Vampire Lord 6 Chapter 5

“Well, shit.” James whistled and scratched at his graying beard with one hand. “That’s bound to get those bastards attention, isn’t it?”

“Um, that’s kind of the point,” Catherine chuckled. “Sam wants to makes sure those fanged assholes know they shouldn’t fuck with us and that this is his territory now.”

“I don’t think it will be even close to any kind of deterrent,” I said. “But it should provoke Thaddeus into coming to us, and then we can have this showdown on our terms, on our turf. Instead of going into his territory blind.”

“That’s certainly a hefty advantage, Sam.” Celia nodded slowly and drummed her fingers on the table in front of her. “We’ll be more prepared if we can get them to come to us.”

“Excellent battle strategy, sir,” Perkins added and gave me another salute. “I wholeheartedly agree with your assessments, and I’ll be proud to follow you into this battle.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Because we’re going to need every single person who is even a halfway decent shot to make sure we all come out of this thing alive.”

“You can count on us, man,” a middle-aged man declared as he slapped his hand down on the table where he sat. He had close cropped dark hair and an impressive handlebar mustache that was waxed into a perfect curl on either side of his lip, and tattoo designs of cogs, gears, wires, and metal plates ran down both his forearms all the way to his wrists.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I replied with a grin. “And that’s one hell of a mustache you have.”

“Thanks, man, I’m Mark,” the mustachioed man said, and then he jabbed a thumb at the man who sat beside him in the narrow booth. “And this here is Jerry. We’re the best shots in town. Tell ‘im, Jer’.”

“Nailed a sixteen-point from three hundred and fifty five yards,” Jerry bragged and he puffed out his chest like a gorilla defending his terrain. Short salt and pepper hair sprang up in every direction from his head like the man had never owned a comb in his entire life, but his brown eyes were steady on my face while he spoke. “Gotta be real skilled to hit yer target with a three-oh-eight from that kinda distance.”

“That’s impressive.” I nodded and glanced inconspicuously at my girlfriend beside me.

“Wow, that is impressive,” Natalie confirmed, and her eyes were wide with appreciation. “That’s hard to do.”

“Thank ya, ma’am.” Jerry grinned and blushed under the praise from my beautiful brunette girlfriend.

“So, how exactly do you plan to deliver this message of yours to those fanged bastards over in Black Betsy?” James asked as he tried to steer the conversation back on track.

“Well, a few of us are going out to Charleston tonight,” I explained as every person in the room turned their attention to me. “I want to gear up and make a stop for seeds and other farm supplies while I’m out that way. Valerie says there’s a Cabela’s in the city and that we’ll pass right through Black Betsy on our way out there.”

“Yep, if ya take route 62, ya gotta go right through the middle of town,” Jerry confirmed.

“So, after the supply run, I’m going to dump the bodies of those vamps who came here in the raid the other day,” I continued. “We’ll sneak into town and drop those rotting corpses right where Thaddeus will be sure to find them.”

“We should mark them somehow,” Catherine suggested as she twirled a long strand of her auburn hair between her elegant fingers. “Let them know who’s in charge here, and that this is your territory.”

“That’s a good idea,” Erika agreed. “Like planting a flag. It’ll make it really clear that this is Sam’s fiefdom, and we won’t back down.”

“Okay, yeah, I like that.” I nodded my head and scratched my fingers on my chin. “But what do we call it? ‘Sam’s Fiefdom’ sounds a little lame I think.”

“How about ‘Sam’s Red House?’” Lily offered and shrugged one shoulder.

“‘The Red House of Sam?’” Brianna countered from her perch near the diner’s counter.

“Hmm, what about ‘dominion’ instead of ‘house’?” Neko suggested.

“I like that.” I smiled crookedly at the pink-haired girl. It has a nice ring to it. “‘Sam’s Dominion,’ that’s not bad… ”

But it wasn’t perfect, so the diner went quiet for a moment as people brainstormed. James scratched at his chin, and Celia tapped a finger on her temple. Lieutenant Perkins opened his mouth to say something but closed it almost immediately, and the action made him look like a fish out of water gasping for air.

“Hmm.” Lily shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Red Sam’s Dominion,” Mark spoke up. His voice rumbled in his chest like a V-8 engine, and the whole group turned to look at him with wide eyes..

“‘Red Sam.’” I nodded. That was pretty perfect. I’d spent most of my time since the vampocalypse started covered in blood, and it had a mean ring to it. “Red Sam’s Dominion. I like that. That’s good, Mark.”

“Ya really like it?” Mark asked, and he stared at me like a dog waiting for his owner’s praise.

“Yeah, I do,” I replied with a grin.

“It makes you sound like a pirate,” Erika giggled and tapped her fingers together with excitement.

“Yeah, like Black Beard,” Brianna said and swished her hair over her shoulder.

“Certainly adds to the whole ‘don’t fuck with us’ part of your message, Sam.” James nodded and leaned back against the padded red pleather of the booth.

“It’s perfect,” Natalie declared, and she tugged gently on my arm like a little kid waiting in line to see Santa. “It suits you.”

“Alright, so how are we gonna write it?” Catherine asked and crossed her long legs. “I think just scrawling ‘Red Sam’s Dominion’ on a piece of paper maybe loses some of the badass ‘don’t fuck with us’ effect.”

“There’s red spray paint in the general store,” Brianna chimed in. “We could line the body’s up on the street and paint ‘Red Sam’s Dominion’ across their chests.”

“Bree, that’s perfect,” I said and gave the blonde girl a charming smile.

“Thanks.” Brianna smiled brightly and stared up at me from under her long lashes.

“I’ll go grab a few cans,” Lily said, and she walked out the door of the diner and across the street to the general store.

“James, would it be okay if we took your jeep for this little run?” I asked. I still wanted to leave Rhino in town where she would be safe until we really needed her, and James’s jeep had plenty of space to fit Catherine, Erika, Val, and me comfortably with enough room left over for the supplies we would pick up.

“Sure thing, Sam,” James replied. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them at me. “I told you, anything you need. I’m your man.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s get going.” Catherine hopped up out of her chair, leaned down to quickly plant a kiss on the top of her uncle’s head, and bounced toward the door.

“We’ll go in a minute,” I told the auburn-haired girl and rolled my eyes at her affectionately. “We still gotta load up the bodies, remember?”

“Got the paint,” Lily called out as she returned to the diner, and the soft tinkling of the silver bell at the front door rang behind her.

“Great, did you happen to see any big plastic tarps in the general store?” I asked. “I don’t want to soak the back of the jeep with moldy vamp brains before we put all our weapons and farm supplies in it.”

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of tarps in there,” Neko answered and gestured over her shoulder back at the general store.

“I’ll go grab them,” Catherine said and bounded out through the door before anybody could object.

“Alright, then,” I chuckled as I shook my head lightly at the long-legged girl’s excitement. Then I turned to the rest of my women. “Let’s go grab those bodies, and we can head out.”

“Be safe, Sam,” Celia called after us and gave a little wave as we filed out of the diner.

“Thanks, Celia, we will,” I shouted back before I turned to face my women. “Alright, let’s get going. I want to be back in town before dawn if we can.”

“Got ‘em,” Catherine declared as she jogged up to join our circle, and she held a small stack of blue plastic tarps in her arms.

“I actually had something I wanted to talk to you about, Sam,” Natalie interrupted, and she placed one delicate hand on my elbow. “I’d like to go with you to deliver the message.”

I frowned at my girlfriend for a moment while I considered this, but I eventually turned to the rest of our group.

“Go ahead over to the general store,” I told the other girls. “We’ll be right there.

Valerie, Brianna, Neko, and Lily nodded without comment and walked off toward the general store. Neko and Lily glanced back over their shoulders at me, and I could tell they were curious, but they didn’t say anything.

“Okay, Sam,” Erika said as she grabbed hold of Catherine’s arm and tugged her away. “Come on.”

“But they’re gonna fight, and I wanna listen,” Catherine whined quietly, but she followed behind the dark-haired girl without any further protest.

Once everyone disappeared into the general store, I turned back to my girlfriend and took a deep breath.

“Nat, I need you to stay here in town while we’re in Charleston,” I said in the firmest tone I could muster. “I trust you to keep this place safe in my absence.”

“I know, but I was thinking,” the brunette said as she chewed on her bottom lip and shifted from one foot to the other. “I think you and I should go and deliver the message, and then you, Cath, Erika, and Val can go out to Charleston on that other route that doesn’t go through Black Betsy.”

“That’s a little less direct,” I pointed out. “But… maybe it’s a good idea to drop the message and get out of there before we run into any trouble.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Natalie said softly and shrugged one shoulder. “Trying to make it all the way through downtown without being spotted would be really difficult. And if you got caught with the bodies in the back of the jeep, there’s no way it wouldn’t turn into a bloodbath. And you’ll have Valerie with you. She’s still human, so you need to keep her safe.”

“Hmm.” I thought about that a moment. “You’re right. It does make more sense to drop the bodies on the north end of town and then sneak out as soon as we can and go the long way to Charleston.”

“See?” My girlfriend’s bright smile nearly blinded me.

“Okay, let’s do it your way, babe.” I smiled and leaned down to give my girlfriend a hard kiss on the lips. “Damn, you’re so sexy when you’re right.”

“I know,” Natalie said and gave me a cocky smirk.

“Let’s tell the girls our new plan,” I laughed as I took my girlfriend’s hand in mine. Pride for her and her brilliance warmed my heart, and I realized how glad I was to have her at my side. Then we walked across the street and into the general store together.

“Finally, let’s get going!” Catherine stood up and bounced on her toes a little when Natalie and I entered the store.

“Actually, little change of plans,” I said and held up one hand to stop the auburn-haired girl before she darted right out of the store in her excitement.

“Uuugghh, whaaaat?” Catherine bent her knees and slumped back onto her stool behind the counter. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted at me. “You better not be leaving me here while you go out to Charleston.”

“No, no,” I chuckled. “Nat and I are going to deliver my message to Black Betsy first, but then you, Erika, and Valerie are still going with me into the city.”

“We agreed it makes more sense to drop the bodies and the message at the northern part of town and get out of there before we get caught,” Natalie explained. “It’s too risky to try and make it all the way through town without being spotted. Then we’ll come back here, and you guys can head out on that other road Val pointed out.”

“The one that crosses over the river twice?” Erika asked.

“Yeah, route 34,” Valerie clarified. “That’s a good idea, Sam.”

“It was Nat’s idea, actually.” I looked at my beautiful girlfriend and smiled. Then I turned back to the group. “So, we’ll go drop the message and be back as soon as we can. Catherine, Erika, you two get our guns loaded and ready to go so we can head out as soon as we’re back. We’re tacking on probably an extra hour into the plan for tonight, and I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“Sure thing, Sam,” Erika said.

“Yeah, Drac, we’ll have everything ready before you get back.” Catherine smiled and handed me the stack of tarps. “Go on, get outta here and deliver your message.”

“Here, you’ll need these, too,” Lily said and passed Natalie a plastic bag filled with half a dozen cans of red spray paint.

“Alright, we’ll be back soon.” I nodded at my women and took Natalie’s hand again. Then we walked out of the store and over to where James’s jeep was parked beside the diner.

“We should lay out the tarps before we go through the barricade,” Natalie said and walked to the back of the jeep.

“Good thinking.” I followed my girlfriend to the back of the vehicle and opened the hatch. “Let’s put as many layers down as we have and save one tarp to throw on top of them.”

“Okay,” my brunette girl said and shook out a tarp. She started to spread it out on the cargo area of the jeep while I shook out another tarp. Then Natalie laid down two more and made sure the corners were pulled up to protect the sides of the cargo space from moldy vamp brains and blood. “Looks good to me, let’s go.”

“Yep,” I said, and I placed the last folded up tarp on top and shut the hatch. “Let’s go load up some dead vamps.”

We climbed up into the jeep, and I turned the key in the ignition. The jeep’s engine started up smoothly, and I backed out into the empty street. Then we headed past the church and out to the eastern barricade, and Ross and another middle-aged man whose name I didn’t know nodded at us and moved the barricade away so we could drive out of town. I nodded at them as we drove out, and I glanced in my rearview mirror to make sure they moved the barricade back into place.

“James said the bodies were in the ditch just over here,” Natalie said and pointed to a dark area off the side of the road where the land sloped down sharply.

I pulled the jeep to the side and backed up as close to the ditch as possible. I left the engine running and hopped out to load the decaying vampire bodies into the back. It surprised me how fast vampires started to disintegrate. Between the fatal damage to their faces and their clothing, there wasn’t much skin exposed, but what I could see had started to dry up and flake apart like old wax paper left out in the sun. Their clothes were stained black with blood, and their limbs were all bent at weird angles where they’d been tossed like rag dolls into the ditch.

“Ew.” Natalie’s cute little nose wrinkled in disgust, and she put a hand in front of her mouth. “The smell is awful.”

“Yeah, dead vamp brains smell pretty gross,” I said and beant down to haul the first corpse up by the armpits.

My girlfriend opened the back of the jeep for me, picked up the folded tarp, and held it close to her body as I tossed the body into the space with little effort. The corpse made a sound like crunching leaves when it landed on the tarp, but I ignored it and threw the second one in just as easily. Then I went back and lifted the next body into the jeep, where it dropped on top of the first two with a sickening crunch.

“Ugh,” Natalie groaned and turned her eyes away from the cargo area of the jeep.

“Almost done,” I said as I dropped the next two into the jeep. I hauled up the last body whose head was so badly damaged there was nothing left, and I dumped the headless bastard into the jeep. Then I spread the last tarp out to cover them up and shut the jeep’s hatch. “Alright, that’s the last one. Let’s get going.”

“Did you want to wait until we get there to paint the message?” my girlfriend asked.

“Yeah,” I answered and brushed my hands off on the grass at the side of the road. “I want to lay them out side by side so I have plenty of space to write on.”

“Okay.” Natalie nodded and slammed the hatch closed on the jeep. Then she stepped carefully past the ditch and hopped up into the passenger seat.

We sat in silence as I drove down route 62. The road was quiet and dark, but with my vampire sight I didn’t have any problems. We rolled through Hometown quietly without any trouble, and a few minutes later we started to come up on the outskirts of Black Betsy. I spotted a sign for Bancroft Church of God and thought that could be a good spot to dump the bodies and deliver our message to Thaddeus. I cut the engine as I coasted up to the church, and I was pleased to see it was right on the main road, and the front steps were set back only a few feet from the edge of the street.

“Perfect,” I said quietly. “Let’s leave the fuckers right here.”

“Mm,” Natalie hummed in response and nodded.

I stopped the jeep right in front of the church steps and pointed at the gun on my girlfriend’s hip. Then I pressed my finger against my lips and shook my head.

My brunette girlfriend nodded once and scooped up the axe that lay at her feet.

I left the jeep to idle on the side of the road because it would be quieter to leave it than to start the engine up again. Then we climbed out as quietly as possible and walked around the back to open the cargo hatch.

I looked at Natalie, pointed two fingers at my eyes, and gestured out around us to let her know to keep watch. Then I started to haul the corpses out onto the steps of the church and laid them out side by side on the front steps.

My girlfriend handed a red can of paint to me, and I popped the cap off as I moved to the left of the row of dead vamps and started to spell out ‘RED SAM’S DOMINION’ in huge block letters. The paint dripped and splattered against their clothes and gave the message exactly the gruesome touch I wanted. It only took three cans of spray paint to make the message easy enough to read, so I stepped back to admire my handiwork for only a moment and then gestured hurriedly at Natalie to get back in the jeep.

My girlfriend jogged silently back to the passenger side, hopped in, and pulled the door closed without a single sound.

I strode up to the driver’s side and climbed in, and I softly pulled my door closed behind me. Then I laid my foot gently on the gas and crawled up the street to the next side road, and I pulled behind a copse of bushes where the jeep was mostly hidden but we could still see the church’s front steps through Natalie’s window.

Then we waited to see if our message would be delivered properly.

We didn’t have to wait long before I heard footsteps approach from the opposite direction, and I heard them slow and come to a stop in front of the church.

“Well, fuck,” a female vamp with short purple hair declared and propped her hands on her hips as she looked over the message scrawled out in dripping paint across the bodies. She turned over her shoulder and waved across the street to another vamp. “Lou, come have a look at this.”

“Whatja find?” a scraggly-looking male called back as he jogged over to have a look with her, but he came to an abrupt stop half way across the street. “Fuck.”

“Oh, Thaddeus is gonna lose his shit.” The female kicked her booted foot lightly at one of the vampire corpses in front of her.

“That’s Paulie, isn’t it?” the male asked as he walked the rest of the way over to the church steps and pointed at the headless body.

“Yeah, sure is,” the short-haired female said. “Not the way Thaddeus wanted his brother back, though.”

“You know we gotta tell him.” The scraggly-looking vamp scratched at his stringy hair.

“Uh-huh,” the short-haired female agreed and then pushed at the male’s shoulder. “Go get him.”

“Nah way, you go get him.” the scrawny male retorted.

“Hell no,” the female argued back.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Lou suggested and held out one fist on the open palm of his other hand.

“Ugh, fine,” the purple-haired vamp said.

They stood face to face and smacked their closed fists against their other hands three times.

The scraggly-looking male threw rock, but the female had chosen paper.

“Ha, I win,” the short-haired female gloated and covered the male’s hand with hers. Then she shoved at his narrow shoulder. “Now, go get Thaddeus.”

“Fuck,” Lou moaned, and his shoulders slumped as he turned back the way he’d come.

I glanced briefly at my girlfriend beside me as we waited for the big boss to come out.

“Whatcha find out here, Jan?” a towering beast of a man called to the purple-haired vamp as he strode across the street a few minutes later, and Lou and several other vampires followed behind him.

Thaddeus was enormous, well over six feet tall and as thick as a refrigerator. He had thick brown mutton chops on his wide face, and a worn leather cowboy hat that appeared just a little too small was perched on top of his head. He wore a black t-shirt with a coiled snake and the words ‘Don’t tread on me’ on the back, and it stretched tight across his beer gut and barely reached down far enough to meet his belt. The huge vamp clomper over to Jan in dusty cowboy boots and propped his hands on his hips.

“What the fuck is this shit?” he demanded in an angry growl. When no one said anything, he snatched Lou up by the front of the scraggly vamp’s shirt and screamed in his face. “What the fuck is this fucking shit?!”

“I--I--I--” Lou stuttered and flailed helplessly in his enormous boss’s grip.

“Fuck!” Thaddeus shouted and chucked Lou clear across the street, where the scrawny vamp slammed into a street light hard enough to smash a dent into the middle of it. Then his limp body slumped to the ground.

“Fuck,” I whsipered to my girlfriend. “That’s not the kind of guy I’d want to fuck with.”

“Yeah,” Natalie replied in a hushed voice. Her eyes were wide, and she’d pulled her rifle onto her lap. “And definitely not the kind of well-fed and well-supplied vamp to mess with either.”

“Mm.” I nodded in agreement.

“Who did this?” Thaddeus demanded of his minions.

“Don’t know exactly, boss,” Jan replied and pointed at the bodies on the ground. “But they must be from Red House, that’s the last place Paulie and the others had gone before they disappeared.”

“How’d a bunch of human blood bags do this?” the huge mutton-chopped vamp asked and gestured at the pile of corpses in front of him with one beefy hand. “And who the fuck is Red Sam?”

“Maybe some vamps stumbled on the town before we got the chance to round them all up,” one of the minions suggested.

“What’re ya gonna do, boss?” another bloodsucker asked.

“We’re gonna wipe those fucks right off the fucking map and take all their cattle for ourselves,” Thaddeus declared. “It’s high time we cleaned up that shithole town and added to our blood pool. Red Sam and his pathetic little dominion will be mine.”

“Good,” I breathed softly in the quiet of the jeep. “Just like we wanted.”

“Mhm,” Natalie hummed and stared hard out her window at the enormous vampire boss.

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” I said and started to put the jeep in drive.

“Hang on a second, Sam,” my beautiful girlfriend said and placed a hand on my arm to stop me.

“What? We should get out of here before they spot us.” I turned to look back at Thaddeus and his group of thugs.

Several of the other vamps had wandered away back in the direction they appeared from, but Jan and a few others shuffled around Thaddeus while he continued to rant.

“Let’s go get some target practice in on those blood bags we finished off this morning,” Thaddeus said.

“Ooo-wee.” A male with chin length hair the color of straw whooped and clapped his hands together. “Yeah! I been dyin’ to try out my new rifle!”

“What are you thinking, Nat?” I asked my brunette girlfriend. “Come on, we gotta get out of here.”

“I was thinking about a little target practice myself,” Natalie said, and she gave me a wink as she rolled down her window enough to point the barrel of her rifle at the huge boss. “I mean, come on, Sam. He’s right here. Now’s our chance to take Thaddeus out before he even makes a move on Red House.”

“Hmm, you have a point. If you get him with one good shot right now, we’d save us a lot of trouble.” I stared over at the enormous hulking vampire as he shouted in a rage at his minions. It would be really ideal if Nat could peg him right between the eyes and put him down for good, so I nodded at my sexy vamp girlfriend and got ready to race out of there the second I needed to. “Go on, then, take a shot.”

“Yes.” Natalie’s whole face lit up with a brilliant smile, and she turned her back to me to aim at the beefy wall of vampire who was the big man in charge of Black Betsy.

She squared her shoulders, tucked the butt of her gun into her shoulder, and breathed out as she pulled the trigger, and the explosion of the round as it burst from the end of her barrel rang out in my ears.

But what I saw next left me in complete shock.

Thaddeus whirled around like lightning, so fast that his too-small cowboy hat flew off his head and fell to the ground behind him. The mutton-chopped vampire pivoted on the balls of his enormous feet and sank into his knees as he leaned back in the air to evade the bullet that flew straight through where his huge face had been just fractions of a second before.

“Holy fucking shit,” Natalie breathed in shock. “What…?”

But I didn’t wait for an answer. I laid my foot down on the gas pedal, and the tires screeched out in protest before they gripped the asphalt and we raced out of town.