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Between Light and Death
Hank started coughing as soon as Turk turned on the TV.
"Jesus Christ Hank could you stop coughing for just two seconds? I'm telling you, if you won't take any cough drops the least you could do is go to a goddamn doctor or something," Turk said, trying to be patient.
"Oh would you f-" Hank started to cough again, stowing whatever nasty comment he was about to say.
"Alright, alright, just keep it down, would ya?" Turk didn't mind the coughing, but for God's sake could he not put a hand over his mouth or something?
At this point, Turk had gotten used to this. Day in and day out Hank was coughing his goddamn cough, and it wouldn't have been so bad if he would just take a cold pill, but every time Hank refused, spouting some bullshit about the government using pills to take over your brain. Whatever floats your boat man, Turk thought.
"God, you're cranky when you stay up." Hank said.
"It's alright, honestly it's not so bad once you get used to it," Turk said, sitting down on the couch next to Hank. Turk had recently gotten a job at a local fast food restaurant, and it was the worst job he had had in his life. Whatever got the bill's paid, because Hank sure as s*** wasn't going to pay much with his waiter gig.
"I'm telling you, I say we just-," Hank was interrupted by another bout of coughing. Turk was pretty sure he heard "vacation" in there somewhere.
"With what money? I'm sorry dude but I don't want to be borrowing s*** from your friends, who'll probably sick loan sharks on us after two days."
"I'm telling you... cough cough... They're... cough cough... good guys," Hank said.
"I'm not sure, man. One sec, I'm going to get some soda," Turk stood back up and made his way to the kitchen.
"Hey, get me a Doctor Pe-," Hank tried to but was cut off by more coughing.
"Alright, alright, hold on a sec," Turk grabbed a root beer for him and a Coke for Hank, opening his soda on the way back to the living room. Turk sat down and flipped back to Breaking Bad, preparing to start the new marathon.
As soon as the channel flipped to AMC the power went off, draping the entire house in complete blackness.
"What the hell?," they both said at the same time.
"Awh God, probably the breaker or something," Hank said, trying to stifle a cough.
"Yeah, alright, alright, give me one second," Turk got up and walked towards the basement. The basement was right next to the doors to their bedrooms, pretty convenient when Turk got tired of hearing Hank's snoring coming from across the room.
Turk walked down the steps and across the bare cement floor of the basement. There was nothing down here, probably never would be while Turk and Hank were renting this house. Using his smartphone for light, Turk walked to the circuit breaker and began fiddling with it, deciding to go with the age old method of trying to turn it off and on again, but lo and behold, it didn't work. He tried a few more levers and then gave up, starting his journey back to the living room. As he walked he figured out a schedule for the next day where he could go the town convenience store and see if he could get Jim to help them out.
***************************************************************************
Jim Hassenger punched his TV in frustration. Even though it wasn't its fault the goddamn power turned off, it was something to blame, and that was enough. Hell, he had closed the store early to watch this goddamn marathon.
"F*ing hell," Jim said as he walked out of the managers office and towards the front of the store. It was a nice looking store, though most of it was painted concrete, except for the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the south side, the only windows in the store, behind the cash registers. Other than that, the store was nothing special, just small aisles dedicated to different foods and clothes. Jim decided to see if the rest of the town was out too. As he walked toward the registers, he looked at his store, or lack thereof. Right now it was all black except for some dim moonlight coming in from the windows in front.
Yep, the town was black as sink except after a moment, a ways down the street a house's lights came on. Jim stood transfixed at the sudden light, wondering why only that house's lights had come on, when the house next to it regained power as well, and after a few minutes, the house next to that one turned on as well. Each house regained power one by one, until both the neighborhood and the connecting Main Street were lit up.
Jim turned around just in time to see his own convenience store's power flash back on, illuminating the entire store, along with three men in cloaks standing in front of the cash register. Jim almost jumped out if his skin. How did these guys get in here? He had watched the entrance this whole time-
"Think he`s change material?," the man on the left said, saying it with a smirk, and a twinkle in his grey eyes.
"No," said the man in the middle, a man with long blonde hair who didn't return the smirk, "Danielle, if you please, let's get this over with".
Jim opened his mouth to ask the men what in the hell they were talking about before he felt something grab his shoulders. Jim felt a dark stinging pain on the side of his neck, and by instinct he began to jerk and convulse, tried to grab whatever had him, but whatever had him held him tight. He was pulled to the floor, but while he was being pushed he managed to crane his neck enough to catch a glimpse of what had him. It was a young girl, no older than 20, with dark brown eyes that looked at him with content. The girl pushed Jim to the floor, but he couldn't move. All he could do was jerk and convulse while blood was spilling from his neck. That must have been the pain, Jim thought, that b**** bit me. Jim looked up to the girl, horrified and scared, living only long enough to see the girl grimace, kneel, and sink her teeth into his neck. Jim's world went red, then black.
*****************************
Turk opened his eyes to the sunlight spilling through the bedroom, cold sweat running down his forehead. He didn't know what he had been seeing in his dreams, but he could tell that he must not have liked what he saw. He tried to recollect anything he had seen, but nothing came up.
He rolled over in his bed to see if Hank was up to make their coffee this morning. He knew it was his turn, goddamnit, but nope, he was still in his bed across the room, snoring his ass off. It was easily the loudest snoring he had ever heard. F*** it, he had to get up anyway to go to Jim's store. He managed to get up, stretch, and make his way to the kitchen.
Making coffee in the morning was always a b****. For some reason the coffee maker paused while it made coffee, demanding that someone stand next to it to start the process back up. Because of this, he and Hank took turns for coffee duty. Some of their biggest arguments had been over this duty.
While Turk stood by the coffee maker, he looked out his kitchen window. He and Hank had rented a pretty good house after college, mostly due to them pooling almost everything they had just for this decent living, but it payed off. Renting a house in a small town relatively close to campus was actually decently priced, and it was quiet. Not too many people to bug you in a country town with not even a McDonald's to call it's own, though there were a few negatives to this town. Quick-to-be-gone jobs, not much in the form of entertainment, and worst of all, some of the most annoying neighbors that Turk had ever come in contact with.
Turk looked out his back window expecting the neighbor's damn kids to be monkeying about, but they weren't there. He was a little taken aback, the kids were always back there doing annoying s***, but Turk thanked God in the back of his mind.
He went through the rest of his daily motions: shower, clothes, breakfast, and fresh b****-coffee, as he liked to call it. The only thing different about today's routine was checking to see if Hank was still alive, due to the lack of air-horn level snoring. After poking Hank for a few seconds he grumbled, and Turk took this as evidence enough of Hank being alive, so he left the house, heading for Jim's convenience store.
As he walked, Turk took deep breaths with every other step, the after-dawn air striking Turk as especially good. Another thing to chock up as a win to small towns, they had nice, clean air, and he always did like the look of the town during the morning, the way the sunlight peeked over the houses and hills. Turk even liked the isolation, the nearest town being about thirty minutes away by car.
After walking two blocks towards the center of town, he noticed things were quiet. Usually there were a few old folks sitting on their porches around this time, maybe a few kids playing outside, but nobody was out. No grandpas & grandmas, no little kids, not even the spare car driving down the street, just complete and total silence. Maybe Turk hadn't gotten a memo.
It was when he walked onto Main Street that he started to get a little freaked out. The only sign of life that Turk saw on this desolate and pitiful excuse for a Main Street was a small pigeon perched on an electrical wire at the intersection in the middle of the street, the only spot in town with actual signal lights. This was wrong, even on this town's quietest days there were at least a few shoppers or teenagers milling around town.
Turk's pace increased as he walked towards the convenience store down the street until he was running as fast as he could towards the store. As soon as he walked through the set of double doors, he took one frantic look around and lost hope.
The cash register, and the ground behind it, was completely soaked in red liquid. Turk wasn't a detective, but he knew blood when he saw it and and smelled it. Turk almost bolted from the store right then and there, but he had to make sure Jim was alright.
Behind the cash register, Jim sat against the glass pane that covered that side of the store, a giant hole in his throat and a scream etched on his face. Turk ran for the back room. In hindsight he didn't know why he went back there, all he knew was that he wanted run.
The back of the store, usually just a place to put extra cargo or sneak a quick smoke, was small, seeing as how Jim usually didn't get too many big orders. The only things in the room were a few boxes of junk. When he opened the door, there wasn't much visibility, only a shard of grey light going across the floor, but Turk could make out the light switch on the cement wall next to him, so he switched it on, and the room was enveloped in grey light. He saw the back door, but something made him freeze in his tracks: Four people sitting in folding chairs in the corner opposite the door. But it wasn't the people themselves that stopped him, it was the blood.
Each of the bodies in the chairs had blood around their mouths. Turk could smell it from the door he stood in, and even though Turk knew he had his fair share of slow moments, now was not one of them. Whoever those people sitting in the corner where, he didn't want anything to do with, even though he guessed they were dead.
The door to the outside world was just across people the bodies in the chairs, so Turk shut the door behind him and walked very slowly and carefully towards the door. As he got closer and closer to the door, he noticed that what he presumed to be dead bodies were breathing. Breathing, but very slowly, and very deeply. One man with long, blonde hair was drooling, the blood and saliva going in and out of his mouth with every inhale and exhale.
Turk took a step away from the people, whatever the f*** they were, and towards the door, towards freedom, but instead of hitting the ground, his foot hit a plastic bag. The sound it made probably would've been barely noticeable if he had stepped on it doing something else, but in here, next to these people, it was louder than a nuclear bomb. For a moment Turk couldn't move, and for what felt like an eternity, he didn't. All he could do was stare at the people with the bloody mouths, waiting for them to wake up and attack him. But nothing happened. Turk opened the door behind him and ran.
*********************************************************
Hank woke up thinking about how much a b**** his sickness was. By f*ing God he couldn't even take a good deep breath anymore, all he could do was dribble air back and forth between his nose and his mouth, and after that, a few labored breaths , and then a cough, which was both a blessing and a curse. It widened his sinus enough to take a good breath in, but it was immediately expunged and replaced with a desperate need for air. Between the terrible sinus and the cough, life was a bit of hell; especially with Turk always on his ass for some reason or another.
Grumbling the whole way, Hank went to the bathroom and looked at his toothbrush, having an internal debate over whether or not brushing his teeth in the morning was even worth anything. Why did it matter when in the next few minutes he would be eating breakfast? Hell, why even take a shower at night when you sweat while you sleep? Hank gave his beard a feel, his hair a tussle, and left the bathroom, coughing all the way to the kitchen.
At this point Hank went into auto pilot, that state of mind where your flowing through daily routines almost as if going through a dream, waking up when the task is done and not even realizing you had done whatever it was in the first place.
To Hank it was almost as if the plate of eggs and toast just appeared in front of him, with what looked like a decent cup of coffee.
Regular morning, at least in Hank's delirious state of mind. The only thing that seemed to be missing was the annoying-as-f*** kids that were usually in the yard out back, but Hank wasn't going to complain. Hell, this was actually shaping up to be a pretty good day, if it wasn't for this goddamn cou-
What sounded like an explosion came from the front door, causing Hank to jolt and almost send the coffee spilling over his crotch. Instead, it hit and covered the floor. Nice.
While he was looking at the coffee, Turk ran into the kitchen. As Turk turned and looked at him, he wondered what the f*** his good buddy was doing sweating so goddamn much. After a moment he remembered that there was now a mug full of coffee all over the floor.
"This had better be damn good," Hank said. For a moment all Turk could do was gape at Hank, jaw practically on the floor. Normally Hank would laugh at this face, but something about it today...
Turk snapped out of it and began to look around the kitchen, his eyes bugging out as they darted around the room.
"What the f-" Hank coughed before he could get the expletive out.
"They're all dead, man," was all Turk could say, Hank would have had a stunned expression on his face, but this bout of coughing was a little too rough to permit that, so he blared through it.
"What do you... mean...," Hank said between deep breaths.
"Everyone in this f*ing town is dead," Turk kept his eyes pointed towards Hank's, and it was starting to freak him out. He was going to have to calm him down before he went totally off the walls in whatever panic he was in.
"Hey, listen man," Hank said carefully, pushing himself from the table. Turk jolted away from him and hit the counter, immediately pressing his hands towards Hank, as if to ward him off. Well s***, he thought, this is going to be a good one. He put his hands towards Turk in a calming motion, and Turk looked at them like they were the scariest f*ing things in the world.
"Listen buddy, just tell me what happened," Hank said, inching himself closer and closer to Turk, "Even if you saw a fifty foot tall tarantula, you know I'll still hear you out, so lay it out on me man, what the f*** happened". This earned a nervous chuckle from Turk, who broke his intense gaze to look down onto the floor, switching his look to an expression of complete and total shock. His face was totally white.
Hank walked to the side of Turk and put his hand on his shoulders. Turk looked up at him, looking like he was going to burst into tears.
"Everyone in town is dead," Turk said.
"Everyone?," Hank said, "how the f*** are they all dead?"
"Their throats were all ripped out, their blood-" Turk broke off in a sob, tears beginning to stream down his face.
"Wait, what?," Hank said, not even noticing that his jaw was hanging open.
"I'm not f*ing with you man, everyone in town is f*ing dead," Turk paused, then ran to the garbage and threw up his morning coffee.
Hank sighed and put his head into his hands, wondering what the hell was going on. He considered himself an "open minded person," but everyone in town getting their throats sliced open?
"Did you take any pictures?," he asked.
"F*** no I didn't take any pictures!," Turk shouted from the garbage can.
"Jesus Christ man, calm your f*ing tits I just... I just have a hard time believing this."
"Honestly, I don't blame you m-," Turk was cut off by his own vomiting.
Something clicked for Hank.
"Did you literally go inside everyone's houses in this f-" Hank felt a tickle in his throat and knew he wouldn't be able to finish his sentence, which he didn't.
Turk looked back up from the garbage can and nodded at Hank. The tears had stopped, but the pale and daunting face was still there to look back at Hank.
"Show me.," Hank said.
****************************************************************************
Hank's legs were shaking as he walked to the next door neighbors house. A part of him - a big part of him, actually - thought that this whole thing might just be Turk f*ing with him, and part was scared shitless because it probably wasn't the former things. Everyone in town probably wasn't dead, they couldn't be, but something had scared the living s*** out of Turk.
Hank got control of his legs as he walked up the neighbor's driveway. He didn't mind his neighbors, but that didn't stop him from giving them nicknames and pranks galore. The next door neighbors he was currently checking on were his favorite pair. From what Hank and Turk could guess, they were a couple of married 30-somethings, the husband being a probably hipster ("I'm telling you Turk, no one wears f*ing ascots anymore") and Tits. Tits was Hank's favorite only because he and Turk both said her nickname out loud when they first laid eyes on her. They had both proceeded to laugh their f*ing asses off.
The memory made Hank chuckle, which was nice even if it was cut off by coughing, and proceeded to climb up the steps and knock on the neighbor's door. For a few minutes Hank stood and continued to reminisce about his and Turk`s days in college and moving into this town. Even though he gave it a lot of s***, the town was starting to grow on him.
After a few minutes, Hank knocked again and rang the doorbell. With every knock and ring, Hank's legs began to shake more, the fear creeping back into him.
"Hello?," Hank shouted at the door, praying to whatever-the-f*** that someone would open it. No one did.
Hank walked towards the back of the house, going through the gate and climbing the back porch to try and look through the sliding glass door, see if they were even home or not. As Hank looked through the door, everything was cast in a tan light, and some areas were hard to see. From the door he saw the kitchen, the table the pantry, the counter chock full of cooking equipment, and the two bodies stacked against the fridge.
The couple had their throats torn up, most of their veins strown around their necks, looking like a colorful bouquet of flower stems. Hank gagged and dry heaved over the side of the porch. For a moment he wanted to run, every fiber in his being wanted too, but he had to check, he had to make sure.
His hand trembled as it approached the handle of the door, and for a moment he had to steel himself to do it, to open the door and make sure his neighbors weren't really f*ing dead. He wished he knew their real names. Hank took a deep breath and opened the door.
Before Hank could even take a step inside he was overwhelmed by the worst stench he had ever smelled. It was a ugly smell, but at the same time it was sweet, a smell mixed with the aroma of discharged bowels and sweat. In Layman's terms, as Turk would have said, it was the smell of death. Hank ran out the door, ran for dear life towards his house next door, sparing one more glance at the bodies. They were almost shriveled, with wrinkles all over their bodies that made them look like they were about to become shrunken heads. Their blood had been drained from them.
***************************************
"So you're saying it was,” (Hank paused a moment to let out a few coughs), ”the people in Jim's store that did this?" He didn't want to believe that any human being could do this, but who the f*** else was there to put this on?
"Yeah, yeah I think it was them". Turk looked like he had calmed down enough to where he was starting to act just a little like his old self, but Hank still wasn't sure if he was going to be ok in the long run. Then again, who could be after searching an entire town for a single sign of life and only seeing dead, drained bodies to look back at you?
He and Turk were currently in the living room trying to plan the next course of action. After Hank had ran into the house with a look of sheer terror, he had promptly gone to the same garbage can Turk had used before and unloaded his breakfast into the bag.
"What are we going to do?" He had asked Turk, who was currently trying to drink from a glass of water with trembling hands and failing.
Now they were in the living room, sitting silently as they tried to get a grasp on their options.
"You said the phone lines were down?" Turk asked, hands still trembling.
"Yeah," Hank muttered. He knew Turk's hands weren't shaking because of the gore anymore, his hands were shaking because he had just tried to dial 911 but received only static. There were no bars on their cell phones, nothing but static on any phone, and all of the engines in town had been royally f*ed up. They had looked at every car in the goddamn neighborhood.
It was when they found out that none of the cars in town worked that he and Turk knew they had to confront whatever was doing this, whatever was in Jim's store. They had debated running from town with their tails between their legs, but they wouldn't make it very far. The nearest town was around a hundred miles away.
Now they were sitting in the living room, wondering how they were going to do this.
"I think we should get them at point blank with guns," Hank said.
"Well… how are we going to do that? These guys are obviously killers, good ones at that, they'd probably just take us right out the way they took everyone in town out!" At this point Turk couldn't control his shouting, probably because for the first time in his life he was worried about the morality of his own. "We need to lay some kind of contingency trap for these guys outside of the doors, we need to find good guns, we need to find ammo, and most importantly we need to find the fucking guts," He practically screamed few words., At this point Hank looked like he was going to break out crying. Honestly, he couldn't blame him.
"Alright, alright, s*** Turk," Hank took a deep, shaky breath, "let's do it, let's go."
****************************************
“Do you think Jim’ll mind?’ Hank said to Turk as they looked at Jim’s wall sized safe that held more guns and ammo than either of them had ever seen.
“No, I don’t think he will.” He reached for the nearest gun.
“I’m going to put a gun down the backside of my pants,” Hank said rather random. Turk laughed and told Hank that was probably the stupidest thing he had ever heard. No one kept guns in the back side of their pants outside of Hollywood.
*****************************************
Hank and Turk walked down to Jim's silently, each carrying a 12-gauge shotgun over their shoulders. As they walked down their lonely country street toward their lonely country downtown area, they each thought of what they might find at Jim's.
Turk was worried that whatever he had seen at Jim's would be up-and-at-'em when they arrived, their bloody mouths and throats ripping at his own as he screamed his last screams. As he looked into the houses of the lonely and desolate town he called home, he wondered why him and Hank weren't killed along with everybody else. They each had theories, but couldn't make sense of it no matter how hard they tried, but he didn't care, that was how he felt this whole situation. Of course, he also felt dread. Dread towards what they were about to face, dread towards what they had seen, and dread towards what could end up happening to the two of them. But another emotion he felt was a very tired feeling. Sure he felt dread and terror, he felt a lot of that, but he also wanted to get this over with, to face what he had to face.
Hank was feeling very similar feelings, except that Turk's feeling of wanting to get everything over with was replaced with a sense of responsibility. He didn't feel like the situation was his fault by any means, but he felt like he owed it to the friends he had made in this town to at least try and get to the bottom of this. Granted, he probably wouldn't be feeling this way if they had found a working car to drive away in, but that wasn't the situation. The situation was that everyone was dead, there was no way out. And, thought to himself with an internal grin, he wanted to kick some ass, though he did keep in mind that it might end up being the other way around. Maybe they would find out he and Turk were completely crazy and had dreamed all this up. Either way, he was ready.
After a few minutes of walking, they turned down the main road. Jim's store was at the end, looming in the distance. When they saw it, Hank and Turk looked at each other and nodded. They both knew what they were doing in a sense, and not much needed to be said about it. Hank broke the silence anyway.
"Should we flip the safeties off and shoot anything that moves?"
Turk couldn't help but chuckle, and with that the pair started walking down the main road.
As they neared the store they knelt and broke into a crouching run toward the entrance. While it wasn't the most quiet thing on Earth, it was fast, and it was quiet enough to where if the people inside were listening, the probability of them hearing them was a lot less. Or so they hoped.
They piled on to either side of the front door, and Hank watched the street while Turk looked inside the store. With the lights on and nobody home, Hank imagined it would've looked pretty freaky, but he knew that Jim Hassenger, the owner of the store, was still in there, neck open and blood drained. He could see the color draining from Turk's face.
"Hey," he whispered. Turk didn't move.
"Turk, look at me," he whispered in a higher pitch. Turk crouched back down and looked at him with a look of desperation. Hank tried to pretend like the same look wasn't on his own face.
"We can do this Turk". Turk looked at him, and a sense of friendship came over him. Right now they were stranded in a town with blood draining vampires for all he knew, but goddamnit if he didn't feel a sense of pride of confronting these people with Turk. Of course he was still scared shitless, and he knew he would continue to be, but for just a moment, he knew he could face this problem. Besides, Jim Hassenger had been a good man. They had all occasionally played poker together.
Turk flashed a look to Hank, half a grimace and half a grin, and held his fist across the doorway.
"For good old Jim?"
Hank smiled and bumped Turk's fist.
"For good old Jim."
Turk opened the store door while Hank stifled a cough.
******************************
He and Turk both crouch-walked towards the door that led to the storage area, and after a few seconds they reached Jim's body, still leaning against the window pane in front of the store. Turk stopped next to it and looked at it for a moment, then reaching with a trembling hand, closed Jim's wide open eyes. Hank knew that Turk was a dramatic guy, and it sometimes irked him just a bit, but this time he didn't mind. After a few more silent moments, they both resumed the walk to the door.
They couldn't help but look at the store and all the shelves of stuff, or lack thereof. There were a few small isles of food and drink, a few aisles of office supplies, and a few aisles of clothing, and that was the store. Just a concrete necessities shop, but he and Turk had grown fond of it. To them it was small slice of civilization, and they had shared it with Jim.
The two piled on both sides of the metal door leading into the storage area, Turk immediately putting his ear next to the door. Silence. Turk counted a minute on his watch and nodded to him. The two slid their guns from their shoulders to their hands, keeping a thumb on the safety and the barrel toward the ceiling. Turk reached a hand toward the doorknob, twisted, and pulled.
The door swung open to reveal darkness. It was almost as if a wall of solid black had formed in front of door. For a few moments he and Turk looked inside, trying make anything out. After a few moments they saw their shapes in the darkness. The blood suckers. They sat still in their chairs, silent, eyes shut. Turk looked towards him, pale as the moon, and pointed his head towards the room before he crept inside. Hank slid his hand across the wall, feeling for a light switch while Turk waited on the other side of the wall, the barrel of his shotgun pointed towards the people sitting in the chairs, his thumb on the safety. He had not wanted to believe that there really were people in here, let alone people with their faces covered in blood, but lo and behold...
He found the switch and turned it on. The whole room was bathed in a grey light, giving him and Turk a better look at the people, and giving the people sitting in the chairs a better look at Hank and Turk.
As soon as the light had flipped on all of the persons sitting down opened their eyes, blinded. When the blinding had settled, each of them focused on him and Turk, each noticing the barrels of shotguns pointed at them. They all took a moment to take note of each others appearances. There were four people sitting in the chairs They all looked like twenty-somethings, each of them clad in black hooded cloaks that extended down to their feet.
"What do you make of these guys, David?," asked the man on the left side, a tall man with tan skin and wavy blonde hair.
"I 'make' that they have shotguns pointed at us," the man on the right side, David, answered. David wore a trenchcoat and had long grey-blonde hair. Turk guessed that he was the head honcho.
"Who are you people?," Turk said, hesitant to show the fear on his face.
For a moment, he didn't think any of them would answer. Everyone on the room was still. The person in the second chair, a girl with red shocked hair, answered Turk.
"Would you believe vampires?," she said.
"I'd believe anything at this point," Hank said. The strangest part of this whole situation was that they both didn't really doubt at this point that they were dealing with vampires, or the psychopathic equivalent.
"We must have slept too long,” the man in the third chair said, a short man with grey-blue eyes and brown hair, “I told you guys to take it easy on the blood,". David appeared visibly annoyed by what Grey Eyes had said.
"So it was you guys that did all of this," Turk said.
"Yes.” David said, “I assume you want to know why.
"No wait, don't tell me, blood," Hank said.
"Precisely," the blonde vampire flashed a grin at Hank's sarcasm.
"Yep, that about cuts it," the girl said.
"But why everyone in town?," Turk said.
"Gotta store some for the winter, you might say," said Grey Eyes.
“Yeah? Go f*** yourself," Hank said. Everyone was about to say something in response when David held up his fist. No one spoke.
"Let's get this over with. You two," David motioned toward Hank and Turk, "You have your answers, however vague they might have been. Now, how to proceed."
Turk was nonplussed, even he hadn't expected things to go this unexpectedly.
"I assume that you brought those weapons to exact revenge on us," David said, looking at Turk while he said it, Turk nodded. David grimaced and went on. "In that case, I don't think you thought this all of the way through. Those guns will be able to shoot one bullet, two kills for the both of you if you're that good of shots, so, what are you going to do about the rest of us that are going to come after you?"
A cold chill went up Hank's spine. Oh s***.
"Which means at this point," David went on, "We are at an impasse. I don't want my friends to die, and you two wouldn't like dying either, so what are we going to do?" David shrugged his shoulders and leaned into his seat, looking warily at the guns pointed at him. The other three sat stone faced, processing the situation as much as Turk and Hank.
"What should we do, Turk?," Hank asked.
"Let's lock these assholes in here, starve them out," Turk said. David and Hank got a surprised look on their faces.
"Are you serious?," Hank asked.
"Quite. Keep your gun pointed at these guys," Turk stood up and moved toward the rear entrance, all the while the vampires gave him curious looks, but their sights all ended back up to the shotgun still pointed at their faces.
Turk walked to the rear door and brought out a key he had picked up off of the counter. He hadn't known if he was going to have to make use of it, but better to be prepared. Turk stuck the key into the lock, twisted the lock into place, and jammed the key into the lock with the butt of his gun.
"Well, s***," Blondie said. as Hank referred to him in his head.
"Yeah, s***, come on Hank," Turk opened the door to the front of the store and motioned inside, "let`s see if won't find a radio or something to raise the cops on, if not, we'll at least be able to keep these fucks in here to rot".
The vampires looked at him with a calm contempt, their mouths stretched into lines of ambivalence and contempt.
Hank paused for a moment before standing up and walking outside the room, the barrel of his gun still pointed toward the vampires. When he was out of the room, Turk closed and locked the door.
"I don't know man, this seems a little fucked up, don't ya think?" He said.
"Of course I do, Hank," Turk said, "but what else are we going to do?"
"I... I don't know," Hank walked behind the cash register and looked outside.
"The way the lights are on, you'd think the town was still alive," he said. Turk moved to the counter and stood beside Hank. It was true, all of the lights were on in the major stores, lighting up the streets. Halfway down the street was a store to buy pizza and rent movies, and it's sign was a constantly color changing neon sign of a film reel. Every time the reel changed color, it casted that side of the road in a different color.
"I hope this town survives this," Turk said.
"I hope we survive this".
A voice sounded behind the storage door.
"I don't think that's going to be very likely, now," David said.
"Yeah, why is that?" Hank said, leveling his gun against his chest.
"Look out the window," David said.
The two slowly craned their necks to look outside, a feeling of cold dread rushing up their spines. It froze solid when they saw what was outside.
Blondie stood below the neon sign outside of the movie store, pointing and laughing at Hank and Turk. Hank pulled down his gun, aimed, and fired at the blonde man.
Within two seconds, three distinct events happened. First, the glass exploded into a spiderweb of a falling glass, along with a huge thunderclap that went along the store. Second, Blondie fell onto the pavement, pulling his hands over his neck and screaming "Jesus Christ" as he went down. Turk rounded the counter and ran for the front door, stumbling slightly as he heard the gunshot. Lastly, the sound of the gunshot echoed through the store, effectively ringing the hell out of Turk and Hank's ears.
Turk burst through the door at the same time Hank pumped his shotgun and took aim at the blonde vampire laying on the ground.
"Hank, wait!," Turk yelled, but he was cut off by the vampires.
"Holy s***," yelled the female vampire from the back of the rental store. Turk continued to run towards Blondie, trying not to think of how they could have gotten outside. He had locked both of the doors-
"Don't go out there!" David yelled from behind the rental store.
Turk saw the female vampire run into view, heading toward Blondie.
"There isn't enough darkness!" David yelled. Blondie looked towards the female vampire just in time to see her face implode and turn into pink mist. Turk continued to walk toward Blondie, his shotgun leveled to his shoulder, the barrel smoking.
"Don't move," Turk said. The blonde vampire looked at Turk with a face mixed with pure rage and fear, but he did nothing.
"Alright assholes," Turk said toward the the alley by the rental store, "come on out".
David appeared at the edge of the ally, his face grim.
A look passed between David and Turk, a dark understanding between the two that Turk didn't fully get, but understood nonetheless. David sighed and leaned against the side of the ally.
"I guess at least two more people are going to die tonight," David said.
Turk took a deep breath, "I'd say at least three".
David chuckled, "Any questions before we begin?" David pulled out a cigarette and a lighter from his coat, and lit them both. His face was illuminated by the flame for a few moments before the lighter disappeared into his coat.
"Sure, what's your secret?" Turk said. The blonde man tried to move before Turk poked the barrel closer to his face, "any more movements and I'll blow your head off". Blondie stopped moving.
On the outside and the inside, Turk tried to act cool, not to panic, but deep down he felt the exact opposite, and even deeper still, he felt a strange emotion he had never felt before, a mix of sorrow and excitement. He hated, truly hated, killing the girl, seeing her face torn to shreds, the blood and brain matter splaying all over the front of the store. But he also felt a sense of victory for besting his enemy, killing one of the person's who had caused all of this s*** in the first place. Turk didn't know whether to scream or to throw up, but he was brought back to the present when he heard David chuckle.
"Our secret?" David took a pull from the cigarette, "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."
Turk glanced at the corpse on the ground.
"I'd believe anything at this point."
David chuckled and took another pull from his cigarette, "I don't blame you. You wanna know something? I've never seen this happen. Twenty years of spotless harvesting, and you two," he motioned to Hank, smiling. "You two are the first to survive this long." David chuckled and took another pull.
"Well, tell me, what's your secret?" Turk said. David laughed and threw the cigarette to the ground.
"Would you believe me if I said we can move through shadows?
The blonde vampire flinched as he heard Turk chuckle and pump his shotgun.
"Like I said, I'd believe anything at this point."
"Well, looks like either way you're going to see," David took a deep breath, "Shall we begin?"
"Let's." Turk took aim and shot Blondie in the back of the head, the bullet creating a hollow crater on both sides of his head. There was no scream, no final words, not even any shaking, just the sound and sight of God throwing an off switch on Blondie, accompanied by the seeping of blood and brain from his forehead. Turk took his eyes away from the body to see David disappear into the shadows of the alleyway.
Turk looked down the street at Hank, who was still sitting on the counter shivering, each shiver rocking the gun on his lap. Turk loaded his gun as he walked toward the store, thinking about what he and Hank were going to do when this was over. At least, if they won this fight.
Hank grabbed his shotgun and Turk loaded his last shell just as the lights of the store went off. Turk heard Hank yell as he brought his gun up to his shoulders, pointing it at the now pitch black convenience store. Hank's yell turned into a scream.
"Hank!," Turk yelled, pointing his gun towards the store. Hank kept screaming. Turk started to run.
"Change him," Turk heard David say. Turk cursed and pulled out his flashlight, struck it on, and stuck it into the corner of his mouth, the beam pointing toward the store, illuminating Grey Eyes as he sunk his teeth into Hank's neck.
Gotcha, Turk thought as he took aim and pulled the trigger. He wasn't aiming for Grey Eyes, he didn't want to take the risk of hitting Hank, so he aimed high and left. After the gunshot sounded, Grey Eyes grabbed the right side of his head and fell to the ground screaming.
Must've hit something, Turk thought as he walked toward the store, still training the flashlight at Hank, who was starting to convulse in front of the counter. Oh god.
He broke out into a run, hurdling over the window that Hank had shot out. Turk noticed that he had fired through the same window at Grey Eyes.
He knelt next to Hank and pointed his light to the mess of Hank's neck. Hank had his hand held to the bite, but blood was pouring through his hands. Grey Eyes must have pulled out a major vein with him. Turk turned to face Hank, his mouth and light trembling, trying to train his light on Hank's face just in time to see Hank's bloody hand slip down from his neck, resting on his lap. Hank turned and looked at him, the fear of death showing clearly on his face. Hank's eyes froze, and he stopped gasping for breath. Turk was about to scream when he heard David's voice come from behind him.
"This isn't pe-" Turk assumed he was going to say personal before doing to him what he had just done to Hank, but Turk didn't give him the chance. He dropped onto his back, aimed his shotgun behind him, and pulled the trigger, the shot not hitting anything but the window behind him, breaking it into a thousand pieces. Turk jerked his head to either side of the counter, trying to get a bead on David. He didn't see anything but darkness and a few shelves when he turned his head left, but as soon as he turned the flashlight's beam to the right, toward the aisle, David appeared where there had been nothing but darkness. Before Turk could point his shotgun, David turned at the end of the aisle and was lost from sight. Turk rose back up to a crouch and looked toward Hank, who was lifeless, his eyes frozen. He lay directly across from Jim’s own body.
Turk didn't move for a moment, all he could do was let the tears begin to stream down his face as he looked at his best friend. He dropped to his knees and sobbed, the flashlight still clung between his teeth, illuminating Hank's blood spreading on the floor.
"David!" Came a shout from behind the counter.
Turk took one last look at Hank`s face before he picked up his shotgun and inched forward, laying his body against the counter, not noticing Grey dissipate into shadow on the other side, go through the counter, and materialize on the other side of Turk. What gave Grey away was the sound he made before he attempted to bite Turk’s neck, a sound of pure hunger and delight. Before he reacted, a cold shiver went up Turk’s spine at the sound of hunger in Grey's rasp before Turk shot his face off.
The advantage David had had speaking behind Turk was that he was both far away enough to react to Turk pointing the shotgun, and in enough shadow to dissipate if Turk had happened to have had especially quick reflexes. Grey had none of these things, and a few fatal disadvantages to boot, one of them being the fact that if he had controlled himself and kept silent, he would have managed to kill Turk, the other being that Turk had his shotgun on his shoulder, so when he heard Grey give a hungry rasp behind him, all he had to do was shift the barrel of his gun a few inches along his shoulder and he had a perfect shot at Grey's opening mouth. Within a second and a half of Grey shouting from the other side of the counter, Turk had painted the ceiling with his blood and brains.
Turk felt the kick go into his thigh, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting at the pain of the butt of the gun biting into his thigh and the sound of the explosion tearing his ear to pieces. For a few seconds after the gunshot, he still crouched, listening as Grey's body slumped to the floor and his blood beginning to drip from the ceiling. He stood up and pumped his shotgun, keeping his eyes and light trained toward the store, sweeping the shelves and aisles. His jaw was starting to ache, but he didn't even notice. All his thoughts were trained on the light in front of him and the shadows that same light created.
Turk wanted to say something to David, some taunt or melodramatic line, but he kept his mouth shut. At this point it was David's show to run, because at any time he could form from the shadows and kill him, if Turk couldn't shoot his head off first. Turk moved against the wall on the left side of the store and put his back against it, slowly sliding to the left, craning his mouth and the light locked in his jaw left and right throughout the store, trying to find David.
Turk looked toward the left of him, the small circle of light shining of the wall and illuminating the right side of David's body before he crashed into Turk, sending them both to the ground.
Before he could even think to put his hands up to protect him, David had him pinned on the ground, his knees pushing on Turk's chest so hard he thought he could feel his muscles tearing. David had his hands over his throat before he could scream. He thrashed and punched at David’s arms, but he didn’t budge.
"I will give you this," David said, tightening his fingers around Turk's throat, "you are persistent". David chuckled to himself while Turk thrashed and kick, trying to find a way to breathe, but every time he did David managed to tighten his grip.
For just a moment, before Turk would have passed out, he felt a moment of calm, realizing he was probably going to die.
But I don't want to die, he thought, I want to live.
Turk reached to his back pocket and felt he iron grip of the pistol he had put back there, laughing internally that he was actually going to use it, using his left hand to grab the light that he had had in his mouth before David knocked him over. With the light in his left hand and the pistol on his right, he aimed them both at David's head and fired the pistol, knowing that either the light or the bullet wouldn't make contact. They both did.
The pistol fired about a millisecond before the light hit David's head, the flashlight itself creating enough light to illuminate David's skull as the bullet entered. David's head formed back into matter just as the bullet was center inside of his brain, causing the bullet to ricochet inside of his skull and therefore turning the inside of David's cranium into something representing mashed potatoes. Turk liked to think David registered the fact that Turk had won the fight before he died, but he never knew for certain.
He felt the hands around his throat go stiff, and then slide off as David fell to the side of Turk, unmoving. All Turk could do was cough and try to stand up, but he failed to do the latter, instead he fell on his stomach and coughed.
Turk clutched his stomach and looked toward the front of the store, the side behind the cash register where Hank and Jim’s bodies lay, the side covered with enormous windows, and began to crawl toward the front door. The outside looked beautiful, the sun not having quite yet appeared over the mountains, casting the whole town in a purple pre-dawn hue. Turk couldn't help but stare at the Main Street while he stood up and began walking toward the front door, not looking at Blondie or the pool of blood surrounding him, or the girl, the way here brains and blood mixed with Blondie's. All Turk chose to look at was the way the pre-dawn light glimmered off of the buildings, and just how beautiful everything looked cast in purple.
He put his hand on the store door and looked back toward Hank, whose corpse still sat in front of the counter, staring at the floor on shock, his body across from Jim Hassenger’s, whose scream was still etched onto his face. After a few moments, Turk looked back toward the door and began opening it.
He was about to step outside when he heard the sound of rough coughing come from directly behind him.
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I've always respected vampires. Though I will admit this is the only vampire story I will ever write, seeing as how I don't want to push my creative luck, I hope it's good, and I hope you enjoy it.