Avenging Autumn: Seasons Change Book 1 of 4 (16 page)

The two agents shared a comical
look.

“
Don’t you worry about us Mr.
Writeman,” the black one said, “I think we can handle ourselves
against any ‘vam-pire’.” He used his fingers for the universal
gesture for quota-tion marks.

“
It’s not the vampires you have to
worry about,” Frank said with a sly, crooked smile.

Now, Agent Anderson looked down right pissed
off. “Are you threatening a government official, Mr.
Writeman?”

“
No, I’m threatening a couple of
worthless, mangy, filth ridden, shit eating, butt sniffing, no
good, cock smoking, goddamned, werewolves.”

The two agents shared another look; only their
sar-casm was gone, replaced by a mixture of shame and
anger.

“
Don’t look so surprised,” Frank
continued, “if you’re going to wear a disguise you might as well go
all the way. When you opened your jackets to show me your
credentials, I noticed neither of you are carrying a gun. Oh, but
your proud hunters, right? It would be disgraceful to use man made
weapons, even if it was on a man.”

The old man stared at the two agents for a
moment longer, and then, without warning, Benny’s right hand came
up in a flash. The 9 mm pistol roared three quick shots; the top of
Agent Field’s head tore off and flapped backward. He looked as if
his toupee had been partially blown off by a gust of
wind.

Frank had a .45 pulled and was blasting Agent
An-derson in the chest midway through the werewolf’s
transfor-mation. The force of the bullets knocked the creature over
in his seat.

The vampires at the bar were now moving toward
them fast with fangs bared in hideous expressions of
rage.

The Writemans began to move to separate sides
of the bar in an attempt to split the vampires up among them. As
they did, four more vampires entered through the front door. Benny
spared a glance at Jack and was relieved to see a .38 revolver in
his hand. He was afraid his big brother had forgot-ten to pack some
heat.

Turning his attention back on the vampires,
Benny lifted his gun and the dimly lit country and western bar
sud-denly resembled a disco as gunshots flashed around the room.
From his left, he heard Jack let out a scream that was followed by
an inhuman shriek that could only be a vampire in great
pain.

Benny turned to check on his brother, but the
flashes from the guns had left a purple imprint on his eyes and he
couldn’t see if Jack was still in the same spot.

He sensed the vampire before he felt it tackle
him to the ground. The creature now had Benny pinned to the floor,
his arms crammed at his sides. The purple haze had begun to
dissipate and Benny could clearly make out the sharp white fangs
that were only inches from his face. Twisting his left hand, he
managed to grip the small wooden stake that was tucked into his
belt. He drove the stake into the vampire’s crotch and felt
gratified by the look of surprise that came over the creatures
face. After knocking the thing off of himself, and putting a bullet
in it’s forehead, Benny went to work on the remaining
vampires.

Frank was now out of bullets with no fresh
clips left on his belt, so he was relieved to see that his
attackers had stopped in their tracks, and every vampire in the
room was now totally focused on a bat that had just entered from
the open front door.

The bat flew to a light fixture that hung over
the pool table and clung to the bottom of it. Hanging upside down,
it spread its wings and let out a series of squeaks and screeches.
The vampires collectively put their heads down, like a group of
kids who were just told playtime was over and it’s time to come in
and take a bath, and walked out of the bar.

Benny looked over at Frank, “What the fuck was
that all about?”

Frank only shrugged at his son, looking
confused. The Old Man looked down at the floor and his confusion
seemed to grow. “What could have caused that?”

Following his father’s gaze, Benny found a
pile of steaming, bubbling, blood and guts that he assumed was once
a vampire. Then it suddenly dawned on him what could have caused
the mess. He ran to an overturned table and tossed it aside to find
his brother lying against the wall, holding his neck with his right
hand.

“
I ran out of bullets,” Jack said
weakly, “fucking revolver, I should have known better than to grab
a fucking revolver to carry on me. I got him good, though, see
Benny?”

“
The holy water,” Benny
stated.

“
That’s right, man, the fucking
holy water,” Jack continued, and then, switching from triumphant to
regretful. “Oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘fuck’ and ‘holy
water’ in the same sentence. Do you think that would be seen as
sa-crilegious?”

“
Try to calm down, Jack.” Frank
interjected, “Let me have a look at your neck.”

Slowly, Jack moved his hand away from his
neck, revealing two small holes that were still oozing a good
amount of blood.

“
Come on, Benny,” Frank said, “help
me get him to the car; we need to get him to a
hospital.”

“
Do you think they can help
him?”

“
I don’t know, but we have to give
it a shot.”

Frank and Benny helped Jack to the passenger
seat in the hearse. Benny joined Autumn in the back, and the old
death cab peeled out of the bar’s parking lot.

“
I thought I was going to die on
this trip,” Jack told his father as they drove east toward the
middle of town, “all this time I couldn’t shake this feeling that
I’m the bit actor in this tale, only written in so I could be
killed in some horrible way by the monster we’re all fighting.
Then, earlier today, I was taking a shit back at the motel and I
came to this crazy realization that I was kicking so much ass I
might actually make it through. Now I’m lying here,
dying.”

“
You’re not dying,” Frank said
forcefully, “you’re going to be alright.”

“
No, I’m not dying. At least not
like everyone else dies. I’m turning into one of them, aren’t
I?”

Frank looked at his son sternly, “Yeah, and we
don’t have much time, but I think we can clean it out of your
sys-tem. According to James, it’s kind of like snake
poison.”

“
He’s wrong, Dad,” Jack said
breathlessly, “He’s wrong.”

“
Just…just calm down, Jack, you’re
going to be alright.”

Frank pulled the car into a medical center
that he noticed when they had come into town. There were two men
dressed in scrubs and puffing on cigarettes standing outside the
automatic doors as he pulled up. He brought the car to a stop,
flung his door open and approached the men.

“
Hey,” the old man said in an
urgent tone, “can you give us a hand, my son has been
hurt.”

The younger of the two men looked the hearse
up and down and said; “Dude, I think he’s beyond our
help.”

“
NO!” Frank shouted, making the two
men flinch, “There is no time for jokes, he’s not in the back, he’s
in the passenger seat.”

The two followed Frank around the front of the
car where they met Benny, who was just coming from the back. They
all stopped and stared at the open passenger side door. Jack was
gone.

Benny walked toward the parking lot, his eyes
searching franticly; he began to shout his brother’s
name.

“
JACK! JACK, COME BACK,
PLEASE.”

“
Benny,” Frank interrupted, “get
back in the car.”

Suddenly, Autumn was at his side with her cold
hand in his. He looked down into her brown eyes and knew that this
wasn’t the time to go off looking for his brother.

After apologizing to the hospital employee’s,
the three of them managed to squeeze into the front of the hearse
and in a matter of minutes they were back on the road, heading
west.

“
Why did he run away?” Benny asked,
with tears rolling down his face, “Is he one of them
now?”

“
Not yet,” Frank answered, “but, he
will be, even-tually. I think he knew that and that’s why he ran.
He didn’t want one of us to be forced to put him down.”

“
How long does it take to change
completely?” Au-tumn inquired.

“
Three or four weeks,” Frank said,
“and from what I understand, it’s a fairly painful
transformation.”

“
Maybe we could still help him,”
Autumn said, hope-fully.

“
Right now we need to focus on one
goal at a time, and our number one priority is finding Odin Sway
and giving you the peace you deserve. Benny and I can find Jack
after-ward and we’ll do everything we can to help him.”

“
And if you can’t help
him?”

“
There’s an answer to every
problem, if you look hard enough.”

Benny remained quiet the rest of the trip,
before long the sun began to rise and in the distance he could make
out the dark shape of the Rocky Mountains.

11. Revenge and Redemption

Once Benny and Autumn were out of school, they
were ready to get married and settle down together. Their wedding
was small and inexpensive, and the honeymoon was a road trip to New
York city, where they made stops at all the tourist attractions and
even took the time to stop in and visit a friend from school that
moved up there last year to try and be an actor in a Broadway
musical.

Something that caught Benny’s eye one day
while they were about to enter Macy’s department store, was a
crazy, unwashed, old man who was wearing a large board sign that
covered front and back, and read “Don’t become one of them, it’s
time to fight back!!!”

“
The vampires are taking our city
from us,” the man shouted. “Don’t let them seduce you into their
service. The time has come to fight back.”

Benny couldn’t help but stop and stare at the
man for a few minutes, his mind going back to that night in a dark
bathroom after a concert. A night he hadn’t thought about for a
couple of years.

When the man noticed he had gotten Benny’s
atten-tion, he stopped shouting and addressed him
directly.

“
You’ve seen one of them, haven’t
you? You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Autumn grabbed Benny’s arm and pulled him away
from the stranger.

“
What are you doing?” Autumn asked.
“This is my first time to New York too, but even I know to stay
away from the crazies.

Benny let the issue drop for the moment, but
he felt he had to share everything with Autumn. It was only later
that night, while they were in the hotel room that he finally
shared the full story with her, including the advice his father had
giv-en him.

“
Wow, that is some very cryptic
advice,” Autumn said once her husband had finished.

“
Do you think I’m crazy?” he
asked.

“
Maybe a little.”

“
I know it’s weird, but I’m sure
what I saw was real. I have not suffered from hallucinations before
that night and I haven’t had any since. I haven’t done any drugs
stronger than weed, and that doesn’t cause you to see
things.”

“
You smoked some weed that night,
maybe it was laced with something else.”

“
You, Jack and Marvin smoked the
same stuff. Did you see anything strange that night?”

“
No,” Autumn said with a note of
defeat.

“
What if that old man on the street
out there is right? What if there are vampires out
there?”

“
I guess we should just do what
your father said, or else we will end up being the crazy fucks
shouting about hor-ror movie creatures taking over the world.
That’s what it comes down to, ultimately. No one would believe us
any more than they believe the guy with the sign.”

Benny conceded this point, and though he
couldn’t do anything about this little issue, he felt a lot better
knowing Autumn believed him and was on his side. The fact that she
said “we” instead of “you” was enough to show just how much she
really loved him, despite what others would see as the ramblings of
a lunatic.

The Writemans didn’t see another vampire the
rest of their trip but Autumn’s psychic gift was as strong as ever.
They had to abandon the car and after two days they found
themselves deep in the wilderness of the Rockies. The trees were
bright and beautiful with the brilliant colors of Fall, and Autumn
frequently commented about the ones she liked the best.

None of them were even sure they were in
Colorado anymore, hell they could have been in Canada for all Benny
knew. They had followed no map to get that far, there hadn’t been
any signs on the back roads they had followed; there was only
Autumn’s guidance.

By the time they started to ascend the steep
incline of a mountain side, Autumn had started to look very bad.
Her skin had gone past pasty white and had taken on an almost blue
tint. Time was growing shorter.

“
How much further, Autumn?” Frank
asked after they had climbed 2/3 the way up the
mountain.

“
I don’t know,” Autumn said, “maybe
600 yards or so. A little ways through there,” she pointed to a
large area of the forest that had grown heavy with underbrush and
looked very much as if someone wanted to keep people from entering
the land beyond.