Book 11, "Dark Shadows"
This book only made it into the first chapter. It was never finished. This was meant to be a stand alone book.
DARK
SHADOWS
By: Benji Phillips
1
As the clouds of the past night lifted to a new day and a new beginning of life, they brought with their deaths, the light of the suns' rays. Birds twittered in the high lofts of their home and the shadows of the night seemed to flee in utter terror at the sight of their ancient enemy: the Sun. A silent wind whistled through the tree tops and leaves were scattered for the millionth time as it blew past an old yellow painted home. The windows were all covered up with the shades inside of the house. It was as if no one had lived in the place for many years. For a house in the city of Milpitas, California; it was a fairly modest structure: not to big and not too small, yet seeming to be just out of place amongst the taller, bigger, fancier two-story homes that were sided on the adjacent part of the street and behind as well as to the left of it. It was a one story building with a small backyard and an over grown pine tree in the middle of the front yard, which made the house look cold and unwelcome to passers-by. The door creaked open and a young man of about seventeen stepped out into the light of the dawn. He wore a dark black pair of jeans, a thin black trench coat and a black tee-shirt were about all he wore. The only color, if color they could be called, that he had upon him were his shoes, which were a dirty white from the mud that had almost always covered at least some part, if not, all of the shoes.
The teen-ager moved silently into the shadows of the tree in his front yard, a deep scowl of anger etched upon his face as he stepped into the light of the sun and covered his eyes with thick black-lenses sunglasses. The wind toyed playfully at with his blond hair and the ends of his faded trench coat, but he ignored the wind. He had other, more serious, business to deal with than that of the wind playing with his hair and coat. He stepped silently onto the pavement of the sidewalk and then began to walk towards the rest of the two-story buildings where others lived their lives in peace and tranquillity, never once suspecting anything of the teen-ager that they had known for so long now. He moved silently into another set of shadows as he cursed the sun and its bright light for the hundredth time. He soon reached his destination: the local children’s park which was about a three minute walk from his home. Anger flared in his eyes behind the sunglasses when he saw that some kids were already playing at the playground. “Damn. I’ll have to make this quick…I can’t let those little brats see me. My mom’s not supposed to know I’m here.” The teen-ager said to the open air.
“Watch your mouth, young one!” A cold voice said from the shadows behind and off to the left of him. He turned and smiled coldly to the form that seemed to step silently from the shadows. It was his friend, Jessie. He walked up to the other teen-ager and nodded to him rather stiffly as was Jessies’ way of doing thing: cold and unforgiving. He wore a dark black pair of slacks and a long black high collared shirt. Over this he had worn his dark black wind breaker and a long full-body satin black cape that was outlined with purple velvet, which also had many runes and other occultic symbols stitched by hand upon the velvet cloth.
“Ah, Jessie. It is good to see you. Are the others here or are we alone?” The teen-ager asked. Jessie looked into the shaded eyes behind the dark glasses and frowned. They were standing in the darker part of the shadows of the trees that dotted the park in many areas and he still did not remove his glasses!
“I’m afraid the other Ronin could not make this final meeting of their leader, Charles. I’m sorry, but even Susan was,” He paused a moment, “detained.” Jessie saw Charles’ face darken slightly.
“Blast. I was hoping to say good-bye to her in person…if you know what I’m getting at old friend.” Charles said as he smiled coldly to his friend. They moved off into the light of the sun and then headed towards a small shadowed grove of pine trees that most of the children whom attended the park said were haunted and filled with evil spirits and ghosts. These tales were false, but there had been some odd things in them, such as a young girl being killed several years ago in the grove. It was called Six Pine Stand, but most of the towns folk of Milpitas called it: The Vampires’ Haven.
“I’d rather not be involved in your love affairs with a human female, thank you very much!” Jessie said as they moved into the shade of the tall and majestic looking trees. Some of them were as old as Jessie was…
“I must admit that it will be a sad thing to lose you, Shadow…your parents have no idea of what they are taking you from!” Jessie said. He heard his companion sigh sadly and looked over to him. He had removed the sunglasses and his dark blue eyes stared silently out at the sunlit green fields and other buildings that the rays were just beginning to touch upon. They seemed to be saying: “This is it. I’ll never see this place again, so I might as well absorb the memory of it deep into my mind while I’m still here.” He turned to face Jessie and his eyes darkened.
“Do me a favor, Penumbra?” Charles said coldly. His eyes shown no sign of love nor hated, only an eclipsing darkness that seemed that it would never go away. Jessie looked to his friend silently, waiting for him to say more, though he already knew what he was going to say. “When I’m gone from this land…and my mark is fading, take care of Susan. Love her like I loved her…protect her. Keep her safe from those that would harm her. Okay?”
“I shall do that. She is the only one of our friends whom have not joined with the Ronin Shadows…do you wish me to make her a member…to go through with-” He was cut off by a glare from Charles.
“Don’t even think about it. That is not your decision to make old friend. She will choose her time and when she does, be there for her…like you were for me when I found you all and helped you all. I must go now. The sun is high and I am in need of rest.” He turned and, putting on his sunglasses again, stepped into the light of the sun and seemed to fade from his friends’ sight…
The alarm clock’s annoying buzzer went off at exactly 6:10 a.m. A cold hand slammed down hard upon the clock and the red LEAD numbers on it went off immediately. A dark blue eye poked out from the covers of a water bed and an audible sigh was heard. “Damn. This is getting expensive!” Charles sat up in bed and peered at a hole in one of his two bedroom shades that he had stapled to the wooden frame of the window to keep out the sunlight. The light of the sun shone clearly as a small white dot on the shade and a single beam of light was seen to touch on the wall adjacent to the shade itself, making a small speck of light on his trench coat. He sighed and reached over to his desk, took hold of his sunglasses and slapped them onto his face. “I wish that the sun would just burn out some day! Damn it dad, why did you have to make come to crap hole in the first place??” He swore for the next ten minutes under his breath. He soon dressed himself and then found himself standing in the noisy halls of his school: Forest Lake Senior High.
A tap on the shoulder caused him to turn around on his heels and stare coldly at one of the students. “Hey there, Chuck!” A young boy said. He was sixteen and wore light colored clothing, mostly white shorts and a tee-shirt. It was his friend, Greg.
“Hello Greg. Any girls after you today?” They both smiled and laughed for a moment, though no signs of cheer or of real humor shone in Charles’ face. It was cold and unforgiving as it usually was. He pressed a button on his walk-man and Marilyn Mansons’ voice, singing Anti-Christ Super star blared in his ears. Greg grinned playfully, though he never understood how someone could really listen to Manson and not get sick from hearing him sing. They then walked to a small section of the A-wing lockers and entered the one closest to the doors of the front of the one-building school.
“Anti-people now you’ve gone to far…Anti…Anti-Christ Super star!” the head-phones blared as Charles sang silently along with it. There were at least six other students at the lockers that were all apart of the small group known as Smokers’ Band, which was really most of the druggies and smokers of the school. Charles, not being a smoker, drinker, nor drug addict himself was sort of out of place with these people, yet he never once felt so because they accepted him and he accepted them. He cranked the walk man up to full blast and leaned lightly against the brick wall that was the back of the locker section. Most of the people he didn’t know. Most of them he didn’t want to know. There was only one other person that he knew within the group and she would be showing up at her usual time of around 7:30. Loud music herald her coming and Charles smiled to himself. It was almost too perfect. A young girl whom was sixteen that was his exact mirror image: she came silently around the corner of the wall as if she had been the wall itself a moment before. Her long dark black hair hung down past her shoulders and she wore a black sweat jacket and a flowing black skirt. Around her eyes she had painted black eye liner that made her brown eyes seem almost black. Her pale skin shone brightly against the darkness of her clothing and she moved with a grace that seemed as if she had practiced it for nearly one hundred years. Her head-phones blared out another of the Anti-Christ Super star songs: “I’ve been to black and back…I want it off my name…a lock of hope, a lack of pain, a lack of any-thing to say…I’m on my way down now I’d like to take you with me…I’m on my way down…” Katie Blake sang along with the song. Charles stopped his tape and then rewound it so that it would start off where she was. He then joined her in the song and the two of them locked eyes and smiled to each other. Katie walked over to him and they smiled again to each other.
“You look tired Katie. Are you okay?” Charles asked her as she leaned heavily against the brick wall. She nodded to him. It had been nearly three weeks since the two had met via another friend whom was not present with the group yet, and already the two of them were close friends. Katie turned to look into the dark eyes of her friend and smiled to him. He looked back, though the look was cool and relaxed. Nothing shone in the eyes. It was as if he were the type of person that could watch someone die without so much as a care in the world. “Don’t worry about me Katie. I’m okay…for now. For now I shall be alright…but I sense something within you…something I haven’t seen in a lot of people…” Charles said as he looked into her eyes.
“I’m curious Charles…did you ever love someone back in California…you know, as in the kinda love that would let you date that special someone?” Katie asked him in a hushed voice. She blushed visibly even to eyes that were not close enough to see her pale skin. Charles smiled.
“I did once. But that was a long time ago. She is dead. I attended her funeral last month. What the two of us had I shall let go…so that I may free her from my mind and heart in order that I not be too saddened by her death.” He said smoothly. Perhaps a little too smoothly, he thought to himself. He looked into her eyes and saw a glimmer of sympathy for him in her brown eyes. He looked away. “Don’t be sorry. She was dying anyway. It was inevitable. She had cancer. What few years of joy I brought to her life will be cherished by her soul, not by mine. I don’t cherish such things as joy and happiness…I prefer to live life to the edge…to be my own person so to say. Much like you, Katie. Much like you…” He said the last three words in a deep rumble of a voice that was cold and ominous and it made a sparkle light Katie’s eyes. She took his hand into hers’ and shudder ran through her slightly, though only Charles saw it.
“Why is it so cold in this stupid school?” She said. Charles shrugged. He didn’t care about her question. He didn’t need to answer it. It was referring to him anyway and he didn’t want to scare his friend by telling her what he actually was…
The bell rang and Charles moved off away from Katie. He walked to his first class silently. For the rest of the day he didn’t see any of his friends. He remained silent and cold to those around him. When the bell rang at the end of school, he was eager to leave the school behind him and ride the bus home. “Hey! Charles! Wait!” A girls’ voice called to him from behind as he was about to walk out of the school’s front doors. He turned and saw Katie walking up to him. She smiled to him and he to her. “Good. You heard me. I want to know if I could go with you to your house today to meet your parents?” Charles nodded and then turned to leave, Katie followed. Once outside, Charles slipped his sunglasses onto her eyes and then checked to see if Katie was following him. Since she was, he made his way silently through the tangle of people and then soon located the Number 2 bus and boarded it in cold silence. The entire bus, which had been filled with the gibberish and talkings of the students before, fell into utter silence the second Charles walked onto the bus. It was if he had somehow made them all be quiet with his simple presence. He smiled coldly to himself and then walked to the back of the bus and took an empty seat. Katie followed him and then sat down next to him. She looked into the eyes of all of the other kids and then back to the shaded eyes of Charles. He niether moved nor volunteered any information about the sudden silence. Within another few moments the bus was making its way down Highway 97 and Charles seemed to be lost deep in thought. His face was etched and cold and seemed to be made of the hardest marble rock that could be currently found on the planet. Fifteen minutes passed by and the whole bus remained silent throughout that time. Then Katie and Charles were standing in front of a blue painted two-story house with the basement bed room windows closest to the drive way covered in thick black shades. Charles walked to the mail box and then opened the door to it, stuck his hand in, and retrieved the mail. He looked through it for a moment. Then he turned to Katie.
“Ready to go inside? By the way, my parents aren’t home, so please be careful here. I’d rather not have to deal with them today.” He said. She nodded and smiled. He merely looked away for a moment and then together they approached the house.
“Charles, why did the whole bus go suddenly silence as if someone had been shot when you walked onto the bus?” Katie asked as they made their way up the drive way and then into the foyer of the house. The flooring was white tile. There were four ways of getting into the other parts of the house from the foyer: directly in front of them was the foyer closet door, to the right of that was the garage door leading into the garage itself and then the back yard, to their immediate left was the downstairs passageway and then to their left, but up more towards the foyer closet wad the upstairs leading to the dinning room, the living room, and the computer room and Charles’ parents’ bedroom. He turned and walked downstairs.
“The reason the bus went silent is because they seem to fear me. Why they fear me,” he paused for a moment and grinned. “Well…let’s just say you’ll know soon enough. The only room my parents let me bring guests into is the recreation room or my bed room so long as the door is open when they are not home. Everything else is, oddly enough, off limits. I can give you a tour of the house once my parents get home…if they ever do.” Charles said rather stiffly. Katie thought that he was upset with her, but then decided that he was more angry with his parents. She made a mental note to ask him about it once she got down stairs. She walked down the short flight of steps and then made a left so as to give Charles room to close the door. A black cat meowed pitifully at her feet and she beamed with joy at the sight of it. She stooped to pet the animal, but it hissed and trotted away. She frowned.
“Your little friend doesn’t seem to like girls much, huh?” She said as she looked into the sunglassed eyes of her friend. He smiled.
“It’s not you. It’s your crucifix. He had a bad day with one several years ago and so hates them all.” Charles said. Katie nodded and then slipped the silver cross she wore around her neck under her shirt. The cat walked back and meowed and let her pet him. He purred contentedly and Katie picked him up and held him in her arms. His yellow slited eyes looked at her in silence and the beast continued to purr.
“Odd. I’ve never seen a black cat with black eyes and yellow slits in the eyes before. What’s his name?”
“Daimien.”
“You’re kidding, right? Why did you name your cat after a creature spawned in hell?”
“Because that’s what he is. A beast of hell. You should see what he did to my bedroom door back in California. That damn cat put six inch scratch marks in solid oak! I had to spend nearly three hundred bucks just repair the door. He also ripped apart several valuable posters of mine. I won’t even tell you what he did to a friend of mine. You won’t want to know.”
Katie looked at him in silence and then dropped Daimien back to the floor. The cat seemed to pout for a moment and then sulked away. Charles moved past her and then opened a door to Katies’ right. He walked in and moved out of the way to welcome her into his room. She walked into the room quietly and blinked in the unusual darkness. “Wow. Why are the shades still down? It’s a great day outside and they should be up!” She said. Charles shook his head no. She looked at him.
“I’d rather not. I like the darkness. Besides, I can’t pull the shades up even if I wanted to. They have been stapled to the window sill with three inch long staples.” He said. He had removed his sunglasses and had dropped them onto an oaken dresser that was visible from the door at a side view. To the immediate right and upwards a bit of the door, was an old and beaten up wooden desk that was cluttered with papers, pens, pencils and sketches and other odds and ends. Next to the desk, on the right of it, was a waterbed. At the foot of the bed were built-in shelves that were all covered in books of various topics such as religion and occultic magicks to fantasy novels and roll playing guide books and then on the walls, scattered in apparent random order were several dozen posters ranging from nature to Metallica and Marilyn Manson. To the wall immediately to the right of the door were pictures of friends and medals that Charles had won in various tournaments for his self-defense art of Karate. Katie took a few more steps into the room and then walked over to the bed and sat down. She smiled when she saw that it was a waterbed and then grinned over to Charles.
“I like the bed you have!,” She said with a smile. “I wish I had one like it. My parents don’t want me to get one though, but they won’t tell me why. I think they like to torture me.”
“Very funny!” Charles said with a small, faint grin appearing on his thin lips. He walked over to Katie and then pulled out an old oak chair from under the bed that was used to help support the weight of the mattress and then sat down upon it. He looked to Katie and then looked away for a moment. “Katie, can I ask you something?” He said after a moment of silence.
“Sure. What is it?”
“When you think of our friendship, what…er...how do you see it as? Like for pure example, like close, or loving, or just plain friendship.”
“It’s okay, I think I know what you’re getting at. Anyway, I view our friendship as trusting…as that of which lovers would view it as…oh, wait. I…I…I’m sorry. I didn’t…oh heck!”
Charles looked to her for a moment. There was dead silence between the two of them as if the world had suddenly gone still and nothing in it moved. “It’s okay,” He said. “You can tell me whatever it is you wish to tell me. I’ll understand either way.”
“You will?” She asked. Her eyes seemed to sparkle for moment.
“That’s right. I will.”
“Then…then…I…I…love you, Charles. I’ve loved you since we became friends and I guess I will always love you.”
“Katie…”
“Yes?” Tears were in Katie’s eyes now. She seemed on the verge of breaking into an uncontrollable spillage of tears.
“I also love you, Katie…just like you do me. You see, I wanted to tell you that…and something else.”
Katie gasped. She looked about ready to hug him, but held herself in check so that she could hear whatever it was that Charles had to say.
“Go on.”
“Well…I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have to tell you. I am a Vampire…a creature that drinks blood and can’t be in the sunlight too long…you basically know what such a creature is, I think.” He said and then looked away from her. Katie placed her hand gently under his chin and turned his head to face her. She then drew up closer to him and kissed him on the lips in full passion. Charles looked, after they had finished kissing, shocked and then smiled brightly.
“I don’t care what you are. I love you and my heart tells me that I have to be with you. Will you accept me?”
“Yes, I will, because I know that you accept me. Very few people are willing to be friends, let alone, in love with a Vampire. Why are you so willing to accept me as such and not be scared of me? Don’t you realize that by accepting me you are putting yourself in great danger to your own life? If you accept me, you will have no warning as to when I revert into my ‘vampire-self’ when I go nuts and try to take blood from any of the humans around me.”
“Because I care about you and I know that you need a special someone to be with. Besides the fear is just ignorance and I have done what few have done and that is to get to know you so I know you won’t hurt me in any way whatsoever.” Katie said and then smiled. She stood up and looked at the clock on the desk and frowned disappointedly. “Oh, drat! I gotta go home now. Will you be able to take me home or should I call my folks and ask that they come and pick me up?”
“I’ll take ya home. I can drive ya, but I’d need directions.” Charles said as he moved into the hallway and then began to walk up the stairs. His parents still weren’t home. Katie followed and then, before going all the way up the stairs, she blew Daimien a good-bye kiss and winked to him. The cat merely looked back and seemed to frown again at her. She left and then found her boyfriend outside in the drive, waiting next to a red Pontiac Explorer truck. He nodded to her and she smiled back to him and then climbed into the truck. In a few moments they were driving down the highway. They rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. About a half hour pasted and then Katie was home safely, Charles made his way back home. On the way, he whistled softly to himself. He was actually starting to like the new town he had moved to…maybe if he could just find other people that would accept him and not fear him, then things wouldn’t be so bad.
1 month Later…
Charles pulled up to the school in his truck and smiled to Katie, whom was in the passenger seat next to him. “Ready for the finals?” He asked. She frowned. “Guess not. Well, hey, look at it this way: there’s only one more month of school left after today, so it can’t be all that bad, right?” Katie looked at him with a sarcastic type of grin on her face and in her eyes. Then she beamed with a bright smile and giggled.
“I can’t seem to stay in a bad mood for long around you!” She exclaimed and climbed out of the truck. Charles parked it in the student lot and then join her at the front door. They walked into the school building together and then headed down towards the “A” wing section of the school where they met the rest of their friends in the locker section that seemed to them all as if they practically owned them. They came to a halt at the locker section closest to the entrance of the “A” wing that was by the main doors of the school. Five senior foot ball players were all standing around in the locker section. None of them had any lockers in this area of the school, nor were friends with any one of the people that Charles and Katie knew. Something was up, but Katie was a little afraid of what it might be and she had no wish to find out. She noticed that none of their usual friends were at the lockers…
“Hey there Vampire!” One of the Seniors said to Charles. “You wanna suck my blood?” The entire group laughed in utter mockery of Charles and Katie. Charles remained silent; cold. Katie looked as if she wanted to disappear. Then Charles looked to Katie. She shook her head and he frowned slightly. He knew then that she had never said a word to anyone about him being a Vampire. He also knew that one of the people whom he had been able to befriend must have spread the word or someone whom had heard him talking it over with Katie at school a few weeks before…
“Excuse me, but will you all please leave us alone?” Katie said quietly.
“What you gonna do, Vamp-girl? Bite us?” Another of the Seniors wore. He was wearing a red hat and black tee-shirt with blue jeans. The other Seniors laughed again. Katie flushed. Charles again remained silent and cold. “Hey, why not bite me and turn me into a Vampire you little slut?” The red capped senior said to Katie. Charles moved to him. His eyes, shaded by the sunglasses that he still wore, could not be seen by the other man, but they both knew they were fierce and filled with fire.
“Please apologize to my girlfriend and then leave her alone.” Charles said in a calm voice. He was met with sneer from the man he faced.
“And if I don’t?” He said back to Charles.
“Then nothing will happen other than I request you to again apologize and leave her alone.”
“You threatening me?” The senior moved into a boxer-fighting stance and stared down at Charles. He remained where he was. Stone cold and silent.
“No, I am not. I am merely asking that you apologize and leave my girlfriend alone.” Charles said calmly. He was grabbed by the other man at the lapels of his jacket and shoved backward slightly.
“You threatening me punk? Yeah, I think you are! I think I’m gonna haffta teach ya a few things about messin’ with me you little punk. I’m gonna make that shaded face of yours look like road pizza when I’m done pounding it!” He balled his right hand into a fist and drew it back to punch Charles in the jaw. The hand never made contact. Charles calmly threw his weight to one side and then twisted the other mans’ attacking hand around in a semi-circle. A sickening crunch was heard and the man howled in pain. He lay on the floor, holding his broken hand with the other and looked at Charles with rage in his eyes. Charles looked back with calm reflecting in his cold blue eyes. The other man got back up and tried to kick him in the groin, but, as before, the foot never made contact. Charles had side-stepped the attacking senior and then had swept the other leg out from under him. He feel in a heap on the floor, but managed to take Charles down with him. They then wrestled on the floor for a moment, the other seniors shouting cheers for their friend. Katie was too scared to move. She had seen Charles fight. She knew what might happen if the senior didn’t back down…
In a flash Charles was back on his feet with the senior in a choke hold, trying to knock him out. He had failed, however to lock the boy’s hands up in a wrist lock. The senior reached into one of his pockets and drew out a switch blade knife. He then stabbed Charles in the left leg with the blade of the knife sinking into an inch of his flesh. Charles bit down on his lower lip to fight off the pain. He couldn’t let him see the pain. They then faced each other and the senior lunged at Charles with the knife swinging downwards at an arch towards the others’ throat. It never made its target. Charles had caught the knife by the blade and the seniors’ wrist. He then twisted with all of his might, and in the process, cut his left hand deeply, to the bone. The blade of the knife snapped and went into the seniors’ throat. He gasped for air and clutched his hand to his throat. Blood poured out over his clothing and onto Charles, whom hissed like an angry cat at the sight of the blood.
His eyes sparkled wildly and seemed to have a certain hunger in them. The senior fell to the ground and was dead before his face landed on the floor. Charles heard a scream of hatred behind him and, realizing he still held a piece of the knife, turned and hurled the rest of the knife into the throat of another of the dead seniors’ friends. He too, like the one already dead, fell and died on the floor. The moment he hit the floor, the audience scattered in utter terror. Charles began to laugh. The laughter wasn’t descended from the shear terror of what he had just done; nor the madness of the situation, but it was from shear hellish pleasure at the blood on his body, the deaths he had just inflicted, the fear he could see and smell on the people whom ran like a heard of stampeding creatures from the terror they had all just seen. Katie remained, too shocked to run in utter terror. Someone tugged at her sleeve and begged her to run, but she didn’t move…she couldn’t. She was awe-struck and spell bound by her boyfriends’ shear pleasure of what he had just done.
She smiled to herself and then walked over to him and looked into his wild eyes. He was leaning against the brick wall of the back of the locker section, laughter still in his eyes and on his face. His tongue licked up the blood from his wound and the blood of the seniors he had just killed. Katie approached with no caution and no heed of what he might do to her right now. He looked to her and he seemed as if he didn’t know her…as if he were trying to remember whom she was, yet still could not. She reached out slowly and smiled to him and then took his wounded hand and pressed her lips to it and kisses it. She drew her face back and grinned at the blood that was on her lips and then licked the blood away. “Darling,” she said as the ecstasy of the blood filled her with a pleasant tingling warmth. “Make me what you are please! I beg of you of to turn me. Take me. Take my virginity and taste the sweetness of my body! Please! Fill my whole being with your lovely darkness and never stop. I’ll be your lover…I’ll be forever…I’ll be tomorrow…I am anything when I am with you! Please! Darling, oh please! Make me a creature of the shadows…I want to be a Vampire! Sire me! Come ye darkness! Come and take this girls’ soul and cast it free of the body and let it bleed upon the ground so that it may destroy the God in the heavens and live with the god that you are! I love you Charles “Dark Shadow” Dhampir! I wanna be like you! Take me! Please!” She said to him and then kneeled down on her knees for him to take whatever he wished of her.
He then looked at her and knew whom she was and utter terror mixed with an overpowering lust filled his eyes. He stumbled over to one of the dead bodies and then looked back to Katie. She stood back up and walked over to him. He pointed to the body and she knew what she had to do. She wasn’t sickened by the thought. No. It gave her even more pleasure and she eagerly knelt down to the dead body and stripped it of its clothes until it was naked. She then bared her teeth and bit down as hard as she could upon the gash in the boys’ throat until she was able to work a large piece of flesh into her mouth. She then pressed her hands on the boy’s bared chest and pulled with all of her might and tore the flesh down to the feet and then watched as Charles leaned over and calmly chewed his way through the flesh until it was severed from the body. She looked at the gaping line of torn flesh and the blood that quickly spilled forth from it. She could see bits and pieces of the intestines and rib cage. She saw the boys blackened lungs and knew that he must have smoked heavily in life. Then she stared at the blood of the body and her eyes sparkled with merriment. She stooped to drink of it, but was held back by a strong hand. She looked up into cold eyes from Charles and she whimpered softly. He shook his no and then pointed to the flesh she had torn from the body.
She looked back to him and smiled warmly to him and picked it up. He nodded to her and she began to feed upon it. She slowly began to chew upon it. It tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before. Like a ripe orange in the middle of the summer that is fresh and ripe and just newly plucked from the grasp of the tree and then bitten into and the juice of it runs down your throat, tingling slightly as it goes down your throat, and it’s sweet taste mixes with the sweet smell of the orange. It was like she were a totally different person. Charles knew what was going on and he had no intention of stopping it. She swallowed the flesh of the strip that she was feeding on and then leaned over to Charles, whom had began to tear another strip of flesh from the body, and looked into his glazed eyes. He looked back and seemed as if he were looked through her. She smiled and bared her teeth at him, he did the same. Their eyes “glowed” for a moment the color of the blood that they were surrounded with. They then kissed each other in the French style, making sure their tongues were covered in the stick red blood of the dead bodies before they kissed. Charles then pushed Katie gently down on her back and laid his hands upon her breasts, but he stopped when he heard a siren blaring in the distance. It was too close for his comfort and he got up and stalked to doors of the school. The whole building had been emptied because of the killings. Katie joined him. He looked to her with sorrowful eyes. “Go. I’ll be okay love. We’ll have sex later. Right now you must flee. I can tell them that you tried to force me to become what you are…and that I only went along with it to protect myself. Go now! Hurry!” She said and shoved him out the door. He kissed her a final time and then seemed to fade into the shadows of the building around him.
The last he saw of Charles was a shadowy figure running across the road into the forest near the school as the cops drove up. They rushed into the building just as Katie had lain down in the pool of blood and faked a moan. They reached her and she slowly opened her eyes and screamed. The next several hours were a blur for Katie. While the police tried to help her as best they could, Charles, on the other hand, laughing with pleasure at what he had just done, raced through the trees of the forest like a wild dog. He ran over a hill and then tripped on a rock. The fall took him sliding into a small stream of water. He lay there for a few moments, letting the water wash the blood away as he drank the cold water with the blood in it. His hand stung like hell and he torn a piece of his shirt apart and wrapped it around the wound. He laughed again, tears of utter pleasure spilling down his face as he did so.
“Oh Katie! You’ll be okay now! Those damned humans won’t touch you now that you are starting on your little trip! Oh yes! YES! YES!! To hell with life!” He shouted the last four words at the top of his lungs and pointed his middle finger up towards the air as if he were actually showing it to the “god” that lived in the heavens above. “Let the darkness come unto my soul! Let it come! Let it come to me! Come to me my sweet darkness and fill me with your beautiful light! Fill my soul with your evil touch and never ever let me go! I love you darkness! Come to me and make my soul cry out in the pain that it feels! The Ronin Shadows shall exist here! So I will it to be so! Katie Blake and I shalt rule them with an iron fist of hatred and fear! Oh, come sweet darkness! Sweet dreams are made of these! Who am I to disagree! Travel the world and the seven seas! Everybody’s looking for something! Some of them want to use you…some of them want to get used by you…some of them wanna abuse you…some of them want to be abused! Take your hatred out on me! Make your victim my head! You never ever believed in me! I am your tourniquet! I am the Anti-Christ! I am a Vampire! I shall be one forever! I’ll be your lover…I’ll be forever…I’ll be tomorrow…I am anything when I’m with you!” He shouted to the open air and then got up and laughed so long and hard that he got cramps in his stomach. A loud clap of thunder echoed in the air and the sky grew dark and cold. Charles only laughed and flipped the sky and the trees and the birds off even more. He wasn’t afraid any more. He had found his soul mate and she had found him. He then waked around for a long time until he came to a dead red wood tree that was nearly as wide a four door sedan! He looked around the trunk of the tree and saw that it was partially hollowed out by bears or other forest animals. He entered the tree in silence and then put his sunglasses on. He closed his eyes and went to sleep. It was late in the night when he finally awoke with a bit of a start and tears of fear and utter self-hatred sprang into his eyes and spilled over them.
“Why?” He asked the open air around him. “Why did it have to happen again? Why couldn’t I just keep my damn mouth shut when I was with Katie? I shouldn’t have told her! I shouldn’t have become her friend; let alone her lover! What have I done? Oh, Lord of Darkness, what have I done!” He called to the darkness around him. It was nearly five in the morning. The police would be looking for him. He knew he couldn’t go back home and he didn’t want to. He hated the home he was living in. The forest was his home…the shadows his only friend. A voice next to him made him jump and hisses slightly.
DARK
SHADOWS
By: Benji Phillips
1
As the clouds of the past night lifted to a new day and a new beginning of life, they brought with their deaths, the light of the suns' rays. Birds twittered in the high lofts of their home and the shadows of the night seemed to flee in utter terror at the sight of their ancient enemy: the Sun. A silent wind whistled through the tree tops and leaves were scattered for the millionth time as it blew past an old yellow painted home. The windows were all covered up with the shades inside of the house. It was as if no one had lived in the place for many years. For a house in the city of Milpitas, California; it was a fairly modest structure: not to big and not too small, yet seeming to be just out of place amongst the taller, bigger, fancier two-story homes that were sided on the adjacent part of the street and behind as well as to the left of it. It was a one story building with a small backyard and an over grown pine tree in the middle of the front yard, which made the house look cold and unwelcome to passers-by. The door creaked open and a young man of about seventeen stepped out into the light of the dawn. He wore a dark black pair of jeans, a thin black trench coat and a black tee-shirt were about all he wore. The only color, if color they could be called, that he had upon him were his shoes, which were a dirty white from the mud that had almost always covered at least some part, if not, all of the shoes.
The teen-ager moved silently into the shadows of the tree in his front yard, a deep scowl of anger etched upon his face as he stepped into the light of the sun and covered his eyes with thick black-lenses sunglasses. The wind toyed playfully at with his blond hair and the ends of his faded trench coat, but he ignored the wind. He had other, more serious, business to deal with than that of the wind playing with his hair and coat. He stepped silently onto the pavement of the sidewalk and then began to walk towards the rest of the two-story buildings where others lived their lives in peace and tranquillity, never once suspecting anything of the teen-ager that they had known for so long now. He moved silently into another set of shadows as he cursed the sun and its bright light for the hundredth time. He soon reached his destination: the local children’s park which was about a three minute walk from his home. Anger flared in his eyes behind the sunglasses when he saw that some kids were already playing at the playground. “Damn. I’ll have to make this quick…I can’t let those little brats see me. My mom’s not supposed to know I’m here.” The teen-ager said to the open air.
“Watch your mouth, young one!” A cold voice said from the shadows behind and off to the left of him. He turned and smiled coldly to the form that seemed to step silently from the shadows. It was his friend, Jessie. He walked up to the other teen-ager and nodded to him rather stiffly as was Jessies’ way of doing thing: cold and unforgiving. He wore a dark black pair of slacks and a long black high collared shirt. Over this he had worn his dark black wind breaker and a long full-body satin black cape that was outlined with purple velvet, which also had many runes and other occultic symbols stitched by hand upon the velvet cloth.
“Ah, Jessie. It is good to see you. Are the others here or are we alone?” The teen-ager asked. Jessie looked into the shaded eyes behind the dark glasses and frowned. They were standing in the darker part of the shadows of the trees that dotted the park in many areas and he still did not remove his glasses!
“I’m afraid the other Ronin could not make this final meeting of their leader, Charles. I’m sorry, but even Susan was,” He paused a moment, “detained.” Jessie saw Charles’ face darken slightly.
“Blast. I was hoping to say good-bye to her in person…if you know what I’m getting at old friend.” Charles said as he smiled coldly to his friend. They moved off into the light of the sun and then headed towards a small shadowed grove of pine trees that most of the children whom attended the park said were haunted and filled with evil spirits and ghosts. These tales were false, but there had been some odd things in them, such as a young girl being killed several years ago in the grove. It was called Six Pine Stand, but most of the towns folk of Milpitas called it: The Vampires’ Haven.
“I’d rather not be involved in your love affairs with a human female, thank you very much!” Jessie said as they moved into the shade of the tall and majestic looking trees. Some of them were as old as Jessie was…
“I must admit that it will be a sad thing to lose you, Shadow…your parents have no idea of what they are taking you from!” Jessie said. He heard his companion sigh sadly and looked over to him. He had removed the sunglasses and his dark blue eyes stared silently out at the sunlit green fields and other buildings that the rays were just beginning to touch upon. They seemed to be saying: “This is it. I’ll never see this place again, so I might as well absorb the memory of it deep into my mind while I’m still here.” He turned to face Jessie and his eyes darkened.
“Do me a favor, Penumbra?” Charles said coldly. His eyes shown no sign of love nor hated, only an eclipsing darkness that seemed that it would never go away. Jessie looked to his friend silently, waiting for him to say more, though he already knew what he was going to say. “When I’m gone from this land…and my mark is fading, take care of Susan. Love her like I loved her…protect her. Keep her safe from those that would harm her. Okay?”
“I shall do that. She is the only one of our friends whom have not joined with the Ronin Shadows…do you wish me to make her a member…to go through with-” He was cut off by a glare from Charles.
“Don’t even think about it. That is not your decision to make old friend. She will choose her time and when she does, be there for her…like you were for me when I found you all and helped you all. I must go now. The sun is high and I am in need of rest.” He turned and, putting on his sunglasses again, stepped into the light of the sun and seemed to fade from his friends’ sight…
The alarm clock’s annoying buzzer went off at exactly 6:10 a.m. A cold hand slammed down hard upon the clock and the red LEAD numbers on it went off immediately. A dark blue eye poked out from the covers of a water bed and an audible sigh was heard. “Damn. This is getting expensive!” Charles sat up in bed and peered at a hole in one of his two bedroom shades that he had stapled to the wooden frame of the window to keep out the sunlight. The light of the sun shone clearly as a small white dot on the shade and a single beam of light was seen to touch on the wall adjacent to the shade itself, making a small speck of light on his trench coat. He sighed and reached over to his desk, took hold of his sunglasses and slapped them onto his face. “I wish that the sun would just burn out some day! Damn it dad, why did you have to make come to crap hole in the first place??” He swore for the next ten minutes under his breath. He soon dressed himself and then found himself standing in the noisy halls of his school: Forest Lake Senior High.
A tap on the shoulder caused him to turn around on his heels and stare coldly at one of the students. “Hey there, Chuck!” A young boy said. He was sixteen and wore light colored clothing, mostly white shorts and a tee-shirt. It was his friend, Greg.
“Hello Greg. Any girls after you today?” They both smiled and laughed for a moment, though no signs of cheer or of real humor shone in Charles’ face. It was cold and unforgiving as it usually was. He pressed a button on his walk-man and Marilyn Mansons’ voice, singing Anti-Christ Super star blared in his ears. Greg grinned playfully, though he never understood how someone could really listen to Manson and not get sick from hearing him sing. They then walked to a small section of the A-wing lockers and entered the one closest to the doors of the front of the one-building school.
“Anti-people now you’ve gone to far…Anti…Anti-Christ Super star!” the head-phones blared as Charles sang silently along with it. There were at least six other students at the lockers that were all apart of the small group known as Smokers’ Band, which was really most of the druggies and smokers of the school. Charles, not being a smoker, drinker, nor drug addict himself was sort of out of place with these people, yet he never once felt so because they accepted him and he accepted them. He cranked the walk man up to full blast and leaned lightly against the brick wall that was the back of the locker section. Most of the people he didn’t know. Most of them he didn’t want to know. There was only one other person that he knew within the group and she would be showing up at her usual time of around 7:30. Loud music herald her coming and Charles smiled to himself. It was almost too perfect. A young girl whom was sixteen that was his exact mirror image: she came silently around the corner of the wall as if she had been the wall itself a moment before. Her long dark black hair hung down past her shoulders and she wore a black sweat jacket and a flowing black skirt. Around her eyes she had painted black eye liner that made her brown eyes seem almost black. Her pale skin shone brightly against the darkness of her clothing and she moved with a grace that seemed as if she had practiced it for nearly one hundred years. Her head-phones blared out another of the Anti-Christ Super star songs: “I’ve been to black and back…I want it off my name…a lock of hope, a lack of pain, a lack of any-thing to say…I’m on my way down now I’d like to take you with me…I’m on my way down…” Katie Blake sang along with the song. Charles stopped his tape and then rewound it so that it would start off where she was. He then joined her in the song and the two of them locked eyes and smiled to each other. Katie walked over to him and they smiled again to each other.
“You look tired Katie. Are you okay?” Charles asked her as she leaned heavily against the brick wall. She nodded to him. It had been nearly three weeks since the two had met via another friend whom was not present with the group yet, and already the two of them were close friends. Katie turned to look into the dark eyes of her friend and smiled to him. He looked back, though the look was cool and relaxed. Nothing shone in the eyes. It was as if he were the type of person that could watch someone die without so much as a care in the world. “Don’t worry about me Katie. I’m okay…for now. For now I shall be alright…but I sense something within you…something I haven’t seen in a lot of people…” Charles said as he looked into her eyes.
“I’m curious Charles…did you ever love someone back in California…you know, as in the kinda love that would let you date that special someone?” Katie asked him in a hushed voice. She blushed visibly even to eyes that were not close enough to see her pale skin. Charles smiled.
“I did once. But that was a long time ago. She is dead. I attended her funeral last month. What the two of us had I shall let go…so that I may free her from my mind and heart in order that I not be too saddened by her death.” He said smoothly. Perhaps a little too smoothly, he thought to himself. He looked into her eyes and saw a glimmer of sympathy for him in her brown eyes. He looked away. “Don’t be sorry. She was dying anyway. It was inevitable. She had cancer. What few years of joy I brought to her life will be cherished by her soul, not by mine. I don’t cherish such things as joy and happiness…I prefer to live life to the edge…to be my own person so to say. Much like you, Katie. Much like you…” He said the last three words in a deep rumble of a voice that was cold and ominous and it made a sparkle light Katie’s eyes. She took his hand into hers’ and shudder ran through her slightly, though only Charles saw it.
“Why is it so cold in this stupid school?” She said. Charles shrugged. He didn’t care about her question. He didn’t need to answer it. It was referring to him anyway and he didn’t want to scare his friend by telling her what he actually was…
The bell rang and Charles moved off away from Katie. He walked to his first class silently. For the rest of the day he didn’t see any of his friends. He remained silent and cold to those around him. When the bell rang at the end of school, he was eager to leave the school behind him and ride the bus home. “Hey! Charles! Wait!” A girls’ voice called to him from behind as he was about to walk out of the school’s front doors. He turned and saw Katie walking up to him. She smiled to him and he to her. “Good. You heard me. I want to know if I could go with you to your house today to meet your parents?” Charles nodded and then turned to leave, Katie followed. Once outside, Charles slipped his sunglasses onto her eyes and then checked to see if Katie was following him. Since she was, he made his way silently through the tangle of people and then soon located the Number 2 bus and boarded it in cold silence. The entire bus, which had been filled with the gibberish and talkings of the students before, fell into utter silence the second Charles walked onto the bus. It was if he had somehow made them all be quiet with his simple presence. He smiled coldly to himself and then walked to the back of the bus and took an empty seat. Katie followed him and then sat down next to him. She looked into the eyes of all of the other kids and then back to the shaded eyes of Charles. He niether moved nor volunteered any information about the sudden silence. Within another few moments the bus was making its way down Highway 97 and Charles seemed to be lost deep in thought. His face was etched and cold and seemed to be made of the hardest marble rock that could be currently found on the planet. Fifteen minutes passed by and the whole bus remained silent throughout that time. Then Katie and Charles were standing in front of a blue painted two-story house with the basement bed room windows closest to the drive way covered in thick black shades. Charles walked to the mail box and then opened the door to it, stuck his hand in, and retrieved the mail. He looked through it for a moment. Then he turned to Katie.
“Ready to go inside? By the way, my parents aren’t home, so please be careful here. I’d rather not have to deal with them today.” He said. She nodded and smiled. He merely looked away for a moment and then together they approached the house.
“Charles, why did the whole bus go suddenly silence as if someone had been shot when you walked onto the bus?” Katie asked as they made their way up the drive way and then into the foyer of the house. The flooring was white tile. There were four ways of getting into the other parts of the house from the foyer: directly in front of them was the foyer closet door, to the right of that was the garage door leading into the garage itself and then the back yard, to their immediate left was the downstairs passageway and then to their left, but up more towards the foyer closet wad the upstairs leading to the dinning room, the living room, and the computer room and Charles’ parents’ bedroom. He turned and walked downstairs.
“The reason the bus went silent is because they seem to fear me. Why they fear me,” he paused for a moment and grinned. “Well…let’s just say you’ll know soon enough. The only room my parents let me bring guests into is the recreation room or my bed room so long as the door is open when they are not home. Everything else is, oddly enough, off limits. I can give you a tour of the house once my parents get home…if they ever do.” Charles said rather stiffly. Katie thought that he was upset with her, but then decided that he was more angry with his parents. She made a mental note to ask him about it once she got down stairs. She walked down the short flight of steps and then made a left so as to give Charles room to close the door. A black cat meowed pitifully at her feet and she beamed with joy at the sight of it. She stooped to pet the animal, but it hissed and trotted away. She frowned.
“Your little friend doesn’t seem to like girls much, huh?” She said as she looked into the sunglassed eyes of her friend. He smiled.
“It’s not you. It’s your crucifix. He had a bad day with one several years ago and so hates them all.” Charles said. Katie nodded and then slipped the silver cross she wore around her neck under her shirt. The cat walked back and meowed and let her pet him. He purred contentedly and Katie picked him up and held him in her arms. His yellow slited eyes looked at her in silence and the beast continued to purr.
“Odd. I’ve never seen a black cat with black eyes and yellow slits in the eyes before. What’s his name?”
“Daimien.”
“You’re kidding, right? Why did you name your cat after a creature spawned in hell?”
“Because that’s what he is. A beast of hell. You should see what he did to my bedroom door back in California. That damn cat put six inch scratch marks in solid oak! I had to spend nearly three hundred bucks just repair the door. He also ripped apart several valuable posters of mine. I won’t even tell you what he did to a friend of mine. You won’t want to know.”
Katie looked at him in silence and then dropped Daimien back to the floor. The cat seemed to pout for a moment and then sulked away. Charles moved past her and then opened a door to Katies’ right. He walked in and moved out of the way to welcome her into his room. She walked into the room quietly and blinked in the unusual darkness. “Wow. Why are the shades still down? It’s a great day outside and they should be up!” She said. Charles shook his head no. She looked at him.
“I’d rather not. I like the darkness. Besides, I can’t pull the shades up even if I wanted to. They have been stapled to the window sill with three inch long staples.” He said. He had removed his sunglasses and had dropped them onto an oaken dresser that was visible from the door at a side view. To the immediate right and upwards a bit of the door, was an old and beaten up wooden desk that was cluttered with papers, pens, pencils and sketches and other odds and ends. Next to the desk, on the right of it, was a waterbed. At the foot of the bed were built-in shelves that were all covered in books of various topics such as religion and occultic magicks to fantasy novels and roll playing guide books and then on the walls, scattered in apparent random order were several dozen posters ranging from nature to Metallica and Marilyn Manson. To the wall immediately to the right of the door were pictures of friends and medals that Charles had won in various tournaments for his self-defense art of Karate. Katie took a few more steps into the room and then walked over to the bed and sat down. She smiled when she saw that it was a waterbed and then grinned over to Charles.
“I like the bed you have!,” She said with a smile. “I wish I had one like it. My parents don’t want me to get one though, but they won’t tell me why. I think they like to torture me.”
“Very funny!” Charles said with a small, faint grin appearing on his thin lips. He walked over to Katie and then pulled out an old oak chair from under the bed that was used to help support the weight of the mattress and then sat down upon it. He looked to Katie and then looked away for a moment. “Katie, can I ask you something?” He said after a moment of silence.
“Sure. What is it?”
“When you think of our friendship, what…er...how do you see it as? Like for pure example, like close, or loving, or just plain friendship.”
“It’s okay, I think I know what you’re getting at. Anyway, I view our friendship as trusting…as that of which lovers would view it as…oh, wait. I…I…I’m sorry. I didn’t…oh heck!”
Charles looked to her for a moment. There was dead silence between the two of them as if the world had suddenly gone still and nothing in it moved. “It’s okay,” He said. “You can tell me whatever it is you wish to tell me. I’ll understand either way.”
“You will?” She asked. Her eyes seemed to sparkle for moment.
“That’s right. I will.”
“Then…then…I…I…love you, Charles. I’ve loved you since we became friends and I guess I will always love you.”
“Katie…”
“Yes?” Tears were in Katie’s eyes now. She seemed on the verge of breaking into an uncontrollable spillage of tears.
“I also love you, Katie…just like you do me. You see, I wanted to tell you that…and something else.”
Katie gasped. She looked about ready to hug him, but held herself in check so that she could hear whatever it was that Charles had to say.
“Go on.”
“Well…I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have to tell you. I am a Vampire…a creature that drinks blood and can’t be in the sunlight too long…you basically know what such a creature is, I think.” He said and then looked away from her. Katie placed her hand gently under his chin and turned his head to face her. She then drew up closer to him and kissed him on the lips in full passion. Charles looked, after they had finished kissing, shocked and then smiled brightly.
“I don’t care what you are. I love you and my heart tells me that I have to be with you. Will you accept me?”
“Yes, I will, because I know that you accept me. Very few people are willing to be friends, let alone, in love with a Vampire. Why are you so willing to accept me as such and not be scared of me? Don’t you realize that by accepting me you are putting yourself in great danger to your own life? If you accept me, you will have no warning as to when I revert into my ‘vampire-self’ when I go nuts and try to take blood from any of the humans around me.”
“Because I care about you and I know that you need a special someone to be with. Besides the fear is just ignorance and I have done what few have done and that is to get to know you so I know you won’t hurt me in any way whatsoever.” Katie said and then smiled. She stood up and looked at the clock on the desk and frowned disappointedly. “Oh, drat! I gotta go home now. Will you be able to take me home or should I call my folks and ask that they come and pick me up?”
“I’ll take ya home. I can drive ya, but I’d need directions.” Charles said as he moved into the hallway and then began to walk up the stairs. His parents still weren’t home. Katie followed and then, before going all the way up the stairs, she blew Daimien a good-bye kiss and winked to him. The cat merely looked back and seemed to frown again at her. She left and then found her boyfriend outside in the drive, waiting next to a red Pontiac Explorer truck. He nodded to her and she smiled back to him and then climbed into the truck. In a few moments they were driving down the highway. They rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. About a half hour pasted and then Katie was home safely, Charles made his way back home. On the way, he whistled softly to himself. He was actually starting to like the new town he had moved to…maybe if he could just find other people that would accept him and not fear him, then things wouldn’t be so bad.
1 month Later…
Charles pulled up to the school in his truck and smiled to Katie, whom was in the passenger seat next to him. “Ready for the finals?” He asked. She frowned. “Guess not. Well, hey, look at it this way: there’s only one more month of school left after today, so it can’t be all that bad, right?” Katie looked at him with a sarcastic type of grin on her face and in her eyes. Then she beamed with a bright smile and giggled.
“I can’t seem to stay in a bad mood for long around you!” She exclaimed and climbed out of the truck. Charles parked it in the student lot and then join her at the front door. They walked into the school building together and then headed down towards the “A” wing section of the school where they met the rest of their friends in the locker section that seemed to them all as if they practically owned them. They came to a halt at the locker section closest to the entrance of the “A” wing that was by the main doors of the school. Five senior foot ball players were all standing around in the locker section. None of them had any lockers in this area of the school, nor were friends with any one of the people that Charles and Katie knew. Something was up, but Katie was a little afraid of what it might be and she had no wish to find out. She noticed that none of their usual friends were at the lockers…
“Hey there Vampire!” One of the Seniors said to Charles. “You wanna suck my blood?” The entire group laughed in utter mockery of Charles and Katie. Charles remained silent; cold. Katie looked as if she wanted to disappear. Then Charles looked to Katie. She shook her head and he frowned slightly. He knew then that she had never said a word to anyone about him being a Vampire. He also knew that one of the people whom he had been able to befriend must have spread the word or someone whom had heard him talking it over with Katie at school a few weeks before…
“Excuse me, but will you all please leave us alone?” Katie said quietly.
“What you gonna do, Vamp-girl? Bite us?” Another of the Seniors wore. He was wearing a red hat and black tee-shirt with blue jeans. The other Seniors laughed again. Katie flushed. Charles again remained silent and cold. “Hey, why not bite me and turn me into a Vampire you little slut?” The red capped senior said to Katie. Charles moved to him. His eyes, shaded by the sunglasses that he still wore, could not be seen by the other man, but they both knew they were fierce and filled with fire.
“Please apologize to my girlfriend and then leave her alone.” Charles said in a calm voice. He was met with sneer from the man he faced.
“And if I don’t?” He said back to Charles.
“Then nothing will happen other than I request you to again apologize and leave her alone.”
“You threatening me?” The senior moved into a boxer-fighting stance and stared down at Charles. He remained where he was. Stone cold and silent.
“No, I am not. I am merely asking that you apologize and leave my girlfriend alone.” Charles said calmly. He was grabbed by the other man at the lapels of his jacket and shoved backward slightly.
“You threatening me punk? Yeah, I think you are! I think I’m gonna haffta teach ya a few things about messin’ with me you little punk. I’m gonna make that shaded face of yours look like road pizza when I’m done pounding it!” He balled his right hand into a fist and drew it back to punch Charles in the jaw. The hand never made contact. Charles calmly threw his weight to one side and then twisted the other mans’ attacking hand around in a semi-circle. A sickening crunch was heard and the man howled in pain. He lay on the floor, holding his broken hand with the other and looked at Charles with rage in his eyes. Charles looked back with calm reflecting in his cold blue eyes. The other man got back up and tried to kick him in the groin, but, as before, the foot never made contact. Charles had side-stepped the attacking senior and then had swept the other leg out from under him. He feel in a heap on the floor, but managed to take Charles down with him. They then wrestled on the floor for a moment, the other seniors shouting cheers for their friend. Katie was too scared to move. She had seen Charles fight. She knew what might happen if the senior didn’t back down…
In a flash Charles was back on his feet with the senior in a choke hold, trying to knock him out. He had failed, however to lock the boy’s hands up in a wrist lock. The senior reached into one of his pockets and drew out a switch blade knife. He then stabbed Charles in the left leg with the blade of the knife sinking into an inch of his flesh. Charles bit down on his lower lip to fight off the pain. He couldn’t let him see the pain. They then faced each other and the senior lunged at Charles with the knife swinging downwards at an arch towards the others’ throat. It never made its target. Charles had caught the knife by the blade and the seniors’ wrist. He then twisted with all of his might, and in the process, cut his left hand deeply, to the bone. The blade of the knife snapped and went into the seniors’ throat. He gasped for air and clutched his hand to his throat. Blood poured out over his clothing and onto Charles, whom hissed like an angry cat at the sight of the blood.
His eyes sparkled wildly and seemed to have a certain hunger in them. The senior fell to the ground and was dead before his face landed on the floor. Charles heard a scream of hatred behind him and, realizing he still held a piece of the knife, turned and hurled the rest of the knife into the throat of another of the dead seniors’ friends. He too, like the one already dead, fell and died on the floor. The moment he hit the floor, the audience scattered in utter terror. Charles began to laugh. The laughter wasn’t descended from the shear terror of what he had just done; nor the madness of the situation, but it was from shear hellish pleasure at the blood on his body, the deaths he had just inflicted, the fear he could see and smell on the people whom ran like a heard of stampeding creatures from the terror they had all just seen. Katie remained, too shocked to run in utter terror. Someone tugged at her sleeve and begged her to run, but she didn’t move…she couldn’t. She was awe-struck and spell bound by her boyfriends’ shear pleasure of what he had just done.
She smiled to herself and then walked over to him and looked into his wild eyes. He was leaning against the brick wall of the back of the locker section, laughter still in his eyes and on his face. His tongue licked up the blood from his wound and the blood of the seniors he had just killed. Katie approached with no caution and no heed of what he might do to her right now. He looked to her and he seemed as if he didn’t know her…as if he were trying to remember whom she was, yet still could not. She reached out slowly and smiled to him and then took his wounded hand and pressed her lips to it and kisses it. She drew her face back and grinned at the blood that was on her lips and then licked the blood away. “Darling,” she said as the ecstasy of the blood filled her with a pleasant tingling warmth. “Make me what you are please! I beg of you of to turn me. Take me. Take my virginity and taste the sweetness of my body! Please! Fill my whole being with your lovely darkness and never stop. I’ll be your lover…I’ll be forever…I’ll be tomorrow…I am anything when I am with you! Please! Darling, oh please! Make me a creature of the shadows…I want to be a Vampire! Sire me! Come ye darkness! Come and take this girls’ soul and cast it free of the body and let it bleed upon the ground so that it may destroy the God in the heavens and live with the god that you are! I love you Charles “Dark Shadow” Dhampir! I wanna be like you! Take me! Please!” She said to him and then kneeled down on her knees for him to take whatever he wished of her.
He then looked at her and knew whom she was and utter terror mixed with an overpowering lust filled his eyes. He stumbled over to one of the dead bodies and then looked back to Katie. She stood back up and walked over to him. He pointed to the body and she knew what she had to do. She wasn’t sickened by the thought. No. It gave her even more pleasure and she eagerly knelt down to the dead body and stripped it of its clothes until it was naked. She then bared her teeth and bit down as hard as she could upon the gash in the boys’ throat until she was able to work a large piece of flesh into her mouth. She then pressed her hands on the boy’s bared chest and pulled with all of her might and tore the flesh down to the feet and then watched as Charles leaned over and calmly chewed his way through the flesh until it was severed from the body. She looked at the gaping line of torn flesh and the blood that quickly spilled forth from it. She could see bits and pieces of the intestines and rib cage. She saw the boys blackened lungs and knew that he must have smoked heavily in life. Then she stared at the blood of the body and her eyes sparkled with merriment. She stooped to drink of it, but was held back by a strong hand. She looked up into cold eyes from Charles and she whimpered softly. He shook his no and then pointed to the flesh she had torn from the body.
She looked back to him and smiled warmly to him and picked it up. He nodded to her and she began to feed upon it. She slowly began to chew upon it. It tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before. Like a ripe orange in the middle of the summer that is fresh and ripe and just newly plucked from the grasp of the tree and then bitten into and the juice of it runs down your throat, tingling slightly as it goes down your throat, and it’s sweet taste mixes with the sweet smell of the orange. It was like she were a totally different person. Charles knew what was going on and he had no intention of stopping it. She swallowed the flesh of the strip that she was feeding on and then leaned over to Charles, whom had began to tear another strip of flesh from the body, and looked into his glazed eyes. He looked back and seemed as if he were looked through her. She smiled and bared her teeth at him, he did the same. Their eyes “glowed” for a moment the color of the blood that they were surrounded with. They then kissed each other in the French style, making sure their tongues were covered in the stick red blood of the dead bodies before they kissed. Charles then pushed Katie gently down on her back and laid his hands upon her breasts, but he stopped when he heard a siren blaring in the distance. It was too close for his comfort and he got up and stalked to doors of the school. The whole building had been emptied because of the killings. Katie joined him. He looked to her with sorrowful eyes. “Go. I’ll be okay love. We’ll have sex later. Right now you must flee. I can tell them that you tried to force me to become what you are…and that I only went along with it to protect myself. Go now! Hurry!” She said and shoved him out the door. He kissed her a final time and then seemed to fade into the shadows of the building around him.
The last he saw of Charles was a shadowy figure running across the road into the forest near the school as the cops drove up. They rushed into the building just as Katie had lain down in the pool of blood and faked a moan. They reached her and she slowly opened her eyes and screamed. The next several hours were a blur for Katie. While the police tried to help her as best they could, Charles, on the other hand, laughing with pleasure at what he had just done, raced through the trees of the forest like a wild dog. He ran over a hill and then tripped on a rock. The fall took him sliding into a small stream of water. He lay there for a few moments, letting the water wash the blood away as he drank the cold water with the blood in it. His hand stung like hell and he torn a piece of his shirt apart and wrapped it around the wound. He laughed again, tears of utter pleasure spilling down his face as he did so.
“Oh Katie! You’ll be okay now! Those damned humans won’t touch you now that you are starting on your little trip! Oh yes! YES! YES!! To hell with life!” He shouted the last four words at the top of his lungs and pointed his middle finger up towards the air as if he were actually showing it to the “god” that lived in the heavens above. “Let the darkness come unto my soul! Let it come! Let it come to me! Come to me my sweet darkness and fill me with your beautiful light! Fill my soul with your evil touch and never ever let me go! I love you darkness! Come to me and make my soul cry out in the pain that it feels! The Ronin Shadows shall exist here! So I will it to be so! Katie Blake and I shalt rule them with an iron fist of hatred and fear! Oh, come sweet darkness! Sweet dreams are made of these! Who am I to disagree! Travel the world and the seven seas! Everybody’s looking for something! Some of them want to use you…some of them want to get used by you…some of them wanna abuse you…some of them want to be abused! Take your hatred out on me! Make your victim my head! You never ever believed in me! I am your tourniquet! I am the Anti-Christ! I am a Vampire! I shall be one forever! I’ll be your lover…I’ll be forever…I’ll be tomorrow…I am anything when I’m with you!” He shouted to the open air and then got up and laughed so long and hard that he got cramps in his stomach. A loud clap of thunder echoed in the air and the sky grew dark and cold. Charles only laughed and flipped the sky and the trees and the birds off even more. He wasn’t afraid any more. He had found his soul mate and she had found him. He then waked around for a long time until he came to a dead red wood tree that was nearly as wide a four door sedan! He looked around the trunk of the tree and saw that it was partially hollowed out by bears or other forest animals. He entered the tree in silence and then put his sunglasses on. He closed his eyes and went to sleep. It was late in the night when he finally awoke with a bit of a start and tears of fear and utter self-hatred sprang into his eyes and spilled over them.
“Why?” He asked the open air around him. “Why did it have to happen again? Why couldn’t I just keep my damn mouth shut when I was with Katie? I shouldn’t have told her! I shouldn’t have become her friend; let alone her lover! What have I done? Oh, Lord of Darkness, what have I done!” He called to the darkness around him. It was nearly five in the morning. The police would be looking for him. He knew he couldn’t go back home and he didn’t want to. He hated the home he was living in. The forest was his home…the shadows his only friend. A voice next to him made him jump and hisses slightly.