Sci Fi & Fantasy / The Takeover

Excerpt from the diary of Jane Thomas, 6 years of age, written year 2028, two years before The Takeover:

“To day Daddy dinin com home. I wated all nite for him to com home. Mama sed I should go to sleep. I cant sleep when Daddy don com home when he should. She sed he waden comin home, but I don beeleeve her. I tol her so. She cryd and hit me. It hurted. I hav a boo-boo now. I hat her. She cryd some more and sed sorry but I don beeleeve her. She sed he got suked. Sed they suked his blud out. Sed he diden no wut he wuz doing. She sed he shouldn’t have been messin with the sukers. I like them. Thay arr pretty and I like them. Thayer skin is real soft lookin and wite. I like thayer teeth to. Mama sed she hated thayer teeth, sed thay suked blud with them, but I don beeleeve her again. I toll her that again to. Anyway, she sed soon the sukers would kill all of us. Sed that thay would suk our blud and keel us. She sed she wood die and I wood to. I don like it wen she says that. I don like her any more.

The sukers came to our house to day. I stil like them. Thay sed I wuz a prety littel girl. Thay sed I lookd nice. Sed I looked like a sweet. I think thay ment sweet heart, like my daddy used to call me. Ill writ in this later. I wan to talk to the sukers. One more thing. Thay sed thay wasn’t sukers. They sed thay were vampyrs. I don no wut a vamper is. I like them tho. Good by book. Ill rite tomorow

The vampires tot me how to spel vampires. Thay like me alot. Thay say I smell good. Im glad thay like me, cuz I like them. Thayer hands are cold tho. I don like them to touch me cuz thay are so cold. Thay keep smiling at me real wide so I can see thayer teeth. Thay keep fighting over me. I think thay really like me, but Im sad I don have anything for them to eat. Thay say thay are real hungry, but thay don like peenut buter. Thats wierd.

Thay kilt my mama. Thay kilt her and drank her blud. Im real scart I think thayer comin Im so scart Im so scart Im so scart Im so sca . . . .”

Year 2039 BCE

        Jane sniffed the air very carefully, very cautiously.  Vant, always cocky, always showing off tramped right out of the alley, laughing at her.
        “Come on, Jane,” he said, hissing in amusement. “There’s nobody who could even hurt us remotely. Jane was long, lanky, pale and beautiful. She had the looks and muscles of a healthy twenty year old, though she was only technically seventeen years old. That’s the thing about vampires though – there are no vampire children. Her experience on this earth was short, but she had learned much since she and several of her neighborhood playmates had been infected and transformed. Now, her seventeen year old, but twenty looking body was immaculate. Her legs were long, lean, and almost completely exposed. Her short shorts hardly covered her rear, but her shiny black leather boots rose to the bottoms of her kneecaps. Her torso, in even proportion to her stork-long legs was slender, but muscular, and her thin cotton t-shirt, cut short to show her flat stomach ,barely hid what was beneath it. Little did she care. Her long black hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail and her pale face looked exhausted. Though it was obvious that she was beautiful, she looked as though she had not slept in years. Dark purple blue rings were beneath her eyes, making her look like she’d got in a fight and lost. Her thick, luscious lips were pale and dry. Her eyes, once the color of the fresh leaves of spring were now a rich, morbid purple that was almost black. Her pupils, instead of being dark black as they should be, were a deep, crimson red, redder than thick blood.  Teasingly, Vant yanked her by the arm out of the cool alley and into the warm humid Texas night. She hissed and snapped at him, her jaws distending and widening as a snake’s will when it is swallowing overlarge prey. This allowed for all of her sharp back teeth, the shorter ones concealed behind her blood sucking canines, to be shoved from her mouth and made easily seen and easily used.  Not done teasing her, Vant lunged at her, tackled her to the ground and bit her on the shoulder – hard. She screeched and suddenly tendonous, veined wings erupted under her, flapping and shoving him away from her and lifting her high into the sky.
        “What was that about being concerned someone would see us?” he teased, allowing his own jet black bat wings to erupt and lift him into the sky so he could yank her by her ankle. Hissing and scratching, Jane battered Vant until he released her.
        “Bastard!” she spat and whisked into the dark night sky, gone even before Van could protest. Grumbling to himself, he landed on a tall, silent building covered in gargoyles when he jumped, disturbed. A piercing shriek shredded his delicate hearing and he hissed, fangs extending, bluish venom coating them. From the sound of the scream, it had come a few hundred feet or so away, from the direction Jane had flown. The twang of a bow and whirring of a released arrow – or stake – sounded close by and Van heard a muffled thump, a rabid growl and another twang, this time with a satisfying plunk into a body.
        Concerned, Van dropped several stories onto the ground below and walked lithely down the cobblestone path, his dark coat whisping around his booted ankles. His maroon eyes glanced to either side of him, watching carefully. He was also listening intently, sensitive of every sound. All was silent but for the squeaking of rats. It was too quiet. Van wasn’t stupid enough to call for Jane. Instead, he sniffed, his elaborate olfactory system recording and analyzing every scent. He detected her distinct, young smell, but it was not a cold scent as it should be – it was warm, stinging his nostrils. He winced, knowing she was dead. But where was the hunter?
Humans were not usually very cautious when hunting their vampiric counterparts, but this one was hard to detect. What Van could smell was garlic, a strong mixture of it. Apparently this hunter knew that the scent of garlic would overwhelm all other scents available to a vampire when present. He winced, the nauseous scent of it flooding his nose and his mind, making him gag. Why had he not smelled it before? A faint spraying sound, as from an aerosol can echoed from the shallow alley that branched away to his left and he turned sharply, smelling a renewed burst of garlic that stripped his nostrils of feeling. But, fool that it was, the human had given itself away with sound while trying to cover its presence with scent. Van heard her now, heard the warm blood gushing through her veins. Why would a hunter come into this side of the town? It was the side that everyone knew was ruled by the vampires, the kings and queens of the night. He bunched the powerful muscles in his legs, prepared to pounce. Until a click sounded next to his ear.

Reviews

There are no reviews of this item.