Shining in Crimson: Empire of Blood Book One (A Dystopian Vampire Novel) (2 page)

The first scream echoed from somewhere far behind him as he came upon
North Eastern Avenue
. It stopped him dead in his tracks and he turned to make sure no one was coming. Once he was sure they weren't close enough to get him, he crossed the street.  He started to look both ways as he went, out of habit, his heart running in overdrive. He hadn't truly been afraid until that point. Hearing the scream made it real.

From the look of things,
North Eastern Avenue
had once been very busy.
Hank spotted an old army surplus store
a ways down the street and started towards it. Everything looked gray.
The road, the sidewalk, and even the street signs.
As he crossed a side road just before the surplus store, he heard more screams. The screams were coming from way up in the air. He looked up above the tops of the buildings behind him. Figures dressed in what looked like black rags flew around in circles above the buildings. Each one of them had a man wearing a blue prisoner's jumpsuit hanging from its face. He couldn't tell for sure from that distance, but it looked like they held the men with their teeth. Hank watched in horror as, one after another, the flying figures began to drop their victims to the ground. None of them made a sound as they
fell,
giving Hank the impression they were already dead. He turned and ran for the army surplus store.

He went for the back of the building, for cover if nothing else. He came upon a door with a window. He found a couple of big rocks on the ground. Afraid busting any glass would alert them to where he
was,
he set the rocks down and began to slowly rip a portion of his shirt off as quietly as he could. As he was ripping the shirt, the screams started again. He wrapped the strip of shirt around a rock. He waited for another round of screams. When they started, he cringed as he slammed the shirt-wrapped rock into the door's window.

The rock shattered the window inward, knocking glass onto the tiled floor inside. It was quiet enough, Hank thought, to be covered by the screaming. He carefully put his arm in the hole where the window had been and felt around for the lock. The air inside was cool. Once he managed to unlock the door, Hank looked around to make sure he saw no movement. He went inside once he was sure he was alone.

Aside from the little bit of light coming in the front windows, the inside of the store was fairly dark. He could make out the different aisles, but not what sat on most of the shelves. He thought of turning on the light switch, but decided not to risk it. He groped around the shelves carefully. For the most part, he found what felt like clothing. Eventually, he came across a large machete that included a sheath with a belt clip. He backtracked to where he’d found the belts and took one that seemed like it would fit him well. He put the belt around his waist with the sheath attached and buckled it tightly. He put the machete in its sheath and sighed. He thought having the thing should give him more comfort than it did.

When he made his way to the next aisle, more screams caught his attention. He tried to block them out, but had to admit to himself the sound was making him more and more nervous. After all, they must have gotten most of the prisoners by now. He continued feeling his way through the items on the shelves, trying to find anything useful and especially hoping to come across a flashlight.
Particularly the kind that came with its own batteries.
He’d come all the way down the aisle before he noticed a good while had passed since he last heard any screaming. This worried him.

He picked up his pace as he headed for the next aisle. About halfway down, he found something in a thin cardboard box he couldn’t identify. He looked toward the end of the aisle where the light shone in through the front windows and reflected on the white, tiled floor. He snuck over to the end of the aisle and knelt down. He put the package just close enough to the light to see it was a thin box of matches. He considered using the matches to light his way to look for a flashlight. But, remembering they could sense heat and not knowing their range, he was reluctant to do so. He stared at the matches for a few seconds. Then he looked back at the dark aisle he had been searching and sighed.

A voice in his head reminded him that they were fairly small matches and it was highly unlikely the things could sense heat from so far away. Besides, if they could detect heat that well, they would have already found him by now. With that thought, he gave in and tore open the box with his trembling hands. Once he freed one of the match packs, he dropped the rest of the box. Then he pulled out a match and lit it before he could change his mind. The match filled a small perimeter around itself with light and the smell of sulfur. The scent almost soothed him. He knew the small flame wouldn't last long, so he carefully started searching the closest shelves. A moment later he felt a stinging, burning pain in the fingers holding the match. He threw it on the ground and did a quiet dance while sucking his thumb and finger. Continuing his dance of pain, he began smacking his fingers against the side of his leg. When the stinging died down enough, he took a deep breath and sighed again.

He took out another match and lit it, moving on to the next set of shelves. In the dim light he could see flippers, snorkels, and goggles of different sizes. He moved on to the next set of shelves. Something reflective caught his eye. He looked closer. It was a compass. He took hold of it greedily, looked it over and then clipped it to his belt. By the time he finished searching the rest of the aisle, he had used half the book of matches with ten remaining. He lit another, looking at the items at the end of the last aisle. There he found what he’d been looking for. A plastic package gleamed before him containing a green flashlight with two D sized batteries. He smiled and went to reach for it when he heard a thud from above the ceiling. His heart skipped a beat.

Leaving the flashlight behind, he knelt down and slipped behind the aisle.
A split second after he managed to hide himself, he heard another thud and then the middle of the ceiling collapsed.
Debris came crashing down as a skulking figure dressed in dark ragged clothing dropped like a cat onto the floor several aisles down from him. Hank turned and leaned back against the aisle to hide. He could hear nothing but very obvious and slow footsteps. It was quiet enough that if his enemy could breathe, Hank would have heard him do so.

The steps sounded like they were going away from him toward the other side of the store. He winced as he attempted to pull out his machete without making any noise. Once he managed to free the machete, he tried to propel himself onto his feet just as quietly. His left leg had fallen asleep and caused his foot to hit the floor with a light tap. Before he could straighten himself fully, he heard the sound of rapid movement above him and without thinking pulled the machete upward with both hands toward the sound. He looked up to see the figure stuck with the machete, its fangs showing as it hissed at him. Its yellow eyes resembled the eyes of a cat or a snake on a face that reminded him of a pasty male model turned crackhead. He pushed the machete harder into the creature, hoping it would die, and felt a warm drop of liquid fall into his open mouth and then to the back of his throat. He choked on it. The figure grabbed hold of the machete, pulling it from Hank's hands, and threw it aside. Hank heard the machete hit the floor as the ragged model with yellow eyes straightened itself and smiled at him.

Then the figure made a horrible, high-pitched squealing sound as it jumped down from the top of the aisle toward Hank. By instinct, Hank put his hands out to stop the thing, realizing it would do no good. When he felt his hands resisting the force of the creature, he opened his eyes to see what should have been the impossible. His hands were actually holding the thing back. It looked at him with shock on its sculpted features.

Experimentally, Hank tried gripping the thing with his hands and found it quite easy to do. He pulled the creature sideways and then flung it upward. It flew through the air and fell backward knocking over several of the aisles in a roar of sheet metal. He wiped his mouth where he felt the warm liquid and looked at his hand. It was a dark, almost black, thick substance.
The creature's blood.
It had to be. Hank took advantage of the moment to retrieve his machete. It took him a while of reaching around aimlessly on the floor, but he found it. He turned toward where the creature fell and saw it was gone. He looked around desperately, knowing what it would cost him if he made any more mistakes. He pulled the machete blunt end against his arm so he could slash underhand if need be. He no longer had to use both hands to hold it steady with his new-found strength. He wondered how long the affects of the blood would last as he crept around the still standing aisles looking for the thing.

He could hear a lot he hadn’t been able to before. One sound was a faint rustling from behind the aisle to his right. He looked at his hands and then silently put his palms against the wall of the aisle and pushed the whole thing over without effort. He heard the same high-pitched squeal. This time it seemed to echo and bounce around in his brain. He jumped on top of the toppled metal shelving with an agility to match the creature he had just pinned underneath. He glanced down to see it writhing and hissing, only its head free. Watching the pitiful thing, he pondered what it would take to kill it. He knew all of the old lore involved, who didn't?  But how much of it was actually true, he couldn't be sure. He put all of his strength into stabbing the machete down into the creature's throat. He hoped it would die, but knew if it didn't it would at least be pinned for the moment. It didn't die. Instead, it hissed louder.  Hank jumped down to the floor beside the creature's head. Then he reached down and picked up the metal shelving from the thing and pushed it forward so it fell down on its other side with a loud crash. The noise reminded him his captive had many brethren out there in the city.
All eager to suck any man's lifeblood from him.

He waited a moment, making sure he and the creature were alone for the time being. Several minutes passed while Hank tried to think above the racket of its hissing. He reached down and pulled out the machete. Just as soon as he pulled the machete upward, he brought it back down blade first, chopping the creatures head off. The head began squealing again, sputtering out some strange language Hank had never heard. He brought the blade up and back down again on one of its arms.
Then the other.
Then in one swipe, he severed both legs. The thing was obviously still alive, but it seemed unlikely he could do much to harm it. The head rolled to one side and continued squealing unintelligible words in a shrill, soprano voice. Hank took a deep breath as he used his fingers to wipe the blood from the machete. Then he made a sour face as he licked his bloody hand clean, making sure to quickly swallow the blood. He tried to ignore the worry of infection lingering in the back of his mind.

He left the body and its severed extremities wiggling while he walked back to the end of the last aisle, the only one left standing. He put his machete in its sheath and took the flashlight from its prong on the shelf. With the flashlight ready, he went up and down the remaining aisle shining it at the shelves. He was looking for some kind of thermos. When he didn't find one, he was forced to pick up the other shelves one by one until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed two of them, a red one and a blue one. He also made sure to grab a backpack. Then he went back to where the creature lay on the floor in pieces. He put the blue thermos in the backpack while bending down to one of the thing's arms. Then he opened the red thermos, set it upright on the floor in front of him, and put its lid between his teeth. He picked up the arm, severed end facing down, and began to squeeze it over the thermos.

The same dark liquid that he had wiped from his mouth poured into the thermos in a thin stream. When the stream became a light trickle, he shook out the last little bit and threw it aside. Then he took the lid from his teeth and screwed it back on the thermos tightly. He looked over at the arm and was surprised to see, unlike all the creature's other parts, it was lying still. He wondered if doing the same to the head would kill it. He was pretty sure it would be a good start, but decided he didn't have the stomach to find out.

Then he put the red thermos in his backpack and got up. He looked around with his flashlight until he saw a sign that said RESTROOMS. He put on the backpack and then followed the sign to the men's room. The decrepit fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered a few times and then came to life, shining white light throughout the room. Hank let his hand fall from the light switch and walked over to examine the sink. There was a sort of rusty film collecting around the drain. He tried the cold handle first.
Nothing.
Then he tried the hot.
Still nothing.
The realization hit Hank that twenty years without artificial irrigation would dry out a desert town just a little bit. He felt a spell of panic coming on. He had expelled a lot of energy and his body was now ready to be hydrated. And what if there was no water to be found in the whole city? He rushed from the bathroom, turned on the flashlight, and spun around looking for any other doors. He saw one in the far front corner of the building beyond the open space where the metal shelving once stood. It said EMPLOYEES ONLY. He rushed toward it, found the doorknob was unlocked, and opened it.

Inside three video screens displayed different angles of the sales floor. The various body parts of the thing twitched in one of the black and white screens. Shining the flashlight around, he saw several large shelves with items that never made it to the sales floor. In the middle of the room sat a small table with several ashtrays and magazines on it. A brown jacket sat over the back of a chair at the end of the table. Just beyond the table, Hank’s flashlight illuminated something big and white that filled Hank with hope. He ran forward, nearly knocking over the table and pulled the handle of the refrigerator open. The chill of cold, moist air hit him and he smiled as he looked inside. On the top shelf sat
four twelve
-packs of bottled water. The liquid inside sparkled at Hank. He fumbled one of the bottles from its plastic ring and twisted the cap off. He took a deep breath wondering if bottled water could go bad. Deciding that bad water was better than no water, he tossed his head back and took a long drink, some of the water spilling from his mouth and down his neck and chest. He was sure it was the best water he ever drank in his life.