Veil of the Undead

Going back to the past in my Undead series that delves more into the vampires the main character is hunting.

The church appeared dank and unkempt.  A foul smell lurched from the outside but seem to becoming from the inside with a vapid odor.  George remembered scouting the place the day before and it seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary.  A simple urban sanctuary littered with the basic necessities, fine ornate decorations hanging outside, perfect stained glass windows inset in bricked security.  A place where most people gathered in assembly to listen to powerful sermons, take up the Eucharist in pleasant fashion, and especially to pray to the most high.  Mostly for protection or for solace, for loved ones who passed away, to have long meaningful lives.  Everything seemed to be alright according to George who spent most of his day wandering the streets of London.

When he peered upon the old Victorian church during the afternoon sun people walked in and out of the grandiose building.  Pulpit boys always helped out the elderly to and from the pews.  Distinguished gentlemen of high class always were first in line, always the first to be seated in front of the mass.  It just so happened to be a Sunday right when the procession of mass had begun.  The priest said his prayers and spoke from the good book.  George made his way inside, attended mass as if he was a mere babe in Christ following what others were doing.  He never seen such a ritual performed in such high stakes.

The kneeling, the giving of wine and bread, the psalms spoken and then like one gigantic pulse the congregation all spoke “Amen.”  He was not used to such devotion and dedication.  Back in America he was more akin to the reverend or ministers choosing passages from the good book.  They spoke directly from the word of God, never paraphrasing but making analogies that fit with the times and what had been working through the people’s minds.  Reverends spoke the thunderous sermons, either highlighting God’s love or condemning others with his wrath.  Laymen and Christians understood most ministers because they spoke their own language, for the common man.

But this had been something different, the priest sitting in the place of Christ, hailing above the congregation.  The ritual of mass was new to George, something he never witnessed before.  He noticed the people in the pews nodding to when he translated psalms for the congregation.  Never taking a literal approach to what was written but putting his own unique twist on a parable or maybe even a verse taken severely out of context.  This happened not to be the reason why he attended.  The reason given was for one simple instruction…to analyze.

Dr. Carter and his assistant, Edward Redgrave both spoke to George in high esteem so many nights.  They constantly went over what Carter supposedly narrowed down to as what he called a “nest.”  This so called “nest” intrigued George and sparked his curiosity.  He remembered Carter brought him out into the garden of his home one day only to find out it was no ordinary garden.

“Mr. O’Rourke,” Carter said in proper English dialect, “The vampire is cunning.  Ferocious and vile are its methods.  I have do doubt you have experienced this before.”

“I have,” George spoke softly.

“Then you know what we are up against.”

Carter led George out into his homegrown garden but something smelled terribly wrong.  The scent was not of flowers or weeds overgrown, a foul stench permeated the evening air.  There seemed to be no end to it as George coughed and held his arm over his mouth and nose.  Carter laughed heartedly as he pointed towards the ground.  It took a while for George to catch on but he pointed to where the smelled originated from.  It came from the earth.

“The hell is this?” George coughed some more, his hand covering his mouth, “Another type of herb or weed that these b******s are allergic to?”

“Good heavens no, Mr. O’Rourke,” Carter moved to the corner of his garden towards one of the gas powered lamps.  From there he removed the top of the lamp and took out the kerosene filter which held the flame.  The flame did not dance, instead he showed it to George and instructed him to touch it which he hesitantly did, “A simple distraction, George.  Actually it is a material that is currently being invented as we speak, polyurethane.  They want to call it plastic.  It has many benefits.  But just as something as inventive as this substance, it also has its drawbacks.”

Carter proceeded to press a button inside of the lamp and the garden shifted as if an earthquake occurred.  George heard cogs and gearshifts from underneath the grass and ferns and many herbs growing.  From where the garden stretched onto the back of the porch on the wayside towards the back of the house, the porch stairs turned upside down as if to be suspended by a series of levers and pulleys.  The stairs tumbled sideways then lopsided descending into the recesses of the garden.

“Come, George, I will show you where that horrid smell is coming from.”

George hung outside the empty church yard with Carter and Edward close by.  The once beloved cathedral he stared at became something far worse than he ever thought.  Of course that brought back memories of his brother Ryan.  What he told him just a mere two years ago.  From whatever his brother was building or even constructing haunted him.  And every time he killed, or according to Carter, exterminated one of these vermin, got him one step closer to finding out the truth.  He never knew that truth would be confounding his mind right in front of him.  These pests hiding in plain sight, using men of power and renown and prestige as their lapdogs.  These so called men of authority covering basic truths and some of them being pristine members of the clergy, these so-called men of the cloth.

The same smell that came from the garden just a mere couple of days ago reeked again, this time it was twice as pungent, thrice as vulgar.  George held his cattleman close by his waist and Mr. Redgrave came by his side.  “You’re not going to need that here, George.  It will not effect what we are hunting tonight.”  He handed him his own 6-barrel revolver but something seemed strange about the handgun.  It felt weighted with two wires extending from the base and a cylinder rose from the confines of the rotating cartridge containing a metallic-looking liquid.  Edward showed George how to reload it by compressing the cylinder as if it was a syringe excreting liquid into the barrel.

“I’m guessing you know how to take out a target,” Edward stared at George in the darkness of the night.

“I’m a decent shot.  Not as good as a cowboy or a gunslinger,” Edward held a confused look in his eyes as if that rugged American slang went in one ear and out the other, “Yankees.”

Edward chuckled a bit and gave a pat on George’s shoulder.  Both of them laughed at stereotypical jokes all the time.  Since his time here he grew fond of Mr. Redgrave.  He showed him most of London, taking him to taverns where they would both get drunk and tell stories of their homes.  George would tell ones of his family, the farming life, growing up in the roughneck hills of Indiana.  Edward would tell him of his family, how his father left when he was really young, being raised by his grandmother after his real mother passed, and how he finally became an apprentice for Carter.  Over the course of a month or two both of them grown close, almost like the brother George wanted after everything that happened to his own family.

Carter moved languidly closer to the church dressed in dark apparel.  Always the professor wearing corduroy vests and lavish ties, this night was no different.  His hair always waned back with a little grey waves that showed his age.  Edward was only a couple years older than George mostly wearing suit jackets and a top hat that most young Londoners embraced.  George guessed that was the culture not so blue-collared and rural as his own apparel.  All three of them came from different facets in life, one being a farmer turned tracker, another well educated turned efficient hunter, and one who had studied these unholy parasites from his prime well into middle age.  

They all approached the church doors with George carrying a pack of interesting weapons he never dreamed of using.  Edward held a rifle in one hand, the other held a  dagger, actually too long to be called a dagger, more like a sword that came to a fine point.  Carter came up in the rear with a traveling sack tied to his back, he garnered two stakes in both hands, one had been made of Hawthorne and the other refined iron with barbed wire laced around the tip dripping with arsenic and vervain.

George and Edward pushed on the door knowing that it would have been locked after many members and priest had retired back to the rectory.

“You know what to do Edward,” Carter spoke while taking off his backpack, taking out two appliances from within.  Edward grabbed the pick and crowbar as George just stood back and watched him work his magic.  He inserted the pick and lodged it between the door fold and the latch.  George knew he could be of some use as he held the pick in place.  Edward gave a smiling nod as he wedged the crowbar between both of the door posts, and both pushed putting their weight into it.  The door busted open with a loud thud and some of the wood splintered outward, catching George’s shoulder in the process.  He winced at the shock of it.

Carter came up to take a look at the cut.  “This could be used to our advantage.”  George looked perplexed at the notion that Carter instructed.  Of course he wanted to see for himself what they were about to show him inside the church, but he wondered about the mentality of Carter at times.  Of course what he had learned from him was no short of extraordinary but sometimes he came off as brash and headstrong, “Your cut could be used to draw some of them out as a distraction.  We could thin out their numbers that way, draw closer to the nest.”  George nodded in agreement.  The more he listened to what Carter said he knew he had so much more to learn.

Not that he understood much already.  At first he thought these things were unholy beings born of this earth and damned to some type of eternal existence.  Something that God had warned many of us about, but Carter gave a fresh new outlook on these things.  As they made their way inside the church Edward lit his kerosene lamp letting the embers cascade along the immaculate brick walls.  Sometimes George wondered that what he learned from his brother had all been façade, just simple talk to catch him off balance.  But the more he thought about what he said and taking Carter’s more biological and scientific approach to these creatures, it made more sense.  He did not patch up his wound or wrap it up in a cloth, he let it bleed out and Carter obliged.  He let the droplets fall one by one as they made their way up the center aisle.

Carter brought out from his backpack something that looked like one of those old camera projectors.  Edward helped him strap it to his shoulder, and he told George to connect this projecting lamp to this coil that he kept of the backpack.  He remembered the lesson he gave on basic circuits and taught him about something called a battery.  He connected the wires to the two ends of the coil and Carter propped this photographic lens up on his forearm, “What exactly is this thing, doctor?”

“Ah yes.  It is one of my inventions that Mr. Redgrave and I have been working on.  Much like moving pictures it uses distilled light to project the pictures upon a wall.  But this is no ordinary light.  It is what this distilled light passes through, a rotating prism.  Which if my calculations are correct creates a fantastic scientific breakthrough.  A projected illumination inside the ultraviolet spectrum.  Just like how vampires are allergic to the powerful rays of our suns natural solar radiation, this projector produces ultraviolet radiation, the same type that would make a vampire’s skin burn and possibly result in fine dust particles.”

George numbly stared at the contraption and nodded in satisfaction, “So basically you took the power of the sun and put into a lamp?”

“Well in crude lamen’s terms, yes, Mr. O’Rourke,” Carter laughed and so did Edward, “It is a device that produces a flash of ultraviolet magnetism in the direction that the illuminated light is pointed to.”

“So basically it is a quick flash of light pointed at one of these creatures,” Edward exclaimed, “It should be able to either slow them down or possibly even disintegrate them in the process.  Carter gave me the opportunity to name it.”

“What did you come up with,” George laughed in unison.

“I was thinking maybe a light flash?  Maybe a flash light?  I don’t know but something along those lines.”

Just at that moment something unworldly shook the ground.  The three of them jumped and brandished their weapons.  George brought out his makeshift revolver and the kukri blade he had on the back of his belt.  Edward lifted up his rifle, extending from the barrel was a sharp silver bayonet and he compressed a canister attached to the butt of the underside.  Carter readied one the stakes and in his other hand was a large gas propelled cylinder which rotated extending outward a sharpened dagger that smelled of allium sativum, processed garlic.  

The three backed up with Edward and George flanking in two nearby pews spreading out in some type of formation.  They remained headstrong in the face of whatever was ready to attack but after a few minutes nothing appeared.  That pungent smell of death hung loosely in the air almost making George throw up and Edward began to cough.  Each of them reached inside their coat pockets and brought out what appeared to be surgical masks but there was something different about them.  They were much larger in appearance having bootstraps instead of polyester strings to tie around the face.  The normal cloth fabric that hid the mouth had been replaced by cowhide leather and around the center was rounded capsules containing oxygen that made them breathe normal filtered air.

Carter also brandished one of these masks as he squinted around to try to see if he noticed anything out of the ordinary.  He kept the photographic lens on the broadside of his shoulder, making sure it was tightly secured.  That was when he heard the snarling.  Growls came in every direction and it seemed to circle around the three well-equipped men.  Even though they could barely see anything in the confines of the dark church, sets of reddened eyes began to peer at them.  Bloodshot orbs circled around them hinting at their carnivorous appetite.  Carter was right about blood, it drew them out as if they smelled it habitually and instinctively.  George wondered if Carter was correct about his theories, this was going to be a night he will never forget.

As George and Carter made their way down the stairs that extended from the garden entrance, Edward showed up just in the nick of time.  He was at a work bench in what appeared to be a factory of some sort.  He had been welding a stake onto a branded holster but the stake was not made of regular wood, it had been some type of metal.

“Silver, Mr. O’Rourke,” Carter pointed at the weapon that Mr. Redgrave was working on, “It is a natural repellant of the undead.  The vampire is extremely allergic to refined metals, especially those of silver, iron, and copper.  Copper contains an interesting compound of refined base ores that are mixed with alkaline metals that can be found in our environment.  It is mostly used to anchor down one of these vermin.  Once anchored down to the earth they can easily be dispatched.”

George shook his head and smiled at Edward giving him a heavy pat on his back in approval.  Edward almost coughed when he did knowing how strong George was in a fight.  He got up from his chair and moved around the laboratory.  He began to tinker with various stakes in all different shapes and sizes, most of them encased in either vervain or nightshade, some even smelled of rosebush and juniper.  Carter motioned George towards an examination table.

“This is where we perform many experiments, Edward and I.  We have found through years of speculation of what actually harms a vampire.  And not just simple ways of killing these atrocities but really expelling them so they never spawn at the same place twice.”

“You talk about these creatures as if they’re insects in a weird way.”

Carter laughed and he could hear Edward giggling at what he said.  Carter got the attention of his apprentice and nodded as if to say ‘it’s time to show him.’  Edward knew exactly what the good professor meant as he opened a door to a conjoining room, taking him a while to light a lantern inside, and he brought out a trolley that was covered in a large leather cover.  The trolley was as almost as large they were, and there were hoses and wires stemming from the backside.  In a fast gesture Edward took off the leather cover and George jumped back in horror.  Both Carter and Edward laughed as he jumped instinctively as if he saw the devil himself.

“You have one of those things here!?” George screamed.

“For educational purposes, Mr. O’Rourke,” Carter tried to show the American, “It will not harm you in anyway.  It has been down here, locked away.  The straps hold him in place.  The syringes in his back are intravenously sedating him.  We have been keeping this creature heavily dosed with morphine and absinthe.  He is quite harmless.  It is our way of studying the nosferatu in a controlled scientific setting.”

“We have found some extraordinary things about our friend here, George,” Edward pointed to the creature’s chest.  George frightened at first relaxed a bit and approached this undead cadaver.  He has seen many of these up close but never one that was actually a prisoner.  He thought for many years that a human being was incapable of actually incapacitating something that was unholy.

“Now as you can see, George, these things are not of something like hell or even heaven.  As you can see closely it indeed does resemble something of an insect,” he pointed at the incision he made in his chest, with skin peeled back, his chest cavity cracked open, exposing the heart of this fowl beast, “The heart of these creatures pumps their venom into every organ.”

“Venom?  Not blood?”

Edward decided to intervene, “We believe it to be venom mixed with the blood type of the host.”

“Of course,” Carter patted his apprentice on the back, “We believe the vampire excretes this venom in order to paralyze its victims.  And when this venom is shared through an open wound or even when ingested through the mouth of one of its victims, that person then becomes infected.”

“Kind of like pneumonia or a fever.”

“Exactly, George.  When this contamination hits the blood stream, the victim becomes like them, one in the same.  It carries certain types of hemoglobin, almost like a violent form of rabies.  Passed through genetic material, it affects and changes the makeup of the host’s body.”

“You call it a host body, why?”

Edward was once again intervened, “We believe it to be some type of mutation that occurs inside the organs of the victim.  It drastically permeates the heart but also affects other organs, more specifically the olfactory and nervous systems.”

“So that is why these creatures, these vampires have such heightened senses.  It affects their smell, sight, touch, even taste.  I believe they are instinctively driven by the consumption of blood.  Much like the common tick.  It latches onto the host body, its victim, begins to drain it dry.  Just like humans they need sustenance.  Where we ingest proteins, carbohydrates, fibers, nutrients, etc.  They need their victims blood in order to survive, to harvest and grow just like we do.”

Edward stepped in once more, “But it doesn’t stop there.  Like we said it could share its venom, these specific genomes with another victim.  I’ve come to the conclusion that once a victim ingests the venom from a vampire, the victim and its progenitor must share similar traits.  Maybe have similar attributes like speed and agility and strength.”

George started to chime in, “So they act like a series of bugs.  Is there anyway to detect them, like how we can attract moths to a lamp or frogs to water?”

Carter smiled widely as he knew George was onto something, “Precisely, Mr. O’Rourke.  That scent you smelled earlier is not the smell of death.  Just like the rotting corpse when rigor mortis sets in, they give off a certain smell,” he went up to the creature, this undead parasite, and opened up his mouth to reveal the double set of wolf-like teeth.  Using a prong and utensils he pulled back to reveal the gumline and opened the throat.  George lost his frightened state and approached the vampire with genuine interest.  Edward put on his spectacles to help Carter unlock his jaw to widen his throat.

“If you notice closely, George, there are a set of open wounds in the back of the throat.”

“Kind of looks like a set of gills a fish has.”

Edward took out a syringe attached to a vial and he dug the needle into one of these pores, “They seem to extract some type of bile.  Almost how a snake latches onto its prey, they excrete the bile hence they immobilize the victim, possibly even paralyze.  That is why it so hard to break free from the grasps when one has you.”

George uttered another question, “Then why does it have to be the throat?”

Carter then attempted to analyze, “The throat contains the main artery that runs directly into the chest cavity right towards the heart.  The source of it all.  I have come to the conclusion vampires detect the heart’s pulse through these pores, or gills as you say.  Here, smell it,” he said as George leaned in to the smell the bile and it reeked of what he smelled in the garden, “There you see.  That pungent aroma.  I believe that is how they detect us, they scent or even sense that pulse that currently beats in your very own chest,” He pointed directly at George’s heart.

Edward then spoke up, “We also believe that is how they communicate with one another.  They give off that vile stench in order to detect with another.  My own personal theory is maybe it is a kind of warning, a defense mechanism to call out to their own kind in case their in trouble.”

George finally said something disturbing, “Or maybe it’s a way to signal to who they know is a viable candidate or just a regular pawn?”

That right there stopped Carter and Edward dead in their tracks just looking at each other.  Their mouths hung open as if George caught on to something bigger.  Then George continued in his typical American slang, “What if they use these gills, these pores, to locate people like us that they know are worthy of turning.  If you are right then they use these things to actually smell, like we do our noses.  They can do all sorts of things with that kind of sense.  Detect, warn, communicate, maybe even to decide who to turn and who not to.  I know when I saw my brother that day, he could do much more than that.  He was able to change, to transform into something not of this world.  I once took on a sentry who was guarding a cemetery that was at least 8 feet tall, had strong hands like Goliath, and was able to detract his jaw.  Maybe certain victims are able to change into different things, grow wings or claws or God knows what.  Maybe others are just like regular pawns, unable to change into anything and just resemble who they once were.  Their just shells of the former selves carrying out orders from someone higher up, like a boss or someone in charge.”

Carter scratched his chin thinking of different theories, experiments that could be carried, test could be run.  One could see he was in deep thought analyzing every variable, every exponent being thoroughly examined, “If what you say is true, than my theory is correct.  If these creatures can manipulate their own host body, change bone structure, enhance muscular tissue, heighten their strength and longevity, then my theory of chemical imbalances is definitely on the right track.  What if they are able to do these things due to individual attributes before they turned?”

George quirked an eyebrow, “I don’t understand.”

Edward who was also puzzled decided to pick up a book about wasps, bees, and intelligent vertebrae, “I think I do.  Say if you had a defect when you were once human, that defect can be magnified when the venom hits the bloodstream of the host.  A bumblebee can grow back a stinger if the bee is strong enough.  A hornet does not merely die after biting someone on the skin.  Of course it will lose the capacity to attack again, but when it is agitated or in a panicked state, it will get the urge to bite again, and sometimes even a deadly one.  What if these vampires can grow such mandibles?  Be able to transform at will due to that defect or due to that defense mechanism?”

George asked, “So basically what you’re saying is that if someone is born mute, if they are turned, or in this case infected, they are suddenly able to talk?”

Carter finally stated, “It’s not that hard to believe.  We have to account for every variable.  Indeed they do act like insects, like a wasp or a hornet.  They behave they like them.  They attack like a pack of wolves, are able to paralyze their victims like snakes, are able to defend themselves like territorial lions.  Their attitude is very hive-minded.  They protect their own, defend their territories.  When in a herd or in a group, they are able to take over another territory, and then another then another.  They infests themselves into an area, not a crowded one but a secluded one.  They burrow themselves deep inside the ground, sometimes even tombs or caskets.  I believe they need that rest in order to regenerate, maybe even rejuvenate their unnatural abilities.  And when a person disturbs their nests, they become like a sea of festering rodents, attacking and draining anyone who disturbs their hive.  Hell…they will even turn or manipulate those to protect that nests.  They act like drones, like you said George, sentries waiting for the call.”

Edward decided to throw his own take, “And they warn each other like wolves returning to their pack.  This bile consists of pheromone extract.  They use it to detect each other or just like you said George, to pick who they want in order to defend and protect.  They use these pheromones to sense a human’s ability, to pick who is the strongest or the weakest.  The weak they use as their watchmen or even lesser vampires, fledglings who are just recently made or who have weak constitutions.  Those who aren’t strong and are able to carry out only basic orders.  Those who are stronger, they can sense that through the bile.  And they use their venom, these mutated hemoglobin to enhance the attributes of that host.  Maybe why that is why some of can transform and others cannot.  They can sense that beforehand, and they use those victims for more nefarious purposes.  To lead a particular nest or to set them up in a position of high authority cause they know, instinctively, no one will be able to take them on due their heightened strength or intelligence or what ever attribute becomes enhanced…”

George then looked at both of them nodding his head.  Afterwards he peered at the weapons Edward began to construct and all the herbs and chemicals that were used to make their weapons, “If all this is true and they do act like parasites, then there is way to kill them.  To wipe them off the face of the earth.  We can slay them, burn them, set fires to these so called nests.  If they act like a bunch of rodents or bees in a honeycomb we can take them out, not just one at a time but a whole mess of these damned creatures.  We can draw them out one by one, get to the center of these hives, expose their captain whose calls in the cavalry.  We exterminate the one who is calling the shots and unveil the rest of their network, take them out in the open fields during the day.  Impale them, dismember them, cut them down one by one until we get to the heart of their tunnels.  Will have to roughen up their watchdogs or scout them to locate these feeding grounds, kill the guards, topple over the guard tower, burn the encampment while they sleep or nest or whatever.  Then we interrogate the captain, squeeze the information right out of him until he gives up more schematics.  That is how we find out the origin of their species.  It’s like herding a stock of cattle…only this time we’re not opening the gate to funnel them through…this time we’re breaking down the fence, take the fight to them.”

As the glowing red eyes circled the three men, one by one they exposed themselves in the recesses of the night.  The moon shined its ungodly haze through stained glass as two of them came after Edward.  He grabbed his rifle and plunged the bayonet right through his chest.  His finger pulled back on the release and a shot screamed out of the barrel.  The arsenic mixed with nightshade and monkshood sprayed out from the barrel in a cohesive blasts knocking back the one creature.  George raised the revolver to target the second one right behind Edward and opened fire.

A round silver buckeye exited the chamber and caught the vampire right in the shoulder.  It let out a horrid wail and George swore as he knew he missed the shot to the head.  The creature bellowed backward grabbing the wound as steam began to escape.  It began to squeal as if it was in pain, the skin around the wound began to peel back, burn from the inside out.  Edward took out one of stakes around his belt and forced it into the creature’s chest.  The Hawthorne wood was wrapped with poison oak at the very tip and Edward managed to get on top of him just to drive in the stake further.

George scaled and jumped over the pew to take on the one who got shot with Edward’s rifle.  He stood huddled over him watching the vampire writhe and convulse from the spread of the blast.  It left scathing marks all over his chest now beginning to bleed and blister.  With the kukri in his right hand he chopped at the head as the body went into spasms.  It took only three full swings to fully sever it from the rest of the body, afterwards it tumbled toward the tabernacle.

Carter looked up to the altar and noticed three more undead vermin scrounging their way around the papal table.  They began to talk and even mutter incoherent dribble, “You dare enter the house of the undead,” “Heathen you will perish,” “Get out of our sanctuary!”  They began to embark upon Carter all making their way to the center aisle.  Edward and George ran around to the other side of the pew checking their weapons all the while staring at Carter who just stood motionless, unmoving as he watched the three pile down the aisle all together.  Their movements seemed to slither to some unheard demonic symphony, they moved like rabid dogs eyeing their prey.  George thought to himself, ‘they do flock together like wild animals.’

Carter moved back just a step, his finger hovering over the switch that powered up the luminescent bulb hiding behind photographic prism lens.  “Come on, that’s it you cowards.”  The three hissed as they funneled down the main aisle.  And almost like a signal went off in their heads, they belted into a sprint towards Carter.  One flick of the switch and bulb went off in a momentary flash that made the room drown in light.  Edward ducked behind one the pews and George immediately covered his eyes with the nape of his dust jacket.  And just as the flash went off like a bolt of lightning thundering across the sky a second later the bulb burnt out leaving them in darkness once more.

The three men looked at what became of creatures and they just stared in awkwardness.  Sores and third degree burns appeared on their bodies, their hands that resembled claws tore at their own shirts.  One of them grabbed its own head as it began to coagulate and it howled in agonizing pain.  The second one tore at its own arm and when it did it crumbled into fine dust that fell to the ground.  One by one its limbs pulverized and cracked in different areas as the body just turned into a pile of dismembered organs.  The third tried to walk away as its skin began to fall off in patches, blood oozed from the burns as its own knees exploded and it began to crawl off.  But it didn’t last long as the body began to deteriorate and just wither away as it shed into clouds of smoke.

“Holy sh…” Edward finally said after the three vampires all crumbled away into basically nothing.  Carter looked astonished as he just stared forward.  George came over to actually get a good look and noticed that there was nothing left but mixed piles of ash all strewn out.

“Well just like you said Carter…each of them has their own individual attributes.  They all reacted differently to the light but they all ended up the same way…six feet under,” George hilariously stated.  Edward chuckled as loaded another vial into the chamber of his rifle.  Carter approached the dust piles with a peculiar interest.

“It is just like I predicted.  They are affected by ultraviolet radiation.  They are allergic to its effects and you see how they reacted to it.”

Edward gave his two cents, “Indeed…and the reaction doesn’t get rid of that smell either.”

Both George and Edward laughed out loud both eyeing each other but then Carter cleared his throat and they simultaneously stopped.  Still wearing their makeshift masks they began to survey the area, Carter took out a long spear from his backpack, the end point was wrapped in barbed wire.  George harnessed his revolver and took off  the crossbow strapped to his back.  Edward took off the bayonet from his rifle and held it at his side, placing the rifle on his back he took out a large cutlass from his hip that was welded with refined silver.  

“We disturbed the nest so the entrance to the rest of it has to be close by,” George uttered as rounded the altar.  Edward came up in second dragging his hands across the brick lined wall to see if there had been a crack in the foundation or possibly a leak.  Carter moved slowly to the altar and peered at all the intricacies,  the candlesticks, the wine glass, the pulpit box containing bread wafers.  That was when he noticed something out of the ordinary as he stared at the priest’s chair sitting idly behind the altar.  His eyes narrowed in on something.

“George, the priest’s chair…the arm rest seems to be a little loose,” Carter blindly explained.  George peered at it and he was right the arm rest looked like it could come off almost as if someone unscrewed the bolt holding it together.  He carefully raised the arm rest but it did detatch instead it raised up vertically like a lever.  Edward heard a system of pulleys and gears underneath the altar and he examined the finely decorated altar.  He pushed on the altar from the left side as it began to slide as if it was opening a contraption.  The three noticed that the table was on gurney, and once George lifted the arm rest it must have unlocked it.  Edward pushed the table that moved in unison with the gurney and it revealed a staircase going down into the depths of the church.

“So who wants to go first into the pits of hell?” George said with a smirky grin but no one laughed.  None of them hesitated because they knew what they got themselves into and they were going to see this all the way through to get some answers.  All three went down one by one, first was George, then came Carter and brining up the rear was Edward.

“What do you think we’ll fine down here?” George asked.

“According to your own theory, the captain.  The vestige that controls this nest.  One who claims that he is a priest but is definitely not.  A morbid vile parasite just like the rest of them.  And we will extinguish his life just like we did the rest.” Carter groaned.

“We are going to have to question him though.  Get more information not just kill him outright.  We have to see if he leads us anywhere worth researching,” Edward finally caught up to them, his lantern giving them some light in a tunnel that stretched far and wide.  

“Leave that up to me.  I’ll take care of the b*****d,” George pointed his crossbow dead ahead leaving no stone unturned.

“We cannot go all ‘pioneer in the fields’ with this entity.  We have to be patient, strategize our movements.  They attack in packs remember.  Some of them may stray off from said pack, that is where you come in Edward.  Keep them in close range.  Use your blades, knives and stakes if need be.  Once the fledglings are done acting like drones for the leader, then we take on the captain.  If you were not able to take on your own brother, how do you expect to go up against a creature twice even thrice as powerful?”

George hesitated and regained his composure, sweat cascaded down his face as the tunnel kept in the heat.  He breathed slowly letting the oxygen fill his lungs.  Edward kept his cutlass at arms length in case anything decided to jump in front of them and lunge.  Carter had his spear directly in front of him just in case one of them decided to charge or even morph into something ghastly.  George then noticed a glare of reddened eyes peek from behind a corner where the tunnel widened.  Tilting the bow into his butt of his shoulder, he widened his shot, knelt on one knee and opened fire.  All three heard the screams of the vampire and they waited to see if any would converge on them.

Another revealed itself and attached itself to the wall.  Using its hands like lizard talons it began to crawl upwards and started to clamber towards them.  Carter wondered how something that was once human adapted such feats.  George started to slide another bolt into the receiver his crossbow, and Edward prepared himself for the worst.  The vampire howled like a wolf as it darted across the wall like a chameleon, its fangs bared dripping with saliva as it harbored down on Edward.  Its hands pushed itself off the wall to pounce on Edward and made it only inches away from him.  The cutlass bore down right into its chest cavity, blood gushing out from the entry point.  The blade struck him in the center of its cold dead heart and the creature tried to grab the blade to force it out.  Its hands began to burn as it touched the silver and Edward took his bayonet and drove it through the vampire’s head.  The creature’s head bounced back and the screaming stopped instantaneously.  It convulsed for a split second but then it stopped.

After beheading the creature the three made it over to the one George took down from afar.  The bolt made from rowan wood jolted out from its chest, and the vampire just lain there foaming at the mouth.  Its throat swollen and enflamed as it started grasping for air.  The tip of the bolt was made of silver laced with wolfs bane which caused the vampire to swell up and begin to seizure.  It began to speak in riddles through his festering lips, “She never…sleeps…abide…in her…we shall…”  Without getting another word out Edward cut off the parasite’s head with one quick stroke.

The three heard chanting in the distance as Carter looked up and noticed a man roughly around his age wearing priest robes in the midst of the corridor of the tunnel.  The priest blankly stared at them as George raised his crossbow and Edward branded his rifle.  Carter stood silently stunned just gazing at this clergy man.  Both George and Edward circled this unholy defiler from either side and Carter grimaced.

“You three dare to walk on sacred ground.  One that has been given to us for years and years of our blood sacrifice.  We have inherited these gifts and finally we are exactly where we need to be,” the priest spoke eloquently not even fluttering as he noticed both of the men coming at him from both the left and right.

“More like what you have infected.  Stolen property that you believe is rightfully yours.  We know what your kind is capable of doing.  Masquerading out in the open.  Tempting the weak and making them servants to do all the busy work that you cannot perform yourself…especially in daylight,” Carter stated proudly.

The priest glared at the two men now stationed near each of the walls of the widened corridor.  His fangs protruded like snake teeth, the fleshy gums parted giving way to porcelain white mandibles.  He knew they were trained, he heard the call of his children as they all perished and died one by one.  That spoken word he heard in the back of his head as a signal crying out ‘help us, father, why have you abandoned your sheep.’  He understood the type of metals inside their weapons and smelled the scented herbs and chemicals that aligned their knives and blades.  He was on the verge of anger as he saw them walk towards the priest not in some chaotic run but a perfectly timed conversion.  He knew he was being cornered but they did not realize that he was willing to die for his unflinching faith.

A bolt came screaming out of George’s crossbow landing right in the vampire’s leg, making him collapse to one knee.  Edward unloaded the spraying effect of his rifle right into the leader’s right shoulder making him wince once but then grasping his skin from the burning sensation beginning to swell underneath.  Carter vaulted the spear in one hand which landed squarely in the chest, hearing the chest cavity break from the tipped blade.  The creature was just about to take his true form but everything came crashing down within a matter of seconds.

The leader of this unholy coven, this progenitor of high authority remained on one knee shrieking in agonizing pain.  The three all barrowed down on him with their cutlass, a kukri, and a hatchet but stopped inches away.  George retrieved his bolt and Carter drove out his spear, the vampire just looked stunned as it began to clench his chest.  Edward hovered the cutlass right next to his throat waiting to hear the word to end this creature’s life.

As the vampire began to spit out bile and his hands became puffy like two balloons, his once darkened eyes glistened into opaque white as clear as glass.  His skin began to peal and rot off his arms, his leg began to swell and blister from the bolt incision.  His shoulder began to burn and the joint started to disintegrate as he felt his arm go completely numb, “What kind of sorcery is this?” The vampire wailed as if to beg for his life.

Edward came close to the vampire’s face and bluntly stated, “Not sorcery, science.  Unbiased, unfiltered, raw chemical imbalances.  All those herbs and chemicals that your kind despise.  They make valuable weapons too.”

Carter took out one of the silver stakes from his backpack with barbed wire and he hovered it around underneath the vampire’s nose, which made him vomit even more bile, “Smell that.  Those are the types of weapons we will use to destroy the rest of you parasites.  One by one, all the way to the one who controls you and the one that controls him until we come to the heart of where you truly descend from.”

The vampire just laughed as more of his body withered away, “Why do you think I will tell you anything.  My power is my own and mine to command.  We will drain you all dry until you humans become nothing but a footstool in your foolish conquest to own this earth.  One day our time will come…we will either extinguish your life blood…or rule over you as your new masters,” his diabolical laughter echoed through the confines of the tunnel which radiated through the church as some maniacal madman.

George knelt besides him and brought something out that he was carrying the entire time, the cross that was made by the minister who sent him here to the old world.  Just as he remembered he twisted the base and out stretched a silver rod stake.  The vampire just glared at the crucifix before him completely unaffected but just as in much horror as George once was.

“Where did you get that?  Who gave you such a thing?”

“Now you are going to answer all my questions.  If you don’t I will kill you with this and it will hurt a hell of a lot more than any of our other weapons.  The man who forged such a cross told me about a mysterious ankh.  And you are going to tell me or I shove this in your chest and the man over there is going to cut off your head.”

The vampire hauntingly stared at George, his eyes going from him to the cross and back again.  Knowing that he was going to die but so much more gruesome than he originally thought just made his eyes tear crimson red as the crystalline hue began to water, “She will not take this lightly.”

“Who is she?”

“The one who talks to us.  Speaks with us.  We hear her constantly.  She never sleeps.  She is the one who controls this ankh.”

“Where is this ankh and how could I find this woman?”

The vampire howled in laughter even greater than before.

“She is no woman.  She is the mother of us all.  The great creator.”

George’s anger rose with fury behind his eyes and he grabbed the priest’s collar.

“You better tell me where she is, and this ankh, you have less that a minute!”

The vampire’s lips curled into a devilish smile and spoke in prophecy.

“Far to east burdens

In the land of skull

Bones made flesh

Lies turned into truth

Fathers come and go

Truths unveiled

North brings death

South harbors life

Daughters of sage

Wind and might

West delves torment

Valleys of draught

Rivers sand over

Encased in dust

Currents red pool

Flood over young

Encased upon flesh

She bathes darkness

Cursed is her skin

Mother of wisdom

Wrapped in white

As scarlet satin

Silk with her womb

She instills life eternal”

Author's Note

What did you think of the story? How did you like the characters? Do you enjoy the direction I am taking my series?