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In real life vampires exist. I am not talking about the non-threatening; good-looking; asexual; twinkling movie fantasies for teen aged girls...and their mothers.
The kind of vampires that I'm talking about are honest to goodness undead creatures of the night whom when in sunlight explode like a pinata after the "husky" kid gets his turn at the party. Nobody knows where the first vampires came from. The belief that Vlad the Impaler was the first and the worst vampire is simply a euro-centric bias.
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| Vlad Tepes, "Vlad the Impaler" |
My would-be murderer, Sol-Teth's, origins stretch back thousands of years before Vlad's birth to an area in the Fertile Crescent. and even then the few records that have been able to be translated suggest that he was immensely old at that time. Sol-Teth in his day led a life that made "the Impaler" look like a Sunday school teacher. For centuries he held an entire civilization under his sway. At night he terrorized the people by going into their homes and devouring whole families at a time. During the day he was protected from and influenced the people through his armies of followers. Some were people held in the thrall of his psychic powers; others were wanna-be's suffering from Renfield's Syndrome who hoped that if they pleased Sol-Teth that he would turn them into a true vampire; but the vast majority of his horde was composed of people simply trying to protect their families (Sol-Teth pledged that he would not devour the immediate families of those who fought in his armies). He held control over much of the Akkadian civilization for centuries through this cycle of fear. At night he would attack a village or city-in the morning men would join his army in order to protect their families-during the daay the army would take control of the village or city; and at night Sol-Teth would terrorize the people who had not accepted his rule. He would then move to the next village/city and repeat the process.
Vampires have continued to exist through the millenia. They have always kept their numbers low and as man's technology has evolved they have become more and more reclusive to the point that most people believe that vampires only exist in movie theaters and on Blue-Ray. Every once in awhile, however, a vampire gets a wild hair up his butt and decides to go semi-public with their existence. This is the kind of vampire that is currently roaming the streets of St. Christopher. Dart and Deca-Man, my parents, (and two members of the Guild of Heroes ) have been trying desperately for a couple of weeks trying to find the vampire. They've had no luck.
I love my parents and they are two of the greatest heroes on the planet but they are not the world's greatest detectives. They are going to need help in finding the vampire but they refuse to admit it. Luckily my ego is not so big that I have a problem with accepting help. I have already contacted , Shivaughn, Warlock's daughter, and she has agreed to help me in locating the vampire or vampires...that is once she is was no longer grounded. That day came today.
The good thing is that the Guild members encourage us kids to get together as much as possible. Our parents believe that as the next generation of super-heroes that it is best that we all get along. This works for the most part but in any group there is a rotten egg and in our group that stinker is Mickey Jones, the son of Prometheus. I hate that guy. As for the rest of our merry little band of teen and pre-teen sidekicks we pretty much get a long. So my parents were not suspicious at all when I asked if Shivaughn, Suzie and Dan could come out for the weekend. My parents didn't need to know that we planned on doing a little vampire hunting this weekend.
So early in the morning my friends began transporting to my house. The first to arrive was Suzie, the Tiny-Girl. Next was Shivaughn and finally Dan arrived. He's always the last to arrive. So once everyone arrived we told my parents that we wanted to go to the mall. So Mom loaded us all into the mini-van and we headed towards the mall. Once we arrived Mom gave me some money to get some food for me and my friends at the mall and she told me to give her a call when we were ready to come home. I told her that we were going to watch a movie and then hang out so it would probably be a couple of hours. She said, "OK". Then she left. It was now vampire hunting time.
"So what are we really going to do today?" asked Suzie.
"What do you think we are going to do? We are going after the vampire that I told you about." I responded.
"I thought we were going to see a movie" said Dan.
Dan isn't the brightest bulb but he's got a good heart and he's super-powerful which may come in handy if we come face to face with the vampire. Shivaughn is here because she has an empathic connection with supernatural energies. If anyone is going to be able to track down the vampire it is going to be Shivaughn.
"So which way should we go?" I asked.
"That way" responded Shivaugn.
She pointed to the bus stop and when the bus came we all got onto the number seventeen bus and headed towards the edge of town. We rode for thirty minutes. When we got to Colan Street Shivaughn told us to get off the bus. We were in the industrial part of town. Yet like much of the country there isn't much industry left in St. Christopher and these once booming factories now silent. Shivaughn points towards the abandoned Wilson tire factory and says, "over there".
It was at this point that we realized that we didn't have a plan if we encountered any vampires. Suzie asked, "does anyone have any holy water?" Of course we didn't. I guess I could have planned this a little better but we've got my super-strength, super-speed and invulnerability; Suzie's shrinking powers; Dan's explosive touch and Shivaughn magic. We should be OK. However, to be on the safe side we run though a list of things that we believe can kill vampires...and then Shivaughn corrects us. Ultimately we conclude the following:
- Stake through the heart
- Crucifixes work but only if the holder is a devout Christian
- The same goes for holy water
- Chopping off their heads (gross I don't think that we will be doing this)
- Fire
- and of course sunlight
We had none of these items. So before we went into the warehouse I gathered (at super speed) some wooden sticks to be used if we encountered any vampires. "Super-Heroes vs. Vampires" sounds like a title for a bad B-movie. We huddled close together as we entered the old warehouse because even though we are all powerful in our own right I'm the only one who is invulnerable. I would've hated to see any of my friends be turned into the dead or worse the undead. So we stuck close to each other. As we made our way through the old factory I couldn't help but think to myself that the only thing missing from our group was a talking dog.
Of course it was dark in the warehouse. It was an obvious place for the vampire to choose. In the darkness of the warehouse it would be able to move about freely even when it was daylight outside. This turn of events negated any element of surprise that had. I was really hoping to encounter a sleeping Vampire in its coffin and drive a stake through its heart. There was now a real possibility that the vampire would be awake and worse there was a possibility that the vampire would be aware of us. So we slowly made our way through the warehouse. In a back room we found it. We found the vampires coffin. We all stood around the coffin for awhile not wanting to go near it and then finally it was Shivaughn who opened it up...and it was empty. "Really?" I thought to myself, could this get any worse?
Then of course it did. From the shadows we heard a low guttural growl. The vampire was in the room. It undoubtedly could see us but we couldn't see it. This was not the position that we wanted to be in. If we all got killed our parents would kill us. Then we heard a scraping sound along the floor intermixed with a rhythmic thump. The vampire was walking towards us. I was scared but I was also thinking, "vampires don't walk they glide across the ground or even fly". Then from the deepest shadows the monster emerged into an area where our eyes had adjusted to the relative lack of light.
Out of the shadows came a vampire. It wasn't what I expected. Don't get me wrong it was still hideous but it was tiny. This vampire must have been a small child when it was turned. I don't know why any vampire would turn a small child but here she was and apparently all alone. Worse this baby vampire was deformed. Her limbs were mangled. Her left foot was even turned around in the opposite direction. It looked as if it had been mangled in some sort of accident or crash but there was no one to set her bones correctly and her enhanced vampire healing just took over the best it could leaving her a mangled mess. Unfortunately for this poor creature its immortal (or undead if you prefer) so it couldn't even die unless someone was to put it out of it misery. It must have been attacking and killing the people found for food because despite all of humanities technology when it comes down to the "food chain" we are still about the easiest prey to catch.
The vampire was standing in the corner of the room with its back to the wall. Suzy, Dan, Shivaughn and I were standing about in a semi-circle with our stakes fully in hand facing the vampire. We looked at each other and then looked again at the little monster and then back again at each other. "Who was going to plunge a wooden stake through this poor creatures heart?" It's one thing to think tough when your planning on fighting off a fully grown vampire in the preservation of your life it is quite another when you are face to face with a pathetic creature that probably wishes it was dead itself. None of us were able to kill it so we did the only thing we knew how to do. We called our parents.
My parents, Deca-Man and Dart, showed up first. They were happy that at least the murders by this vampire in St. Christopher would stop but they weren't at all happy that I went out and endangered not only myself but my friends to try and capture this vampire. I tried to explain to them that we were never in any danger from this vampire but they weren't listening to any of it. Next to show was Suzie's mother, Micro Woman. Then the Blast arrived. Then finally Warlock suddenly appeared (without the use of a teleporter) in the room. None of our parents were happy with our decision to go vampire hunting.
Our parents also decided that killing this particular vampire would be sad and so Warlock volunteered to take her. He said that he could keep her safely away inside his sanctum. Our parents were in no position to argue. It's not as if we could keep the little vampire tied up to a post in our backyard. So, Warlock flashed Shivaughn a look that could turn fire into ice and Shivaughn sheepishly walked with her head down towards her father. Then just that quickly Shivaughn, the vampire and Warlock were gone.Then the Micro Woman, the Blast and my parents turned towards us.
I don't think that the kid heroes are going to be getting together anytime in the near future. We were all grounded.
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