Turned

Written for, and 1st Place winner in, December 2003 round of "The Stake & Garlic Vampire Contest" .

Turned

         "Bob! Check the rooms down here! I'll take the upstairs!" I yelled to be heard above the crackling roar of the fire and the crashing of ceiling plaster as it exploded around us.

         My fellow firefighter rapped his knuckles against my helmet and nodded, letting me know he understood. Tugging the heavy, high-pressure hose, Bob aimed a jet of water at a blazing doorway and disappeared into the smoke.

         I took the stairs three at a time, easily pulling my hose, and laying down a steady screen of water as I went. Reaching the landing, I saw four doorways. Three were open, flames licking around them like the tongues of demons. One by one, I entered the rooms. Through the fire, and searing heat I felt even through my protective suit, I checked closets and tipped over beds, looking for people or pets hiding from the conflagration. The three open rooms proved to be unoccupied.

         First checking for a backdraft of smoke under the closed door, and seeing none, I gently turned the knob. Locked. From the inside. Shutting off my hose and dropping it to the smoldering carpet, I reached to unfasten my ax. Then, thinking how silly that would be, considering my new-found strength, I simply slammed my gloved palm against the door, just above the knob. The latch tore away from the casing and the door burst open. It whanged loudly against a porcelain bathtub. The room appeared, at first glance, to be empty. But when I yanked the cheap, plastic shower curtain to one side I saw her.

         About five or six, with eyes the color of green jade, a russet tousle of hair, and a smile missing two front teeth, she clutched a stuffed pink bunny against her chest. "Hi, Mister Fireman!"

         I lifted the shield of my face mask. "Hi, yourself. Taking a bath?" I said, returning her smile.

         She giggled. "Silly! Mama told me to get in the bathtub and turn on the water if there was ever a fire. She said the firemen would save me."

         The room, smokeless before I burst through the door, was now filling rapidly with a choking cloud of gray. "Is there anyone else in the house besides you?" I asked."

         She shook her head. "Just me and bunny," she said. "Mama went to the store."

         The wall opposite the tub suddenly crumbled partially into the bathroom and flames gushed through the opening. The child screamed. Unfastening my coat, I lifted the girl from the tub, held her against my chest with one arm, and pulled my coat around her. Retrieving the hose, I toggled it open and headed for the staircase.

         No way. The stairs were fully aflame and falling to the lower floor in a crash of glowing embers. I ran back into the nearest bedroom, where I knew the window was large enough to escape through, and tugged the window open. Fire leapt up the side of the house toward me, and the floor beneath my feet smoked and sagged. The child squirmed against me, feeling the heat.

         Another fireman appeared below the window -- Bob, no doubt -- looking for me. I yelled above the roar of the fire and he looked up. "Catch her!" Transferring the girl from one arm to the other, I managed to get out of my coat then wrap her inside. Leaning as far as I could over the windowsill, flames flaring up all around, I held the girl at arm's length then tossed her even farther away from the house. Bob caught her effortlessly.

         As I got one leg over the window ledge, preparing to jump, the floor fell through. Arms windmilling for balance, to no avail, I tumbled down, into the inferno.

         I crashed through the debris to the floor below. Fire licked at my body. The skin of my arms smoldered, shriveled, then melted away in long, greasy globs. Blinded by soot and spitting embers, I staggered toward the back of the house, not wanting to exit the front and possibly become the target of a news crew's cameras, found a door and kicked it open. The chill night air swirled around me as I fell to the winter-browned grass.

         I vaguely heard Bob's voice. "We got'cha, Ryan! Hang on!" I saw two pairs of boots, then hands gripped my arms and lifted me to my feet. Half dragging, half carrying me, my station-mates got me to the cab of our firetruck and shoved me inside -- unseen by spectators or news people. Slamming the door, they returned to do what they could to contain the fire, though it was obvious the house was going to be a total loss.

         Carefully peeking over the dashboard, I saw the little girl I'd found earlier. A woman I assumed to be her mother stood with one hand on the girl's shoulder. Her other hand clutched a brown bag -- the undeniable shape of a liquor bottle inside. Yep. Mama had gone to the store, all right, leaving her daughter unattended for no telling how long. Idiot.

         I felt strips of my skin rub off my butt and thighs as I slid across the seat farther toward the passenger side, and stole a glance at the rear view mirror, wondering how much damage my face had sustained. No reflection, of course. The subtle reminders of my new life still caught me off guard at times. Coughing up black soot, I waited for Bob and the others to finish their job and return.

         I either dozed off or lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew I was in my cot at the fire station, naked beneath a blanket. Bob sat beside the cot, holding vigil over me. As soon as he saw my eyes flutter open he said, "How's it going, hero? You saved that kid's life tonight."

         Pulling myself up to lean against the wall behind me, I shook my head. "A hero is someone who risks their life to save others. I wasn't risking anything. And what did I save the girl for -- a life of neglect at the hands of an alcoholic mother?"

         Bob, my closest friend, scratched at his blond crop of hair and sniffed. "We took care of that little problem. The mother was already staggering drunk when she returned from the liquor store. I called Child Protective Services and told them about the kid being left alone. They sent a lady out to take custody of her. Her name is Kelly, by the way, and she told me to thank the nice fireman who threw her out the window."

         "Then you saved her, buddy," I said, gently punching his knee.

         My three other nightshift station-mates appeared in the doorway. One of them, Carl, a heavily muscled, always-cheerful fellow nearing forty, fidgeted in place. "Hey, Ryan. You need anything? Uh, you know, any bl . . ."

         I lifted the blanket and surveyed my slightly fire-pinked flesh. "Nope. Maybe tomorrow. Everything's almost healed," I said, interrupting him." And, indeed, it was. The flesh that earlier dribbled from my arms, exposing the bone in places, was nearly completely regenerated. "Thanks for offering, but you guys should get some rest now."

         The three nodded and backed out of the door.

         I smiled ruefully. "Ever imagine you'd be working side-by-side with a vampire?" I asked Bob.

         "Oh, sure. Lots of times," he said with a sarcastic tone. "Although I was hoping for a werewolf, instead."

         Six months earlier, while jogging through my neighborhood one evening, a member of the living dead attacked me. I'm no weakling, but his strength exceeded mine by ten-fold. He sucked me dry in a matter of minutes, leaving me to wonder what the hell I was supposed to do then.

         Within hours of being "turned", the first pangs of blood lust coursed through me. Rather than satisfy my new thirst in the traditional manner, I called Bob. To his credit, he hurried to my apartment, never doubting the incredible tale I told him. When he arrived he carried with him several items from one of our EMT kits, and his normal curiosity. "Show me your fangs," he said as he raided my refrigerator for a beer, popped the top, and flopped down onto my sofa.

         Self-consciously, I pulled back my lips and showed him my teeth, gingerly touching the sharp tips of my elongated canines with my tongue.

         "Cool. So, other than sucking people's blood, what's the downside?" he asked.

         I shrugged. "All I know is what I've seen in the movies. I doubt that Barnes & Noble has a shelf dedicated to 'Vampires for Dummies'."

         Bob snorted beer through his nose and coughed. "Well, it doesn't seem to have effected your sense of humor. That's not necessarily a good thing, though."

         "I'm so hungry, even your scrawny neck is looking pretty tasty," I told him, only half kidding.

         "No problem, good buddy. I brought syringes and needles. You can have some of my blood, but it's going into your vein . . . not your stomach. Drinking the stuff never made sense to me. Assuming vampires still have to whiz and take a dump, the blood is gonna zip through them faster than a fat gal goes through a box of Oreos," Bob said, plunging a needle affixed to a syringe into a large vein in the crook of his elbow. "Blood type shouldn't matter -- you're already dead, kind'a, aren't you?"

         He drew the full 50 milliliter capacity of the syringe and had me hold a cotton ball over the puncture site as he withdrew the needle. Then he injected the dark blood into a bulging vein in my arm. Whoa. Whoa! My head swam and my vision blurred. I felt strength flow through me, and my hunger was instantly sated. When Bob pulled the needle from my arm the tiny hole immediately healed, leaving no mark.

         "You okay, Ryan?" Bob asked. "You zoned out there for a minute."

         "I - I'm fine. What a rush. I feel as if I could lift a car."

         He handed me the syringe. "I left a little in here, in case you, uh, wanted to try the oral route."

         I nodded, squirted the remaining blood onto my tongue, and swallowed. And gagged. And puked it back up into my hand. "Aw, shit. That's just nasty," I spat.

         After I brushed my teeth and gargled with a strong mouthwash, we began to experiment; testing what we could remember of cinema vampires against my new powers:
1. No reflection in a mirror -- check.
2. Superhuman strength (I lifted my sofa to shoulder level with one hand) -- check.
3. Remarkable healing powers. Self-inflicted cuts, punctures, and burns began to heal immediately -- check.
4. An aversion to Bibles, crosses, and other holy objects -- check.
5. Hypnotic abilities, the power to transform into a bat, wall climbing -- negative. Perhaps these were learned traits, or things that would develop over time.
6. As the sun rose over the horizon in the east I stepped out onto my front porch and, although the sun's rays didn't prove lethal, they did burn like hell. Not something I would care to experience often, or for very long -- check -- sort of.

         Now understand, the firefighters in my station were like brothers. At one time or another each of us had saved the other from serious injury or death. This being the case, and because Bob found it impossible to keep his mouth shut, our entire crew knew of my "turning" within two days.

         After repeat performances of my powers for them, it was decided that I would move to the night shift and, bless them all, that they would make small weekly blood donations as Bob had, to keep my hunger fed. Trial and error proved that I required less than a pint of blood weekly to maintain top vampire form.

         Another "check" went on the list at my first fire. Try as I might, I could not enter the burning house. Some invisible force held me back until another of my station-mates invited me inside.

         Two weeks following the fire in which I got my butt singed, we answered a call to an abandoned warehouse blaze. The second floor roof was fully involved when we arrived. Bob and Carl went in first, calling over their shoulders, "Come on in, Ryan!"

         We hosed the walls and ceiling, making our way toward the stairs. "Carl and I will take a look up there, Bob," I said. "You keep pouring the water on down here." Bob nodded and began spraying several large cargo containers at the rear of the warehouse.

         The stairs were free of fire. Carl went left and I went right, searching for any vagrants who might have been using the warehouse as shelter. My side was empty except for a couple of pieces of old office furniture. As I headed back to the stairs I heard Carl yell. Applying my vampire speed, I stood at his side in seconds.
"What? You OK?" I asked, wondering what caused his scream. Then I followed his line of vision and saw the cause.

         Three bodies, two women and a young male, were slumped against the wall. "What the hell?" I said as Carl and I approached the seemingly fresh corpses. There were no signs of knife or gunshot wounds but, when I bent over one of the females I saw the puncture wounds in her neck, over her jugular. Carl saw the wounds, too, and clasped my arm tightly in his strong hand. "That what it looks like, Ryan?"

         "I'm afraid so. Vampire. Or vampires, more likely. Too many recent victims to be dinner for one. Let's get them out of here."

         Carl stooped and lifted the male onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, holding the fire hose in one big hand. I easily gathered up the females, one under each arm, and we hurried down the stairs and out the front door, where we deposited the bodies at the feet of waiting cops before rushing back inside. "Where's Bob?" Carl asked, looking out over the expanse of concrete.

         "He must be behind those containers," I said, an uncomfortable shiver rippling up my spine. "Shit. They're still here! I smell them! Come on!"

         We dashed across the floor to the first cargo container and I flung the doors open. Empty. As I ripped open the doors to the second container I was knocked backward by two men, and hit the ground hard. They leapt toward me, lips drawn back in a snarl, their canine teeth long and glistening with blood. I sprang to my feet, facing them. My peripheral vision showed me that Carl was down on his back, another vampire straddling him, snapping at his throat.

         Utilizing the training afforded me by my hitch in the Marines, combined with my vampire strength, I did the unexpected -- I attacked.

         In a single, flowing motion, I landed a stiff-fingered jab to the throat of my taller opponent, while lifting the other a foot off the ground with a solid kick to the nuts. Each grabbed the appropriate part of their anatomy in pain. I followed up with a roundhouse kick to the ear of the taller vampire, then threw my arm around his neck when he whirled away from me. Grasping his chin with my free hand, I twisted -- hard. His neck gave a satisfying crunch, snap and he fell at my feet.

         But I'd taken my eyes off of the guy with the mashed nuts. He jumped onto my back and slashed at my face with his long, sharp fingernails. Pain roared through me as my nose was nearly sliced from my face. It dangled by a thread of skin, thumping against my upper lip.

         Reaching up, I tangled my fingers in his greasy hair, then leaned forward at the waist and flung him over my head. As he fell, I grasped his leg in my other hand, dropped to the floor, and shattered his spine over my bent knee. Leaving him broken but not finished, I turned to help Carl.

         Somehow, he had managed to get his fire hose between himself and the vampire, and the high-pressure jet of water had, until then, prevented the vampire from sinking his teeth into Carl's throat. Knocking the hose from Carl's strength-sapped hands, the vampire dove for Carl's neck.

         Before his teeth could do more than break the skin, I grabbed the vampire's shirt collar, yanked him to his feet, and turned him toward me. His eyes blazed with hunger and hatred. I intended to head-butt him, but he saw it coming and jerked backward. I missed my intended target; instead, my forehead smashed into his salivating mouth. His lips mashed to bloody pulp, and he'd play hell biting anyone for awhile, since his canines and three or four other teeth clicked and clattered to the concrete.

         He reached for me, hissing like a pissed-off cat. Before he could take a step forward, however, Carl slammed the heavy, metal hose faucet upside the vampire's head, caving his face sideways from his eye socket to his jaw. If I thought he was ugly before, I had to reappraise my thinking. Carl whacked him again, and his face began to resemble the letter "C". "You got this one?" I asked, as pieces of the ceiling gave way to my right and smashed to the floor.

         The vampire was now on its knees, and Carl was swinging for the fence with every blow of the faucet. "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's mine," Carl answered, intent upon reducing the vampire to jelly.

         I checked the container from which the three vampires sprang and there, at the very back of the rectangular box, I saw another figure, crouched low to the ground -- feeding from another victim "Hey!" I yelled, my voice echoing hollowly in the confined space. The figure's head jerked up and toward me. Red eyes glared at me. Blood dribbled from the thing's chin. He rose to his feet, towering over me, then charged. His full weight and strength struck me head-on, and we both tumbled through the doors of the container, into the light.

         Regaining our feet, we faced each other -- and I got a good look at him. I inhaled sharply. No question. It was the vampire who turned me -- the ugly bastard who changed my life forever.

         Moving faster than I could have imagined, he was on me. Lifting me effortlessly, he slammed me to the concrete. I heard my skull crack. Then he lifted me again, over his head, and flung me twenty feet. I struck one of the warehouse support columns with enough force to send the air whooshing from my lungs. Crumpled to the floor, I knew my left leg, left arm, and several ribs were shattered. I steeled myself for his next attack, realizing that it would probably be fatal.

         Instead, I saw him turn his attention to Carl, who stood over the battered vampire he'd transformed into a Michael Jackson look-alike with the hose faucet. In a heartbeat, the super vampire flashed toward Carl and wrapped his huge hands around Carl's neck.

         Bent and broken, pain shooting through me from a dozen wounds, I struggled to my feet. Defenseless, I looked frantically around for something to use as a weapon. Then I saw it, only yards away -- a wooden shipping pallet -- with several broken cross boards. I limped toward it, ignoring the dull white of my femur jutting from my left thigh, and ripped one of the boards free.

         Carl's face was contorted and purple as I reached the vampire. Drawing the board over my head, I plunged the ragged, broken end of it into the left side of the vampire's broad back, and twisted it with all my remaining strength until I felt it pierce him through and through.

         A high-pitched scream escaped the vampire's lips, then POOF!, he disintegrated into a pile of dust and ashes. I remembered my list: Wooden stake through heart kills vampires -- check! Thank God.

         Carl fell away, grasping his throat and sucking in air. He appeared to be unharmed except for the bruises he'd be sporting tomorrow.

         The fire was winning its fight with the warehouse. Flames licked at the walls and crumbling ceiling, making its way rapidly to the first floor. Not much time, I thought, reentering the shipping container, fearing, but almost certain what I would find there.

         And my fears were realized as I knelt beside the prone figure inside. Bob. The vampires had fed upon him. His body was covered with deep scratches; his neck bore the twin punctures from four filthy mouths. Picking him up gently, I carried the limp body of my oldest friend, my buddy since childhood, out of the container.

         "Aw, shit, shit, shit!" Carl said, as I placed Bob's body of the floor. "Is he dead?"

         I nodded, as tears flowed down my cheeks, past my still-dangling nose. Then Bob's hand squeezed my arm and his eyes shot open. There was still a spark of life remaining in his devastated body! "Carl! He's still alive -- barely."

         "Let's get him out of here! Maybe the EMT's can keep him alive long enough to get to a hospital," Carl said, kicking the vampire whose back I'd broken away from his leg. It, the one with the broken neck, and the one Carl beat to mush were all stirring, scratching their way across the concrete toward us.

         Bob shivered, and his head rolled loosely upon his neck. Damn. There was only one way to save my friend, but I didn't want an audience. "Carl, go get an ax! Then come back and chop the heads off these creepy fuckers," I instructed. "That'll put them down for the count."

         "What about Bob?" Carl asked, turning toward the door.

         "He'll be fine. I promise. Hurry!"

         As soon as Carl was out of sight, I brushed Bob's hair from his forehead and begged his forgiveness as I sank my teeth into his neck, over the almost imperceptible pulse. Welcome to the club, buddy, I thought, as his hot blood spurted down my throat and I turned him.

The End