The Undead Paladin

Need a story fix?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:11:00 +0000

As the description says I have discontunied Undead Paladin. The blog hosting it will be deleted within the week. However, if you like my story telling style and what more fiction by me hop onto Miko the Story Teller where new, hopefully better stories will be ready for you.

Course, if you love Undead Paladin and want to reread it I will be moving Undead Paladin to that site as well, so don't fret.

For all the hugs and love:

Mikodite Yvette

Chapter 15: Continued Decent

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Watts walked into the unforgiving streets of Toronto, avoiding the checkpoints as much as possible as it would mean that he would get caught by them. In such a large city the vampire population got a foothold as they ran through the densely packed city during the earlier days of the outbreak, before war measure's act was invoked. It didn't help that a small sect of vampire grouped up and hunted the streets. The bloodshed became so vile along the major streets that many Torontoains has entered voluntary curfew policies of their own long before they became mandatory by the government. This explained the checkpoints that littered the streets as well: not that they were unique to Toronto, as other large cities has such things as well.

Now that Watts was on these streets he had to get to the 'safehouse' that Twist was at in order to determine where Twist was at the night he was taken to that place in the outskirts of Orillia. Lilith's network of contacts has verified without question that Toronto is a compromised city, not that it was easy to stay under the radar of the police, whom were highly street-savy and tough before the outbreak went full swing^*, and outright paranoid now.

Now, Watts knew the address, but the challenge was to get to the house, thus bypassing several checkpoints along the way, and then finding out what happened to the people in that house. Did this third-party, established from Amanda's insight, come from one of the major drug companies whom where hunting for a cure/treatment/vaccine? Once Watts finds out where those people in the house went, the next step would be to find them and ask them about Twist.

In the dark and dirty streets, this wasn't going to be easy.

***

“Lilith... Lilith!” Mable from the day shift approached the hostel owner in a haste while in conference with a guest, “its the police. They want to talk to you.”

Lilith quickly turned to Mable. “Continue this for me... its something about bed bugs.” Then waltz down to the foyer where the familiar boys in blue were waiting for her.

“What can I do for you lads?” she asked simply. After all, it wasn't like she, like, didn't do anything.

“Miss, this is in regards to a disturbance a few nights ago,” the one cop started to speak.

“Oh yeah, heard about it... it was a few nights ago,” Lilith responded, “It made such a ruckus dammit, and I have guests that need their beauty sleep... isn't like they could just go out on a night in the town.”

“Miss, a woman was found dead,” the other cop stated, “she was ided and all, but we need to know if you remember anything from that night.”

“Was she killed by a nightcrawler?” Lilith asked with a gulp in her voice.

“No,” the cop replied rather quickly... too quickly.

“Well, I'm afraid I just heard a scuffle and a scream,” Lilith shrugged, “I would have called it in except that, well, you fine boys and girls would already be out and about, with it being midnight and all and I have to have my guests tucked into beddy-bye at that time... you know, cuz of something about curfews, martial law, and gestapo.

The two officers huffed in annoyance and one said to Lilith “alright then... but if you think of anything... I mean, someone's daughter, sister, mother, and possibly wife, died a few nights ago.” The two then turned to leave, but one of them turned back to her.

“Well? What are you waiting for copper?” Lilith said into his eyes, “I have a business to run and you must got shit to do... seeing that last I checked I pay taxes.”

“Ma'am, there is some suspect activity going on here,” the officer simply replied.

“You scared of a few homeless vagrants hiding in a hostel now?” Lilith asked mockingly, “I would think you would have better things to worry about, like, say, for example... vampires?”

“Its daylight at the moment,” the officer merely replied, “so the concern is less on vampires and more on gangs.”

“And you think I have something to do with either?” she replied simply.

“Aside from the... death a few days ago there was a shooting last night,” the officer went on, “do you by chance know a Darryl Jones?”

“Nope,” Lilith replied, “should I?”

“He was found with a gun that was reported stolen,” the officer replied.

“Ok... and this matters how?” Lilith asked, “and make it fast copper: I don't have all day.”

“Ma'am, I know the kind of game you are running,” the officer responded simply, “Best be careful while I run the shop... the shop that never closes.”

With that the police officer left. Lilith shrugged and went back upstairs.

Amanda was at the top of the stairs. “What was that all about?”

“Copper wanted info on a vamp attack and some jerk with a gun,” Lilith shock her head at the thought.

“Didn't the officer say that the girl wasn't killed by a...” Amanda started to ask, only to be cut off with “course he did: he doesn't want to cause panic over an isolated instance.

“Though I'm more worried about that gun,” Lilith went on, “it wouldn't by chance be the one that went missing from the armory, is it?” Lilith asked, looking Amanda in the eyes.

“Uh... how should I know?” Amanda replied, “I... I don't know anything about a missing gun.”

“Ok then,” Lilith replied before heading back upstairs.

*By Canadian Standards, which were just a step above the stereotypical British cop whom, until 9/11, wouldn't even carry a gun.

Chapter 14: Brasing Changing Tides

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:21:00 +0000

Watts was on a bus heading to the hot zone known as Toronto. Knowledge that the safe house in Toronto had been seized ran through his mind, so his thirst for vengeance on Twist ^* was going to be a a difficult and dangerous one to quench. Nevertheless, Watts mind was set on it, and no possibility of being killed by Toronto police or vampire hunters wasn't going to deter him.

Course, getting on the bus was a bit of a challenge: after all, he was going to be searched before boarding by the driver. He obviously didn't get caught, I mean, it was daylight out and Watts was concealed enough to block the sun, but expose enough that no one would look at him and think 'vampire.' With that, he boarded, while smuggling the gun that he was going to use on the people or person responsible for Twist's death.

The ride was calm. The bus wasn't packed like it would have been back in the days where many a Barbarian^** flocked to the centre of the universe^*** known as Toronto, Ontario with its shining lights and its tall skyscrapers that made it a miniature of New York City, USA. These days, especially now, being in the country or a small town was more advantageous than a larger city. Why? Its simple really: the police can only be in so many places, and larger cities tend to have more police - and vampire hunters – than a smaller location.

Those lucky bastards living in the Yukon, North West Territories, and Nunavut^****!

Anyways, there was a plan to get some of the survivors from the 'incident' in Orillia to Toronto, where they could hide in the crowd. However, with the blitzkriegs the police, hunters, and apparently a third bad party, occurred, no smart person is going to dare Toronto unless they were stupid, or had a day job down there... or really liked being harassed by police and waiting in lines at checkpoints.

This was going to be hard, and Watts knew this from the get go. Course, he will need all the help he can get... like where the black market is so he can get more ammo for his illegal handgun.

***

“Well, well, if it isn't the jail bird...” Lilith's voice trailed when Amanda walked into her hostile, “I got word from the street... you wouldn't have been the only dumbass that got themselves caught out in the middle of the night.”

“Sorry Lilith,” Amanda replied, “I just... well... I needed air... tis all... really.”

“Air?” Lilith replied, “and let me guess: you stepped out for a brief moment and the police were on to you like flies are to honey,” Lilith asked in a mocking tone.

“Yes... yes that's right,” Amanda stuttered.

“Your welcome,” Lilith replied with a cold grin on her face. Amanda stared at her, confused.

“Lilith... I don't think I understand...” a piece of Amanda was panicking. Did Lilith know what Amanda was up to that night on the streets of downtown Barrie?

“Someone had to help you with that garbage story,” she scornfully spat, “I mean, the police, assuming their not challenge on a matter more important, are quick, but they are not as fast as Superman.”

“Are you...” the words died in Amanda's voice when Lilith piped in “yes darling, I am.”

There was a cold and shivering silence. Amanda's cold skin started to sweat as she felt the tension rise. Lilith's serpent-like glare was nailing her deep in her soul.

Finally, the silence broke: “Now, again... cuz no one just steps outside in the middle of the night when there is a country-wide curfew,” Lilith's harsh accusation rang true.

“Lilith, I was outside... I just wanted to feel the air... walk around a little... the sun doesn't feel right anymore, you know?” Amanda's voice shrilled with innocence: innocent she could have had a week ago. Damn them in the lab for making her this way.

“The sun doesn't feel right?” Lilith replied, “really now?

“Watch this!”

Lilith stepped towards the door of the lobby area they were in. She opened the heavily tinted door that lead from the hostile to the sunny day outside.

It was quick.

Lilith stepped into a beam of sun that shone from the opened door. Her skin started to smoke. It turned red. She screamed in agony.

It was quick.

After what must have been less than five seconds the doors were closed and Lilith approached Amanda. Her exposed skin was red. Parts of it were blistered. Lilith stared wild-eyed at a horrified Amanda.

“Now... quit your bitching Ms Cullen and be thankful you can still walk in the sun,” An angry tone growled from Lilith, “don't walk outside at night unless you must dammit.”

***

“Mommy, I assure you, I'm alright,” Paula replied to her mom when she was questioned on her cold skin. Paula's tattered clothes, along with the dirt and the sweat that dried on her was a deep indicator of what she had gone through. She sat at the table as her mother prodded her on.

“Honey, what happened?” she asked her.

“Mom... these people... they took me... they did 'things' to me... but I escaped... there were others... like me...” her words were disjointed and stressed. Paula clearly didn't want to talk about what happened, but mommy wouldn't allow for it.

“Sweetheart, where did they take you?” Mom kept going.

“This lab. They stuck needles into me...” her voice trailed off.

“And you say there were others?” Of course mom was worried: suppose something horrible was happening that could affect the household.

“Yes...” Paula went on, “all in this cellblock. I remember some people were having conversations in through the cells...” Paula chuckled, “there was this one woman... she was about Hannah's age I guess, who kept praying... over and over again... the same prayers and everything.”

“What did they do to you,” mom kept at it.

“They stuck me with needles... I don't know what was in the needles.”

“But your so cold.”

“I know... I know! Please, I don't want to talk about it.”

*Would you like a plot hint? Click the link. Your welcome.

**A slang term referring to people from the city of Barrie.

***A nickname given to the city of Toronto, in reference to how the city is covered in Canadian media and the fact that Toronto is known for being a really big city with a high ethnic diversity: facts residents love to brag about.

****Northern territories in Canada, which tend to be sparely populated.

Chapter 13: New Paths

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:15:00 +0000

“He created the world in seven days, breathing life into us so we could walk in creation with him. He delivered us from the bonds of slavery in Egypt, and he gave prosperity to us in Israel. Despite this we sinned, and acted ungratefully. He could have smited us, but instead he gave us his son to pay our debt of sin in his blood.

“Now, before you retort with 'but what has he done for you; specifically?' well he has done much for me. For one thing he granted me spiritual guidance through the church and their sacraments. He forgives my sins so that I may go into heaven when judgement comes. He is why I am alive and why I walk the world today.

“God has granted me much... much that a godless person like you can't possibly fathom, though the church doors are always open, and you can learn. Course, God extends his good work as he is the source of goodness, and the light. He is why there is good: and we must combat the evil that is among us. God is forgiving, but he punishes us as a father punishes his children. I know your going to jump on that, but he does reward good behaviour as well, for he is a good father... better than any parent in the world.

“God made me this way for a reason... I'm not sure what it is, though I assume it has something to do with the need to rid the evil before the events in Genesis eighteen sixteen to nineteen twenty-nine^*... or worse, Genesis chapters six to nine^** repeat themselves in our time. In this, if I can stop the horsemen of the apocalypse from coming, as they have been predicted in Revelations... perhaps that is the best thing God has done for me: made me a vassal for his work on Earth.”

***

Lilith was still in a bad mood from the missing gun from the makeshift armoury inside her office. Morning had broke and the hostel guests who didn't live there were starting to leave. Matilda, the early morning clerk, who was hired mostly for not being pale nor having shoddy circulation, sat with her eyes in mid-haze as the guests rolled out. Some still remember the days when the night wasn't something to fear, but that was long ago... relatively speaking.

From the dungeon that was the basement emerged a tired and angry Lilith. “Everything alright miss...” Matilda tried to say, only to be cut off with “Nothing is the matter.” Matilda had no part of the events that occurred within the little grouping that Lilith had amassed and Lilith wanted it to stay that way.

Watts followed Lilith shortly thereafter with a piece in his hoodie. Lilith quickly grabbed him. “Should I remind you that Toronto is in a state of shutdown due to events from last week?” she quickly barked at him. The boy was almost a son to her, and she didn't want to lose him.

“Yeah...” Watts replied.

“That the people that killed Twist were thoughtless enough about him that they burned his corpse to despise of the evidence?”
“Yeah...”

“That those people in Orillia are willing to kill to protect their secrets?”

“Lilith, I'm aware of the dangers,” Watts finally replied before walking out the door, his hoodie up and a pair of shades to guard his eyes as he went down the street.

***

“Is there a dude hiding in the clouds that treats us as children from the day we are born to the day we die? Is Big Brother really out there beyond the gov bullshit? I'm infected. I'm infected like so many others out there. Where is this dude when Twist died? He did nothing wrong, if you can believe that.

“Its funny... see, my mom died when I was little, and Lilith took me in. Flawed she is, but I can't imagine a better parent out there then her. If God is really a good parent why so many kids in shit skids? Why all the talk of hell and death Amanda?

“God gave me nothing: he is a bastard. Real humans have been nicer to me, and the church is poison. The devil is in vampires. The devil is in heretics. The devil is in the man. The devil is in all of us.

“Now, get your head out of your ass. Messiah you are not... bitch.”

*When God smites Sodom and Gomorrah

**The Noah's Ark story

Chapter 12: Inciting Incident

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:42:00 +0000

Leana held a knife out to a random man who had the unfortunate of being caught outside during the night. She pressed him against a brick wall with the illusion of strength that she had as a result of being a vampire. She gave him a longing stare before branding her teeth for the kill.

“Please, I just want to live,” the man plead.

“Food shouldn't talk,” she replied as her fangs readied for a bite.

Not that Leana had much of a chance, for in the corner of her eye she saw the silhouette of a woman shakily holding a gun. She was pointing it at her direction. Leana froze for a moment, but then called out “You gonna shoot yourself or what missy?”

No response was given. Instead a shot rang out. The woman holding the gun jumped at the sound and Leana responded by running down the alleyway. The man sighed and looked at the stranger with the gun and nodded in fear. “Thank you miss...”

At this moment sirens could be heard from the distance. The night patrol heard the gunshots and were on their way to the alley. The man looked to the woman.

“Those police aren't going to like that you have a gun: hear, give it to me. You saved my life, its the least I can do.”

His words rang through her head as she complied and gave him the gun. He then ducked out after Leana as the police came and surrounded the area.

Leana was caught on the other end of the alley while the man was nabbed further out. A routine padding down of his person revealed the gun, still warm from the recent shot that had rang out of it. The other woman, who was in too much shock to run, was peacefully picked up by the police.

“Yeah, I was attacked by that bitch-vampire-thing,” the man could be heard speaking, “so I pulled that beauty out and shot at her... I fucking missed thought... dammit.”

Leana struggled with two officers before being hit on the head with a nightstick and leaned on by the officers as they coiffed her hands and feet.

“Miss, gunshots were heard here,” one cop told the strange woman, “what do you know about them?”

“I heard shots...” she replied simply.

“Ok miss,” the officer replied, “but I still have to take you in for violating the curfew. Do you understand?”

She nodded. As the cop lead her to his car he noticed that her hands were very cold. He turned to her. “Are you a vampire?” he asked.

“... No,” the strange woman replied.

The cop appeared to be in deep thought. “You can shine a UV light on me if you're not sure,” she simply said as though she was being accused of something.

“Easy miss,” the cop responded as he nudged her head into the car, “this must be your first time being picked up at this time of the night: we do the UV test at the station as standard procedure.”

With that the car made its way to the station. The man and the woman were being booked. While the man had to provide his finger prints and have a mug shot done on him as he was being charged with “Possession of a concealed and unregistered firearm” the woman was simply sent to the drunk-tank.

Course, before that, the UV test.

You see, the police have their thick moments, but they are not stupid. They have figured out at the start of the major outbreak in Canada that putting a vampire in a cramped cell with a bunch of non-vampires is an inherently bad idea. So, anyone that tests positive under the UV test will be sent... actually I have no idea where they are sent, just not with the others in the drunk-tank.

So with that, the strange woman was taken to this room with an officer holding a light. They knew the drill: a non-reaction was negative for the rotolamia virus while burning and writhing in pain was positive.

So they were deeply perplex when they held the light under the woman and her skin started to sparkle under it.

“The hell?” one officer exclaimed.

“I'm not a vampire... see, the skin is not burning,” the woman insisted.

“She was cold to the touch,” the arresting officer informed the others.

“I have a poor circulation,” the woman retorted.

“Does she have fangs?” one officer asked.

“None that I can see,” the arresting officer replied.

“Throw her in the drunk-tank with the others,” the one officer finally said.

Chapter 11: The Sweeping Tides

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:18:00 +0000

It was night in the sleeping city of Barrie. The police were on patrol looking for anyone caught outside the curfew. This was the moment that some of the vampires went on hunts, while others just hid in their whatever dwelling they lived in just as terrified as anyone else. The streets are quiet, with the march of policefolk being all that was out – and anyone smart enough to avoid detection.

Not that the police were anything to genuinely be afraid of: if your caught outside and look healthy they would just slap cuffs on you, drag you into the back of a patty-wagon, and drive you to central lock-up, where you would be booked and asked to sit in the affectionately named 'drunk-tank' until dawn. Sure, some of the coppers would be less than nice or outright dicks, you know, using the curfew as an excuse to outright torture people and hide behind the badge and the War-Measures Act, but such is life: the monsters are everywhere. Good news, however, its better than the PMCs who specialize in vampire hunting.

No, you don't want to tango with those fuckers. I mean, the police at least try to screen out those with an absent or screwed moral compass. The PM fucking Cs on the other hand aren't regulated as heavily, and because there have been so many blood-crazy vampires the government got desperate and tried to get more people out hunting the vampires as their numbers grew.

There is good news and bad news across the board. One must tread softly and carefully, and remember that reality is chaos and to expect black and white order is like trying to corral screaming cats.

***

Watts was standing at the foyer entrance and stared at the door to the place. His stare was bordering the creepy tones of obsession, as though he was awaiting someone to walk through that door any moment. The curfew would make sure such wasn't the case, but in the meantime Lilith never locked the door and had no qualms about dealing with any nightwalker: provided they had the funds for a roof that evening.

An equally restless Amanda walked down from the hostile room she was assigned and noticed Watts standing there. She made an attempt to slip by when Watts muttered “Quiet evening, isn't it?”

“Sure,” Amanda replied as she made her way to the lift that was destined for the basement.

“You need blood?” he asked quickly, “I recommend that you look for a fangbanger and ask them for their blood.”

“I'm alright for now,” she replied, even though the thought was starting to make her crave for such an abhorred delicacy.

“Then where are you going?” he asked again. There was an uncomfortable silence. Watts then asked “your heading for the basement?”

“And if I am?” Amanda replied defensively.

“I don't know if Lilith would approve,” Watts simply replied.

“You worried about that woman?” Amanda replied, “cuz, well... yeah I would worry about her... but for different reasons.”

Watts rolled his eyes at her. “Don't mind her: she jokes like that.

“Still, you wouldn't want to cross her: she manages this operation to keep the vampires protected from the government and the PMCs,” Watts went on.

“Right,” Amanda replied with a simple smirk, “she's a lord: with favours in every disgusting orifice of the underworld.”

“One does what they have to do,” Watts comment was simple and quick.

“Watts, dammit,” Amanda shook her head, “Its one thing if you were offered up to the devil: its another thing entirely to volunteer.”

Watts turned from the door he was staring at and looked Amanda sorely in the eyes. “The devil, huh?” he muttered. He's glance was cold and hard. “You believe in that shit, don't you?”

“Oh, don't give me that,” Amanda replied, “There is an evil force that lingers about, one that is to be fought at all times: a force against all that is good.”

“As if the world worked like that,” Watts responded, “Cuz evil ain't a force.”

“Yes it is,” Amanda went on, “and it comes from the devil: to further our suffering on Earth. I mean, the vampires are part of that army, in how they desecrate...”

“Is it that easy for you?” Watts interrupted in a plume of anger, “that the world is black and white? Black and white and at odds?

“How bout those hand-shaking moments with devils where the 'good' had to make a bargain with the 'evil' to end stalemates?

“Or the basic fact that no one does anything in evil's name... ever? Are you that juvenile in thought?

“Or how about the fact that people where made to suffer... in God's blasted name?”

“Oh no innocent believer was killed in God's name,” Amanda responded quickly, “Only the heretics. God demands that his children obey so they don't fall for the evil...”

“Do you know what we call people who demand that kind of unconditional obedience?” Watts interrupted her. After a brief, uncomfortable, silence he responded: “Tyrants.”

“They're not God...” Amanda stammered.

“You defend a tyrant?” Watts exclaimed, “What has he ever done for you?”

***

“A weapon is gone?” Lilith paced through her office in her office in the basement.

“Who you think took it,” Batsie asked Lilith.

“I have an idea, and I will be checking it,” Lilith responded, “Now, where did Watts go? Knowing him he's plotting vengeance on the behalf of Twist. Dumb kid.”

“You think he would...”

“Those two were close you know,” Lilith snapped quickly, “course, I'm upset that Watts would do this: I mean I might let him go on this vengeance quest, but I just ask that he get permission for the dam gun just so I know where the thing is and I'm not hunting for thieves in the Barrie area.”

“Right, naturally,” Batsie replied, “though I really don't want him to get hurt.”

“Save your feelings Bat,” Lilith's response was cold, “I doubt he could ever look at him the way you look at him.”

At that point there was a knock on Lilith's office door. She went to open it, and saw Watts standing on the other side of the door.

“Lilith do you have a gun I can use?” he asked her.

“What about the one you already took out of the hold?” she baggered him.

“What?” Watts retorted, “Lilith I wouldn't take a gun without the ok: you mean too much to me.”

After a brief pause Lilith uttered harshly “Oh piss.”

Chapter 10: Recogning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:51:00 +0000

“Anyways, as you might have figured out already, this is a safe house for vampires,” Lilith spoke as she led Amanda to a room in the basement. With a click of the door they were inside this room.

This room with a computer from the early 21^st century sitting on an oak desk. This room with a rack filled with various hand gun and rifle hanging on the back wall next to an open box of ammo on the floor. This room, with the trappings of a mastermind everywhere, was seen to further place Lilith as some sort of leader.

“We are organized Amanda,” Lilith merely spoke, “and we must be: the police love locking us up in the drunk tank and the PMCs assigned to vampire hunting are very indiscriminate.”

“We're monsters, what is to be...” Amanda interjected for a stern Lilith to reply “No, we are not monsters. We are not demon spawns, and we are not sent by the devil or god or whatever shit you believe in to 'punish' the innocent – assuming there is even such a thing.”

“We stalk their children, we kill them as they walk, as they sleep,” Amanda rambled on, “we populate to take the world over, and to kill the humans as the holy rapture comes...” “Watts wasn't kidding, was he Ms Cullen?” Lilith quietly uttered under her breath as Amanda continued to ramble on, “...as part of the advancement of evil into the world. These people are just defending themselves from that fate: the faithful will be saved while the rest are to be a feast to the vampires – us – at the end...”

“Your the faithful, right?” Lilith asked in a voice loud enough to grab her attention. The smile she gave Amanda was juicy with villainy – teeth bared in a mocking and cruel fashion. There she waited for the silenced Amanda to search her thoughts for the answer.

“O-f-f course!” Amanda's voice shook, “I am faithful... I...” Pain was in her voice before her thoughts on the night she prayed in the woods, and found herself sparkling under the sunlight. “I am faithful: God saved me! He forgave me!” her voice rang with a sudden confidence, a certainty that she had forgotten and will never forget, “you see it in my skin, in my condition: I don't burn. God has plans for me, I'm more than a monster!”

Lilith's cold look was anything but forgiving as she looked at Amanda with this fervour that she had gained. This Lilith replied with a coldly placed question: “Are you a Jesus Freak or an egotistical bitch?”

“I can't deny what I saw, and you can ask Watts,” Amanda replied under the assumption logic was on her side, “he saw! I'm not a vampire, or at least I'm not a normal one. You can't deny what that makes me?”

Lilith opened her mouth to speak, but whatever words she could spout died in her throat and she sat back in her chair. After a brief moment of thought she turned her glance to Amanda and gave a soft giggle. “I get it,” she chucked, “I get it with you Ms Cullen: its either think your a demon-monster thing, or think yourself as some sort of paladin – a vampiric paladin, an 'undead' paladin.

“May the fibre of reality change for you my sweet, sweet girl.”

***

“Nox tells me you claimed Twist died,” Watts spoke to a pale, dark-haired, young woman about his age.

“Yea, sorry Wattsie,” the woman replied simply, “I know he meant a lot to you.”

“But how?” Watts replied with anger brewing in his voice.

“As I told Nox, those fuckers in the woods with the fancy shit held this big boom-fire out in the outskirts of Orillia,” she answered in a strange combination of cold anger and colder matter-of-factness, “they were stuffing corpses into the fire and... well, I saw Twist in there as one of those bodies.

“They must have picked him up when he was at the safehouse in Toronto. He was checking on stuff there... Watts?” the woman took note that Watts had wandered a few paces and stared at the door in the closet room on the second floor. She followed. “Again, I'm sorry.”

“Batsie, why?” Watts simple said.

“Watts, I'm,” As Batsie spoke Watts turned to her. “Leave me,” he meekly asked, “Please?”

With that Batsie walked out of the room. Watts sat down and was silent. He was angry that Twist was gone: that he went into those woods looking for him and some sparkling Jesus freak was all he could show for it.

He nodded to himself. Those bastards will get their revenge.

Chapter 9: Decent

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 03:33:00 +0000

“Blood, blood! I need blood!” Francine shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Please, hurry, hurry.”

“Its coming my dear,” Ronald replied as he eyed the tube stuck in his wrist, “Its coming, please calm down.”

“Look at me dammit!” Francine screamed, “Look at me.”

Indeed it was a sight Ronald wasn't surprised to see. The women before him looked terrible; her eyes had bags under them and they were bloodshot from the Red Bull she chugged down earlier to get her through the day with energy. She was disgustingly pale and starting to turn yellow, her breathing was heavy and labouring; she was slumped over a chair she had plopped in without thought. All this was the signs of anaemia, and he had to act fast to get his blood into her before she went blood crazy and bite him.

“I see you my dear,” Ronald replied simply, “Please Francine, I don't want to go though...”

“Just shut up and get me the blood!” she exclaimed with what energy she could muster. She began to cry at this point.

“Here,” Ronald held a plastic baggy loaded with his blood in it, “All the iron you can use.”

While he removed himself from the rig he watched Francine, greedily bite into the bag and start drinking the precious red liquid that was inside. He slumped into a nearby chair and breathed a little when she was done. He watched her walked into the fridge, fiddle around with a few items and approached him with a juice box and a pre-packaged sandwich.

“It isn't that I don't appreciate what you've done for me,” she merely said as she handed him the snack.

“I know, I know,” Ronald mechanically replied as he stabbed the juice box with the pre-sharpened straw.

***

“Lilith must be bringing food,” Francine exclaimed as she and Leana waited feverishly while looming over the fangbanger^* that they coned into being strapped to a table to draw nourishment from.

“We have food here,” Leana replied simply, “Course, we could use more.”

When the elevator coming down finally stopped the door predictably slide open. Out from the elevator emerged Lilith, that boy Watts, and a third unknown woman. The three approached Francine and Leana, Lilith in the lead and the unknown female at the tail. The women eyed the unknown with hunger in their eyes while they awaited the draining of the current man whom was laying wearily in a dentist chair.

“Oh, ladies,” Lilith spoke to them as she approached, “Nice to see you there, and I see you've found a surrogate... lovely.” Lilith turned her attention further down the corridor past the room they were in.

“When will she be hooked up...” Leana tried to asked, only to be quickly cut with a stern “she's not food... oh eat up and we will talk when you're not blood-crazy.”

“Blood crazy?” the woman following asked in an odd tone.

“That you just saw Amanda,” Lilith replied quickly, “they were thinking of eating you, and they would have if not that poor bloke they likely lured here under promise of sex with a vamp... some things don't change.” Their voices trailed off down the corridor.

“W-what?” the man in the dentist chair struggled as he heard the callous voice of Lilith vibrating into the room. Francine held him down as Leana grabbed the bag with the blood in it and cut the tubes from the bag to his arm.

“Why don't you be thankful that we aren't ravaging your neck and making you an abomination, or just outright killing you?” Francine growled angrily as Leana handed her the bag. The two women bit into the bag and both fought over who got the most of the blood that was in the bag. The man watched over as he struggled to stay awake.

When they were done they turned to the fellow in the dentist chair and started to unstrap him. Once they were done Leana watched him over as he struggled to his feet while Francine briefly walked out of the room. The two eyed each other uneasily before Francine returned with a glass of orange juice and a ham sandwich.

“Here, eat this to get some of your strength back,” Francine requested as the man struggled for the straw.

“You have been such a good sport darling,” Leana spoke, “now, eat up and return to your room. We are feeling much, much better now.”

***

“What would you rather they do Amanda?” Lilith found herself in a heated argument as she tightly gripped Amanda's arm so she wouldn't race to that room with the two female vampires, “Would you sooner have them break into people's houses and eat them as they sleep? Cuz I've known some that do that... some stop bothering with a little thing called morality when they start to feel blood-crazy.”

“My god, to be in the same room as amoral monsters, the armies of the beast...” Amanda tried to retort, only for a piece of horrifying logic to set in; that she was one of them. Her eyes filled with horror as she looked Lilith in the eyes. “I... am I to become that? Such beasts and monsters?” She looked like she was to cry.

“Depends,” Lilith replied unfazed, “When was the last time you've drank blood?”

“Uh...” Amanda found herself going back to the events of two days ago when she had attacked and bit a farmer's dog out near one of the many family farms and rural villages in central Ontario. Her eyes sank into her feet, as the horror of what she is becoming was flowing over her in stronger waves.

“Have you ever drink blood before?” Lilith asked with an undertone of urgency.

“It was... two nights ago...” Amanda started to cry, “I'm a monster.”

“There isn't the body of some traveller out there, is there?” Lilith asked in a callous tone that is completely uncalled for.

“I found a farm... and...” She began to cry uncontrollably.

“And what Ms...” Watts cut her off with a stern look and a quick hush. He gently turned Amanda to face him and craned himself so that he was staring into her eyes. “What went at the farm?” Watts asked in his quick-tongued manner, “We got you, we ain't turning you to nobody.”

“Well, there were these dogs... they went at me and...” Amanda stuttered as she spoke. Watts cut her off with a quick “You ate a dog?”

Amanda nodded. Watts hugged her while Lilith rolled her eyes and snarled “A dog? You had me for a second, I thought you might have killed someone. Jezz.

“At any rate,” Lilith went on, her voice less cold this time, “the anaemia takes time... about four days to a week, depends on the person, at which point you will be craving blood. So, if you can avoid becoming severely anaemic you will keep your sanity.”

*Fangbanger in the True Blood sense of the term.

Chapter 8: Centralization

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:54:00 +0000

The short drive from the county road to Barrie lead to an older building in the centre of the down town, where it had seen better days long before the vampire outbreak. The building the van pulls up to had tarnished faux silver along the side of the grey brick work and was charmingly dubbed in large, tarnished chrome lettering “Roxx”^* followed by smaller plastic writing under that reading “Boarding Hostile.” At this point Watts opened the van door and gestured Amanda to follow. The sun was climbing and Watts had pulled his hood further along his face than usual for a sweet spring day would allow. Watts approached the front door with Amanda and her sparkles following close behind, anxious and unsure.

“Where are we?” Amanda asked nervously.

Watts seemed to not notice her speak as he opened the door and gestured Amanda to follow him further. To which she did, and walked into a recently renovated space within. It was plainly done from what Amanda could tell, with this simple grey room acting like a reception of sorts, followed with a stairwell and elevator leading to a second story and basement, if the up and down arrows on the elevator panelling were any indication. There are halls that lead to a row of door that seem way too close to eachother to indicate that the rooms are any larger than closets.

At the small desk in the makeshift reception room was a harsh looking woman shuffling over some papers. Watts gently tapped on the desk, to which the woman lifted her head in response and smiled.

“Watts, my dear, your back,” the woman replied in a half-grin, “and I see you have company. Good job my boy.”

“Thanks ma'am,” Watts replied quickly, “she's from that fenced place near Orillia. Heard from the others?”

“Batsie checked in,” the woman replied, “she found a few lingering from the wood. They escaped the convoy from Toronto. Is she one of those?”

“No ma'am, she isn't,” Watts replied, “she was from the fenced place.”

“Kay-kay then,” the woman turned her attention to Amanda. “Your name, miss?” she simply asked.

“A...Amanda,” she stuttered her answer.

“Tickled pink,” the woman replied sarcastically, “Name's Lilith, and I run the network here in Simcoe and area... when not running the Roxx Boarding Hostile of course. The best in cheap accommodations within the city. Oh has such a market boomed since a little beauty called a curfew. Police suck in so many ways of the word, but whatever – if Watts brought you in you must now be eligible for our little society in the network.”

“The what?” Amanda asked in confusion.

“Poor girl all confuzzled?” Lilith replied in a torturous way, “the 'network' is just what we call the huddling and protection gang for vampires.”

Amanda hung her head. “You are a vampire, right?” Lilith asked quickly, “cuz if you're not, I would have to drain you, and then give Watts a good ol' flogging for being a dumbass.”

“Yeah,” Amanda replied quietly.

“... Can't hear you sweetheart,” Lilith became mocking and cruel.

“She ain't been a vamp long ma'am,” Watts quickly interjected, seeing the cruel eyes Lilith was giving to Amanda. “Besides,” Watts kept going, “her skin does something funny.”

“Oh, really now?” Lilith was intrigued. She held up a fistful of paper from her desk. “So there is some truth to this here leak thingy,” she waved it in Watts' face. She handed it to Watts who quickly scanned it. He looked back up at Lilith.

“Who sent it?” he asked her. “How should I know?” she replied quickly.

“What is it?” Amanda piped in with a look of worry on her face.

“Its a 'note' by Anon Ymous,” Lilith returned, “I found it on my desk in a brown envelope. I wonder if anyone peeked in it before I got in from break relieving Nina the night-girl.

“It's tells of a new breed of vampires: vampires that can walk in the daytime – daywalkers I guess. The papers seem to be from a bunch of scientists and it had this cute note that I guess was written by a guilt ridden Dr. A Ymous. I dismissed it as a joke by either Nina or Batsie or something – I mean it claims that this new breed of vampire sparkles under sunlight, which is fucking retarded Stephanie Meyer dross from the naughties.

“I mean, it can't be true! There can't be any sparkling twilipires roaming the streets of northern Ontario, I mean, it just sounds so...”

Lilith lost coherence when a wave of giggles came over her. Amanda and Watts started at her with absurdity trained upon her until her giggle-fit abruptly broke under the crack of reality.

“This shit is true, isn't it?” Lilith retreated vocally.

Amanda nodded. Lilith shook her head further. Amanda nodded and Lilith shook her head again with Amanda saying “Yeah, its kinda true, and... well, I'm like proof.”

Lilith banged her head against her desk. “I gather you came, Watty boy, to give Ms Cullen here a safe stay for the night and show the ropes of our secret gangy thingy,” she spoke with her face on the desk.

“Yes ma'am,” Watts replied.

“Mad science sucks,” she went on, “We have vampires because someone was being evil and stupid, and we have twilipires because someone else was being evil and stupid. This shit is here because of mad science being stupid and evil.”

“You know, if we just behaved morally and not in disgusting perversion we wouldn't have this problem,” Amanda added on smugly, “we are being punished for...”

“She's one of 'those' people ma'am,” Watts interrupted quickly.

“Ack, no worries Watts,” Lilith waved him off and refocused on Amanda, “I guess we are in disagreement as to whose evil and stupidity caused our problems, but we can agree on one thing: it was someone's evil and stupidity.”

***

“Do we have company upstairs?” One overly pale anaemic woman spoke to a second, while hovering over a man with a tanned complexion, sitting in an refurbished dentist's chair with tubes from his forearm to a clear bag with a red liquid inside of it.

“Of course she does: their called clients,” the second retorted, “There is enough poverty to fill the dead sea, and enough begging to afford them a closet here at the Roxx.”

“What if they come down here?” the first woman asked.

“They won't,” the second replied, “they will get a closet and sleep or something... or get bounced out for loitering and having no money.”

“Then why do I hear the elevator coming down?” the man asked sheepishly.

“Meh, it's friends likely,” the second woman merely responded.

*For your information, the “Roxx” is a nightclub located in modern day, shit hole, down-town Barrie, Ontario.

Chapter 7: Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:18:00 +0000

A testing facility of Banisters Inc, located north of Orillia, Ontario, was trapped in dull panic as preliminary research went into what the fuck went wrong with the experimental vaccine that was used on the subjects in block C. Dr. Green and his team had been instructed not to release any of their finding to the outside world in fear that their competitors would get a hold of the data and the company would lose government funding, become a public relations three-ring circus, and senior members of the company face jail time for taking the shortcuts. When word gets out that there is now a daywalking brand of vampire, and it will get out sooner or later, efforts must be in place so this mutation doesn't get traced back to them.

In the lab the scientists charged with overseeing the few subjects they still had, as well as the ones who were going over the data that had been collected from the subjects during their stay were being scrutinized heavily. The questions Benton wanted answered asap was if it was a temporary condition and if it can be spread to others through the usual means of transmission. This would help the company CEO determine his next course of action, and more importantly, if anyone needs to be thrown under the bus to protect his hide.

In an information meeting Dr. Green looked over the lab notes lesser scientists in an attempt to figure out just how screwed he was: for he could very well end up being the fall guy in all of this.

“Alright then,” Dr. Green's voice was tense and slow, with his eyes dark and wide from lack of sleep and heavier-than-usual dependance on cocaine. In the meeting room were his lab team, which did include Mansion, his assistant. Each scientist and lab tech looked tense and troubled, each not sure of what was to come and what was going on.

“We shall start with what we know of the subjects and of their conditions,” Dr. Green began, followed by select members of the scientific team droning in technobabble that simply concluded that the physical ailments, or lack thereof, was not responsible for the mutation of the rotolamia virus.

“Doctor,” Mansion points out, “could it be the simple fact that the serum was not only a weakened version of the virus, but an altered one rewriting parts of the genetic coding of the affects that rotolamia writes?”

“That is a possibility,” Dr. Green replies, “after all, RNA does have behaviour that is similar to DNA, and the serum was designed to rewrite human genetic material to make it resistant to rotolamia.” He looked at his shoes nervously. You see, active immunity trials and passive immunity trials have both been done and none of those serums worked: all those subjects simply were turned into vampires. It was hard to figure out how weak the virus had to be, and Banisters Inc was starting to lose their patience. They had to find something and prove to the Canadian Government that they did in fact find something to get extra funding, and in turn beat out the competition.

“From UV tests with the subjects we have found that they now glisten under the light, and, more importantly, are no longer harmed by the light,” Mansion continued onward, “while the sun can no longer harm them this will at least make the vampires more visible, and could improve finding them and such.”

“We already know this,” Dr. Green simply said, “though law enforcement could use that information, though I want to be clear: this stays secret for now, clear?”

There was an ominous and automatic nod from everyone in the room. Dr. Green kept talking. “Now, it is possible that it was caused by a genetic rewrite that was rewritten, and rewritten again, which caused the problems we have now,” he took a deep breath before continuing, “does anyone know what the RNA instructions are telling the cells to do to produce the effect given?”

“Bloodwork was ran on the remaining subjects,” Huey Baniff, a fellow lab technician replied, “there is a strange substance in the blood that does not occur naturally in the body: samples are being analyzed for further readings.”

“I also should note that the test victims appear annoyed with the light, though not in pain, but are not enjoying it...” Mansion piped in before Dr. Green interjected with “Subjects Miss Mansion, subjects.”

“Sorry sir,” Mansion replied with a quick nod, “anyways, there is the possibility that they might not be complete daywalkers: that they may be able to roam in daylight without the threat of horrific death. Other factors, like the unknown substance found in their blood, could mean that something is happening in their body as a defence from the sun that is not simply reversion to traditional state before infection.”

“You're onto something Mel,” Baniff replied, “they still have the anaemia, the thirst for blood, and the illusion of super strength-speed that makes them so dangerous and worth fearing as creatures of the night.”

“Still,” Dr. Green went on, “it likely isn't reversible – like anyone would want it to be reversed, I mean sparkling is better than burning – but we should study this as much as possible. From it we can be closer to a vaccine.”

***

How many must die, burn, be tortured, and violated? How many, how many? I needed work, and I wanted to rid the world of vampirism. I never signed up to this, and I don't want it. History tells me that actions like this was why we have the vampires in the first place, and this horrible tragedy is proof that this is the wrong way to go. So, enclosed is preliminary findings. I may be fired, burned, and feathered, but I can't do this anymore. Redemption is all this is for.

This was a strange note that was waiting for Lilian Braun, who was sweeping the floor in what use to be an abandoned nightclub from Barrie's days of dead down-town. Now its a room for rent establishment, where the increased dollar, the curfews, and people finding it harder to keep houses can and will end up when the sun sets. Lilian took advantage of this now knowing that people who had a little bit of money but not enough for rent anywhere else would wilfully settle for sleeping in a room about the size of a closet and share a bathroom with at least ten people at any given time. Some people live here while others merely visit.

Course, Lilian housed other secrets. The basement, for example, is where they sleep...

Chapter 6: The Turning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 05:06:00 +0000

The woods, the strange feel of the sun, and her immense exhaustion all lead to Amanda laying on the ground within the brush, trying as it might to get up and stay quiet – for whatever it was that was wondering the woods was still stalking her. Pieces of the world faded as she laid in wait, and hoped that whatever it was passed her up.

In that moment, under the tingle of the sunlight, something made a grab for her. She had no fight in as her vague memory recorded her being lifted and carried onto a small clearing by the sound of roaring engines.

The road.

At around this point someone shoved a bottle at her. “Here, drink,” a male voice speedily spoke shortly afterwards. Amanda made no arguing stance at all as she took a drink of what she hoped was water and looked up at a frail-looking man in a black hoodie and matching sweatpants. “Now, you alright?” he asked after she took a few gulps.

“I dunno, I think so...” Amanda replied, “who're you?”

“Watts,” he simply replied. Amanda sent him a queer glance at the response then took another gulp out of the bottle. It tasted like mineral water, though with the strange changes in her taste-buds that had been going on she couldn't be that sure. She looked back up at Watts. “So, what are you...” she began to ask.

“Waiting for ride,” he simply replied, “we're heading for Barrie.”

“Why?” she asked him again, the hair on her neck standing on end.

“Safe place,” he replied, “From there we head for Newmarket, then Toronto. Safer place.”

“How did you...?” Amanda started speaking again. “Tip off from peps,” was he's quick reply.

“Peps, what...” Amanda tried to get more words in with more cut off: “buds in woods scoped the fence. They sees the escape. We came to get yous out of the forest.”

“Ok then...” Amanda looked at him skeptically.

“But why...?” and again Watts jumped in “We be looking out for our own: the fence takes us and does stuff to us. The fence makes us too.

“By the way,” Watts went on, “what they do to you? Your skin looks funny.”

Amanda was starting to come more into her senses and she realized at the question posed by Watts that she was getting used to the strange tingling sensation that her skin was giving in lieu of the fuzzy warm feeling, or even the burning that she was expecting. “I don't know,” she replied, “They injected me with things and... I don't know anymore.”

“Well, you can't be a vampire now,” he replied, “Vampire skin doesn't do that – I know for fact.”

“Really now,” Amanda replied quietly. She looked at the pavement for some time before looking back up at Watts. “So, who are your... 'peps'?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, they're my friends,” Watts replied simply, “They're secret society of sorts. Times are tough and we must stand up for eachother, must protect eachother. All: the turned and the affected. Though what you are I'm not sure myself. Never seen it before.”

“What am I?” Amanda asked rhetorically. It was clear that Watts knew nothing, so it reaffirmed in her that she was a unique of sorts: an anomaly in the theoretical dice roll, and that she, only she, developed these powers, that she could use in her part of God's plan to deliver humanity from evil and stop it from waltzing into temptation.

“What I am I'm not certain of,” she replied to Watts while he fiddled with an iPhone^* that he pulled out of this pocket, “I just know that I'm now a vampire, or so the scientists told me at that... Godless place.” She looked to the road and sighed. “God clearly must have something for me, if only I know what.”

She looked to the road as she spoke further: “I can't be certain of what role I play in his plan and in this system of things, but I doubt he would grant me these powers if...”

“Oh, not a Jesus freak,” Watts uttered under his breath rudely.

“What, with the vampire outbreak, the fall of the government as we know it and injustice everywhere, your going to stand there and mock the one true God that can save us from the manifesting of the devil among us?” Amanda rallied back in high fervour.

“...Yes,” Watts replied in a cold tone, “God's done nothing for me... assuming he-she-it is even real in the first place.”

“He's very real,” Amanda replied, “Look at me!” She pointed to her skin, glistening in the high sunlight.

“I have no idea what the fuck that is, and neither do you,” Watts replied, “For all you know the scientist dudes put sparkles in your blood or something.”

Watts took a deep breath before then speaking matter-of-factly “Our ride will be here shortly. From there, safety.”

***

Silence loomed over the dark-coloured van as it approached to pick the two up. Nothing but the soft roar of the engine could be heard as it came over on the paved county road they were waiting on. The dark-clothed driver, in wear that was heavily concealing, gestured to Watts before he opened the side door to allow Amanda in the vehicle with him. She hesitated at first, staring at the innocent centre seat of the van, shadowed in a dark van with tinted windows, but this was quickly broken with Watts saying “get use to it: most of us can't be in the sun for any real length of time.”

Once in the van Amanda watched it slide shut behind Watts whom took a seat next to her. In that moment the van then revved and sped down the county road away from the woods that Amanda spent three nights in. She was feeling a little spent, but she was feeling better than she was before.

“Find anyone else Watts?” the vehicle driver asked. “No man,” Watts replied, “As anyone else?”

The driver was quiet for a bit. “Twist didn't make it,” the driver simply said in a voice full of regret.

“You sure, I know I didn't see him but...” Watts was cut off when the driver said “Batsie found his corpse being burned by them fuckers in the woods.”

“Ok,” Watts became quiet as he hanged his head. Who Twist was Amanda couldn't be sure of, she just knew that he was dead and it seemed to make Watts sad for whatever reason. There was a thought of how the living and the dead would be judged when the rapture came and Jesus would return to the world as described in Revelations. The worry came in when one wondered if they would be judged good or evil, and of course, if you follow scripture to the letter then there wasn't a problem: you were good and God will receive you. Course, vampires were undead, walking abominations, so where would that place the newly dead Twist? Even if he wasn't a vampire, which was entirely possible, she's never met the guy before and now never will, but he seemed complicit with people that were – this 'society' that Watts briefly mentioned. After all, blessed is one who does not walk with the wicked^**, condemned or the damned, and it is pretty clear that vampirism is punishment from God.

“Our father who art in heaven,” Amanda started up as the thought crossed her mind, the thought that whomever Twist was had to be someone whom would never feel the embrace of God. She somehow needed reassurance. “Hollow be thy name, thy kingdom come...”

“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in freaking heaven,” Watts jumped in smugly, “Give us today our bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against you, lead us not into temp-fucking-tation, but de-LIVER us from the bad shit, a-fucking-man.

“Now shut up you Jesus freak.”

*Apple Inc does not sponsor this site either.

**Psalm 1:1 “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the mockers.” (New International Version)

Chapter 5: Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:44:00 +0000

Now that it was clear that she wasn't going to die in the sunlight she set to march onward in the hopes of getting out of the woods and find a road with a car or two willing to pick up hitchhikers – while praying that the people that pick her up don't rob/rape/kill her. While Amanda seemed pleased that the sun wasn't an enemy of hers the strange tingling sensation was becoming irritating, though not painful. Though it seemed deeply absurd that the sun made her light up like a disco ball now, she could at least walk in the sun.

She smiled, for it was clear that God was looking on her favourably. Clearly he wanted her for a specific task, what that task is she couldn't be certain. Was it kill the vampires? They were monsters after all. Or was it to expose the drug companies? The reason for her infliction was simply that a drug company was taking amoral – and certainly illegal – shortcuts in the race of fighting the other companies for that vaccine or treatment.

It was hard. She figured, as any good Christian did, that God would tell her all through visions and divine intervention. In that she would soon figure out what he wants of her.

Whatever her place was, she first needed to get out of the woods and find shelter. Again, this was going to be hard. She knew immediately that she couldn't go home because of what happened to her: her husband wouldn't accept her, especially around her daughter; dear god that poor little girl would be raised without a mother. Lets not forget the reaction of the church: vampiric members get ostracized every day. After all, no one wants to be associated with undead monsters, for they are within the armies of the devil.

Course, is she a vampire? Is she something else? Is she the opposite of a vampire? It would explain her unique ability to walk in the daylight without dying.

Whatever it was, she needed to get out of the woods. Out of the woods and she can get to another town and out to other parts of the country. She knew that she couldn't go to Orillia: it was too small a town to hide in. The only thing working for her was the fact that it wasn't winter time in these woods where the cold would freeze her already shivering self. Alas she couldn't be sure of the vast terrain that she was walking in, and she knew that she needed to find her way to a road stat.

***

“So, what exactly are you finding Ms Mansion?” Dr. Green asked his lab tech in the testing room attached to block C.

“Well sir, observe,” she replied as she pointed a flashlight-like device at one of the unfortunate subjects that failed to escape that eventful evening. The device: a full-spectrum light imitator. The device was designed to emit the same type and amount of light as normal sunlight. It was usually used on vampires to see the rate of burning of the skin in testing treatment options. Dr. Green gave his lab tech a funny look, though it disappeared once he figured out that the tech was seeing if the experimental vaccine had any effects on the newly turned vampires.

She turned it on.

A look of amazement came over Dr. Green as he watched the poor soul sparkle under the light in place of the burning. The subject wriggled in annoyance but wasn't screaming in pain as was usually the case in given circumstance. Seeing this was some sort of marvel in lamiology^*, one that wasn't harmed by sunlight.

Course, this amazement gave to horror once it sunk in what this meant: there are vampires out in the woods that were daywalkers. Now the monsters didn't need cover of the night to hide anymore.

“I double-checked this with the other remaining subjects,” Mansion went on, “The results are the same: there seems to be a new strain of rotolamia.”

Dr. Green was quiet for a moment. In that moment he contemplated what this meant on so many levels, but for reasons of self-preservation he had to start at figuring out how to appease the soon to be angry corporate gods.

“What am I to tell VanCastrine?” Dr. Green asked rhetorically, “He'll have my head so Benton doesn't have his.”

***

While stumbling in the woods Amanda could make out a sound of sorts stumbling in the wood as well. Fear gripped her as she made an attempt to hide in the underbrush, fear coming over her that what was out there was a bear or a wolf, and such creatures would love themselves some human, infected or not.

She waited and hoped that whatever it was didn't notice her. It was hard to suppress her breathing, her panting for she wasn't use to walking like this for so long, and only dog blood running through her and little sleep on her behalf.

However, sitting on the brush she felt weak, and when she figured that the threat was gone she decided that she didn't want to get back up again. She was brought up in a small town and was not use to this sort of physical exertion, and she leaned back while hoping the threat was gone.

As she drifted into sleep though, hands came for her.

Yes reader! I'm leaving you on a cliff hanger!

*The study of vampires (vampiroloy sounds stupid, no?)

Chapter 4: The Changing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 23:18:00 +0000

There was a meeting at the testing facility of Banisters Inc located north of Orillia as the panicked scientists and patrollmen gathered in the boardroom with a few of the big-wigs of the company – likely in charge of the PR department. Anxiety was high and no one in the facility was sure of even what had happened. The heads of the departments of the facility were quiet as they took a seat at the round table in the boardroom, and this ominous silence would be broken by Dwight Benton, head of Banisters Inc, Canadian branch.

“Let's start with the obvious,” he growled in a hostile, but polite, tone, “What happened here?”

“Sir,” Gavin Carmichael, head of the patrol, jumped in to give his synopsis:

“Two nights ago we had brought in a shipment of streetcrawlers... er, vampires found on the streets of various cities, intended on experimentation by Zuercher and her team in block B. As they were being brought in guardsman Noahland, godresthissoul, lifted the latch and took too long in getting the doors opened and closed and a subject jumped for him. At that point others followed. Sir, this group seemed exceptionally blood-crazy and... well... they ganged up on guardsman Hudson, Crosby, and Sanchez. They fired their weapons as is called for in standard procedure, and the gate guards were called in. At first we tried to just contain the group so they could be corralled into block B for testing. As I said, this group was exceptionally blood-crazy, and when they jumped and killed guardsman Hudson and Sanchez, we called for reinforcements and resorted to deadly force. We attempted a circular formation where we surrounded and fired bullets into the crowd, but we were getting jumped and the escaping vampires had scattered. They were fearless as they killed seven and wounded twelve: those twelve are in quarantine pending tests for rotolamia.”

Benton listened quietly with this attentiveness that wasn't past looking for something in particular in what Carmichael was saying. At point Benton then ask “So, this is an issue with block B and your inability to contain a few vampires?” “Sir, these vampires were insane,” Carmichael shot back quickly. “Vampires are insane,” Benton replied with little sympathy, “now, get to how block C got involved.”

Carmichael was sweating as not only Benton's eyes were on him expectingly, but also the others at that table: Dr. Elizabeth Zuercher, Dr. Ronald Green, Prestin VanCastrine, Vince Smith, and Fran Gallagher. Carmichael wiped his brow and continued onward with his tale:

“The vampires we had obtained were very, very, blood-crazied, and even with lethal force being employed they were still too much for the staffing at the time. Guards from the other blocks were called. Sir, it was zero hour, the other subjects would be asleep. Block A had lethargic individuals, block B was empty forobviousreasons, block C had uninfected individuals and block D had recently been cleared out after the 'riot' incident. With their help we were able to contain the situation.”

“Ok,” Benton responded simply as he sat back in his chair, “So at what point did you realize that the subjects in block C had escaped?”

“Once the vampires outside were dealt with, oh it was such a mess...”

“When did you realize the subjects in block C escaped?”

“As I said, there was a lot of chaos and...”

“When. Did. You. Realize. The. Subjects. In. Block. C. Escaped?”

“When we dealt with the vampires we went to check on the block to see if...”

“...Any of them escaped?” the agitation in Benton's voice was too thick to slice with a knife.

“Yes... sir.” Carmichael bowed his head.

“So, it was after your men took care of the vampires intended for block B that you discovered that the subjects in block C had pulled the bars out of their cells and, literally, walked out off the compound?” Benton's words were reserved but harsh in tone.

“Sir, I was unaware at the time that the subjects in block C had been inoculated with the rotolamia virus, and became vampires as a result,” Carmichael replied to the implied accusation in Benton's question, “if I did I would have...”

“Uh, Mister Carmichael,” Dr. Green interjected, “wasn't guardsman McFinny attacked by a subject in block C a day prior to this 'incident'?”

“Means nothing,” Carmichael kept going, “I mean, humans attack humans all the time and...”

“The other guards on duty felt it necessary to inflict deadly force on the subject,” Dr. Green cornered Carmichael with this thought, “those guards, like yourself I assume, would figure that being bitten by someone cold would mean vampire, and they figured it out before myself and my lab tech tested for it... the night prior.”

“Well, um,” Carmichael was in such a hole he was having a hard time digging himself out of it.

“Now, maybe you can tell Mr. Benton here how you took 'care' of the vampires that were suppose to be in block B?” Dr. Zuercher spat while pointing at Benton, who returned a disapproving glare in Dr. Zuercher's direction. She responded with dropping her finger and bowing her head.

“Yes, please, what of them?” Benton repeated.

“Well, they were nuts, and the only way we could deal with them was through deadly force so...” Carmichael started, to be finished with Dr. Zuercher saying “you killed them.”

“It was extreme circumstances,” Carmichael continued on, “I mean, those vampires, they were...”

“I've heard enough Mr. Carmichael,” Benton cut him off, then pointed to the door, “go wait in the hallway.”

“Yes sir,” and Carmichael was up and through the door.

Benton turned to VanCastrine as Carmichael closed the door behind him. “Mr. VanCastrine, you will see to that Mr. Carmichael is terminated after this meeting,” he simply said before turning his attention to Dr. Green. “Now, what can you tell me of the vampires from block C?” he asked.

Dr. Green bowed his head and spoke of his knowledge and findings:

“Sir, the vampires from block C were nightwalkers who were rounded up from the surrounding cities whom initially tested negative for rotolamia. They were given test-serum 751, an experimental vaccine that worked like the virus, only the body would absorb it like any weak pathogen. It was vaccination via active immunity. After injection the subjects were given two days for the formula to take effect before we tested the effectiveness of the vaccine by inoculating the subjects with the rotolamia virus. I doubt you need to look at the report sir to note that the vaccine was a failure, though the good guard did manage to round up a few of those subjects for long-term study.”

“Is there anything special about the test vaccine that failed?” Benton asked sternly. “Only that it modified the host body with DNA that is resilient to the RNA manipulation of the rotolamia virus.”

At around that point Dr. Green's Blackberry^* dinged. Everyone at the table eyed Dr. Green rudely as he went to pick up the device. Benton's disapproving glare made Dr. Green sweat in embarrassment as he scrolled through a few things. However, despite the break in meeting etiquette, no one's annoyed expressions could pierce the soon panicked look Dr. Green was giving to his blackberry screen.

Benton was the first to notice. “Dr. Green, is there a problem?” Benton asked, his voice moving from mild annoyance to indignant bitterness. “Sir...” Dr. Green was paler than a full-blooded vampire^**.

“Ron, spit it out already,” Dr. Zuercher spoke in an anxious tone, “what does it say?”

Dr. Green looked away from his blackberry screen and stared at the table. “There's been a mutation,” Dr. Green simply said in a frightened tone.

“What kind?” Dr. Zuercher asked quickly.

“That was from Mansion... the lab tech,” Dr. Green simply said, “She notes that the subjects we recaptured are responding differently to light-stimuli.”

***

The sun pierced the frail canopy of the wood and spread out its light as the morning sun was rising. As it did it touched everything with its holy light, including Amanda as she awaited her death. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow as when things got bright she stopped praying and let the light come to her. She felt her vampiric skin tingle as the light hit it, and the light's strength gradually became stronger. The day got warmer, and the sun rose higher into the sky.

There was no way of telling the time where she was, but she couldn't help but think that she should have burst into ash like they did on television when so much as a stray beam hit a vampire. Course, she started to think that maybe the light took longer to work than that, that she would develop a bad sun burn before she burned and turned to ash by the sun.

This tingling was more annoying than painful, but maybe it started like that, no? Still she lost her patients when she realized that the tingling didn't turn to burning. With that, she opened her eyes.

My god the sight she say. It was the damnest thing she ever laid eyes on.

Where there should have been burnt flesh upon her exposed skin there was still healthy tissue. The damnest still was the fact that the light that was hitting her skin was dancing along at various intervals, sparkling and twinkling along as the light hit it.

How could this be? This was not suppose to happen! She had seen half-dead vampires whom have ended up outside in broad daylight somehow and were fried like meat on the stove. What was going on?

Then it dawned on Amanda: God had intervened, and his will was that she was to live.

She looked up to the sun. She smiled as she felt the tingling in her face: the sign of his forgiveness. “Thank you God, most merciful God,” she announced as she bowed her head before getting up, “what is your will? What am I to do now?”

There was a pause – after all, when was the last time God simply spoke in a tangible voice to you? After the pause Amanda than screamed out “Am I to be your holy warrior? To slay the vampires? Have you granted me their powers so I can stand a chance against them? Does this make me an undead servant of yours?”

This makes a heck of a lot of sense to me too. Now, this is where the Undead Paladin was born!

*Research In Motion does not sponsor this site (though maybe they should, lol)

**Full-blooded vampires are ones that have been vampires for a long time and are noted to be paler than the average person.

Chapter 3: The Dawning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:47:00 +0000

Yes, the poor farm house and the little family that rested so comfortably within it. Yes, the poor little dwelling overseeing several hectares of non-industrial farmland out in the middle of nowhere.

In that dead of night they would be sleeping, yes, sleeping, as the pigs were away in the barn and the grain that was part of their diet laid out there in the field soaking moonlight. The dogs employed to watch the farm at night were asleep in an open kennel by the barn, defending their charges while stray cats slept along the fawna nearby.

The poor farm during such a time of unrest as the night and the spread of the OPP can only cover so much.
Those dogs mentioned in the last paragraph were trained to gnaw on humans, yes, humans, for that many a vampire had been known to hide in the nearby wood, waiting to feed on their livestock. The family didn't have the heart to sell the family farm that they had be working with for a long time, and figured war measures would sooner or later be lifted.

Of course, in the dead of the night there was a heavy commotion, consisting of the barking of dogs. The dogs barked and the screams of a woman could be heard as out of the farm house emerged a big, burly man, with a hunting rifle. He walked out several feet to where his dogs where, only to find one of his dogs missing and a blood trail. A trail that lead him to a brown-haired Caucasian female in wrinkled clothing grabbing onto a piece of her side that was bleeding out.

The farmer held his gun up and pointed it at her.

“Where's my dog?” he asked in an angered tone. When the now shivering woman didn't reply he repeated himself loudly.

“What, what?” the woman replied, confused and scared.

“What the hell are you doing on my property?” he screamed at her. Before vampires he might have been more sympathetic, but in the era of diseased people who crave eating you it is sometimes better to just shoot them. “Don't make me shoot you,” he added, the words dropping in a mix of machismo and fear.

“Please, I...” the woman's words reverb with pure fear as she stared at the barrel of the rifle and she struggled to get up in the shadows of the darkness that was around them. After some quick wheezing she then continues between shallow breathing “I got lost in the woods, and I was in your field, and...”

“Really now,” the man replied as he slowly lowered his weapon, “you've seen my dog?”

“... no,” she replied quickly.

“Ok,” the man replied, “I want to know why you're on my farm.”

“I got lost... I was on a hike... I found your field... and your dogs...” the woman trailed on while breathing shallowly.

“Got lost eh?” he repeated before uttering under his breath “stupid city slicker.”

He looked back at the house and then looked in the direction of the woman. He noted that she seemed to be gaining some of her strength and was sitting upright, so maybe she wasn't fatally wounded. Still, he had a family and he wanted to be sure that she was just a lost dipshit and not a vamp on the prowl. He then asked “One of my dogs is missing, what happened to it?”

“How should I know?” the woman replied as she held onto herself and struggled to be in a seated position, “I... I get to your farm... thinking some nice country folk... like yourself... could help out a stranger.” She wheezed, then continued, “then the dogs... dear god the dogs attack.”

At this point the farmer gave her his hand. “I'm sorry miss,” he replied while giving the young woman his hand to help her up, “You know the times: vampires, fangbangers, cults around vampirism, the damn cops and curfew bullshite. I had to be sure I could trust you.” The woman made a grab for the man before being lifted up to be taken to the farm house where his plan was to get emergency services out to help. About halfway to the farm house he spoke again, “Name's Riley by the way, and yourself?”

“Amanda kind sir,” the woman replied.

***

Riley placed Amanda on a couch of a small living room in the small farmhouse as a burly and round woman
came out from one of the rooms. “Riley, what's going on?” she asked in a low whisper. “Lost camper from the city, Lily,” he replied to the woman, “she found our yard and disturbed the dogs.” “You sure she ain't a vamp or something?” Lily quickly responded, “Them things lurk at night you know.”

“I believe her,” Riley replied, “she can't be no vampire, she's clearly not blood-crazy or anything, just a stupid city slicker... now, hit the light and get the first aid kit from the kitchen.”

Lily waltzed into the kitchen while turning on the living room light with a swift hand motion and a soft click of a switch. She could be heard rummaging for the metal box that contained things like bandages for the event of an accident on the farm. As Riley cooed to Amanda “Your going to be ok, miss. We'll get you to town in the morning...” she returned from the kitchen with the kit, only to drop it on the floor and shriek.

“Riley! What did you do!?” she screamed in terror. “What?” Riley responded startled. “Riley, you dumb fuck! Look at her!” Lily returned in a concoction of fear and rage.

“Look at her!”

Riley did. Amanda's clothing was wrinkled and her hair was a mess, as expected, as well as blood on her shirt and pants. What else Riley was that the blood on her shirt seemed to be all over the front of her shirt despite the lack of injury that could have bled from. There was also blood on her face and in her hair – again with no corresponding injury. The wound she did have where bites to her arms and legs, which were consistent with being attacked by a dog. At a further look, her eyes where horribly dilated and something wasn't quite right about how her teeth sat on her mouth.

“Now, shoot her dead before she gains any strength,” Lily went in a panic.

“My god,” Riley took another look at Amanda, “I took pity on you... I thought you were lost. You were on the prowl, aren't you! You went for the livestock didn't you? Your going to kill us now, eh?”

“No... course not...” Amanda stammered with what strength she had, “I'm sorry... please don't...”

“Hurry up!” Lily screamed as she shoved the rifle onto Riley, “Hurry up and be a man.”

At this point two little kids were waiting from a stairwell that lead to the bedrooms of the farm house.

“Riley, I'm not here to hurt your family,” Amanda whimpered, “Please, just let me go.”

“Riley, that's a vamp!” Lily screamed out, “they eat humans! Think of the family!”

Amanda rustled from the couch and slumped herself onto the floor. “Please,” Amanda plead meekly, “Please, don't, I just want to go home.”

“Don't let the pity repose fool you Riley,” Lily interjected, “She's not human anymore: she's a monster now. Remember what happened to Kevin.”

“For God's sake...” Amanda whimpered as tears fell down her and she slowly inched for the door, attempting to pass Riley on the way out. “Don't blaspheme God's name you undead abomination!” Lily screamed, “shoot
Riley.”

Riley held the rifle up and pointed it at Amanda. “I'm sorry miss,” he quietly said, “I'm just thinking of my family. By God.”

Riley pulled the trigger, but missed as Amanda quickly got to her feet, while tripping Riley onto the floor and she bolted it for the door. She felt the door break before her more than open as she bolted out and ran for the fields, heading for the woods that concealed her so well. As she ran more gun shots where fired, all of them missing as she disappeared into the woods through the fields.

Riley stopped chasing her once she got past the barn and out near the trees, satisfied that he did defend his family that night. At that point he walked around the perimeter of the barn. As he did he found the carcass of that missing dog. It was obvious how the dog died: it was subdued and bitten by something, and it wasn't a mere coincidence that the dog's carcass was found nearby where Riley discovered Amanda.

At that point, Riley walked back to the farm house. He had a wife and children to comfort after all.

***

Amanda ran through the woods until the wounds she had sustained earlier came back to haunt her. She was
still amazed with herself of how little she was hurting at that moment despite the wound on her leg from fighting the dogs at the farm. The cuts of the barbed-wire from that prison of mad scientists she escaped from were still pronounced though they seemed to be healing.

After some time walking she found a small clearing in woods where she sat down. Much ran through her mind. The night she got in the prison was from the simple mistake of walking around at night. The prison was where they made her into a vampire. Finally, the farm was proof that she was no longer Amanda Sanders. She was something more sinister than that. She was a monster.

She licked her blood stained lips. The blood from the dog was still there. More disturbingly, it tasted good. It didn't have that taste one gets from licking a metal spoon for too long. It was more inline with one of the more tastier things she had ever tasted.

She looked to the sky. What was God trying to prove to her anyway? What did he want her to do now? What she was becoming she did not like. She was becoming the monster Lily accused her of being. She was inhuman now. Nothing more than a beast that stalked the nighttime looking for something to kill and feed on.

“Please God,” she screamed to the sky as though she had gone mad, “Please, take me while I'm still me. I will not sin by my own existence. Am I to die to serve you?”

She cried. Fear ran into her as she thought of her infant daughter and her husband back in Orillia. Her husband would have reported her missing by now. He and the church would be looking for her. They would have been calling the cops, asking if the OPP had picked her up that night as was custom if one was caught outside past curfew. They would be either looking for a body or a vampire by now. This made her cry harder.

So, this was how she ended up out in the woods awaiting with fear and excitement for dawn to break. She
looked up at the falling moon and the slow changing of the colours of the sky. While she had been waiting in the darkness she was praying the rosary.

“Our father, who art in heaven,” she went on as she thought of her God, and how she felt she was pleasing him by shedding of her new shell that was dipped in sin an wrapped in evil, “hallow be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,” this as she thought of the times she had sinned, and the fact that she couldn't get confession done for she couldn't find a church since being nabbed, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.

“Lead us not into temptation,” the last line of the prayer, being more important for this was what she wanted the most: “but deliver us from evil. Amen.”

Then, dawn broke. God would intact his will.

Chapter 2: The Escape

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 03:34:00 +0000

Amanda laid on the cot of her cell, eyes wide awake for she was too restless to succumb to sleep. All thoughts of violation, mutilation, and sully ran through her for the dawn of the fifth day was approaching. She didn't bother to move from her cot when the 8:00 meal was being served. Food didn't taste the same anymore and she was feeling weak.

There was a pause of sorts in her praying, for she couldn't be sure what it was she had done or said that offended God so much that he would let this happen to her. Why would he let her become a vampire? Why make her undead? An abomination? Something priests go to war with?

Her thoughts were interrupted as someone in the cell next door shouted “You, bitch! You stopped repenting bullshit?”

She dragged herself out of her cot and looked out of the bars. She saw no one. The voice continued on: “Finally realized God isn't listening to you? Figured out he ain't there?”

“God is everywhere,” she repeated as loudly as she could.

“Even here?” the voice went on, “that must make him in league with these monsters.”

That was a hard statement to retort. If God was everywhere, that included where she was, and therefore he sees the evil that is here. So, that put Amanda back to her original thought track: was God punishing her for something?

Upon further reflection, which took her long enough to see the 12:00 feeding occur, she figured that this was some sort of trial, one that was intended to proof the strength of her faith to God. After all, many a prophet was put on these sort of trials. Abraham had to prove his love and devotion to God by sacrificing his son, the thing in the world he loved the most – which was a hoax by God merely to prove devotion, as God wouldn't want an offering of a person in that time. James, son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, angry that Jacob showed clear favouritism for him, in order to become the right-hand man of the Pharaoh of Egypt at the time. Moses had to lead his people through the desert for forty years before taking them to the promised land. David had to slay Goliath, and lead a rebellion against King Saul, who God was angry with. God took away Job's fortune and family as well as put him through immense suffering to test his undying faith in God. Jesus himself was put on trial when he had to pay our debt in sins for us when he was crucified by Pilate. History is full of prophets and martyrs, whose undying faith in God made them heroes for whom their lead is to follow.

With that in mind she sat up and bowed her head. “God, please forgive my herasy. I doubt you no more,” she said softly before chanting “I believe in God, the father almighty, the creator of heaven and earth...”

***

On the night of the fifth day, the inmates heard a rucous from a further area. In response the guard ran off. Their screams could be heard from down the hallway.

It was 0:00. The darkness was only pierced by those spotlights that skim the windows from outside. Shouting could be heard from the outside as fighting seemed to break out. There was screaming and there was gunfire. As the audio of the event outside invaded the cellblock some within were shouting “This is our chance! We flee now!”

Amanda leaned against the bars of her cell and watched some of the inmates struggle in an attempt to bend the bars of their cells. She looked over at another inmate who screamed out “Vamps are suppose to be super strong! Lets break out before the guards get back!”

It was a sound strategy: break and scatter into the nearby woods before the guards realize that they got
out. Course, the issue was, put simply, were they strong enough to break through metal bars? Sounded ridiculous, but somehow it seemed worth trying as there were no other options available for breaking out.

With no other alternative in sight, Amanda grabbed one of the bars of her cell, estimating that she could
squeeze herself through the soon to be gap that would result from a missing bar. She grabbed that thing and she started to pull. It was strange, for the usual muscle fatigue and strain she would normally feel attempting something like this was non-existant as she found herself pulling so hard that she could see the concrete on the floor grind itself into a fine powder and the bar loosen in its position. She stared at this feat of hers with amazement as she she could see the muscles in her arms and legs tense up, but she felt minimum pain. Divine intervention, she thought, God must be helping me.

After a few moments the bar gave way and there was a gap between the bars that was just wide enough for her to step through. She noted that other inmates figured out the same thing and they raced out through the guard doors left open from when they rushed outside in a hurry to deal with what was happening outside. Amanda followed, finding herself running faster than she ever remember herself running. In the moments that followed as they ran down the hallway of cellblock C, and were in another hall, where the examination room and the guard station were connected, as well as other block – each with their own letter to represent them. After a few short moments the group was outside.

The cold air was the first thing Amanda felt as she raced out with the others. She thought she would never breath fresh air again, but here she was, breathing it in for the first time in five days. It lifted her spirits, only for the next thing she perceived was the increased noise of the commotion.

Outside the guard were fighting with a large group of escapees, non of which were from her block. These ones seemed crazy: they had a wild look in their eyes, their cloths where torn and they were disturbingly pale. Some had blood on them. She also saw guards on the ground, dead, whom had been torn open at the neck – some of these corpses seemed to have been gnawed on. Guards who were still up were firing their guns at what was clearly a grouping of vampires, many too blood-crazy to remember to run from the grounds.

Someone grabbed her arm. She almost jumped from her skin, only to see that whomever it was wasn't wearing a guard uniform or a lab coat. Whomever it was was male, dishevelled, and looking a little wild in the eyes.

“Its just me,” he whispered, “Just stay away from that over there and avoid the lights and we should be able to clear the compound.”

She gladly took his advise and they bolted toward the perimeter fence, chain links and barbed wire galore. It was no real secret that they would either try for the main gate or find/make a hole in the fence. Amanda and her new accomplice ran through the shadows of the night, hoping that the searchlights hadn't spotted them. Each push from their legs, every meter of race, every stomp of foot got them closer to the fence. Each second that tick and the progress of the control of the situation that allowed their escape also got them closer to being spotted by the searchlight. The two ran no knowing with option would occur.

All in luck as the two made their way to the fence. The guard was still too busy to realize that block C had escaped, and the lights were not trained on the fence yet. Amanda stared at the links of the fence and the barbs on the top, trying to figure out what she was going to do. She didn't have time to dig under, the barbed wire on the top would make climbing a painful and possibly fatal option, she didn't have bolt cutter to cut the links nor the time to try ripping them apart, and the main entrance was further away and in closer range of the watch towers.

Her male accomplice started running for the main gate, gesturing Amanda to follow. This she would have done if she hadn't froze while staring at the ominous fence. Odd, for when the man was far enough away from her that she likely couldn't catch up if she started to run a spotlight got a glimpse of him. He screamed in pain as a half-beaten guard came running from him from what appeared to be the main building. Amanda never saw what his fate was, for in her panic and hurry she attempted to climb the fence.

While fence climbing was something that she was not accustomed to, getting her hands wrapped along the links of the chain and her feet firmly planted on the links wasn't that hard. The hard part was, of course, the barbed wiring on the top of the fence, placed there so people couldn't simply climb over the fence. Amanda knew that sooner or later the guards would be done containing the issue that distracted them from guarding her cellblock and would be searching for those attempting to escape.

At the top Amanda felt her hands wrap around razors. She winced, but was surprised at how little pain she felt. It still stung as she strung herself over the edge of the fence, but she expected it to hurt more than it did. Hands on razors as she lifted herself up. Her blood was staining the steel of the fence and her clothes where ripping as she straddled the fence and her pants got caught in the barbs of those wires. Panic came over at the thought of being stuck here. After all, wasn't there a scene in one of the Saw movies where someone died getting stuck in a barbed-wire fence? Fortunately thought, in exchange for some of her modesty, she got herself released from the barbed wires and climbed down from the fence. All that didn't escape of her was a
pant leg, though she was cut up, especially at the hands, and bleeding.

God's intervention was the only explanation she could think of for it not hurting so badly. While on the topic of God's intervention, it was the only reason she could think of for the whole scenario playing out the way it did. Was it God's will that she made it out? To escape? If so, why? What strange task was god planning for her?

Once she was on the other side of the fence she started running again, this time to get herself lost in the woods outside of the compound. She ran for a long time before finding herself tired and in desperate need of cover

for the daylight that was to come. After all, she was now a vampire. Vampires can't be caught out in broad daylight less they want to be a dead vampire.

She was able to find a shack in the woods that she was able to break into and could therefore fall asleep for the daylight hours, while at night trying to find elsewhere to be. She laid on the dirt ground in thinking, trying in vain to make sense of anything. Much she knew about her new fate. For one, she was now an abomination. A murderous monster that is to be slain. God punishing the wicked ways of man by letting the devil manifest itself. Therefore, she could not go home. Her husband would reject her, and she could not raise her child. The church would also exile her, and she would be targeted for death.

Still, she had the issue of roaming around at night, as she would be accosted by anyone in a uniform and shot by anyone that stalked up on guns when the outbreak first became uncontrollable. Her sleep was a long one that was full of worry, but as the sun set again she was up again, and needed to get somewhere fast. Course, she felt very tired despite the full day's sleep. She was also hungry. So she kept on walking.

Oh god, that poor farm house.

As she walked through the wood, relying on what moonlight was available, she found a clearing. That clearing turned out to be a family farm. There, the events that place her outside near dawn would meet the proverbial

straw that snapped her proverbial camel in two.

Chapter 1: The Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 02:34:00 +0000

The wind was indeed cold as the night loomed over the that heavily wooded area north of Orillia and away from the heart of the testing facility used by the Banister's Corporation: an independent drug company that is in the race to finding a vaccine and cure to the vampire virus that now haunts the world. Banister is a leading export that has been making their money for the past five years advising task forces, policy makers, and other researchers on what vampires are, and how to deal with them. They had been doing research for the last ten years in vampirism as they race with other corporations in finding that miracle cure or vaccine that could soon cause vampirism to be a problem no more.

Much of Banister's research involves taking strains of the virus that the military black ops had made, studying how it interacts with cells and what genetic coding is used to make the person a vampire. This is done through sequencing, tests in petri dishes involving single cell organisms, and tests on rats and monkeys, watching what happens to them when experimental treatments are given to them.

Or so it says on paper anyways.

This my friend Amanda Sanders would learn the hard way. It is how she would end up in those woods north of the testing facility that day.

***

She lived in the small town of Orilla located in northern Ontario. She was a pious young woman, newly married to the love of her life and nursing a infant child. She was an avid church-goer who believed in the myth that vampires were the devil's children and had to be killed. Her church advocated the killing of these so-called hell-spawns, while claiming that their existence was proof that God is real and he is punishing us.

She was the poster-girl for Jesus' freaks, if you pardon my contempt for a second. Oh my how her world gets hauled on its head literally overnight!

You see, she made the simple mistake of being outside past the mandatory curfew. I think she needed diapers for the young one in her house and it couldn't wait until morning. Her original plan was that she was going to a neighbour's house to see if they had some spares she could use. Well, that was the plan, which didn't happen.

Now, here is the sad part: it wasn't because she got her ass hauled away by the OPP* for being out past curfew, or even because some lucky vampire got their fangs into her neck. No, her original plan never took because enforcers hired by Banister's Corporation took notice of her, nabbed her off the street, and stuffed her in an unmarked van destined for their testing facility north of Orillia.

There she was thrown into what best resembled a prison in a place that she noted was marked “Block C” - just like prison (dam these people in Banister's Corporation are creative). There Amanda could see others, just as scared as her. Some where crying and others where having fits of rage. She sat in the corner of her cell and went through the rosary in her mind until guards with guns and scientists in white came for her.

The guards roughly escorted her, while following the scientist, to another room where they forced her into a modified dentist's chair, complete with straps and restraints. After tying her down the chair the scientist started by drawing her blood and running it through a computer of sorts. “What are you doing?” Amanda asked the scientist, another woman whom stood at the computer terminal awaiting results. The scientist stood as through Amanda said nothing at all. “What are you doing?” Amanda spoke even louder, thinking the scientist refused to answer because she wasn't speaking loudly enough and not out of ignorance.

“Subject does not have any trace of the rotolamia virus,” the white jacketed scientist simply spoke in a drool, monotone voice, likely speaking to a recording device more than to Amanda, “Subject will be inoculated with experimental serum C.”

Serum C, whatever that was. It was likely that the scientist administering the serum didn't know what that sludge was either for the experiment was being done double-blind*. Whatever serum C was it was being loaded into a syringe and injected into Amanda's arm. “What is that?” Amanda called in a panicked voice, “What is that?” The needless repetition being ignored by the scientist as the guard unstrapped Amanda from the chair and dragged her back to her cell.

Amanda didn't feel any different, other than that feeling of violation that one receives when in such a circumstance as she was in now she still felt like Amanda Sanders. She took notice of the others whom were assigned to the same block. From what she could gather from the crazy chatter that was about everyone was given this serum C, and the scientist didn't talk to them.

The next two days of captivity went like this:

08:00 food was given to the inmates in the cellblock
10:00 they were being passed books through the bars by the orderlies for inmates to read to reduce bordem
12:00 more food
14:00 the inmates were one by one taken to a scientist, who ran a few tests on their blood and checked their vitals
18:00 more food
20:00 the guards went in to do a bed check
22:00 all the lights in the cell block went out with the exception of a search light

Those two days, with the exception of chatter among the inmates, were boring and tedious. The third day seemed deceptively like the second day until the 14:00 med check. At this point, after the bloodwork was drawn and checked the scientist merely said “Subject will now be given serum E.”

“What!?” Amanda screamed when she heard that. Whatever serum C was teasing her imagination enough, but now more shit was being pumped into her? She struggled against the straps on the chair she as in as the syringe pierced her skin. Whatever fight she could muster was to no effect and the toxin that was serum E was in her veins.

She sat in her cell feeling a combination of anger and fear. She felt violated again and just when she figured it would be no different than before when she was injected with serum C, where that was all she felt, 18:00 feeding time came around. When she bite into the nutrient-gruel-stuff she shook her head at first, for the food that tasted the same for the past three days now didn't taste the same. Did they do something to her food now? What was going on?

Apparently, she wasn't the only one with these sentiments, for a braver soul in the cellblock screamed out “Are you trying to poison us? Putting chemicals in our food, as if that serum C and E shit wasn't enough!” The guards ran to this man and had him sedated with tranquillizers to silence him.

That night she could not get a wink of sleep either. It wasn't from fear as it was from the nights before. No, it was something else entirely. She sat up and prayed the rosary to her memory and asking God to save her from that place. However, she didn't feel right anymore. It wasn't so much as sick but not quite healthy. She somehow felt changed, like she was Amanda Sanders no more. She could feel something brewing inside of her, and her fear began to mount in ways that made it harder and harder for words that used to comfort her so now fail in their usefulness.

The morning of the fourth day arrived and she was more miserable than she was scared, which is something considering her circumstances. Again, her breakfast at 8:00 tasted funny, and again others in the block noticed this. She also started shivering for the building must have suddenly gotten cold. Maybe the heating went out, I mean, it was October in Northern Ontario, but the guards appeared unbothered by it.

Still, braver and ballsier inmates started to vent their crankiness to the guards with predicted results. Many a “What's with the food,” and “Why is it cold in here?” cry out was met with an angry guard shooting someone up with tranquillizers. Many were just pissed that, like Amanda, where being held against their will in what was basically a prison.

During the 12:00 meal a guard passing by made the mistake of standing too close to the bars of one really ballsy fellow's cell. The desperate bloke quickly made a grab for the guard and bit the guard hard enough to draw blood. Nevermind tranquillizers this time: the guard merely unloaded his weapon into the unruly and unwilling inmate. Much fear and dismay came over the cellblock as frightened inmates and guards alike gasped, screamed and gawked in horror. The guard that was bit appeared to be crying while cursing inaudibly.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee,” Amanda repeated to herself outloud as a overly-gowned cleanup crew came for the bullet-ridden corpse in the soon to be vacant cell, “Blessed is thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit in thy womb, Jesus.” The crew dragged the body onto girdie, and out while heavy bleach was being poured onto the floor and walls of the cell. “Holy Mary, mother of God,” Amanda kept on going as the corpse of the late whomever passed her cell, “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

What exactly was happening to the inmates, and most importantly Amanda, became more apparent at the 14:00 med check. When it was Amanda's turn she was escorted by three guards, all looking tense with fear as they forced her into that examination room that she had became familiar with for the past few days. By this point she had stopped feeling like herself and was feeling more like someone else, like someone else had taken her body and soul. She didn't resist being placed into the examination chair this time, opting to merely let the scientist do whatever she had to do, mostly so Amanda could find out what they had done to her.

Course, it was off the routine that was established from until that point. This time she noticed that there was more guard in the examination room, and instead of there being one scientist there was two. One drew Amanda's blood and had it analyzed while the other oversaw. There was a cold silence that came over the room, a hesitation that was never there prior to that day.

The scientist that normally did the test breathed deeply and spoke into the recording device that she was likely using up to this point. “Subject's bloodwork had confirmed the presence of the rotolamia virus. Subject is now a vampire,” the scientist's voice was shaky and showed the presence of fear.

“What?” Amanda stirred as she struggled in her restraints, “WHAT?” her fear in the unknown gave way to anger of her new state of being. She saw fear in the eyes of the one scientist while the second appeared more stoic and unaffected. “What have you done to me!?” Amanda screamed, still wrestling with the restraints in the chair, but to no effect.

“We're sorry...” the usual scientist quietly trailed before the other scientist grabbed her by the arm and pressed his finger to his lips. The usual scientist, clearly a younger less experienced lab tech turned to the computer terminal and signed heavily. “It failed,” she whispered, “The trail had to have failed.”

“Let's get the next subject in here, subject one twenty...” the other, older and clearly senior scientist drolled unemotionally before being cut off with the more emotional “Why? Its obvious the trail failed! This is the twelfth person... er, subject, that we have tested from group C, and they all have contracted the rotolamia virus! Is there a point to...”

“Enough!” the older scientist jumped in, “Get a hold of yourself! We have to check all the subjects in the cell block before we can conclude that, now, get your emotions in check!” The younger lab tech took a deep breath. “Now, I'll finish the rest of them,” he went on, “I would like you to examine the guard that got attack by one of the subjects. I trust that a guard will fight their new nature a little longer than a subject will.

“Between you and me though,” he went on, “I hate it too when a trail fails, it means that we still don't have a means to vaccinate the unturned. Though our findings will still bring us closer to finding such a vaccine, or even a cure.”

In her cell she didn't even bother to touch her food when the 18:00 feeding time came around. Many of the people around her seemed understandably upset. Amanda merely stewed in her tears as she tried to figure out what this meant to her. She believed that the vampires came to Earth to punish the humans for their ways that drip in sin. She wanted to know what she had done or said to get her here and to become a vampire. Wasn't she not a good wife? A good mother? A good Christen? She did everything the church had her do, and she lived as God wanted her to live.

“Glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the holy spirit,” she struggled to say through the sobs as the lights went out at 22:00, “As it was in the beginning, as now and ever shall be, a world without end, amen.”

***

In the woods north of that testing facility the events of those four day ran through her mind as she awaited twilight to turn into dawn.

Now, we go to the story of how she got there in the first place.

*Ontario Provincial Police

*A double-blind trial is when neither test subjects, experimenters, or administrators of the experiment know what the test was about or what the chemicals being tested are.

Prologue

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:41:00 +0000

DNA is a powerful thing. It tells
every cell in your body how its suppose to behave. It tells the fat
cells how to store fat and where. It tells the liver cells what is a
toxin and removes it from the bloodstream. It tells the blood cells
to either carry oxygen to the other cells or to fight off entities
that do not belong in the body, depending on the type of blood cell
it was. It tells the brain how to store information and how to
transmit signals to the rest of the body.

DNA is a powerful thing. So is RNA, quicktime scripts that can tell the cells of the body to do many things as well. While DNA remains concrete and unchanging, RNA is less stable, and it is forever combining with itself to form the same instructions that DNA is capable of.

So this is how the problem starts.

You see what commonly uses RNA? Viruses. While in nature a virus can kill or disable a lifeform, in the lab they can be used to mutate lifeforms harmlessly. Want to make someone tougher? Smarter? Faster? Stronger? A geneticist can, with some difficulty, create a harmless virus with the sole purpose of transmitting such information to the various parts of the body. When done right, morals aside, a victim can become a super human.

Course, like anything we do is done
right.

For it wasn't long before this ability was being more than simply weaponized. No, military black ops who wanted to know the bounds and limitations of this method of bettering human life decided to see if they could make vampires as they read it in human lore. One would think that this is a silly escapade, or for the conspiracy nut, a dangerous one that could do damage to the world.

Well, good news conspiracy nuts! They went and did it! They made a virus that can turn an otherwise healthy human being into a blood-crazy monster that would get more
than a horrible sunburn if caught in direct sunlight for merely a short period of time. As predicted, they couldn't contain it either.

What does that leave us? A disease that transmits by biting delivered by people who are merely pale with shoddy circulation at worst out on the streets. Assuming that the victim doesn't die, anyone caught by a vampire becomes one themselves, and the fact that the body now has a sudden high demand for iron vampires find themselves going right to the haemoglobin in human blood. As the virus also affects behaviour, as other infamous viruses have (like rabies), the victims crave blood to the point where they would be more than willing to commit murder (and sometimes on relatives) to get this blood. If they are starved of blood long
enough they will develop severe anaemia, further adding to the desire for blood in the vampires.

Now, this isn't like zombism where you can see a stinky zombie coming along a mile away walking with their bones showing at a slow pace while stupidly moaning. As in the case of the AIDS virus, it is invisible. The infected, while they may be
lusting hard for blood, do have the sense of acting like a normal human, long enough to get what they want. Like a drug addict: many can act straight enough to get their fix, but when shit hits the fan they need their fix ASAP.

Course, on a more interesting note, vampires age much slower than an uninfected human. One of the odd side effects of the virus is the production of Telomerase, a chemical that is known to slow (or stop) the aging process, causing the affected to live longer naturally (naturish).
On top of this, the evil black ops people that created the virus in the first place felt the need to make the body capable of regenerating itself. Not regeneration as in growing back limbs (or changing into an entirely different person in place of actually dying if morally wounded, tee hee I made a funny), however, some wounds on
a vampire do heal faster, such as broken bones. Another sad fact is that vampires don't have to eat as much and don't have to breath as much, and people who have tried to suffocate/strangle them have learned the hard way that they don't exactly stay down for long.

Then the horrid fact that their pain tolerance and threshold for pain aren't the same anymore. You do not want to get into a fight with a vampire: they don't feel the pain as strongly as you would, giving them the illusion of super strength and speed. After all, you can do so much more if your muscles aren't aching as much. Now, to be clear, they still feel pain.

Scared yet? Well, in the fifty years that the outbreak has been globally (remember, its an invisible condition?) it has become an outright war between the
true, uninfected humans, and the vampires, who

are still
technically humans
want to live
like the rest of us
want to
fucking eat the uninfected humans.

At the early stages it was thought that things were being contained, as the black ops thought they killed the test subjects.

Ha ha they were so wrong.

Some of the subjects bit guards at this place, and the guards transmitted the condition to their family, friends, and neighbours. The survivors would continue to bite, kill, and infect others, with protruding fangs that can be totally hidden in your lips, but nevertheless where there, somewhere in the RNA sequence that changed them.

Now, in this time, as the vampire population grew with time and as the body count increased regional governments everywhere implemented many means and measures in an attempt to control the outbreak. I can only be truly sure of what Canada did. What we did when the vampires got big enough in numbers to pose a real danger was impose the War Measures Act - Canadianism for Martial Law – countrywide. The most noteworthy thing done was a strong curfew, where anyone caught outside between dusk and dawn are arrested on the spot. More merciful than what I've heard in other countries where night-walkers^*, infected or not, were killed on the spot. Still a stiff penalty for walking at night, though people have found ways to get past the police – vampire, criminal, and insomniac alike – for they can only be in so many places at once.

War Measures has been in effect for the last ten years. There seems to be no end in sight for vampire at the present time, though the drug companies are working hard to find cures and vaccines, and task forces among special ops, police, and military charged to kill the vampires who are what has been refereed to as “blood ravaged”: the ones whom have let the disease turn them into serial killers. Though the good news is that there are vampires who have figured out that they could get their blood from other sources, like bribing a blood bank or using animal blood, or syphoning blood from volunteers using a tube and a jar.

Now, only naive people don't think there are vampires that use their vampirism as an excuse to kill humans. Some argue whether or not vampirism causes aggressive behaviour. The debate is hot, and this has had some people claim that vampires have killed and infected as many as they have because they don't want to get their blood through the other avenues that don't involve hunting people. Others think that this is merely an inflated stereotype and the panic around the vampire is nothing more than hype being used as an excuse by governments to have absolute power over people.

The drug companies are at war over themselves trying to develop a vaccine to the disease so at least the current vampires couldn't spread the virus to others and thus make more vampires. Its hard to know what shortcuts these companies are taking, I just know that there have been no breakthroughs for the virus has proven to be hearty and finding a vaccine for it is proving to be difficult. Or their being fucking lazy, I don't know anymore.

Of course there are those assholes who are tasked by the RCMP to hunt and control vampires. They use the research of the scientists from both the government and the drug companies on how to deal with the vampires. It isn't so bad in Canada, I mean the mercenary groups in the states seem to be, well, blood-crazy for some vampires. They act like they are monsters from hell whose sole purpose is to inflict terror and pain as opposed to them being humans ravaged by a disease that makes them crave blood more than you or I would crave food.

Well, I think this is all the background you need before I dive into the tale of the Undead Paladin, and the new subset of vampires that can walk through daylight... with a catch.

*Night-walkers referring to people who simply walk around at night, and is not slang for a vampire as is common in continua involving vampires.