Blood Land, J.R. Lawson [electric book reader .txt] 📗

he was breathing.  He wasn’t dead, but he didn’t look good.

“What the hell?!” Will then shouted from behind Nora.  She quickly stood up and turned around to face him.

“Is that a night-flyer?!” he asked again.  He looked up at the attic window above them, noticing it was broken.  He then looked down at the ground, noticing tons of broken glass bits around the vampire, and instantly looked up at Nora again, “Did that thing…attack you?”

Nora sighed and then spoke, “Yes.  And he’s not a ‘thing’.  He’s a ‘he’.”

“A ‘he’?” Will asked in a bitter tone, “that is not a person, Nor’.  That’s a monster who attacked you!”

“He was a person once!” Nora argued, “He didn’t mean to attack me.  He’s weak, can’t you see!” she then turned around and kneeled back down beside him.  She stared at the bullet holes in his chest, “He can’t heal…he’s…going to die.”

“So?” Will declared, “One less of them to worry about!”

“I did this, Will!  I can’t just leave him here!”

“You did it for a good reason, Nor’.  It tried to kill you!  You can’t be seriously considering helping it!”

“He’s not an ‘it’!” Nora then screamed angrily.  It was then that Will became very silent.  He just stared at her bewildered as she stayed kneeling beside the vampire.  Suddenly, the sounds of more hellion screeches were heard around them.  Nora then quickly got up and went around the where the vampire’s head was.  She put her arms underneath his arm pits and began trying to lift.  She looked over at Will.

“Help me!” she suddenly begged.

“What?!” Will questioned in bewilderment.

“Help me!  I want to bring him inside, but I can’t carry him alone!”

“You can’t be serious!  We can’t bring that thing into the house!”

“I want to put him in the basement.  I need to help him, please, Will.”

“Why?  Why do you need to help it?”

Nora sighed and looked down.  She shook her head a bit before then looking up and answering, “I don’t know.  I don’t know why.  I just…feel like I should.  I feel like this is the right thing to do and the wrong thing would be to leave him here to die.  Please, Will.  Please, help me…”

Will sighed also, looking up at the sky in frustration and disbelief at what he was about to do.  He then, without a word, rushed over to where Nora was and picked up the vampire’s legs.  Nora picked up his top half and they both hurried him over to the cellar doors that were right outside the house.  Will quickly set down the vampire’s bottom half to open the doors, and then he and Nora proceeded to bring him into the basement, and shut the doors behind them.

CHAPTER 2

WILL CONTINUED TO impatiently wait by the basement door, “Are you finished yet?” he asked as he watched Nora.

“I’m almost done,” she responded from the other side of the room, “I can only go so fast.” She worked quickly, taping the last bit of gauze to the gunshot wounds on the vampire boy she and Will had brought inside only minutes ago. He was lying unconscious on a table they had in the room and she was standing over him. She couldn’t help think as she worked that she’d never been this close to a vampire before. It was strangely terrifying but also excitingly interesting. She noticed all the small differences between him and her. His skin was so pale; almost grey and he had small, dark veins that lightly showed through the skin. They were visible only in some places across his chest. She found herself mesmerized as she followed their pattern with her eyes all the way up to his neck. It was then that she noticed part of a scar over his shoulder that seemed to be coming from behind him at the top part of his back. It was curious to her, but she didn’t want to turn him over to look for fear of waking him. She knew that vampires didn’t get scars. They could heal themselves so quickly that there was never time for one to form. The only scars vampires have were either there when they were human, or are from the bite that turned them. She wondered if that was what it was from. Suddenly, the sound of other night-flyer’s screeching coming from outside snapped her out of her thoughts. Their loud screams gave an even more eerie feeling to the night, she thought; even more eerie than being this close to a vampire.

“I just don’t want him to wake up,” Will expressed as his grip on the shotgun he was holding tightened a bit. He looked up at the ceiling as he spoke, also listening to the sounds of the screeches outside.

“I don’t think he will,” Nora assured, “he’s extremely weak. He hasn’t had any blood.”

“Exactly what I’m worried about,” Will spoke again, eyeing the vampire with nervousness and disdain, “So come on, Nora, hurry up.”

“O.k. I’m done,” Nora then declared, lifting her hands up and backing away from the table. She then turned and walked towards the door where Will was standing. The two of them then proceeded to walk up the steps to the door and then through the doorway and into the house.

Once they entered the house, Will shut the door behind them and locked it. He then turned to Nora with a very serious look on his face, “Hey, Nor’,” he started, catching her attention as she was continuing her walk.

“Hang on, Will, I need to go wash my hands,” Nora held up her fingers, revealing small traces of black colored blood that had made its way onto her from the wounds of the vampire. She continued to try to walk away so she could head to the kitchen.

“No, Nora, now,” Will then demanded.

Nora stopped, sighed and then dropped her hands to her side, “Alright, what?” she asked looking at him.

“I want to call the N.F.C.U.”

“What? No!” Nora then pleaded.

“Come on, what do you plan to do with that thing downstairs? You helped it like you wanted to, and that’s great. But we can’t just leave it down there. We’ve got to get rid of it.”

“I didn’t help him so the N.F.C.U. could come and take him away and do experiments on him! I know what they do there, Will. I’ve seen it. My parents—”

“I know what your parents did and where they worked,” Will cut her off, “But you were only little when you watched them. I know you want to help vampires like they did but you are not your parents, Nora. You can’t help this thing completely. You did what you could and now it’s time to let the authorities handle it. What did you expect we’d do? Just let it stay in the basement until it’s healed and then it leaves all peaceful like? Because that won’t happen. It’s a monster and it’ll eat us!”

“He was human once, Will. I believe that. I don’t know what will happen but I don’t think calling the N.F.C.U. is the right thing to do.”

“Nora, wake up!” Will then shouted angrily, “That monster downstairs may have been human once but it’s not anymore. Whatever trace of the human being it used to be is gone now. It’s a killing machine. Just because you pull the thorn out of the lion’s paw, doesn’t mean it’s not going to still eat you!”

“How can you say that?” Nora shockingly asked, “You of all people know about the humanity that can be left inside a vampire. What about your mom?”

“We are not going to talk about that. It has nothing to do with that.”

“Yes it does!”

“Will you stop?!” Will then screamed angrily, causing Nora to jump, “Stop bringing up the past. Bad stuff happened to us but that doesn’t mean we have to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You never want to talk about anything bad, Will!” Nora shot back, “Past or present! You always change the subject but sometimes, bad stuff has to be talked about.”

There was then a small pause of silence between the two of them. Will looked like he wanted to shout something back at Nora but then didn’t. Instead, he just sighed, collected himself, and responded calmly, “Look,” he began, “Let’s not argue about this now. This stuff isn’t important. What’s important is what to do about that monster that’s in our basement. It’s going to wake up any second and we need a game plan.”

It was then that Nora sighed as well. She looked down at her blood stained hands; the black blood on her fingers. She thought of the vampire lying down in the basement. She didn’t even know why, but as she thought of him she felt sorry for him. Even after he tried to kill her; even with the fact that helping him could be a very bad idea; she still wanted to help him. What would she tell Will, though? How do you explain that you need to do something when you don’t know why you need to do it?

“Nora?” Will spoke up, trying to get an answer out of her.

“Will,” she began, not really knowing what to say, “I can’t let you call N.F.C.U. I need to help this vampire. I…don’t really know why. I just have this…feeling that helping him is the right thing. That something good will come of it,” she then looked up into Will’s eyes. He was staring back at her with confusion.

“Just trust me,” she then said, “He’s locked up down there. He won’t be able to escape, even if he wakes up because he’s too weak. By morning we can let him go because he won’t be able to transform. It could work.”

Will just shook his head in disbelief, “But Nora, just because that could work tonight, what about tomorrow night? He could come back and murder us all. What about that? You really think he’ll be so grateful for what you’d done that he’ll be friends with us and spare our lives? This isn’t a fairy tale, Nor’. Things like that don’t really happen in real life.”

Nora sighed again and threw her head back, looking up at the ceiling as if to relieve some tension, “O.k., look,” she then responded looking back at Will, “Let me at least just go and check on him one more time. If he wakes up, and…he seems dangerous…then you can call N.F.C.U.”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t really want you going in there alone,” Will expressed.

“Come on, Will, just let me act on my stupid unexplainable feelings for once and see what happens. What if I’m right?”

Will let out a huge sigh, “Alright, but I’ll be up here listening. If anything sounds wrong, I’m calling N.F.C.U. immediately.”

“O.k.” Nora agreed, “I’m going to go wash my hands and then I’ll head down there,” she then turned away from Will and silently headed to the sink in the kitchen.

After washing her hands thoroughly, Nora headed into the doorway to the basement and down the steps. Once she got to the foot of the stairs she only stood still, looking over at the vampire boy lying at the other end of the room. He seemed just as still and unconscious as