Page 18 of Marked for Extinction
It took a few days walk until we approached the location. My mind was whirling with thoughts of what we might find and if any vampires have come across and rummaged through it to spite us. Hopefully, we would find something that might give us the upper hand in this war.
“What do you think, Vik? Weapons? Food stores?” Amir asked from behind.
“We’re about to find out,” I reply. With my usual team with me, we were guaranteed to return back with a good success rate. The sun crested higher in the sky as we made our way through the wooded maze.
My comrades and my faithful companion, Angel, and I walked through the trees in silence, the crunch of the leaves under foot was soft in comparison to the buzzing of insects around us.
Angel was the best dog in the world—the best friend in the world as well. She had gotten me through losing Katherine, a time when I felt like I was losing myself in the process of grief over my late wife. During that time, I occupied my mind with training her through commands and experience to fight vampires with use of her teeth and claws—a perfect combination of both power and intelligence.
The moment the thought of Katherine entered my mind was the moment memories forced their way back.
“Lay low,” he whispered. We all nodded in acknowledgement as we stealthily made our way deep into enemy territory.
Suddenly, someone sneezed and everyone froze in place. My heart raced as Angel tried her best to stifle her whine, laying low beside me.
Command signaled us to fall back and we immediately did as instructed. We should have known it was too late. With their heightened sense of hearing, our enemies already detected our location.
The first one appeared out of the darkness, then another and another. One of our men let off a few shots and instantly all our guns went off. But they were useless.
The bloodsuckers came in droves, knocking our weapons from our hands, forcing us into hand to hand. Blood sprayed as hearts were pierced through chest cavities and heads were lobbed off with our short range blades. Lucas roared as he shoved his shoulder into the closest vampire, taking him down to the ground to grapple.
As good as our training was proving to be at the moment, it didn’t negate the fact that they were stronger.
Dutton tackled one of the vampires to the ground, throwing his fists into its face with audible crunches as blood spewed against his. I watched as he quickly got to his feet and dragged the body away from the scene until out of nowhere, a group of vampires pounced on him and began to feed.
His screams echoed into the night and seared itself into my soul as I threw my blade in their direction, knocking one of the bloodsuckers off. Angel leaped and took down another as her jaws clamped down around one of their necks. Dutton begged for someone to save him, for someone to jump in and help but then his screams were cut short. My mind slowly descended into hopelessness as I listened to my best friend begin to gurgle.
As much as I wanted to save him, it was too late. I couldn’t chance any of us becoming the next victim when we needed to keep as much of the resistance alive to fight another day as possible.
“Fall back!” I commanded.
We retreated back the way we came, some of us dispersing into different directions with the intention of meeting everyone back at point A, our rendezvous point. I weaved through the trees with Angel swiftly by my side. The farther away we were from the scene of the battle, the faster she ran ahead of me in silence.
My mind and heart raced as I mentally did a count of who was left in my area at the time of the ambush. We had lost two men and were down to three. Katherine, Lucas and myself.
Soon enough, Lucas appeared a few feet away and we both ran in the same direction together.
“Shit!” Lucas spit out the moment a random vampire appeared. It didn’t seem like this one was part of the last swarm. His demeanor was different as he slowly walked toward us.
Lucas was our strongest and biggest comrade in our current group. He looked at me and Katherine and grinned. “You two go, I can take care of this asshole.”
I was caught at a crossroads. We didn’t need another man down but I had to get my wife to safety. Lucas removed his long blade from his back and smiled menacingly at the enemy.
Lucas’ next words solidified his decision as well as my own.
“Lets go asswipe!” he challenged and the vampire hissed in response. The moment Lucas ran toward the vampire, distracting him, we made our escape.
We never saw or heard from him again.
As we closed in on the rendezvous location, Angel let out a whine and huff. I slowed my run to a jog until Angel turned and ran around Katherine with a whimper. That was when I realized the horror of what happened during the ambush.
She was bitten.
A million thoughts and possibilities ran through my mind as I turned and doubled back to get to her. How did I not notice her falling behind me so far? She was limping—the injury on her left leg. When I made it to her location, with the strength she still harbored, she pushed me away.
“What are you doing?” I barked. “We need to get to the spot! We need to get you help!”
“Stay away from me, Vik!”
