d michael: ***

Evad,wadup?hw d new year wan b nw?

I'm good o, been too busy to be here freq. no wahala sha, the new year go sweet die esp if you jam us another story lol
pm me your contact bro, lets connect

Obinnau: any update again today?

yes,bt i pray make my ba3 nr low b4 that tym sha.

Evad: I'm good o, been too busy to be here freq. no wahala sha, the new year go sweet die esp if you jam us another story lol
pm me your contact bro, lets connect

k nw.07035474018.

Damn interesting,kudos d micheal,you realy let your imagination run riot.officialy making you my role model...more charges to your batteries!

Nice write up! Makes me feel like am reading a sidney sheldon! The way u juxaposed words and combine sequence of scenes leaves one spell bound! If u did infact write this! I beg you to take up writing as a profession and if this is plaigerism, sir pls what book is this and who is the author

The rest of my team emptied their subguns into the creature as it closed on them. Holly and Trip started to reload and Lee drew his knife and swung wildly. The vampire moved so quickly that it was hard to visually track. It deflected the blow, grabbed Lee by his arm and tossed him across the room. I heard the smaller man skid roughly across the floor.

The vampire was distracted from Trip and Holly as heavy.308 bullets struck it in the feet and legs.
Julie's cover was torn away as the sailor thing grabbed the bunk and ripped it from the wall, easily breaking the heavy bolts. It reached for her but I got there first. I swung my ganga ram with all of the fury that I possessed. Somehow it sensed me in midswing, and started to move. I had been aiming for its neck, but instead my blade sunk deep into its shoulder, breaking the collarbone and grinding out against the top of the monster's ribs. Black fluid sprayed everywhere like a pierced hydraulic cylinder.
Spinning away, the creature ripped my blade from my grasp. The vampire flew backwards, and stuck to the wall like a spider. Screeching in anger, it reached up, grasped the hilt of the massive blade and drug it out of its back. The noise of steel scrapping on bone was sickening. The blade dropped to the floor with a clatter. I heard the near simultaneous dropping of bolts as Trip and Holly got their UMPs back in action. Julie was reloading. Lee wasn't moving.


I reached for a specialty 12 gauge round, dropped it into the open chamber of my 870, and ran the pump forward.
The wound was already sealing. It hissed something obviously profane in unclear words.
"Take this, mother- fucker."
It leapt at me, launching itself like a demon frog missile. I brought the shotgun up and pulled the trigger as the muzzle contacted the vampire's chest.
A regular breaching round is used by police to safely break the locks or hinges on heavy doors during raids, which fragments without endangering any bystanders. The 3-inch magnum 12 gauge sintered magnesium breaching charge that I had just fired had been designed for blowing through hinges suitable for bank vaults. Milo had told me that, during testing, this special breacher had put a basketball- sized hole through a side of beef.
The recoil was amazing, even by my standards. The noise was going to leave all of us with ringing ears for a week. The vampire's torso exploded in a black mist.
The creature's momentum carried it into me, we both crashed to the floor, rolling and thrashing. Entrails were spilling everywhere. Its legs were kicking on the ground, but its top half kept fighting. I pushed it off as it clawed at me and rolled away. Trip and Holly responded by pouring two full magazines of.45 caliber silver into the thrashing monstrosity, riddling it with holes. As soon as they ran dry, Julie charged the torso. She placed one heavy boot on the creature's neck, raised a sharpened stake high over her head and, with a cry, slammed it through the evil black heart.
A fountain of black ooze shot into the air and the hideous shrieks pierced us to the bone. Julie was splattered, but undaunted. The vampire was twitching, but could barely move. She held her hand out. "Big knife."


Grabbing my ganga ram from the floor I limped over. I handed it over hilt first. The knife was huge, but she was a strong woman. She swung it back with one hand like she was clearing brush with a machete, then struck. There was a thud and the screaming finally stopped. The head rolled free. She kicked it in disgust.
"Reload. There's more where that came from. Lee, you still with us?" Julie said. She wiped the knife blade on her leg and handed it back over, mouthing the word "thanks." She looked deadly serious covered in vampire gore and illuminated by powerful flashlights.
"I'm okay. Ow, damn," Lee said as Trip helped him to his feet. He sounded weak and raspy. "I think I broke a rib."


"Take it easy for a sec. Holly, cover the other doorway. Keep it on white light. Our vision is shot, and the lights disorient them."

I speed-reloaded the shotgun. I did not dare load any more breaching rounds since they were useless past contact distance. "Anybody see my pistol?"
Lee handed it to me, rough, but undamaged. I changed magazines and reholstered. I shined my light on the vampire's body. The flesh was slowly bubbling and melting into a tarlike substance, leaving only sticky bones. The eyeless skull appeared to be watching me.

"So that's a Master vampire. They aren't so tough," I said.
Julie surprised us all by laughing. It was a genuine sound of merriment, and was totally out of place in the present situation. She paused in cleaning the slime off enough to look at all of us poor comfused Newbies. She shook her head and smiled.
"That was just a baby." All of the Newbies had some choice words at that. Holly swore so creatively that it was almost poetry.


"Masters can move so fast you can't hardly see them. They can eat a stack of Bibles and wash it down with a lit Molotov cocktail. This guy was probably turned in the last week. Abnormally quick regeneration, but the more powerful the creator, the stronger the creation. Whatever started this mess was one bad son of a gun. It would have to be to create those wights to serve as daylight guardians too."
Satisfied that she could see again, Julie pointed toward Holly and the passage to the engine room. "Mike on point again. Trip, stay by Lee and help him if he needs it. Holly, you bring up the rear. If we come across more vamps, stop, then throw in some grenades first. All right, let's move."


I took my place at the door, light stabbing ahead, searching for targets. Julie took the second position.

"Hey, if we don't die in the next few minutes, are you doing anything for dinner tonight?"
She thumped me in the shoulder to indicate that it was time to move out. I took that as a no. I moved quickly, the light from the flashlights behind threw my hulking shadow down the hall. I had pulled something in my leg in the struggle with the vampire. My head and chest ached from my earlier adventure in the water. My stomach and throat hurt from all of the heaving. My nerves tingled with adrenaline.I was having a great time and had never felt more alive.
Finally a voice came over the radio. It was Harbinger.
"Lights coming near the engine room. Who is it?"
"Hold your fire. It's me and the Newbie team," Julie answered.
"Stop where you are. There's a mess of hostiles about thirty feet from your position through the door on your left. We're at the end of the hall on the other side of that. Why ain't you up top?"
It was good to hear Harbinger's voice. I pointed my shotgun at the indicated compartment. Anything that came through that portal was going to get a hail of bullets.

"We lost radio contact after you got ambushed. The deck got swarmed with wights. We killed them, but the boat crew wasn't going to stick around, and the Hind was low on fuel. The Newbies did good, only minor injuries. We decided to come find you guys. I thought for a minute we had lost you, Ed," Julie answered.
"Nope. But Jack lost a man. Roberts got swarmed in the ambush. We have some others wounded, but nothing critical. It was bad.


There had to be at least twenty vamps. And they set the lights to blow when they attacked." His voice sounded tired and ragged.
"That doesn't sound right. Undead don't coordinate," she said.
"These do. It was planned. We killed most of them, and the rest are holed up in that engine compartment. There are at least five."
"Fire?" Juliet asked, sounding hopeful.
"Negative. Fuel storage is through there. Same with explosives. We set anything off in that room and we're swimming home. Plus the room that Darné and his men are locked in is on the other side of where the vamps are."
"Plan?" she asked.
"I haven't figured that out yet. We can go in shooting. But if we do we might hit a steam line and cook us all, or we might hit the boiler and blow a hole in the bottom of the ship. Either way we're running out of time. We got another coded message from the French Hunters. The vamps are trying to break into their compartment.....wait a second."
I did not turn to look. I kept my muzzle on the door. We had a great position. Both groups of Hunters could fire with impunity into the doorway, and the angles were such that the chances of ricocheting a shot into the other team were virtually nil. Trip and Holly both squeezed around me so that they would have a shot as well. The injured Lee watched our backs and Julie stayed on the radio. The walls and floor vibrated slightly from the powerful engine nearby.
While we waited for
Harbinger to get back to us, I could not help but ask, "Did any of you guys know Roberts?"
"He was the tall, skinny, blond guy on the boat," Trip said. "Seemed like a good guy."
"He was a great guy. Brave. A little crazy, but he was a damn good Hunter," Julie told us.

We finally arrived at the engine room after heavy fighting and sustaining various injuries.

The famous French hunter Jean Darné stood before us, tall and imposing in his black body armor that differed only slightly from our own. He was a legend. Considered one of the greatest Hunters the Europeans had, he had hunted more monsters in more places than probably anybody but Edward Harbinger. His team was well respected, and he was considered by many to be the best of the best.
He was also currently dead. As were the four other members of his team standing to his side.
"We have been waiting for you," the vampire said.

Am loving this

suspense aye!!!

keep it up

feed us more

d michael! U are frustrating me wit this suspense...wot do u need to keep dis flowing consistently,i cn help in editing u knw

keep up d gud work

I knw d suspense is killing bt dat wat makes it a block buster.

I only write 2 please u gys.

Woooooooowwww!!!! D michael, one word --------amazing.. This is one of the best works i've seen on NL..

This can only come out of an amazing brain that carries priceless thoughts and boundless imaginations..Kudos man..

***Waiting for the next scene** Those vamps are something else mehn!!! Lmao @ "We have been waiting for you"..

Hmmm now 5 vamp hunters have been turned, that can only mean one thing TROUBLE. Waiting to see how pitt and his cohorts will escape here! #Dmichael you be baba now.

None of us moved. The vampire and his four wights stood separated from the Hunters only by one narrow doorway. Julie and I were closest. For some reason the vampire did not move. The wights made chewing motions and stood tensed, ready to pounce. Their red eyes studied us hungrily. They were all wearing the same black body armor.

Darné smiled at us, showing off his elongated incisors. He absently rapped his knuckles on the metal hatchway. S-O-S.

"Well, if it is not little Juliet Shackleford. My, how you have grown up," Darné said. "You are the image of your mother, an absolutely lovely woman. What a pleasure."
"The pleasure is all yours, Jean," she answered. She shifted her rifle slightly. The two of us were blocking the doorway. The undead were close enough to smell. I did not think I could move fast enough to get away. It would only take a single touch from one of those wights to end up paralyzed.


"Now, now, little girl. Do not try anything hasty. The only thing holding back my 'men' is my will. They are bonded to me. If I lose concentration for an instant your team is doomed." He would have been a very handsome man when he was alive, suave and distinguished with just a touch of gray at his temples and in his thin moustache; his English was impeccable. I'm sure he could have been quite the charmer except for the whole evil vampire thing and the four undead pit-bull dudes standing beside him.

"So why didn't you make your move? You could have just charged us immediately and taken us by surprise." I could tell Julie was trying to buy some time. But I wasn't sure what exactly she was hoping for.
"Americans have no flair for the dramatic.Always straightforward." He snapped his long fingers. "I want to make a deal."
"We don't deal with vampires," she stated flatly.
"But you have made deals with monsters before. The truth of that is undeniable. I want to make a deal with you. I will let you live, and I will give you important information, in exchange for safe passage from this ship after sunset."


"Except the monsters that we have made deals with don't leave a trail of bodies wherever they go. I can't do that to the world," Julie spoke softly. One of my teammates moved slowly behind me.
"So naïve, girl. Your father would be ashamed. He was such a practical man. He would make a deal with the devil for the right cause. Order your man to stop what he is doing or I release these wights. You don't want to try to toss a grenade in here. There are thousands of gallons of fuel and vapor in these pipes. You would kill your whole team and the others as well."


Julie shook her head. "No explosives. Okay, Jean. Let's talk. But leave my parents out of it."
"Fair enough." The movement behind me stopped. The vampire continued, "Your team will go to the bridge, pull up the anchor and set course for the mainland. Then you will leave this ship."
"How do you know we won't walk out of here and just sink the ship?" Julie asked.
"Because I will keep you as a hostage. Your uncle is running this operation. He will do anything to protect you. I will let you go free when we run aground."
Julie laughed coldly. "And I'm supposed to believe you? You would bite me as soon as the helicopter lifted off. Screw you, Jean."
"Now, young one, please, I did not choose this path, but I am a survivor. I just want to live."
"If you can call that living."
"Do not be so quick to judge. You of all people must wonder about this life. It is marvelous. I fought the darkness for so many years. I did not know what I was missing. I can see everything, Juliet. I can feel your pulse from here. I can feel the world." The vampire was beginning to wax poetic. I had to try something.
"Hey, Jean," I interrupted. "The girl's hardheaded. I'm willing to talk business."
"Your standards are slipping. When did MHI start hiring gorillas?" the vampire asked wryly, glancing in my direction. His red eyes bored into me.
"Owen? What are you doing?"
"Shut up," I snapped at her. "I don't want to die here. You can keep the girl. I'll go up and pull up the anchor and point this ship at Florida. Old man Ed isn't going to want anything to happen to this chick. We will leave."
"A sensible one. You must be new, yes?"
"Yeah, I'm just a mercenary. I'm just in this for the money," I lied.

Moisture dripped onto my helmet and rolled hotly down my spine.
"Ahh, good." The vampire steepled his fingers.
"Now you said you had some valuable information. Just what are we talking about, Frenchy? Valuable means something that I can use." I had no idea if vampires were good judges of character.
"I can tell you about the six old ones, and their leader. They are on your country's soil now."

And what about the Cursed One?" I ordered.
The four wights shrieked in chorus. Darné shrinked.
"How do you know of Lord Machado?" The vampire hissed the name.
"Never mind. Now if you want the girl, I want to know what he's here for."
"Very well then. But it is your doom. Lord Machado has the artifact. He will take it to a Place of Power and he will use it. You cannot stop him. No mortal can stop him."

"Look, Jean, I don't want to stop him. I just want to make sure I end up on the winning team. Know what I mean?"
The vampire smiled. "I can help you then. You do not want to be on the wrong side when Lord Machado rules. Do we have a deal?"
Julie interrupted angrily. "Mike? What the hell are you thinking? No deals with vampires; he'll kill me as soon as you walk out the door."
"Shut up, bitch!" I snarled. I move very fast for a big man. In the next second, I dropped my shotgun, letting the sling catch it. I lifted my right hand as if I was going to backhand her. Julie's eyes widened in shocked surprise. The vampire's eyes followed my uplifted hand, as my left hand lifted a grenade off of my pouch.
Everything happen in slow motion.


I brought my hands together smoothly. Instead of throwing my fist, I stuck my finger through the safety pin and pulled. The sound of the pin landing on the steaming floor was exceedingly loud.
"Run, Julie. Run now." I held the live grenade up next to my face. The only thing keeping the grenade from exploding was the thin spring-loaded metal spoon that I was holding down with one finger. If I relaxed my grip the fuse would ignite. Five seconds later it would explode, and possibly ignite the engine room in a massive explosion. Julie did not say anything. She nodded and then retreated. The rest of the team followed quickly. I shouted one final instruction: "Get ready to abandon ship!"
"You idiot!" the vampire roared. The wights hissed and thrashed in unison. "You will destroy us all!"
"Better my way than yours, you snail-eating bastard." I started slowly backing away. The wights exploded from the room and spread out in a skirmish line, snapping and clawing at the air. Jean Darné stepped through the portal and strode forward. In the residual steam and in the red emergency lights he looked like the traditional versions of the devil. So this must be hell.


"Give me the grenade," he ordered. Darné locked his eyes on mine. Shivers ran down my spine, though the room temperature was running around a hundred and thirty degrees.
"Oh, I'll give it to you all right."

"I compel you. Hand me the grenade, safely." The red eyes bored into mine. The words repeated themselves in my conscious mind, and burrowed into my subconscious like tendrils. I felt myself starting to comply. The wights began to inch closer. My vision began to darken.
"NO!" I shouted, shaking my head wildly. The wights shrank back.
"You have a strong will, ape man, but it won't do you any good. Give me that grenade. You do not want to die."
"Neither do you! Stay back!" I waved the grenade in front of me. A grenade was my holy symbol.Great.

"Maybe I should just take it. I am greater than you can understand. The greater the creator, the greater the creation. My creator was the greatest of them all." Darné's devil visage continued to advance.
"If you think you're fast enough, come and get it." I backed into something solid, the escape ladder leading to the cargo bay, forty feet of iron rungs standing in the middle of the crowded room between me and safety. I knew that Darné would never let me make it to the corridor.
"You are not leaving me with any choice, human," the vampire hissed. He stopped, less than ten feet away. His wights stopped alongside of him, two on each side. There was about a yard between each of the creatures. An image of black steel plates popped unbidden into my mind.
It had to be fate.
I kept my left arm extended with the grenade. I reached down with my right and grasped the stock of my shotgun. I had fired this gun hundreds and thousands of times, practiced until my fingers had bled and my shoulder formed thick recoil calluses.

My father, the ruthless perfectionist, had driven me hard when it came to shooting, because he sensed that I had a gift and would not settle for anything less than perfection in his sons. The wood was worn smooth under my glove. The Remington glistened darkly with moisture from the steam. I brought the butt into contact with my shoulder. My life came down to this instant. I needed to beat my record.
"Catch!" I tossed the grenade to Darné. The spoon released with a metallic sproing, igniting the fuse. The vampire moved as a blur to snatch the grenade out of the air. The wights mindlessly tracked the moving object. For me, time ceased.


The gun and I were one seamless melding of man and machine. The safety was released as my finger knowingly sought the trigger. The muzzle rose perfectly. The trigger was pulled. The sear released.The hammer fell. The firing pin struck the primer. The powder burned.

I was bringing the muzzle onto the second wight's head before the buckshot struck the first. Fire. Work the action. Repeat. Five shots. Faster than I had ever gone before. The fusillade was a continuous roar without pause. I did not miss any of the five undead craniums.
Dropping the shotgun onto its sling, I grabbed the ladder and started to climb as fast as I humanly could. I did not wait to watch for results. I heard thuds as some of the wights fell to their backs, or collapsed to their knees.

Darné had been a Monster Hunter for longer than I had been alive. He knew what to do with live ordnance in a bad place. He had caught, and then immediately launched the grenade with a pitch that would have made any major league pitcher proud, right through the doorway and into the corridor. He did that even as my silver buckshot pellets penetrated his skull.
The grenade hit the corridor wall and rolled away, now belching orange signal smoke. It was a harmless smoke grenade.
Darné screamed as the silver burned him. "Kill him! KILL HIM!"
Two of the wights shrugged off their shattered skulls and damaged brain tissues, leapt to their feet and charged. The first began to climb after me as the second jumped onto one of the engines and began to climb up the metal surface like a spider. One wight had its eyes put out and stumbled blindly for the ladder, searching for me by smell. The last had its spinal cord severed and was flopping wildly as random impulses fired from its undead brain. I climbed as fast as I could, legs pumping, arms grasping and pulling with all of the desperate strength I could muster.

The wights were far faster.
I was halfway up the ladder when the first wight clawed at my boot. Grabbing the shotgun, I fired a single round straight down between my feet. The creature's hand exploded on impact and it fell toward the ground. The blind wight quickly took its place, scurrying after me. The wall crawler matched my pace, and launched itself at the ladder. There was barely time to swing around to the other side as it crashed into the slick steel bars. I dangled over the floor as it wildly tore at me. One paralyzing touch and I was dead. I swung the shotgun like a club, smashing the wight in the face. It tore my weapon away, ripping through the sling as it fell to the deck. I slipped on a wet rung, and then forced myself to start climbing again.
Darné caught my Remington in one hand.
He expertly pumped the weapon, aimed it at me and fired. The buckshot slammed into my armored chest, knocking me back. I grunted in pain, but the silver pellets stopped against the woven Kevlar. My gloves slipped on the wet steel, and I toppled backwards in flailing panic. My knee wrenched painfully as I crashed upside-down into the ladder. I hung suspended, my boot wedged under one rung, and my knee bent over the top of another, like an insane acrobat.

The blood rushed to my head, and I watched as Darné pumped the shotgun, aimed it right between my eyes and pulled the trigger.
Nothing. The click was the loudest sound in the world. That had been my seven shots.
The blind wight surged upwards, sensing my warm blood. Still facing down, I swung my fist and shattered its undead face. The creature was knocked aside and fell. Instantly my hand went numb, and coldness rippled up my arm. I grunted as I did an upside-down sit-up, grabbed the rung above me with my left hand, and pulled. My right arm hanging limply and my knee throbbing in pain, I kept pulling myself along; push up one rung, lean in, reach up for the next one, repeat.
My shotgun shattered as it ricocheted spectacularly off of the rail next to my head. Darné had a good throw.
"That was my favorite gun!" I bellowed as I kept inching nearer to the hatch. I now had a wight on the ladder below, rapidly gaining, and two more scaling the wall to pounce on me. The hatch was still ten feet away.
"You should have taken my offer," the vampire roared.



He jumped impossibly high and landed on the ladder directly below me. The metal shook under the impact. Hot water droplets flew off and struck me in the face. Three wights and a vampire in striking distance in the next few seconds. I just kept climbing because that was my only option. I was pretty much screwed.



Then the hatch opened, directly above my head. It was my savior.
It was Grant Jefferson.

Juliet's boyfriend.

yeh!!! suspense to bad gan!
Please post tonight! I beg u!

yeeeh! WIll GRANT PUT SENTIMENT ASIDE AND HELP A COMERADE? OR WILL HE JUST WATCH ON AND SEE A RIVAL ELIMINATED? TIME WILL TELL! #Dmichael you be baba now

"Grant! Help me!" I screamed, clawing my way toward him.
His eyes grew wide as he saw the undead creatures swarming upwards. He started to hold out his hand to me, and then he apparently decided that he did not have time before the creatures would be on him as well. I could see the fear register on his face as he did the mathmatics.


They were too close. Grant stood in his polished black body armor, bristling with useful weaponry, and said two words: "Sorry, Pitt." He looked right at me as he slammed the hatch.


"Arrgghhhh!" I shouted unintelligibly. Darné laughed below. I stuck one of my legs through the ladder to lock myself into position as well as possible. I reached across my body and drew my pistol with my left hand, sighted on the closest wight spider-crawling upward, and shot it in the head four times before it slipped from the wall and fell thirty-five feet onto its back with a bone-jarring crunch. The other wall crawler leapt, and I just barely had time to align the front sight on the monster before impact, firing a silver slug through the monster's brain. The wight's momentum carried it forward where it struck one of my legs. It fell away screaming in rage. Darné easily avoided the falling undead, but the blind wight underneath was not so lucky. The two monsters collided and fell the rest of the way to the hard metal floor. This time they did not rise. My now-numb leg buckled, and I only barely held on.
Now it was just me and Darné. He flew up the ladder. I fired the remaining ten rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hit him repeatedly but with almost no effect. I dropped the pistol, and he swatted it out of the air. I watched hopelessly as it flew into multiple pieces.

I grasped wildly for my knife, but it was too late. He was beside me on the ladder.
His clawed hand clamped around my throat like an iron vise, choking off my air. A bullet hole in his forehead closed and squeezed out a mushroomed.45 slug like some disastrous pimple. I learned a few things right then.

Vampires did not breathe, and I was in fact still afraid of dying. I was surprised that I was thinking about Juliet. I just hoped that she made it.
"Tell me just one thing, you poor brave idiot," the vampire ordered as he shook me. "How did you know about Lord Machado? How?"
"I went to France once," I gasped.


"And what does that have to do with anything?" Darné asked, fangs extending as he prepared to feed on me. I wondered if I had the strength to break free long enough to fall to my death. It beat the alternative.
"My family went there to see where one of my grandpas was buried. He died in Paris."
"How touching. Now, if you tell me how you learned about Lord Machado, I'll make your death painless."
"I learned that the people in the countryside were pretty nice. But the people in Paris were a bunch of stuck-up, self-righteous pricks. I'm guessing you're from Paris."


"Idiot." Darné's jaw distended as his mouth opened like an anaconda about to eat a goat.
"Darné!" a voice shouted from below.

It was Edward Harbinger. He strode into the engine room through the swirling orange smoke.
The vampire's mouth slowly closed. "Hello, Ed. It has been a while."
"Come down here and face me. You know you're not going to get out of here alive. MHI controls the whole ship. Your goons are all staked. It's over."


"I have your man as a hostage. Let me go, or I kill him," the vampire hissed.
"You know the rules. You helped write them. Let him go and come down here and fight me. You know you've wanted to prove something for a long time. Let's go. Either way you're going to die. At least this way you get the satisfaction of seeing if I am as good as they say."
"And what if I just kill this piece of shit?" He squeezed so hard that the vertebrae in my neck popped. I cringed in pain, and involuntary tears rolled from my eyes.
"Then I'll have my men at the hatch above you throw down buckets of holy water. I'll just stake you while you're laying on the ground and sizzling. Or even better, I'll tie you up and drag you into the sun. You've seen it. You know how much that has to hurt.

I swear that if you kill that Hunter then I'll drag you out of here and nail you to the superstructure and watch you burn. I figure you can probably go a while before you finally quit kicking." Harbinger unbuckled his armor straps and set his weapon harness on the deck. "Just you and me, Darné. One last go-round."
"How do I know you don't have ten Hunters waiting in the hall?"
"You don't. But you know my reputation."
"I do. Fine, Ed. Let us see who the best Hunter really is." The vampire released me and I dropped, barely managing to grab a rail. Darné let go and fell swiftly to the floor, landing as if it was nothing.


The two combatants squared off in the red light and steam. I watched in amazement as Harbinger began to circle. He was just a normal man, maybe two thirds of my weight, and in training he had never given any indication of having any sort of special fighting skills. On the other hand, I had just watched Darné perform several superhuman feats and smash my pistol into bits with his bare hands. This did not look good for Harbinger.


The hatch creaked open above me. Strong hands reached through and grasped the handles of my armor. The smell of tobacco told me that it was Sam Crespley. He hung upside-down through the hatch and scanned the room. He saw Harbinger and Darné preparing to fight.

"Oh hell. We've got to get out of here!" Sam blurted. He tugged on me and grunted. "Help me, you huge idiot! You're too damn heavy."
"What about Harbinger?" I asked in a panic.
"Don't worry about Earl. He'll be fine. You don't want to be around him when he gets into one of his moods. Now move, damn it!" I struggled up the ladder with Sam pulling me. More hands grasped my arms and helped. Chuck Mead was there as well. The two burly men pulled me into the cargo bay.

Sam threw the hatch down and spun the wheel to seal it behind us.
The cargo bay was much cooler. The steel of the floor was cold under my face. I lay there for a minute, panting, as the feeling painfully returned to my arm and leg. I could not understand what had just happened. Ed Harbinger had just given up his life for mine. I was sure that Darné was tearing him to pieces as we sat here uselessly. I gradually pulled myself to a sitting position, my back resting against a sheet-metal shipping container, my stomach clenched in agony, and my knee ached as I moved it.
"We have to help him."

"Trust me, Pitt. Earl's fine. Too late to do nothing now anyways. Let's get up to the deck."
"What's a weather deck?" Mead asked with a blank stare. The big Ranger was splattered with blood, and there appeared to be claw marks on his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.


"I'm unarmed. Darné broke my guns," I stated as Mead pulled me up.
"And that's a sorry state to be in. Here. Take this thing. The French guys don't need it no more." Sam handed me a French FAMAS bullpup assault rifle. It was a slightly unwieldy and strange- looking weapon, but it would have to do. "The crew, security team and Hunters have all been accounted for. We should be clear, but you never make no assumptions in this business. Let's move."

As we made our way out of the cargo bay, I could not help but ask, "Where is Grant?"
Sam scowled, his handlebar mustache scrunching in consternation; he finally spit a nasty clump of chew and shrugged. "Reckon I don't know. Probably in the light."
"He left me to die," I said hotly.
"Yep. I figured as much. Some folks are brave when others are watching them, but it is harder to be brave when there ain't no witnesses. Grant's never played on us before. He probably figured you were dead anyway, no use getting killed for no reason. I reckon that Ed will want to talk with him about that."


"Yeah. Me too." I cracked my knuckles. I had murder in my heart and it must have been obvious to Sam. He just smiled.
"Just don't kill him. We're short- handed as it is," the former SEAL pointed out. "Plus then Julie would probably shoot you, and you don't want to mess with her." Sam pointedly went back to his radio traffic, warning the others that we were coming out. I could not listen along. Somewhere along the line my radio had been broken.
The daylight was beautiful. The breeze was cool and refreshing. I was surprised at how low the sun was on the horizon. We had been in the dark bowels of the ship forever. It felt good to be alive. Almost all of the Hunters were milling around on the deck. Jack's team was somber near the sheet-draped body of their lost man. My team was there. Holly and Trip rushed to me, hugging me and slapping me on my back. Lee was lying on some blankets, his shirt off and thick bandages encircling his chest. He shouted my name and clapped. Julie was there as well. She quit giving orders long enough to run over and grab me by my armor.

"I'm sorry we couldn't come back for you. There were more of them in the corridor waiting for us. We got jumped. I'm sorry. How did you make it?" She looked really happy to see me. The feeling was mutual.
"Ed saved me. I think he's dead."
"Nope. I just talked to him on the radio. He is on his way up and he has Darné's skull as a souvenir."
"How?" I asked in surprise. My spirit lifted upon hearing that bit of news.
"Like I said. Ed is the best Hunter alive. Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're okay. I thought for sure that you were dead…" She paused. "That was really brave. Stupid, but brave. Thank you."
I blushed.
"No big deal."She patted my arm.


"I've got to go inspect the cargo and make sure nothing is damaged before I contact the clients. You stay here and get some food and something to drink. You look like crap."
She signaled for a few of the others to go with her. Nobody was going to go anywhere alone on this tub. I watched her walk away. Even coated in dried vampire juices, she was the prettiest girl I had ever known.

Trip interrupted my reverie by handing me a can drink and a energy bar. I scarfed them down as he gave me the blow by blow of their last vampire encounter. I sat on a crate of grenades and listened to my friends. What it all came down to was this: it did not matter what high tech gear we had, or what weapons, or even what training. It came down to the friends that stood by our side, and our will to fight for them. It felt really good to be alive right then, I would stand with these people any day, and I knew that they would stand by me.
I started to tell them about my close encounter with Darné when I heard a voice. I stopped instantly, leaving the others regarding me curiously.


Lumbering to my feet, I limped with resolute purpose in the direction of that voice. That smarmy, prideful, movie-star voice. I bent my head from side to side and cracked my neck and back, an old habit that I had picked up in my bouncing days. I used to do that before beating down rowdy drunks.
"Hey, Grant," I said cooly as I approached him.

oyaa legoo....hope u tich DAT a55hole sum leson

Harbinger must b high on some vampire weeds to face n conquer a master vampire ... ride on bro

monachy: this grant must b high on some vampire weeds to face n conquer a master vampire ... ride on bro this grant must b high on some vampire weeds to face n conquer a master vampire ... ride on bro

Was it grant that faced a master vampire?

Wase20019:
Was it grant that faced a master vampire?

nah.trust me darne was nt a master.masters are really bad dudes.

Am having a hunch that that wimp will eventually lose juliet to pitt. Breathtaking work! A real page scroller! Lolz...#dmichael u be baba now

phranklyn92: Am having a hunch that that wimp will eventually lose juliet to pitt. Breathtaking work! A real page scroller! Lolz...#dmichael u be baba now

2much bro.as 4 pitt and grant,their mata na FBI own.

amazing just amazing. Reading your story is one of the main reasons I got motivation to try out my own. Finally, a decent well written and polished action/adventure/drama story written by a fellow nigerian that I can enjoy. Keep it Up! And it would be cool to swing by and check out mine though am just starting. some advice would be nice. Well done bro!

No probs dude.

(In eddy murphy's voice)Good mrnin my neighbours.

d michael: No probs dude.

(In eddy murphy's voice)Good mrnin my neighbours.

...*also in eddy murhy's voice* Yes! Yes! Bleep you too!

Evad: wow wow wow!!!
This is the most wow update yet, Me likey.
Now to the million dollar question→will this amazing story see the light of 2014 or it will be ended today?

nah bro.actually.......

WE 'RE JUST GETTING STARTED.