Judas and the Vampires (17 page)

The liquid was definitely oil...somehow old, and yet not rancid. It carried a unique property, as a slight warmth and tingling sensation embraced my face and neck—not so unlike what I often experience with my body when it heals. Only this sensation lasted for just under a minute, and then it felt like the oil somehow disappeared. When I looked over at Amy and Alistair, I watched droplets of oil upon their faces literally shrink and then vanish altogether.

“Now you will be safe inside the caverns,” said Zoran. “Stay together and be humble before the Almighty, and no harm will come to you.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The man spoke fluent English. I started to get angry, feeling duped by his charade from earlier and especially the song and dance routine we went through on Sunday. But then I noticed a slight glow upon his face, most noticeable around his eyes and lower forehead. I could’ve missed it, as it steadily faded. And as it did, the next words out of Zoran’s mouth were a mixture of gibberish...the speaking in tongues, or
glossolalia,
that some religions—especially radical Christian sects—still practice.

“I think we should be on our way, don’t you, Pops?” said Alistair, a little more nervous than before.

I think this was more a need for affirmation that things would assuredly be okay. Amy looked at me the same way. Both were visibly stunned by what just happened, and now looked to the one non-normal human being in the bunch for a secure point of reference in this suddenly crazy world.

“Yes, I believe we should go.” I offered an assuring smile for both him and Amy, and a polite head nod to Zoran.

Zoran responded with the same broken English-old Persian mixture he spoke with before the recent bizarre event.

“I will never forget your kindness,” I told him. I motioned for Amy and Alistair to walk ahead of me toward the rear of the village where the immense gate sat. “May the Lord God bless you always.”

He nodded and then chuckled, and his two companions chuckled along with him

“And may He one day forgive your grave trespasses, William Judas Barrow.”

I had already directed my attention to the gate, which stood less than a half mile away. I was determined to claim our weapons quickly, and try to find the entrance to the caverns mentioned by Zoran. But hearing his voice speak pure English again made us all whip our heads around.

But by then the mysterious trio had vanished. The small town with no name and a weird building as its most notable hallmark sat deserted. Only a gentle breeze remained, brushing against our faces as if urging us to get moving.

We didn’t need any further incentive.

***

“Pops...Pops!...Pops!!
Slow down
for Christ’s sake!!!”

I could hear Alistair’s pants behind me, but we had to move quickly. I should’ve known that Zoran’s salutation was as much a warning as it was a goodwill statement. Once we were within a quarter of a mile of the gate I heard the soft purr of a motor.  At first, I thought it was a truck. A big truck less than five miles away.

If only that had been the source for the steadily growing rumble in the air.

“Ali, something bad is about to happen—
very
bad—so I need you to get your ass in gear!” I told him over my shoulder, motioning again for both him and Amy to step up their pace.

At the moment, they both looked confused. I forgot that sometimes I can hear things on a different level than most folks. I don’t think it’s a supernatural trait, as I had the same problem as a child, when high-pitched voices from young children and infants used to send me into a violent rage.

Luckily, as I grew older, my oversensitive ears improved to where I could function almost as well as anyone else. As an immortal, the pitch of a noise no longer sends me through the roof. But I do hear a lot of things that most human beings can’t, and I’ve caught myself noticing the same pitches that cause your poodles and German shepherds to perk their ears up.

So, it wasn’t until Amy started to hear the noise too that she urged my boy to keep up with her while we sprinted to the gate.

“Keep up with me, Ali—
please!”
she cried, yanking on his arm while looking fearfully at me.

Just then a pair of Russian helicopters suddenly appeared in the valley where the village sat. Once the pilots spotted us, they veered the choppers hard toward us, sending a spray of bullets that just barely missed Alistair’s and Amy’s feet. As I feared, Mr. Stanislav didn’t take kindly to our escape, and probably received some kind of ‘heads up’ that we were on our way back to his illegal operation. Sending a pair of military helicopters after us further confirmed the notion that he was no longer interested in capturing us alive. His mercenaries could’ve waited and ambushed us if that were the case.

“They’re turning around to make another pass!” I called back to Amy and Alistair, slowing down just long enough for them to catch up to me. At this point, I hoped my personal enemy from long ago, Viktor Kaslow, was more interested in killing me than them. If so, I planned to be the one who got shot—knowing I may never see Alistair or Beatrice ever again. My boy’s immediate survival overrode all else. “We’re going to have to make a run for the gate right
now! Come on!!”

The look of abhorrence on Alistair’s face would’ve been comical had it happened at any other time. I could almost see the images of scorpions and snakes slithering beneath the thick brush surrounding the gate’s marble pillars in his panicked mind. Meanwhile, one of the choppers moved ahead of the other, launching a rocket that whizzed above our heads and crashed into the mountainside a hundred feet beyond the gate.

“Get your asses moving, damn it!!”
I shouted, fighting to keep my own rising panic at bay.

We were running out of time to find someplace safe. The helicopters sped after us flying parallel and hovering less than ten feet above the ground. We would never survive the ensuing gunfire. I used every ounce of physical energy and skill I had in order to save my boy, and the beautiful girl who had become a royal pain in
my
ass for bringing us back to this deadly place. Too late to retrieve our weapons, there was absolutely no chance of effectively defending ourselves against these frigging bastards.

With bullets tearing up the dirt behind us, I grabbed them both and shoved them forcefully into the brush—deadly vipers and any other critters be damned!

I heard Alistair’s scream first, followed by a cry of unwelcome surprise from Amy. Desperate to save them, I immediately combed my hands through the prickly bushes and weeds, flicking off another scorpion whose rock-covered lair had been disturbed by either Amy or Alistair. But they were nowhere to be found. They had vanished, leaving behind not a single clue as to where they went.

I called out frantically for them—crying their names as a volley of bullets hit my arms and my legs. Staggering through the brush, the sandy soil around my feet suddenly gave way. I felt something metallic beneath my shoes...some kind of metal sheet. Or, maybe it was a trapdoor? Before I could look behind me to see if a kill shot was on its way, it slid open. I was dropped down into a deep dark shaft. Screaming.

Chapter 17

The drop could’ve been much worse, despite slamming into a slick rock surface that propelled me down into deep coolness. I heard Alistair’s and Amy’s panicked cries from somewhere below me.

Well, at least they’re alive....

I continued my descent for what I believe was two to three hundred feet, speeding down a stone chute and scared shitless I would slam into one or both of them, possibly crushing either one to death.

Suddenly, the primitive slide veered around a corner and I began to see light...light that was soft and barely discernable. More like a greenish haze. Soon the light grew brighter and wider, forming a line on the horizon before me. At the same time, I heard the sound of trickling water and a louder swishing noise just ahead of me.

Then all at once, I was thrown off this crazy ride into a glowing pool of water. Water that was cold as hell, I might add.

I hate surprises like this one—even worse than being shot at by hostile helicopters. Nothing bothers me more than frying my ass in 100 degree weather one moment and then being dumped into frigid coolness the next. Hell, maybe that’s an ingredient from the one effective recipe to kill me, and my cells know it.

Fortunately, I could see my environment well enough. I was in a fairly large cave, and literally thousands of glowworms covered the bottom of the chilly pool I had been dropped into. A nearby spring that bled into a sheer waterfall was the pool’s source. As I looked around me, there were other glowing critters crawling upon the walls of the cave. A fairly large effervescent purple and amber spotted serpent of some kind crawled back and forth behind the waterfall, as if guarding the area.

I also noticed other reptilian creatures that were smaller than the serpent. Each one was almost transparent except for blue and purple outlines along their bodies, like some kind of subterranean jellyfish that had gone amphibian at some point in time.

“Owww
….” My son moaned from somewhere nearby. To my left? That’s where his voice emanated from. “It looks like m-my...my father h-has g-gr-graciously d-decided to j-j-join us.”

Alistair laughed at his own joke, though weakly. He was shivering terribly. I felt a surge of panic, as his wheezing alone told me that he had sustained some sort of injury from the sudden fall into this place. When I looked in the direction of his voice, I saw the dark outlines of two silhouettes sitting on a ledge near me, eerily illuminated by the myriad organisms surrounding them. I recognized Amy’s full, long locks that had been drenched in the water.

“You need to get out of there, William!” Her voice was cracking, filled with fear. Unlike Alistair, she wasn’t shivering. “There’s something in the water that bites! It nicked me, but latched onto Ali’s abdomen before I could free him!!”

Her dim figure moved toward me, offering a hand to help me out of the pond. I had been treading water, leery of letting my feet land on the host of squirming iridescent worms below me. I swam over to her and scrambled to get out of the water—far more worried about Alistair’s welfare than the fact I sensed something moving rapidly toward me from my right just beneath the pool’s surface. Here we were, a few hundred feet below the planet’s terra firma, and if my son had endured a bite from a poisonous creature there would be little I could do for him. I pushed away the terrible thought that I might watch him die on this trip after all.

Suddenly, something huge exploded out of the water, snapping at my feet with near-invisible jaws before it disappeared in the pool again. I say
near
-invisible, as once my eyes adjusted to the unusual colorful living lights around us, I discerned the outline of a twelve-foot translucent eel with long, sharp teeth in its snapping jaws. It came up again, snapping madly at the air where just moments earlier my legs had dangled while I finished pulling myself out of the water.

“Are you all right?”

I posed the question to Amy, though it was intended for both of them. I kept a watchful eye on the thing lurking in the water until I was confident it wouldn’t try to follow us out of the pool.

“I think so...but Ali’s really hurt!” She moved aside to allow me access to him. “He landed hard in the water and then that thing bit him! I’m really scared for him!!”

“Me, too,” I said weakly.

I felt my mind start to go numb. I could see the bloody wounds seeping through Alistair’s shirt...two deep gashes from the thing’s teeth. I prayed fervently in silence that the creature wasn’t poisonous, and that the wheezing I heard was from a non-immediate, life-threatening wound to the base of his left lung. Regardless, I had to get him out of there.... I had to find some way to get him back to the village. Maybe Zoran or one of his buddies could save my boy. But how to make that happen? After all, the only way back up to the surface I could immediately see was the open shaft that dropped us down into the water...at least fifteen feet above our heads.

“Ali, hold on for me, son!” I was struggling to keep my voice smooth and calm. The last thing he needed was his old man debilitated by stark fear. “I’ll carry you, but you’ve
got
to hang on!

“I’m t-t-trying, Pops...I f-feel so tired...just let me r-rest....”

His words trailed off. I could tell from the eye movements under his closed eyelids that his eyeballs were dancing wildly...like they might roll up into this head while his body gave into a terrible seizure.

I could no longer control my rising panic! He might die anyway, but I had to do whatever I could to save the only offspring I’ve ever bonded with. A huge part of me felt as if it was dying right alongside Alistair.

I desperately scanned the room, praying for an opening that might lead us back to the earth’s surface. But it was almost impossible to determine a promising exit from a dead end. The few tunnels I saw were filled with one form of fluorescent creature or another.

Then I glimpsed a brighter light emanating from behind the waterfall. Could a passageway exist on the waterfall’s other side, and would it lead to some place promising? We had no choice but to find out.