Vampire Lord 6 Chapter 7

I focused all my attention to the back corner of the store where the voices emanated from, and thanks to Gary’s blood, I could almost hear what the fanged assholes were whispering.

“… what the fucking fuck… ” a male vampire grumbled.

“… no damn suppressors?” The second voice was female with a heavy southern drawl.

“… kind of bullshit is this… ” another male said.

“… let’s get outta ‘ere,” a fourth vampire declared with authority.

That voice must have belonged to their leader because there were muffled grumbles of agreement, and then the sound of their footsteps started to move away from their current location.

I glanced quickly around the store. The aisles were trashed, and plaid, day-glo orange, and camo items of clothing were thrown around randomly. Down the main aisle in front of us, I could see several sections filled with racks of clothing, and further down I spotted what looked like composite bows, tents, and fold-out camping chairs. About fifteen feet high along all the exterior walls above us, there were various scenes of taxidermied predator animals and their prey. Deer heads were mounted on the huge pillars along the center aisles, and a huge moose was stuffed and on display on a little mock hill at the back of the store. Rustic looking metal chandeliers lined the ceiling of the main aisle, and on the one furthest down I saw the distinctive shape of a human body hanging from the ten foot wide light fixture. The corpse was missing at least one limb, and I was pretty sure the head was gone, too.

If we turned to our left and went down that aisle and turned right at the Sugar Maple Cafe in the corner of the store, we would definitely encounter the vamps in the back before they could leave. I thought for a moment and realized we could go down the main aisle and avoid a fight completely with a little luck, but then I looked at Catherine.

An almost wild grin spread across her face, and she bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. She gripped her clawfoot hammer in a menacing way, and her eyes were focused on my face. She stared at me, gave me a little nod, and took a half step toward where the voices sounded like they’d started in our direction.

I realized she wanted to get in a fight, and I smirked a little at the auburn-haired beauty.

I glanced at Erika to see what she thought, and the dark-haired girl looked just as ready for a fight as the long-legged vamp beside her. I couldn’t really blame them since they had all this new strength running through their bodies now that they were vampires like me.

Even Valerie gritted her teeth in determination, and she gave me a little nod.

I smiled broadly at them and their conviction, and I nodded once. Then I motioned with my hand for them to follow me to our left and down the aisle where we would run into the blood sucking bastards.

We stepped quietly around the racks of clothing, snack bags, and mugs, cups, picture frames, pillows, and all kinds of other items had been ripped off the shelves and tossed about like a toddler who’d thrown a massive tantrum.

The vampires weren’t moving with a whole lot of purpose, I could hear their feet meandering vaguely in our direction, but they stopped often, and it sounded like they picked up the occasional item to discuss its usefulness before they tossed it away.

“Too bad they didn’t have any good shit,” the female said.

“Yeah, well, what do you expect, Rachel?” the vampire who sounded like he was in charge of the small group asked.

We came to the end of the aisle and paused to listen to their conversation.

Erika ducked behind a display of novelty coffee cups with cheesy sayings, Valerie stood behind me, and Catherine inched her way to the end of the aisle. Then the auburn-haired girl suddenly dashed across the way toward the little cafe in the corner of the store before I could stop her.

I bit my tongue and glared at her, but she’d run so fast that the fanged bastards down the way hadn’t noticed her at all.

I looked at each of my women and motioned for us all to slowly move closer to the bloodsuckers, and Erika and Catherine darted like cats on the hunt between displays and racks of clothing. Valerie followed closely behind me, and I could hear her breath come faster as we moved further toward the back of the store.

“Everybody and their momma was gonna think to come here first ya know,” one of the males said.

“I guess, but we need more firepower than this garbage if we’re going to keep ourselves out of Thaddeus’s army,” the female replied, and there was a huge crashing sound like she’d smashed a five gallon glass jar of mixed nuts over somebody’s head.

“Ugh, fuck that guy,” another male voice said.

“Don’t worry, y’all three stick with me, and I’ll keep y’all free of that shit so we can have all the fun we want,” the leader said.

“Like that fun we had last night,” the female laughed maniacally.

“Man, those blood bags tasted so good,” the leader said.

“I swear, the chase sweetens the blood,” the female went on. “The sound of their screams when we stalked ‘em down that alley. Oh, so delicious, mmm.”

“The younger the meat, the better the blood,” the male vamp in charge cackled. “That’s why veal’s so good!”

“Yeah, see? Duke’s got us,” the third male explained. “We never woulda had this much fun or lasted this long without him, and you know it, Joey.”

“Aw, shut up, Nick,” Joey whined back.

The small group weren’t part of Thaddeus’s minions then. I wondered briefly if they were with the college crowd up in Morgantown, but then I caught sight of them from around the corner of decorative pillows.

The female was middle-aged with short-cropped bleach blonde hair that hung over her forehead in the front and stuck out in carefully arranged disarray on the back of her head. She held her hand up to inspect her nails while the two younger males continued to squabble about Duke’s positive attributes.

Duke was an impressive looking man and around the same age as the female, Rachel. He was thick around the middle, and he wore dark jeans over black leather boots that shone in the darkness of the store. I could see him cross his arms over his broad chest, and a smirk spread across his face as the vamp named Nick went on about his best qualities.

Nick and Joey were skinny little fucks. They had the same short black hair and were probably about my age, maybe a few years younger. They argued back and forth a moment longer before one shoved the other hard and knocked him back against a gun safe on display at the edge of the aisle.

The bleach-blonde female grabbed each of the young vamps by the collar and hauled them in close to her face.

“Quit it,” Rachel whisper-shouted and smacked them each upside the back of the head. “You boys show Duke some fucking respect.”

“Yes, Momma,” one of the black-haired males said.

“Nick started it,” Joey grumbled and got one last smack on the other’s shoulder.

“I don’t care who started it, you ungrateful little shit,” the bleach-blonde said. “I’m finishing it. You hear me?”

“Yes, Momma.” Joey hung his head and kicked the toe of one boot at the floor.

While the dysfunctional little family had argued with each other, Catherine, Erika, Valerie, and I had managed to make our way within a few yards of them, but that was where our luck ran out.

“You smell that?” Duke started to sniff harder at the air.

I glanced behind me at Valerie and knew exactly what the big vamp smelled.

We were close enough now that they could smell the dark blonde’s human blood, and I could see Joe and Nick were identical twins. They had the same sharp eyebrows and chin dimple as the female, but Duke looked nothing like the other three, with his reddish hair and deep set eyes above his bulbous nose that was pointed up in the air like a hunting dog on the prowl. Maybe I should have covered Valerie with a little diesel before we’d come into the store, but it was too late now. We needed to attack now before they got the jump on us, and I was glad the younger vamps and the female were still distracted by their squabble.

I glanced at Catherine across the aisle from Erika, Valerie, and me. She looked ready to pounce on the female and stared at me with impatience in her eyes and an eager smile on her full lips.

I looked quickly at Erika and Valerie, and they nodded back at me and then to the auburn-haired girl across from us. I held up one finger and pointed at myself then at Duke to indicate he was mine. Something about his smug expression irritated me, and I had a desire deep in my gut to smash his brains in with my bat.

The girls nodded at me in understanding, and then Catherine and Erika looked at each other and smiled with glee.

I held up my hand in the air, waggled three fingers, and counted down from three.

“Nothing good left, huh?” I asked as I stepped out into the aisle just a few feet in front of the four vamps, and I held my bat lightly at my side.

“What the fuck?” Rachel shouted an instant before I swung my bat out sideways at Duke’s face, and my two vampire women threw themselves at the twin males with all the fury of a pissed off cat in heat.

The red-haired male stumbled back just in time to avoid the full impact of my Louisville slugger, but I felt the crunch of bone breaking as the end caught him on his bulbous nose.

“Fuck!” the thick-chested male screamed in pain and held a hand up to his bleeding face. “You broke my nose!”

“Whoops?” I replied with fake innocence and shrugged mockingly at him.

Duke barreled at me like a wrecking ball, wrapped his thick arms around my waist, and knocked us both to the ground. The red-haired fucker landed on top of me with all his weight, and the air whooshed out of my lungs instantly. Heat seared through my chest as I felt at least one of my lungs collapse on itself, but it healed quickly, and I slammed my face forward into the barrel-chested man’s forehead.

The lead vamp grunted in pain, and I took advantage of his momentary distraction to knock him off me and roll away and up to my feet again. While he climbed back to his feet a little more slowly, I glanced quickly to my right to see how the girls were doing.

Erika had swung her axe and caught one of the twins right where his shoulder met his neck. He screamed and clawed uselessly at the axe head as he tried to tear it free from his body, but his flesh seemed determined to heal right over the top of the foreign object. Erika gave a firm yank down, and the axe ripped further down into the vamp’s torso. Black blood poured down the young man’s worn shirt, and he collapsed to his knees on the linoleum floor.

“Joey!” the bleach-blonde mother shrieked and threw herself at Erika. The female’s perfectly manicured hands curled like tiger claws at the dark-haired girl’s face, and I heard Erika gasp in pain as the female bloodsucker tore her fingers down the shy girl’s cheeks. Blood dripped onto Erika’s shoulders for a second before her skin healed, and the wounds closed.

Catherine had similar success with Nick. She’d swung her hammer, claw side first, at the young vamp’s head and somehow caught him in the cheek. The auburn-haired girl then pulled her hammer away and ripped most of the bottom half of the black-haired male’s face off with it.

“Ahhhhh!” the teen screamed in agony as blood poured down his ruined face.

“That’s a good look for you,” the auburn-haired girl taunted. “Really brings out your eyes!”

Valerie lunged forward at that moment and swung her axe in a perfect arc down on the male’s kneecap. The dark-blonde farm vet swung with enough force to drive her blade more than halfway through the twin’s leg, and he collapsed onto the linoleum in a pool of his own black blood.

Duke had managed to get back on his feet, and he blinked the blood that streamed from a gash in his forehead out of his eyes and locked onto me once more.

This time, I lunged at him with enough force to slam his heavy body back into one of the large displays of rifles, and the cacophony of breaking wood, clattering gun metal, and the burly vamp’s cries filled my ears. The barrel of one rifle had caught him right below his ribs and speared its way through his meaty side, so I grabbed hold of the barrel’s muzzle, ripped it harshly away from his middle, and tore a huge divide in the bloodsucker’s waist.

“Fuuuuck!” Duke screamed in agony and lost consciousness long enough for me to check in on the girls again.

Valerie had managed to chop the rest of the way through the young black-haired vamp’s kneecap, and he was propped on the bloody stump before her and Catherine. The auburn-haired beauty grinned wickedly down at him and swung the claw end of her hammer with all the force of a battering ram into the top of his skull. The sound of crunching bone and squishing brains echoed through the air, followed immediately by Rachel’s screams.

The bleach-blonde mother had been clawing at Erika without doing a whole lot of damage, but now she lost her mind and flung herself on her dead son’s mutilated corpse.

“Nicky,” she sobbed and pawed helplessly at the bloody shirt of her son while his moldy black brains seeped out and stained the sand-colored linoleum.

Erika hunched forward a moment while the gouges in her face from the female’s perfect nails healed over. Then she stood up just in time to see Joey finally rip the axe free from his shoulder with an ear-piercing howl.

“You fucking bitch,” he seethed at Erika.

I wanted to jump in and help the techy girl, but a groaning growl drew my attention back to the bastard in front of me. Duke’s eyes snapped open again, and they cleared after a split second. The gaping wound in his side was already mostly closed up, and he braced a hand on his knee as he stood.

“Come on, asshole,” I taunted as I gripped my bat tightly, but the sudden sharp halt of the bleach-blonde female’s howls drew my eyes back to the girls.

Valerie had wasted no time, apparently, and it seemed like she’d chopped the mother’s head clear off her shoulders in a single blow. The bleach-blonde head rolled right in front of Catherine’s feet, and she stomped forcefully onto the dismembered head, which crunched the skull into tiny pieces and splattered the female’s brains out next to her son’s.

“Ugh, that hairdo. What a Karen.” The auburn-haired girl smirked at Duke.

“You bitches are gonna pay for that,” he growled at Catherine and Valerie.

Rage filled his eyes, but before he could move close enough, I wound up and hit a world series winning home run into the back of his head. A dent the size of a softball formed on the red-haired male’s skull, and he fell to his knees in front of my long-legged vamp.

The auburn-haired girl smiled with delight before she finished him off with a swift blow to his forehead with her hammer, and he collapsed to the floor.

The three of us turned to find Erika standing straight with her axe gripped confidently in both hands. Joey’s shoulder had healed enough that he’d righted himself and looked at the massacre in front of him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Shit,” he breathed, and his eyes twitched quickly from one of us to another like a crackhead who badly needed a fix. “Shit.”

“Basically, yeah.” Erika smirked and propped her bloody axe on her shoulder.

“What do you want?” the black-haired vamp asked as he threw his hands up in a defensive gesture. He took half a step back but bumped up against a gun safe.

“Your head.” Catherine grinned, but she didn’t move.

“Who do you work for?” I asked and stepped toward the young male who cowered before us.

“N-Nobody.” Joey slid down to the floor and huddled in a ball at the base of the safe. “I swear, it was just me, Nick, and Momma.”

“What about Duke?” Valerie asked.

“Ah, that fuck was just Momma’s latest.” The black-haired vamp spat at the corpse’s boots. “Most recent in a long line of assholes she fucked around with after Daddy died.”

“So, you don’t work for Thaddeus?” Erika asked.

“Nah.” The young male shook his head emphatically.

“Who else has territory around here?” I bent down on my haunches in front of the skinny vamp and got my first really good look at him. Joe and his twin were younger than I thought. I guessed he was maybe twenty at most. No wonder they fought with each other like children.

“N-Nobody, I th-think.” Joey shook his head again and stared up into my face with wide eyes. “Please, don’t kill me.”

“Sorry. We can’t have that.” I stood, turned away, and gave Catherine a curt nod as I passed by her.

“No. No! Nn--” His screams were cut short by the unmistakable crunch of the auburn-haired girl’s hammer as it smashed into his moldy black brains.

“Damn, that feels so good,” Catherine declared, and she wiped her hammer on the dead bloodsucker’s jeans. “Being a vamp is fucking awesome.”

“It does feel really good to be so strong,” Erika added with a shy smile, and she cleaned the blade of her axe on the female vamp’s back.

“Hell, even I enjoyed that,” Valerie chuckled lightly and rubbed the blood off her blade on a camo shirt she’d picked up from the floor.

“You girls did awesome,” I praised my women and smiled at them.

They’d really done a great job, even Valerie. I thought she’d make a pretty badass vampire, too, but I shook my head to clear the idea from my thoughts.

For now.

“Come on, let’s get what we came here for,” I said and turned toward the rows of rifles. “Let’s get anything that’s a 5.56, and then we can check out the handguns next.”

“Okay, Sam,” Erika said and walked over to the rows of rifles.

“That’s smart,” Valerie said as she gave me a little smile. “To have as many things in the same caliber as possible, I mean.”

“I figured it would make reloading easiest if we didn’t have to sort through a million different sizes or magazines,” I explained and picked up an AR-15. “Fuck yes. We should get a cart.”

West Virginia clearly had better gun laws since we never would have found something like this in New York.

“On it,” Catherine called over her shoulder as she jogged back to the front of the store.

“Here, these say 5.56, too.” Erika walked over with a rifle in each hand. One was black polimer, and the other had a wooden stock.

“Ooh, me likey.” Catherine smiled at the shy girl as she came back with two shopping carts, pulled them apart, and passed one to me.

“Thanks.” I laid my AR-15 into the cart and picked up two more from the shelf.

A few minutes later, we had almost two dozen more rifles and slings for each of them loaded into the carts.

“Let’s check out the gun counters,” Valerie suggested and pointed to the back wall of the store. “They always keep the pistols in there.”

“Good idea.” I smiled at the beautiful farm vet. “Then we can load up the ammo.”

“We should see what they have in the hunting sections, too,” Erika added as she placed her hands on one shopping cart and started to steer it back toward the handguns. “There may be some useful supplies there.”

“Woah, look at this one, I totally gotta have it!” Catherine squealed when we reached the counter that lined the entire back corner of the store. The glass was shattered out of all the cases, and the auburn-haired girl held a small pink pistol in her hands.

“It suits you,” I chuckled at the long-legged beauty and turned to look in the cases.

“And it says ‘9mm’ on it,” the auburn-haired girl said with a smug grin.

Several display slots were empty, but there were still several dozen guns laid side by side among the shards of shattered glass. I pulled out two black guns that looked like the Glock 21 I’d gotten from the outdoors store back in New York. ‘Glock’ was stamped clear on the side of it, and there was no magazine, but it looked about the same size so I guessed it was a .45, too. I put both the Glocks into the cart and found four black pistols lined up next to them. They looked like every hand gun I’d ever used in a video game, said ‘1911’ on the side, and had a mean look about them. If many years of video game training had taught me anything, it was that a 1911 was a good gun, so I placed all four of them into the cart beside the Glocks.

“Here, let’s get these, too,” Valerie said and laid half a dozen shiny silver revolvers in the cart.

“Revolvers?” I asked the beautiful dark blonde vet. “Aren’t they sort of… old school?”

“Sure, they’ve been around longer than semi-automatic pistols,” Valerie said in a teasing tone, and then she patted her own revolver at her hip. “But still kill shit.”

“Killing shit is good,” Erika added and placed five more guns in the cart with the others. “I found some 9mm guns, and since we already had three of them, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have these, too.”

“Good thinking.” I nodded and smiled at the dark-haired girl. Then I looked around and realized my auburn-haired vamp was missing. “Where did Catherine go?”

“Right here, Drac, don’t get your dick in a knot.” The long-legged girl popped up from behind the counter with a cardboard box in her hands. “I found the magazines.”

“Oh, perfect.” I grinned at Catherine and took the box from her. “Are these the calibers we need?”

“Yeah, I think so, 5.56, .45, and 9mm, right?” the auburn-haired beauty asked. “I’m not much for picking out firearms, but I can read store labels like nobody’s business.”

“Exactly what we need,” I chuckled lightly and placed the box in the cart with all our other picks. “Alright, I think that’s good on guns. You girls go up and check out the camping section, see what we can use from there, but remember we have limited space in the jeep, and we still have to hit the Town and Country supply store for seeds, farm tools, and fertilizer. So, don’t take anything we won’t really need.”

“I’m going to go back and check out that section in the front that had all the snacks,” Catherine said as she rubbed her hands together. “I bet they have some beef jerky.”

“You know you can’t eat it anymore, right?” I smirked at the auburn-haired girl.

“Yeah, I know.” Catherine rolled her eyes at me. “But other people can, and I can still enjoy the smell.”

“I guess that’s true. I’ll gather up all the ammo I can find in 5.56, .45, and 9mm. Then I’ll meet you up front.” I passed the full shopping cart to Erika and steered the empty one to the little swinging door in the counter.

“Okay, Sam,” Erika said and started to push the cart toward an area under a huge green and black sign that read “CAMPING.”

“I’ll go help Erika out with the camping supplies,” Valerie said and jogged after the dark-haired girl.

“Stack up everything they have,” Catherine said and shot me a little wink before she walked back the way we’d come before our fight with Duke and his fucked up family.

“Will do.” I smirked after the long-legged vamp and watched her ass sway for a moment as she sauntered off on her mission to find beef jerky for the fine people of Red House.

I left the cart parked on the other side of the counter and walked back to the employee area. I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d find the magazines so I just started to open every cabinet and drawer. I found brightly colored gun locks, random keys, office supplies, spare bags and labels, pens, even a rubber band ball. I kept looking and found a handful of other things, but by the time I’d yanked open the last cabinet at the far end, I still hadn’t found any boxes of ammo.

There was a swinging door behind the counter that said “Employees Only,” and I assumed it was probably a stock room specifically for the gun section of the store. The door swung open easily when I pushed on it, and the back room was pitch black. I gave my vamp eyes a second to adjust to the pressing darkness and found several rows of metal shelving before me. There were dozens of mangled cardboard boxes thrown around, and they were marked with names like Bushnell, Winchester, and Savage Arms and a slew of different numbers that included .22, .38 Super, 9mm, 5.56 NATO, and .45 ACP.

The shelves were empty other than the boxes and a few loose pieces of paper, and I nudged a couple of boxes that weren’t destroyed with my booted foot.

“Well, that’s not good,” I muttered. They were all empty. Somebody had already cleared out all the ammo from Cabela’s stock room. “Fuck.”

I found a crowbar leaning against the corner of the stock room, grabbed it, and then headed back out to the gun counter. I laid my crowbar in the otherwise empty shopping cart and started toward the front of the store where I could hear the girls chatting with one another.

“… it’s fucking amazing,” Catherine, said and the breathy tone of her voice piqued my curiosity.

I walked slower so I could listen to their conversation.

“Yeah,” Erika added. “Sex with him is way better than anything I’ve ever had before.”

“And Natalie’s okay with that?” Valerie asked with amazement in her tone. “She doesn’t mind you guys having sex with her boyfriend?”

“No,” Erika answered, and I could imagine the blush that would creep up her cheeks. “Sometimes she’s part of it, too.”

“What?” the dark-blonde farm vet gasped.

“Oh yeah, Erika’s had a threesome with Sam and Nat,” the auburn-haired vamp teased. “Haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Erika giggled. “Twice. Super hot.”

“Fuck,” Catherine sighed. “I’m getting wet thinking about it.”

“Wow,” the farm vet whispered.

I was close enough now to hear the rapid pace of Valerie’ heart in her chest, and I smiled to myself.

“Mmhmm,” Catherine replied. “Okay, what about these ones?”

“Oh, I love those,” Erika answered.

I picked my pace back up and rounded the corner to where the three women stood at the jewelry counter. Erika had picked up a pair of silver-rimmed sunglasses in a soft pink shade and perched them on her nose. Meanwhile, Catherine held up a pair of dangly gold earrings to her earlobes and checked her reflection in the mirror.

“You’re right, they’re perfect for me,” the auburn-haired girl said as she smiled at herself and turned to look at the dark-haired girl and the dark blonde vet. “Oh, those are sooo you!”

“You think so?” Erika asked and checked her own reflection as she readjusted the pink glasses on her face. “I really like them.”

“Catherine’s right, they’re really cute.” Valerie smiled and tried on a pair of simple plastic frames in a bright teal color.

“Find anything interesting, ladies?” I smirked as I approached the girls.

“Just doing a little extra retail therapy, Drac,” Catherine replied and gave me a bright smile. “How’d it go back there?”

“Ooh, not well, I guess?” Erika frowned as she glanced at my mostly empty cart. “Good crowbar, though.”

“Yeah, bad news,” I answered and looked at my women. “All the ammo’s already gone.”

“Fuck, of fucking course it is,” the auburn-haired girl swore and threw her hands up in frustration.

“Relax, Pierce,” the dark-haired girl teased her friend gently.

“Well, now what are we gonna do?” the auburn-haired girl quipped back.

“There are other gun shops in the area,” Valerie said and she hooked the teal sunglasses she’d tried on over the collar of her shirt. “One of them has got to still have ammo we can take.”

“Any chance they’re nearby?” Erika asked.

“Yeah, like, how far out of the way are we gonna have to go?” Catherine grumbled as she rubbed her eyes, and I realized the auburn-haired vamp looked suddenly exhausted.

“You okay, Catherine?” I stepped up close to the long-legged beauty and took her face gently in my hands.

“I’m just tired I guess,” Catherine replied as she batted weakly at my hands.

“Sure,” I murmured, but I could see her eyes were red around the edges. “You need blood.”

“Mmm,” the auburn-haired girl moaned, closed her eyes, and licked her lips. “That does sound really good right now.”

“The fight must have taken more out of you than you thought,” Erika murmured as she stepped in closer to take a look at her roommate’s red eyes.

“Well, I can help with that,” Valerie suggested, and she laid one hand gently on Catherine’s cheek and the other on my back. Then the farm vet looked up into my eyes and licked her lips.

“Okay.” The auburn-haired girl turned her face into Valerie’s hand and sniffed delicately at the dark blonde girl’s wrist. “Oh, you smell so good.”

“You smell amazing,” Erika murmured, and she stepped closer to us. “Fuck, I think I’m hungry, too.”

“Then you should both have a drink.” Valerie moaned the words, and then she turned so she could offer one wrist to each of my badass vampire women.

But she kept her eyes locked on my face. A deep flush had crept up her neck and spread across her freckled cheeks, and she bit her lip as her breathing picked up.

“And then… maybe Sam can taste some of me?” Valerie muttered.