Vampire High School

Book 3: The Rage Wars.

By Ian Hall and Lachelle Miller

I could see uniforms all around me, all ready to attack the compound; it was so bizarre.

A whole Helsing army, clad in desert camouflage, surrounding Alan McCartney and his vampire horde. The tension in the air was palpable, and I was literally shaking in my desert-colored, company issue boots.

As I listened in my headset for the order to advance, I had time to consider the depth of the crap I had gotten us into. We were drafted members of the Helsing coalition; weapons, uniforms, a command structure, organization, for goodness sake. All far from the individualism I’d joined less than a few months ago.

It was all too much, and I knew it. Lives were on the line here, and that meant mine too. I wasn’t sure I wanted my life on the line in the first place, but to be at the call of someone else’s command seemed wrong. I’d risked my life in the past, sure. But it had always been at my discretion.

Through the glass of my gas mask, I could see the farmhouse, only two hundred yards away. I could see the big generator, and even the movement of some heads in the farmhouse windows.

“Forty-seven.”

The pressure was incredible.

Frank turned to us. “Oxygen on. Whatever happens, breathe normally.”

I flipped my valve.

I can’t exactly remember when I first heard the noise, but it grew from distant humming to a dull roar. Then it almost burst my eardrums. As the first aircraft burst over my head, I knew I was suddenly at war.

My personal vendetta against Alan McCartney had turned into all-out chemical freaking warfare. As exhaust trails crisscrossed overhead, the ground became saturated with the Helsing version of WMD.

Reynolds gave the command we’d been waiting for, “Oxygen on. Whatever happens, breathe normally.”

A rush of forced air pressurized the mask and it suctioned up to my face with a “sllllurp”. It didn’t keep the toxic odor from getting through as acid rain sprayed down on us from above.

Lyman was shouting, “What is it?”

I kept my head down and listened only for Reynolds’ voice. “Coagulator! I can smell it. It’s strong.”

Finally the moment came: “We advance. We watch for trip wires, we carry both side arms. We shoot everything that doesn’t wear camouflage.”

It was a slow, deliberate decline and the stuff the Helsings were lacing my blood packs with wasn’t helping my coordination any. Out of the brush surrounding the bowl-shaped valley, more camouflaged figures emerged, converging on the compound in the center. The effect was nothing less than surreal; slow-walking trees with plastic faces and space-aged-looking weapons. And I was one of them.

Fifty yards downhill, the valley slithered with vampires, already dropped to their bellies and lungs fighting against the coagulant stiffening their muscles. They were fish in a barrel (as Dad would have said), easy pickings for the Helsing militia. Too easy.

Thanks for reading so far. This is the first segment from out third Vampire High School novel. We hope that it sparked interest. It's been a blast to write, and we hope that the ideas are fresh, and not relying on so much recent so-called "vampire-lore". Our vampires don't glisten.