Vampires Don't Sparkle! (16 page)

As the distance from the trees grew, it was hard for him to tell if any movements he registered were just trees swaying in the night breezes, or the emergence of the fetid monstrosity.

Looking over to Brenda, he saw she was tapping on the touch screen of her mobile device. She frowned, cursing under her breath.

“No frickin’ signal,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Keep trying,” Jacob said. “Anyone else have theirs?”

Gwen and Trey shook their heads.

“Fantastic,” Jacob lamented. “Just keep moving, we’ve got to get Dr. Grayson.”

-----

“What the hell are you doing!” barked Dr. Grayson, his face thick with irritation, and eyes bleary as he pulled himself up into a sitting position.

“Dr. Grayson, we have an emergency! We need to get out of here, right now!” Jacob replied urgently. He and his companions crowded around the mattress on the ground. “You’ve got to come with us, right away!”

“Get out of here? What on earth are you talking about?” Dr. Grayson responded sharply, clearly incredulous, and becoming angrier by the second.

Jacob, Brenda, Trey, and Gwen spoke quickly, stammering a few times as they related the details of their ill-fated sojourn to the burial mound. Dr. Grayson scowled, and Jacob had the strong impression the professor felt as if he were being made the subject of a practical joke.

Even when Brenda pulled her mobile device out in the midst of the telling, stating that she wanted to make an emergency call, it was patently clear that Dr. Grayson did not believe the story. She uttered several expletives, and Jacob’s spirit sank, when it was again revealed that there was no network connection to access.

“A monster coming out of the swamp, you say? One that threw Kendrick all the way down a burial mound with one arm,” Dr. Grayson growled, after they finished with the bizarre tale. “Thank you for your concern, but I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. and get some paperwork done before the curator of the museum arrives!”

His voice trailed off as he cocked his head to one side. His expression became more pensive than angry.

“What’s that … sound?” Dr. Grayson suddenly asked, tilting his head a little further.

Jacob blanched as a low, breathy hiss carried to his ears from outside the tent, faint but unmistakable. “Oh God … that’s it!”

“We’ve gotta get out of here, Dr. Grayson, please, trust us!” Brenda pleaded.

“I swear this isn’t a prank!” Gwen added.

“If this is some elaborate hoax, know that you’re all going to face severe disciplinary action, starting with immediate dismissal from this excavation. Don’t try me,” the professor snapped, though his face exhibited more tension, as the rattling hiss slowly rose in volume.

“I swear Dr. Grayson, this is no joke,” Jacob said.

Getting up from the mattress, the professor slipped on some walking shoes. He went with the others as they moved to the flap of his tent.

The revenant figure was upon them as they emerged from the interior, and Jacob heard cries of alarm as hands clutched onto him with iron-strength. He caught the sight of a large arm swiping through the air, and heard a grunt and heavy thump, as someone was knocked to the ground.

The acrid stench was overwhelming as he stared into the cavernous gaze of the macabre figure. Wisps of hair clung to the entity’s leathered visage, and its long, blackened, blood-stained teeth were bared in a mask of rage.

There was no spark of life present in the thing he saw before him. Rather, it was a mockery of life.

Balling up his fist, and reacting with alacrity, Jacob slammed flesh and bone into the thing’s face. The heavy blow thundered into the lower jaw of the creature, but it did nothing to affect it.

Recalling his father’s advice to ‘always go for the knees’, Jacob kicked out at the right knee of the creature. The crunching impact caused the thing to buckle slightly, though it emitted no outcry or sound of pain.

An ear-piercing shriek came from the creature, just as Jacob felt himself being released. Rotating swiftly, it locked its hands on Trey, who had barreled into its side.

Trey was lifted off the ground by the hulking figure. A crunching, tearing sound emitted as it leaned in and bit into the right side of his face. He loosed a high-pitched scream, as the skin covering half of his face was ripped free, leaving him with a ghastly, permanent expression.

Jacob flinched as Gwen hurled herself at the entity, shrieking in a fusion of rage and terror. The being caught her in mid-stride with one hand, and shoved her unceremoniously to the ground.

Trey screamed again, as the entity brought its jaws down on his throat. The sucking sounds came again, as if the entity was quenching a parched thirst. Blood began dripping from Trey’s shoes onto the ground.

Trey was thrown aside like a discarded sack of garbage. The shadowy figure whirled towards Gwen, who was just getting to her feet. She screamed as it surged at her, the noise becoming a pitiful sound as the revenant burrowed its hands into the flesh of her stomach, driving its crusted fingernails deep.

Jacob’s eyes burned hot with tears. He saw that he could do nothing for her. Her head was at an unnatural angle, and she made no sound as her killer ripped out chunks of her flesh, feeding ravenously.

Jacob yelled, putting his helplessness and sorrow into the cry. He looked around and saw where Brenda was working to help Dr. Grayson, who had a bewildered look as he tried to get to his feet. He was evidently the recipient of the sweeping blow when the group had emerged from the tent.

“Hurry, get up!” Brenda implored, trying to lift the disoriented professor.

Jacob raced over, and together they pulled the professor to his feet.

“Brenda, here, this way!” he urged.

Assisting Dr. Grayson, they moved as fast as they could away from the campsite. After about a hundred strides, the professor was able to support himself, shedding much of his grogginess.

Jacob looked back towards the camp. What he saw would be forever emblazoned in his memory. The macabre entity was standing still, its body silhouetted in the moonlight. Its arm was thrust high into the air, holding aloft a morbid trophy: Trey’s severed head.

To Jacob’s eyes, it was like the thing was taunting them. He began to slow down, feeling a sense of hopelessness.

“What are you doing Jacob? Run, just run!” Brenda yelled at him, keeping her legs pumping as tears streaked down her face.

Snapping out of his stupor, Jacob hurried forward with the other two survivors.

-----

Despite coming close to tripping several times in his haste, Jacob reached the waist-high gate enclosing the front yard of a one-story house. Its lights had beckoned from afar, where it perched in the midst of a modest plot of land, just outside a quaint, rural village

Before he could reach over the gate to open the latch securing it, a man’s voice cut sharply through the darkness.

“Stop! Don’t come closer!”

The voice froze Jacob in place, even as he heard Dr. Grayson and Brenda stumbling up behind him, panting heavily. A lone figure stood on the porch, lined by the light streaming through the open front door.

“No time! Something’s coming! We’re in danger!” Jacob called out, finding he had no idea what to call the shadow-figure.

“It’s killed more than one of our group,” Dr. Grayson added, huffing laboriously, as he drew up alongside Jacob.

“I said … ” the man began before stopping, his eyes staring past Jacob and the others.

Jacob looked back, and saw a silvery mist flowing across the ground. It was moving far too rapidly to be of natural origin.

Opening the gate, Jacob ran forward, followed by Brenda and the professor. The older man stood in place, staring towards the mist. The others shoved him back into the house, as they piled inside and shut the door behind them.

“What in the name of God are you doing!” the man yelled.

“It’s coming after us!” Jacob said.

“Not a damn thing!” Brenda said anxiously, looking at her mobile device.

“What’s coming?” the old man asked.

“Don’t know what to call it! Came out of a burial mound we found in the bog land,” Jacob said.

“I saw it,” Dr. Grayson added. “Wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it myself.”

“Do you have a gun?” Jacob inquired.

“No, I don’t!” the old man said sourly.

“What do we do now?” Brenda asked.

Before the man answered, the room was permeated with a horrible aroma, as the glowing mist began wafting underneath the front door. The thing from the mound formed right before their eyes, its head almost brushing the ceiling.

“Through the back door,” the old man shouted, his eyes wide as he beheld the monstrosity in his home. “Make for the village!”

“What about your car?” Brenda inquired, as they hurried through to the back of the house.

“Don’t have one,” he retorted sharply.

-----

Outside, they hurried towards the village, nothing more than a few small houses huddled along a narrow lane. Not surprisingly, most of the houses did not open their doors at the late night hour; save for one.

A surly-looking man and his teenage son joined them. Alfred spoke with the man quickly about the situation; both father and son had stern expressions etched upon their faces. The father sent the son inside to retrieve a wood-cutting axe, then turned back towards Alfred.

“Seems crazy, but I know you are no fool, Alfred,” the father said. When the youth emerged, axe in hand, he asked. “So what’s the plan?”

“To the rooftop,” Alfred said. “Better to defend, and we can see what’s happening. Bastard can’t surprise us so easy.”

With no disagreement from the others, the group used a couple of large crates to help reach the roof. Dr. Grayson needed a little extra assistance, but in a few moments they all had a high vantage.

“Keep your eyes out,” Alfred muttered through clenched jaws, his eyes iron-hard as he looked outward.

“There! Look!” Brenda said, pointing.

The sentient mist had reached the village, and was entering one of the houses that had kept its door shut. Dread gripped Jacob as he watched. It was not long before screams came from inside the house.

A woman stumbled out the front of the house a few moments later, her eyes darting about frantically. She was in a sleeping gown, having been awoken from her dreams into a living nightmare.

Without warning, Brenda scrambled to the edge of the roof, and jumped down to the ground. Jacob started to go after her, when he felt himself yanked backwards by a firm hand on his shoulder.

Turning his head, he found himself eye to eye with Alfred, as the other’s hard gaze lanced into him. He snapped, “Don’t be a fool!”

“I’ve got to help her!” Jacob shot back.

“Look now!” Alfred told him.

Brenda had reached the woman, and was helping her towards the house that the others were atop. There was nothing Jacob could do if he got down. He watched in horror as the shadow-being lumbered into sight, from the front of the house the mist had entered. It stopped in its tracks, and oriented towards the two women, striding towards them a moment later.

Looking towards Brenda, he saw her reach the house they had climbed onto, with the woman at her side. Stooping down, she locked her palms together, fingers interlaced to form a bracing stirrup to help the woman to the edge of the roof.

“I can help from here,” Jacob said, tearing himself away from Alfred’s grip, seeing the middle-aged woman’s fruitless struggle to pull herself up despite Brenda’s help.

Working his way to the roof’s edge, he extended his hand, grabbing the woman’s and pulling as Brenda thrust up from below. The woman was able to get her torso up and over. Jacob grabbed onto her with both hands, and heaved as hard as he could. He felt a burst of momentum, and a quick glance told him Dr. Grayson had moved in to assist.

Once the woman was safe, Jacob quickly leaned back over the edge to where Brenda was trying to reach the roof herself. Everything in him quailed as he clasped her hand, seeing desiccated limbs reach in — dirt-caked hands with extended, claw-like fingernails seizing her ankles. She was pulled to the ground hard, torn from Jacob’s grasp and screaming at the top of her lungs.

Jacob had to rip his eyes away from the butchery, as the shadow-being maimed her and began drinking from her torn throat. He crawled away from the roof edge, wiping at his eyes as the waters of sorrow and frustration overflowed, streaming down his cheeks.

“Lad, I’m sorry,” Alfred interjected firmly. “But you must keep your wits. Don’t think we’re out of this, but I have an idea on how to get the bastard.”

“Tell me what I need to do,” Jacob growled through his tears, a potent rage welling up. “That thing’s not gonna stop until we’re all dead.”

“Bait the big bastard in, keep him physical, not mist. Maybe we can bring this to a close,” Alfred declared.

Jacob nodded, grimly stating, “Just tell me how.”

“Slip down the back, come around, and bring him back there,” Alfred said, indicating the small fenced-in garden plot. “We’ll do the rest.”