Unslumber

Supernatural Stories | Feb 6, 2013 | 6 min read
16 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
I can see her now, long blonde hair cascading down her body, her smile with teeth so white, and those ocean eyes.
Alexa.
I long for her now as the days begin to grow more difficult to sustain.
My last vision of her haunts me, her standing atop the hill with that mind altering smile. I had foolishly convinced myself I was hidden from view yet before she disappeared into the blackness of the night she gave me that look.
I knew she would come back for me, she would keep her promise. In that moment, when our eyes locked, that was all I wanted.
Why does she make me suffer so in the wait?
I have decided to write in hopes that it will occupy my mind until her return.
I hunt vampires. How I got into this line of work is irrelevant now. Each one of us in the group had their own personal experience that led them to take on the job.
You see, vampires are nothing like they are made out to be by society's entertainment. The lore of how one even becomes the undead has been twisted so much it doesn't even resemble the cold truth.
It happens through a process that came about so long ago that even those that make our living dealing with these creatures don't have the whole story. It's rumored that a woman who was killed during the Salem Witch Trials came up with the formula.
Either way, it is still used today to raise the dead.
Most of the time it's done by grieving loved ones who have in some form or another discovered the ritual.
Some fool follows this devil's recipe that involves the blood of a dying person, and to most of their surprises it actually works. Then, before their very eyes, the departed begins to roar in pain and confusion.
That's something the little spell doesn't tell you.
When the lost is brought back they bring something with them, a living curse inside. It must be fed fresh human blood to continue living.
The group I was part of found these cases.
We had many ways, rumors and things of that nature. When someone loses a loved one and suddenly becomes a hermit, that's one sign as usually the shock of the spell actually working panics the user and they attempt to keep their returned hidden away.
We had just finished a particularly nasty case the night I met her. A single mothers teenage daughter had become a victim of prom night drinking and driving. The mother lost her mind in the grief and began consulting with psychics and things like that and one of them turned her on to the spell.
Her neighbor was the unfortunate sacrifice.
By the time we got there things had gone from bad to worse. We could hear the screams of pain from the creature that had once been this woman's daughter when we came up to the door. The mother was crying and begging her to be quiet, saying that she would find another way to ease the pain but she couldn't do what she had done to that nice man next door again.
The scene when we forced our way in was beyond anything I had experienced in the field yet. The "nice man next doors" body was lying in the kitchen, unrecognizable. Large gouge marks covered the pale shell that was once a living thing.
Tanya had to end up sedating the mother after Blake explained who we were and why we were there. She began to scream that she would not lose her daughter again, that we may as well kill her too.
We were used to such requests.
By the time Randy had staked the creature, the medicine had its hold on the mother.
"You will not be punished for your neighbors' murder. We are going to take both bodies and dispose of them. We are sorry for your loss but your best bet is to forget the whole situation happened and try to move on with your life."
Blake used this very line on every grieving individual we dealt with.
I thought it was pointless. If they were so torn apart by their loss that they would commit murder to bring them back I figured they were to far gone for any kind of life.
I asked Blake why he bothered once.
"It makes it easier for me." He'd replied shrugging.
We left the woman like the others who had to be sedated, dazed uncomprehending look and a slight tremble. Most of it was coming down off the adrenaline rush, that, and the infinite amount of sadness they carried inside.
We disposed of the bodies the way we usually did, cremation. Randy was the priest so he did the rites.
I never stuck around for those.
After everything I'd seen, I didn't think too highly of any kind of God.
We had a cabin deep in the wilderness we stayed at when we were in this particular area of the country.
Tanya's grandmother owned it before she passed.
A beautiful lake was nearby and that's where I was that night.
I kept seeing that screaming mother and the squirming, bloody creature that had once been an innocent, teenage girl. I kept seeing the mothers' contorting, sobbing face and the daughters agonizing, confused one.
The only healthy looking part on the girl had been her newly grown canines.
I hadn't seen Tanya approach me.
"I thought you quit." She said.
I took another drag off my smoke and said nothing.
"I know its hard Rob, but we all have our reasons. That's what you told me after the one in Illinois with the infant, remember?"
"All to well," I replied.
"We push on because it has to be done. If we don't stop, then either the ones who are brought back will continue to suffer till they die or they will keep feeding and others will die."
I threw my smoke in the lake.
"So we kill to stop killing, makes sense."
She shook her head and put a hand on my shoulder.
"We will get through this and move on to the next one."
"That's what I'm afraid of." I said.
The cabin door flew open suddenly, and Blake came running onto the porch. His arm was covered in blood.
"Rob, Tanya get in here now!" he screamed.
"Rob what?" Tanya began but I had already taken off toward the cabin.
I reached Blake who was gasping for air. I could hear screams and thrashing around in the cabin.
"What is it Blake?"
He shook his hand toward the front door.
"Save…him."
I pulled the .38 I kept in my belt and rushed in.
The living room was trashed. The coffee table was split in half, the windows all broken, and a huge hole was now in the fireplace.
"That's where she…came in." Blake had entered the cabin and was clenching the wound on his arm.
"Blake what the hell is it?"
He began shaking his head and I knew then it was worse than I had expected.
Blake feared nothing. I had watched the man stake over twenty vampires and never blink an eye.
I heard a tearing noise followed by a splatter that made my stomach churn. Randy's screams began then but as I ran toward them they were silenced by another ripping noise.
I looked at Tanya who stood on the other side of the bedroom door with her stake. She nodded and I kicked open the door.
There she was.
I locked eyes with her the moment the door flew open.
Her eyes were full black then, as she tore the rest of Randy's neck open and dropped the body to the floor. Her mouth was long and wide like a shark's and I froze in fear at the sight of her. Every vampire we had seen before was fresh, which made them vulnerable. They still looked human too, except for the teeth.
This was no ordinary vampire.
I watched as Tanya charged the creature. It grabbed her wrist and snapped it with hardly any effort. Tanya began to scream and tried to pull away, but the creature roared triumphantly and ripped into her.
Blake came in at that point and was yelling at me to shoot it but I barely heard.
I was hypnotized by the beast.
Blake grabbed the gun from my hand and began firing. The monster emitted a very deep laugh and lunged. She was across the room holding Blake by the throat before I could blink.
I shut my eyes and heard the snapping of his neck.
I waited for my turn.
"A coward's way, I expected more from you." The sweet gentle voice floating to me in no way matched the monstrosity that had just murdered my friends.
I opened my eyes and saw that she had changed. Her eyes were now ocean blue, bright and innocent. Her mouth had become normal as well, much thinner but the lips were thick enough to be seductive.
She smiled.
"I know how tired you are, of everything. All the terrible things you've seen, why, they are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a world here that you and your friends would never imagine. An entire sub-lair none of you could even grasp." Her cream colored skin seemed to melt into my sight as she drew close.
"We can experience it together my love," that voice was like the soft drops of rain after a raging storm's end.
Her eyes, hypnotizing deep blue oceans, suddenly turned full back again, an immediate eclipse.
"How like a fallen angel," she hissed.
I learned something new that evening. The ritual we had been trying to put a stop too was not the only one out there to create an undead.
There is one that can turn the living into a vampire without death.
She whispered her name to me as she performed it.
"Alexa."
She promised to come back, but I must wait. The waiting is penance for my sins against her and her kind.
I find that lately I can barely handle being in the sunlight for any period of time. I know soon that my body will fully become what I for so long hunted.
I pray that she is here before that time.

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