No Rest For The Weary

-No Rest For The Weary-               



              Waves crashed against the steel hull of the ship, flowing over the railing, wetting the feet of it’s crewmen. At the bow, standing close to the point of the large vessel, stood an old man, black duster jacket flying in the wind. His black leather hat was pressed firmly on his head while his long, grey hair twisted and flowed with the breeze.

         “The hunt is finally over, old friend”, said the raspy voice of the old man, eyes shadowed by his hat and collar of his duster. His arms shook with anxiety and fatigue. He was ready for a life's worth of conflict to end. The night had become one with ocean. The stars and galaxies far above joined the sea in a magnificent mingle between worlds. The ship sat steadfast between them, invisible in the much greater beauty.

         Two men, definitely Irish-American to the eye, stood by an iron casket, holding it upright, while centering it’s weight on the boat. A small hatch was open on the top of the front side, revealing the man in it's contents. “The hunt is far from over, Helsing”,  the heavy English accent rolled from the inhabitant of it’s steel coffin, smiling from behind pale skin and sharp teeth. It could be read instantly that he felt the same anxiety his rival had. He was scared of dying, proof of his once peaceful exsistence as a human centuries ago.

         A woman sat in a chair leaning against a crate on the bow, returning from her visit to the bridge of the ship to see the progress of the goodbyes, looking of mixed emotions: sorrow, mild happiness, fear. She was scared of how things may shift. She could've lived happily with Dracula, never reporting to Helsing again. But she knew Helsing never rested. His weary soul longed for the death of the undead Count. “She is too beautiful, isn’t she? I could imagine it would be so easy to fall in love with someone so perfect. What the world’s greatest minds and most powerful weapons couldn’t kill, the simple love a woman has done. It’s made you weary to capture, heartbroken before harm even reaches you”, the black clad Helsing said in his raspy voice, hands held tight behind his back, never revealed completely, but predictably wide and paranoid, searching for the single flaw that would end in his death.

         “My bloodline will live on. Unlike you, Abraham Van Helsing, my people don’t need the fountain of youth to keep the hunt going. Our only purpose for attacking you there was to destroy it…Old friend”, he said mocking Helsing, eyes widening as he pronounced “Old friend”. “I don't long to keep the hunt going. Your people need you, Count. When your heart stops beating, theirs will follow. I intend on ending this hunt tonight”, Helsing stated under a fatigued and raspy breath, still violently racking his brains to find a flaw that somehow always keeps the fight going.

         The woman stood beside the coffin now, waiting for the two warriors to end their conversation. She moved in front of the hatch and reached in, placing her hand on the side of his face, rubbing down to his chin. Tears ran down her face, and her lips shook. She did love him, that was no lie. He was instantly reminded of their last night together.

         

         High above a monk’s temple in the Himalayas, a small house sat, hidden away from the world with beauty like no other. The woman laid against the balcony railing, dark brown hair flowing in the breeze, covered only by a velvet sheet, wrapped around her and her partner, looking over the mountain range and beautiful temple, aged and torn but marvelous regardless. Dracula stared into only her eyes, bored with the scenery as it was just another sight of Déjà vu. His arms flexed in shear passion, smiling as he kissed her forehead repetitively. She giggled and pulled away, playfully, but there was something much greater weighing on her conscience.

         His arms wrapped around her waist, and her hands laid over his shoulders. "Whats wrong, dear? This is where you wanted to stay, isn't it?" he asked quietly, shifting his arms around her, rubbing her back slightly. “I don’t want to live forever, Count. I don’t think I can adhere to your request”, she said in a whisper, tear streaking down her pink cheek. The Count looked at her confusedly for only a second, forgetting that humans longed for a long life to an extent, but in the end, wished for death. He didn't want her to die, but he wanted her mind free from vice. A tear formed in his eye as well. “Would you please…live on for me?”, he whispered back, his head laying over her shoulder, a tear fell from his cheek as well.



         That night he was taken from his bed, and wrapped in thick, steel cables. He was to be thrown off of a ship into the deepest place known to mankind, the Mariana Trench. The ship rocked from the waves smashing at it’s hull, shaking side to side.

         She looked into his eyes as before, but as she rubbed his face, something fell from her velvet wool jacket's sleeve. “Goodbye, my love”, she said pulling her arm back and walking to the railing of the ship, watching the night sky, shedding tear after tear. Helsing made eye contact with the Irishmen along the side of the casket. He nodded his head, and suddenly, a cable above the box tightened and lifted. A crane was moving it over the edge of the boat, while the men guided and pushed. "Count, for your crimes committed in this world, you've been banished to the next. See you in Hell" ,Helsing said, one eye peering over the collar of his jacket, staring at the face of the god like vampire

         Several of the crewmen on board stood on the bow now, watching the vampire being towed over. Dracula wasn't concerned of his oncoming death as much as he was before. The Count has had many loves in the past, but this one seemed to feel different. The Count simply wanted to find what his love had dropped in the casket with him. The man closest to the casket closed the steel hatch at the last second.

                The coffin fell from the crane, barely making a splash in the angry, unsteady sea, black waves resulting in it's taking of the coffin. The Count struggled to reach what had fell from her sleeve, but the cables restricted him. He finally managed to nudge it to his hand using his knee as a catapult. It was a note. Upon opening, only three words rested on the page. “Yes, I will" he read when the sudden and surprising sound of an oxygen tank exchanging air broke the silence of his dreary descent.



         Helsing stared at his agent with uneasy eyes, as she watched the casket sink from beyond sight. “The casket wasn’t steel, was it?”, Helsing said aloud, knowing she already knew the answer, elbows beginning to shake even more at the sight of her weeping in the sea.



              “It was a titanium alloy if you must know. I switched the coffins this morning while your men were loading crates. It also has a rather large oxygen tank inside”, she said still looking over the ocean. Helsing clenched his teeth. His rusty five o'clock shadowed face wrinkled in anger. He knew it was too easy. “How many of you are on my ship?” Helsing asked, hoping ‘only a few’ would fall hopelessly from her lips.

         She smiled. “To tell you the truth", she turned and leaned he back on the railing, looking directly at him. "I was having trouble finding any remaining humans on this vessel”, she stated in a dark humor, slowly growing a smile.

              "He won't last long" ,he said stating a fact, not looking up. "His casket allows us for plenty of time to get him back, Van Helsing", she stated a fact as well, crossing her legs while leaning against the railing. His head lifted, finally revealing his eyes. The were burning with anticipation and adrenaline. His vision glared at every man close to him, looking at their necks for marks, revealing each instantly. He wasn't about to lay down and die. He had expected something of this magnitude, so he was most definitely prepared for it.

         “So be it”, he said coldly, knowing this might be one of the more difficult situations to escape from. His hands fell from his back revealing two large Tommy guns, each silver in color, one in each hand. The large round clips of the guns, bright silver filling in each hole, began spinning, clicking as if waiting for the trigger to be pressed. The wind became angry and changed directions, blowing his long coat the opposite direction, his hair retreating the back on his duster. With his faced creased angrily and his eyes glaring, he said out loudly, “Lets have at it then.”



         Dracula flexed and pulled, jerked and twisted, but the cables didn’t seem to give in even the slightest bit. He hated the sea. He hated large lakes. Dracula hated water altogether. He wasn’t going to wait until he reached the bottom for some kind of rescue. He would do what he’s always done and save himself. Just then, though very low and popping more than firing, he heard the all too familiar sound of a multitude of silver bullets leaving Van Helsing’s guns. “Men and their guns. Hmph”, Dracula said aloud throwing his shoulders side to side, sliding the highest cable up. It was finally moving over his shoulders. It wouldn't be long before he escaped the cables, but getting back to the surface would be the more difficult step.



         Helsing pulled his guns up into position, holding them both sideways so their recoil would pull them into the general direction of other enemies, and squeezed down on the silver triggers. As the ship suddenly illuminated into a firework show, his weapons released large flames of muzzle fire and dropped empty casings. The two Irishmen were the first to be shot, and the early concept of twisted point shells pulled the bullets directly to their hearts. Their bodies instantly corroded into ash before even a chance to show their fangs. Helsing released, letting his arms fall as his vampire crew stared at him with drooling lips.

                Letting air escape his nose in a small gasp, Helsing stepped forward effortlessly and raised his arms again, admiring the shock his foes suddenly gained. As a vampiric ghoul ran beside him, he shot a burst, spilling the vampire into mesh of ashes on the deck, floating back in a solid wind to his ranks. Helsing grinned a bit and turned back to the massing crowd. He let loose again, spraying a solid haze of bullets into the front henchmen, ending their short lived immortality. They maneuvered and jumped at Abraham, hoping for a small flaw in his attack, but his massive ammunition supply and wide spray, kept them from getting behind him or even close to Helsing.

              They jumped ending in an ashey cloud. They weaved and were turned to earth, their birth and final resting place. Helsing was never unprepared upon stepping aboard this ship. The she-vamp ran behind a large crate, making her way to the bridge, while the rest of the crew descended upon Helsing. His weapons were chaotic and terrifyingly effective for these creatures of the night. The ashes littered the deck, swept away with the wind into their resting place in the ocean, yet they pressed on through their brother's ashes into their own demise. Helsing showed no remorse or signs of letting up.

         Van Helsing had to kill them all if he were to escape and make sure Dracula stays to his sentence. He suddenly remembered the fuel containers on the deck of his ship were extremely flammable and abundant, knowing they were far away from London now, and didn’t expect any help from nearby nations. He shot the containers repetitively, watching the sparks light the fuel, and the fuel ignite. Not paying full attention to the massing vampire army, he was tackled down by several. Helsing squeezed the handles of his guns popping out to silver long blades from below his palms on the weapons, instantly killing the vampire directly on him, burning its throat while its face screamed into crust and fell to pieces He twisted and cut two more into their ashey demise, gaining his footing and slashing through the horde of vampires.

         The canisters exploded launching empty barrels into the sea, throwing vampires overboard, and tearing a crack down the deck. The hull had been breached. There wasn’t enough time for the vampires to save their lord now. The crane began to move as an attempt to drop down and rescue the Count. Helsing saw the woman in the bridge, moving levers and shifting knobs. Eyes red and sobbing, a depressed vampire indeed. He dropped to one knee and shot at the bridge, as his section of the boat began rise and crack. The glass of the control tower shattered, but she still stood, dropping the cable into the sea in a hopeless attempt. A large smoke stack from behind the bridge exploded in that instant, launching downward over the bridge. Helsing fell back as the ship broke in half, the tower crushing the bridge and all its inhabitants.

         Knowing he wouldn’t last much longer on the ship, he jumped over the railing into the sea. Guam wasn’t far away, he could swim it. The ship hadn’t given up on its owner just yet. Its crewmen jumped to the sea, knowing they would instantly sink to their demises, all in hopes of saving Dracula. There was one more explosion on board the ship, launching a barrel in Van’s direction. His vigorous swimming proved futile as his consciousness was lost there.



         Dracula was finally free from his bonds and contemplating his amazing escape, like he knew Helsing had already done. “Helsing your ideas do amaze me”, he said as he leaned his head against the wall, staring at the oxygen tank with depression and envy boiling inside him. “If only she had armed my coffin with a propulsion system of some sort. I could float to shore”, he said aloud again, instantly thinking of his massive strength and speed, which meant nothing in the water (a vampire’s inability to swim is hereditary and is somewhat of a curse among them).

         An idea hit him. His propulsion system laid in the casket with him. He would simply have to hold his breath until reaching the surface where he would hope for the unlikely chance of finding a floating object. He would tear a hole in his casket and break the oxygen tank, pushing him upward...in theory. It was all he had. He picked up the oxygen tank and looked at it closely. He smiled at the thought of screwing up and exploding under the ocean for even the smallest flaw. “Maybe I will see you in hell, Van”, he said aloud just before tearing the bottom off the O2 tank just as he clawed a small hole in the bottom of the casket, pushing the tank down lightning fast. It pushed the coffin up quickly. He had not sank fast enough to need to decompress, nor had he sank far enough. As much as he knew, he would reach the surface and fall straight back down, his great idea in vain.

         As he launched himself upwards, just out of the small hatch, he saw remnants of Helsing’s ship, canisters of fuel falling in a slow motion, the bow of the ship, holding his vampiric decendents. As the second half of the ship fell, collapsed due to a large smoke stack crushed in. Dracula noticed the blood stained glass from the once standing bridge. He saw dark brown hair hovering, casting a shadow on an inside wall of the destroyed vesel. She had died fighting for him. He winced his eyes, forming a fist and bowing his head. “Goodbye, my love, I swear your death won't be in vain”, he said staring down, knowing she would burn for him. He remembered the task at hand and joined his left hand to the tank. He held the tank in place and just as he peeked out the hatch again, he had pierced the surface. He released the tank and raised his razor sharp claws, without the cables, he could now gain momentum and strike. He tore through the titanium alloy as if it were paper. The tank escaped beneath him and launched into the air. As he looked down, he saw the casket falling back towards the sea and a note floating in the breeze. He snatched it before it were to be taken by the wind and fell back to earth. His final dive was disturbed by a barrel floating in his path and several pieces of drift wood.



         Helsing awoke lying on a beach, the sun peering down on him. His duster had been ripped to shreds, and he was face down in the sand with his face in his hat, soggy with sea water. He raised his gloved hand and ran it over his soaked hair, wiping it back as he spit out sea water. He quickly scanned his general area, and knew he had survived. “Thank Guam”, he said smiling, knowing the small island was nearby before shipping out.

         As he looked down the beach, he noticed as series of four barrels, held together with pieces of deck planks and tattered cables. He stood up wearily, grabbing his hat, and limped over, squishing the water out of his boots every step. He looked at the floating contraption with interest until he noticed something in his front jacket pocket. It was a semi dry piece of paper. He unfolded to reveal the smudged words of  “yes, I will” noticing red ink on the back.

         He flipped it over, and obviously written in blood with a sharp object, the letter read, “Our meeting in Hell will have to wait  ‘till one of us dies, Helsing”. Van crumbled the note and threw it to the ground. He shook his head in an expected disbelief, covering his face with his right hand. He didn’t have words, only a mission. He slapped his soggy leather hat on his head, pressing it down firmly, and wiped his eyes of salt water. “God damn it” he said looking up the beach.



End



Word Count- 3118