The Ballad of a Drifter

After finishing her meal she excused herself and went to the ladies. I knew that all the food was going down the toilet but it would help her take her mind off the urges that were starting to rise in her guts. I paid and left the dinner to wait by the car, smoking a cigarette. I could see the old couple sitting by a window. They looked back at me. I threw the cigarette butt and lit another one. The old couple was still staring at me. The white mobile home was sitting there in the middle of the parking. Its door was ajar. I walked to it. When I got close a strong rotting smell hit me. I took out my gun and rushed back towards the dinner but I knew it was already too late.

The old couple was still sitting in their booth, their cold coffee mugs left untouched in front of them. Heavy panting was coming from the kitchen. The cheap neon light flickered in the narrow room. As I rushed in the small kitchen I nearly stumbled upon a man, the cook probably, sitting on the floor holding his guts in his hands, a look of disbelief in his now dead eyes. Behind him, on the aluminium work surface the redhead waitress, her pink uniform torn open was slowly dying from blood loss. Her pale skin was covered in multiple tiny parallel punctures wounds. In the middle of this chaos a tall Albino looked at me. On her knees, covered with the waitress' blood, Mary was avidly sucking on his dick.

"Hello Jack! It´s been a while, how are your daughter and wife?" The Albino said in a terrible laugh.

I raised the Glock, took my time to aim, and shot three bullets in his head. I knew this wouldn't stop him but it would at least give me some time.

I grabbed Mary by the arm and pulled her away from the Albino. Reluctantly she cowered under my arm and followed me through the restaurant. The old couple started to stand. Once again my gun spoke, twice, throwing them back in their respective seats. I couldn't have them helping the albino regenerate and technically they were already dead, they just didn't know it. I threw Mary in my car and walked to the mobile home. I kicked the reservoir open, tossed a cloth into it and lit the vehicle on fire.

The night sky lit in my rearview mirror when the vehicle exploded. I know they tell you that cars only explode in movies but I can guarantee you that, in my experience, fuel, the enclosed space of the gas tank and fire do make a great firework combination. Mary looked completely lost. She stared at me and started working my zipper. I slapped her. Taken of guard her head bounced against the window, sending her into a forced sleep.

Time was already of the essence if I wanted to save her and the Albino had made it even more urgent to get rid of her maker. The Albino... A tough son of a bitch... I thought I had killed him. I had tried once but this time I would do it properly.

4.

My wife and I had studied in Harvard; that´s actually were we had met. I had majored in political science and she had in economics. We were both so proud to have our daughter follow our footsteps. But the last time I had been there my mind wasn't focused on academics honors.

The scheme run by the Albino and his nest was a pretty simple one: he had overtaken a secret society and was recruiting into the brightest and most beautiful members of the surrounding fraternities and sororities. By the time I caught up with him he had already turned 14 future highly productive members of the society and constituted a steady harem of over seven hundred students. The girl who had destroyed my life had been a mistake, an newly born monster who hadn't controlled her feeding and had hidden her mishap from his master. From the shadows I had done what I had been paid to do all my life: observe, assess and destroy.

Every week or so, they would gather in the secret´s society not so secret HQ to discuss potential candidates and ravel in bloody orgies. Planting the bombs had proven a bit more complicated than expected as I had been captured and invited to the secret meeting as the main course. At the moment I was so desperate that, in total disregard to my own life, I had managed to set the bombs off in the middle of the orgy. The Albino directing the festivities had taken the full blast of the explosion. A falling wall had saved me from it. I had dug up myself and fled the scene before the authorities had arrived and disappeared into the crowd.

A few papers I had found during my investigation had allowed me to spot and take out the financers behind the Albino. When the dust had settled I was the last man standing and I had thought that I had ridden the US from this scourge. Apparently I was wrong.

5.

"Mommy?"

"Yes?"

"Do we really have to kill him?"

"You know we do..."

"I'm so sorry Mommy, I never meant this to happen."

"I know, don't worry now."

Mary was sound asleep when I reached the warehouse in the early lights of the morning. I loaded the trunk with enough firepower to lower a little mountain. As a matter of fact, it was exactly what I had planned to do.

Over the years in the operations I had planned many assassinations, some made to look as accidents, others as a political clean statement, other still as a nasty warning for those who dared challenge the US. Most of the time, I had succeeded. One thing I had learned was that the more complex the plan the higher the chances of failure. The time had come for me to get back into business again. I had the monsters in my target once and I had failed. That was a luxury I couldn't afford again.

I locked Mary in a small walk in fridge used to store special compounds. I knew that cold wasn't an issue for her anymore. I wired the fridge with a bomb set to explode in ninety six hours later. If I wasn't back by then, Mary would be lost anyway and I couldn't be responsible for releasing yet another of those creatures on the world. I then slept until mid afternoon and took the road back to where this little adventure had started. The road was long, but by keeping the pedal near to the floor I would be in sight of the residence by dawn's early lights. Pumped up on coffee and a cocktail composed by the chemists of the agency to keep snipers awake and highly aware of their environment I drove through the night. The crash would come swiftly in 48 hours but if everything went right, it would be all over by then.

The small road that had taken so many times during the time I worked at the Eternal Bliss looked a lot creepier in the grayish light that precedes the dawn. I parked behind a bush and readied myself. Three large bags of high power explosives, a Israeli side arm, a French shotgun and a German SMG all fully loaded with dumdum bullets and shells and a lot of ammo on my back. It took me twenty minutes to reach the large fence around the residence; I was sweating like a pig.

I observed the interior of the compound. The creatures would now be going to sleep. I spotted two figures moving from shadow to shadow. I waited twenty more minutes and got in. I started working.

By noon it was all ready. Ready to blow up. I took out Dan, the guard and carried him to his car. I drove us both away from the blast zone. I locked him in his trunk to be found by the authorities when they would come to investigate the explosion. I sat behind the wheel of my car and smoked a cigarette. I threw the butt out the window grabbed the remote and pressed the button.

6.

I haven't been totally honest with you. The truth is that besides rigging the place I did check that this time I wouldn't miss any of them. I searched house after house, making sure that the coffins would be destroyed either by the explosion or the subsequent fires. I found the Albino sleeping, arms around the waist of his last victim a young Asian woman. The room reeked of sex and the bite marks on the girl were deep and many. I made sure that this time he wouldn't come back. I stuck the explosives for his house between him and the corpse of the girl. Gorged on blood as he was, he merely grunted when I lifted his arm to plant the bomb.

I left the house where it had all began for last. I found the older blonde, readied her for her last trip and went searching for the younger one. But she wasn't asleep, she was crying. With her tear covered cheeks, she looked at me and I flinched.

"You came back?" She said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Are you here to kill us all?"

"Yes."

"Will you kill me too?"

I stopped. Would I kill her too? The moment I paused, it was already too late. I wrapped her in a blanket and helped her out of the compound. I hid her in my trunk until the sun would go down.

She turned me that same night on the back seat of my car, initiated to the ways of the immortals the same way I had been to sex some 25 years earlier. Together we went and released Mary. My mistress was the one who had left her in my room, as a gift. My mistress and Mary are my family now and this time I won't let anyone take them from me.