Conquering a Bloodthirsty Earth (Book 2): Vampire Lord 2 Read online

  Chapter 1

  New York City was not the place that I would have picked to ride out the apocalypse, but so far, I felt like I was handling it pretty well, especially since the apocalypse had turned me into a fucking vampire.

  Of course, it helped that the apocalypse had also trapped me in an apartment with my beautiful human girlfriend and her two equally pretty roommates.

  It had only been a few hours since all four of us managed to fight off the building superintendent who’d turned into a super-vamp, along with his two friends, and then Natalie and I had gone to her room to celebrate the victory by fucking like rabbits.

  Then we’d passed out in post-sexy time bliss, and I had just started to feel good about our situation when something suddenly slammed into the wall from the apartment beside us.

  I’d already kind of been awake, but Natalie awoke with a start and I raised my hand to instruct her to be silent.

  At first, I didn’t move. I just stayed exactly where I was on the bed next to her, and I waited for the sound to repeat itself or for my heightened vampire senses to smell or hear something else.

  “What was that?” Natalie finally whispered as softly as she could while she slipped her hand into mine.

  “It might be nothing,” I said. “Let me listen for a minute.”

  My beautiful girlfriend pressed her body up against mine but stayed silent while we waited for the sound to come again. Natalie stood so close to me that all I could smell at first was the sweet scent of her shampoo, but I closed my eyes to block out the smell of coconut so I could sniff out anything else on the floor of our building.

  Everything was silent now, so I hoped the sound was just some freak noise. Maybe my fight with the old building super-turned-vamp had loosened a picture off a wall, and it had finally decided to crash to the floor. It had been a few hours since our fight with Dan the Man and his two vampire friends, but I guessed it was possible.

  And I didn’t really want to think about the alternative.

  After all, it could just as easily be a bloodsucker that had snuck his way into the building and was now going from room to room to search for any remaining humans. And even though I still felt strong from Natalie’s blood, I wanted to avoid another fucking bloodbath if I could help it.

  I motioned for Natalie to put her clothes back on, and then we silently snuck out of her room and into the front of the apartment.

  “So how’s vampire sex?” Catherine called out from the kitchen as soon as we passed it.

  “Shh!” Natalie hissed.

  “Well, I think it’s a valid question,” Catherine muttered as she tossed her auburn hair over her shoulder.

  “Sam’s trying to listen,” my girlfriend whispered.

  “What’s up?” Erika asked from her usual spot on the couch.

  “Ooh, is something happening outside?” Catherine asked as she followed us to the living room

  “I heard a noise come from inside the building,” I whispered as I pointed to the back of our apartment where Nat’s room was.

  “Oh, shit,” Erika gasped.

  “I haven’t heard anything else for a couple minutes, so it might be fine.” It was a bit of a lie, but I didn’t want to freak them out until I had a chance to investigate.

  “I think fine might be a relative term,” Catherine said. “I mean, would you call any of that fine?”

  The auburn-haired girl nodded toward the window, and I followed her gaze down onto the streets of Brooklyn Heights. It was several hours after midnight, and things were definitely calmer than they had been. At least for the moment, there were fewer vampires out and about, and the screams that had filled the city for the last few days had died down for the most part.

  Of course, there were still plenty of drained human corpses on the street below, but they had mostly been stacked into neat piles of rotting flesh. So even though it was calmer, there was no chance that we could forget we were in the middle of a goddamn apocalypse.

  New York City had gone fucking crazy over the past few days, ever since the CDC and WHO doctors had told everyone to get vaccines to prevent the spread of AIDS. The disease had gone airborne, so most of the city had lined up without question to get the vaccine-- including me.

  We just hadn’t known that the vaccine would turn everyone who got it into a fucking bloodthirsty monster.

  I was lucky that I hadn’t lost my mind at any point after I turned into a vampire, since the city was full of vamps who had. The vaccine had turned all of us into bloodthirsty monsters, but we’d at least all still had control over ourselves at first.

  But then, as the number of humans in the city started to dwindle, more and more of the vampires had started to starve without any access to blood. And the more they starved, the more feral and animal-like they became.

  So I was just glad that I hadn’t ever run too low on blood. The girls’ blood allowed me to think rationally and control my actions, and it also kept me from becoming a total animal.

  “At least most of the corpses are old,” Erika said and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I mean, none of them look like they’re fresh, so maybe the vampires aren’t as active around here anymore?”

  “Did you already forget about Dan the Man?” Catherine laughed. “Don’t tell me your brain just decided to block that out.”

  “Well, I just thought maybe Dan and his friends were the last ones who would try this building,” Erika said.

  “It’s a nice thought,” Natalie said with a smile, “but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  Something slammed into the wall again, and this time, it was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

  All three girls jumped, and I immediately let the sheet fall back over the window. Just in case there were any vamps on the street, I didn’t want them to see the movements of my girlfriend or her roommates.

  “Shit,” I swore. “Okay, you three stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “We could go with you,” Catherine said. “Let me just grab my hand cannon.”

  “We can’t afford to use guns,” I said as I squeezed Natalie’s hand. “We already made enough noise with Dan and company, so we need to try to stay quiet.”

  “Well, we could still back you up,” the tall girl said and put a hand on her hip.

  “I appreciate that, but I need you all to stay safe and stay hidden,” I said. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

  “Be careful,” Natalie said, and then she reached up, grasped my face with her hands, and kissed me firmly on the mouth.

  “I will be,” I said.

  After I grabbed my Louisville slugger from on top of the fridge, I helped the girls move aside the barricade in front of the door, and then I quietly stepped out into the hallway.

  “Make sure you--”

  “Barricade the door behind you,” all three girls finished for me.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Natalie assured me.

  As I headed down the hall in the direction of the noise, I heard the scrape of furniture inside my girlfriend’s apartment, so I knew they had pulled the furniture back into place.

  There weren’t many apartments on this top floor of their building, so I moved quietly toward their neighbor’s door. I thought there was a chance it might be another human survivor, but that didn’t seem super likely. I just hoped it wouldn’t be any more bloodsucking children who liked to giggle and then try to rip your head off with their unnatural strength.

  I really hated baby vamps.

  The neighbor’s door was slightly open, so I adjusted my grip on the bat with one hand and carefully pushed it open the rest
of the way with my other hand. Now that I was closer, I heard other noises from inside the apartment, and they most definitely weren’t human.

  Someone was full-on slobbering from the other side of the door, and little scratching noises started to claw at the walls inside. There was another sound of breaking glass, followed by a shriek that ended in a little wail.

  I stepped into the apartment, grasped my bat with both hands, and moved forward into the kitchen.

  All the noises stopped as soon as I set foot in the kitchen, but I could smell the other vampire now. He didn’t smell quite as moldy as a dead vamp, but he definitely didn’t smell healthy. His scent was a little bit like dog shit that had just started to get crusty, and even though it made my nose burn, it also told me exactly where the asshole was.

  Right the fuck behind me.

  I whirled around with my bat raised high, and I swung it into his stomach before he even knew that I had sniffed him out. I pulled my bat back to hit him again, but the little fucker was faster than I thought, and he scuttled away into the living room.

  Yep. Kid vamp. God damn it. Looked like he was once fourteen or fifteen since he was small and lanky without any broad shoulders.

  While I tried to think of the best way to go after him, the vamp turned around and dropped onto all fours as he snarled at me. His eyes were so bloodshot that they were almost pure red, and he was covered in scabs that were all in various stages of infection, from angry red outlines to sores that oozed pus.

  “Well, I guess you’re one of the feral vamps,” I sighed. “I don’t suppose you can understand me?”

  The kid didn’t answer, and instead, he just ripped out a chunk of thin gray hair from his skull and flung it at me.

  “That sure as hell answers that question,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

  The scab-covered asshole suddenly launched himself forward, bounded across the living room, and leapt on top of the kitchen island in front of me. He eyed the bat in my hands nervously, so even though he was feral, he must have at least had enough of his brains left to know that a Louisville slugger would do some serious damage.

  I waited for him to make the first move, so as soon as the wild kid-vamp leaped toward me, I swung at him again, and this time, I caught him in the ankles, so he fell backward ass-first on top of the kitchen island. Then I brought the bat up again and slammed it onto his face, but it only half-crushed his skull, so one eye socket was still where it was supposed to be, while the other one was smashed somewhere underneath his broken cheekbone.

  Before I could finish him off, the scabby vamp twisted himself off the island and fell to the floor. He reached up to grab my shirt and then pulled me closer to his dog shit smell, so now he was too close for me to swing the bat at him with enough force to smash the rest of his skull.

  Instead, I glanced at the sink in the kitchen island and decided on a better plan.

  I dropped my bat and used both hands to grab the vamp’s hand on my shirt. I could feel how fragile the bones were underneath his thin skin, so I knew it had been a while since he last fed, and that meant he would be easier to break.

  I bent his hand backward toward his wrist until the scabby fucker cried out and released my shirt, but then I just twisted his hand back more sharply. The bones popped in his wrist, but the kid still managed to swing his other hand up at my face.

  I let go of his broken wrist and grabbed hold of his other hand, but the little fucker kneed me in the stomach, so I lost my grip. As the vamp turned to climb back up over the island, I snatched at the back of his shirt and pulled him down before he could scramble away again.

  I needed to incapacitate this motherfucker.

  I pushed him up against the island, grabbed his intact hand, shoved it down the garbage disposal, and flipped the on switch.

  As the blades of the disposal chopped into his hand, the vampire shrieked and struggled against me, but I held his arm in place as the smell of rotten meat filled the kitchen. Black blood sprayed up out of the disposal, along with little chunks of flesh and chipped bone.

  When I thought the blades had done enough damage to keep him from fighting anymore, I turned off the disposal and let him stumble backward. He clutched at his stump of a hand, and he might have screamed a little louder if half his skull hadn’t already been caved in.

  I grabbed my bat again, and this time, the vamp didn’t even struggle before I slammed a home run right into the side of his scabby face. He collapsed to the ground without a face, while dark blood and bits of brain matter dripped down my slugger and onto the floor beside him.

  I had definitely smashed his brains in, so since I knew that he was really dead, I wiped my bat off on the carpet and then headed back to the girls’ apartment.

  “It’s just me,” I said as I knocked on their door. “It’s safe.”

  Furniture scraped across the floor, and as soon as the barricade had moved, the girls let me in and then slid it right back into place. Natalie wrapped her arms around me, Erika looked on with concern in her pale green eyes, and even Catherine gave me a little playful shove.

  “You alright?” Catherine asked.

  “I know you weren’t gone long,” Natalie added, “but we heard all sorts of sounds, so…”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It was just one wild vamp, and I took care of him.”

  “See?” Catherine placed her hands on her hips. “I told you he was fine. Sam is a badass Blade vampire dude.”

  “You did not,” Erika laughed. “You were just as worried as the rest of us.”

  “I’m touched,” I said with a grin.

  “Yeah, well, I guess you’re not that bad to have around, Angel,” Catherine sighed.

  “Angel now?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “From Buffy!” the tall girl said. “Not because-- not for any other reason, okay?”

  “Sure, whatever you say,” I said with a smirk.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” my brunette girlfriend said and then finally released her grip on me. “Where could that wild vamp have come from?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but he probably smelled the three of you, and he was looking through the apartments one by one until he found you. He looked like he hadn’t fed much lately.”

  “You know, home is supposed to be the one place you do feel safe,” Catherine said.

  “Apparently, the vamps didn’t get that memo,” Erika said with a smile.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how much longer we can stay here,” I said. “I mean, we’ve got plenty of food to last us for a while, and we’ve got a good amount of ammo left, but sooner or later, we’re gonna have to get out of the city.”

  “You really think so?” Natalie asked and looked up at me with her wide blue eyes.

  “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “There are too many vamps, and between the wild ones and the ones who still have their brains, it’ll be too hard for me to protect all three of you here.”

  “Where would we go?” Erika asked.

  “And how would we get out of the city without being attacked?” Catherine added.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I do know that we need to find a place that’s less populated than fucking New York City.”

  “Yeah, I wonder how bad it is in other parts of the country,” Erika said as she adjusted her glasses on her face. “Like, if we had been in Maine or Ohio farmland or something, I wonder how bad the outbreak would have been.”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “You might have to try to do some research on that, Erika.”

  “I could probably do that,” the shy girl said with a little blush.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” Catherine said. “Even if the outbreaks were bad everywhere, there would sure as shit have been a lot less people in rural places, so there would have been a lot less bloodsuckers to deal with.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, “and that’s why I think we need to go to one of those rural places now. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get far
away from any vamps, and we’ll be able to set up some good defenses for whenever they show up.”

  “We might even be able to grow our own food,” Natalie said. “It’s not like our supplies will last forever, anyway.”

  “That’s also true,” I said. “So, do any of you have ideas about where we could go?”

  “Well…” Catherine hesitated and started to play with her thick auburn hair.

  “Well, what?” Natalie demanded.

  “It’s not close,” the auburn-haired girl continued, “but my family-- well, we have a ranch in Colorado. It’s like, I don’t know, something like twenty thousand acres of private property and cows and stuff, so… it might work for us.”

  “Twenty thousand?” I repeated.

  “Well, my family didn’t get rich off of nothing,” Catherine said with a shrug. “They own cattle and farmland out there, and that takes a lot of fucking land.”

  “Um, why am I only just hearing about this?” Erika asked. “We should definitely go there. That basically sounds perfect, right?”

  “Yeah, except for the small fact that Catherine doesn’t talk to her parents anymore,” Natalie said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “My dad kind of…” Catherine trailed off. “He’s just not a super nice person. You don’t get to be one of the wealthiest businessmen in the country by always playing nice, you know?”

  “He’s that rich?” I asked.

  “I don’t fucking know,” Catherine huffed. “We have a bunch of money, though.”

  “But you blocked his calls,” Natalie said. “And the calls from your mom, too.”

  “Well, he had certain ideas about the kind of woman he wanted me to be, and I-- I just didn’t fit into his plan,” Catherine said. “Eventually, things got bad enough between us that I figured it was just easier to cut all ties.”

  I had a feeling there might be more to Catherine’s story than she had said, but now wasn’t the time to explore that. I mostly just wanted to see if her family’s ranch would be a place where we could eventually set up camp.

  “I know this is probably hard,” I said, “but if we could get to your parents’ ranch, then we would really have a chance of riding this thing out.”