Download your free eBook here!

Chapter 13

What’s My Name?

“Holy fuck… That’s Mitch.” Gregg said to himself as he looked at the mangled remains of his now, former downstairs neighbor.

Gregg had outrun Jamie and stood in the crowd alone.  Vampires that stood in the streets formed around him and closed in to attack. Gregg gave his best ocular assessment as he put up his hands to defend himself.

Three small framed vampires stood in front of him. Two closed in slowly. The undead posse formed a pentagon, and Gregg’s heart beat loud as a drum with adrenaline.

Gregg looked side to side as the three Vampires came at him from the front. He threw a wicked fast left hook that knocked the head straight off the middle vampire, who fell to his knees as he melted into the ground.

Gregg stepped into a superkick that decapitated the second vampire who was on the left. The third vampire lunged at him with fierce fangs showing.

Gregg was locked in though. He gave him a toe trip and hopped up to his feet. Now the three remaining vampires stood in front of him. Gregg, in his fighting stance, rubbed his nose to the side with his right thumb. Then he heard a voice scream so loud that everyone’s concentration broken.

“Gregorio!!!” screamed the voice.

Gregg took a look at a woman screaming. Only a select few people in his life ever addressed him with that name. He did not immediately see who was yelling but she yelled again and he caught eyes fixated and red, beaming upon him with a cold finger-pointing at him.

“Gregorio!” she yelled again.

“Gregorio, is here!”

Gregg looked at her and walked towards her as the three vampires scurried to safety.

The woman yelling was familiar. He knew her from… he couldn’t remember where he knew her from but he did.

“Say my name girl!” he yelled back, still trying to figure out just who she was.

From somewhere behind the scene, Darius came running to Gregg’s side.

From the side, Jamie caught up to The 46.

*****

 Gregg looked at Darius then at Jamie.

“Y’all know what time it is right?”

“Yes sirrrr!” said Darius.

The two bumped fists like they had countless times before. The head nod that followed was that of two legendary competitors. Competitors of ball. Competitors of life. Basically, if you put these guys in any game, you have a chance to win. We’ll say it like that. Yeah!

The streets were unstable in character. The smell of a battle filled the air and though it is not a smell you can compare to, like cooking for example; the air before battle is though, significantly powerful.

Jamie stepped in front of Gregg but was brushed aside with a shimmy shake shoulder swim,but he did look in her eyes with intensity flowing from his good soul.

“Stop!’ she said, ‘What is…”

Gregg stopped her with a finger on her lips.

“What is my name!?”

Jamie pointed at him. Like the woman who had pointed, now so did Jamie.

“Gregorio!”

Darius patted Gregg on the back when she screamed his name once again, “Gregorio!”

The screech was deafening. Gregg covered his ears. From behind Jamie a vampire lurched at her, took her with an arm around her neck like a hostage.

Darius reached into his back pocket where he had a Shiloh-Man afro pic.

He flung the pic like a ninja would.  The pic flew like cut silk falls from a skyscraper.  Swerving its  way through the air, like the blunt smoke of so many days, it pierced the vampires lungs but cut through Jamie at the same time. She fell cut in half and bitten.  She could not move but as a newly undead, she could not die.

“Gregorio!” she yelled

Gregg looked down at her body cut in half and used but three words.

“What’s my name?”

He stepped over her corpse as he and Darius moved to escape the scene which was now a few bodies in. Soon, the word would reach its heights and all would know that it was time for war.

*****

Brandon looked down at his classic brown Timberlands. His feet stepped over yellow and red leaves that had freshly fallen from the gigantic oak tree that stood in the church grounds. Around it was a very small Bush maze that made the shape of a cross. He smiled and took in the night with a confident smile. He wondered what just happened to Gregg and laughed out loud.

“Whooo! Gregg is on some shit Lord! Can we save him?” he stopped walking and listened. He heard crickets and gunfire.  The crickets were closer and he was at church, so he continued talking to his God.

“Lord you give me Peace,

I got to thank you for that!

You give me strength,  

you Lord, I honor.  

How many brothers of mine do you have near you Lord?

I can’t wait till the day I meet you

Lord.”

Footsteps from the top end of the maze rustled like quick whistles on wind. Brandon maybe looked too slow, or The Woman snuck up on him, no one will ever really know, what he did know was this. The Woman stood in front of him.

Lightning then crashed.  She moved on him like Trump would on a bitch. She glared into his eyes, not even an inch away and she spit. She spit right into Brandon’s eyes. It was cruel and demeaning.  

Brandon didn’t even like sauce on his chicken fingers. Spit was certainly not a body fluid that should be shared at a church. Especially not by strangers.

“Hey Lady,  you don’t got to be spitting on people here at the church.  What’s the matter?”

“I’ve seen you before! Yeah… you know who I am!” she shouted. “Where’s Gregorio?”

The gun shots came closer. A stray bullet whistled past The Woman’s head by 6 inches. She did not flinch.

“Gregorio? Greg, Gregg! Whatever he is going by now! Where is he?”

Brandon stepped back and looked at The Woman very carefully. He pointed up to the church bells as lightning struck again.

“He is in the church. He’s talking to the priest.”

She looked to the church doors that were wide open. All the candles were lit. Every pew published and the bells began to echo. From the shadows came Dracula. His hands in fists shaking over his head like a loon.

The Woman smiled a snarling smile as she lifted Brandon off of his feet and said in a sweet whisper, “Like your precious bluntastic ways would make you hungry, so is the poison of my bite. In ten minutes you will be hungry. You will thirst for blood, not flesh. One day you too will have the poisonous skin of forever.”

The Woman kissed Brandon roughly and bit through his lips with her fangs. Brandon fell to the floor in shock. He didn’t even know to defend himself, it happened so fast. He fell to the ground and looked at his watch. Ten minutes…

How would he be able to only drink blood? Shit,  Brandon didn’t like sauce on his chicken fingers.  How the fuck was this about to happen? He didn’t know, but he moved his legs quickly and tried to punch himself up.  His ankles gave to his weight balance, and he stumbled. Like a wounded animal, he fought to stand but his mortal shell was broken by The Woman’s kiss.

His mouth watered like a rabid dog. Foam around his mouth formed. The white crust of the foam oozed down his lips as he looked from the ground at the sight of the woman entering the church.

“Lord’ he said, “I’m scared. But I’m already at church. What do I do?”

Leaves and dirt flew against his face as he lay there in the dirt, waiting to become a Vampire. Brandon thought he would run away so he wouldn’t harm anyone he cared about. He imagined that’s what most vampires did. Then, in classic tragic, only B-Weez could do it like this and like all his songs… Brandon became hungry at the end. He faded from the person that Gregg and Darius knew. He opened his eyes and was hungry for blood just as had been professed by The Woman.  God was not present to answer his prayers. Not that day.

*****

Darius and Gregg fought side by side against the crowd.  A battle for good to survive the odds of time had just begun once again.  

The two members of The 46 looked like a brutal force as they assaulted vampire after vampire,while the crowd thickened with bodies and death. The smell of death was now in the mix of the winds scented breeze.

Gregg saw a girl he once knew but he didn’t know where he had seen her before. She was blonde,with blue eyes,and had a cute pointy nose. He ran towards her as a comrade would run to an ally. As he neared her she turned around. Her fangs and fingernails were way too long for her to be alive. She pointed and screamed Gregorio!

One girl after another after another, they looked at him and shredded his god given name with malice.

He heard a thump on the ground behind him and quickly turned around. Darius had been knocked down by a gigantic man who had hate is his eyes and blood on his mind. The man lifted Darius by the collar of his shirt with one hand and reached his hand backed in a clenched fist. Darius shook as much as he could to get away but the beast attacking him was far too strong.

Gregg looked around and saw a man who was scared, trying to fend off a single small Vampire with a chair. The man waved it with more fear than conviction, so Gregg stepped to him and put his own left fist through the weak man’s jaw. The vampire fell to the floor almost as fast as the man did.

Gregg lifted the chair and gave a crack to the large beast who dropped Darius to the ground. Gregg threw chair shot after chairshot as a stunned Darius rose to his feet. Gregg had the beast down on one knee when Darius stepped in front of Gregg, who was about to deliver the death shot to the beast.

“What are you doing?” Gregg asked.

Darius took the chair and spun his body like an Olympic disc thrower and sent the Beast back to Hell.

“Fore!” yelled Darius as the head of the beast landed baseball fields away from where the body collapsed.

They looked at the situation at hand. The Pink Lady was ahead of them but the amounts of enemies coming from there seemed impossible. They looked behind and saw the soft glow of the church.

*****

Below the knees of the crowd in the streets a dizzy, aching soul pulled himself inch by inch towards the fight. In his first attempt to extend his fangs, Brandon pierced his own lips and his fangs shot out like a deceased animal that had been extinguished long ago.

The dirt he pulled as he dragged himself to the battle made his fingernails break which in turn brought tears to his face. Writhing in agony, Brandon knew he only had minutes before he would become a Vampire.  He had to warn Gregg about The Woman. He had to make it right and pray. Soon, he would have to feed. Blood dripped from his lips where his fangs pierced through his face. He crawled and crawled as the second of his mortal life came to an end.

Brandon turned to his back and looked backwards. He saw the shadow of the cross bounce off the ground, illuminated by the moon. In the shadow,  the vertical bar of the cross was on the lower third of its height. His vision blurred as he looked up and saw that it wasn’t only the shadow which was wrong. The church now had a new symbol as Dracula rang the bells high above the ground.

Brandon grew hungry as his eyes closed. The last thought he had as a mortal was to save The 46.

As he reopened his eyes, all he could think of was the taste of blood.

Brandon crawled and crawled. He was just steps behind Darius who recognized him and lifted him up.

“You’re hurt B! What happened?”

Darius looked with fear as Brandon tried to attack him. Gregg stepped behind Brandon and grabbed him by the back of his shoulders. He put his face close to Brandon’s and asked, “Was it a Vampire? Did a Vampire get you?” Brandon nodded yea as he fell weakly into a state of unconsciousness.  

Darius did an about-face. He waved an open hand in a circular motion and Gregg knew to follow the old ‘Everybody on Me’ command that Paddock had given so many generations ago.

Darius, still holding the chair, smacked everything and every being, man, woman or Vampire, along the way through the growing masses.  

The carnage reminded Darius of what it must feel like to be the center of a super bounce ball that you might give a small child to bounce.

“Goodbye!” Gregg yelled as he kicked through the chest of a Vampire creep.

“and Good Night!” replied Darius as he bashed the throat of another creep.

“Gregorio!!!” cried out another girl who Gregg knew he knew, just not from when or where.

Dozens of sirens used his name and pointed as he and Darius rocked through the darkness as they carried their fallen brother.

Brandon had become heavy and Darius and Gregg were under attack by numerous flying Vampires as well as being screamed at by every wretched soul who seemed to love to say Gregg’s birth name. Gregorio!!!

Darius tripped over a body on the ground. Gregg positioned himself in a way to protect him as he got up. But Darius got up and tripped again.  He fell into the front of Gregg’s knees with his back, as if he saw something that made him panic.

As Gregg and Darius began to stand up, the earth shifted towards them like a hill being thrown at them from beneath the ground. Mitch rolled under their feet as they jumped over his rolling carcass.  

The movement caused Brandon to fall from being held. He fell right on Mitch, as Mitch had now caused the accident, just as he had started the war.

Brandon dropped slowly with the weight of only a feather. His fangs that shot through his own lips tore into the veins of Mitch’s dead blood. Brandon sipped on the blood. He did not know it, but if a vampire eats off of an already dead body, that vampire will become a zombie, for his blood thirst will only be quenched by death.

Brandon fell asleep after a short feeding of dead hemoglobin and some rotten flesh. Beneath him lay Mitch, who began to twitch back to life. He was stuck underneath Brandon. Gregg and Darius looked down with sadness in their hearts. Both were out of breath.  Both knew that this was a  significant loss for the war that was upon them.

******

The Father of Nothing stood on the roof of the Pink Lady as he observed the carnage below. He watched Gregg and Darius fight their way through waves of vampires only to see a good friend’s demise. They would come for him no doubt, but that’s what he always wanted. Revenge. A new type of evil was about to reign supreme stronger than even Satan could begin to fathom. “Let them come.” thought the man. “I will kill them all. Until there is only nothing. No order . No rhyme. No reason. Only nothingness, blackness.”  

He saw Gregg and Darius looking down at their fallen comrades.  They looked up and locked rage filled eyes upon him. He calmly crossed his hands in front of him then yelled

“ I am the true father! I am The Father of Nothing the one true dark lord.  War has begun, and I will not rest until the sky goes black filled with lost souls. Let darkness take its rightful place as the driving force of this world. Where is your God now?  No one is coming to protect you, he has forsaken you, he has forsaken all of you. Look around you’ve already lost. This is just a mere preview, the real battle begins at dawn. I’ll be in my quarters if you wish to discuss this matter further. Good day gentlemen.”

He turned around  walked toward his brood of seductresses. They were now unclothed and in their raw serpent like vampire form. The man noticed the empty spot where his precious Nosferati once stood. He felt a brief moment of sadness, but quickly scolded himself for momentary weakness. The Father of Nothing instructed them to go downstairs and kill Gregg and Darius.

*****

Darius and Gregg burst through the front door of the building into the room with the piano . Loud techno music blared from the speakers beyond the next door..  Vampires had begun their nightly feast of late night party goers, freaks, and vagrants. They danced with delight with blood soaked mouths in a trance like state. Gregg and Darius looked at each other. Gregg reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes. He took two out and placed one in his mouth. He flicked the other one to Darius who did the same.  They lit the cigarettes in unison and strolled through the piano room. A sultry female voice echoed through the room. It whispered “Gregorio.”

Gregg heard his name screamed so many times that when it was whispered, he barely noticed it. But he tilted his head towards where he thought the voice came from and went towards it. Darius followed. They sat down at an empty bar counter. Darius walked behind the bar and grabbed a small bag, a bottle of Don  Julio and two glasses. He slammed them on the counter and poured two shots. Gregg and Darius raised their glasses and downed the devil’s poison.

Darius grimaced, “God damn! I am getting to old for this shit! We both are. What the fuck man, how the hell did we get back to this?”

Gregg got up and sat down in front of an old piano, he took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“ You know what D, I have no idea. All I know is that we have to go face him, we have to try to stop this thing. I have to find her, I have to talk to her one last time.”

Darius looked confused

“ Come on man quit playing. Let’s just go up there kill this motherfucker and get back across the border. Maybe stop at Chicos and get some tacos and fries?”

Gregg caressed the keys of the piano, staring straight ahead as if he were looking over a great distance.

“D, I don’t know if we are gonna eat Chicos tonight.”

Darius grabbed the bottle of tequila and took a huge drink. He was nervous but tried his best to mask it.

“Quit playing, we are gonna eat some fuckin’ tacos! You ready?”

Gregg nodded and they both walked through the double doors that led to the main dance floor of the club.

The vampires danced as the techno music raged on. Many of them soaked in blood. The floor was littered with severed limbs and covered in blood. Darius and Gregg walked through the club with their trademark swagger. They were welcomed with open arms, as they mingled with old acquaintances, to the untrained eye it would appear that they were having a good time. But that was not the case, these were two men on a mission to save the fate of humanity.

Gregg and Darius made their way across the dance floor and came to a red door, guarded by a large Mexican man with black hair pulled into a ponytail. The man had his arms folded as he stood firm in front of the door. He held his palm out in front and motioned for the two men to stop. His hand hit Darius in the chest as he said.

“This area is closed off. VIP’s only.”

Darius slapped his hand down, Gregg  got into a fighting stance. Darius shouted

“Motherfucker you better move, before we move you fat boy!”

The large man’s eyes glowed red and his fangs sharpened showing his vampire form. Gregg and Darius looked at each other,then simultaneously super kicked him through the door. A brood of female vampires scattered as the wooden door pieces shattered to the floor. They ran through the door. Darius ran and held the large vampire down as Gregg drove a large piece of shattered wood through the creature’s heart. The vampire dissolved and a huge flame ignited on the floor.

Darius and Gregg looked around. They were surrounded by several beautiful women. The Father of Nothing’s brood of seductresses were back in their more pleasing to the eye human form. They grabbed the two men and sat them down at the bar,  then began to dance around to the sounds of the hypnotic melody playing in the background. The room was afire with red light as Gregg and Darius sat frozen in a trance enjoying the sirens dance. A vampire was about to bite down on Darius’s neck when  Gregg heard the whisper “Gregorio” and snapped out of his trance pushing the women out of his lap. Darius also awakened after hearing the commotion.

The vampires reverted back to their true form and formed a circle around the two men as they stood back to back. Gregg looked over his shoulder at Darius

“There’s only one thing left to do in this kind of situation.”

Darius looked over his shoulder back at Gregg and answered

“Dark rockers?”

Gregg nodded

“You Goddamn right!”

The vampires closed in Gregg kicked one through the heart, Darius picked one up over his head and through it over the bar top. He picked up two sharp wooden shards off of the floor and tossed one to Gregg. One by one they eliminated the creatures of the night until they were the only ones standing. They looked at each other both out of breath, then they looked at the red door that led upstairs.  Darius said

“See that was easy, now let’s go up there kill this dude and get across before Chicos closes. I don’t want no fuckin Taco Cabana tonight,”

Gregg agreed and they went upstairs. The Father of Nothing was sitting alone at the head of a large rectangular table. He began to clap slowly

“Bravo! Gentleman, so glad you finally decided to join me.”

Gregg and Darius stood and stared at  the man with pure hatred in their hearts, but he continued

“ Why so sour guys? Tonight is a time for celebration it’s the era of darkness, the time of my rule.”

He stood up , took out the wooden ashtray and placed it on the table.

“Is this what you are looking for? Sorry that’s not going to work this time. There is really nothing you can do. It’s over I won ”

Darius yelled “Fuck this” and charged at the man, Gregg right behind him. Darius threw a right hook but the man caught it in his hand,  picked Darius up by the neck and threw him against a wall. Then used a telekinetic force to lift Gregg off of the ground suspending him in mid-air. As Gregg struggled  The Father of Nothing stood directly in front of Gregg looking him over when all of a sudden a woman’s voice yelled

“Stop he’s mine!”

(to be continued)