There was a sound as if the air had gasped and then my head was dropped suddenly back into the mud. Branches crackled and snapped, and there were several grunts and one shrill cry before I could lift my head. Squinting my eyes as if I were staring through a gray fog, I could just make out the two vampires. The rusty skinned vampire who had sat across from me in the truck had the one who had sat between me and the end of the truck hold off the ground by one hand that was wrapped tightly around his throat and squeezing. “Control yourself,” the tan one yelled spittle spraying from his mouth into the other’s face, which had developed a pink feverish tint and whose tongue was emerging limply from between his lips. The dangling vampire swung a fist that caught the vamp that held him on the cheekbone and sent him sprawling into the rush crunching through branches and the thick stems of weeds. Then unexpectedly the freed vamp came at me, moving in that quick vampiric glide that seems as if you’re blinking. He came at me more quickly than seemed possible for movements that appeared so normal and slow. I pushed myself up on wobbly arms, my hands sinking through the mud to rest on rough rocks lodged at the bottom of the stream. Then the other vampire was back up and had his pistol out, a piece of black metal that was dull in the moonlight. He fired three shots in quick succession that ripped into my attacker’s right shoulder and right side. The vamp fell forward twisting in the air as the bullets ripped through him. Cold bits of flesh and viscous blood sprayed me as he fell beside me his arms stretched out towards me. I carefully wiped the vampire blood from my face and lips and then splashed my face with the water of the stream worried that the vampire blood could turn me if I swallowed it.
The vampire who had fired leapt down into the stream and turned my assailant over onto his back. “I ought to leave you here. Maybe the coyotes are hungry.”
My attacker sat up shakily and looked around. “Don’t.” I got to my feet, my vision spinning and my head pounding with a wave of nausea and dizziness that roared through my skull. Somehow, I managed to keep my feet despite my unsteadiness and the heavy rank mud that blackened and weighed down my clothing.
My savior scoffed. “Scared of a couple little pups. You’re lucky enough as it is. You would have had all of our asses on the run for the rest of our lives, sleeping in caves, bedded down on rags, until the General found us and then he’d make you wish you’d never been turned.” He paused before saying, “You can come back if you can make it to the truck.” He turned to face me as I debated bolting. His eyes shone in the moonlight and he wore an odd unreadable facial expression. There was a slightly wolfish slant to his face, a coldness to his eyes, but there was also a real hunger buried there. “You’re brave, but obviously really stupid.” I shivered under his gaze, the realization that he had saved me from another vampire, saved me for a doom that I could not even imagine. “And you really pissed me off,” he continued as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt, roughly grabbed my wrists, and chained them together. The gleaming blue metal that bit into my skinny wrists stripped me of what scarce hope I had maintained that I might find the opportunity to escape again. Almost twenty years of life without being taken was over in an instant. I was so overcome, so lost as all the fight drained away from me that I hardly noticed as he scooped me up like a child, his shoulder digging into my stomach as he carried me back through the brush. My attacker had struggled to his feet and was unsteadily following us as we returned.
A thin mist had begun to fall as he bore me up to the truck, its lights dissolving into the fog and mixing with the light of the moon. The wetness slicked my face. AS he walked up, he yelled to the truck’s cab, but I didn’t listen to the words, all I did was stare down at the metal that bound me. A moment later the truck’s horn blared out in three quick grating bursts. Then he threw me into the truck, and I lay there panting, on the verge of hyperventilating. He got into the truck and a few minutes later another thump announced the arrival of one of the vampires, which was then followed by a sharp knocking on the glass of the truck and then the truck jerked to life, sputtered a little and then roared off down the highway. The wounded vampire had been left behind presumably to hobble down the road back to the vampire city.
Lying there drained of my will to live; I abandoned my body like an empty husk to its fate and slept some despite being surrounded by vampires who held me captive. There was nothing more I could do to protect myself and I told myself that I was going to die anyways, and that there was no need to die exhausted. If they had any mercy, they’d drain me in my sleep. I concentrated on the hum of the motor and the vibrations of the truck bed, shutting everything else out and allowing them to lull me into a series of cat naps.
After a couple of hours, I sat up, pushing
