by
Joel Levy
Forty years ago, my father who was a bit of a lone wolf came here to open a branch of the family bank. Due to our infusion of capital, the local economy boomed and many new jobs were created. The down side was that the number and brutality of the local murders increased. Still, it seemed a small price to pay for progress.
High school was not a happy or successful time in my life. My natural tendency to catch balls in my mouth made me a failure at sports. My tendency to run about at night led to an arrest for stalking. The girl who complained about me to the police was Miss Brenda Sharpe. In fact, she always referred to me as ‘that weird little creep'. Brenda was one of the two most beautiful girls in our High School. The other was Miss Samantha Crawford whose father owned a prospering real estate office. Unfortunately for Brenda's marriage prospects, her father's chain of all night apothecary shops was going bankrupt.
Samantha, a lovely little blonde, had a dozen suitors including five rich young football players. They must have realized that only one of them could marry Samantha and decided that one of the other football heroes would get Brenda. Since I was Brenda's one suitor they decided to get rid of me for good. Brenda's father desperately needed to refinance his all night apothecary shops. A marriage union between our families was the way to go. Despite his daughter's obvious preference for a football player, the marriage was arranged.
Samantha's suitors challenged me to a duel. They claimed that my family was responsible for many deaths in the city. I could not honestly deny it. Fish got to swim and wolves got to hunt.
To prepare for the duel, I picked up a book called ‘The Modern Swordsman' that turned out to be quite helpful. The author states that dueling is largely a matter of hand and eye coordination. The first thing is to pick the weapon or weapons that feel right in your hand. After a day of trying out lots of different swords, I finally selected a two Sabre style of combat. My opponent had already chosen rapier and buckler. ‘The Modern Swordsman' had illustrations of a number of combat moves. I finally chose one that featured an overhand strike with the Sabre in my right hand. When my opponent raises his sword to block, I step forward with my left foot and run him through with the blade in my left hand.
The bookies were offering ten to one odds against my winning the duel. Even at those odds no one would bet on me. My family spread $25,000 among the bookies betting on a draw at odds of 4 to 1. The families of the football players bet heavily against me. Why would someone bet $50,000 just to win $5000? I did not expect to win, but I had decided that I would certainly not lose.
We met at sunset and fought for almost three seconds. I swung one Sabre at his head and stepped in to stab with the other. My opponent, an excellent and experienced fencer, blocked with his buckler and kept his rapier in line aimed at my chest. We skewered each other and the duel did end in a draw. I was fully recovered in a week, due to my fast healing Lycan blood. A bit of silver nitrate poured into the wound left me with a dueling scar to display. My opponent spent a month in the hospital and remains an invalid to this day.
The period between Halloween and the winter solstice is traditionally the time for weddings, engagements and parties in our town. Years ago it was considered good luck to leave a terminally ill relative on the church steps as food for the ghouls. These creatures infest the ancient cemetery outside of town. Our current District Attorney has indicted at least three people for murder for leaving relatives out to be eaten. Now, the ghouls must roam the roads and fields at night looking for a bit of live meat. Hungry ghouls recently invaded the town and stole several toddlers. Others invaded a nursing home and feasted until being wiped out by annoyed citizens armed with guns and axes. The district attorney refuses to indict the ghouls for killing and eating people. Being dead at the time of the crime raises reasonable doubt that you actually committed the offense, he claims.
The duel certainly improved my image in the town. Americans claim to be against violence, but glorify soldiers, criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, and duelists such as Alexander Hamilton, Jim Bowie and myself. Brenda and I became lovers and plan a wedding in November. Miss Samantha's remaining suitors decided not to insist on further duels. In fact, I became quite friendly with a couple of them.
After all the strife over the lovely and rich Samantha it was sad to learn that her father had accepted an offer of marriage from our ruler Count Von Evils. The girl would wed his grandson. The couple would live in the castle with the Count while the young man ran his grandsire's estate. The Count was preoccupied with other matters, such as writing speeches and position papers for presidential candidates, torture of tax cheats, and sampling the blood of every pretty girl within a hundred miles.
How I pitied that young couple. Castles are notoriously cold places to live and have only the most primitive plumbing. This one did not even have direct T.V. The count felt that a satellite dish on the roof of the castle would ruin the ambiance of the place. Brenda and I were completely renovating a comfortable cottage in the town with 2 and ½ baths, oil heating, and cable T.V.
One afternoon after the workmen had left the cottage, Brenda showed up with Miss Samantha in tow. Sam was wearing a scarf around her neck and looked pale and anemic. I did not need to see the bite marks on her neck to know that the Count had been sampling his grandson's fiancé. Brenda also had a couple of major hickeys, but I seemed to remember putting them on her myself.
We put Samantha on the morning bus to the big apple. My father had hired her on the spot to enter our bank's executive training program. If a bunch of Werewolves with accounting backgrounds can't keep her safe I don't know who could. Perhaps after training, she could serve at our Roman branch. All those cross wearers should scare away any vampires.
Samantha's four remaining suitors, duelists and football players all, entered into a pact with me to destroy Count Von Evils. In “The Art of War” by Sum Dum Fork the ancient Chinese advises warriors to never do the expected. No one would expect even an offensive lineman or a werewolf to be stupid enough to attack a vampire's castle on Halloween. So, Halloween was when we decided to attack.
The bookies were giving three to one odds on the Count killing all five of us. I put a grand down at five to one that we would destroy Count Von Evils and I would survive. It seemed silly to bet that I would be killed. If I won, where would they send the money?
At the stroke of midnight on Halloween I approached the front door of the castle. The others had all picked their own entrances, climbing the wall, swimming the moat, etc.
I wanted Count Von Evils to see me and to know what was coming to kill him. My two sabers were strapped in a harness across my back. I carried a home made flame thrower half filled with napalm B. I just mixed up some benzene, some polystyrene and some gasoline. The apothecary shop featured a concoction called ‘Greek Fire', but I prefer to rely on good old American know how for my weapons.
Although I did not know it then, one of my comrades was already dead. He had attempted to swim the moat burdened down with football helmet, shoulder pads, a bastard sword and a rifle in a waterproof bag. The weight pulled him under and he drowned. This was a rather prosaic death for a vampire slayer, but dead is dead as they say.
The front door of the castle was wide open and light blazed within. I gave the doorframe a shot of napalm before entering hoping to burn out any traps or sensors. Within the great hall, I burned every nook and door, and then emptied my flame thrower up the grand stairs. Throwing away the empty flame thrower, drew my 22 caliber target pistol and waited. The Israeli secret service uses 22s for all their hits. That is enough of a recommendation for me.
>From somewhere above came the short crisp bursts of an automatic weapon. Another of my comrades had just been killed.
The Count's young grandson came down the stairs. He carried a ‘dirty Harry' magnum in both hands. “Tell me where you have hidden my fiancé and I shall let you live”, he demanded. When a distance of only ten steps separated us, he braced himself and fired. The heavy round missed by at least a foot. A survey published by Shooter's Digest claimed that more than half the people who purchased Magnum's after seeing the movie have never dared to fire them. Perhaps that implies that American gun collectors are macho but not stupid. “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, I told him. My soft but accurate little pistol trumps your cannon.”
I aimed and shot him three times with the 22. He went down, lost his grip on the magnum and started to crawl away up the stairs. Drawing my sabers, I followed him up the stairs and cut his head off. At the top of the stairs is a small crenellated window overlooking the moat. I chucked the head into the dirty waters.
Upon the third floor near some double doors I found 2 men both on the floor dying. The one in the football helmet was obviously a comrade although his head wound made it impossible to see his features. Even as I approached, his feet beat a tattoo on the floor and he died. The other man was dressed in a sweater and tie. He had that indefinable but unmistakable air of a government spook. I walked past the dying agent and kicked the office doors open.
So now we come to the final scene in the drama; werewolf vs. vampire, what a cliché!
When I entered his study, the count was giving dictation to 3 obviously undead secretaries. He held up two fingers asking for a minute or two to finish dictating a position paper on the Iraqi war filled with platitudes and Bull. The secretaries left the room and the Count came from behind his desk a sword in one hand and a 16 caliber shotgun pistol in the other.
“We can still make a deal, he began. I shall take the young girls and you Lycans can have the rest. There is plenty of flesh and blood in this town for us both.”
“No deals, I responded. I could not trust you to keep your fangs out of my future wife's neck. Besides, if you take the tender young girls what does that leave me, the fat pimply ones and the old maids? No this town isn't big enough for Lycans and a coven of Vampires. So, unless you want to turn into a bat and fly back to Transylvania or wherever you come from, one of us has to die here.”
He attacked using speed even a Lycan could not match, stabbing me repeatedly and attempting to shove the shotgun into my mouth. I was definitely overmatched and dying hard. Then my sole remaining comrade, wearing a football helmet and carrying a pump shotgun entered the study. He fired eight rounds of wooden ammo into the Count who was knocked off me by the impacts.
The vampire rose to his feet, staggered to within a pace of my comrade and blew the top of his head clean off with the 16 caliber pistol. Placing one of my sabers at each side of the vampire's neck and my foot in the small of his back, I forced him to kneel and sawed his head off slowly. His flesh dissolved into dust leaving only a skeleton. I threw his skull into the moat near where I had cast his grandson's head, and then I broke down and howled my grief for the good comrades who had died to rid the world of this monster.
Before going outside to surrender to the police, I hurled my pistol and swords into the moat. If the cops want them for evidence, they are going to have to search through some righteous crap to find them. Finally, I walked slowly out the front door of the castle with my paws in the air. Swat teams had surrounded the castle along with a special anti-terrorist unit from the Army Rangers and a dozen carloads of government spooks. The parking lot in front of the castle looked like Columbine High School. Our assault upon the castle had turned into a media event big time.
My wedding took place right on schedule and attracted paparazzi from all over the world. The wedding of a vampire slayer out on bail from a felony murder charge doesn't happen every day. Brenda and I got our pictures in People Magazine.
My lawyer tells me the government is anxious to settle the case with a plea deal. The secret service has no desire to discuss their relationship with a vampire in open court. I shall probably have to plead to some lesser charge and do a year or so in jail. Thanks to the thousands of average Americans out there who sent me supportive emails. Keep them coming while I am in jail.
The End
Publisher's disclaimer: The disparaging remarks about the eating and drinking habits of undead Americans are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Scribal Tales or its advertisers.
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