Deadline
Issue #2
by Tom Zjaba
CHAPTER 3:IN THE CLAN
As Nat sleeps, he dreams that he is in a desert. As he crawls through the desert, dying of thirst, he comes across an oasis. The very sight of the oasis urges him to go on, despite his weakened state. He crawls closer and closer, until he is within reach of the waterhole. Pulling himself to the edge, he gazes in at the strangely colored water. Not worrying too much about the purity of the water, he dips both hands deep into the pool and pulls out a drink. As he gulps it down, he suddenly spits it out. What the hell is this? He soon realizes that he is drinking blood and begins to scream. Suddenly, he is shaken awake as he looks around. Through glazed eyes, he sees the man from before standing over him. "Calm down, your body is still adjusting,” he says as he helps him up. Nat feels a weakness in his legs that is unfamiliar to him. "How long have I been out?" he asks. "Three days. About average for someone who has undergone the transformation" the guy responds as he hands Nat a cold soda. "Drink this, it will wake you up a bit". Nat grabs the soda and guzzles it down. His parched throat feels some relief. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and looks around. As he looks around, he notices he is in a dingy hotel room. The shades are open and the moon is shining in. "Come on, we Got to go and catch up with the clan" the man says as he grabs his hand and pulls him up. He then drags him out the window, onto the fire escape. As Nat looks down, he notices that they are about five stories up. "Let's go,” he says as he jumps off the five escape, dragging Nat along.
"Wwwwwhhhhhaaaatttttt ttttthhhhheeee hhhhheeeelllllllll" he screams as they rush towards the street. But to his surprise, they don't splat, instead he lands with no pain whatsoever. As he looks at himself, he asks, "What the hell happened to me?" The guy just smiles at him and says, "You became a vampire". As he says this, he turns and smiles at Nat and flashes his fangs. A shocked look comes over Nat's face and he brings him hand up to his mouth and feels his teeth. Sure enough, there are two fangs in there. "No time to explain now" he says as he grabs Nat again and jumps into the back of a truck. They speed off towards an unknown destination.
After a few hours of traveling down to the subways and through tunnels, they finally arrive at a dimly lit room. The room is carved out of stone and quite large. It is well furnished with old couches and recliners. They look to be discarded pieces that have been fixed up. Odd patches cover various areas of the upholstery. Hanging from the ceiling are lanterns that provide all the light to the room. There are a few men sitting here. They stare at the two of them as they come into the room. Nat's companion speaks "It's all right, he has just been initiated". They show little emotion as Nat walks by. They head through a hallway and into a cavern of sorts. The room is extremely large and there are many people sitting around. They are sitting on rocks that have been carved to resemble chairs. As they walk into the room, one of the men stands up and walks over. "Who the hell is this?" he screams at the other vampire. "He is a reporter who I just initiated" he replies. With that the other vampire grabs him by the neck and tosses him against a far wall. He falls to the ground and gasps as he tries to breath. He then jumps over and lands next to him. He puts his boot over the gasping man's throat and pushes down. "You know that there is to be no initiation without my approval,” he says as he pushes his foot down. After a few seconds, he lets up and walks over to Nat. As he gets near, Nat feels the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up. For one of the first times in his life, he is truly scared. The man then offers his hand and says, "My name is Dominick and I lead this clan. If you want your afterlife to be a pleasant one, you will follow my rules". Nat shakes his hand a responds "M-m-m-y-y-y name is N-n-n-a-a-a-t". As he shakes his hand, he can feel the sheer power of the shake. This is one powerful person. As he lets go of his hand, Dominick walks him over to the other men. "This is Eugene or as he prefers to be called Geno, this here is Derrick, Rog, Steve, Terrance, Spike and Mitchell". He then points over to the guy laying on the floor and says, "You have already met Mike and the two in the other room are Jack and Kurt". He then says, "I know you are thinking these are exactly the kind of names that vampires in the movies have". "Well, now that you mention it" Nat nervously says. "That my boy is because these are New World Vampires. The ones of Hollywood are Old World Vampires and have the names of the Old World. I am an Old World Vampire, hence the name" he says. Before Nat can say anything else, Dominick says, "You might as well sit down and relax, dinner will be here in a short time". With that, he walks off to another room.
As Nat sits down, one of the other vampires walks up and sits down next to him. "Rog here, don't worry about Dom, he really isn't so bad" he says as he shakes Nat's hand. "What did he mean about that New World/Old World stuff?" he asks. "Oh that is just his boasting. As he puts it, vampires with purer blood are more powerful than ones that are watered down". "I don't understand,” inquires Nat. "Think of it in terms of Xerox copies. The original is always better than a copy. Then if you make a copy of the copy, it gets worse. Same with vampires or so he says. The older vampires from the Old World, you know, Europe, are supposedly better and stronger than the vampires over here in the US or the New World” he tries to explain. "Is this true?" he asks. "Possibly as Dom can kick any of our asses. For someone who is supposedly over 500 years old, he is one bad ass." Rog says.
Before Nat can have any more questions answered, he hears some commotion coming from one of the tunnels. After a few minutes, he sees a handful of men walk in with a bunch of people with hoods over their heads. The people are all tied up at the hands and it looks a lot like the slave trains of old. One of the men speaks "Hey, here's ya payment. Boss says ya doing a good job, but the wolves are getting out of hand a bit, can ya like do something about them?" Suddenly Dominick appears back into the room. He walks over to the man and says "Tell your boss that the wolves will be handled tonight, just keep the supply coming". "No problem. Well, we are busy men, so we got to get going." he says with a scared twinge in his voice. The men make a hasty retreat out of the room as Dominick begins to pull the hoods off the people. As he pulls off the hoods, he reveals men, women and even children. They look Central American in appearance. Suddenly the other vampires crowd around the helpless people. Dominick turns and looks at Nat and says "This is your dinner, since you are new here, you get the leftovers". "What are you going to do with them?" he asks. Dominick bares his fangs and says "We're vampires, what do you think we are going to do?" and he bites down into the neck of one of the men. Suddenly the entire clan of vampires join in attacking the helpless people. The screams of the victims echo through the caverns. Nathaniel runs out of the room and falls to the floor. He bends over as to throw up, but cannot do it. He heaves and heaves, but nothing comes of it. What has he gotten himself into? He runs over and crawls into a corner and covers his ears.
After an hour or so, Rog comes over and puts his hand on Nat's shoulder. "It will take awhile, but you will get used to it." he says. "Where do those people come from?" Nat asks. Rog looks at him and slowly answers "They're refugees, you know boat people. The mob picks them up and gives them to us as payment for protecting their turf." "Protect their turf, from what?" he asks. "Why the other mobs of course.” he says with a laugh. "But they are the mob, what do they need with vampires?" he asks. Rog then sits down and gets comfortable "Let me tell how it is. You see it all started with the Jamaicans. They came in here and started pushing their drugs, but that wasn't cool with the other mobs here, so a war broke out. But they knew they couldn't outmuscle the Italian or Chinese mobs so they resorted to Voodoo. They brought some high priest or something in here and he did his thing. Next thing you know, there are these bunch of zombies running around and the Jamaicans are gaining ground." "I remember the mob war, but never heard about the zombies or anything, how did they cover it up,” Nat asks. " Well, the mob has ways of covering up everything. But to get back to the story, so with this happening the other mobs had to do something. The Italians went and brought us in, the vampires. The Russian mob sided with the damned werewolves and the Chinese teamed up with the demons". He then looks up as some of the other guy’s head over. As they sit down, he finishes "So you see, we are sort of a supernatural muscle for the mob. We keep their turf safe and they supply us with fresh bodies, understand?" "I guess, but I still don't know how this all goes on without the press finding out" he asks. One of the other guys, Terrance, chimes in "Money buys anything including silence". Another one of the vampires bares his fangs and adds “What money cannot silence, is hushed up the old fashioned way.”
CHAPTER 4:THE HUNT
While time is irrelevant to Nat, he is soon summoned to join the other vampires in a hunt. Since they are headed upward, he can only guess that it is night. As word of a hunt spreads through the area, it is greeted with lots of cheering and sounds of excitement. He is unaware of what a hunt is and can only guess. Since they already ate, he finds it hard to believe it deals with humans. As he rushes to catch up with some of the other vampires, he stops Terrance and asks him "What is a hunt and why is everyone getting so excited?" Terrance stops momentarily to answer his question "Every so often one of the other creatures of the night crosses the border into our turf. When this happens, all truces are off and we have to make an example of him". With this, he takes off towards the head of the pack. Before they leave the area, they stop in a room and put on their battle gear. While each vampire has their own unique gear, most of it is just cloaks, belts and other forms of garments. Many of the belts are adorned with trophies from previous hunts. There are furry ears, presumably from werewolves and fangs that are most likely from the demons. It seems to be some sort of ranking, as the ones with the most trophies are the first to leave. Knowing that they are in a hurry, Nat doesn't bother anyone else. He just follows along to see what all the fuss is about.
Soon they are out in the moonlight and some of them immediately take to the roofs. Most just leap up the side of the building, while others climb up fire escapes. Another group stays on the ground. Dominick stays on the ground and leads the group. As he walks along, he pulls out a walkie talkie and begins to converse with another vampire. "Have you located the prey, roger?” he says into the talkie. Nat in astonishment looks at him. Dominick turns to Nat and says, "What did you think, were telepathic?"
A few moments later, a message came over the walkie-talkie "We got one cornered at the alley on 5th Street, over". With this news, all the vampires headed to the alley. As they got there, Nat sees his first werewolf. The snarling beast has its arms pinned to the wall by two of the vampires. It is trying to bite them as they stick their fingers in his face to provoke him. He really looks like the creatures of fairy tales. He is very large, about six and a half feet tall and covered with hair. He had a long, doglike snout and glowing eyes. "Lemme go dammit" he snarled as he snaps at the teasing fingers. Before he has a chance to say anything else, Dominick steps up to him. "I see someone has claimed a trophy,” he said as he looks at the missing ear. "I will kill the bastard, he's dead, dead,” the beast snarls as he struggles to break free. "That is the last of your worries, my friend" Dominick says as he grabs the werewolf by the snout and holds it shut. "You are deep within our turf and you know the penalty for that, don't you" he says as he moves the head up and down. Suddenly fear is seen in the wolf’s eyes. "We cannot just have you poaching on our turf, can we? How would that look if we let anyone just come here and hunt?" he says as he stares deeply into the beast’s eyes. He then takes his free hands and shoves it deep into he beast’s stomach, tearing through the flesh and fur. After a few seconds in there, he pulls the hand out and in his grasp is much of the beast’s stomach and intestines. He rips them from its body and tosses them on the ground. After he does this, he looks into the beasts eyes, which are wincing in pain and says, "This is your final warning. Next time we will tear you apart, piece by piece, until there is nothing left to tear". He then walks away and the other vampires release the werewolf, who falls to the ground and crawls over to pick up his guts and tries to stick them back in his body. The vampires then walk away laughing. As Nat walks away, Rog comes over and explains to him "This may seem pretty cruel to not just kill the animal, but you got to understand that wolves are fast healers. If ya shoot them, they are fully healed in a day. If ya tear off an arm, it will grow back in a few days. But by tearing out their guts, it will take a whole week, a whole long, agonizing week to heal and that is something the wolf will never forget." While the logic makes sense to Nat, he questions the reasoning. He asks "Why would you want a pissed off wolf after you when you could just kill him and not have to worry about him?" Rog just looks at him as he puts his arm around Nat's shoulder and says "Sometimes you have to make an example of one of them. He will go back to the pack and tell the others. After they see him suffer, they will think twice before crossing into our territory again. They are just stupid dogs and they need some obedience training". With this, they all head back to their hideout, where they go to celebrate their victory over the savage beast.
Back at the den, the vampires are all partying. There is a lot of booze being passed around. Nat grabs a bottle of whiskey, figuring he can erase the last few days from his mind. He starts to drink it down and finds that the usual sting that he was so used to feel, isn't quite so bad. In fact, it tastes pretty weak. He quickly downs the entire body and waits to get sick. After awhile, he starts to feel a bit lightheaded, but that is the only symptom. This is very odd as a few drinks used to knock him out. He was always a lightweight, when it came to drinking, as he never was much of a drinker. A casual drinker at best and very casual at that. But this whiskey is barely having any effect on him. So he drops the bottle and takes a seat. Rog comes over and puts his arm on his shoulder "One bummer about being a vampire is that alcohol doesn't have much effect on us. Same for drugs. Guess we are brain dead or something, eh" he says as he laughs. "Then why does everyone drink, if it doesn't really do anything?" he asks. "Because we can! Nothing is better than going to a bar and drinking everyone under the table, it is like so awesome, man!" he says as he downs his bottle of booze. Suddenly, Nat begins to bend over in pain. "Man, my gut is killing me. What the hell is wrong with me?" he screams as he falls on the ground and clutches his stomach in pain. All the vampires start to head over to watch the action. As they stand over him, Rog looks down and asks, "When is the last time you ate?" Nat rolls over and looks up and says "I have no idea, not since I became I vampire. Why?" He screams. "Because stupid, your body is starving. It needs blood man, real live blood,” he says. Dominick then motions over to one of the vampires and he runs over and brings back a clear bag of blood. "Drink this, quick,” he says as he hands it to Nat. Knowing what it is, Nat refuses it. "Listen here you ignorant fool, you need blood to survive. Like it or not, it is part of being a vampire. Our bodies cannot make their own blood and we need to replenish our supply from the living. So drink this or the pain will be much worse,” Dominick says as he forces the bag into Nat's hand. While it repulses him, the basic instinct of survival overtakes him and he grabs the bag of blood and downs it. At first the taste is alien to him, but he soon finds it palatable. He then finishes it off and begins to feel his strength slowly coming back.
Deadline © 2001- 2008 Tom Zjaba