First of all, I'd like to apologise for the time it's taken me to complete part eight, which is the penultimate part of the story. I've been really busy at University with my 22hr weeks, tests and project w**k. I aim to get the story finished ASAP and hope you don't mind the delay too much.
If you remember, we left Dawn and the others on their way to an unknown and mysterious scene crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge.
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Part Eight – Training Day
Cassie’s car pulled up, after a long journey, at a house not too far from the Police station in which they had been held captive only a few hours ago. There were Police swarming over the scene and, amongst the barriers of Police tape, were white clothed forensic officers. Cassie ushered Dawn, Willow and Ian out of the Police Car and went to look for Jason.
As she stood by the car, Dawn looked around eagerly for a clue as to the identity of the murder victim, but there was no Ambulance and the house had no distinguishing features. Cassie had found Jason and both walked back to the Car.
“What’s happened?” asked Dawn worriedly.
“There’s been a murder; well a series of murders to be honest” replied Jason, who then removed a photograph from his trouser pocket.
“Do you remember this boy from the abandoned house last night?”
The photograph was of one of the three teenage cultists who had helped them to defeat the vampires in the abandoned house the previous night.
“Yes” replied Dawn solemnly.
Willow and Ian nodded slowly in confirmation as Inspector Perry walked towards them.
“Not nice is it? Three dead here, another five two blocks down and one more at the other side of town. All murdered at the same time and, more importantly, all of them were with you at that house last night” he said menacingly.
Willow and Dawn were outraged and struggled to contain their fraying tempers. Ian saw this and, as calmly as he could, responded in order to set the record straight.
“You’re implying that all of these murder victims were at the house last night?” he asked
“They were” replied Perry
“How could we have done it?” interjected Dawn angrily “We were locked up by you in that Police Station!”
“So my officers have told me” he said, as he looked disapprovingly at Cassie and Jason.
Murray and the Police sergeant walked over and joined the group. Murray was struggling to hide a smile whilst the sergeant looked particularly irritated.
“Well!?” asked Perry impatiently.
“According to forensics, the time of death was around 4am” replied the sergeant.
“What about the CCTV pictures from the Station?”
“They show these three officers and these three here in some sort of weird fight at 4am, so they have an alibi”
Cassie and Jason shared a wry smile with Murray. Dawn, Willow and Ian managed to calm down now that Perry was unable to pursue his questioning any further. Perry himself was as irritated as the sergeant – no open and shut case for him, so he was forced to listen to their tale…
After hearing their full account of events, Perry felt both amazed and extremely annoyed. He soon realised that he had a lot of w**k to do and that none of it made any real sense to him. He did however allow them to return to the abandoned house to train in order to fight the Vampires that they had told him about. Finally, he decided to travel back to San Francisco both to get some more concrete evidence to back their claims and to receive an update on the post mortems of the murder victims.
The night was drawing in as Dawn, Willow, Jason, Murray and Cassie drove back to the abandoned house. The front door had been covered in Police tape that day following a second sweep by the Police after what were now deemed as revenge killings. The tape was easily removed and, once inside, Ian lit the fire in the lounge whilst they gathered around it.
“Right” said Dawn with an edge of authority “What do we do now Ian?”
“Well” he said unsurely “I guess we should start with a mock-up. Jason, could you stand against the wall please?”
Jason obliged as Ian pointed out the various ways of killing a Vampire to the others with the assortment of weapons that they had taken with them.
“Seems a bit complicated” commented Murray
“It is a bit” agreed Willow “But it’s good to know these things – you don’t want to be fighting a single Vampire for ages”
“Oh, and don’t forget about sunlight” suggested Dawn randomly “Though, it won’t be of much use I guess”
After Cassie, Jason and Murray nodded unsurely to indicate to Ian that they understood; they progressed to some duelling practice using, rather oddly, a set of plastic spoons that Ian had found lying in the kitchen. Dawn was far too manic and was making Willow (her duelling partner) very nervous. Overseeing her random arm waving and unsure spoon thrusting, Ian told Dawn to calm down. Luckily for Willow, Dawn heeded this advice and they continued in a more orderly fashion and made more progress.
*
Through its orb, the Skeletal being watched as its six human arch enemies trained. Under normal circumstances, it would have sent a horde of Vampires to interrupt the training and disrupt them, but with so few Vampires left, it was not possible. It placed the orb back in its holder and walked over to the remaining Vampires.
“Listen!” it decreed as loud as it could.
The Vampires turned to listen in both hope and anticipation.
“Look around at our numbers. We are now nothing but a desperate band of rebels. We need to regain our forces and with it our power” it continued.
Wide-eyed and hungry, the Vampires nodded in agreement.
“So; you are going to help achieve that. Your task is to seek and “convert” as many humans as you can. Our enemies are, at this moment, a safe distance from us, so we can take advantage of this. Be gone and return with our army!”
The Vampires did as they were told and made their way into the dark streets outside via the wormhole in the cave. The skeletal being then turned its attention to two mole-like creatures lurking at the other end of the cave.
“Do not allow the humans to cross the bridge” it said, determined.
The two creatures bowed their heads in understanding and headed off in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge to create their delay.
*
There was a loud, urgent knock at Inspector Perry’s office door.
“What is it?” he asked through the door as his sergeant burst in.
“You gotta see this sir!” his sergeant said frantically “It’s chaos out there. The whole city’s under attack!”
“What in hell are you talking about!?” responded Perry angrily. “Who is attacking us?”
The sergeant showed him a photograph of a Vampire attacking an unfortunate teenage girl. Seeing this, Perry instinctively picked up his Police radio and called Jason.
The six, tired group of friends were sat around the fire in the derelict house having a rest when Jason’s Police radio erupted into life. Jason answered it and mouthed “It’s the inspector” to the others.
“Jason, I need you and the others over here right now – your Vampires have gone on the rampage across San Francisco. It’s complete chaos outside, we’re struggling to keep control” said Perry over the radio.
“OK sir, we’re on our way” replied Jason, who looked at the others for confirmation.
“We can’t” said Willow mournfully.
“It’s too dangerous” added Ian “We’ll be facing the whole horde in growing numbers – we’ll get killed for sure”
“But what about the rest of them!?” protested Dawn, vehemently “We can’t let them kill everyone in San Francisco!”
Willow and Ian shook their heads as Dawn continued arguing her case.
“Besides, if we don’t stop them now, we’ll be facing even more of them when we have to go back to the Hellmouth.”
“Exactly Dawn” added Cassie “We’ve got a duty to do”
“I’m sorry. We can’t” replied Ian “We can’t fight that many Vampires at once in such an open area. We’ll be open to ambush”
Cassie, Jason, Murray and Dawn were unyielding, so they picked up their weapons and headed out the front door. As they stormed out of the lounge, Willow and Ian turned to each other; sighed and followed them out of the front door. With all six of them with weapons in the Police SUV, they drove to San Francisco.
*
The two mole-like creatures had reached the Golden Gate Bridge. They buried down to the foundations and attacked the supporting pillars. After five minutes, they gave way and, with an almighty crash, the part of the Golden Gate Bridge connecting to San Francisco fell into the water below. Satisfied that they had achieved their goal, they returned to their master to report the good news.
*
There was a three mile long queue for the Golden Gate Bridge. The Police SUV in which Dawn and her friends were travelling was stuck, so Jason turned on the vehicle’s siren and pushed past the stationary traffic in order to jump the queue. When they got to the Bride itself however, they looked aghast at crumpled state of the other side.
“What do we do now?!” shrieked Dawn.
“We’ll have to take another route” replied Jason “First; we need to call for backup here to sort out this traffic”
Jason got out his Police radio and requested traffic police, ambulances and the fire department attend the scene urgently.
A short while later, they arrived, allowing the six friends to continue their journey to San Francisco. Murray told them that it would take a while longer for them to get there.
*
San Francisco itself was still under siege as Police officers continued to fight and perish in a desperate attempt to safeguard as many people as they could from the Vampires. Every minute, the number of Vampires increased dramatically and, when the National Guard stepped in to help evacuate the city with their helicopters, they soon became overwhelmed.
Only minutes later, the Vampires were in complete control of the city. The Police had been forced back into the Police station for refuge, but the Vampires were determined and rushed in, causing more havoc. Inspector Perry tensed as his door was broken clean off its hinges. Then, ten Vampires pounced on him and killed him instantly.
Fortunately for the remaining Police officers, the Vampires’ luck was about to run out as Dawn and her friends barged their way into the city and marched into the Police Station brandishing their weapons. As soon as they had entered, they found themselves engaged in fierce combat with the large number of Vampires and made only a fractional headway into the station itself as the Vampires began to surround them.
*
The skeletal being was slightly disappointed, but not overly surprised by the arrival of its enemies. It saw its newly formed Vampire horde struggling to fight them so it called out to them.
“Withdraw!” it said. “Return to me now – our fight begins tomorrow”
In the Police Station, a wormhole appeared and the Vampires ran through it until every last one had left the scene leaving only Dawn; her friends and some very scared Police officers behind.
“It’s OK” Cassie said reassuringly to a colleague “It’s over for now. They won’t bother us again tonight”
Dawn was puzzled.
“Why did they do that?” she asked “Why did they just run away?”
“They’re waiting” replied Willow thoughtfully “Waiting for us to go down to face them again”
“And now there are more of them” added Ian.
Dawn, Ian and Willow informed the others that they were returning to their house to prepare for tomorrow’s final showdown at the Hellmouth.
End of Part Eight
:ermm: can't wait for the finale chapter :thumbsup: