Avenging Autumn: Seasons Change Book 1 of 4 (13 page)

Gloria Perez looked horrified. “He dug up his
wife’s body?”

“
Oh, no. No, it was pretty obvious
the grave was dug from the inside out. Remember the
shoe’s.”

“
Right,” Detective Perez said,
dreamily. “The shoes.”

“
I know it sounds crazy,” Eric said
“but that’s what we found. I thought it may be possible she wasn‘t
dead, but she wouldn‘t have been able to break through the coffin
plus a few feet of dirt.”

She looked at him with a sympathetic grin. “It
doesn’t sound that crazy.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Follow me, I’ll show you what I
found.”

Eric followed his partner to a shattered
window at the front of the office.

“
This window was busted from the
inside,” she be-gan. Looking out the window, Eric could see the
broken glass lying on the pavement below. “There’s no evidence as
to what busted it, but there was no glass found on the inside of
the office and no foreign objects below. It’s as if something or
someone went through this window and just floated away.”

“
Stray bullets?”

“
Come over here.”

Gloria led him to the left hand wall, which
was rid-dled with bullet holes. “9mm slugs,” she said, “the most
this caliber would have done to glass that thick is cracks, maybe a
hole, they wouldn’t have shattered it like that. Now look at this.
Do you notice anything strange about this bullet?”

She held up a slug that was dug out of the
wall. Eric looked at it for a moment then shook his
head.

“
It’s made out of silver,” she
continued.

“
Oh yeah,” the younger detective
said in awe.

“
Then there are the bodies.” She
bent down over one of the bodies and her partner did the same. “The
coroner had trouble placing the time of death. He said their bodies
ap-peared as though they had been dead for years but were somehow
preserved, no decomposition, the wounds are clean, no blood flow,
just a black hole where the bullet entered. And finally, there’s
this.” She pulled the man’s upper lip back to reveal a small pair
of incisors above the normal ones. Then, she applied pressure above
the strange teeth and they came down over the others.

“
There are muscles connected to
these teeth. They move their faces in a certain way and the muscles
push these teeth down.”

Detective Eric Peterson was staring at the
hideous teeth with a mixed look of shock and terror. “Vampires?” he
whispered.

Gloria only nodded her head.

“
That can’t be,” Eric continued.
“Surely, this is part of some elaborate prank.”

“
As much as I’d like to believe
that myself,” Gloria returned, “our final piece of evidence is
perhaps the most con-clusive and most disturbing part of this
case.” She then led Eric to a corner of the office where a TV and
VCR were set up.”

“
This is the security tape from
Saturday night, watch closely,” she said, pushing play on the
VCR.

The picture on the screen was snowy for a
second, and then Mr. Writeman’s office came up from a diagonal
angle behind the desk. Frank Writeman could be seen rummaging
through his drawers and packing things into a small satchel as if
he were preparing for a short business trip. Suddenly, the door
opened and Frank Writeman stopped what he was doing, looked up from
his desk, and began to hold a conversation with someone who, as far
as Detective Eric Peterson’s keen eye’s could tell, wasn’t actually
there.

“
Keep watching,” Gloria said, “it
gets better.”

Eric watched the old man as he pulled a gun
from his belt with astonishing quickness and fired in four
different di-rections. Then he leveled the gun at the door and
appeared to talk a little more before he started firing
again.

“
See,” Gloria said in Eric’s ear,
“he doesn’t fire at the window, but it shatters anyway, with no
reason at all. Unless there was a fifth man, a vampire that jumped
through that window and…”

Eric watched the bank owner pull a second gun
and fire double fisted around the room, then the window shattered,
seemingly on its own.

“
Turned into a bat and flew away.”
Eric finished with an astonished look on his face.

“
Maybe.”

Gloria and Eric stared at each other in
stunned silence that was only broken by a uniformed officer
urgently bustling through the door.

“
Detectives, more bodies have been
found.”

“
Where?” Gloria asked.

“
We secured a warrant to enter Jack
Writeman’s house where twelve more men were found shot and killed.
There’s also a report that just came in from a farm just outside of
Omaha, Nebraska. A farmer discovered what could only be described
as a massacre deep in his cornfield and in the graveyard behind
it.”

“
Is there anything that would
connect those murders to the ones here in town?” asked Detective
Peterson.

“
Sixty eight bodies were found; men
and women,” the officer continued, “all of them were naked, a few
were cut into pieces, but the rest were shot with silver
bullets.”

The two detectives exchanged a surprised
look.

Gloria Perez thanked the officer and dismissed
him. Once he was gone she turned to her partner and asked; “What
should we do?”

“
Isn’t it obvious? The Writeman
family is on a mur-dering spree the likes of which this country has
never seen. We have to stop them one way or the other.”

“
But, look at what their killing.
Vampires! And in what story in your entire life have you heard
about nude vam-pires attacking anyone?”

Eric thought about it a moment, “I can’t
really think of any.”

“
That’s right. Now, what about
werewolves?”

“
Oh, come on, Gloria, this is
getting a little ridicul-ous.”

“
Those bodies in Omaha were found
outside in the sunlight. If they were vampires they’d have been
fried, but instead they reverted back to human form. The bodies
that were found here in town were all indoors. You’re saying you
don’t believe all of the evidence that you’ve seen.”

“
I’m saying; before we go and jump
to conclusions about mythical creatures, we should eliminate any
other possibilities. Regardless of the reasons why the Writemans
are killing people, they are still killing people and it is our job
to stop them.”

Gloria sighed through her teeth. “Your
right.”

“
Besides,” Eric continued, “when it
comes right down to it, there’s probably a perfectly logical
explanation for all of this.”

“
Your partner’s right, ma'am” A
deep voice bellowed from the doorway.

The two detectives jumped and turned to see a
pair of large men in sharp, grey suits standing in the
doorway.

“
Sorry if we startled you,” the
black one said in a slightly higher tone than his friend. “I’m
Agent Anderson and this is my partner, Agent Fields, we’re with the
FBI, and we are officially taking control of this case.”

The two detectives exchanged a disappointed
look.

“
Is there nothing we could do to
help?” Gloria asked.

“
I’m afraid not,” Agent Fields said
in his deep tone. “We’re with a special branch of the FBI that
deals specifically with these types of strange cases.”

“
What, like the X-files?” Eric
asked, with a nervous laugh.

“
Well, kind of,” Fields continued,
“but we really don’t care for that comparison. We believe there is
always a reasonable explanation for these strange occurrences, and
in most cases, we find that explanation.”

“
And in the other cases?” Gloria
asked.

“
Sorry?”

“
You said ‘most cases’, what about
the others?”

“
I’m sorry, we cannot answer
anymore questions. Now if you would please leave us, my partner and
I would like to proceed with our investigation.”

The two detectives were then rushed to the
elevators by the two agents.

“
And remember,” Agent Anderson said
before the elevator doors close, “this case is now officially top
secret. It would be very unwise for you to talk about it or pursue
it any further.”

Something in the agent’s eyes absolutely
terrified Gloria Perez, and she and her partner (along with every
other officer involved in the case) never spoke of this day to each
other again. Eric was so intimidated by the agents that he de-cided
to forget this day ever started. Gloria, however, was too intrigued
by the whole thing to give it up so easily. She may have to
investigate on her own time, but she still had too many questions
that needed answered.

With the two detectives finally out of their
way, Agent Anderson and Agent Fields went to work.

Right about the time Benny and the others were
es-caping the werewolves, a man with no name (at least not one that
anyone would remember) was running for his life down a steep
hillside somewhere in Colorado.

Though the full moon shone down from the sky,
the stranger had a hard time seeing through the dense forest
sur-rounding him. His feet kicked up hundreds of dead leaves,
slightly slowing his progress, but he knew he was nearing the
bottom of the hill, he may just get away.

Suddenly, a large figure draped in shadows
dropped down in front of him. The creature brought itself up to
full height (which had to be close to nine feet) and glared down at
the stranger with red, glowing eyes.

The stranger made a move as if to run around
the monster, but with a speed blurred motion the thing’s arms shot
out, revealing giant, bat like wings.

“
RAAAAAAH!” the creature screeched.
The sound was like ten thousand fingernails running down a
blackboard.

Terrified, the man screamed until his lungs
were empty. The bat-thing grabbed the man’s head in one hand and
his left shoulder in the other, lowered its head, and sank it’s
vampire teeth into his neck.

As the monster drank, it’s ears began to
twitch as someone new, but not entirely unexpected entered the
woods. The creature dropped it’s victim and turned toward the
new-comer. The thing began to shrink, it’s bat wings becoming a
flowing black cape, it’s monstrous facial features becoming the
face of a handsome and wise middle aged man. Soon the horrific
monster looked more like a New York City power broker.

“
Welcome, Odin Sway,” the handsome
man said with a kind smile. His accent was ancient and difficult to
place. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“
I’m sorry to interrupt the hunt,
my lord,” Odin said, with a bow.

“
Please, Odin, it is always a
pleasure to see one of my brightest children.”

“
A situation has arisen my lord,
and I find myself in need of your guidance and wisdom.”

“
Walk with me,” the Vampire lord
motioned to his prey and Odin walked to the limp body and flung it
over his shoulder with ease. “I am well aware of your current
situa-tion,” the vampire lord continued, “and I am fully prepared
to offer you sanctuary at my home.”

“
I am most grateful to you, my
lord,” Odin said as they walked back up the incline, “and I do
apologize that things got so out of hand.”

“
Of course, Odin, I do not blame
you. I only regret that your masters were killed, I would have
liked to been able to deal with them myself. You are welcome to
stay with me for as long as you’d like. I have a meeting with
Deppleo later and I will confer with him about the right solution
to this prob-lem. He is not pleased with the attention we’re
getting from the Writemans, and others who have discovered their
handy work.”

Odin Sway had never met Deppleo, but he
couldn’t help the shiver that rose up the spine he always got at
the mere mention of his name. Not much was known about the vampire
god, except the various deeds he was responsible for throughout
history, and absolutely no one knows what he looks like. Only the
twelve vampire lords were ever allowed to meet with him, and even
then he was not seen. It was always rumored amongst the lesser
vampires that he’s able to control the very shadows around him,
always keeping himself shrouded in darkness.

“
The only thing that is still a
mystery to me,” the vampire lord continued, after a few minutes of
silence, “is how they are able to track you so well?”

“
It’s the dead girl,” Odin
provided.

The vampire lord stopped walking and turned to
look at his old friend. “What dead girl?”

“
The one I…killed, she has returned
from the dead. She has some sort of psychic connection to me; I’ve
felt her in my mind.”

“
Interesting,” the lord said
thoughtfully. “They will eventually find their way here, and then
we will see how de-termined they truly are."

10. Bar Fight

The year was 1999, and things were going well
for both of the Writeman boys. Jack had begun a very successful
funeral home, which was doing well for him, though that meant it
was bad for his customers. Benny once asked him if he felt
comfortable exploiting people’s pain for his own finan-cial
gain.