War Of The Vampires

Chapter 1: Fear the reaper.

Lewis-

I couldn't believe it when it happened. The only place this type of thing happens is in cheesy books that copy each other and second class type films. Its not suppose to happen to me, Lewis Cartwright, on the school playground field. Even as it was happening and I was feeling the true pain of it all I was questioning it. It began when I was fifteen…….

Me and a few friends were kicking a ball around when a miserable old lady kept poking her head out of her door.

"Clear away you lot. I have rang the police I have and they're on their way here to take you lot home." She croaked on her doorstep. Her finger wagging around and her eyes narrowed.

"Come on lets just go." I decided. This old crone was never going to let us have fun. We all decided to go to our school. The field has goal nets on there so we can enjoy a proper game of footie and not be interrupted. It had been fifty minutes of playing before I was left on my own. Billy Ferguson was the first to go. His bus ticket runs out at ten o clock. Andrew Smith and Peter Ward left five minutes after Billy. This leaving me and Stefan Campbell who soon got bored and left leaving me alone. I was in no rush to get home so I decided to stay and practice on my football. I enjoyed playing football. I never wanted to be a footballer, I always wanted to join the marines, but I did enjoy it. About fifteen minutes later, I got tired and decided now was my time to go too. As I was walking, I felt a sudden force jump on my back, like someone had jumped on me. Legs were tightening around my waist and refusing to let go. I tried to fight back. Throwing whoever it was side to side but he was too tightly gripped around me. Then I felt it. Two stabbing pains on my neck. The hot breath I felt along with it confirmed this was a bite, but who would bite me? Why would they bite me?

My legs underneath me began to buckle. I still tried to charge away, even with a maniac wrapped around me and giving me the worst love bite ever, but I was growing weaker and weaker and it was getting more and more difficult to run. My running felt like I was walking in thick mud. It was impossible not to fall to the ground and even more impossible not to pass out…….

…. Around one hour later I woke up. My head killing me, my entire body jerking and stiff as a tree branch and my chest struggling to breathe, every breath I take out feels like I have someone twice my size sat on my chest. It feels like I shouldn't be awake, I should be in some hospital strapped up to some machine. As I slowly raise up I look around. Whoever did this to me was no longer around. I slowly try to get to my feet but every movement I make sends a shooting and sickly feeling to my head but I fight through it. Getting to my feet wasn't easy. It felt like I was standing on a tiny boat in the ocean with a massive storm throwing the boat. Nevertheless I still manage to get to my feet. My eyes all fuzzy and dim, I had to squint just to get the faintest clear view. Slowly walking, it took me around one hour to get home. Gradually opening the door, my mum is the first person to greet me.

"Where the hell have you been son?" She squeals. Her voice echoing in my head and really quiet, like my head is under water.

"Playing football with the lads." I answer, slowly walking to the stairs and using the hand rail on the wall to get up them. As soon as I get in my bedroom I plummet down on my bed. I lay in a semi-conscious state. Absolutely sweating, but my body freezing, so cold I wrap myself in a sheet. The sheet I wrap around me gets soaked in sweat in no time. I stay awake most off the night, shaking like a druggie going cold turkey. It's around four o clock in the morning that I finally fall to sleep.

I wake up at my usual time, seven thirty. Feeling a lot better then I did when I first went to sleep but still not hundred percent. I walk down stairs and in to the kitchen.

"Morning son." My mother says to me as she fries eggs. She glances up at me and her mouth widens. "Oh my god. You look dreadful." She says. I look in the mirror and see she is right. My face has lost all its colour which has been replaced with a dull pale colour. Trauma from the attack the night before maybe?.

"I'm just a bit ill that's all." I utter. I then walk to the fridge and pull out a full cartoon of orange juice. It's not long before I have drunk the lot and began on another, for some reason my thirst just can't be quenched. I sit down on the table. Breakfast out on top of it but nothing taking my fancy, all I have is a incredible thirst.

"Lewis have you been fighting?" My little sister Katie asks. Sitting next to me in her summer clothes and her hair in two long plats running down the side of her head. The question took me by surprise. Why did she ask it?

"What makes you say that?" I ask her.

"I remember when uncle Lenny had a fight with mummy's new boyfriend, he lost some teeth too." Katie says. Was she implying I have lost teeth? I move my fingers to my lips and feel around and indeed I have lost two teeth.

"What happened son?" Mum asks, having that over concerned face on.

"Must be my baby teeth." I answer, lying through my gapped teeth.

"At fifteen? I thought you had lost them all ages ago. You better get down to the dentist son, find out what's going on." Part of me agrees with her, I would like to know what has happened. I don't think I lost both my teeth during the scuffle last night because I didn't feel it and I imagine that would hurt, right? My mum walks out to ring up the dentist for me.

A knock bangs on the door.

"Daddy." Katie excitedly squeals as she runs to open it and, shockingly on time in walks my dad.

"Lewis got beat up." Is the first thing Katie says.

"No I didn't." I shout at her, I know she's only joking but she doesn't know how right she is, and how freaked out I am.

"I was only joking, chillax." Katie says, her hand in the air and aimed towards me. "Where we going today dad?"

"I thought maybe the beach." Dad answers.

"Can we go to the cliffs?" Katie asks.

"Sure we can." Dad answers before looking at me. "What about you Lewis, you looking forward to day on the beach with your old man?"

"He can't he to go to the dentist." Mum says as she enters the room.

"Awww to bad so sad." Katie says, a happy smirk on her face.

"Well he could come join us after it. We will be there all day." Dad says.

"Whatever." I utter, walking out of the kitchen. "I'm going out for a bit." I shout as I grab my coat of the hook on the wall.

"Dentist is at twelve thirty." Mum shouts after me.

"Lewis is so yucky. He hasn't even brushed his teeth and he is going to the dentist, how gross is that. No wonder his teeth are falling out." I hear Katie's annoying voice say as I slam the door. The cold breeze hits me like someone had just thrown iced water at me. I throw my coat on and huddle myself together as I walk down the path. As I get out the garden I notice everyone enjoying the summer, all in shorts and t-shirts, but for some reason I just feel chilly. Like last night, I begin to sweat but I don't know why as I'm shivering like a leaf caught in a strong wind. I check my watch and see the time is eight o'clock. I don't know what I'm going to do for the next four hours so I decide to go to the café to get a drink as thirst still clogs my throat.

In the café I order my drink and take a seat. Opposite the café is the school where I was last night. I still remember it clearly, the hard force on my back gripping itself around me, the hot sour breath breathing at the side of my neck followed by the bite. Then I remember, I didn't check my neck. I run in to the toilets and get to the mirror. I unzip my coat and tilt my head to the left which reveals something on my neck. Usually a bite has traces of every teeth that savaged the skin, I should know I have a annoying little sister who uses her nashers all the time. This bite however is different. It has only two marks on it. Around the small circle marks, the skin has bubbled up. It looks like two very, very mini volcanoes on my neck.

"Oh my god." I say. I'm not a fool, I know what this bite looks like, a vampire bite. It sounds ridiculous, a vampire, really? That's the way it looks though but I refuse to think something so dim-witted. So I zip my coat back up and shake my head whilst laughing, but only half the laugh is genuine, the other half is more a comfort thing, telling myself to stop been stupid. I walk back out in to the café. The waitress has already left my drink on the table. I grab the cup and gulp down the drink inside it. Unable to stop, I make a disgusting gulping sound as I drink it, but my thirst calls to be quenched. Even though it didn't work, the drink barely touched the sides. I just cant seem to find anything to quench my thirst at all, maybe I'm drinking the wrong thing. This statement horrifies me. The moment I thought it every hair on my body stood on end, but I remove the horror feeling with the same laugh I did in the bathroom, but this time the laugh is a nervous one.

"Thirsty?" A young girl sat on the table next to mine says to me distracting my laugh. She is a good looking girl, around the same age as me. Her hair all bushy and straw like, but in a style kind of way and not looking scruffy.

"Just a little." I reply back, wiping drink away from my chin.

"Well you can finish mine if you like." She offers, sliding her drink towards me.

"No thanks." I answer, sitting down at my table.

"Come on." She says.

Usually I wouldn't because, lets face it drinking after other people is just gross, but this thirst is driving me insane. Anything drinkable is mine. I reach out for the drink, not that it would do any good and I gulp it down, It's fanta which I'm not to keen on. As I stopped drinking, its worked, my thirst has gone.

"Wow that was great. It really did the trick." I say to the girl as I lick my lips after the satisfying drink.

"I know right." She says back. "The name's Izzy by the way." She introduces her self.

"Lewis Cartwright." I do the same. Just then a man comes storming in the café and screams her name, barking at her to come with him. He looks at me with heated eyes, like I am forbidden to talk to her or something like that.

"I got to go." Izzy murmurs to me as she grabs her bag and flees the café. I see them both having a heated discussion as they walk down the street. He seems to be the one doing the shouting. She is just walking on ahead of him, stopping a few times to turn and give him what for. It isn't long before they disappear behind a corner and I'm stuck holding the cup of the drink she gave me. I check my watch, the time is now eight forty five, still plenty of time to have another drink so I walk to the counter.

"Hi do you remember that girl who was sat over there?" I say, pointing out the table.

"The girl who looked like she had crawled out of a Harry Potter book?. Yeah I remember her, I really liked her shoes." The ditzy waitress says.

"Well I'd like the same drink she ordered please."

"Sorry?" She says.

"The drink that she ordered, I just had a bit and it was lovely. I would like to order it again please."

"I'm sorry sir, she didn't order any drink. Just a chocolate muffin." The waitress explains.

"No she had to have a drink from here. I'm holding the cup for Christ sake."

"No I'm sorry she didn't. I should know, I took her order. Also that cup isn't one of ours." She says to me. I look at the cup, it's a long one. Sort of like ones you would get a milkshake in or ice cream with the little triangle wafers on the top. It's a white 'but a really discoloured white' colour. At the bottom it says property of Barney's bar. I decided to take the cup back to this bar. A old lady in the café gave me directions…

.. After a two hour bus ride, I end up just outside the bar, what a stroke of luck. It's not very lively for a bar. Ok it is ten forty five in the morning, but it's just the look of it. It looks so bare, a dirty blue old building stood in a row of new and rushed buildings. It looks an outsider, the odd one out, a loner, it looks all of these things. The first bit of movement in the building comes from Izzy. She comes outside and lights up a fag. I make my way across the road to her. As I get to her the first thing she does is check that nobody saw me.

"Lewis what you doing here?" She shouts, but in a quiet voice as she drags me to the side of the bar.

"I thought I would bring you this cup back. Hopefully get another drink too." I say.

"Thanks. We are closed right now so you're going to have to leave." She orders.

"Really. Damn and I really enjoyed that drink. I tried to order one at the café but I didn't know the name so I thought I would come here and get one."

"I'm sorry Lewis I can't let you in. Here I still have plenty more in here." She says, going in to her bag, a tattered, mucky red thing it is, and getting out a blue flask. She hands it over to me.

"Thanks." I say back. "You know that will kill you." I say, pointing out the cigarette in her hand.

"Well I fancy my chances." She says back, puffing away on the white devil stick.

"IZZY!" A strong voice bellows from out the bar.

"Coming Barney." Izzy shouts back. "I got to go."

"Wait, where do I get these drinks from?" I ask her as she walks away. She stops for a few seconds before turning to me.

"Just come here tonight." She instructs. "I'm sure you will be welcome then." Her voice sounds so peculiar when she said this. What did she mean welcome?…

… A hour later I sit in the dentist waiting room supping away on the flask Izzy gave me.

"Billy Ferguson twelve o'clock." I say a familiar voice say at the reception desk.

"Hey Billy." I call him over.

"Hey man what's up with you? And what's with the layers? Its roasting outside take your coat off." He says to me as he sits down. "Give a bit of that man." Billy snatches the flask out of my hand before getting a mouthful before spitting it out in revolt. "What the hell is that?"

"it's a drink." I answer.

"It's vile that's what it is." He says. I don't know what's wrong with it, it tastes like fanta to me.