Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 9
Tour Bus
The hills north of Atlanta may be populated with a bunch of crazy meth heads and county deputies hell-bent on throwing them in jail, but it sure is pretty country. As the bus hummed along I-575, I felt like I was taking a vacation.
I had found a seat with Raygun behind Daphne, who was sitting next to Moreland near the back of the bus. Charly occupied a seat at the very back. Charly’s wasn’t a single seat. It was more like a small bench. Owens was sitting next to him with a blank stare, bunched against a window with its shade drawn. I’d ask Charly about that later, I figured.
“Let me see that little sucker,” I said to Raygun.
“You mean Wallace?”
“Yeah.”
Raygun was wearing blue jean overalls over a yellow “Free Willy” T-shirt. He was more freckled than I remembered him in my bed, but his raging red hair should have been a good reminder. He was skinny, too. His arms looked like freckled white broomsticks poking out of his T-shirt. He once explained to me that he called himself Raygun because his mother, who had left his father and siblings when they were small kids, had been a big shot in Ronald Reagan’s defense department.
He pulled the mechanical bug from his front overalls pocket and handed it to me.
“You were listening to us that whole time, weren’t you?” I asked Raygun as I looked Wallace over.
“After that thing attacked us is all. Sorry. I know you said to keep Wallace away from your meeting. But in my defense, the meeting was over.” I had never noticed his Georgia drawl before. It wasn’t overly pronounced. It was almost like he had worked on quelling it at one time in his past.
“No no, it’s cool man,” I said. “You’re a damn quick thinker.” I handed Wallace back to him.
“My pa.”
“Your dad made you a quick thinker?”
“Yeah.”
“How so? How does a parent turn someone into a quick thinker?”
“By beating the shit out of mom and the other kids. Then mom left, so he just beat on us kids.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I was the youngest. I had three brothers and two sisters to protect from that prick. I kinda did it by challenging my pa and taking the hits for my sibs. Even when I was a little shit.”
I nodded. It was a common human tale, unfortunately.
“I found ways to deal with his coming home from the distillery. Which wasn’t, you know, a distillery run by the dudes that make Stoli or Jim Beam.”
I took his hand to let him know I wanted to hear more.
He laughed. “It was a forest distillery. He was the local moonshine king. My pa, he had the run of the hills around us. Anybody fuck with his territory got a bullet in the head. Even local deputies. Then, this guy we’re about to see?”
“Uh-huh. The guy you know?”
“Yeah. He’s one o’ you, Jade. He fucked with my pa big time. He wanted a piece for hisself an’ he took it.”
“What do you mean he’s one of me?”
Raygun pointed to his teeth.
“No way. Really?” I didn’t know if I believed him.
Raygun nodded.
“So you’ve known about me. All this time.”
“Not really. I mean, this guy. Wolfie. That’s what I call him. Cuzza his big teeth. Don’t know his real name. He… I didn’t know for sure he was one a ya’ until today. When all that crazy shit happened at HQ. But I seen him kill my pa. I thought I was seeing things. Always have thought maybe I was too drunk to see it right. I was drinking a lot then, you know? Dude had fangs that were wayyyy bigger than yours. I was sure I was seeing shit. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? Well, you wouldn’t, I guess.” He laughed. “I guess I hoped you were one. But I didn’t know. You know?
“Anyway, all my sibs were moved out of the house by then. I was the last one, and my pa, man, he was showing me some serious payback for all my protection activities vis a vis my sibs. I got the scars on my back and ass to show it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t remember seeing any of that.”
He smiled sweetly at me. “It was dark. It’s cool.”
“Yeah.” I basically have night vision. But I still didn’t remember the scars.
“Anyway, this thing walks into our cabin. It’s just really this two-room cabin on Jerrold Mountain.” Raygun’s modest Georgia drawl was thickening. “Little place at the top of a hill. Or mountain, I guess, more like. This thing looks like a dude but he ain’t. He just busts the door down while my pa is half asleep next to his beaker full of booze, which he always kept at his side. TV is on and shit. And this big ole dude says, ‘I been watching what you do to your boy for yeee-uhs.’ He’s even more hillbilly than me,” laughed Raygun. “‘And them other kids, too,’ the big dude says. And holy shit, I’m watching him talk and his mouth got these long ass front tooths look like sabretooth tiger teeth or somethin’. They go like this over his lower lip.” Raygun drew the picture for me in the air over his mouth, showing how the teeth went all the way to the chin.
“And he’s tall, too, like, tallest dude I ever seen anywhere else. But not gangly like me.” Raygun was pretty tall. I’m guessing six four or five. “Built like a big ole fireplace,” said Raygun. “Or one of them bigfoot things. But of course, he could talk and all. I was only sixteen, but I was drinking Pa’s moonshine like it was Kool-Aid because it was the only way to cope being round him. So all these years I been doubtin’ what I saw. Even though I know what I saw.”
“What did you see?” I asked sympathetically.
“The beasty-looking guy, Wolfie, it was like he got shot out of a cannon. His legs bent down, and he shot himself into the air and his big ole teeth seemed aimed perfect at my pa’s neck. Tore it all up. Blood spurtin’ out like a geyser. And Wolfie’s rolling in it, playing with it and shit. It was freaky. He was there an hour at least. Didn’t say a word to me, just played in the blood, played with my pa’s severed head like it was a toy, but not the kind of toy kids play with. No sir. Not that kinda toy. I just watched and drank.”
“And you want to go pay this fella a visit?” This didn’t seem like a great idea after a story like this.
"He saved my life, Jade. I don't know why but he did. And I want you to see 'im. See if it is all real or just a filament of my imagination and all." I resisted the urge to correct his metaphor. Besides, “filament” wasn’t really so bad. "He came back a few weeks later, said he didn't have a home. Still had them big teeth, too. But I was drinkin' like a fiend still. Mind does funny stuff when we drink."
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. Other than an occasional sip of champagne, I avoided the stuff.
“So I just says to him, ‘You can have this place.’ I wanted outta there so bad I didn’t want nothin’ to do with pa’s home or his booze farm.”
“So, we’re heading home,” I said. I was still holding his hand. He seemed to appreciate that.
“Yeah, we sorta are but I don’t no longer consider it my home as such. Anyways, Wolfie says to me, ‘Anytime you need somethin’ you just come on by an’ let me know,’ so that’s what I’m doin’ now.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. I wondered if Wolfie was a Longtooth. He sounded like one. Then I wondered what made him leave his clan. Being around the clan leader Longtooth would probably drive away a lot of people. But his clan all pretty much thought the same way about things. Wolfie, for all I knew, was even more ruthless than Longtooth. The Longtooth clan was another clan with some biblical history. The Old Testament referred to a king of flesh eaters named Gog of a place called Magog. They were ruthless enough for Ezekiel to prophesy their destruction. Same charming folks as today’s Longtooth.
I knew I’d be okay, but once again I was concerned for Daphne. And maybe even Owens, who I didn’t like, but didn’t want to see dead, despite that sliver of darkness in my mind that tried to tell me otherwise. I told Raygun my concerns.
“They’ll be okay,” he said. “Wolfie don’t like knuckle draggers.”
“Sorry, I’m not following you,” I said.
“You know. Bullies? Wife beaters? Kid beaters? And meth cookers, hates them specially. He got enough to feed on in them hills to last him even his lifetime.”
“He won’t appreciate a big old bus like this approaching his cabin,” I said.
“Didn’t think a that,” said Raygun. “I’ll take the wheel when we get near. He’ll check out the driver, see it’s me, and we’ll be okay.”
“One can hope,” I said warily. I was certain that Wolfie was likely to at least remember Raygun’s scent. “We need to keep the act going, Ray,” I said. “Nobody can know about any of this.”
Raygun nodded. “I know. I heard y’all talkin’ during the craziness. I had my earbuds on. Heard it all through Wallace. That’s why I came round and lit your gasoline. I knew you didn’t want that thing in the news, dead or not.”
“Cops would have probably covered it up, anyway, but I wanted to be sure. They don’t want it in the news either.”
“What’re you gonna do with that guy?” Raygun nodded his head toward the back.
“Well, Owens would lead a better life if he were dead, but I can’t make that happen without significant side effects, so I guess I’ll try to get him to help us out.”
“He don’t seem to like you much,” laughed Raygun.
“Nope. But I don’t think he likes anybody much.”
“You worst,” Raygun laughed again. He looked at my feet. “You never wear shoes or socks or nothin’.”
“The soles of our feet are like alligator skin,” I said. “Don’t need ‘em. Sometimes I wear socks.”
“Yeah I seen,” said Raygun. “Them Nintendo things.” Raygun got a text. It was from the driver. He showed it to me. It said:
“You know how in the movies one of ‘em says, ‘We got company?’ We got company.”We had good access to the bus’s back window, so we both looked. Three squad cars were closing in fast.
“We can try an’ outrun ‘em,” said Raygun.
“In a bus?” I asked.
“Alfredo can probably outrun ‘em in an old Pinto,” said Raygun.
“What about that?” I pointed up to a helicopter.
“Not sure, but he’d love trying.”
“Thing is, the helicopter can’t do much,” I said. “It’s just a spotter. And there are only three squad cars for now. We can handle them.” I tapped Moreland’s shoulder and nodded to the back window. She smiled darkly. Daphne, her hair in a rare ponytail, was bobbing her head, which was decorated with a set of earbuds. Her listening to tunes was a sure sign of some recovery from the last several hours.
“Charly!” I yelled. The back of the bus where he sat was only a few rows behind us. I pointed to the squad cars. Charly nodded and then jabbed Owens with his elbow. Owens looked out the window and shrugged as if saying, “Not my problem.”
The problem was that if we “handled them,” the helicopter might transform from being a spotter to a strafing aircraft. But not if we all stayed in the bus with Owens, who they were probably trying to reacquire.
“How high can Wallace fly?” I asked Raygun.
“Not sure,” he replied. “But if you’re thinking of having him buzz around the helicopter while you’re taking out the cops, it won’t work. He’ll get knocked around by the winds from the helicopter rotors. ‘Sides, he’s a camera, not a weapon.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t have a plan here. Just thinking out loud. He seems fast. Agile. If he could get in a pilot’s face…”
“He’d never get close enough to the copter to get in. Sorry, Jade.”
I nodded.
If we ran for it, that would solve the copter problem because its role would remain as a spotter. I didn’t think any of the cops would shoot at us with Owens on the bus, but the longer it took to get away, the more reinforcements would arrive to the chase.
“We gotta stop,” I said.
I was surprised that everyone was seated. It was a big bus, but everyone had been on edge. But now, everyone looked comfortable. Three people were surrounding a table in the middle of the bus drinking beverages.
With everyone settled, I decided it was time for a speech. The squad cars, after closing in, were now keeping a distance, which meant they had more help coming.
I excused myself from Raygun and walked to the front of the bus. I stood next to the driver and cleared my throat. “Hey everyone!” I yelled. People weren’t making a lot of noise, but it was still difficult to speak over the din of the chattering and the bus engine. I could have spoken in what you might call my outside voice, but I might have blown the roof off the top of the bus in such close quarters. I exaggerate, but it would have been obnoxious to deliver a talk at that decibel.
I felt a tap on my hip. The driver was handing me a black microphone that almost looked like what cops wear on their vests. It was attached to a long telephone cord. “Perfect, thanks,” I said to him.
I repeated myself, this time into the mic. “Hey everyone!” Eyes focused toward my direction. People stopped chattering. “Thanks for coming along on my impromptu field trip.” Light laughter. “I guess by now you’ve all figured out that the world looks different than what you thought it looked like twelve hours ago. That thing you saw was what we call a Wurdulac. It’s an apex predator. Like a T-Rex, or a great white shark, or the predator from the movie, ‘Predator.’ Except smarter, I think. It exists only to hunt. That’s its only purpose. They don’t care how nice you are, or if you’re a human or, in my case, a vampire. And look, I get it. There are probably some of you who still don’t believe I’m a vampire, or that my friends are, because it’s just so off the books for you guys. Vampires are for storytellers, right?”
One person raised his hand. I knew him. His screenname was Freon. His hand was wrapped in a brown cloth glove cut at the middle of the fingers. “Yeah, Freon, ‘sup?” I asked. Other than the frayed half-glove, he looked like a guy who belonged on the cover of a vanity magazine.
“Dude, most of us knew. It’s why we’re here with you on this bus. I mean, we all knew, right?” Many heads nodded. “We all seen stuff back at HQ.”
I smiled. “Well okay then. Thanks for cutting my speech in half.” Laughter. “I guess I can skip the part where I say I’m one of the good guys?” Another splattering of laughter. “I mean, I try to be. We all do, right? With varying levels of success. Sometimes I suck.” More laughs. They got the pun right away. “Anyway, here’s the thing. We’re about to pay a visit to another vampire, and he’s sort of…how to say it? Surly. He won’t be happy having a bunch of humans descending on his lair, but we need his help to lay low ‘til we figure out what to do.
“We’re going to offer y’all a ride back home after we get there. You can leave, and you probably should. Because what I’m about to ask is going to be scary. I can’t lie to you about that. We basically need a small army of people who don’t know how to fight help us fight off the worst of the worst in vampire land. But see, I can’t ask you to do this. You’ll have to come to me and say you’re in, and even then, I’m gonna try to talk you out of it.
“But first, we gotta get to our hiding spot. We got three cops on our tail and a helicopter overhead. So, I’m gonna need that table there for me and my friends.” I pointed to the people sitting at the table in the middle of the bus. The three people immediately stood up and found other seats. “Wow, thanks. I mean, that’s humbling. To have so many awesome people here like you guys.” Cheering. Some went into a chant, “HQ! HQ!” I realized that this wasn’t about me, it was about them. The community they had built.
Here's the honest truth. I didn’t care if some or all of them were streaming our escapade. I didn’t think they were, but I knew someone might be. But nobody would believe it wasn’t all an act even if they were. At least until Halloween passed.
I continued, “So anyway, the plan for now is, and it’s not much of a plan, but the plan is to get to Wolfie’s place, that’s his name, Wolfie, and sort out who among you is basically ready to play a real-life video game where there is only one chance at advancing to the next level. I think you know what I mean by that. There are no do-overs or second chances. You don’t get to reboot the game and start again. You don’t get any powers, and you don’t get up when you’ve been zapped.” Everyone was quiet at that.
“I will say that eliminating this threat will benefit all of humanity. And HQ, of course. It’s not a favor to vampires if you help. I can tell you more about it all later. You deserve some background. Some history. But there’s no time right now. Mostly, I just want you to know that it's fuckin’ dangerous, and the time to bail is now — as soon as we get to Wolfie’s lair.”
I didn’t even know if the Wurdulacs were still a threat. Maybe Moreland killed the threat. But the faded scream up the stairway when she killed it hinted at another. There may or may not have been more. I couldn’t know. Moreland didn’t know. And, as Owens had pointed out, there was a concurrent threat to humans, because someone was blatantly picking people off in broad daylight. I couldn’t tell them that beings possibly related to Wolfie, whose description screamed, “Longtooth,” might be responsible for the Midtown deaths. Or the Battue. It would have been nice to include that information, but I didn’t see a way to fit it into the narrative with a reasonable explanation. One thing at a time, I told myself.
I leaned toward the driver. “Take the next exit.” We were driving through rolling, forested foothills.
“You sure?” asked Alfredo. Alfredo was a Central American who, according to my nose, contained more than a few pints of indigenous blood. His unruly hair looked like a heavy black mop used to clean oil spills. He was a short, squat man whose forearms were made with thick, intertwining ropes of muscle. It looked like his tattoos told a hundred stories involving women, raptors, and God. His dark face looked like it had once been attacked by a merciless pox, but he still looked handsome and confident, with a square jaw and chin that had never worn a single gram of fat in all their years. “If I floor it, I can lose them,” he said.
“The helicopter,” I said.
Alfredo pointed to a slingshot resting on top of the bus’s large dash. I smiled. “Just take the exit, please.”
“Si,” he laughed. His eyes sparkled like the stars of the ancient dark skies I grew up with. I wanted to ravage him. In a good way.
“As long as it’s got a lot of trees.”
“They all got that here.”
I nodded. I waved for Moreland, Charly, and Daphne to sit at the table with me. Raygun looked hurt, so I curled my index finger his way, urging him forward, too. Charly grabbed Owens roughly by the elbow to bring him along.
After everyone sat down and I explained where we were going and my suggested plan, I said, “Please take the hand of the person next to you.” They all looked at each other like I had asked them to slice each other’s hands off instead. “We shall pray,” I said. “Pray with an ‘A’, not an ‘e’,” I smiled.
Owens said, “Man, you are one crazy dumb mother fucker.”
Charly smacked him on the back of his head and said, “Take my fuckin’ hand so we can pray, fuck face.”
“Fuck off,” Owens said. Charly ended the argument by baring his teeth and hissing.
Finally, everyone’s hands joined, I offered up a prayer:
Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no human or vampire living is righteous before thee. For the enemy pursues me; Tries to crush my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled. I remember the days of old, I meditate on all that thou hast done; I muse on what thy hands have wrought. I stretch out my hands to thee; While I crave the blood of your children, my soul thirsts for thee like a parched land. Make haste to answer me, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
“That’s Psalm 143, Owens,” I said. “The Psalm of Vampires.”
Owens rolled his eyes. “Get me off this damn bus. That copter is only one of a few more dozen that will be here soon. In a few minutes, you’ll be looking down the twin barrels of guns from an AH-64 attack bird courtesy of Georgia’s National Guard. Pray on that.”
“He’s been yammering like that since we boarded,” said Charly. “I keep having to tenderize his ribs for this Wolfie fella.” That explained why I noticed Owens scrunched up against the window earlier. I didn’t want that. But I didn’t know how to fix it.
“I still have my phone with me, dumbass,” Owens said to Charly. “I can end you with one call.”
“We shouldn’t have brought Owens,” I said. “My mistake.”
“Can’t we just dump him on the side of the road?” asked Moreland.
“We still have two crimes to solve,” I said, looking at Owens. “Besides, then we become target practice.”
“Six in total now,” said Owens. He winced, probably from a broken rib.
“Charly, I need you to stop hitting Owens,” I said.
“Am I a bad person for saying I sort of enjoy it?” asked Charly.
“Remember when you and I first met, Charly? The factory owner? Richard Cory?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re being Richard Cory. So yeah, kind of. It’s dickish.”
Charly took a black handkerchief out of the front pocket of his shoulder-less denim work shirt and wiped his constantly sweating forehead.
“I need to know that you’re okay, Charly. That was our thing, remember? We only preyed on people who deserved it. Owens is a dick, but he doesn’t deserve getting the shit kicked out of him every time he opens his yap and says something stupid.” Owens didn’t really say stupid things, but since I didn’t like the guy, I wasn’t in the mood to pay him respect at the moment.
“Sorry, Owens,” said Charly.
“Yeah?” said Owens. “Well, fuck you. All of you. You’re a bunch of blood-sucking weirdos.” He had guts, I had to give him that.
Moreland must have liked it, too, because she said, “I don’t know. I kind of love this guy.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” agreed Daphne.
“Six,” I said to Owens. “Murders?”
“Yep. Six, asshole.” Nerves of steel.
“You said you wanted my help, but you walked out of our meeting. Do you want my help or not?” I asked.
“I want you in a cage.”
“Can you work on that after we solve these crimes?” I looked toward the back of the bus. The police cars were keeping the same distance from us as before.
“I’m a multitasker,” said Owens. “I can make my job easier by saying, ‘Fine, let’s play nice with each other.’ But your brood is a danger to society. It’s not even personal, man. You’re undomesticated, wild animals. We can’t have you lurking the streets. Sometimes I get the sense some of you are okay, then you hit me over the head with the fact that you’re not.”
“You’re right, Owens. Feeding on humans is a basic requirement for our survival,” I said. I looked at Daphne, who had not looked at me the same since Moreland’s arrival. Every time I looked at her and noticed, a cancer of anguish and sadness grew within my chest. I wondered if it could kill me.
“After this is over, you can have at me. I’ll face up to any crimes you think I’ve committed, but in all honesty, I just haven’t committed enough for you to concern yourself with.”
“You’ve assaulted hundreds. Thousands. I’m sure you’ve killed a few in your time. And I know your friends have. What about them? Will they turn themselves in? Jabba the Hutt here has already confessed.”
“Nature, and life,” said Charly, seemingly unaware of the insult. “It’s all a balancing act. We’re all part of an ecosystem. We didn’t create it. Unlike my friend here,” he said while looking at me, “I don’t know who did. But I know this. I won’t be subject to human law. How many of your own do you kill in your stupid wars? How many slaves died crossing the waters to make it possible to build your fancy-assed human empire of iPhones and glittering cars? One group of humans sliced up an entire population of other humans just to live on this continent, and you’re judging us? Fuck that shit. Right now, while we’re sitting here, you’re killing your own kind in so many ways I can’t count. And you’re killing off the rest of the planet, too. I give your species two hundred years, tops. No. That’s wrong. A hundred. None of that is by our hands.”
“He’s right,” said Daphne. “This bus alone is probably melting a glacier somewhere.”
“Oh, shit,” said Owens. “Now we’re on the fuckin’ climate warrior express.”
“As for that dude in the ice cream parlor,” said Charly. “You weren’t ever solving that one. I took a prick out of circulation for you.”
“Humans believe in a jury of their peers,” responded Owens.
“Well, that’s a problem because humans are stupid fucks,” said Moreland.
I had had enough. I was getting pissed. “Fuck!” I said in my outside voice. The bus shook so much I thought it would blow to pieces. “Owens,” I said. “I’m going to say this nicely. We’re going to team up and solve these crimes. I don’t care if you live or die, or how long you live, but as long as you’re alive, I’m gonna guarantee you die if you don’t agree to my terms.”
“Which are?”
“Simple. We team up and solve these murders. All of ‘em. Just like we decided in the library. We worry about the other shit later.”
“So, you’re officially threatening bodily harm to a police officer. Just for clarity here.”
“I am.”
“Willing to say it again for the record?” He took his phone out of his suit coat pocket.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Then we have a deal.”
I said it again for his smartphone.
“So call them off,” I said, looking out the bus’s rear window.
“As far as they’re concerned, this is a hostage situation involving a law enforcement officer,” Owens said. “If you stop the bus and I say to their face that everything is okay, they’ll still consider it a hostage situation.”
“Okay, then we drop you off the side of the road, you grab one of those patrol cars, and you follow us to Wolfie’s place,” I said.
“They’ll want blood. No pun intended,” he said, referring to the police trying to rescue him.
“Talk them out of it,” said Charly.
It was a stretch to think Owens would do anything even remotely similar to what we were telling him to do, so I said, “Record this. If you don’t talk them out of it, I’ll personally feed you to a Wurdulac.”
I walked up to Alfredo just as the bus approached an exit. “Change of plans. Pull over to the side of the interstate. We’re going to let our friend off.”
The bus’s gears started to wind down. When it came to a stop, the bus made that big hissing noise busses make when they stop, as if telling everybody to shut up. Two of the patrol cars passed and parked ahead of us. The other stayed behind. The copter hovered overhead.
“Me and you will get out,” I said to Owens. “Call someone. Tell them we are all unarmed. Wallace! I yelled.”
Raygun pulled Wallace out of his overalls and set him free. Wallace buzzed out the door after Alfredo opened it. “Wallace will be recording everything, just in case your people try any funny business,” I said to Owens.
“Don’t livestream this for fuck’s sake,” said Owens.
“Ray, you heard the man!” I yelled toward the back of the bus.
“No, sorry, what’d he say?” came the reply with a smile.
“He’s requested no livestream.”
“Yes, boss,” said Raygun. I’m pretty sure he winked at me. I had no reason to assume Wallace wasn’t 5G-capable. He pretty much had to be, given the nature of his purpose in life. Knowing Raygun, Wallace possibly even had a direct satellite link of some kind. I learned later that Wallace had a link with some AI and a synthesized voice that made silly jokes as it recorded events.
Owens and I climbed down the stairs of the tour bus.
The police did their usual thing with bullhorns and threats, then I walked Owens over to one of the patrol cars waiting behind the bus. I had to rub my ears to check for earwax when he told them he didn’t want me arrested, “yet.” He then asked one of the cops if anybody knew where “Cordelia” was. One of the cops went to the trunk of an Atlanta P.D. squad car, pulled out a long military-style gun, and threw it to him. I wondered where Garrison was when I noticed that it was an Atlanta P.D. vehicle.
I wanted to comment on the Atlanta P.D. vehicle being significantly out of its jurisdiction, but it didn’t seem worth mentioning at this point. Owens looked at me, then his gun, and said, “Meet Cordelia. Your worst enemy.”
As he finished saying that the helicopter overhead seemed to wobble and lurch instead of hover above us. The wobble quickly turned into spinning, led by its tail as it headed toward the tree line beyond the side of the freeway. Then, almost as an opposite to a dissolve, a Wurdulac appeared next to the copter with a human head in its clutches. Its wings flapped loudly in the bright afternoon sun.
The Wurdulac tossed the head into the trees and took aim for the bus. Owens cursed, saying, “Holy mother of God,” as the Wurdulac landed on the bus and peered into the windows with an arched back.
“I’m over here, mother fucker!” I yelled. I knew it was looking for me. The Wurdulacs had not finished killing off my family. Its yellowish head turned quickly, its long, pointed ears flopping, the wide, flat nose above its large, beaked mouth, almost as long as its face, sniffing loudly as if making a statement. Then it bared a set of razor-sharp teeth that looked like a hundred canines as it bellowed a screech that echoed far beyond the farthest hilltop.
When I ran into the forested glen that ran parallel to the freeway, my only thought was that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Daphne. I was stunned by how sad that made me feel as I ran through the woods hopelessly looking for cover. I had never thought the human race would outlast me on this earth, but here I was, nearing the end. I reached for my karambit but didn’t have much faith I’d find a way to wield it.
The Wurdulac was running and hissing behind me as I ran through the woods. There was nowhere to hide, even though the area was thick with trees. It was impossible for it not to find me. The Wurdulac knew my scent and wouldn’t stop until I was in its grasp. “Stupid!” I said to myself, realizing that Owens’ gun was probably my best friend instead of my worst enemy. Surely, that gun was a vampire snuffer. Cursing myself for running into the woods, I quickly backtracked closer to the roadside. I was going to have to eat crow and yell for Owens’ help.
I believe I ran faster than I ever have as I broke for the police cars, which I could see through a gap in the trees. But luck, or agility, wasn’t on my side, and I tripped over a fallen log and flew head-first into a large oak tree. That’s when Owens’ voice, not more than a foot away from me, bellowed, “You dumb mother fucker!” A loud boom from his gun made my ears pop.
The flash from his gun was aimed beyond me. When I turned around to see where, the Wurdulac, only a few feet away, was staggering backward, screaming hideously into the trees as it tried to scrape at its eye, which had been blown open. “You fuckin’ mother fuckin’ scum!” said Owens as he closed in on the beast and fired off another round. “Fuck you!” he said, wailing away at the creature as it staggered into a tree and fell to the ground, the skull around its other eye blowing apart, spitting bone shrapnel all around.
Owens ran past me to the Wurdulac, jammed another clip into his gun, and fired off five more rounds. Then he pushed still another clip into the rifle. He kicked the Wurdulac’s head. It didn’t move. I walked up to them as Owens peered down at the beast. He looked at me, then said something to me that convinced me that my ears were truly malfunctioning in the most basic way. “Y’alright?” he asked.
“I’m in one piece,” I said.
“You think it’s dead?” asked Owens.
I nodded. “It’s dead. Thank you, Owens.”
He sniffed loudly and quickly wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Mother fuckin’ thing. This what killed your uncle?” He kicked its head again. “Mother fucker!”
“I don’t know about this one, but yeah.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he said, shaking his head. He paced around. “I can’t… we can’t say shit about this can we?” He seemed to be talking to himself instead of me. “Shit. Not again.” He marched back toward the patrol cars. I had no idea what he meant by that. “What the fuck am I supposed to say?” he said to the air ahead of him as he strode out of the tree line onto the road.
He didn’t have to worry. All the other cops were dead, slaughtered across the pavement and surrounding brush in a red stew of human remains. I could hear screaming inside the bus, hysterical cries, and bellows of disbelief and despair. We ran to the bus. When we reached the entrance of the tour bus, everyone was looking out the windows, many with their hands against windowpanes. But they were okay.
“What happened out there?” Owens demanded.
“Another one of those things,” someone whimpered. “Just tore through those cops before they could do anything, and then even after they started shooting. It didn’t matter. The bullets seemed to do nothing.”
I saw Daphne, who was being held tightly by Raygun. “Where’s Moreland?” I asked.
“She went after it with her sword,” said Daphne, shaking.
“After it?” I asked.
“Yeah. Into the woods.” Daphne pointed.
Owens looked at me. “Stay here. I’ll find her.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You haven’t got a weapon that can fight this thing. Keep your people calm here. That’s how you help.”
I nodded, “Yeah,” and he ran off the bus into the woods.
Thanks for reading!
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