The Vampirists

  Copyright © 2014 by R. G. Nelson. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author or the terms relayed to you herein.

  R. G. Nelson

  rgnelson@gmail.com

  United States of America

  The Vampirists

  by

  R. G. Nelson

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 0

  Part I: Endings and Beginnings

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part II: The Movement

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part III: The Dark Road

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  The night is filled with equal parts wonder and terror...

  Prologue

  There are moments in life when you suddenly realize that somewhere along the way, you committed to something big, something bigger than you really understood, and that for better or worse, you ended up on a path that led you to this precise point. In these moments, you can only hope like hell that it'll all work out, somehow.

  I feel the floor shaking again, or is that my body? I try to turn my head slightly to see if she is still there. I think my vision is going foggy. Now there’s a flickering; is the light fixture old? I can hear it buzzing, along with a sickening choking sound. I have to focus, is she still here? With me?

  Of course she is. I can feel her hand holding mine. She is telling me everything will be okay. I can’t really see her. I realize the light is not flickering–I think my eyes must be rolling back. I try to concentrate on them, make them stop moving. I want to see her again before the cold fog closes in.

  Before she is gone forever.

  Before I am gone forever.

  “Adam, I’m right here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she says.

  I want to tell her that it’s okay. That I know she didn’t. That I love her. I try to move my lips, but my mouth is filled with some strange liquid. Blood. I guess that choking sound must be me. That makes sense.

  I’ve finally managed to turn my head a bit to see her. There she is.

  Vera.

  So beautiful.

  An angel … my angel. My angel of death.

  I’m freezing. I see my blood racing across the white tiles to form a puddle around her kneeling figure. She bends over me, panic in her eyes. But underneath, I see love–love for me. I can’t help but smile at that. As I do, a convulsion wracks my body. I sputter blood all over her pants, staining them.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  * * *

  The club was crowded last night. The band was pretty good; it drew a lot of the regulars plus a bunch of randoms. Needless to say, there were hipsters galore. The scarf I wore around my neck didn’t even stand out, though I have to admit it got a bit hot while dancing.

  Still, Vera was worth it, as always. She was in a slinky little dress that sparkled and boots that were the perfect combination of fashionable and badass. She swayed with the music rhythmically like it was a part of her, jumping from the elaborate speaker setup directly into her core and then passing through her to infect the crowd. And me. I was never much of a dancer, but somehow with her, I didn’t care. And it’s not just because of all the stares we were getting–guys checking her out and then looking at me enviously, girls wondering what I had to land such a beauty. I used to catch all those wandering eyes and gaze back. But my glances never held any answers; I considered myself unbelievably lucky to be next to her and still didn’t really understand what she saw in me.

  But recently, I had stopped caring about all those other people around, especially on the dance floor. There it was just me and Vera. Me and Vera and the music. I pulled her close with my free arm and took a deep swig from my beer in my other hand. We swayed gently to the music. I couldn’t help being reminded of the times in my youth when I had slow danced like this and everything seemed so magical: middle school dances in the gymnasium, birthdays at the YMCA, bar mitzvahs in hotel ballrooms …. When I was younger, I felt the magic of youth; now, I felt her magic.

  Suddenly, I had an idea. “You want to sneak a drink?” I asked.

  Vera looked at me with slight confusion and said, “I shouldn’t. You know I’m not allowed in public.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” I countered. For someone with such unbelievable experiences behind her, she can really be quite risk averse.

  “Adam, you never know who’s watching,” she said. But I heard something in her tone that made me think she was wavering.

  I pushed ahead: “No one can see us. We’re in the middle of a crowd and it’s dark.” She looked at me for what seemed like a long time. I thought I’d won, but then she shook her head.

  “It’s too risky,” she said with finality.

  I’m not one to give up very easily. My friends, if I had many that knew me well, would back that claim up. Nonetheless, I yielded to Vera. “Okay, okay,” I said. Disappointed, I looked around. In the far corner, I saw a red sign for the bathroom lit up in the darkness. Bingo. New idea.

  “I have a plan, let’s go,” I told her. I took her arm and tried to pull her along, but God knows she’s stronger than she looks, and right then she was hesitating to go. “Bathroom. No one will find out,” I explained. I could definitely sense her wavering.

  “Adam …” she started.

  “I want to do this for you,” I interrupted. Touched, she started to smile. There, that was it. I could tell that I’d won.

  “Okay,” she said simply. She was mine now.

  We smiled at each other in anticipation and pushed toward the bathroom sign. I led, navigating us through the dense crowd. I caused a few minor beer spills in my eagerness to get through, but I hardly noticed the dark looks thrown my way. Because every time I looked back, all I could see was her with her ice-blue eyes shining in the darkness, lighting my heart. I know that makes me sound cheesy. In fact, it is cheesy–but she has that effect on me.

  Finally, we reached the men’s room. Before anyone could object, I guided her inside. There was a line, but lucky for us som
eone was just emerging from a stall. I rushed with her into the recently vacated opening and shut the door. I heard an annoyed guy complaining about us cutting the line, so I quickly pulled out a ten spot and slid it across the white tiles under the door. I swear I heard him mutter something about us using drugs, but he took it all the same.

  I put my wallet back in my pocket and stared at Vera. I couldn’t believe that I’d go through such hassle for this: I never would have thought that I’d be this kind of guy. Vera was staring back euphorically, expectantly. Those eyes: I should have known. Too beautiful and too into me to be any good. I took a deep pull from my beer and handed it to Vera.

  “Try not to spill,” I told her. She took the beer awkwardly.

  “It’s not like it’s my first time,” she said with a smile. She quickly and quietly placed the beer on a ledge above the toilet. I took off my scarf.

  Suddenly, she was on me. I had been bracing for this, yet all the same it happened so quickly that I almost let out a cry. But she is an expert and had her hand over my mouth so I couldn’t have made any noise anyway. There was pain, of course. There always is. But for whatever reason–the love, the alcohol, the tolerance that comes from prior experiences, etc.–it didn’t hurt as bad as you might think.

  I felt her fangs in me and groaned slightly through her hand. Detecting a tiny trickle of blood escaping her eager mouth, I leaned forward, hoping it would fall to the ground rather than run down and stain my shirt. Drip. Drip. She did spill. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw drops of my blood hitting the tiles on the floor.

  She drank more. Such a weird feeling to be connected in this way, my life literally flowing into her. Love, trust, fear–a million emotions coursed through me. And still she drank. Drip. Drip. I thought a small pool of blood was starting to form on the floor, but I couldn’t be sure because my eyes began rolling up into the back of my head and I collapsed in her steel embrace.

  But that's not it. That's not the beginning. By then, I was a few months in and already lost. They say your whole life flashes before your eyes as you die, but all I see is how I ended up on a shortcut to my death.

  Part I: Endings and Beginnings

  1)

  The coffee shop is half empty. Or maybe I should be an optimist and point out that the coffee shop is half filled, and this despite the fact that tonight’s speaker is somewhat of a joke. At least to me. My friend Franklin seems to take him very seriously. He dragged me here promising that it would change my outlook on society, the world, and life in general. As I watch the speaker, an aging man with a dark brown corduroy jacket replete with elbow patches, he seems to be trying a little too hard to fit the mold of being a dissident member of the intelligentsia or a rebellious college professor. He even has those intellectual-looking eyeglasses.

  I guess he fits, though. Looking around, I see a room of non-conformists and societal outcasts. I’m not sure where I fit in all this, but Franklin seems to be right at home. He nods at a few others, so I guess they are regulars.

  “You sure about this, man?” I ask, barely trying to mask my doubt.

  “Yeah, it's cool, dude. You'll like it. This guy … he like, knows things. Trust me,” he responds.

  The speaker has just been introduced as Joseph. He begins to rattle away in a slight accent. I try to place it. German, maybe? Interesting. Franklin glances at me to make sure that I’m listening. I better pretend to pay attention, or I’m sure he’ll bother me about it later. It’s hard to understand what he sees in this crowd. They represent the fringes of society, those displaced or out of place in the mainstream. Franklin and I have never really fit in, we have that in common, but surely he doesn’t see himself as one of these?

  I pick up a pamphlet from the table to pass the time. It is relatively non-descript except for a graphic, I guess an icon, which shows three letters: M,V,T. Underneath is a rather generic tagline: Join the Movement! I flip it open and am about to start reading inside when I notice Franklin watching me. Our eyes meet. He makes it obvious I should be listening to Joseph. Obligingly, I set the flier back down and look up at the front.

  Off to the side of the stage, three girls sit in previously empty folding chairs. They watch the crowd intently, as if trying to read each person’s response to Joseph’s polemic. I guess they are connected to the Movement, but this is not what interests me. What interests me is the girl in the middle.

  Amazing.

  I don’t know where she was earlier, but I know that if she had been in the room when I entered, I would have seen her immediately. That I would have only been able to focus on her, on her beautiful pale-blue, almost ice-like eyes. Her face, framed by shoulder length, jet-black hair, is confident, relaxed, natural, but stunning. In fact, there is something otherworldly about her. She does not even seem to be aware that she is being watched just as surely as she is observing the small mass of people in front of her, yet somehow, she seems to be exuding a certain sultry, seductive charm. Or maybe it’s just because she embodies everything that I’ve always wanted in a member of the opposite sex: a superhot girl next door.

  She leans over and chats with one of her blonde friends. They laugh and look at someone in the crowd, both nod in agreement at some unheard comment. She pivots slightly in the seat and reaches down unconsciously to adjust her skirt. Immediately after, she looks out at the crowd, as if to see if her fidgeting was observed. It was. By me. And probably a dozen other of the red-blooded teens in the crowd.

  As she looks out, her eyes pass over all the others searching eagerly for a connection with her … and yet for some reason stop on mine. At least, I think they do. No, for sure our gaze has met: I stare back unflinchingly, not out of bravery or confidence, but because I don’t have the willpower to look away. I’m entranced, enticed by her attention and just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, tonight will be interesting after all.

  Suddenly, she looks away. The loss of her gaze hits me like the sun disappearing behind a cloud on a beach in Florida: Without it, I’m not sure what the point of me being here even is. Joseph is saying something and Franklin is nodding his head subtlety, no longer paying rapt attention to me, but I only have eyes for this girl, this angel.

  She glances back. I am still watching her, desperate to reconnect. Her icy blue eyes bore into mine; it’s as if she is penetrating my soul, my being laid bare before her. Suddenly, I remember that I shouldn’t seem too desperate. With great effort, I tear my gaze away and glance out at the crowd, attempting to feign disinterest. I hope it’s not too late.

  But my heart is racing with excitement and I can only hold out for so long. Within several seconds, several seconds that could have been a lifetime, I look back. She is still watching me, but smiling now. I melt and am instantly embarrassed because I’m sure that she knows exactly what I’m thinking about her. I decide to play hardball and turn my attention to Joseph. I think I see her chuckle a bit to herself out of the corner of my eye. I tell myself that I don’t care. I almost believe it.

  “The real villains are the corporations,” Joseph says. “They are the scum that constantly seek to undermine decent society's ability to rule itself properly. They infect and corrupt the government, such that we can no longer trust our leaders. Our faith ….”

  Franklin looks over and sees that I am absorbing Joseph’s words. He nudges me and raises his eyebrows questioningly; he wants to see how I’m taking it all. Not sure how best to respond, I give a half-committed smile and turn back to Joseph.

  “And so we must take matters into our own hands. Humanity has proven itself too weak to resist the temptations of power. And right now the masses are too blind to the dangerous path they are on. They cannot see the truth–they do not even want to see the truth. So it falls to us to struggle against those who would seek to rule us under f
alse pretenses,” Joseph continues. I feel her eyes back on me. I try to hold out, but curiosity gets the best of me. I look back.

  She is indeed watching me, or perhaps studying me is more accurate. I feel that she, like Franklin, is trying to read me to gauge my reaction to Joseph’s assertions. Not wanting to offend her either, I smile slightly and return my focus to Joseph. He seems to be working himself up to some big point; his words and gestures grow increasingly animated.

  “We are better off on our own, where each person is responsible for his or her respective well-being. Only in such a society of individuals can we avoid the pollution that organizations, be they religious or corporate or political, have consistently brought mankind,” Joseph says. “For show me a religion that has not been twisted to support devious ends. Show me a corporation that cares more about the well-being of humanity than a short-term profit. Show me a political party that, once in power, remains true to its mission of putting society above political gain, above winning the next re-election!”

  And it goes on like this for a while. Suddenly, people are clapping. I guess the speech/rant is ending. The room sounds like it is filled to capacity with eager young acolytes rather than the sparse mob of misfits I see in front of me. But she is watching me. And clapping. So I, too, begin to clap … just in time, as Franklin turns to me with excitement.

  “See, not so bad, right? You gotta admit he makes some great points!” he says. “Let’s go talk to him. I want you to meet him.”

  “You go first,” I say. “I’ll let you catch up while I mingle with some of the people around. I’m curious about the crowd here.”

  He isn’t sure how to read that, but goes ahead and joins the throng rapidly forming around Joseph. I turn and survey the masses, hoping against hope to find someone semi-normal looking I can chat with. I don’t really, so I pull out my phone and push buttons furiously, pretending to be occupied in the hope that it will both make it not so weird that I’m standing by myself and also discourage randoms from coming and talking to me. Suddenly, I feel a light tap from behind on my shoulder. Epic fail on the phone ploy. I turn–