Avenging Autumn: Seasons Change Book 1 of 4 (6 page)

The three men looked at Autumn.

“
I was buried six feet
underground,” Autumn said with a shrug “how do you think I got
out?”

“
So, there you go, you’re a walking
ghost,” James finished.

Autumn turned and punched Jack in the
arm.

“
Ow!” Jack exclaimed, “What did you
do that for?”

“
Because you honestly thought I was
going to eat your brain,” Autumn said angrily, “Walking ghost,
Jack, not zombie.”

She stormed out the door and got into the back
of the hearse.

Jack walked back to the garage, rubbing his
arm and cursing under his breath the whole way. Benny thanked James
and joined his wife and his brother in the hearse.

Soon they were back on the road with Jack
driving, Benny riding shotgun, and Autumn squeezed in the back with
an arsenal that could outfit the military for a small nation.
Within minutes Autumn was knocking on the interconnecting plastic
sliding window.

Jack glanced back, “I’m still mad at you for
punching me in the arm.”

It was a testament to Jack’s fear of the dead
that he had installed one of these windows in all of his hearses.
The massive amounts of weed he smoked was the only way to relieve
the stress his job created.

The knocking became more urgent, so Benny
un-locked the tiny window and slid it back.

“
What is it?” he asked.

“
One of the vampires that killed
me,” she said, “he’s in Triloville; I think he’s at your Dad’s
building.”

Frank had just finished getting dressed when
he heard the door to his office open. Standing behind his desk, he
turned to see a well dressed vampire walking toward him. Behind
this vampire were four menacing thugs in slightly cheaper suits.
The lead vampire walked with a cane, although it was clearly for
decoration, his long blond hair was draped over his shoulders, and
his face was smooth and stern.

“
Odin Sway,” Frank said, “what a
pleasant surprise. I suppose you’ve come to kill me.”

“
Very astute,” Odin replied in a
low British accent, “you are correct. I’m very sorry, Frank, I wish
it hadn’t come to this, but I have no choice.”

The other four vampires lunged forward
quickly, their faces contorting into monstrous expressions, sharp
fangs bared.

Matching their speed, Frank’s hand came up
from his side and a 9mm pistol put a hole into the forehead of the
four vampires. They fell to the floor, their dead bodies now
completely lifeless.

Frank leveled the gun at Odin’s
head.

“
Very impressive,” the vampire said
calmly as he studied his fallen comrades, “silver bullets I take
it.”

“
That’s right.” Frank had no idea
if the creature was really impressed or if he was just being
sarcastic. He had known Odin for a long time and even considered
him a friend at one point, but he had never been able to read what
the man was feeling. His expression never changed.

Odin grasped the shaft of his cane with one
hand and pulled on the handle with the other revealing a long
blade. Frank had seen the cane on countless occasions, had even
been allowed to study the dragon and serpent that formed the
handle. When he had asked the vampire about why the handle was made
of silver, he had answered; “Keeping ones weaknesses at hand will
only serve to make him stronger.” The Old Man had never once
suspected the cane was hiding a blade inside of it. He suddenly
felt incredibly naïve.

“
That wouldn’t be the blade that
killed my daughter-in-law, would it?” Frank asked, feeling blood
rising to his face. Anger was a useful ally if used
carefully.

“
Yes,” Odin said calmly, “but
again, I had no choice.”

“
There’s always a choice you sick
fuck.”

With unbelievable speed, Odin Sway began to
jump around the room as Frank tried desperately to target him with
his gun.

Finally the vampire’s feet hit the far wall
and he pushed off hard toward the Old Man with his claws extended,
yet his face still bore that same blank expression.

Frank pulled the trigger.

5. Killing Vampires

Autumn had insisted that before they went to
the concert, Benny needed a complete makeover.

“
You’re not going to perm my hair
and paint my fingernails and shit like that, are you?” Benny asked
jokingly.

“
Perm, no. Fingernails, that’s
definitely a possibility.”

Benny gave her a look of apprehension, but she
con-tinued on, pretending not to notice.

“
Now, first things first, if you
want to be a Manson kid, you have to dye your hair a different
color. Black is al-ways good, some go with pink, blue, or even a
combination of colors.”

“
If I absolutely have to do it,
let’s go with plain old black.”

“
Cool!”

With that she led him into the bathroom and
sat him in a chair with his back to the sink.

Two hours later he had black hair and he had
to admit he looked pretty damn good with it. While he was admiring
himself in Autumn’s floor length mirror, his future wife was in the
bathroom getting ready for the show.

He turned to the bed and found a stack of
cloths that Autumn had laid out for him, including a spiked dog
collar.

“
What the fuck?” he said to
himself, holding the col-lar as if it were some slimy species of
fish that had never been seen before.

He heard the bathroom door open and turned to
find Autumn standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

“
Well, what do you think?” she
asked. Her hair was now black as well, except for the bangs, which
were hot pink and framed her pretty face. She was wearing a black,
lacey tank top, with a skin tight under shirt that had black and
white stripes running down the long sleeves. Her black skirt was
incredibly short and the pantyhose that covered her legs matched
the black and white stripes of her sleeves.

Benny was once again left speechless, but
incredibly turned on. Unable to stop himself, he went to her and
began to kiss her neck, while gently caressing her breasts. She
gave in to him immediately and they were soon on the
bed.

Slowly, he peeled the pantyhose off of her
legs, then off came the black lace panties.

She let out a short, high pitched squeal as he
entered her, than moaned deeply with each incoming thrust, until
they both exploded in a volcanic orgasm.

When they finally got ready to leave, Benny
dressed in the black jeans and shirt that Autumn had gotten for him
and she did paint his fingernails black, but he had to put his foot
down at the dog collar.

“
What the fuck are you doing?”
Benny yelled.

Jack was obviously starting to panic and had
brought the hearse up to seventy five mph. “We’ve got to get to
Dad,” he shouted back.

“
Okay, you do realize we are
driving a car full of illegal weapons, right? You need to slow down
and enhance your fucking calm. If a cop pulls us over this little
adventure of ours will come to a real quick end.”

Jack seemed to take the point and began to
slow the car down.

Turning his attention to Autumn, Benny said;
“Is he still there?”

Autumn closed her eyes, “No, he’s beginning to
move away now. Jack, do you have your cell phone with
you?”

“
Yeah,” Jack said pulling the phone
from his jacket pocket. He flipped it open, accessed the phone book
and found Frank’s office number and extension. After a few minutes
he snapped the flip phone shut and looked up at the other two.
“There’s no answer, what should we do, Benny?”

Benny thought over their options for a moment
and then said; “We stick to the plan. We go back to your house and
wait for Dad to show.”

“
But, Benny, what if he’s
hurt?”

“
I don’t think these guys would
leave anyone alive, besides, the Old Man can take care of himself,
we‘d most like-ly just get in his way.”

Jack only nodded his head in agreement and
drove the rest of the way back in silence. Benny and Jack both knew
that they’re Father had extensive training in the Marine Corp. and
his knowledge of weapons and hand to hand combat was
vast.

“
Autumn,” Benny said, “can you get
any kind of feel on what kind of mood the vampire was in when he
left?”

“
No,” she responded, “all I can see
is what direction he’s going in now. North, in case you’re
interested.”

Benny turned in his seat and stared out the
window the rest of the way home in the hopes of seeing the vampire
as their paths crossed. He kept assuring himself that he was right
about his father; the three of them would be too late to do
anything by the time they got there anyway.

Around 2:00am they pulled into Jack’s
driveway, got out of the car, went inside and sat down at the
kitchen table.

The house was still and quiet save for the
steady tick of the old clock Jack had in his living room. Benny was
hav-ing a hard time concentrating on anything but that blasted
clock. He could feel a headache forming that seemed to pulse and
intensify with each tic.

Autumn sat quietly thinking about the things
she was going to miss about being alive. Besides the obvious, the
one thing she could never live without was chocolate milk. Man, did
she love the chocolate milk. Even though she was dead, she still
had no idea what was waiting for her on the other side, but she was
sure that if she went to heaven the river beds would be flowing
with chocolate milk.

Jack was having trouble staying awake, it was
way past his usual bed time and he could feel his head starting to
fall forward repeatedly. He began to think (or perhaps it was a
strange dream) about his job. He began to see the countless bodies
he had made up and prepared for showing, and how with each and
every one came this great fear that they’d sit up and come after
him. Moaning and groaning, trying desperately to eat some part of
him. Each time he would shake that fear away and tell himself he’d
been watching too many horror movies. Now here he was, sitting at
his kitchen table with a dead girl and waiting for his father to
get here so they could go and kill some vampires.

He was on the verge of falling into a deep
sleep when he felt a chill and the hair on his neck stand up. He
opened his eyes to see Benny sitting across from him with a gun
pointed at his head. All of a sudden, time seemed to slow down.
In-stinctively, he jumped from his seat and he hit the floor
seconds before he heard the bang of the pistol like a sudden
rolling thunder breaking the calm silence of a cool summer night.
Looking back he saw a man with a monstrous face fall to his knees,
smoke rising from a hole in his forehead.

“
BENNY!” he shouted, pulling his
own gun from the waistband of his jeans. He put two bullets into
the chest of another vampire who crept in from the hallway that led
to the staircase.

Benny was on his feet and moving around the
table quickly toward the dark living room where the first vampire
came from. He groped blindly along the inside wall until his hand
fell on the light switch. He flicked it on and discovered the
living room was hiding seven more vampires, none of them looking
very happy.

Jack let out a sound that was somewhere
between a laugh and a moan. He waved to the vampires nervously and
said to his brother; “Christ on a cracker, Benny, how long have
these things been here?”

Benny didn’t answer, he only stared at the
vampires with an expression of rage that Jack thought looked
complete-ly foreign on his brothers face.

Autumn decided to crawl under the table and
stay out of the way and a second later Benny and Jack began firing
repeatedly into the living room. For a moment she couldn’t turn
away from the ensuing carnage. She had never seen this kind of
violence before and never thought her Benny would be a part of it.
Her attention was suddenly caught by three vampires coming out of
the hall and moving swiftly toward her husband and brother-in
law.

“
LOOK OUT!” she screamed, but they
couldn’t hear her over the gun fire and the earsplitting shrieks
coming from the dying creatures. The three newcomers were nearly on
them.

Suddenly the back door crashed open and an Uzi
spoke out in three quick burst. Benny and Jack hit the floor at the
sound of the weapon. The remaining vampires fell dead.

“
Frank,” Autumn said happily as she
came out from beneath the table, “your okay.”

Benny and Jack picked themselves off the floor
and saw the Old Man standing in the doorway like a weathered
warrior. Guns and silver shrapnel grenades seemed to hang from
every article of clothing.

“
Come on,” Frank said calmly,
“we’re leaving, now.”

As they were walking out of the house, Jack
patted his father on the back, “Way to go, Dad, I knew you were a
bad ass.”

“
Yeah, thanks Dad,” Benny added
with a smile.