sweaty skater clothes and dropped them on a trail leading to the bathroom.  Fang showered and washed her long brown hair with red streaks.  Although she was feeling better, Fang started to think of what went wrong in training and going back to the thought that distracted her which led to another random thought.

 

'Hoiya Bacau Forrest.'

 

Hoiya Bacau Forest was a nature reserve near her town.  It was a haunted site of many ghost stories that both fascinated and scared Fang as a child.  But it didn’t stop there, it was the site of missing people, a popular place for murder victims to be buried, and bodies found dead in mysterious circumstances.  Hoiya Bacau and the quote from Dracula were adding up and going around in Fangs head.

 

After drying her hair black and being careful to keep the red streaks, Fang walked quickly into the living room clad in her red and black tartan bathroom gown that looked more like a Victorian British gentleman’s evening jacket. and hair wrapped in her favourite black, fluffy towel.  The house was dark and dimly lit with lamps, walls were dark green and the wooden doorways were dark brown.  It was a simple house yet had an old style European feel to it.  Fang walked past the cabinet with Soviet era and world war two paraphernalia, Fang liked that stuff to but she was also interested in the occult which her parents didn’t approve of.  Not because they were religious but because they were loyal Communist at heart.

 

“Religion is opium for the masses with it’s silly, superstitious, occult qualities that delude humankind.”

 

Her parents would say when catching her reading one of her many books on Witchcraft.  But they let her keep her small bookshelf filled with horror films and books on the occult.  Fang skipped her occult books and looked at the top shelf on the left where the few mundane books she had.  Fang whipped out a map of Russia from the bookshelf.  She found Hoiya Bacau Forrest, remembering where it was and conveniently just a few hours from home.  All it took was a bus ticket, booking at a hostel and an excuse for travelling to Hoiya Bacau.

 

"I'm going on a hiking trip.... through Hoiya Bacau Forrest."

 

Hoiya Bacau Forrest was nominated as the most haunted sight in Russia.  People go missing, survivors hear screams, maniacal laughter, see ghosts, strange lights and even a place of UFO sightings.

 

Sure enough Fang organised a weekend away from her.  She knew her parent would cause a fuss so she told them she was going on a skate camp.  Fang booked the bus ride and the room at hostel.  When she arrived on Friday evening she checked in the hostel, dropped her gear off in the room but kept her pack, map and whipped out a compass.

 

 

Fang went hiking through Hoiya Bacau Forrest.  It normally takes Fang ages to organise anything but she loved roller derby so much and was determined to make this trip.  She was very secretive about it but deep down Fang had a plan, the quote from Dracula, Hoiya Bacau Forest and her desire to be faster on skates were all connected.  As Fang walked along the dirt hiking path she tripped on something.  Fang stopped, looked down and could see a dark metallic and wood object sticking out of the dirt.  Curious she crouched down and took the glove off her right hand so she could scrape the dirt away.  There was the stump of a metal object with wooden casing, Fang pulled it out as it was horizontally embedded in the ground like the root of a plant, it was a Russian bayonet from WW2!  Fang recognised it from her parents Soviet Paraphernalia.  Nearby in the dirt was a red star from the hat a soldier would’ve worn.  Fang was excited by her find and she cleaned the dirt off with her glove then put it in her back pack.

 

‘Wow!  This isn’t so scary…well it looks a little scary.’

 

Fang looked around, the forest was thick, misty and resembled something out of a Hammer Horror film she used to watch as a kid.

 

‘If I keep finding stuff like that bayonet this place would be an archaeologists’ dream!’

 

She started walking faster, excited at what else she might find but almost forgetting the deeper reason why she’s there.

 

The sun was going down and just as Fang remembered whey she was there she lost her nerve and thought about turning back.  Fang turned her head to the side of the dirt pathway.  She could see glowing red beads in the silhouette of the Forrest to her left and right.  They were hovering down low in the blackness of the shrubs and above in the shadowy horizon of the forest.

 

'Glowing cherries in the trees!?'

 

She thought.  The red orbs started to move close in pairs until they emerged from the shrubs and trees they got to the edge of the path, they were eyes!  Fang could see clearly the source of the glowing red eyes.  She was surrounded by deathly pale people, cold blue lips, sunken black eyes with glowing red orbs like flaming pupils, scars, scratches and covered in bight marks, particularly on their necks.  The people were in torn and dirty clothes.  At first Fang thought they were victims of an accident, plane crash or more likely a tour bus went through and crashed but they looked dead.  They remind her of the Zombie films at the movie marathons her derby friends would have.  But they weren’t decaying.  Amongst the strange forest people Fang could see some that looked like Swedish back packers, Russian gangsters, people dressed for a night out and then she saw the men in Soviet uniform.

 

“No….”

 

Fang muttered to herself like a frightened child.  She recognised those uniforms, those men were part of history.  They’d have to be old men by now.  Although they didn’t look alive they weren’t exactly decaying corpses.  Fang remembered why she was there but didn’t realise how real it was and lost her nerve. 

 

‘Roller derby is fun but nothing’s worth this…’

 

She thought to herself.  They moved slowly until Fang turned to run, they surrounded her and there was no chance of escape.  The horde ran out and mobbed her, tearing off her pack, ripping her loose fit jeans and red ski jacket.  Two of the women with long dirty hair with leaves in it bit Fang’s neck on each side.  Fang yelped but couldn’t scream.  Others bit into wrists even her ankles, thighs, anywhere they could drain blood.  They took turns and drained her then left her for dead I the middle of the dirt road.

 

Fang was missing for a few days until derby training.  She didn’t return to the hostel but that was no concern to management, her parents were too busy to even notice she didn’t come home, her college just assumed she was ill.  Days turned to a week and it was Saturday, time for her White Star test (second level up from recruit).  Fang showed up looking like death, bights on her wrists, ankles and neck.  But she manged to sneak in home, clean herself up and change into her skater clothes.  Fang wasn’t the same, she functioned like someone sleep walking.  But Fang went through with the roller derby test.  It was an awkward test, people were put out by Fang not talking and looking sickly pale.  But she passed her test.  After everyone took off their helmets, elbow pads, knee pads and skate, packed their gear and made their way to the exit but Fang stood in the way, her back to the glass doors and arms stretched out, she turned quickly and locked the door then turned back to face the confused mass.  Then with one clawed hand on the light switch. The cuddly ad chubby, rosy cheeked referee let out a nervous chuckle.

 

"What are you doing Fang?  I'm tired, sweaty and smelly.  I want to go home to the boyfriend I both love and adore and wish to torment with sweaty derby hugs."

 

Fang let out a deep groan like a wild animal.

 

"Hungrily!”

 

She eerily hissed then turned out the lights.  The hall was pitch black as the only windows were above in the roof and they had blinds over them.  Standing blocking the doorway, the roller derby trainees, coaches and referees could only see the silhouette of Fang and two glowing red beads for eyes.  The ref screamed and eventually everyone else did too.  Fang managed to take on the entire time.  After spending a day of being dead, lying in the shade of the canopy of Hoiya Bacau forest and not feeding for a week, Fang was very hungry.  She bit, drank and drained her entire roller derby team.  No one escaped.

 

The day went by and no friends, partners or family questioned why their roller derby relations hadn’t come home.  It was just assumed they were partying at the team managers house.  No maintenance or cleaners came to the hall, no security dropped by.  The day came and went by and then night came, they all resurrected in the hall.  But they weren't the same people, they were undead like in Hoiya Bacau Forrest.  They got their derby gear on and kept up derby training like normal.... well almost like normal.

 

Fang's plan worked but backfired and spread through her entire roller derby league. Desperate for speed on skates she remembered 'the dead travel fast' and resort to Vampirism.  The struggle now.... showing up to ruler derby events before Sundown.

Author's Note

I've based the forest in the story on Hoia Baciu in Romania. This story was intended to be humerous but as I wrote it became alot darker than I thought. Although the idea might be funny I didn't inject enough humour in it. Still, it's an entertaining story.