The Zompire (2 page)

He however reassured her that that he wasn’t feeling for a drink urged her not to worry about it. At that she took her seat and since he insisted, went on to ask about other things.

“How is the project going and how is Marvin doing?” she asked.

Taking a deep breath, he just let it out and told her.

“Marvin was involved in an unfortunate incident and didn’t make it.”

“What did you just say?” she asked in a low trembling tone.

His repositioned himself in his chair.

“Uhm, we woke up in the morning to find that Marvin was missing from camp. After a couple days of search, officials found his body in the forest trenches. He seemed to have been attacked by a pack of blood sucking creatures.”

He looked at her face and saw the stream of tears now fast flowing down her face and the damage his words did to her now vanished smiles. He wished that he had better news for her and not be the conveyor of such ominous news.

“I am really sorry about his death.”

“Where did you say my husband is?” She asked in an angry voice.

Without any warning, she grabbed him by the collar, screaming into his face and then bundling onto the floor crying loudly. Roberts tried to comfort her, but she went on and on and soon her next door neighbor came running in. When she got up to speed as to the cause of Mrs. Reeds sorrow, she held and restrained her. They had a tough time calming her down as she was screaming and crying frantically.

“ We flew in his remains to the VCA office here in Allington. I came in their company helicopter,” Roberts further stated.

A few minutes that seemed like hours went by. Before they left for the VCA office, he helped Rachel to put a call across to her son who was in college to come home. The VCA would have more information for Mrs. Reeds while Engineer Roberts made his way back to the construction site in the company of the VCA chief and the helicopter pilot. On their way, they discussed a bit about the design ideas of the tunnel and the great convenience it would provide for travelling. Rather than have to circumnavigate the southern continent, it would be an easier, faster route through the equatorial gap between the two sister continents. Soon after though, they drifted to the topic of the events of the past day. Robert expressed concerns about how to restore confidence and gain the commitment of his workers. He himself also needed to be safe and he couldn’t bear to lose any other person since all his skilled workers were actively involved in the planning of the project and if the trend continued or led to any or many of them leaving, it would have a negative impact on the success or at best timely completion of the project at hand.

“There is just so much we know about these undead but hopefully, it’s enough for us to work with at this time. We have a good number of equipment that will aid us in getting to them before they get to us. We have nitrate bullets which are the easiest lethal tools in fighting them,” Dr.Lenzo assured him.

They talked further more on the attributes that would give them an advantage to deter the vampires. Dr Lenzo was a knowledgeable man. He had served in the VCA for roughly two years, eight months of this in his capacity as Chief. Starting out very young, he was one of the few who had an in-depth commitment to ridding humanity of the ‘newly’ discovered undead plague. He had carried out assault infiltrations into the vampire community in his younger days and his passion for extinction of the blood thirsty had not waned over the years. It was his research alongside Dr. Mabel’s at the Special Research Institute,
SRI
, years back that discovered that vampires rarely sucked on the blood of their victims but rather lapped it up. The injury caused to their victims by their bite very rarely clots the blood due to the presence of the enzyme, draculin in their saliva which ensures the blood remains free flowing. They also figured that they injected their victims with some potent narcotic in their bite which makes their victims drowsy and too weak to fight back. As opposed to popular belief based on judgments from their looks, they found that vampires are powerful and even the very old ones would surprise an unwary hunter. Their feeble look had nothing to do with their physical strength. They could jump out of dormancy into a full-fledged attack against their victims unlike how bears and other animals behave from hibernation. It was also common knowledge that they had a great sense of smell, almost seven times that of a typical human being. They were also known to have heightened hearing ability and as such could hear and figure ones approach before the person even knows they are there. This made it very impossible to sneak up on them, which mostly left the VCA team with waiting on them in ambush.

On getting back, Dr Lenzo had his team set up their hideouts from where they can effectively monitor the surrounding
area. They had a drink of coffee while the tired workers retired to their beds. They soon settled into their positions. Armed and bright eyed, they waited. After hours, it seemed there would be no signs of any of them. Then it happened; they saw one who was obviously the lookout. It moved cautiously and peered into the space before it. The hunters who were wearing their infrared heat lens could see it approach even in the dark. The device was effective in figuring whether a body approaching is a human or an undead. The device was developed many years earlier when scientists figured that the body temperature of vampires was just about 67 degrees Fahrenheit as opposed to 98.4 obtainable in humans. The infrared heat detector therefore showed a distinctively different image color shade when the body under examination was viewed through it.

They soon saw three other vampires appear from the dark behind the first one. The first vampire was by far the youngest of the four. The curve of its back was less prominent and its color was not as pale and transparent as the rest of them. It would have to be around 35 years old when it was converted. After him was the Alpha male of the clan which looked leaner than the rest, also significant was a pronounced curvature of its spine as evidenced by a more protruded curve on its back. They run a
meritocracy
, and the most successful among themselves assumes the leadership role. An Alpha usually is the first in a clan, converting its other victims whom it finds fit into members. It is the alphas duty to ensure it picks capable hands to hunt with and this is also not an easy responsibility as picking a weakling will put the clan open to attack and hunger while choosing one that turns out more capable than him/her would amount to a threat to his position as the Alpha of the clan. A group of four vampires is normally the ideal number that makes up a clan which is no surprise that there were just four of them. Four was the safe number for defending themselves, hunting and feeding. The average human blood content is about 5.4 liters, and to fully satisfy each clan member’s thirst, they each would have to consume 1.5 liters the most. As such, should they need a little more than that, someone might have to wait till the next hunt for a meal. This would always be the youngest in the clan as their hierarchy of authority also determines who feeds first and who gets to go last. As they advanced, two of them bared their teeth exposing their fangs at the corners of their mouth. Eyes bloodshot and a black round pupil in its middle, they looked scary even with their lean shape from afar. One of them stopped in their tracks and spun around slowly, sniffing the air and licking its lips. They were just within range and in the camp vicinity when the signal was given and the team opened fire on them. They had clumsily walked right into a trap and there was barely any chance for escape. In any direction they went, bullets riddled their bodies but it seemingly did nothing to deter them. In the commotion, the alpha male ran in Dr Lenzo’s direction charging an attack. Despite his charging straight towards him, Dr. Lenzo continued shooting at him, cowardly maintaining his stance. The pack leader knocked him with brutal force down to the ground. Bullets following him while running away, he soon buckled over and fell to the ground.

Although being knocked to the ground rather heavily and feeling winded, Dr. Lenzo now knew that he had him. The rest of the clan members were by now scuttling away to safety. Seeing what fate possibly awaited their leader, they did not wait around much. If he could not save himself now, what could they who were less capable do. Two of the hunters tried to get a shot on the vampire who Dr. Lenzo had shot multiple times as they knew very well that it might get back up and try to spring and attack him. Very suddenly, as they suspected, the alpha male quickly recoiled going straight for Lenzo’s neck. Lenzo, acting out of human natural instincts, reacted quickly and stretched out his left hand to save his neck from the bite, but ended up being bitten on the hand.

“ Holy Shit!” he shouted out, looking at the wound on his now injured hand.

The creature lounged at him once more
, and he hurriedly reached into his right pocket and came out with a syringe which he quickly stabbed in the vampire’s neck. It was a cyanide injection which Dr Mabel had given him as a sample which was yet untested. As long as it deterred any further attacks, that was all that mattered to Dr. Lenzo at that very point in time. It had a devastating effect on the vampire, quickly weakening it even without him administering the full dosage of the syringe’s contents. The creature stumbled backwards, falling back to the ground, writhing in pain and discomfort. Dr. Lenzo gathered himself quickly and got to his feet, taking his knife from its protective leather casing and stabbed the vampire in the abdomen with it. He yelled and screamed. Two of his team members rushed to his help while the rest surrounded the weak vampire at gunpoint. They dragged him further away from the vampire who was now holding onto the wound. By the time they were done with administering first aid Lenzo’s wound, the rest of the team had caged the vampire which was getting weaker and weaker as the seconds sped by. Lenzo had his team place a call to Dr Mabel, letting him know that the cyanide worked on the vampire.

“It is in an uncomfortable state but it’s not yet dead, and I figured not to give it more of the cyanide mixture since the little it was struck with has kept it sufficiently down” he told him over the mobile phone.

“How much of the cyanide did you administer?” asked Mabel.

“Well, just about a bit less than half of the syringe’s content.” Lenzo replied.

“ Hmmm, well that’s quite a small amount to have such an adverse effect on its system,” Mabel replied.

“That’s true, I had thought so to myself, but it’s probably because I drove it into its neck …maybe that is why.”

“How fast can you guys get it here. I need to see and examine it closely before it dies,” Dr Mabel asked.

Lenzo told him that they would be on their way right away! Attaching a steel cable to the underside of the helicopter and securing it to the steel enforced holding cage for the vampire, they lifted off with their catch in tow. Mr.Roberts felt sorry for Dr Lenzo and did give him his apologies before they left. He saw everything that transpired from the safety of his hut and this one thing he knew for sure; these men were really brave and have shown unflinching courage in the face of such extreme and unpredictable danger. It made him now realize how little he understood of this man’s dedication to the cause. He was willing to lose a hand than become part of the problem.  He and his workers who had all awoken at the beginning of hostilities wished Lenzo and the three that left with him the best.

                              
Chapter 3

As the
helicopter made its way towards Dr. Mabel’s location with its now sedated cargo in tow, Dr Lenzo heaved a sigh of relief and he glanced downwards to see if the cage was still attached to the chopper. A satisfied look crossed his face when he glimpsed the cage dangling.

“If a little cyanide could do so much damage to these seemingly indestructible vampires, what would a full dosage have done?” he thought to himself as he lay back to rest his hurting body.

Throughout the one hour flight towards Mabel’s laboratory, the hunters took two shifts in watching the vampire. Even though it was caged and dangling outside, one could never be too careful.

The other vampire clan members got very far from the camp before stopping. They thought to go back to the camp and make an attempt at saving their leader but later decided to continue to their hiding place and think it over before going on an attack. A blind and unplanned attack might spell disaster for them. Besides that, they figured they were tactically disadvantaged given their diminished numbers then. They therefore continued their long journey and soon reached the cave which was home to them. Even though the humans thought of them as hideous and non-feeling beings, they actually weren’t. They were actually very angry and sad about the fate that had befallen their leader. They discussed and mapped out game plan on how to save him. First, they had to read the newspapers the next day in order to ascertain the government’s moves about their father that who they believed was in their custody. They also needed to add a new member so as to constitute a safe number for their clan. The older and stronger of the three advised that they travel that night to Edinbur, the closest town where they could lie in wait till the next night to be able to get the newspaper, a change of clothing and choose a new member for the clan. They went down to the river as they needed to have a bath to wash off any offensive smell that could easily give them away in the company of people. They smelled so much of ammonia.