Vamps and Hunters

1. Family is everything. Bill unwrapped another lemon hard candy and popped it in his mouth. It did little to mask the stench of vampire and rot, but it was soothing.

Cavanaugh was the rotted out shell of a town, but Cerani was in there somewhere, hiding behind the newly erected wall of iron, silver, and oak. He'd have been lying if he said he wasn't troubled by this.

“What are you up to, Cerani Tam?” he asked.




2. It was easy to hate a man like Whit Juniper, Cerani decided as she ran. He wasn't just bad luck, he was the father of all catastrophes. The chain connecting their wrists pulled too tight. The bus driver gunned the engine and sped off through the open gate. It slammed shut as the bus passed.

“Guess that means no elimination round,” Whit said. When he stopped running, she had to stop and she didn't want to. She wanted to follow that bus until the driver took pity and stopped to let her on. “Left behind” meant disqualification, failure, and the dubious honor of watching the producers of Vamps and Hunters award the prize money to someone else.

If she lived long enough to see it.

The producers and writers had come up with something “special” for the Halloween Challenge. They'd built an impenetrable wall around just the right crumbling ghost town, researched until they came up with just the right disgusting supernatural monster, and then chained a dozen vampires to a dozen vampire hunters and dumped them in that town to survive the chaos.

Whit strolled beside her as though dozens of flesh eating zombies weren't stalking the streets behind them. Another reason to hate him, the damn scent of vampire made her eyes water. She took a step away from him.

“We could have caught up if you hadn't slowed down,” she said.

“Sorry, I'm not the Flash. On the bright side, if you're into this sort of thing---”

“I'm not,” she said, “So just stuff it.”

“We're so very alone together. Alone...at last.”

She didn't have to look at him to know he was smirking. That was another thing that made him easy to hate. His only expressions were smug and slightly more smug. Vampires like that were too out of touch with reality to be reliable. Anything terrible that happened because of them was happening to create a better opportunity.

“Let's head back to the store,” she said, “That back room was fairly sturdy. We could block the exit, hold off until morning---”

“If that's what you want, Beautiful.”

His winning smile was headache inducing. That was another thing that made it easy to hate him. He was the kind of stupid, sexy vampire that knew just how nicely he was put together. All he had to do is smile and the things he wanted just sort of fell at his feet.

“I have a name.”

“But I like Beautiful,” he said, “You get such a nasty look on your face when I call you that. Hilarious.”

“I'm laughing on the inside,” she said, tugging on the chain, “Could you save your comedy act until we're out of immediate danger?”

Whit glanced over his shoulder, seemingly unconcerned by the gathering crowd.

“What? You mean those jerks?” he asked, “Pfft. Sunshine, that's not dangerous.”

Cerani almost choked on her own tongue. One person called her Sunshine, and she liked to pretend he was dead.

“It's Cerani,” she said, “Not Sunshine. Not Beautiful. Cerani. And you're full of shit if you think zombies aren't dangerous.”

“I repeat, that's not dangerous. That's a kitten pouncing on its own tail.”

A kitten? Clearly he'd hit his head in the last fight, because zombies were most certainly not kitten like. They'd tear a vampire apart just as readily as they would a human. Though a human wouldn't regenerate, they'd just be dead. So maybe he had a point. They weren't dangerous to him, just incredibly inconvenient.

“I don't think I've said it lately,” she said, “But I really hate you.”

He winked. Yet another thing to add to her list of reasons to hate him. He was a smug vampire who winked at inappropriate times.

The closest zombie wasn't one of the newly dead. Pieces were sloughing off at record pace. Whatever wizard had raised him hadn't used the right combination of nightshade, vervain, and sage. It was a common mistake among amateurs---and high on Cerani's list of the most irritating things. Fighting off a rotting corpse was a horrible way to spend an evening, but fighting off a rotting corpse when you didn't have your trusty modded out shotgun made the encounter ten times as awful as it had to be.

The producers had slipped a clause into the contract about confiscating all outside weapons. Her weapon of choice, Wolfsbane, was locked up in her locker back at the studio. If she made it out of this, she was never letting it out of her sight again.

“Would you please run a little faster?” she asked.

Whit followed behind at a pace far slower than he should have. In the fight that made them miss the bus, he'd been a whirlwind of activity. Now, he was practically walking. The store, still surrounded by the bodies of the zombies they'd already dispatched, wasn't going to be easily accessible for long.

The chain pulled tight for just a second and then he was running beside her. She pretended her admonishment was the reason, but a little voice inside her nagged otherwise. Whit didn't listen to anyone but himself. If he was running, it was because he wanted to.

She glanced back, immediately regretting it. The wizard who'd raised the dead hadn't just raised a few dozen human corpses. Dogs. He'd picked dogs. Out of all the animals in all the world, he'd had to go with the one species that scared the everloving crap out of her.

And worse, they weren't the slow, shuffling type. They were newly raised, barely rotting, and running full speed through the crowd.

“Ah hell,” she said.

She jumped over one of the corpses on the stairs. The tips of the dogs' nails scraped against the pavement as they ran—-a sound that made her want to cover her ears and scream. Scrape, clatter, scrape. She almost tripped over her own feet as she reached the door. The dogs snarled and snapped. She felt them at her heels, the air stirring too close to her skin. It was a familiar sensation. It was one that still woke her in the night sometimes.

Whit slammed the door shut behind her. The first zombie dog skidded into the glass, cracking it but not breaking through.

“Well that was fun,” he said. She waited just long enough for him to flip the lock---the glass wasn't going to hold for long, and when it finally broke, she wanted to have the back room barricaded. Zombies were one thing. Dogs, especially zombie dogs, were something else, something she just couldn't handle.

The dog threw itself against the glass. Foul blood, black and congealed, streaked the surface. Through the mess, when she dared to look, she saw the glassy eyes, hungry as they followed her movements. The image didn't disappear when the door to the back room was finally shut. She could still see the scene, playing over and over again---glassy eyes, broken teeth, ruined head smashing against the door.

She struggled to pull one of the cabinets in front of the door. The piece was old and scuffed up, but it was sturdy.

“Will you give me a hand with this?”

Whit didn't have anything smarmy to say. He put his shoulder to the cabinet and shoved it into place. The book case was next. He maneuvered it against the door before wedging it up against a ratty looking, threadbare couch. That was one reason not to hate him. Vampire strength came in handy when you had to move furniture.

She forced herself to breathe.

“This is the part where you say you've been bitten,” Whit said as he jumped over the edge of the couch to sit down,“And that I have to mercy kill you before you turn.”

“What?”

“In zombie movies, that means you're infected,” he said, tugging on the chain, “Sit down. You're almost as pale as I am.”

“It doesn't work like that in real life.”

She sat beside him, keeping as much space between them as humanly possible. The cushions sagged pitifully under her weight, and a dust cloud puffed up around her middle. She wondered how long the store had sat vacant before Vamps and Hunters selected it for the Halloween Challenge. Years, decades? The faded floral pattern looked a lot like the one she'd slept on in Gran's living room.

“So you're not going to try to ravish my brain?” Whit asked.

“Not even if yours is the last brain on the planet,” she said, “I'm fine.”

But she wasn't. The crashing sound of zombie dog through the glass of the front door neatly punctuated that point. She sat up straight, hands curling into fists. The part of her that was rational wondered why they hadn't encountered the dogs during the challenge. It didn't make sense for the producers to hold something like that back, but they had. A part of her wondered if they weren't meant to make it out of the town, but that was crazy, right?

If they failed the challenge but survived the night, someone would come back for them. That was written in the fine print. It was how they got the hunters to agree to fulfill the contract (that and the threats from the studio lawyers)---Cerani hadn't been the only one who misunderstood an important section of the fine print.

The dogs howled.

There really were things worse than death.




3. The town wasn't filled with blood thirsty vampires. Ruined hands pushed through the iron gate. Bill felt a little bit better about not calling in the rest of the pack. Zombies were easier to dispatch than vampires. They smelled worse, but he could handle them on his own.

Still, it bothered him he'd scented vampires in the first place. His nose was never wrong. Well, rarely wrong. Zombies and vampires mixed about as often as werewolves and vampires. And that never happened. Vampire senses were stronger. They'd be able to stand the smell even less than weres.

Bill popped another hard candy into his mouth before he unsheathed Captain Murder. It was a good thing he'd remembered to sharpen the blade before he left.




4. “I don't suppose you're going to tell me what crawled up your butt and died?” Whit asked.

The scratching at the door stopped some time in the night, but Cerani could still hear the dogs pacing outside. They reacted to Whit's voice, renewing their assault with gusto. She shot him a glare.

“You suppose correctly,” she said.

“Come on. We're stuck in a room. I'm bored. Tell me stuff.”

“No,” she said. She inched away when he inched closer. There was that smell again, that vampire smell. It was starting to get to her.

“Pretty please---this is mind numbing.”

“With your brain, I'm surprised you can tell,” she said, inching further away again. He scooted over the invisible line dividing his side of the couch from her side. Stupid, sexy vampire, she thought as she considered smacking him with the chain. With her luck though, she'd end up smacking herself instead.

“This is your first zombie encounter, isn't it?” he asked, “Look, it's ok to be scared, but I promise I won't let anything eat your pretty little brains.”

“This isn't my first---”

“If you need to, you can use my body to comfort yourself. Have your way with me,” he said, throwing his head back dramatically, “I'm stronger than I look. I can take it.”

“First of all, ew, and second, not even if you use mind control,” she said.

“Then say something interesting,” he said, “Please. I might have to stake myself if you don't.”

“How is that incentive?” she asked.

“I could glamour you,” he said, “And then I can't promise I won't make you cluck like a chicken whenever you hear someone say  “homesick” or “carrot.” I'm quirky like that.”

She couldn't tell if he was joking. Even if he was messing with her, a bored supernatural creature was a dangerous thing. Especially one possessing mind control capabilities.

“Fine. What do you want to talk about?”

“Origin stories are always fun,” he said, back tracking quickly when he noted her dark look, “Or not. Ladies' choice.”

“So you wouldn't mind listening to a detailed recitation of the names of all the vampires I've had to stake in the last six months?”

“Except for that. Ladies' choice as long as it's not about murdering vampires,” he said, sitting up a little straighter, “And nothing about tax laws or the history of the cabbage. Oh, and skip anything to do with the 1950s, the 1980s, and everything that happened in 1998---not a fun year for me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Not terribly,” he said, “Seriousness causes wrinkles and when you're a vampire wrinkles last forever.”

The barricade shook, books pitching off the shelves from the force. Cerani stood, her heart racing. She'd almost forgotten why they were stuck here. For a moment, anyway. Now that she'd been reminded, her other doubts came rushing back.

Were the producers sending someone to rescue them or had that been a lie?

The zombie dogs growled.

“You really don't like dogs, do you?”

It took a moment for her to understand the question. Whit stared, blinking pointedly, impatiently.

“No,” she said, “I really don't like dogs.”

“You see, that would be something interesting we could talk about,” he said, “Because I happen to love dogs. They're hysterical. Especially when confronted with cat people. Dogs do the damnedest things when they know you don't like them.”

“Huh, kind of like a certain asshat vampire I know.”

“That's probably not a fair assessment. Asshat is such a strong word,” he said.

“And entirely appropriate. No dog discussions. I'm putting my foot down.” It would be a cold day in hell before she had that discussion with anyone. Maybe Whit wasn't one of the baddies she'd had to put down, but he wasn't inspiring any warm fuzzy feelings either. His brand of “witty commentary” about the worst night of her life would end badly.

The barricade shook, the book case and the cabinets rocking hard against the door. Something had stirred the dogs up, and while Cerani would have liked to have blamed Whit, she couldn't blame it on him alone.

“Fine, no dog discussions, but you're missing out. I know everything there is to know about how dogs are the best animals in the world,” he said, “Bet I could convince you---”

“Maybe when we're not about to be killed by zombies,” she snapped, “Could you focus for two seconds?”

“I'm focused.”

“You're making jokes---”

“I'm focused on making jokes. Listen, Beautiful, I'm providing a crucial service. In all life and death situations, one person must be prepared to say stupid, funny shit. It improves our chances of survival by a whopping fifty percent. You're welcome.”

There it was again, the urge to smack him. The compulsion was so strong she had to count to ten to stop herself. There was another crash, this time further away. One of the dogs yelped.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

Whit tilted his head to the side. Instead of the sound of scrambling dog feet across weathered floor boards, Cerani heard heavy footsteps. The tension washed out of her. Those were not the footsteps of the undead.

Three sharp knocks pounded on the door.

“Anybody home?” a voice called out. The door rattled as the stranger tried to open it. There was something familiar about that voice. It made her skin prickle.

“I guess this means I'm not going to get that dog story out of you after all,” Whit said, ducking out of reach when Cerani tried to smack him.

She shot him a Look, “Yes. We're here. We're ok.”

“Well, who's “we”? “ the voice asked. The stranger tried the door again and met with the same resistance.

“Hold on. We have to clear the door. Whit, will you---”

“I don't know if I should,” Whit said, “I was really looking forward to that dog story.”

She dragged the cabinet out the way while Whit moved the book case. Once the chains were removed and she was on her way home, she'd feel better. She could forget the disappointment of losing. She could forget about the zombies and Whit and being trapped in this armpit of a town. She could go back to hunting monsters that weren't made by amateur wizards.

She opened the door.




5. Bill's nose twitched. There it was again, the smell of vampire. He didn't have time to ponder it before the door opened. He saw Cerani. The smile slipped off her face, recognition dawning.

“You,” she said, her voice so like her mother's it took his breath away. She stood beside the source of Bill's irritation---a vampire with a smug expression and a bad haircut. Typical. He was glad he hadn't bothered to sheathe Captain Murder.

“Hello to you too, Sunshine. Care to introduce me to your friend?” he asked. He didn't much like the sight of her chained to a vampire.

What father would?