Читать книгу Soulstice: Luna's Dream - Lance Jr. Dow - Страница 6

Winter Solstice is a chore. It definitely is not my favorite time of year as far as the needs of the body are concerned. It’s like you as a human, you need to eat, right? And maybe you love ice cream. Strawberry ice cream, let’s say. But for close to two months you have to eat ten gallons of strawberry ice cream, per day. You would probably lose your enthusiasm for strawberry ice cream for a bit.

We, vampires, need to take in about six pints of blood per day during the winter solstice. The average human between age thirteen and adulthood has between seven and ten pints of blood depending upon size and weight. We can take only about one pint from an adolescent and about two pints from an adult human. Otherwise, we can send the victim into shock, which can cause some serious damage or possibly cause death. We want you to live - you’re our ice cream factories.

That is, unless you’re a victim of vampires like the “Bees.” With the “Bees” you’ll be drained of every drop, and not in a nice way.

What is distinct about the “Bees” is they all have had their venom glands surgically altered at birth. This is a part of being in their clan. They are as weird and spooky as you can get.

We have saliva glands and then we have venom glands that with the right brain impulses, release venom into the saliva when our fangs descend. They all work together to send you into La La Land and do all the other things required to take your blood and cover our tracks so-to-speak.

The Bees’ and their clan’s venom doesn’t enter the victim’s bloodstream. There is no anesthetic or hypnotic reaction like with the rest of us. In other words - a human will feel the bite, the sucking of their blood, and the pull on their heart, which apparently is excruciatingly painful towards the end. The wounds will be visible on the victim as well because the venom also makes the wound heal over – the covering our tracks part. We are evolution at its finest.

The calling sign of the Killer Bees is what they do to their victims. This is a warning to all other vampires about who they are, what they are - and why you shouldn’t mess with them. Their calling sign is left on the poor victim for all of the world to see.

They are called the Killer Bees because of the dozens and dozens of bites they inflict. They relish causing pain. They delight in killing. They and their clan are cruel and vicious vampires.

Although it is forbidden to kill victims, the Bees and their clan do it, and the vampire hierarchy looks the other way. The hierarchy requested the clan to take only humans that won’t be missed by human society and to dispose of the bodies so they won’t be found - as if somehow, this makes it okay to brutalize and kill their human victims. The clan and the Bees now follow these rules somewhat due to governmental pressure - but every once in a while the Bees or members of their clan leave bodies where they can be seen by other vampires out hunting. This is nothing more than the equivalent of in the Middle Ages of leaving a foe’s head on a spike. It is meant to project their power within the ranks of vampire society.

If a body left by the Bees is found by humans there is so much overkill, it appears to be a vicious animal attack. The forests here abound with wolves, cougars, and bears - and people are attacked and killed by them. It really doesn’t raise any suspicions in the humans - it’s just a tragedy of living near the forests.

This clan of the Bees is spooky and weird as all get out. They are very secretive as well. Rumors abound about other sick happenings in this clan.

The clan is headed by Nadira’s father and mother; Erickson and Adamina Vidal. Are those some spooky names or what? People have rarely caught a glimpse of them or the other Elders of this clan. They all live in their vampire district in a reclusive manner.

Lily’s told me the Vidals have a huge compound with a huge mansion on it. Actually, it is more like an old world castle she says. Its made of thick stone walls and is surrounded with high fencing made of stone columns and spiked wrought iron. These won’t keep a vampire out, but they aren’t meant to. No vampire’s going to cross the Vidals and their clan. The fences are to keep any humans from seeing what goes on behind those fences and walls. Just in case a vampire does get curious, the Vidals have guards always roaming the property. If you are a vampire, you certainly won’t get very far and I doubt if you ever live to see another day.

And now - you know the Killer Bees. Worst of all however, is I have the KB’s in gym and biology classes and they hate Lily and me. We are the subjects of their ridicule and scorn. As if I needed other reasons to dislike school - the KB’s are one of the primary reasons I dread going. Lily wants to confront them. That really is not an option unless you seriously want some drama in your life-- I don’t. “Suck it up” is my other middle name.

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While I was soliloquizing, I moved into the woods behind our house... I’ve acquired the scent trail of my family. Time to catch up.

No full moon tonight, just a waxing crescent, which is good. Like all nocturnal creatures, we don’t need, or want much ambient light. We are stalkers and the darkness is part of our cover and gives us the element of surprise.

Okay… here come the afterburners.

I’m moving past things so fast that I’m leaving the noise of my footsteps to the imagination of whatever animals I’m passing. I’m following the scent trail to the coast. I’m betting the family is going to the docks to catch some fishermen. To “catch” some fishermen-- that’s funny.

Commercial Fishermen coming in from the sea are a staple of the family because they are a ready-made packaged meal. If you catch them on the boat they’ve got no place to go except in the dark, cold water and in a few seconds they are under and harmless. If they get on the dock and try to run, they are so exhausted from the long day –add into the equation their big boots - and they are easy to catch.

Most nights I can find someone fishing off a pier or at the beach, or in their boats offshore if the seas are calm. The ones in boats are perfect. I just swim out and explode out of the water into their boat and that’s that-- a very nice meal with no worries. Again, where are they going to go? In the freezing-cold sea filled with tiger sharks and great whites? One night, I took five fishermen, in a single boat. The last one caught me in the back with a gaffing hook-- those big hook things you see them pull big fish like marlins out of the water with.

You should have seen his face when I pulled the hook out of my back like it was no big deal. It was priceless. I admit, you get a little power-rush once in awhile as a vampire.

As the guy stood there stunned looking at a twelve-year old girl, dripping wet, with blood and saliva gushing from her mouth-- I jumped to his throat. That night is still my record for a single take-down and I did it in less than thirty-seconds.

I’m going to take a calculated guess that the commercial fishing piers is where the family is headed and take a short-cut off the scent trail. I know all the short-cuts and I can take most of them because I can jump so far now. I can leap over the wide and deep canyons with no problem. Now if I could only learn to fly, I’d be the happiest vampire on the planet!

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Here I am at the coast and downwind. Smelling… and yup-- got them at the docks. Just a quick run now and I’ll catch up to them.

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There are the commercial fishing piers. There’s a crab boat tied up with fishermen finishing up on the boat, (a perfect situation) five in all. They don’t see my family silently moving on the darkened pier getting ready for a surprise attack. Skyla is so cute. Look at her creep with Mom, Dad and Christian. My little sis’ is growing up.

The family is in position. And there they go. Christian’s got hers… Mom and Dad have theirs. The fishermen are dropping like flies. Dad’s already on to a second one.

In their need to render their victim’s unconscious and with that first taste of blood pulling at the receptors in their mouths and brains, they’ve left Skyla momentarily on her own. One of the fishermen has managed to get out of the boat and onto the pier. He’s running as fast as he can past Skyla on the pier.

Come on girlie don’t lose him or I’ll have to jump in and I don’t want to harm your self-confidence.

There she goes. She’s getting fast the little rabbit. She’s closing in. Nice leap, Skyla! She’s on his back. There’s the neck-strike. And down he goes with Skyla clinging onto his back like a spider monkey. That’s my girl!

The fishermen aren’t enough for the family tonight because of the season and they’ll need a couple more humans to feed on but that will be easy for them. I’m going to go look for my own meal.

So where do I want to hunt tonight? Or do I blow it off and go to the lighthouse? It’s a beautiful night with my favorite kind of moon up in the night sky: the waxing crescent. It’s my favorite phase of the moon because it’s my birth sign. I have a birthmark in the shape of a waxing crescent moon on the back of my neck. It’s how my parents named me. Then they got all mystical and named Skyla; Skyla. They thought it had something to do with the sky and then found it meant scholar! It still rocks.

The waxing crescent moon is also a sign of hope and rebirth as it leads to a new moon, then the full moon and the rest of the moon’s cycle. The moon’s phases are like the seasons in fast-forward. It all deals with the Earth’s and Moon’s relationship with the sun. I find it interesting that in that relationship, the sun is what you humans needed to evolve and survive-- and the moon (and the night) is what we needed to evolve and survive. Maybe that’s a very big sign that human’s and vampires are never destined to be together under the same sun.

When I see the waxing crescent in the sky it’s a sign to me to seek reflection and inner-peace, to form questions and try to get answers from God.

I need to feed. I should feed. But the waxing crescent calls to me, so I’m going to the lighthouse first.

The lighthouse is my sacred place-- my sanctuary. The wind blows almost constantly there and the wind is also one of my favorite things. I just love it so much. Of all my favorite things in this life, I’d have to say the wind is my absolute favorite. A close second is the rain. Give me the wind and the rain and I’m in total nirvana.

I see so many beautiful things from the lighthouse. It’s on the high rock of Seal Island and with the added height of its structure, (some one-hundred fifty feet in height) I can see for miles. I get to see the seabirds, (pelicans are my favorite), seals, great whites, and beautiful whales.

The awesome blue whales are migrating down to the Baja coastal waters this time of year so they are always passing by the lighthouse. Many times I will go swim with them.

At night I get to see the moon, the stars and on clear nights with my super-vision I can clearly see the planets of Venus, Mars and Mercury. No telescope needed.

The lighthouse is heaven on Earth.

The lighthouse is shutdown this time of year and the old keeper is always down at the foot of the lighthouse in his small apartment quarters. They deliver supplies to him by boat from shore. The dock they have on shore is my launch pad to get to the lighthouse. I used to leap to the island and then leap up to the walk-about up top, but I’ve gotten so much better with controlling my leaps that I can now leap directly to the roof of the lighthouse. Then I slip down to the walk-about. I am always looking for short-cuts. It’s just the way I am.

During tourist season, they bring visitors by boat from shore. You get to the top of the lighthouse by climbing a winding metal spiral staircase inside. The staircase leads up to the lantern room where the big light is. There’s a small door from there that opens to the walk-about, which is the platform outside the lantern room that the keeper uses to clean the glass.

I have the lighthouse all to myself this time of year and I can go almost anytime. I use it sometimes when I feel a lull coming on. It’s nice to go into and come out of a lull up there. I have to be careful to only do this at night or on days I know will be fully overcast, because we don’t control our lulls, our bodies do. But we feel when they are coming on and some can be as short as a half-hour. Most happen in the early a.m. around four.

I have to be careful as it could rain a hurricane and I wouldn't know it or feel it. The sun could come out in full force after my sunscreen has been washed off and I would be burned to a lovely shade of blackened ash, which the wind would blow away. All that would be left of me would be some charred bones. Wouldn’t that be a sight to find up there?

I love the ocean and everything about it. I love my swims in the ocean. Lily will swim with me in a lake but she does not like swimming in the ocean. Sharks scare the crap out of her even though I tell her they aren’t interested in us. She says “yeah, go watch Discovery Channel.” I’ve never been bothered and I know they are all around me out there. I think they sense I’m nothing to fool around with or they smell my scent in the water with the same result.

I love to hang with the whales. It’s so incredible-- you have no idea. They seem to like having me around. They are very graceful and gentle leviathans.

The best part of swimming with the whales is I’ll grab a fluke on the down-stroke and they’ll snap that tail with an up-stroke and send me flying in the air for hundreds of feet. It’s a freakin’ blast!

I can dive deep with the whales. I’ve bet I’ve gone down a thousand feet or so. Our strong skeletal structure and the additional oxygen in our blood make us capable of withstanding the atmospheric pressures down that deep. With our eyes being what they are I can see fairly well. There just isn’t much to see that far down. I mainly do it to bond with the whales. A number of the whales I know from year-to-year. They seem to sense or see me when I’m at the lighthouse as I’ve notice a number of them will spout water out of their blowholes to get my attention.

And the dolphins! They are so much fun. I hold my own swimming with them. They get a little frisky sometimes, let me tell you. They are very… umm… sexual creatures. Sorry, there’s no other way to say it.

Legend and myth has it that dolphins were humans that had enough of life on land and moved into the sea and that mer-people were the first forms of this evolution. Who knows if people really became mer-people who evolved into dolphins? Look at the platypus-- what the heck is that?! Anything is possible in my mind since we vampires are legend and myth as well.

No, I don’t wear clothes when swimming. The all together is the only way to swim. I like being naked when I swim. FREEDOM!

It’s not like anyone is going to ever see me where and when I swim. Well they might see a flying naked girl if I were to be playing with the whales! Haha!

As you are finding out, there are some good perks to being a vampire. I seem to be finding them all!

Back to the hunt.

The late-night manager should be leaving IHOP. I’ve been feeding on him for three years. He’s one of my steadies. I wait a month between feedings so his body can recover and it’s been a month. I just wait for him in the shadows of the darkened alcove at his front door. As soon as he slides the key in the door and opens it, I’m on him. It’s all very quick and quiet because he doesn’t have an alarm system. I even leave him in his bed. I’ll cover him with a blanket if it’s cold. It’s the least I can do for what he provides me. .

I can also always count on the early shift at the lumber mill. Some come early and catch a smoke at the picnic table in the employee area out back, right at the edge of the woods. I guess this is one benefit to vampires of tobacco use by humans. I hate the yucky tobacco smell of these humans but it’s one of those things you put up with to get to the good stuff. Like you having to eat your broccoli to get to the steak on your plate.

Last week, I pulled two humans from this table into the woods at the same time. They had their backs to the woods and with two quick neck strikes they were under and in the woods in less than thirty seconds. I did wait until they had put their cigarettes out, didn’t want to start a forest fire.

Anyway... off I go to the IHOP manager’s house. Wish me luck.