Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Encore ❯ Town of the Dead ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Dark Encore

Chapter Three: Town of the Dead

"Come here

Pretty please, can you tell me where I am?

You…won't you say something?

I need to get my bearings…"

- Poe, "Haunted"

~*~

The shadowy figure watched from its vantage point atop a hill as its fellow vampire hunters charged the zombies. He, the man in the cloak and the hat, with long dark hair, had seen these tactics once before. He remembered - back during that incident so many years ago…the Markus Brothers were the last to successfully use that tactic without getting zombies inside their van. The Markus Brothers…Leila…

"And of course that kid doesn't just look like ol' Leila. We met her before, remember D?" piped a voice from the dhampire's left hand. "Back at the funeral. You made good on that promise to bring flowers, and it looks like Leila's grandkid hero-worshipped you enough to become a vampire hunter herself!" A long pause ensued before it grumbled again, "Are you ignoring me again? Don't tell me you forgot what happened the last time you ignored me…"

D was silent again for a long time, watching the chase, before answering the left hand. "That girl didn't become a vampire hunter because of me." His gaze remained riveted on the fight below. The van managed to turn about seven of the zombies into road kill, while six more had been passed altogether and remained where they were due to temporary blindness. The remaining seven of the twenty zombies were either chasing after the van or located on the van's sides or roof.

It was obviously not good odds at all; despite this, the next thing that could be seen was a window nearby a zombie opening up. A red-haired girl carrying a bow moved to the window, loaded an arrow, aimed - ka-SHANK! - And there was one less zombie on the car, because now it was in the dust, clawing at the arrow lodged deeply into its stomach. Her line of sight cleared, the girl leaned out of the window a bit to see what else she could fire at. After locating a zombie, she reached over her shoulder again to get at the quiver of arrows, loaded another arrow, aimed, and fired. This second, more far-off one didn't go over so well, because while it did get one of the zombies, it wasn't a good enough hit to make it stop chasing the car. Undaunted, the girl continued to fire at the zombies while Leila's granddaughter was apparently breaking several speed limits in order to get away from the zombies. (This was what D judged of the situation; he didn't know if it was true or not.)

The archer might have been a decent shot on other days, but she wasn't doing too well solo against all these zombies, and since Leila's granddaughter was busy at the wheel… Those two girls were in definite need of help.

Erika was currently having just the slightest amount of trouble driving. She was completely in charge of the steering wheel, the ignition, the brake and the accelerator, so that wasn't the problem. Nobody was trying to force her out of her seat, no rain made the road slippery. No, what was causing her problems was that a zombie had grown attached to the windshield and showed no sign of letting go, even when prodded at with the windshield wipers. She cursed several times, frantically attempting to dislodge it by making the van swivel from side to side. In the back of her mind, she remembered that Rose would probably end up sick if she continued making the car do this, but right now it was the only choice -

- and Rose's panicked voice rang out, "There's someone on a horse, dead ahead!" Erika's light aqua eyes widened and she cursed again before slamming on the brakes in a desperate attempt to avoid what Rose had spotted that she couldn't see at the moment. Apparently, Rose had left the zombies behind the van alone in favor of making sure the van didn't crash. Erika would have chuckled if she were at liberty to; Rose had always been like an older sister or mother figure to her, despite being a year or so younger than her. She was so much more mature, and her eyes reflected it, making her look a little bit older than she truly was…

The tires screeched in protest, and the van halted abruptly before Erika could hear a telltale THUMP, which was a good thing. As if to reward her avoiding making an innocent bystander road kill, the zombie split in half and fell off of the windshield, becoming a decoration of the car hood and allowing her to see the road again. "Zombies don't split themselves," whispered Erika after she realized what had happened. In fact, the zombie looked as if it had been sliced in half rather than split. Now that her vision was cleared, she looked ahead to see what had sliced the zombie. Grandma Leila had told her that the dhampire she had one traveled with used a sword as a weapon…and of course, that same person was the one who had been at the funeral. Praying silently that it was who she thought it was, she looked around to see who had saved her van.

The van's savior stood a few feet away from the car, next to the possibly cybernetic horse he had been riding. He wore a black outfit with boots of some kind (at least she assumed they were boots - surely they weren't high heels?!) as well as a black cloak and a wide-brimmed black hat. In his right hand he held a dangerous-looking sword, and as if all the above weren't enough to tip her off Erika recognized his face. It wasn't too difficult to do, seeing as the moon was a very good illuminator, especially at that angle…she could definitely recognize his face. It was the legendary D, the dhampire that went against the vampire race, and the man who had brought flowers to her grandmother's funeral. There could be no mistakes there - she would be able to know if it was him or not.

Ka-SHANK! Ka-SHANK! Ka-SHANK! Arrows leisurely whistling through the air and apparently finding purchase in a few zombies' limbs (she sincerely hoped it was their ribcages instead of any other limbs) reminded Erika that not only had Rose returned to her attempts at attacking the zombies, but that she was - oh dear God no - going at it alone. One hand on the blaster that was always holstered at her side, Erika opened the car door enough to look out and see a zombie lurching up to the van. Erika's eyes narrowed before she pulled out the blaster, pointed it at the zombie, and - well, there was no zombie in the way anymore, because it was on the ground and hopefully dead.

Now able to look further out, she opened the door a little wider and looked towards the back of the van. Rose's pale, tired face looked right back at her, a small smile evident. Clearly, she had managed to take out a few of the vampires lodged to the car or chasing them, but it had cost her a bit. She looked about ready to collapse, but she wasn't going to unless given permission. Erika had to hand it to her - she might have protested wildly when Erika made her become a vampire hunter, but Rose was loyal and tenacious. If she were about to die, she'd probably hang on for a few more moments just to ask if there were anything else left for her to do before she could rest…it almost made Erika regret dragging her on the road of the vampire hunter, but she really hadn't had a choice back then. Shaking herself out of her reverie, she checked to see if the pursuing zombies were still after them and sighed in relief when she found none.

Remembering her manners, she got out of the car and signaled for Rose to follow, and then walked over to D. She made sure to keep a decent amount of space between them, fearing that her 'childhood hero' would think her rude if she did otherwise. After hearing the light pitter-patter of her companion's footsteps as she walked over, she then looked at D. A small grin crossed her face. She waved her hand slightly, and said, "Hi, mister. It's been a while, hasn't it?" After getting no answer except for a nod, she continued shyly, "Um…I was just going to say, thanks for helping me an' Rose here…"

D nodded again and said softly, "It wasn't a problem." He turned away, mounted his horse again, and rode off, leaving Erika with the van and her friend. After a moment, she just smiled. Leila had told her that D wasn't much for conversation, after all…and she really wouldn't have liked to deal with him if it were any other way than what her grandmother had said.

She turned back to Rose and almost grinned again at her 'sister's' dazed look. "C'mon, sleepy girl. Let's get back into the van. You can take a nap on our way to the next town."

Author's Note: A long chapter indeed, and my first attempt at a fight scene. Hopefully it didn't go over too badly. No cliffhanger here, but that's because of a high probability of hell breaking loose in the next few chapters, so I decided to take a break from writing semi-cliffhangers for now. Please read and review!