Escape
To Vampire Dam
by
S.N. McKibben
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
Zompocalypse
is here...
...but
the saviors of humanity are the very monsters that drink human blood.
Noir
Tekeste is one of a hand full of survivors that hasn't been
zombiefied living at Vampire Dam - a vampire protected human refugee
camp. Life is simple. Avoid zombies, make babies and donate blood.
When Noir finds a note from her lost son she's determined to leave
the safety of Vampire Dam to find him. Armed with her wits, a
flashlight and a vampire escort Noir finds more than zombies await
her on her quest.
Live
the adventure in this Dark Heart Heroes Venture #1 a 20,000 word
short story
As a thirty-six year old woman in the
post-apacalyptic world, the vampires valued me. Yeah, finally, Noir Tekeste,
meant something to someone other than my ten year-old son – wherever he was. My
heart gave a pang. I hoped he was still alive.
Ever since Zompocalypse, humans were a scarce
commodity in the vampire world. That’s when the blood suckers stepped up to the
plate and started protecting people from anything and everything. The emergence
of zombies shortened the supply of prey.
Dead blood held no nutrition value for
vampires. Once humans were gone, vampires would starve for eternity. Living
with out-of-your-mind hunger wasn't an acceptable fate to vampires. So
blood-suckers started protecting humans from zombies. I never thought I’d say
this but, thank god for vampires.
"Incoming." My vampire guard, Jason,
pointed down into the water.
Zombies didn’t pay attention to bottles riding
river currents, which was how rivers became postal by-ways. A mason jar, its
sparkling head bobbing in froth and rapids, was the night’s last mail delivery.
As soon as the net spanning the small tributary caught that goodie, I’d reel
everything in and see what the river placed on our door.
Jason wasn't much of a talker. He subscribed
to the mindset of keeping food at a distance. Me being human—food meant me. I
huffed at him, even though he was my protector and companion for tonight.
“Yeah, I can see that, I have eyes." I
batted my eyelashes at him.
His lack of interest in what men had told me
was an adorable face and curvy figure irked me. Most vampires, or even my
fellow male human compatriots, would smile and ask if I needed a hand bringing
in the heavy nets. Not Jason.
I grabbed the mail pole that would release the
net and started fishing the mail out of the water. I still got a thrill from
getting water post. No matter what the news, letters were information. A
personal letter from someone, or anyone proving we weren't alone, was cause for
celebration.
"Calm yourself." Jason growled.
"Heartbeat."
I scowled at Ass-wad. Jason constantly
reminded me blood coursed through my veins. "Bite me."
"Tempting offer." Jason towered over
me, eyeing my throat. Built like a biker lumberjack in a leather jacket, with a
goatee he was intimidating enough to make me remember my vitality was my only
defense against him. I also knew he had a Glock handgun in the inner pocket of
his iconic “Fonzie-wear”. I was safe because I was a commodity. No one wanted
to kill a golden goose.
You'd think my comment was an invitation. It
wasn't. Vampires biting humans was against the head vampire, Calif's rules.
Calif ruled all the vampires in a fifty-mile radius. For whatever reason,
Calif’s first rule was "no biting".
Calif required all humans wanting his
protection to donate via the Red Cross method with their blood stored in little
“doggie bags”.
No donation and we were “free to leave” the
comfort and safety of Vampire Dam into the maw of flesh-eating zombies,
ravenous shape-shifters or who knows what other perversions the apocalypse had
created. No, thanks. What vein would you like, sir?
Considering the chance of being eaten by
zombies was enough to keep thirty-seven of us under his protection. I’d rather
be a little lethargic from blood loss than zombiefied.
But Jason was still a human-eating immortal.
And I was alone with him right now.
Jason gritted his teeth. "Heart.
Beat."
Fear and my stomach weren't friends, but I
swallowed that ball of dried anxiety. "Can I get the mail now?"
He stepped back and my heart began to calm.
"Thank you." I shifted my pack-back
and lowered my mail catcher.
The jar did a fine job of keeping the message
dry. Paper is a rare jewel in this day and age but peeled birch bark worked
when you scratched a message with a blade. I could almost read the message
through the glass. My eyes halted at the name—Yiran Tekeste. My son. He would
be ten now.
Blood rushed through my ears.
In the background I heard a growl as my vision
narrowed to pinpoint precision of the handwriting.
Jason yanked me out of my fog. We were
running.
The jar slid out my hand. The sound of glass
shattering on rock brought maternal instincts back to life. That small jar
carried the last whereabouts of my Yiran. Nothing would separate me from my son
if he was alive.
Jason’ superior vampire strength couldn’t
match the super powers of a determined mother. I wrenched out of his grasp and
darted for that sliver of bark before I saw why Jason hurtled me away from the
river.
The horrid smell of death preceded the
appearance of a sickly, droopy skinned zombie. Stringy hair clumped in patches
over her scalp. Her jaundiced eyes surveyed me, then darted toward me.
I grabbed the mail catcher and prepared to
battle over what might be the last reminiscence of my son, I heaved the end of
the mail pole with all the strength a mother possessed protecting her child.
A streak flew past me. Wind from its passing
whipped hair into my eyes.
The brain-eater tumbled in a writhing ball
with another figure—Jason.
The wooden pole I had hurled, snapped in two
as the two monsters battled.
I thought zombies were ugly. The vampire
wrapped around the zombie was all sharp teeth and feral eyes. Those teeth could
make a saber-toothed cat jealous.
The zombie snarled.
Jason bit its head off.
The soccer-sized melon rolled my way and the
mouth snarled silently. Its wind pipe was done. My
insides shivered.
The snapping of bone focused my attention back
on Jason.
My attacker’s knees jutted backward. Ick. I
thought there might be blood, but I guess if you don't have a beating heart to
pump the red stuff around, only gravity pulls it out. Not that there wasn’t
blood, it just didn’t leak out in gobs.
A thunk pulled my attention to the ground near
me. The thing’s decapitated head maneuvered its tongue to roll toward me.
"Oh, that is just gross." I punted
the head into the bushes.
I picked the birch paper from among the broken
glass, and then Jason slung me over his shoulder cave-man style and ran.
"I'm not an invalid." But I didn’t
squirm.
His normal preternatural speed became sluggish
and his grip loosened.
We went on like this, me the damsel in
distress, and he the lumberjack version of road warrior, trudging the forest
long enough that I started to believe he was going to carry me all the way
home.
He set me down somewhere between a pine and a
conifer, and I got a good look at where my mail pole landed.
A squeak passed my lips.
"I thought if you got a wooden stake
through your heart it killed you."
"You obviously don't understand the
meaning of immortal." He rubbed his hands down his jeans and hung his head
looking at the pole in his chest.
"Seriously? You can't die?" That
could not be right. "But when Calif burns one of you, you’re ash."
Jason glanced at me. The steel in his eyes
warned me to shut up.
"Burning is the best way to keep us down
for a while."
This was news to me, and more than Jason said
to me in my time with him. I wondered if he would talk more. "Zombies die
when you burn them."
"Do they die?" He cradled the piece
of wood protruding from his chest in his bear-paw hand. "Or do we just
pulverize them to the point where they can't move."
Jason grunted. As far as I knew, vampires
never felt pain or joy. They remained grim rocks. Guess if I lived forever in a
world where I could starve and never die, I'd be cranky too.
"You alright? Does it hurt?"
He dropped his hand and speared me with the
scowliest scowl ever. Geez, I was just trying to be nice.
"Let me see." Jason stroked his
goatee like some evil overlord. "I'll shove a wooden pole through your
middle and ask the same question."
I couldn't help my donkey snort. "Okay, I
just thought you guys were void of pain."
Jason shook his head, looked down at his
wound, and winced. "Pull it out."
I said nothing and he brought his murky blue
eyes to me. "You threw the pole. You get to take it out."
My small hand could barely grasp the stick.
"This might go better if I tie a rope to
it and pull." I started searching my pack.
"Just get it out!"
His pale face started turning a faint shade of
blue.
I grabbed the stick and yanked.
Jason’s wrinkled nose and gritted teeth
confirmed his statement. Vampires felt pain.
Beyond our clearing, the bushes rustled
wildly. The headless body of the zombie erupted through the shrubbery and
charged us, her arms and hands dragging it through the underbrush. Its useless
legs dangled behind Jason roared and punted the body, football all-star style,
into the air and over the bushes.
He reached inside his leather jacket and
pulled out a Glock handgun.
"Go!" Jason planted himself between
me and the headless zombie.
"No way!" I stuffed the piece of
bark in my pack and pulled out my trusty flashlight. Nothing like a long metal
tube and heavy “D” batteries to give you some oomph behind a swing. Slipping
the back-pack on, I anchored myself next to Jason.
Aiming the gun barrel at plants and tree
trunks, Jason took hold of my wrist and pulled me towards home, Vampire Dam.
Pain shot down the arm he grabbed. I couldn't
keep pace with his superior speed, and my arm popped out of socket.
"Ahhhh!" I screamed. I couldn't get
my feet back under me.
Jason didn't even bother helping me up. He
carried me like a sack of wet beans.
Thank you Calvin Klein, my jeans fit snug
enough to protect me from dirt, rocks and wet leaves without chaffing. My
dislocated shoulder, not so lucky.
As far as I was concerned, Jason and I were
even – dislocated shoulder just as painful as pole through the middle. The
headless zombie body crawled after us with amazing speed. I had no clue how it
knew where we were.
"It’s gaining," I said.
My vampire was not up to par. We should have
been leaving Headless eating our dust.
This was why we always beat zombies to a pulp
when we found them. Even headless the thing pursued us.
Jason cut right, then left, using trees to
confuse my attacker. Weaving around trunks did not make my shoulder any better.
Each switch of direction ripped another streak of pain down my arm.
"Give me your Glock!" I reached my
good arm out. No way was I zombie chow without blowing up a few body parts.
Jason managed to put the gun in my hand. Big
ass grip though. I hate Glocks. They’re made for men with big hands.
Headless kept coming.
I aimed for an elbow, breathed, and squeezed
the trigger. Jason whipped me right and my shot winged a tree. Bark shrapnel
cascaded down on Headless. It didn’t matter.
"Damn it!" I half screamed from the
pain in my shoulder. I was safe from zombie claws, but missed my target.
"Stay on course, Jason!"
He grunted. I wasn’t sure if that was
compliance or an “F” you.
Headless caught our direction and clambered
towards us. The thing would have been comical if it hadn’t been so deadly. It
arms wind-milled propelling it forward faster than Jason could run.
I aimed again.
The zombie gained. Dirt flew into the air as
she clawed to get at us. Severed arteries from her exposed neck bled. She wore
a fifties style dress reminding me of a stay-at-home mom with three children.
But the flecks of red and dirt stained rips on her dress suggested she ate
those children after her transformation. How horrible. I pulled the trigger.
Headless fell flat on the ground.
"Finally." Jason pulled me up into
his arms and held me like a baby while he ran.
"I shot June Cleaver." I buried my
face in his cool chest. It would make me feel better if he breathed. Listening
to a beating heart does wonders for the psyche. But like all vampires, Jason
only took in air to talk.
Soft thuds of Jason's feet turned into the
crisp echoes of Nike's on pavement. Almost home.
Vampire Dam was home to fifteen vampires and
thirty seven humans. If my son were here, the human count would be thirty
eight.
"Put me down."
"Not until we cross the bridge."
He was right, but I wanted to see the bark
parchment again. Was it really my son? Was he alive?
Before the Zompocalypse, Hansen Dam was just
land stolen from the Hansen Family by eminent domain and built into a dam by
army engineers. Turns out, the military had more than just a dam in their
plans.
Bunkers underground led to facilities that
created the perfect vampire lair. Space, plenty of catacombs, and no sun. But
to get there you had to cross the bridge that was guarded by at least one
sentinel at all times. Tonight’s duty belonged to Blaze, the one and only
vampire that loved fire so much the crazy idiot strapped a flame thrower to his
back. His favorite hobby was barbecuing zombies.
“Good.” Blaze saluted us with the ungodly
nozzle of his chosen weapon. “Calif is waiting for you.”
Jason set me on my feet and without any
warning, he popped my shoulder back into place.
“Owwww!” Piece of Ass-wad didn’t even warn me.
Ignoring the huge blood stain and a hole in
Jason’s shirt, Blaze smiled at me. “Hey, sweetcakes. Want to see a vampire
burn?”
His words were a bit too light hearted.
“Not really.” I shook my head and tugged at my
pack. “I hear it really stinks.”
“Too bad.” Blaze turned and gave his full
attention to Jason. “One’s going up in flames before dawn.”
My hands fell from the zipper of my pack.
Jason asked before I could. “Who?”
Blaze turned and walked towards the long
stretch that saved us from many a zombie horde.
Jason and I followed. We got half-way over the
bridge when I realized Blaze was going with us.
“Who’s guarding the bridge?”
Jason answered in military precision. “Four
guards at the mouth. All human.”
I looked back knowing it was in vain. I’d
never be able to see them. I wasn’t a soldier. I had more “important” duties.
Being a woman, my job was to have babies.
Babies that would grow up and help supply blood to our caretakers. The memory
had me pulling my pack, unzipping the top, and grabbing Yiran’s bark inscribed
message. I stopped dead in the middle of the bridge. The handwriting looked
rushed, but it was Yiran’s.
Dear Anybody,
My name is Yiran Tikeste. I am looking for my
mother, Noir Tikeste. We are trapped and need help. Please anyone, find my
mother, tell her I am ten miles north of the Big Paw Den. She can be found at
Vampire Dam. They won’t hurt you. They aren’t like these ones.
“Keep moving.” Jason nudged me.
I stumbled forward with blind obedience while
my mind spun. “He’s alive.”
Two years I thought my baby boy was dead. This
writing wasn’t from the mind of a zombie. How had Yiran survived?
We walked in silence toward one of the common
areas.
Not many humans were awake at this time of the
morning. Even I only got up early before the sun rose because going out without a vampire escort was too dangerous. And they were
rather busy sleeping during sunlight hours. My time belonged to any volunteer
that agreed to go with me.
But all was not quiet in the common area.
“Frazier!” The shout shattered the silence
usual during this time of night.
I ran to Maggie, our human medic. She was
trying to escape Kabal’s restraining arms.
“What in the hell?” I looked to the older man
for answers.
Kabal, our human counterpart of Calif, held
Maggie and shook a weary head.
The dry aqueduct was a perfect meeting place
for humans and vampire. A tube led down to the catacombs of the vampires’ day
light area. Sometimes if zombies made it over the bridge, we’d run down that
pipe. Zombies that followed never made it out.
Frazier, one of the calmest vampires of the
fifteen, was chained to the base of the wall.
Calif held a torch. His blond farmer boy face
always proclaiming innocence retreated giving way to the ruthless head vampire
persona. Light bounced off the anger gleaming from the head vampire eyes.
Maggie screamed again. “Let him go!”
“Jesus,” I muttered. What was going on?
Calif turned his cold stare to Jason and
Blaze. “Get in line.”
I noticed all the vampires under Calif’s
control were in formation, beaming hateful stares at Frazier. They stood tall
and stiff as an egret’s leg.
Jason and Blaze stepped up to the end and
joined the communal stare down.
“Kabal?” I walked over to our elder. “What’s
going on?”
Maggie shrieked. “They’re going to kill him.”
Kabal held Maggie closer and shushed her.
“Maggie.” Frazier eyed the torch in Calif’s
hand. “Don’t watch this, darling.”
Our medic tugged at the elder’s hold. “Calif,
please don’t!”
The head vampire stood, impervious to her
pleas.
“Maggie.” Frazier tugged at the solid metal
bars holding his wrists at his sides. “I don’t regret it.”
Calif turned to the other vampires. “I have
two rules.” He held up one finger. “What is rule number one?”
A chorus of voices answered in unity. “No
biting humans.”
Oh no. I smoothed away Maggie’s hair from her
neck. I didn’t see any bite marks. It must have been the second rule. But how
did Calif know? If you’re quiet about an affair, it’s not hard to hide.
“What is rule number two?” Calif held a wide
stance, his power over the others saturated the air. Usually, Calif smiled and
women melted.
Again the chorus piped. “No sleeping with
humans.”
Hell if I knew why those two rules were worth
burning for. I could understand no biting humans, but the second? Why couldn’t
vampires and humans play hide the sausage?
Maggie held tight to Kabal, and hid her eyes
in his bony shoulder.
Frazier stood in what looked like a copper
bowl.
“Jesus.” I stroked Maggie’s hair and listened
to her cry. “I get it. I really do. Calif wants more babies and you can’t have
babies screwing vamps, but doesn’t this seem a bit extreme?”
Kabal shot his watery blue eyes my way and
then to Calif.
Maggie wailed harder.
Morbid curiosity moved my legs closer to
Jason. I could barely make out the conversation between Calif and Frazier.
Calif turned to the chained up vampire. “You
damn idiot.”
“It was worth it.” Frazier held no spite in
his words, but the conviction came from a heart I didn’t know vampires
possessed. “Calif—”
“Not another word!” Calif threatened Frazier
with the fire in his hands and the torch seemed to burn brighter as if it knew
touching Frazier would give it eternal, sentient life.
“You need to know.” Frazier bowed his head.
“Shut up!”
“I forgive you,” Frazier whispered.
Calif threw the torch into the pot.
The flames consumed Frazier faster than a
Christmas tree.
“Watch you bastards!” The normally reserved
head vampire stared at his remaining thirteen. “You fucking look away and I’ll
toss you in with him.”
Frazier put up a good front for about ten
seconds.
The sound of screeching inbetween a bird and a
lion’s roar tore through the air. My hands flew to my ears when the scream of a
burning vampire hit.
Another ten seconds and a blackened skeleton
fell into the bowl. Licks of fire peeked over the container.
“Get in the catacombs.” Calif’s voice grated
against my ears.
“Wait!” I stepped forward, ready to grasp the
head vampire’s arm.
Calif whirled on me and exposed fangs.
My eyes grew wide and I stepped back. “Sir.”
I hadn’t seen him move, but now Jason stood
two feet behind the head vampire. My escort had been twenty feet away.
“I want to ask a favor.”
Within a blink, Calif the overbearing head
vampire, morphed into Calif the Georgia boy who got all the girls to say yes to
anything.
“Noir, darling, what favor do you ask?”
“I got this.” I handed over Yiran’s bark
letter.
Calif read the knife scratch.
Jason cocked his head and read the note over
Calif’s shoulder.
“My son is out there.”
Calif handed me the proof of Yiran’s
existence. “No.”
“I have not asked yet.”
“No.” Calif turned, avoiding Jason’s gaze.
“By your own policy, I can leave any time I
want.”
That got the head vampire’s attention. “What
makes you think you can come back?”
Calif was in a sour mood. I needed to put on
the sweet face and make kissy-kissy if I was going to present my case. Or come
up with a great argument.
Jason slid between us and said, “The boy
indirectly mentions other humans. He wrote ‘we’ not ‘I’ and if he’s with
others...”
The two vampires locked eyes. Vampires had
some creepy visual communication that made the hairs on the back of my neck
rise.
Calif growled. “No.”
“Fine.” I turned and walked to the bridge.
Standing in the middle blocking my way was not
Calif the head vampire, but the smiling Georgia boy. “Noir, you don’t want to
leave.”
Shaking, I wasn’t sure if he was going to let
me go. I walked around him and he walked beside me.
“Sir, he’s my son.”
A firm hand grabbed my still-aching arm.
“Noir, I can’t protect you out there.”
I tried a different tactic. One I never
considered before. I reached out my good arm and cupped that square male jaw.
“I will find him and we will come back.”
Calif closed his eyes and leaned into my
touch. His face was bitter cold. All the warmth of my hand leaked out until my
fingers felt like they were going to get frostbite.
Behind Calif, Jason cleared his throat.
Steel, murky blue eyes accused me of treachery.
“I’m free to leave.” I said.
Calif nodded.
“Master,” Jason whispered.
Whatever meaning was inside that word made
Calif’s face fall inward. He nodded once and walked the length of the bridge
and out of sight.
“I’ll get us a travel pack.”
“What? I thought I was going alone.”
“Meet me at the mouth.”
Jason leaped over the side of the bridge and
disappeared.
Seeing Jason using ‘vampire abilities’
surprised me. They consumed energy – energy that could only be replenished by
human blood. If you did the math, there were fifteen, now fourteen vampires.
Thirty-seven humans. On average, vampires need around a gallon of blood a week.
Because there weren’t that many humans, vampires were getting less than that.
The vampires protecting us were getting a fourth of their normal diet. Not
comforting when I ran the thought all the way through.
Treading across the wild
lands with a starving vampire didn’t make for a safe journey.
After the zombies took over the world the vampires decided
it was time to come out of hiding as their food was getting scarce. With more
vampires in the world now than humans the vampires have become the protectors
of the humans. They protect them from the zombies.
There is a new twist on zombies and vampires in the world of
Escape To Vampire Dam. The zombies are much harder to kill; but so are the
vampires the zombies can take a beaten and keep on biting.
In Escape To Vampire Dam Noir Tekeste lives with a nest of
vampires who protect her from the zombies. Noir has a little boy out there
somewhere in the zombie infested world or she hopes he is still alive. She will
never give up on finding him, she will find him if it takes the rest of her
life. So you can image how ecstatic she was when she received a letter from
him.
Noir knew how dangerous it was too embark on a trip of this
nature to save her little boy with the zombies out there but nothing was going
to stop her from finding her son. But she is very lucky that she has a vampire
to escort her on her journey to rescue her little boy. Noir has a lot of
obstacles to face on her journey as there are more than zombies out there that
is stalking her and wants to eat her.
When I read the summary for Escape To Vampire Dam I knew I
had to read it with the combination of vampires and zombies, two of my favorite
creatures to read about in one book. I wish there was more books out there
about vampires and the end of the world. Maybe they are and I just haven’t
found them yet. I have to say that I absolutely love the world the author has created
in Escape To Vampire Dam. I would definitely love to read more about this world
with the vampires and the zombies and the vampires protecting the humans from
the zombies.
I would love to recommend Escape To Vampire Dam to anyone
who loves vampires and zombies. You are going to love this new twist on
vampires and zombies!!!! It is out of this world fantastic.
Slave
to a 100 lbs. GSD (German Shepard) and a computer she calls "Dave",
you'll often see her riding a 19 hand Shire nicknamed "Gunny"
to the local coffee shop near the Santa Monica mountains.
Stephanie
reads for the love of words, and writes fiction about Dark Hearts and
Heroes revolving around social taboos. When ever asked, she'll reply
her whole life can be seen through a comic strip ~ sometimes twisted,
sometimes funny but always beautiful and its title is adventure. Come
play!
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