Woe & Cruelty

"Could you be a little more convincing?" he tried to joke in an attempt to cheer her up.

Maddie appreciated the attempt and smiled at Billy subtly. Suddenly the police door sounded with chains and metal clanks before it opened up. Billy went in front of Maddie to protect her but both the high schoolers were disarmed when Mike revealed himself. For the first time in Billy's life he could see emotion on his father's face. He was both terrified and relieved at the sight of his son. Mike walked to his son and hugged him tightly before letting him go and returning to his impenetrable and stoic demeanor.

Mike looked at Maddie. "Billy, let's get her inside and get you guys fed and patched up."

Once inside Billy saw there was no one else but a catatonic Luke sitting in a chair. He seemed freshly cleaned up but the clothes he wore painted a different story covered in dried blood. Billy observed the room and saw the chaotic state it was in. But Maddie had observed it more closely; whatever happened in the town had partially occurred inside the station. Mike showed both the teens to the showers and told them to clean up and he would patch them both up when they were done.

Billy helped Maddie undress but in the artificial light of the police station and outside of the sunlight she started to feel a bit better than earlier. But this hunger she felt was only beginning to intensify. She even saw Billy washing himself and was filled with a hunger both sexual and of a desire for sating her appetite. It didn't feel right. Her mind didn't feel right.

******

12:38pm

Maddie and Billy finished showering and put on their partially soiled clothes once more to both their disgust. In the main room of the station Mike had prepped some easy gas station food for Luke and had more set aside for Billy and Maddie. Billy was more than exuberant to go eat. But the smell of the gas station-esque food made her feel nauseous.

Mike urged Billy and Maddie to sit before he began to work on Maddie's bruises and cuts. Mike made sure to clean the injuries as best he could and wrap them up. Maddie noticed how proficient Mike had patched himself up. She was more than curious to see what those wounds looked like. The thought itself disgusted Maddie but she couldn't eject it from her mind. Mike seemed to notice something was wrong and spoke up, "Did any of them bite you?"

Maddie froze. She had been bitten by that bastard Eddie. "Y-yes."

Billy looked over as the question was asked. Suddenly Mike backed off from Maddie.

Billy stood reading the energy in the room. "What the fuck happened?"

Mike put his hand up gesturing for Billy to stop. "She was bitten. When you're bitten, you turn into these fucking things. Soon as night falls it takes hold."

Luke was also standing and approached Mike with a baseball bat in hand. Billy went into full panic mode at the sight of Luke approaching with the bat. "Whoa! What the fuck are you guys doing? She is fine."

Luke interrupted, "She isn't. My mom bit my dad and from there it only degenerated. Your dad barely saved me from them, Billy."

Billy was shocked at everything he missed, "But Mr. Farr died."

Maddie stood up and backed away. "What are you gonna do? Kill me or throw me out of the fucking station?"

Mike answered coldly. "Not sure yet."

"Don't! Don't fucking touch her. She is fine. She was bitten last night, and we spent the night together and nothing happened," Billy pleaded.

Mike turned to Luke and Billy. "Luke, watch her." Mike approached his son and checked his neck and arm wound. "You're not bitten by some fucking miracle. But the turn can be a few minutes or hours."

Maddie spoke up. "Then lock me up. But if I don't turn before the sun goes down you might as well string me up by my own insides right now."

Mike looked at the eighteen-year-old girl with regret in his eyes. "Fuck." He grabbed handcuffs from his belt. "I'm restraining you to a chair. I can't put any more lives at risk. I nearly lost the station last night."

Billy watched nervously as Mike approached Maddie. She was receptive to being handcuffed. Maddie knew it was better than just being thrown to the wolves. Billy's heart sank at the idea of Maddie turning into what Kerrie was. Billy watched her getting handcuffed and it felt as if a 20 pound weight was dropped in his stomach.

After cuffing Maddie, Mike took Billy and Luke to another room to speak with them. Luke didn't seem as fearful under Mike's stewardship. But Billy was already put off by his father's show of emotions being balanced with his mostly emotionless decision making. Mike had Billy and Luke sit down before he threw a cross from a pouch on his belt onto the table. Luke looked at it with a sort of reverence. But Billy looked at it with shocked revelation.

Billy spoke up, "That was the cross Mom gave you, Dad."

Mike nodded. "I didn't believe in God until I used it last night. The station was swarmed. I pulled this out and the whole building of these creatures fled at its sight. I cleared the building and chained up the doors with Luke's help. However the creatures waited outside until the sun began to come up. These creatures climbed into the storm drains and into the forests and shadows."

Luke spoke up, "They're fucking demons, dude."

Billy couldn't believe what he was hearing, but it honestly made some sort of sense to him. That's why Eddie had fucked off from him that other night. But they didn't feel like demons. The bite wounds and the fear of the cross. It hit Billy all at once. "They're vampires."

Mike interrupted, "I don't care whatever the fuck they are. I'm getting us out of here. I was gonna take as long as I needed to find you. But here you are, Billy. So we are leaving soon."

Billy said foolishly, "We need to bring Maddie with us."

Mike responded sternly, "No, we are—"

Luke interjected himself, "Billy, are you fucking mad?"

Billy was furious. "Fucking mad? Don't you love her?"

"I do! But I can't save her. She never wanted to be saved, and she got what she wanted," Luke shot back.

"She didn't want to be saved. She just wanted to be loved. You don't love her, Luke. You just want a piece of arm candy like all those jock fucks."

Luke stood out of his seat angrily. "What the fuck!"

Billy stood out of his seat to match Luke. "I'm not gonna abandon her here, you fucking coward. Even if she didn't love me."

Luke realized that what Billy had said highlighted what he didn't. Maddie must love Billy, and it made Luke's heart hurt. He wanted Billy to hurt just as bad. "Guess you couldn't abandon a loved one in need again, huh? First you abandoned her, then your mom—couldn't do it to Maddie twice."

Billy went to lunge over the table at Luke, but Mike stopped his son. "Calm the fuck down!" Mike threw Billy into his seat hard and then quickly threatened to throw Luke into his own seat. Billy stood and Mike was ready to throw his son to the ground should he try anything, but Billy stormed off somewhere else in the station. Mike looked at Luke with ire who in turn quickly avoided his own gaze. Mike looked off to watch his son storm away furiously. He looked to

Billy found a room on the second floor of the station and looked out into the town and surrounding forests. The station sat on a hill almost like a watch tower. He couldn't believe his world and wondered if this was all a horrible dream. The thought crossed his mind that he died in that car accident with his mom and that this world he now inhabited was hell. All seemed equally valid as options given the supernatural circumstances Woetown found itself in.

Chapter 8

6:52pm

An uncomfortable silence had fallen over the station. Mike cautiously brought water to Maddie. Mike watched her state carefully and as the sun had started to go down her features had subtly begun to change. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Her iris had yellowed a bit. Her teeth looked somewhat sharper. Maddie was feeling the delirium of hunger but kept refusing everything Mike had offered her. At some point Billy had even come back downstairs to try and feed her. Maddie couldn't even smell food without gagging. She also wanted to be close to Billy, but Mike watched them carefully when they sat beside one another. Luke sat far away from everyone on the other side of the room messing with the bat. At some point he'd even grabbed nails and put them through the bat to make it more lethal to any vampiric attackers.

During all this Mike got impatient and told no one to move a muscle as he left the room declaring he was going to pack some bugout bags for them. If no vampires came at sunset, they'd make a run for the police truck and leave the town.

Luke seemed to have dozed off in the corner and Billy foolishly took his chance. Maddie watched as Billy walked behind her. She was fearful now. Not of what Billy was to do but that she wouldn't be able to stop herself if he stupidly freed her. But her greatest fear came true. Billy unlocked her cuffs to her shock.

Maddie wheezed, "Why, Billy?"

Billy felt foolish. "I can't not do anything this time. I can't be the only one to walk away from this."

Maddie hugged Billy and with all her strength ignored the desire to bite into him. His smell and the sound of his heart beating filled her head with a drug like euphoria. It put her mind on a single track of indulgence and it took every fiber of her being to ignore it.

"Billy, I'm-I'm them. I feel so much hunger. Every one of my cells hurts so much," Maddie professed with concern.

Billy spoke up with that naïve kindness, "I can feed you from myself. I'll get a knife and let some of my blood. You can drink that?"

Maddie was so unfocused she agreed to the idea not even processing any of the stupidity of it. She knew it was stupid. She knew it was foolish but let him go anyway. The hunger was making her mind cloudy, and she noticed the sleeping Luke in the corner of the room. The bloodlust took over. She would eat him before Billy could return. Maybe it would sate her appetite and she wouldn't hurt the boy she loved.

Herald me...

Maddie panicked and looked around the room. "Who was that?"

Let me in...

Maddie was scared and hungry and in so much agonizing pain. "Hello?"

Let me in. I'll stop your suffering. With me you'll never suffer again.

Maddie felt the claws of a hand raking at the inside of her mind. Like a creature sitting just behind her eyes seeing what she saw and coercing her mind. She walked close to the chained- up front door of the police station. She realized night had fallen. Whatever this was was forcing her hand. "Leave me be! I will not! I won't!"

Maddie's scream woke Luke, and he panicked to his feet grabbing the bat. Maddie was about twenty paces away from him, but she was standing holding her head struggling and in pain. Luke was terrified but curious. She wasn't as monstrous as the other vampires had looked. Maddie resembled this in-between state that his mother had taken on before the turn truly occurred.

Luke approached Maddie with his cudgel at the ready. "Maddie what's going on?"

Maddie turned to look at Luke. Her face was a shocking mix of human and monster. Furious and afraid. Hungry and scared. Tears began to stream out of Maddie's eyes. "It's-No, he! He is in my mind, Luke. I can't stop it!" Her last words were a shocking scream.

Billy had heard the commotion and arrived in the room to see the scream. Maddie was twisting and writhing and yelling. Billy called out to Luke asking what had happened. Luke didn't say anything. Billy, unsure, started running to Maddie before Luke stopped him. "Billy, stay the fuck away from her. I've never seen this before."

Maddie looked at Billy. "He's right!" Her voice was pained and almost inhuman. "Billy, don't come near me."

I'll make him last forever with us, Maddie. He'll be safe. Let me in.

"I'll never let you in! You can't have us!" She screamed out again even more violently and intensely.

We already do.

Suddenly the front door of the police station flung open. The chain shattered ripping pieces across the room. One smacked into Billy's chest knocking him to the floor. Billy couldn't breathe. Luke was lucky enough to duck in time and hid behind a desk. Vampiric creatures rushed into the room, but Mike threw a bottle with a flaming rag sticking out of it at the doorway. He caught all of the entering creatures in one fell swoop. The vampires screamed and writhed in the flames dying in seconds. Mike ran to Billy as Maddie fell to the floor unconscious.

Mike pulled his gun out. But he went pale and froze. His skin was slick with sweat in seconds. A giant shadow stood behind him. Mike went to turn slowly, and he saw it. The vampire. Mike dropped his gun and pissed himself on the spot. Its blue skin was horrifying. Its soulless red and yellow eyes vivisected his soul and ate all the rationality that spilled from the wounds in his mind. Mike believed that what he looked at had never been human. Instead it crawled from the pit of hell itself to feast on man's fear.

Billy collected himself and saw the imposing vampiric figure. It stood a good foot taller than his six-foot-tall dad. Its presence brought the cold with it. The room was darker around the creature as if the shadows coalesced around it.

Then the creature reached out with one hand. Mike felt a singular second of transcendent pain around his neck. But then suddenly he couldn't feel his body anymore. Mike's vision began to fade. The vampire had swiftly placed its hand on Mike's head and pulled it free from his body with a clean tear. Billy wanted to scream in horror, but his empty lungs choked out a whisper as he began to vomit and hack up spit and bile.

Luke missed the horrible act of violence but crawled and moved around the desk to Billy. Then he caught a glance of the creature and froze.

The flames in the entrance of the police station died down. With it the animalistic vampires cautiously entered the station scared of more flames. Luke grabbed Billy and helped him out by assisting in dragging him away. Billy was more than horrified at what he was seeing, but then he stopped when he saw a human man enter the room and approach the vampire leader.

"Master, it seems another beautiful young concubine has turned," Erik Liechenberg stated as he carefully moved around the chaotically destroyed room.

The master smiled hideously and spoke in a horrible hoarse voice, "Feed her with one of the captured. I wish to offer it to her."

Erik nodded and left the building as the animalistic vampires parted ways for the human. Luke and Billy watched in shock before Luke began dragging Billy from the room once more. Billy watched as the vampires surrounded Maddie and lifted her onto one of the tables.

******

9:06pm

Maddie awoke on a table. Her lips were wet and sticky in contrast to her cold body. She sat up quickly and the pain and hunger she felt was reduced from their fever pitch. They now felt a distant and ignorable discomfort. She wiped her mouth off and saw that she had wiped blood from her lips. She couldn't remember anything but the voice in her head. She remembered wanting to eat Luke. The thought of eating Billy. Did she?

A handsome voice with a German accent spoke, "No, I let them escape. They're part of the offer I wish to make. Rather, a deal. A covenant."

Maddie turned suddenly to see a handsome man in an oversized black silk robe sitting on one of the police station chairs. He was surrounded by the animalistic vampires. But Kerrie stood beside him dressed slutty and looking better than she ever had before. Maddie looked at herself. Her skin was pale, and she was cold, but it wasn't translucent like the other vampires. What had happened to her? she wondered.

Ludwig, the master, spoke, "I'm offering you forever, girl. Be mine. My concubine. The mother of my spawn. In exchange you will have all your revenge. You'll be forever unchanged. I'll even let you keep the boy you love as a pe—"

Maddie interrupted the master. "I'd rather die."

Ludwig spoke and revealed his perfect naked body in his unsealed robe. "You'd rather adhere to your destiny of smallness. Of death. Your god abandoned you. I will be your god and you will never be abandoned."

Maddie spat sitting up on the desk. "There is no god, and you aren't one either."

Ludwig bellowed with laughter and looked at Kerrie. "She is powerful. More than you, wife."

Kerrie resented the statement violently.

"Even dead every man is the fucking same," Maddie shot vitriolically.

Ludwig smiled and turned back to Maddie. "And like all these men you despise, I do not need your consent."

Maddie was confused until she felt that same hand grab her mind. It sunk its claws deep into the soft fleshes of her existence and she fell to her knees in horrible pain. It was like he was rewiring her on the spot. She could feel the memories of Billy's smiles from childhood to today being erased—could feel him eating her hope and replacing it with hunger and vengeance.

"I take all that is mine. I simply wanted to be a benevolent god to all my children," Ludwig said bored.

Suddenly Maddie stopped screaming. She stood colder than before. Her confidence and intelligence were evident in her stance. Everything about her that made her a desirable vampire queen for the master had been dialed up to eleven.

"Follow me," Ludwig commanded. With that Kerrie and Maddie began to walk with Ludwig deeper into the police station.

Eventually they came upon the holding room. In the holding room Randy Rosetea sat in a cell hungry with an empty can of beans beside him and a water bottle full of piss sitting under the bench he sat at. He watched the creatures fearfully until he saw his daughter.

Randy spoke up scared. "Maddie, What the fuck is goin' on?"

Maddie ignored her father but held a cruel smirk on her face.

"These are the vengeances on the world of your old god that I offer," Ludwig said confidently.

Randy watched confused and bewildered at the beings before him. He looked at the one who resembled his daughter but this one was far colder and more violent than even himself. Ludwig waved his hand and the prison cell gate clanked loudly before it slid open abruptly.

Maddie approached the now open threshold of the cell. "I pledge myself, Master. Now may I enjoy my reward?"

Ludwig smiled. "That and many more from me, wife."

Maddie entered the cell and Randy tried to back away, but it was fruitless as Maddie slowly approached her former father. She reached a hand out and caressed her father's face. "I'm gonna make you feel as alone and abandoned by god as you made me feel abandoned by you, Dad."

Kerrie and the master watched as blood splattered their faces and screams emanated and echoed in the holding room. All of this was punctuated by Maddie's cruel and delighted laughter. It was deep and rich with a sinful and evil joy that brought a smile to the master's face.

Chapter 9

1:00am

Luke and Billy had gotten the strength to begin running once more. They ran into the nearby forest before collapsing around a tree. They were hungry and tired and afraid. They'd lost all hope. Billy was hopelessly afraid he had lost Maddie forever. Luke wondered if he'd even live to see Maddie or the sun one last time. The boys sat panting and shifting between crying panic and bewildered silence. All that they could see was the vast blanket of night and the stars that sat within it. Quite some time had passed before a word was suddenly uttered by Billy, "We gotta go save Maddie before they take her away and we never see her again."

Luke turned to Billy even though he couldn't even see him. "Are you fucking crazy?"

Billy sat silently for a moment, then said, "If they take her to their vampire hideout we might never find her."