Low Budget Productions Proudly Presents,
A Starfall Comics Comic:
Swamp Patrol
#12: Ghosts From the Past
Part Two of Family Ties
NOTE: This issue rated ACRAPHOBE, so only read if mature content doesn't bother you.
In the halls of great Valhalla, the souls of dead warriors pass the time between unending battles by recounting tales of their exploits when alive. Golems rub shoulders with Hydras, German battletanks compete with dybbuks, and Grendel and Moloch strive for supremacy in the stories told over mead and meat. And vampires. Oh yes. Vampires.
I didn't meet Michael back in Fresno, although logic would dictate that I should have. He was chasing a lead down in another part of California then, which is why our first meeting had just taken place at gunpoint outside of a club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
I won't spare myself any humiliation -- my pants were wetter than an April shower in New Orleans. How would you react, given the circumstances?
"Don't move," he said.
Fumble-tonguedly, I told him I had every intention of remaining right where I was until instructed otherwise.
"Hands above your head." Easy enough. "Why were you talking to that girl?"
"Uhm." He circled around behind me.
"Answer." The cold press of metal against the back of my neck told me that time would be up on the final Final Jeopardy if I didn't come up with an answer.
"Because she was talking to me."
"Not a very good answer. But a truthful one."
I heard the safety click off behind me.
"Turn around."
I did.
For the first time I had the chance to look at my potential-assailant with more than a cursory, fear-filtered glance. I knew right then that I could never take him in a fight.
"Name."
"Brill."
"That's what I thought. You were in the Fresno Massacre."
My jaw dropped so fast I was almost killed by a sonic boom. "How?" I started to mumble out.
"I do my research, kid." He holstered his gun underneath his black leather jacket. Even late at night in the downtown area, you can't be too careful about carrying a weapon like that in public, I guess. "You've got quite the reputation with them, Brill."
"Them?"
"The vampires. But not with me. At least, not the same reputation."
If you're having trouble following this, don't feel bad. I was too, at the time.
"You do know there are still some around, don't you, Brill?"
"Uhmm..." What do you say to a question like that?
"Do you realize you're talking to one now?"
Shit.
"Don't worry, Brill. I'm one of 'the good guys'. You've seen the movie Blade, haven't you, Brill? The one with Denzel Washington[1] as that vampire who kills other vampires?"
I nodded. At least, I think I nodded.
"I'm Denzel. Only white. And better looking." He smiled a smile that cracked my fear and let just the tiniest bit of relief take root in it. "Let's go for a walk, Brill."
As we left the alleyway I noticed one of the band members in a dumpster. Probably passed out from too much booze and drugs -- or not enough. Michael was leading me down the streets and back alleys of Bethlehem like he'd spent his whole life there.
"Tell me about Fresno."
I tried fruitlessly to swallow the lump in my throat. "Well, it's warmer than here..."
He stopped. "You know what I mean."
I did. We started walking, and I started to blurt out what had been pent up inside for so long.
"I guess what really gets to me is the fact that no one really believed it happened, even though there were witnesses and some footage and everything. I mean, even the witnesses didn't believe what really happened. But I guess I had to."
Michael nodded in the shadows, and motioned we should head into an alleyway.
"I've never seen so much killing...so much bloodshed...what can I say? There are no words in the English language for it. No words in any language. What is it like to watch your sister turn into a monster before your eyes? To see friends, family, strangers massacred, and then finally...to have to plunge the stake into her heart yourself. There are no words for it."
We were climbing a fire escape, and soon on a rooftop.
"It had started out to be a nice week. But then...well, they got Miranda, and everything just went to Hell.
"Maybe it was a combination of the stresses of puberty and vampirism -- maybe she was just a monster at heart, although I'd like to think otherwise. All I know is, when the change hit her, she was almost unstoppable. The news never attributed the massacre to anything specifically, but I know what it was. It was Miranda.
"I can remember the screams, the people running as fangs sank into anything and everything. Sun glinting through skylights into puddles of blood. Nobody could explain what happened after the fact, nobody would explain it -- even me."
Michael was nodding, and I continued.
"There were others too, of course. Not just Miranda. But she's the only one that sticks in my mind. Her face, her body...but not her actions. Not her spirit. Those belonged to somebody else."
My mouth dried, fought the lump in my throat, lost.
"It was like someone, something had taken over her body, was using her as a tool. But I'm just lying to myself...in the last few moments, I looked into her eyes. And I saw..." I hadn't even admitted this to myself. "I saw enjoyment."
I looked at Michael.
"Enjoyment! Do you understand? My sister, sweet Miranda who I loved dearly, tearing throats and drinking blood and enjoying it! That was when I knew what I had to do. That was when I knew I had to drive the stake in myself, end the madness before it consumed everything, end it while there was still a chance that some small bit of the old Miranda lived inside her, some bit that I could save, even if it meant killing her. So I did it.
"The...it...like I said, no words for it."
"You killed her?"
The lump I couldn't swallow grew ten times as big and replicated in my stomach. I could feel my gut cramp the way it always does when I feel like crap.
"Yeah." I mumbled.
"No. You didn't."
I'm not sure if my heart skipped from happiness at the thought of her being alive, or fear of what she might do if she was still a monster. "What?"
Michael looked at me. "Miranda's still alive. But you're right, she's a monster. From what I've heard, she's worse than she was then. At least, she would be if the others ever let her out."
"How is she -- ?"
"You said you drove a stake through her heart. That doesn't kill a vampire. You gotta get'em in here." He tapped a finger on the side of his head. "Take out the brain, and the body dies. Quickest, safest way to do it." I didn't doubt him. He had experience, probably from both sides of the stake.
"Keili, the one who turned your sister... When we were both human, we were lovers. And when she found out what I had become, she convinced me to make her a vampire as well. It was the biggest mistake of my afterlife..." He almost smiled at that, I think. "She was like your sister. She seemed to be perfectly normal before. But now she's a monster. A more controlled monster than your sister, but a monster just the same. That's what drives me to be a hunter. That sense of guilt. That sense that I'm the one responsible for her actions."
"And...and why did you come after me? Why tell me all this, get me to talk?"
He walked to the edge of the rooftop. "Because," he said, "I think I'm gonna need you to kill your sister again."
To be concluded in Blood Ties #7
[DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know Wesley Snipes was the star of Blade. But not in the Starfall Universe, comprende?]