They had come…

…at dawn, just as the first shades of pink had spilt over the mountaintops. But there was something wrong! Why, on such a beautiful morning, were there black clouds in the sky? The clouds were moving fast, racing over the horizon as if a storm were coming. Black and threatening they came, and as they grew nearer they changed shape. It was as if the clouds where breaking up – falling apart – and the shadows they created on the fields below were just as black and moved faster if that were possible. But they weren’t clouds or shadows. It was Vampyrus that raced through the sky and Lycanthrope that sped over the mountains and fields towards the town. Swooping low, their giant black wings splayed on either side of them, the masses of Vampyrus flew over the town, their white fangs glistening like knives. The werewolves howled and barked as they bounded through rivers, leapt over gates and crashed through people’s front doors.

Children sat up in their beds, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, as they stared in fear at the giant wolves that stood licking their giant snouts.

“Mummy…!” the boy cried, but before he’d had the chance to raise the alarm, he had been snatched away, carried like a rag doll in the giant jaws of a werewolf as it raced back across the fields and between the mountains with its prey.

The town of Wasp Water didn’t wake to the sound of alarm clocks, letters being delivered, toast popping out of toasters, or the rustling of newspapers at kitchen tables. They woke to the sound of screaming, running, barking, howling, tearing and the ripping of flesh.

Half asleep, they ran from their homes, scrambling into their cars as the Vampyrus dropped through the air like stones above them. Windscreens imploding in showers of crystal glass as the Vampyrus ripped the occupants from the vehicles and fed on them. Blood jetted from throats, ears, and noses as the Vampyrus fed in a frenzy of excitement and hatred for these humans.

Cars crashed into each other as their owners fought like demolition derby drivers to get out of town. Some managed to get onto the main road, but the wolves were quick – super fast, and they raced along beside the cars, smashing their giant skulls into them. The cars crumbled as if made from cardboard, veering off the road and into ditches where the occupants were dragged kicking and screaming, until their life’s blood was drained from them. And those who managed to outrun the werewolves were set upon from above, as Vampyrus ripped open the roofs of the cars as if opening a can of sardines. The families inside were snatched away into the sky where they were torn to pieces by the Vampyrus.

More Vampyrus and Lycanthrope came like a plague of rats, their squawking and howling deafening, making me tremble and shake like a tree in a storm. I lurched to and fro as…

…Isidor shook me.

“Kiera! Snap out of it!” he shouted, shaking me from side to side. “Kiera – you’ve got to stop Kayla!”

Snapping my eyes open, I felt my knees buckle, and Isidor steadied me. His eyes were grey and dark smudges circled them.

“Kiera – look at Kayla!” he shouted at me.

Still dazed and disorientated from my vision, I turned slowly and looked at Kayla. She was standing in the centre of the road and staring into one of the cars. Her arms hung motionless by her sides and the wind blew her hair from her shoulders. She appeared to be transfixed by the hideous sights hiding inside the cars. Then slowly, she reached out and opened one of the car doors, spilling one of the dead occupants onto the road. It lay half in and out of the car, its head lolling to one side at an awkward angle as if its neck had been snapped. But looking more closely, I could see that the corpse’s neck hadn’t been broken, it was bearly there at all, ripped away by one of the Vampyrus or Lycanthrope.

As if waking to find myself in a nightmare far worse than the one I’d just woken from, I watched Kayla drop to her knees, brush the hair from her face and lower her mouth to the festering hole beneath the corpses chin.

Then, as quickly as blinking, I was pushing her off the body, sending her crashing onto the road.

“No Kayla” I yelled. “You mustn’t!”

Kayla sprung to her feet, and with fangs sprouting from her gums, she launched herself at me. Isidor leapt at the same time as Kayla and dragged her out of the air.

Wrapping his arms about her, Isidor screamed, “Help me, Kiera!”

Kayla kicked and clawed at Isidor, spittle flying from her fangs as she fought against Isidor who tried to restrain her. “I can’t hold her for much longer!”

Seeing the desperation in his eyes, I raced towards him and pinned Kayla’s arms to her sides.

“Get the fuck off me!” she screamed with uncontrollable rage. Then she snapped her head forward as if to take a bite out of my face. Jerking backwards, I felt the spit from her fangs spatter against my face, and it burned like acid.

“Kayla!” I screamed back at her. “Calm down!”

“I’m thirsty!” she screeched, and her eyes rolled back, revealing the whites.

“She’s burning up!” Isidor shouted. “And I’m too weak to hold her.”

With Kayla’s arms held fast to her sides, I looked into her face, and it looked flushed, like she had had too much sun. “Kayla, listen to me!” I roared at her. “You can’t have that red stuff – it isn’t going to help you. We’ve got to fight this!”

“Thirsty!” she screamed back and this time her eyes rolled down and she stared at me like she had gone insane.

Lowering my voice, I shook her by the arms and said, “Kayla, listen to me. I want that stuff as much as you do and so does Isidor, but we can’t have it anymore.”

“Thirsty,” she groaned again, but this time her voice sounded weaker, as if the anger was leaving her and I guessed that her raging fever was beginning to sap her strength.

Sensing that she was no longer a threat to us, Isidor loosened his grip on her, and stroking the side of her hot face with my hand, I said, “Trust me Kayla, that red stuff you’ve been eating isn’t like normal meat – its human flesh.”

“Flesh?” she mumbled her eyes half open.

Knowing that I had to get her away from the corpses and the stench of their rotting flesh, I didn’t answer her. Instead, I looped my arm around her shoulders and helped her up the road and towards town. Isidor followed and I could hear his teeth chattering in his gums as if he were freezing cold.

As I weaved my way amongst the parked cars, I came across corpses splayed from their vehicles as if they had tried to make a last, desperate attempt at escape during the remaining moments of their lives. Some had their hands gripped about their throats as if they’d tried to stop the blood that had pumped from them. Others clutched their chest with bony hands and I saw a sickening image of Murphy’s heart being ripped from him. Pushing the image of Murphy away, as it was too painful, I looked down at the bodies as I stepped over them, and was sickened at the sight of the flies crawling in and out of their open mouths and maggots wriggling from their nostrils and out of their ears.

I looked away in revulsion, shoving Kayla into Isidor’s arms. I ran to the curb and puked what little of the red stuff I had left in my stomach into the gutter. It swung from my lips in clotted streams and I brushed it away with the back of my hand. My stomach cramped and I heaved again, but this time nothing came out. When I felt able to go on, I took hold of Kayla again, keeping to the edge of the curb. I tried desperately not to look upon those dead people again. I wanted to get away from them as quickly as possible. Not because of the way they smelled or how they looked, it was because I knew that if some of them had been bitten by Vampyrus, there was every chance that before long, they would wake as vampires.

Chapter Twenty

The town seemed closer now and I could clearly see the individual outlines of buildings in the distance. Another mile or so and we would be lost amongst them. I continued to support Kayla; her fever had eased a little and she shuffled onwards, her head down, chin resting against her chest. Isidor walked silently beside me, his hands pressed over his mouth and nose to block out the smell, and every step he took was sluggish. The cars grew in number as we reached the outskirts of the town, and they stood either empty or contained dead passengers.

I spotted a police van, and with my heart leaping in my chest, I raced towards it. The word ‘POLICE’ seemed to scream ‘HELP’, ‘SAVED’ and ‘AUTHORITY’, but did I really believe that if there were any police officers left alive in that van, wouldn’t they have tried to help these people? But we had to pass it if we were to reach the centre of town. So without thinking, I started off towards it as if it were calling to me like a mirage in a desert. Before taking too many steps, Isidor grabbed my arm and stopped me from going any further.

“What are you thinking of, Kiera?” he asked, his eyes wide and fearful.

“I’m going to checkout that police van,” I told him. “There might be some police officers in there and they might be able to help us.”

“Have you lost your mind?” he snapped. “Remember those vampire-cops we ran into? The ones who tried to run us off the road? The cops who shot at us?”

Realising that Isidor was correct, I shook my head and said, “Isidor you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking of.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered looking over at the police van. “I guess we’re all going to be a bit cranky.” Isidor hunkered down between two abandoned cars. I helped Kayla down into the gap, and we crawled amongst the cars towards the police van. As we drew near, I could see that its back doors were open and several of the cops, who were wearing boiler-type suits, were hanging out. They appeared to be lifeless and still.

“Look after Kayla,” I said to Isidor, as I crept forwards on my hands and knees, not daring to get up in case it was a trap. Dropping onto my stomach, I inched my way further towards the van, not taking my eyes of those bodies hanging out of the back.

When I got as close as I could without being detected, I peered around the rear wheel of one of the cars. Several of the cops had managed to climb from the van, but had landed in a heap on the road. To my horror, some of them stared up at the sky with half of their faces and throats missing. The lower half of their heads appeared to have been eaten away, leaving a huge, fleshy hole. Then, from behind me I heard a noise. Looking back over my shoulder, I could see Isidor crouching down with Kayla propped beside him. I sensed that Isidor had also heard the sound as his eyes were darting from left to right. The sound came again and I froze. Daring not to move an inch, I listened intently to the noise. The sound was coming from one of the cars several rows away.