Chapter Nine

Nuts

“Where are we going?” rasps the guy.

“My parents’ place is just up the road a bit more.” I point, not that it helps, since I’m only indicating the same direction as the trail we’re on—and he probably can’t even see. “You can spend the night if you like. Probably safer than being out in the woods by yourself.”

“Umm, sure.” He lets out a huge breath. “Holy crap. What the hell happened back there?”

“No idea. I just heard you screaming.”

“Wow. You heard me shouting and just came by yourself?”

“Yep.”

The guy looks about ready to ask what’s wrong with me when he seems to remember he watched me snap a padlock off with my bare hand.

“What the heck are you doing out here?” I ask.

“Camping. Or was going to…”

“Camping? Okay.”

“Yeah. Heard the woods out here are like haunted or something. I have a YouTube channel.” He huffs air into his hands. “ I try to catch ghost evidence on camera. You don’t recognize me?”

“Sorry, dude. I don’t watch a lot of YouTube.”

“I’m Emerson Zhu.”

“Hi, Emerson. I’m Samantha, but you can call me Sam.” I hand his backpack to him.

“Oh, thanks.” He pulls it on.

Faint crackles and crunches come from the woods behind us. Yep. There it is. I had a feeling. Judging from the sound, it’s something trying to run while being quiet. It’s pretty good at the whole stealth thing. Emerson doesn’t hear it.

“So, what the hell was that thing?”

“Don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”

“What?” He blurts.

At that instant, a man-sized creature flings itself out of the woods and at me. Having expected as much, I spin around to my left, raising my arms defensively. Half a second stretches out to four as my reflexes kick up to supernatural levels. Hanging in mid-leap is a man with short, spiky hair, a deathly gray complexion, and large fangs.

I get my hands up in time to catch him by two fistfuls of his leather jacket and hold his fangs out of reach of my face or neck. Emerson probably sees me pull off what looks like an expertly executed judo throw. Vampire dude goes face-first into the dirt, skidding for a few feet before coming to a stop in a cloud of dust while I flail my arms for balance.

In reality, it was not an expert judo move. I got lucky that I didn’t wipe out and land on my ass. I’m not a student of martial arts. Boosted reflexes, strength, and a myriad of self-defense classes just makes whatever I do look impressive to anyone watching.

The vampire springs back to his feet and whirls to face me, hissing. And holy cow the stink is… like Kingsley on one of his bad nights after he’s eaten a rotten corpse .

Emerson emits a faint squeak.

“Dude. Breath mints,” I wheeze, leaning back.

The vampire ignores me and lunges. He’s got some gnarly ass claws. They’re not like typical vampire claws. Mine were basically extra-thick fingernails with points. This guy’s claws are more bestial, similar to a mountain lion’s. Curved, long, and not even close to human fingernails.

I grab his incoming right arm in more or less the same maneuver I’d use against a knife-wielding attacker, then take advantage of my superhuman strength to swing him off his feet and throw him against a nearby tree trunk as hard as I can. The splintering crunch of several bones breaking on impact almost makes me wince.

But the vampire only snarls and pushes himself off the tree with such force he takes flight. I’m fast, but there are limits. He plows into me like a linebacker sacking a quarterback, wraps his arms around my chest, and drags me to the ground. Dude ends up sitting on top of me and grabbing my throat in both hands.

Before he can shred any skin off my neck, I twist myself into a hip thrust that throws him off to the left. As he hits the ground rolling, I spring upward, get to my feet, and kick a field goal. My boot hits his face with a satisfying thud and an accompanying crack of bone. His body flips over twice before crashing to the ground in the undergrowth nearby. That sounded like I broke both his face and his neck.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a mortal cultist. A broken neck is only going to knock him senseless for a moment.

“What in god’s name is going on?” blurts Emerson from his hiding spot behind a nearby tree. “Did that thing have red eyes?”

“It’s been handled, for now.”

I hurry over to him. “Hold still a sec.”

“What?” He blinks .

“Just need some water.”

When my ice blade coalesces into solid form, the vampire, as if on cue, emerges from the foliage. He grabs his head in both hands, then gives it an abrupt twist, resetting his skull into place with a nauseating crunch.

“You bitch,” he grumbles. “What the hell is th—” But before he can complete the question, I spin on him and take his head off with a sideways swipe of my blade. His body collapses to the ground beside the fallen head, his face frozen in an expression of WTF.

Before I can even lower my arm from the swing that ended this vampire, his remains practically explode into a cloud of bone fragments and dust.

My turn to make a WTF face. I gawk at the remains, what little of them… well, remain.

“What the actual Fuck was that?” asks Emerson in a near whisper.

“A vampire,” I say, casual as anything.

He squeaks.

Obviously, this vampire is no longer a threat to anything, except maybe my lungs if I breathe in too much dust. I glance back at Emerson. “You okay?”

“Are you serious?”

“What do you think you saw?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Random psychopaths who abduct hikers don’t generally explode into ash when they die.”

“No, they don’t. That was really weird. Are you holding a glowing sword?”

“I am.” In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

“Is this really happening?” Emerson stares into my eyes.

“If you want to believe this is all a dream, go for it.”

“Dammit.” Emerson stomps.

“What?” I raise an eyebrow .

“I didn’t get any of that on camera.” He facepalms. “No one will believe me. I usually livestream everything.”

“Can’t really livestream out here. No signal.”

He fishes a GoPro out of his jacket, the GoPro he wasn’t wearing on his head. “Dammit. Why does crap always happen when the camera’s off?”

“Just the way things work, I guess.” I drop the sword and let it melt back into water before he can get it on camera.

“So, vampires are real?” whispers Emerson.

I nod. “But you probably don’t want to go around telling everyone you almost got killed by a vampire,” I say, then smile to myself. Hmm. I wonder if I just solved Klamath’s ‘people keep turning up missing’ problem.

“Why not?” Emerson decides to put the camera away again. “Would other vampires come after me to shut me up or something?”

“Nah. Society will just think you’re nuts.” I chuckle.

“Oh.” He exhales. “Yeah, good point. They already think I’m kinda weird for believing in ghosts.”

“C’mon. We’re not far from the house. You can sleep there and head out in the morning when it’s safe.”

“Thanks.” He shivers again. “Holy crap, I almost died. Yeah, I’m definitely getting the hell out of here as soon as I can.”

“Good plan.” I wink at him, and resume walking.