Vampire a Go-Go

FIFTY-ONE

“I think it’s time.”

Allen looked up from the Kelley diary, beaming his adoration at Cassandra. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

The vampire climbed the steps of the dais, unfastened her dress, and let it fall. She stood naked, smooth and white, the power of her sexuality radiating, seeming to fill the cavern. The bite mark on Allen’s thigh flared again. His longing for her made him ache.

Cassandra lay on the table, folded her hands over her breasts. “Begin.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Allen rushed up the steps of the dais, the Kelley diary in his hands. He began to pull levers, always double-checking the diary as he went. The cavern echoed with the sound of reluctant machinery forced to move after being dormant for hundreds of years. The sound of rushing water filled their ears. At first the waterwheel didn’t budge, but finally it groaned and creaked as it began to turn, slowly at first, but then more rapidly.

More levers. Allen’s heart pounded so hard that it threatened to leap from his chest. The gizmo above the dais lowered, the lenses spinning into place to the racket of machinery and rushing water. Allen pushed another lever to activate the sunlight shafts and reflectors. The sunlight hit the lenses.

Then the sunlight hit Cassandra.

She screamed, writhing, on the table. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from her body.

Vampire + sunlight = bad idea.

“The stone!” she screamed. “Activate the stone.”

Allen flew down the dais steps, stumbled and went down. He picked himself up, ran behind the protective lead wall, and pulled the final lever.

The cavern exploded with light. The sound of a thousand howling souls assaulted Allen’s brain. He dove to the floor, eyes shut tight, hands over his ears. The floor shook, the cavern rumbled.

It felt like the end of the world.

He forced himself to stand. It had been long enough. He pushed the lever back into place, and the white light dimmed. He ran back to the dais, shut off the waterwheel. He pushed more levers, the lenses lifting back out of the way.

He backed down the steps, watched the woman on the table, his mouth hanging open, eyes wide. He waited.

At last, she sat up, swung her legs around slowly to stand on the floor. She looked at her own hand. It shook. She blinked away tears in her eyes. “Alive. Oh, my God. After a thousand years, walking the earth as undead.” She laughed and cried at the same time.

“Allen, I’m alive again.”

“They’re dead!” Father Paul yelled.

He pumped a shell into the chamber and blasted a load of buckshot into the zombies that crowded the room. They kept coming, dozens of them, crawling over one another to reach the priests and the girls.

The zombies were half skeletal, leather chunks of flesh dropping off as they attacked. Mouths half full of yellow-brown teeth chewing at nothing.

Starkes and Father Paul kept pumping buckshot into the crowd, limbs and bits of flesh and teeth flying. Undead corpses piled up at their feet. A half dozen zombies surged past the priests to attack the girls.

Penny screamed.

A skeletal hand grabbed Amy by the shoulder. She gasped and jumped back. The zombie’s arm came loose, hanging from her shoulder, where it still held on.

“I think the warranty has expired on these things.” Amy pried the fingers from her shoulder. She used the zombie arm as a club, swung hard, knocking its undead head across the room. It bounced off a tomb, rolled around on the floor.

Penny kicked the leg of the zombie closest to her. The leg snapped and the zombie fell into a pile of bones and dried flesh. “She’s right. These things are… well, kind of pathetic.”

Amy reached into a zombie’s mouth, pried out a tooth. “Souvenir.”

Father Paul stopped firing the shotgun. The zombies crowded around him, pawed feebly at his chest. “Okay, this is just silly. These things have been decaying for centuries. They might as well be made out of tissue paper. Push them out of the way and let’s get going.”

They shoved the zombies aside, pushing them into piles of bones, kicking legs out from under them. They entered the hole Father Paul and Starkes had knocked into the wall, trudged through the dark passage beyond until they heard the sound of rushing water ahead.

Cassandra descended the dais steps to stand in front of Allen. She was as beautiful as ever, but there was something different about her too. A flush of pink in her cheeks. She touched Allen’s face with warm fingers.

She was alive. She was a woman.

“You can’t know what it was like, Allen.” Her smile was warm, genuine. “Walking around, half cold to life, only half feeling everything that was happening to me.” She ran both her hands over Allen’s chest. “I can feel you. I mean really feel you, one human being to another.” A pained expression struck her face. She looked away. “All the things I’ve done. A vampire can’t feel remorse, Allen. God, I’ve done such terrible things. But I’m going to live now. It’ll be different. Never again will I-”

A line of warm, red blood trickled from her left nostril. She wiped it away, surprised. “It must be some side effect. But look. It’s warm. My blood is warm and human. Allen, this is the best thing that’s ever-”

Another trickle of blood from the other nostril. Cassandra wiped it away, smearing red across her lips.

“Are you okay?” Allen asked.

“I don’t know.” She blinked, and blood ran from the corners of her eyes. She wiped it away, looked at the blood on her hands. “Something’s wrong.”

Do you remember when I used the machine to bring the emperor’s cousin back to life? I suppose now is a good time to show you everything that happened.

Pay attention.