OV: The Original Vampire (Book #1) (15 page)

“Bud, I love you so much, please love me instead, please love your only daughter.” Josie tried to speak calmly, but her heart was beating so hard it made her voice shake. “Please Dad, love me.” Bud turned around and looked at Josie. His eyes were baby blue again.

“Josie, Baby?” He said in a soothing voice.

“Yes Daddy, I’m here.”

Daira’s dress was torn and muddy. She tilted her head up from lying down so she could see Josie try to soothe her dad. She mouthed the words: “Help me,” as her eyes were lit up with fear. Bud’s hand was still close to Daira’s crotch, but he remained still from Josie’s loving words.

“Let’s go home daddy.” She smiled graciously, all the while having a panic attack and envisioning Bud raping
daira.

“Yes, sweetheart, let’s go home.” Josie reached out her hand as Bud reached out his. Her hand embraced a cold, swollen hand that had cracks deeper than a quarter inch with dried blood around the openings. She had to swallow the pure horror of it all as he squeezed her hand and she felt a soul-sucking energy enter her body.

“Get up Daira.” Josie said coldly. The mud ran down Daira’s thighs as she walked past the Bumtrolls, who tried copying Bud’s technique of grabbing her thighs.

“No! No!”
Daira barked at them. She looked at her legs which were marbled with blood and mud, realized how awful she looked and broke down.

Josie walked back to her, while bud stood hunched over on the trail, “This is not about you right now. I know we just reunited after twenty years, but get your head out of your ass. Come on!”

Daira followed Josie and Bud out of Purgatory.

“You can’t take him home like this.”
Daira exclaimed.

“It doesn’t matter.” Josie spoke quietly as she walked. There was something on her mind.

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because you’re all in my mind.”

Everything went black.

She awoke next to Vinnie. He was sweating and breathing hard.

“Vinnie!” She shook him. He flinched and awoke.

“I’m glad you got me back. Those demons in Purgatory are ruthless.”

“I saw Daira, kind of a goody two shoes.”

“Oh yeah, was she still twelve?”

“No, she’s a Nurse’s Assistant.”

“What’d you guys do?”

“We saved Bud.”

“You did?!”

“Well, sort of. I woke up and now he’s crouched over in the Gateway somewhere.”

“Where’s
Daira?”

“She was behind me. I don’t know.”

“How was Bud?”

“He was speaking fluently, until
Daira intervened. Then, he attacked her and started barking and drooling on her. I was afraid he was going to rape her, until I spoke some loving words. You should of seen it Vinnie. He turned around as I was speaking with these innocent boy eyes.”

“Incredible.” Vinnie said half-heartedly.

“Is something wrong?” Josie asked.

“It’s eating me away, I don’t know if they’re cutting down more trees or not.”

“We took a pretty big dent out of their mojo.”

“Yeah, but they’re as resilient as African Termites.”

Josie smiled, “I think we put a big dent in their keg of Lager.”

Vinnie laughed. His teeth were perfectly white, but the rest of him was
primally dirty.

“I love you.” Vinnie smiled like James Dean.

“I love you too.” She smiled like Elizabeth Taylor at seventeen.

“Well, I need to stop them for good.” He said definitively.

“What are you going to do?” She asked.

“Stage a big wreck, or a public spectacle of some kind.

“In reality or
Shapeshift?”

“I don’t know yet.”

In the meditative silence of nature, Vinnie exclaimed, “I got it! Meet me in
Shapeshift, near the highway, where my friends sacrificed for the cause.”

“What? Wait, by mile marker 13?”

“Yes.”

“Well wait,
Flomperjack, how do I know my thoughts will lead me there?”

“This is only a test, tap
tap tap.” Vinnie tapped on an invisible microphone.

“See you in Hell, Johnny.” She said with a wimpy impersonation of Clint Eastwood.

“Cute.” Vinnie closed his eyes. The curtain of his eyelids began to open with spirals of light, as he focused on his new task.

It was a new morning. The sun was a bright, fresh orange on the horizon, as cars began filling the roads for the commute to work. One out of five cars was a logging truck. Vinnie could smell the sap of the dead tree, as the truck drove past.

Vinnie had to face any doubts, past regrets, and future insecurities before his mission, as he quickly meditated on what he had to do, like a performer before a show. He knew he didn’t want to just run in front of a truck and kill himself, which would be pointless because he wouldn’t see the end result. He wanted to send a strong message to everyone, but loggers didn’t really break the law, besides the speed limit, so he needed to be clever.

He thought about the symbolic power of martyrdom, like with Jesus and Joan of Arc. He thought about the power of the flesh and the taboo of flesh in American culture. He came to the conclusion to strip down naked. He needed to catch a truck, hold on to it, and climb on board without falling off. He went back into the woods and walked parallel with the road. He kept within a visible distance of the road, and walked a couple miles until he saw a sharp corner in the road where the trucks slowed down and downshifted. It was a perfect spot for Vinnie to jump onto a truck.

He waited.
He could see into the passenger windows of cars as they passed. The people seemed like automatons, unknowing where they were going, or numb with the daily commute to their dead-end jobs.

A logging truck came down the hill and prepared for the corner by activating his Jake Brake. The truck rumbled and purred like a giant cat, as it slowed around the corner. That’s when Vinnie grabbed a log that hung over the end of the trailer and swung his body around until he was lying on top of it. He kissed it, “My old friend.” He whispered. The tree still felt warm, from where it had stood in the beginning rays of sunlight before it was cut.

Vinnie crawled to the front of the logs and lied there watching the scenery pass. He could see the driver and his baseball cap. He spat out the window occasionally and revved through the gears like a race car driver.

The truck was getting closer to town, as Vinnie took off his clothes. He tucked his clothes into a crevice between the logs so they wouldn’t blow away. The truck barreled back to highway speeds, as Vinnie found a clump of dirt and wrote on his chest:  NO LOGGING.

He climbed up the metal post in one corner of the trailer which held the logs in place. He found a vine of ivy that had grown up a tree and yanked it off. He tied the vine around his waist and tied his hands together. He then hooked his hands over the post and hung there as if crucified. The vine began to cut off his blood as he turned white.

Cars driving the other direction honked, pointed, slowed down, or all three. Vinnie acted like he was a dead man hanging. People naturally assumed he was a tree hugger or protestor who the logger had killed, and flew the protestor like a kite, or hung like a freshly killed Buck. Even if the people in the cars didn’t assume this, they were still shocked enough to call the authorities and the news.

Within a few minutes of the first telephoned report, a helicopter flew overhead and followed the truck. Vinnie’s long black hair flowed in the wind like an iron maiden on the bow of a ship. Soon, the State Patrol was behind the truck, as Vinnie climbed down and jumped while the truck was stopping. A warning shot pierced the air like a jet making a sonic boom, as Vinnie darted into the woods like a coyote, leaving the driver to answer a lot of questions by the authorities.

Vinnie awoke next to Josie, but it wasn’t a dream from the Gateway he awoke from. It felt real to him. In fact, he had mud on his chest that his sweat had made run down his torso.

“What happened?” Josie asked.

“I don’t know,” Vinnie panted.
“A lot.”

Where in the Hell were you?”

“Was I gone, I mean physically?”

“Yes you were gone!”

“Shit, I guess I was sleepwalking.”

“Sleepwalking?”
Josie said exasperated.

“I wasn’t here, right?”

“Right.”

“I was somewhere else, right?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I had a whole experience somewhere else, and that somewhere else was riding a logging truck like a surfboard, while naked and getting shot at by police.”

“What?!”

“Yes, that’s correct. The only idea I had left to disrupt the logging, as crazy as it may seem, was to act like a dead crucified tree hugger on top of a logging truck
, to get media attention and make the loggers look like pro-green activist killers.”

Josie’s mouth dropped, “This is just nuts. What’s
gonna happen now, a major manhunt for you?”

“Perhaps, but we’re attune to the sounds of nature, we’ve been out here long enough, and I’m sure we would hear them coming
from miles away. Besides, I don’t want to be near civilization.” Vinnie said.

“Well, that story isn’t going to stick unless I go to the newspaper myself.”

“No way Josie, they will arrest you.”

“Yes. I think I should.”

“Who knows what we left behind in Forks.”

“I know. I know.” Josie rubbed her temples. “It’s the only dramatic impact available, everything else will fade away. And, the loggers would go back to logging.”

“I don’t even know where a newspaper is.” Vinnie said.

“There’s one in Port Angeles.” Josie started to cry.

“It’s okay. We’ll work it out.” Vinnie held her.

“This whole gateway thing is scaring me. I don’t know what reality is anymore.” She said.

“Let’s sleep on it.” Vinnie rolled over.

“Sleep?! What’s that? Every time I close my eyes those stupid spirals start.

Vinnie tossed a stick into the bushes, “We don’t really need sleep anyways. It’s an illusion just like Time.”

“Then why am I tired?”

“Because you’re holding onto the memories of sleep, just like you hold onto the memories of Bud, Daira and Tom.”

“Fuck Tom.” Josie scratched her nose.

Vinnie crawled over and playfully tackled her.

“Get off me.” She stiff-armed him.

“Come on, it’s been forever.” Vinnie’s eyes began the blank stare. He was ready to feed. He became possessed and held her down. “Just a taste.” His face went white and his hands were cold.

“F off.”
She said, as she went limp. He nuzzled next to her neck, as she felt a sharp pinch on her artery.

“This is the last time, Vinnie.”

“What am I supposed to do?” He said, as some blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Go back to
Draksblood. I rather not have scars on my neck.”

“That shit steals your soul.” He said while
gurgling a mouth full of her blood.

“Well, sucking my blood makes me lose something for you. Is it worth that?”

Vinnie looked through her, “No, it is not.”

“I’m going now.” Josie pulled off of Vinnie and brushed herself off. She walked onto the trail and disappeared. Vinnie lied there stoned and thoughtless.

Josie spent two days on the trail until she could hear the highway. She had plenty of time to sort out her thoughts, but she still wasn’t prepared to reconnect with civilization. Her hair was almost dreadlocked and she smelled musky, like a pelt of an animal, as she stuck out her thumb to hitch-hike. An old pickup stopped. The man was an old back country fellow who only smiled and said a few words. She wished her life was that simple; no complex thoughts, just a dog and a truck and the once a week drive to the supermarket.

Port Angeles appeared around the bend. Josie was now surrounded by concrete, cars and people. A lot of people who lived in Port Angeles were scary looking and deformed, the result of years of Meth abuse.

Josie lowered herself in the seat, “Peninsula daily News, please.” She said softly. She got out of the truck and looked at all the concrete that man had formed and made into meeting places, domiciles and businesses. It took her a moment to figure out the method and the madness of man’s obsession with architecture. She opened the heavy metal and glass doors to enter a sterile lobby.

“Can I help you?” A woman said at a desk. Josie walked forward.

“I have a story.” Josie mumbled. She looked like another homeless person trying to sell their delusion of grandeur.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” The lady in the lobby spoke over the shuffle of shoes on the marble floor.