Totally a Vampire Thing || ONC 2024 ||

Chapter 13. Hell in a Handbasket

Magical darkness of Necrontium flooded the hallway next to Bartolome's room, so the vampires attacked Freida in pitch-black.

The brooch gave me insane night vision. It was enough to make out that the Ancients abandoned their happy-seniors forms, and that the halls' dimensions stretched into something more befit a gothic cathedral than a nursing home. Yet the swiftness of the combatants turned the action into one frightening blur.

As I cowered by the wall, I wished my mortal hearing was inadequate too. Freida's maddened laughter along with my own wail pounded my eardrums, echoing like in a cavern.

"Don't be afraid," Cruz whispered, creeping forward. "I'm here."

"Thank you." I shut my weak mortal eyes, trusting him to lead me away from the terrible battle.

Torn strips of silks, velvets and lace littered the floor, but something hairy brushed my ankle. My eyes popped open, then goggled out of their sockets. "Oh, my God! A head! Someone's head!"

"It's a wig, Zoe," Cruz whispered into my ear. "Just a wig."

I looked closer: it was a wig, a formal, powdered affair like the Founding Fathers might have worn. "S-seriously...that's just gross."

Shivers of released adrenaline and terror quaked through my body. I clung to Cruz's arm tighter, which proved to be a fortunate move. An out-of-control vampire whistled right past me, and he would have clipped me for sure without my unintentional dodge!

With the dodge, the vampire hit the wall with an explosive thud, showering us with plaster.

"My Lord!" I squeaked.

"At your service," the combatant in a Regency coat, and—oh horror!—fitted leggings, grumbled. He gathered his excessively contoured legs under him. "Get out! Get out, children!"

"What do you think we were doing?" I muttered, but he already launched himself right back into the fray, leaving behind a dent in the wall and a whiff of perfume.

Both eyes peeled now, my head whipping around, pressing myself into Cruz and the wall, I followed Cruz to the exit. Fifty yards might not be that long of a distance, but with the vampire missiles zipping around, it might as well be in Juneau, Alaska.

Impact craters from the superhuman bodies' already pitted the walls and the ceiling, with alarming cracks spider-webbing all over the palace. Having survived one building collapse just recently, I melded into my boyfriend even harder, giving my heart another fit of crazy palpitations.

On top of crossing the freakish vampiric mayhem, Cruz was my boyfriend! "Can we go faster, please, please, please..." and slower.

Cruz's cold hand covered mine, but he stopped instead of speeding up, stiff as a board, the nostrils of his aquiline nose flaring and his gaze glued to the opposite corner.

"Cruz! The exit is the other—" way.

Things happened so fast, I wasn't sure I saw the sequence of the events or my mind pieced it together at the glacial speed of a human thought.

Bartolome tumbled out of the thick of darkness.

A six-feet long stake with a tag Lilium 'Big Smile' still attached to the non-pointy end, rolled out of his lifeless fingers.

With the scream of Grandpa! Cruz broke away from me, plucked the stake from the floor and leapt into the air in one super-powered move.

He hurtled straight into that corner. The wrong corner. Freida's one.