Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 21:47:58 -0800
From: Sellar Dhor <sellardhor@gmail.com>
Subject: Evil is a Man: Blood In Blood Out chapter 1

       AUTHOR'S NOTE:
       Evil Is A Man is intended to be a series.  Blood In, Blood Out is
the first story in the series.

       If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com
And let me know which direction you would like to see this story go.

       Thanks,

       Sellar


       OCTOBER 30th


       Gift.  I'm still trying to decipher exactly why they always refer to
my abilities as a gift instead of a burden.  If it was indeed a gift, is it
too late to politely return it, letting the gifter know that it just wasn't
the right fit, much obliged in any case?  Was it too late to give the gift
to someone else, perhaps one of those people who always insisted to me just
how lucky I was to possess it?  It was those people, in the name of my
gift, who took four and a half centuries from me.  Because of my gift, they
took every person I was supposed to love, every mouth I was supposed to
kiss, every child I was supposed to raise.  They took every book I was
supposed to read, every show I was supposed to watch, every symphony I was
supposed to hear.  They stole from me every tranquil moment in the sun,
every stimulating destination.  They seized from me every commonplace,
banal part of your life that you probably take for granted.  Gift.
       Regret.  I had existed for four and half centuries, but in all that
time, I had never begun to live.  Until tonight.  Tonight, if I went
through with it, would be the first real night of my life, even if it meant
betraying them, even if it assured I could never go back.  Because for once
in my life, I had let myself fall in love with a man, and I knew that it
was a love that I could risk everything for.  I stood there in the
darkness, looking at the precipice in front of me, knowing that I had to
choose whether to cross this line that I could never return from.
       In appearance, I was an Asian man in my early twenties, Korean
specifically.  Agelessness: that's one of the benefits of my condition.
And I could never fall ill.
       Gift.  They had stolen me away from my mother, my village, as a
young man.  And ever since, even though I had been born with a full heart,
with an excess of love to give, they had never let me pursue a relationship
or even develop an outside friendship.  Much too perilous, they'd say.
       Gift.  I'd never had children of my own.  As much as I may have
wanted to raise a family, I was utterly barren, a side-effect of my unique
condition.  And it was just as well, perhaps.  If I had been fertile,
surely they would have made me breed incessantly throughout the years (an
act I would have not enjoyed), producing not sons, but insurance policies,
back-ups for them to use in case I met an untimely end.  Instead, the only
price I had to pay was their continuous reminder to me that I could be the
last of my line; that even if I wasn't, they had no means to locate anyone
else who shared my gene.  They used this fact to submit me to reclusion for
the entirety of my years; better to keep me safe.  That is, when they
weren't sending me off into life threatening situations.  But those could
all be legitimized as a necessary means of accomplishing the greater good.
       Back.  Let me go back to the beginning, to my own birth, in the year
1561, the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, in a small, nothing farming village.  My
father, a soldier, was dead by the time of my birth.  When I came into this
world, I was a completely normal baby boy, save for the fact that I had an
identical twin brother our mom named Seong.
       Twin.  Though Seong and I seemed the same person on the outside, in
the interior, we couldn't have been more unlike.  Seong was the first my
mother gave birth to, and he must have taken that fact to heart, treating
me as his subordinate even though he was only an hour older than I was.
Where he was bold and commanding, I was cautious and demure.  As children,
Seong led me everywhere, and though I believed him at the time that it was
me that needed him, I realize now that he was just as dependent on me.  He
needed someone to blindly follow him.  Without me there as his devotee, his
life would have been purposeless.
       Them.  We were still young boys when they first came into our lives.
I don't know how they knew what power lied dormant inside us, but they did.
They came and they asked my mother which of the two of us was older.  Once
they knew, they told my mother that Seong had a gift and they whisked him
away with them.  My mother, just a poor widow of no status or power, had no
way to fight them off.  Seong was gone from us forever.
       Gone.  My mother barely survived her guilt and depression over
losing her son, but she made it through by concentrating on my wellbeing.
Seong's loss affected me more severely.  I felt as if half of myself, the
dominant half, had been cut away from me.  I barely was able to go on with
the efforts of basic survival without my brother to lead me through it.  I
was damaged and empty and soulless for years.
       As I grew into a man, these feelings abated some, but they never
left me entirely.  I thought about Seong persistently.  My unhappiness was
multiplied by the fact that I was realizing that I had no attraction to
women, that instead I was interested in men.  This was completely
unacceptable to the people of my village, who expected me to take a wife
and raise a family.  Instead, I suffered in celibacy, spending all my time
working as a lowly fisherman.
       Gift.  I was just into my twenties when the changes kicked in.  I
remember it started with an odd nightmare, one of such potency it scared me
to my core, one that left me with complete foreboding.  Almost immediately,
odd physical differences occurred in my body that were completely
unexplainable.  Odder still, I seemed to have some ability to control the
very fabric of reality to a slight degree.  Before this, I had an odd habit
of speaking prayers and wishes I had out loud, hoping beyond hope that some
higher power would intervene in my life in a positive way.  Of course,
those prayers never amounted to anything.  Suddenly, fate reversed, and
matters started going my way.  Not always were my prayers answered, but
when they were, the miracle was accompanied by sudden and extreme
exhaustion.
       During an annual day of festivities in my village that I always
enjoyed, a violent thunderstorm had forced everyone to get under our
shelters.  When I repeatedly wished for the storms to go away in front of
the villagers, they were amazed to see the clouds clear and sunshine break
free.  Even though such a large feat made me collapse to the ground with
weakness, I was still delighted, even if this power seemed to be only
intermittent for me and I couldn't seem to make any permanent changes that
really mattered.
       My fellow villagers were less thrilled, however.  One of them, sure
that I was some sort of witch who had made an evil deal for these powers,
came at me in public and stabbed me in the stomach.  The wound was so bad,
said our village doctor, that there was no way I'd survive.  But once
again, I prayed and prayed that the wound would heal.  Miraculously, the
wound healed in a few days, leaving me at full strength.  The village was
further baffled and amazed.
       Gift.  Word must have gotten out about me, because soon, they came
back.  They found me, shackled me, and took me away by force via horseback.
Our journey seemingly lasted forever.
       They took me to one of their strongholds, a fortress far out of
reach of any other human settlement.  It was there that they brought me
face to face with myself, a man who was the spitting image of me, only more
wiry with muscle than I was, more hardened and intimidating.
       Twin.  I knew immediately that this was my long lost brother, and I
was overjoyed to see him, tears coming to my eyes as I embraced him.  Seong
showed no reaction, but I could feel the emotion he was trying to keep
bottled so tightly up inside him.  My brother had forgotten Korean, so they
worked hard on teaching me English.  Although I didn't understand all of
them, somehow I understood my brother perfectly, and learned the language
in due time.
       Seong brought me up to speed.  They were an international guild
known as The Bridge, and they had immense political power throughout the
entire world.  They were ethical, clandestine people who were fighting for
all of humanity.  Traditionally, they were the stewards of someone called
the One, a man with special abilities and powers, a man who would never
age.  The Bridge was responsible for finding the Ones, for training them
for battle, for guiding their efforts, and for keeping them safe and
secret.
       He explained that there had never been more than one gifted man at a
time, that this ability was passed down through paternal lines; that
multiple men might simultaneously possess the dormant special qualities,
but those qualities would only manifest in one man at a time, and that was
always the oldest living man with those inherited traits.  The One would
never age and could never reproduce, and then when he died, the next oldest
living man with those dormant traits would become the next One, and so on.
       Not long ago, the last One had been working for The Bridge, as did
the One before him, and the One before him, all the way back to the
creation of this group centuries past.  But The Bridge knew that this
latest One was reckless in battle, they knew they had to hedge their bets
and locate the one they believed would inherit the legacy next.
       The Bridge had somehow come to the attention that our father had
carried those dormant traits, and they came to our village looking for any
boys that our father had left behind.  They'd never known of a case where
there had been twin brothers who inherited the gene, but learning that
Seong had been born first, they assumed he would be the next in line, so
they took him by force.
       Gift.  Even though he was just a boy, they immediately started
training him for battle, cutting off any chance he'd have at a normal life.
He was allowed no free time; every second of his existence was devoted to
severe, rigorous training.  They turned him into a weapon physically and
emotionally, knowing that even if the current One never was to die, Seong
would still make an excellent human agent for their group, of which there
were a great many.
       Then, the inevitable happened, the old One perished in combat, the
result of some reckless decision he'd made.  They knew Seong inherited the
power because he had a dream vision of the old One's last moments of life,
which always foretold the powers awakening in the new man.
       Gift.  Seong had been skilled with all One powers and abilities long
before he actually received them.  He only had to make minor adjustments
before they deemed him suitably ready to head out into the field and start
launching assaults on the enemy.  He called himself the Red, testament to
how much blood he would spill, and that's what his enemies would learn to
know him as.
       They never even had a second thought about my existence until they
heard reports coming from Korea that a young man was displaying some oddly
familiar powers.  That's when they went to retrieve me as well.
       Their experts were dumbfounded by my existence.  Never in their
extensively recorded history had two Ones existed simultaneously, and they
surmised that this was an anomalous outcome of Seong and I being identical
twins.  In fact, both of us were conceived at the exact same instance in
time, and that's why it didn't matter which one of us left the birth canal
first.  In any case, they were ecstatic to get their hands on a second One.
       Gift.  There were a lot of theories flying around concerning what
would happen if Seong or I died, mostly regarding when the next person in
line, if such a person existed, would get our powers.  Some claimed that I
was a random aberration, that Seong was really the person who held the
"soul" of the One, and only when he died would the gift be passed on, and I
would consequently be left powerless.  But most people believed that this
"soul" had been split in half between the two of us, and it would take both
of our deaths to release this to the next man.
       When I arrived, Seong and I looked as different from each other as
identical twins could, and that difference was carried over into our
personalities as well.  Seong was a cold, disturbed killer, expertly
trained and incredibly gifted, his body filled with hard muscle, while I
was an absolute zero in comparison.  Over the next decade, Seong would be
deployed on many missions, while I was kept locked up inside, as they
desperately tried to mold me into something valuable.  Though at first I
thought myself a lost cause, having never possessed great athletic prowess,
they eventually convinced me otherwise, and I'll be damned if they didn't
shape me into the person they needed me to be, until I too was all wiry
muscle, and I too was so expertly trained that most couldn't tell my
brother and me apart.  I, too, became known as the Red.
       Twin.  Regardless, Seong would always remind me that he was
stronger, better equipped with his powers, than I would ever be.  Sadly, he
had the truth in it.  He had more than a decade of warfare experience on
me, as well as the benefit of getting involved at a younger age, when your
mind and body are more malleable, not to mention the fact that he had
always been naturally more gifted than I was.  I felt absolutely no
jealousy for my brother, as I considered him a part of me.  How ridiculous
would it be for the left half of your body to be envious of the right half?
But the more years that passed, the more he and I became closer to equal in
our skill levels.
       Of course, they weren't going to risk both of their assets
simultaneously; they never sent Seong and I out on the same mission.
Eventually, they came up with a plan to keep an important secret from most
people within their organization.  After a few decades, only a select few
in The Bridge knew that there were, in fact, two of us.  What they told the
others was that we were one and the same person, that there was only one
One.  To support this, we shared the same quarters in which we were
provided plenty of training space.  If either one of us left our quarters
to go on a mission, the other one of us would always stay behind in secret.
Whenever our quarters would be moved to another location, the transporting
of the two of us was done with the utmost secrecy and care, so as not to
blow our cover.
       As the years of extreme isolation went by, my brother slipped more
and more into psychological instability.  This is not surprising,
considering the kind of life we were asked to lead, considering the kind of
childhood that was forced upon poor Seong.  His eccentricities slipped
further and further into madness.  He became a reclusive paranoid half the
time, and though I never saw him go through a mission, from watching him in
training, I could imagine he was a brutal killer.
       Twin.  And of course, where Seong went, I would follow.  Though I
never became a heated executioner like he was, I certainly felt my grip on
reality slipping farther and farther away from me.  What didn't help was
the fact that Seong and I were as conjoined as if we were Siamese twins.
When I was on a mission by myself, it felt odd to be on my own, though that
wrongness was overcome by my desire to perform my mission responsibilities
well.  When I was home, and Seong was on a mission alone, that's when the
separation anxiety became most intense, with only my training to distract
me.  But most of the time, we were together.  We trained together, ate
together, slept together, bathed together.  I don't want to imply that
there was some incestuous relationship between us, because there wasn't.  I
was about as attracted to Seong as I was to the image I saw in the mirror,
which is to say, not at all.
       Celibacy.  Though my attraction to guys became more and more of an
issue for me as years went by.  I told Seong about my unusual desires, and
he told me they were backwards and wicked.  He admitted to similar desires
of his own, but told me we had to be completely in control of those deviant
inklings.  Although I never believed myself that my desires were wrong, I
went along with my older brother and joined him in his celibate life.  But
it was these desires, the desire for physical and emotional affection from
a man, that drove me more and more into discontent.
       Twin.  I wonder if I would have ever acted on my feelings; if I
would have ever learned to stick up to my brother.  I would never know.  He
died just a couple years ago on one of our missions.  My powers didn't
leave me, as some had assumed, and it looked like no one new had received
the gift, and likely no one would unless I met my end.  In a few decades,
no one would be alive except for me that would even know that I had a
brother.  As far as everyone was concerned, I was the one and only Red.
       Enormous grief and loss and hopelessness saturated my mind for a
long time after his death.  When the blackness passed, there was something
completely new.  For the first time, I felt unencumbered and free.  It made
me feel alive, something I hadn't experienced since I was a boy.
       Without this newfound sense of freedom, I'm not sure if I would have
made the choice that I did that crucial night, not even a year ago.  They
had sent me out on a mission in Ghana, where our intelligence had
discovered a minor vampire enclave.  I was sent in to clean them out.  It
was all rather routine.
       Gift.  I had killed hundreds of enemies in my time as the Red.
Thousands, perhaps.  I was very, very good at it.  This evening was all the
same.  The vampires were caught off guard, and I easily dispatched all of
them as I went from room to room of their large abode.  When all of the
vampires had been dealt with in the main house, I went down into the
basement to see if there was any trying to hide.
       I found something that was not unusual in the basements of these
vampire sanctuaries: a dungeon.  Behind its locked bars were a number of
filthy prisoners.  I unlocked the door and went into their cramped cell.
       Right in front of me, there was a man who could barely stand up.
His muscled bare torso glistened red with his own blood; clearly this man
had been recently beaten or tortured.  Behind him stood six young children,
both girls and boys, all dressed in rags.
       The man forced himself to stand, in spite of his battered state,
when he saw me come, opening his arms wide, positioning himself between me
and the children.  "Please, don't hurt them, they're only children," he
said.  "Please just kill me.  Please just kill me."
       I guessed that the vampires had locked these people down here to
serve as their soon-to-be-meals.  "I'm not going to hurt you," I said to
them all.  "I don't kill innocent humans."
       But I had one thing I had to check first.  I took out my dagger and
cut into my left hand, letting the blood drip down my fingers.  I motioned
my hand around the three little boys in front of me.
       No response.  Good.  You could expose a vampire by putting human
blood (or in my case, the One blood) in front of their faces.  Normally,
vampires' fangs stay retracted, unless they are feeding or fighting you.
But by putting blood in their faces, they get so excited that almost always
the vampire will not be able to keep their fangs hidden.  I had just proven
that these little boys were, in fact, human.
       Yes, even boys can be vampires, even infants.  Unlike me, vampires
are not barren.  They are able to procreate.  If the vampire male sires a
boy, then that boy is a vampire from conception on.  They grow just like a
normal child until they reach adulthood, at which point they stop aging.
       Seong told me early on that all male vampires have no souls.  That's
why they are so evil, and all of them must be killed.  That goes for the
male vampire children as well, which I always hated to kill because they
looked so innocent.  Now, I was relieved to know I would not have to kill
any tonight.
       Just when I was about ready to heal my wound and leave, I
inadvertently passed my hand over the man, and his reaction was
unmistakable.  He shuddered, trying to control himself for a moment.  Then,
he could control himself no longer, and his sharp, white fangs were
revealed.
       Doubt.  I sighed with disappointment, scrutinizing the man.  Yes, I
should have known this fellow was a vampire.  In spite of him being so
grimy, he was extremely good looking, a trait that most vampires seemed to
share.  Now, I had no other option but to kill him.
       Vampires will always fight back, even if they know they are
outmatched, but when I raised my knife, he inexplicably shut his eyes,
ready for death.  But before I could lower the weapon, one of the young
girls, who couldn't have been more than 4, rushed in between the vampire
and me, protecting him with her short, stubby arms.
       "Don't kill my papa, please!" she yelled.
       I realized that she was a female vampire.  Females born to male
vampire fathers are also special in their own way.  Like their brothers,
they too age until adulthood, then no more.  But the females had none of
the other strengths of the vampires, none of the skills.  They didn't have
fangs or need to drink blood like the males did.  Best of all for them, the
females were born with souls, just like normal humans.  Like humans, they
sometimes chose to do good in their lives, or sometimes chose not to.  But
regardless, I never killed any of the innocent female vampires, especially
since the females were unable to create new vampires; their offspring would
be human, unless they were to mate with a male vampire.
       Now, this little female had the guts to beg me for her father's
life.
       "I have to kill him," I told the child.  "He is an evil, soulless
thing that has killed many people and will kill many more if he is allowed
to live.  I'm sorry."
       She shook her head, her long hair bouncing, tears on her chubby
cheeks.  "No, you're wrong!  You are wrong!  He is a good guy!  He is
special, he is the only male vampire born with a soul!"
       I wasn't sure what she was trying to tell me.
       "She speaks the truth," the vampire man said, reaching forward and
embracing the girl from behind.  "I am special.  Why do you think they
locked me down here?  They were trying to teach me some sense.  I've never
killed anyone."
       I was duly suspicious.  "A vampire needs blood.  How do you stay
alive without killing victims?"
       "I raid blood blanks," he said.  "It's despicable in its own way,
but at least I am not directly hurting anyone."
       "Please don't hurt my daddy," the girl pleaded again, looking me
straight in the eye.  "He is the best father a child could ever have."
       I knew Seong would never have listened to these two, that Seong
would have killed the vampire man right in front of the girl.  It was the
safe, sensible decision.
       But Seong be damned.  I was my own person now, and I would follow my
heart for once.  He wasn't around to judge me anymore.
       And so, amazingly, for the first time in three centuries, I bended.
       "I believe you," I said to them.  "I won't kill him.  I promise."
       The girl's anxious tears turned into tears of relief as she hugged
and hugged her father.  He held her right back.
       "Can you take us with you?" asked the man.  "Please, the vampires,
my family, will know we abandoned them, and they will use all their
resources to hunt us down and kill us.  With you with us, I'd feel an awful
lot safer."
       I shook my head.  "I would take you with me, but the people in my
organization would surely kill you if I did.  And they are a lot more
dangerous to you than the vampires."
       "Then I am forced to return to my family for now," he said.  "As
much as I detest them."
       "Here, take the south exit from the house," I told them.  "My
handlers are posting guard on the north side."
       He nodded as he lifted his child into his arms.
       "I pledge to keep these other children safe," I said.
       "Listen, is there anyway I can see you again," the vampire man asked
me.  "To pay you back for what you've done for us."
       "There's no need," I said.
       "Perhaps not," he said, his tone turning suggestive.  "But I want to
see you again.  It would please me greatly if you agreed."
       My heart, my romantic core that had been frozen for so long,
twitched to life suddenly.  Here was this beautiful, kind man, making such
a gallant gesture towards me.  I was besotted.
       "I'll give you a phone number to a secure line for me," I said.
"That will have to do for now."
       "Yes, that would be great," he said.
       I gave him the number, he and the girl thanked me again, and then
they started to run off.
       "Wait," he said, turning around one last time.  "You didn't tell me
your name.  Mine is Cayden."
       "Jeong," I said, realizing that I hadn't told anyone my real name
for hundreds of years, and feeling so right about breaking that tradition.
       He smiled, an utterly sweet, charming smile.  Then, he carried the
girl off up the stairs and was gone.
       I never told my handlers about the vampire with a soul and his sweet
daughter.  The very next night, I received my first call from Cayden.  He
was profusely appreciative for my help, telling me that he and his daughter
had gone back to his family, telling them that they had escaped the attack
of the vampire fort, and the family was not suspicious.  He discussed how
torturous it was to be forced to live with those people, how all the males
were evil, soulless beings who had no qualms about committing the worst,
most offensive acts.  How it terrified him, raising a daughter around such
depraved debauchery, that the vampires had already killed the girl's
mother, deeming her too virtuous, and he feared they would do the same to
his daughter, Abby.
       I mostly listened thoughtfully at first, feeling shy and uncertain
about talking to him.  The only person I had engaged in any sort of
non-tactical conversation in decades was my brother, and those
conversations had been anything but normal.  I wasn't sure if I still had
the ability to converse, to discuss my feelings.  Of course, once I started
easing into it with Cayden, it became easier and easier.
       Feelings.  One phone conversation turned into two, then three, and
soon Cayden was openly flirting with me on the telephone, though in an old
fashioned, gentlemanly way.  After several weeks of phone calls, I really
did feel like I knew him well, and I was extremely smitten.  Our calls
became the highlight of my days, hearing his deep, gentle voice through the
phone still gave me goosebumps.
       He asked if we could meet in person, something that would be
difficult for both of us to arrange.  I was able to get away on one of my
missions in Western Europe under the subterfuge of gathering intelligence.
He was able to get away from his family, and we met up in Paris one night.
He was forced to bring his daughter along, not having anyone he trusted to
look after her in his absence, and that was just fine with me.
       Abby was a darling little girl, one who looked and dressed extremely
girly, all in pink, with bows in her hair, yet whose attitude was
distinctly at odds with her proper appearance.  She was a tomboy at heart,
fearless and bold, constantly getting into trouble, whether it meant
climbing trees too high for any close by adults' nerves to handle, or
picking up insects and spiders and depositing them where they were least
expected.  Of course, every time her father gently scolded her, she gave
the sweetest smile, making you forget any of her misdeeds instantly.
       Beauty.  The three of us strolled through the romantic streets of
the Marais district, an area with architecture almost as old as I, almost
as beautiful as Cayden's sweet face.  The streets teemed with youth and
with vibrant life, sweeping all visitors into its fragrant romance.
       That was just the first of many visits Cayden and I had in Europe.
Though our meetings were completely chaste, Cayden's smile gave me chills,
as did when he would touch my arm gently, or even hold my hand.  Something
developed between us, something more than just romantic admiration, and
although we never told each other how we felt, it was clear after almost a
year that we were completely in love.
       Finally, Cayden told me he wanted us to be together, permanently,
and he didn't care that our species had been ingrained enemies since the
beginning of humanity.  It was like Romeo and Juliet... well, Romeo and
Romeo, in this case.  He wanted us to run away together, telling me he
couldn't think of a better parent for Abby than I would be, and that she
absolutely loved me.
       Plan.  His plan involved him getting a clean car in Barcelona, where
his vampire family was staying, and have me meet him and Abby there.  Then,
the three of us would begin a journey by car all the way to Malaysia, the
one place we were both sure none of our enemies would be.  We would find
some charming small town, maybe on the beach, and buy a house there.  Start
a life together, a real life.
       But we both knew that the journey would be fraught with hazards.
Once his family came to discover that he had forsaken them, the entire
vampire organization would be out to hound us down and slaughter us.  Not
to mention the fact that once The Bridge knew I was absent, they would send
out their full resources to unearth me, and if they did locate me, they
would surely kill Cayden.  The vampires controlled the largest criminal
empire in the world.  Their fingers of corruption reached through almost
every nation.  The Bridge was the one counterpoint to their group, the
largest covert international law enforcement agency in the world, whose
power was as broad as it was deep.  There was no telling at any given time
if The Bridge or the vampire underground was more extensive.  Having one of
those groups hunting you down would be extremely perilous.  Having them
both after you probably would be deadly.
       We mutually agreed that traveling by plane or by ship was wholly
unacceptable; there were too many agents in both of our groups who could be
monitoring those means of transport.  That required us to go by car, the
secure but sluggish alternative.  And we would have to be cautious to
circumvent the major cities as much as possible.
       But that was all dependent on me deciding to commit myself to his
plan, something that I had not yet agreed to.  He told me he would wait for
me in the car with Abby at a park in Barcelona.  If I showed up, we would
leave together, and if not, Abby and him would retreat back to their home.
       Choice.  And that's where I was, perched upon the hill, looking down
at the innocuously unflashy car that I was sure was his, trying to make my
mind up about what to do.  If I left now, there would be no going back to
The Bridge, not ever.  It would mean turning my back on the cause I had
exchanged my life to fight for; an end to battling evil and saving lives.
The Bridge would surely survive without me, but they would lack that blunt
weapon that I represented as well as the psychological intimidation my
existence unleashed on our enemies.  To The Bridge, my absence would be
more damaging than my death, because my death at least brought with it the
possibility that the next One would be able to take up my mantle.  Yes,
going with Cayden brought with it a terrible, terrible price.
       Well, to hell with the price.  I had done so much good over the
years, hadn't I earned this one moment that was just about my own well
being?  I walked down towards the parked car, making my decision.  I knew
in my heart that this was the right choice, and that's all that mattered.
       Cayden was delighted when I greeted them in their sedan, getting out
and hugging me tenderly.  He was so moved with me appearing that he almost
broke into tears, his eyes twinkling happily as he looked at me.  Abby was
decidedly less sentimental, saying "It's about time you got here," but she
too was ecstatic to see me.
       Cayden drove us northeast, Abby falling asleep in her back car seat,
while Cayden reached over and grabbed my hand, stroking it lovingly as we
moved along.  I sighed contentedly, knowing I had made the right decision.
       It wasn't too long before we reached the French border.  I took an
anxious intake of breath as Cayden slowed the car to stop at French
customs, even though I knew that this was just the first of many borders
we'd be crossing.
       The customs officers asked for our identifications.  I had brought a
fake passport that they had given me in The Bridge, and Cayden had similar
documents for himself and Abby, we had made sure of that before we had
left.  We gave the officers those.
       The officers seemed slightly suspicious of my passport.  They
repeatedly looked at my picture, and then shined their flashlights in my
face.  It crossed my mind that these officers could be under the auspices
of The Bridge, ready to waylay us.  No, that was impossible.  The Bridge
didn't even know I had abandoned them yet.
       After an incessant amount of time, the officers finally gave my
passport back and waved us through the border.
       Abby, who had woken up during the ordeal, somehow had in her mind
that I was always leaving, never sticking around like she so desired.  She
asked me if I was staying for good this time.
       "That's the plan, sweetie," I said to her.
       "If you're staying forever, does that mean that I get to call you
Uncle?" she asked.
       I looked over at Cayden, who was snickering to himself.
       "If you want to call me that, I don't see why that would hurt," I
told the girl.
       "Well then, Uncle, I will."
       BANG!
       The car shook suddenly as if Cayden had just run over something,
       "What did we just hit?" I asked.
       "I didn't see anything," Cayden said.  "It must have just been a
pothole."
       There was a loud pop, and then I felt my side of the car drop
suddenly.
       "It's a flat!" I said.
       "Damn, this is the worst timing," Cayden said.
       "It will be fine," I said, not wanting to upset Abby.  "Pull over
here."
       Cayden pulled us off the road on the right side.  There was
literally nothing but darkness around us, no sign of civilization, not even
a streetlamp.
       "This car has a spare I hope."
       "Yes, it should, in the back," he said.
       "Let me see how bad the flat is."
       I opened my passenger door and stepped out onto the pavement of the
road.  Kneeling down, I could see the tire was indeed flat, but the rest of
the car looked undamaged.  "I wonder what we hit."
       Cayden pulled a flashlight out of the glove box and tossed it to me
as I sprawled out on the ground.
       "Thanks," I said, flipping the switch on and looking at the tire
again.
       I expected to see a nail or something in the tire, but instead, I
saw a large gash, a cut with a gaping hole.
       "That's odd," I said.  I set the flashlight on the ground and rubbed
my finger against the cut.  It looked like it was sliced open.
       I bumped the flashlight accidentally, illuminating what should have
just been black space under the car.
       Instead, lit up right beside me, was a dreadfully frightening face,
all black with blood-red lines all over it.
       I screamed, spooked to the core by this creature under the car, not
being able to call up any logical explanation for what I was seeing.
       Before I could react, a black arm had reached out from under the car
and was clawing into my face with its black fingers.
       I yelled again, leaping up off the ground this time and away from
the black nightmare.
       "What is it?" yelled Cayden, anxious.
       "Stay in the car!" I told him.
       I took a few steps back, my heart pounding with fear, a fear at an
unknown enemy, a fear I hadn't known for hundreds of years.  I watched
carefully, trying to catch my breath.  Slowly, the black and read head
moved out from under the car, followed by a body.  The creature lithely
jumped to its feet without using its hands, and stood now between me and
the car.
       I saw now that it was a man; or, at least, it had a man's shape.  He
was wearing black from head to foot, even wearing black gloves.  On his
head, he wore a mask.  This is what I had flashed my light on before under
the car, what frightened me so.  The mask was black, with streaked red
lines that created a hideous face, almost like an evil kabuki mask.
       The way this creature was moving, catlike, it was clear that it was
supernatural in nature; no ordinary man could have survived holding onto
the underside of a car for so long, in any case.
       "Is he one of yours?" asked Cayden, spotting the man for the first
time from inside the car and wondering if he was a Bridge agent.
       I saw the man draw a katana from a sheathe on his side.  It was only
some of the vampires who favored the Asian blades.  "No, he's one of
yours," I said.
       "Damn," Cayden said.  "How could they have found us so quickly?
Here, let me come out and help."
       "No, stay in the car," I insisted, not wanting him to get hurt.
       "You know, I'm actually very strong," he assured me.  "I can take
care of myself."
       "I know you are, Cayden," I said.  "That's why I want you to stay in
the car and protect Abby.  A single vampire will not best me."
       The masked vampire emitted a hard to distinguish sound.  Laughter,
perhaps?  Was it because he stood before me with his katana in hand, facing
an unarmed adversary?  Did he not understand that I was the One, that I was
always armed regardless of if I was naked and weaponless?
       Gift.  In quick succession, my lips moving rapidly, I threw all of
my biggest spells at the foe, knowing that they were more than enough to
knock any vampire unconscious.  The impacts threw the vampire back.  But
that was all they could muster.  The vampire looked shaken, but not
deterred.
       Well, this was new.
       The masked vampire raised his sword.  "Be careful, Uncle!" Abby
screamed from the car.
       Even if my spells had failed me, I was still the One, I had trained
so hard for so long that my physical strength should be greater than most
any single vampire.  All I had to do was to disarm this one in combat and I
should be able to knock him unconscious.
       The vampire came at me, and though I knew his moves well, though I
knew how to defend myself, his limbs moved so quickly against me and with
such acrobatic grace that I was soon outmaneuvered and outmatched.  How
could he have been that powerful?
       On the ground, I desperately tried to roll out from under him, but
the butt of his katana handle slammed into my head, over and over, until I
was knocked out cold.

       *****

       Back.  In the blackness of my mind, a memory took form, and began
replaying like a video in my head.  Only I knew that `replay' wasn't the
correct wording, as it was the first time I could ever remember
experiencing it.  Something about the beating in the head I had sustained
must have aroused this previously suppressed memory to life.
       When I was a young man, before I had come into my powers, the spring
of my twentieth year I found myself with an overabundance of fishing nets
that I had handcrafted, with no buyers in the village that year.  So, upon
my mother's suggestion, I traveled to Seoul, the capitol of the then Joseon
Dynasty.  As I arrived, the city terrified and thrilled me in equal
measure, such an astonishing degree of bustle and activity that it made my
knees weak.
       I was able to sell my fishing nets for more than anticipated, so
decided to treat myself with a trip to a local bathhouse, something my
little village certainly never would have.  The urban bathhouse was gender
segregated, so I went into the men's wing of the building, and was
surprised to see the other men stripping nude completely, something I had
never seen before.  Too nervous to question, I took off my clothes and put
them in the disrobing room, and then took a quick, mandatory wash before
they allowed me into the baths proper.
       Given that it was the first time I had seen any grown men's penises
(beside my own), I was using every opportunity to check out the men around
me, even if none of the men were remotely attractive to me.  They were all
much older than myself, and spent most of their time complaining to each
other about their wives, children, or grandchildren.  I had had zero
experience sexually or romantically with anyone.  I knew that I liked men,
but I figured I was the only person that ever walked the earth who was
backwards enough to favor their own sex.  I never fathomed that men could
have sex with each other.
       I went into one of the smaller rooms of the bathhouse, and almost
jumped out of my skin when my eyes met the three occupants of the room.  I
knew either they must be foreigners, or they must come from some part of
Korea that held very different sorts of people.  Up to that point, I had
never met any man who I could muster more of a passing attraction to.  The
faces on these three seemed godly perfect and took my breath away, all of
them looking the same age, a bit older than myself.  Though the three men
didn't look related, I realized they all had the same eye color.  What I
had at fist taken for dark brown eyes were upon further inspection,
midnight blue in color.  I had never seen anything like it.
       I had not truly known just how attracted to the male body I had been
until I spied these men.  I had seen some of the older farming men in my
village look bulky with muscle, but I hadn't even conceived that the layers
of lean muscles that adorned these three strangers could be humanly
possible, and they all made me feel malnourished and scrawny.
       I was so intimidated by their musculature that I was about to turn
around to go, when one of them said, "We're not as mean as we look, boy,
have a seat."  It was the one with long hair and a beard that had spoken,
and his Korean was a bit accented.
       "Speak for yourself, Bang," said the one with shortish hair and very
particular facial hair consisting of a hanging moustache, a spot under his
lower lip, and a longer beard in his lower chin.
       "You're scaring the locals again, Wan," said the third man, who was
clean shaven on his cheeks as well as his head, but unlike his two friends,
his body had a large amount of black body hair.  "Stop being afraid, get in
here, and shut the door before you let out all the hot air, boy."
       What could I do but do as I was told?  I was too fearful of the men
to quarrel with them, so I walked into the room and shut the door behind
me, even though when I got there, the door had been widely ajar.  There
were two pools in the room, but the three men were sitting submerged in the
nearest one, while the far pool of water went unused.  I wasn't sure if it
was the extraordinary foreigners that were keeping the Koreans out of this
room, or the fact that instead of water, the largest pool here was filled
with a thick, white liquid that smelled like some sort of clay.  The three
men were sitting so that milky liquid covered everything from the waist
down; keeping their lower halves a mystery to me.
       "So, where are you three from?" I asked.
       "We're Chinese," said Bang.
       "Oh.  Do all Chinese men have blue eyes like you?  Are they all as
strapping?"
       The hairy one laughed.  "You don't get out much, do you?"
       "You could say that.  This is the first time I've ever left my tiny
village, where nothing ever happens."
       "Are you alone?" asked Wan.
       "Well, it's just me and my mother at home.  I don't have any other
family, no girlfriend or anything."
       "No you fool, I meant, did you come to the baths alone?"
       "Oh, yes, I don't even know anyone in this city."
       Wan said something in a language I didn't understand, and the other
two men laughed appreciatively.  Just as I was about to stick a foot into
the milky tub, he yelled at me.  "Only totally clean bodies are allowed to
enter this pool with us."
       "I already bathed," I said.
       "Well, do it again," Wan ordered.  "That's our cleaning pool over
there."
       I walked over to the second pool and washed myself off in the warm
water, and then I tried again to set my foot into the milky pool.
       "Hold on a second," said Wan.  "Men, does this boy look clean enough
to join us?"
       I could feel their three pairs of eyes looking me up and down.  "He
does in the front, but what about the back?" asked the hairy man.
       "Jizi is right, boy," said Wan.  "Turn around and let us make sure
your other side is good and clean."
       I turned to face the wall as Wan instructed.
       "You're the closest, Bang," Wan said.  "How about it, does he look
clean?"
       "The only way I'll know for sure is to use my hands," Bang said,
turning to face me.  I could feel his hands searching over the back of my
legs, and even this simple touch of his strong hands excited me.  And then
they were on my lower back, and that was even more intimate.  "So far, so
good."
       "But if there's one place that's going to still be too dirty for him
to get in this tub, it's his backside.  Get a good feel just to make sure."
       I felt Bang's hands rub down my cheeks, a place no one that I could
remember had ever touched me, and it felt good.  "Feels clean," Bang said.
       "You'd better feel his hole, just to be safe," said Wan.
       Next thing I knew, I felt Bang's hand on my hole, a place I had
never been touched before and certainly never expected would ever be
touched.  Oddly enough, his hands felt enticing to me.
       "I give my approval," said Bang.
       "Well, Bang's just not as thorough as he should be," said Wan.  "Get
over here, boy, and let me really make sure you're behind is clean."  I
walked over to Wan and he spun me around.  "Now, bend over, boy."  I did as
he asked, and felt Wan's hands rubbing on my hole as well.  "Sure, the
surface looks clean enough, but let's make sure he's clean enough on the
inside to get in the pool with us.  First, suck on my finger and get it
good and wet."  Wan stuck his thick index finger against my mouth, and I
licked it until it was coated with spit.  "If you're clean enough, boy,
then I should be able to stick this inside you without dirtying my finger."
       He started to push his wet finger inside my hole, and all sorts of
strange feelings took place inside me.  Mainly, mortification that he would
do that to me.  I had absolutely no idea that anyone would ever find such
an act pleasurable or erotic, and that's why I was shocked when instead of
pain, I felt a strange pleasure, and my soft dick even pulsed with blood a
few times.
       Wan pulled his finger back out and looked at his finger.  "Looks
good, but let me try two fingers."  And then he was jamming his index and
middle fingers into me, this time not just inserting them, but really
rubbing them all around, stretching me out.
       I was lucky that I had starved myself as much as I did on the trip
to Seoul and once I was there for fear I wouldn't be able to sell my
fishing nets, as it was just when I sold them recently that I had bought
myself a proper meal, and I hadn't had a movement of bowels in days.
       When he pulled those fingers out, he said, "Better try three fingers
to be safe."  And then I had three of his rough fingers inside me, causing
a bit of pain that time because there was so much girth there.  He pulled
his digits out.  "Okay, I give it my approval.  He's clean."
       "Come over here and let me make sure too," said Jizi, and soon I was
bent over with my butt in front of his face.  "Now, if he's as clean as you
say he is, Wan, then I shouldn't be able to taste anything filthy with my
tongue.  Do you dare me?"
       "I sure do."
       "Here it goes, then."  Jizi's large tongue started to lick my hole,
and I let out a sharp breath of shock.  And even more shock hit me as I
felt him lick inside my hole as well.
       It felt wonderful, but I had no idea that what he was doing was
considered a sexual act.  To me, I couldn't fathom that these men could
ever be sexual attracted to my body, so the lengths he was going to to make
sure I was clean seemed embarrassing and disgusting, but I guessed that
they just were doing what they felt had to be done to meet their standards
of cleanliness.
       "Tastes clean.  I approve.  Boy, feel free to enter our pool."
       I stuck a foot into the thick, milky liquid of the pool, surprised
by its warmth.  I sat down into the liquid, covering myself finally up to
my waist like they were.
       Jizi gave me a look.  "I have a wager for you, boy.  A guessing
game.  I'm going to ask you a question about the three of us.  For
instance, which one of us has the smallest feet.  And you have to guess
which of the three of us is correct.  Do you want to agree to make the
wager?"
       "With just one out of three odds?  I may be from a small village,
but I'm not that stupid."
       "Well, I'll sweeten the deal," Jizi said.  "Whatever question I ask
you, you can name two of us.  So, if either one of the two you picked had
the smallest feet, then you'd win."
       "So, two out of three odds," I said.  "But what are we wagering?"
       "If you win, me and my two friends will pay for your food and
lodging for the entire time you are here in the city."
       "Wow, can you really afford that?"
       "Go check the bag I brought with me in the corner there," he said.
       One quick look at the silk bag revealed that these men were indeed
overloaded with so much money that they could easily buy my whole village.
"Alright, I believe you can afford it.  What about my wager?  I don't have
much money to bet."
       "You don't have to," said Jizi.  "All you have to do if you make the
wrong selection is just to clean us off."
       "Our upper bodies have gotten all sweaty from the heat, and that
sweat needs to be cleaned off," said Bang.  "But we're too lazy to leave
this here pool and clean ourselves off, so we want someone to do it for
us."
       "You only want me to wash off your bodies?"
       "And I know what you're thinking," said Jizi, "You really don't want
to be grossed out washing our lower bodies, and I understand.  So, the deal
is, you only have to wash off any part of us that's above the milk-mud line
here, while we are seated like this."
       So, that meant only from the waist up.  Truthfully, I wouldn't have
argued against washing them from the waist down, but was worried me
admitting that would reveal my bizarre inclinations towards men, so I
didn't say anything about that.  "Alright, it's a bet."
       "Wait, he agreed to that too quickly," said Wan.  "And his hands are
filthy.  I say to make it a fair bet, if the boy loses, he has to do this
cleaning hands-free."
       "What does that mean?" I asked.
       "It means you clean us with your mouth, which is much cleaner than
your hands," said Wan.
       "Yes, that's the bet then, can you handle it?" asked Jizi.
       "Fine," I said, not really having a problem with licking these men's
clean upper bodies.
       "So, the deal's on the table then?" asked Jizi "No backing out?"
       "Nope, it's a deal."
       Jizi smiled, pleased with himself.  "Alright, the question for you
is: which one of us has the longest penis?"  Both Bang and Wan chuckled.
       I looked between the three of them as I tried to decide.  All three
of their phalluses had stayed submerged this entire time, so I had no
knowledge about this at all, and would just have to guess.
       "Who are your two picks?" asked Jizi.
       "You," I said, because I figured he wouldn't have asked the question
if he was the smallest.  "And Bang," I said, hoping that Wan's sour
disposition might be because he was smaller in that department.
       "Ha ha, hear that, Wan?" asked Jizi as Wan rolled his eyes.  "Now
kid, I know that you running blind here, so I'll give you a deal.  You can
chose one of us, and you have ten seconds where you can feel with your
hands on the guy's penis.  Sound okay?"
       I nodded, not only thinking the idea sounded sexy, but also knowing
it would improve my odds.  "I pick Wan," I said, getting a bad feeling that
I had selected him as the least likely to be the most hung incorrectly.
       "Smart pick, boy," said Wan as he pulled me towards where he was
sitting.  "Go ahead and get to feeling."
       I stuck my right hand down into the thick white liquid and my hands
touched flesh.  "Sorry, that must be your leg."
       "Nope, that's my penis," said Wan, and I emitted a sharp breath of
shock.
       Jizi started to count out loud as I moved my hands around the thick,
extremely long penis hanging soft between Wan's thighs.  Really, it only
took a couple seconds to establish that it was big beyond belief, but I
played dumb and used all my ten seconds to rub it up and down, my own
getting thicker in the process, absolutely delighted that I was touching a
man's penis for the first time.
       "Ten, hands up!" I stuck my hands back out of the liquid.  "Do you
want to change your answer?"
       "Yes," I said to Jizi.  "I'll pick you and Wan."
       "So, therefore, if in order for you to win the bet, Bang can't have
a penis that is longer than both of ours."
       "Yes."
       "Alright, men, let's show the boy what we got," said Jizi.  "Boy,
you sit in the middle."
       I moved to the center of the pool, with the three men equal distance
away from me.  They all started to slowly ascend simultaneously, first
their white-mud covered pubes came into view, then the mud- covered penis
stalks, so thick and promising.  I kept spinning around, making myself
dizzy as I tried to see all of them at once.  Soon, several inches of their
soft appendages were on display, and there was still no sign of the ends.
       Finally, their large, foreskin covered heads appeared only as the
men stood up so that they were only in the mud pool from the knees down.
"Alright, which one of us is the longest?" asked Jizi.
       I looked around, again and again, absolutely amazed at my eyes.
"They are all so similar."
       "Why don't you measure us up, boy?" asked Bang.
       "You mean, touch you?"
       "Sure."
       To my delight, I started to use my hand against Bang's soft stalk,
using the distance from the end of my middle finger to the end of my wrist
as a rough measure.  Even that was almost inadequate to take in these
proportions.  Once I had no excuse to linger there anymore, I moved to Wan,
measuring the penis I had gotten a short handful of before.  And then
finally I did the same measuring to Jizi.
       "You had enough time, boy," said Wan.  "Time to tell us who has the
longest swinging dick here."
       "It looks like you do, Jizi."
       "I knew it!"
       "Wait, that can't be right," complained Wan.  "You're lying to us,
boy."
       "No, I'm not," I said.  "Put them together and see for yourselves."
       The three men moved from surrounding me to pushing themselves
together.  They pushed their three soft penises together, and I measured
them together like that with my hands.  My my, was it ever impressive to
see so much wonderful penis flesh all together like that.
       "See?  Jizi is longer.  Just barely longer, but he is."
       "That's right, men!" said Jizi.
       "I win the bet then," I said excitedly, as the three men took their
seats again in the tub and that part of their anatomies disappeared again.
       "Now, hold it right there," said Wan.  "The question up for bet was,
which one of us has the longest penis?  And I don't know about these two
men, but mine gets a lot longer than this when provoked."
       "Same with mine, come to think of it," said Bang.
       "The only fair thing to do would be for all three of us to get as
hard as we can, and then re- measure," said Wan.
       "Fine," said Jizi.  "But you better get over here and help me out,
because my dick isn't going to get hard by itself."
       I moved over to him.  "What do you need me to do?"
       "Have you ever jerked a guy off before?"
       "Uh, no."
       "Well, it's the same as jerking off your own dick.  I assume you've
done that before?"
       "Yes, I have."
       "Just grab on and start to stroke, boy."
       I reached under the white mud, found Jizi's wonderful, soft dick
with my hands, and started to rub him up and down.
       "How is he doing?" asked Wan.
       "His hands are damn clumsy, but he'll get the job done," said Jizi.
       Soon enough, I could feel blood start to enter Jizi's meat.  After
about a minute of working, it got fully erect, looking so impressive as it
amazingly popped up well above the white mud line, looking like a huge,
ivory tower from between his legs.  It looked impossible to beat, and I too
had a wild erection which was thankfully concealed under the mud.
       When I scooted over to Bang and started to rub his soft dick with my
hands, he said, "I hate to admit it, but Jizi is a lot more virile than I."
       "What he means is, just like with all the whores he sleeps with, he
needs to see his dick surrounded by tits," said Jizi.  "Boy, go ahead and
help him out."
       I wasn't sure what he meant, but Bang surprised me by placing his
penis against the center of my chest, as he grabbed my nipples almost
painfully hard, and rubbed himself against me.  This worked much more
effectively that my hand did, getting him totally hard in no time, and I
realized when he pulled himself off of me, I was sad to separate from him.
       "Still got me to get hard, boy," said Wan, smiling at me.  I moved
over to him and started to rub his soft penis in the mud.  "Nope, those
paws are useless over here.  I'm a real man with a real man's needs.  I
need my dick to be totally encased by slippery, smooth flesh to get going,
you understand?"
       "No."
       "Well then, shut up boy, and let me do as I please."
       Wan manhandled me, forcing me to sit on his lap.  The next thing I
knew, he had his soft dick against my buttcrack.
       "Yeah, that feels good, boy.  Just squeeze those cheeks around my
monster."  I tried to do as he asked.  "Oh yeah."
       While his arms caressed my body (which felt so right), he started to
buck his hips back and forth, thrusting in my crack.  I was surprised how
well this odd position worked to get him hard, and even more so that my
hole seemed to tingle at his touch.
       "Alright, now all of you have to push yourselves together again," I
said.
       They stood up out of the liquid again and placed their hard weapons
together, with me losing my breath in amazement at just how large they
were.
       "Alright then, who wins?" asked Wan.
       I used my hands to line up and measure.  "I cannot believe this."
       "What?"
       "You three all are exactly the same length.  What are those
chances?"
       "We already knew that," Bang said.  "How could we three really be
such good friends if we weren't?"
       "But it means you lose, boy," said Jizi.  "The deal was, if Bang was
the shortest or second shortest, you'd win.  Since he's just as big as the
rest of us, you lose."
       "Fine, I'm not arguing."
       The three men sat down again in the white mud.
       "And I'm collecting my reward right now," said Wan.  "Get over here
and start to lick me clean."
       Wan wouldn't let me touch his upper body with my hands, instead, he
was only allowed to use my tongue.  I was thankful that Wan was naturally
hairless on his body muscles except for armpits, because it made my work
easier.  And Wan didn't lift his arms up, he kept them folded at his sides,
so I never really had to lick his armpits except for a small bunch of black
hair that had appeared, but those didn't taste so bad.  The rest of Wan
tasted delicious, and I loved running my tongue over each of his gorgeous
muscle lines.  I had to keep myself lowered in the mud at all times so that
he didn't see my hard dick, and I thought to myself that this "payment" was
almost as rewarding to me as their money would have been.
       "Who is next?" I asked when I was done.
       "Wait, there's still an important part of me that's still dirty."
       "But I got your whole upper body."
       "The agreement was that you had to lick clean any part of our bodies
that is above the mud line while we are seated like this."
       "Yes, I just licked you from the waist up."
       "Look again, boy.  There's one more body part now that's above the
mud line."
       I looked at the three of them sitting in the mud, and I realized he
was right.  Three huge erections pushed up out of the mud and stuck into
the air.
       "I'm not licking your penis, it's covered in mud!"
       "That's exactly why it needs to be cleaned off by your tongue.  And
I don't think you'd like to see me react to someone who refuses an owed
debt, boy."
       With that threat over my head, what else could I do?  I leaned down
and started to lick his penis from the top down.  Luckily, the white mud
wasn't as bad tasting as I expected.  I licked clean his entire dickhead,
then worked my way down the couple more inches of his stalk that was
visible.
       "There, now you're done," said Wan.
       Bang was next, and after licking his muscles clean, he too wanted me
to lick the top part of his penis, which I did with less hesitation than I
had with Wan.
       When I moved over to Jizi, he said, "You can start with my dick."
       So, I licked away at the foreskin of his uncut dick until that was
clean.  And then I started in on the muscles of his upper body.  Because
Jizi's arms, chest, and stomach were covered with black hair, it was
slower, rougher work than it had been with the past two men.
       Jizi moved suddenly, and his hip hit my erection for the first time.
"Whoa, what is that?" asked Jizi, grabbing onto me there.  "Check out happy
boy over here."  He pushed my hard dick above the mud, showing it to the
other two.  Bang whistled happily, and I turned red.
       "You have some explaining to do," Wan said to me.
       "What do you mean?" I asked.  "All three of you are just as firm as
I am."
       "Yes, but in order to get that way you had to go to all sorts of
work," said Wan.  "How is it that you have a stiff penis when none of us
have touched you there, ever?"
       I stared at him, hot with anger, but could think of no excuse to
defend myself.
       "The truth is, you're attracted to us, aren't you?" asked Wan.
       "Go ahead and come clean, boy," said Bang.  "We don't care."
       "Alright, I admit it," I said.  "I've never been the least bit
attracted to females."
       "See, you two?" asked Wan of his friends.  "I knew that was true
from the first moment I looked at him.  Alright, tell us, boy.  How many
men have you messed around with before?"
       "None," I said, hoping they wouldn't think of me as some pervert.
"I've never seen a man's penis until now, and your bodies re the first ones
I've ever touched."
       "Listen, there's no need to worry," said Bang.  "All of us are just
as attracted to you as you are to us."
       "You, you are?"
       "Listen boy, how would you like to come home with us?" asked Bang.
"To a place where men love men and no one judges them for it?"
       "I'd love to.  But my mother at home would worry."
       "We can send for her later," said Bang.
       "Then yes, please take me with you," I said.
       "Oh, come on, Bang," said Wan.  "We can't just take him home with
us.  The boy hasn't the slightest bit of experience."
       "He's willing to learn, aren't you, boy?" asked Jizi.
       "Yes, of course I am."
       "Listen, I'll only agree to this if you can prove you know how to
please a man right now.  Otherwise, you're not coming."
       "I can do it."
       "There's three ways for you to please a man that you must master,"
said Jizi.
       "You already started to dabble in the first way to please a man when
you rubbed us before, but your technique needs work," said Wan, approaching
me and presenting his creamy dick in front of me.  "Let me take your hand
and retrain you on how to properly jack off a man's dick."
       He forced my right hand onto his unit and showed me how to jerk
slowly, firmly, and consistently.  "Do I have it now?"
       "Pretty much, just keep at it for practice, boy."
       "Another technique must be to learn how to kiss men, right?"  When I
had seen men and women kiss each other passionately, I had always yearned
deeply for someone to share that with.
       "Bang, show this boy how he should kiss a man where we come from,"
said Wan as I continued to stroke him with my right hand.
       "Yes, of course," Bang said.  He stood up in the mud pit and walked
towards me.
       "Should I stand up?"
       "No, stay on your knees," said Bang.  "Boy, lesson number one.  You
need to learn that when you kiss a man, you don't kiss the lips on his
mouth.  You kiss the tiny lips here."  I saw him wipe away the remaining
white mud from his dick and place the head near my face, showing me the
little eye of the thing.
       "Kiss here?  Like this?" I moved in and kissed his penis head.
       "That's a good start.  Now I want you to make that kiss wet.  Open
your mouth and give the thing a few licks."
       "Like this?"
       "Yes, good.  Now open your jaw real wide and let me get all the way
inside you."
       Pretty soon, Bang had half of his thing inside my mouth, and I could
no longer talk as he instructed me to keep my lips sealed around him at all
times.
       "Now, you just concentrate on your candy treat to suck on and your
toy to hold onto," said Jizi.  "I'm going to teach you how to do the third
and final method you need in order to please a man, but this time, you
don't have to do anything but sit there."
       "How come you always get to be the one to do that?" asked Wan.
       "Because Bang actually prefers getting sucked off, for some reason.
And because you are wholly incapable of not ripping someone to shreds, as
we've seen many times."
       While my hands and mouth continued their work, Jizi came up behind
me.  He stuck his hand into the pool of white mud and next thing I knew, I
felt pressure against my butthole.  And just as when they had tested me for
cleanliness, I felt a finger enter me, though this time it was lubed by the
mud our lower bodies were submerged in.  And then there were two fingers,
and then three, and I couldn't for the life of me fathom how that was
supposed to be pleasurable for him.
       It was only when I felt the shocking pain of something unspeakably
large enter me there that the grim reality that the fingering was only a
preliminary was seared into my brain, and I cried out in panic.
       "Ah, hell," said Jizi.  "Are you in pain, boy?"
       "Yes, yes, so much pain!" I said, tears coming to my eyes, wanting
him to pull out, my dick softening.
       "Damn, I forgot this one is a virgin," said Jizi.
       "Who cares how much pain he's in?" asked Wan.  "Just force him to
take it.  We can hold his mouth shut."
       "No, this won't work if he doesn't enjoy this, you know that.  Boy,
stop pleasuring the other two and just concentrate on me."  Jizi actually
spun me around until I was on my back looking into his face.  "Listen to my
voice.  I'm inside you, but I'm not going to move until you're ready for
me.  I want you to focus on nothing but accepting my flesh into your body,
into the pain turning into sexual pleasure for yourself.  You understand?"
       "Yes," I said, though I couldn't possibly believe a pain that
intense could ever pass.
       But after a couple minutes, what did you know?  The pain slowly
faded away.  "Is the pain gone?"  Jizi asked.
       "Mostly."
       "Good, now I'm going to twist myself around inside you.  Not pushing
further in, just creating a slow sense of friction between us until I've
convinced you that this is the beginning of what's going to be the most
pleasurable event you've ever experienced, bar none."
       He did as he said, and as he rotated inside me, I concentrated on
the unexpectedly pleasurable sensations on my hole.
       "Now, do I have you begging for more of my dick yet?" he asked.
       "Yes."
       "Well, to prove you're not lying to me, I'm going to hold onto your
dick with my hand.  It's gotten hard again, but if I see it start to soften
while I give your butt the screwing it deserves, I'm going to know you've
failed to prove to us that you can please a man, and we won't take you with
us."
       I felt him slide himself more into me, and while the pain returned,
it was brief, and he was gentle enough to keep myself focused on the
pleasure I was feeling.
       "Alright, all the way in, and your dick is still hard," he said to
me.  "Now comes the real test: can you still feel this same level of
pleasure when I start to screw you?"  He pulled back until he was nearly
out of me, and then pushed in again.  The pain hit me, but when he did it a
second time, it was much less.
       "Yes, I can," I said.  "See?"
       "That's what I like to see, boy.  Now, I want you to just look here
into my face as I really start to build up steam and pleasure myself with
your sweet chute."
       His thrusts were never as forceful as he threatened, and I didn't
have to fake the pleasure at all.  I loved what he was doing, and he was
right when he said that it was the by far the best sexual experience I ever
had.  In fact, even though the had he had on my dick wasn't doing anything
but holding me, my dick amazingly felt like it had been manually stimulated
for hours, and I actually worried about orgasming too soon.
       And then everything changed when the handsome face I was staring
into turned surreal as his tw fangs started to grow.  I thought at first
they were just my imagination, but they kept on growing and growing until
they became terrifying to behold.  My body went numb and my eyes became
transfixed on those deadly weapons.
       "Jizi, your fangs!" said Wan.
       "Hmm?  Oh, hell!  Well, I guess I can't hold those back any longer."
       Nothing in my limited education or upbringing prepared me for what I
was seeing, yet my clear naiveté about the world outside my village at
least brought with it acknowledgement that something I had never
anticipated could very well be real, and it made it easier to accept the
reality of the situation.  I couldn't grasp how those deadly fangs Jizi had
sprouted could be anything but bad for me, so I started to fight back
against him, only I was totally incapacitated under his weighty muscles.
       I felt those sharp fangs pierce the flesh in my throat, and at
first, that sensation was just as expected: sharp and sudden pain that made
me cringe.
       And then that initial sensation left and something else completely
took over, something impossible to describe but impossibly profound.  I
couldn't figure out if what I was feeling was a physical sensation brought
upon Jizi's mouth on my neck or an emotional response, and somehow knew it
was a mixture of the two.  The feeling was decidedly sexual in nature, with
waves of passion running from the bite on my neck to the rest of my body.
But there was something else there too, a disarming quality.  The fight I
had been trying to muster against Jizi was instantly forgotten as the
pleasurable tingle made me totally complacent.  I went from fighting for my
life, fighting to get Jizi out of me, to being swept away utterly in a
manner of seconds.
       The pleasure was so strong, I felt myself give in entirely to Jizi.
Suddenly, I wanted him to keep having sex with me, I wanted his strong body
so badly it made me insane.  I wanted him to use my body.  And I wanted him
never to stop biting me either.
       Shockingly, I would go so far as to say I was willing to die for
him, just as long as he brought me to sexual climax.  I was willing to let
him bleed me dry.
       This sexual fire turned me into a new partner, and as Jizi slurped
down my blood, I grabbed his bare buttocks in my hands and pushed him
farther and farther into me with every stroke.  The passion reached him as
well as he started to flex every muscle and throw all attempt at gentleness
to the wind, slamming me so hard my whole body shook with every thrust.
       Before long, I felt him explode inside me, and I too started to
climax.  A orgasm knocked through me that was more powerful than I ever
even previously conceive.
       After it was over, as our bodies calmed down and our muscles
relaxed, Jizi finally licked at my neck wound, healing it instantly
somehow, and then his lips left my throat.  Almost as soon as the magic was
gone from my body, the gravity of the situation became clear to me, and
relaxation quickly flipped into anxiety.
       "You, you bit me!" I said, pushing Jizi's face above me, trying to
get him out of me.  "Why would you do that?"  I punched him in the nose.
       "Ow!" he said.  "You stop that right now!"
       I didn't care how deep his voice was or how intimidating his muscles
were, I wasn't going to stop fighting.  But then, as soon as this assured
truth went through me, I felt myself willed to his vocal command, and I
stopped hitting him as my muscles went limp.
       Even though I stopped fighting against him, my panic only rose, and
my heart raced like mad with my lungs keeping up with every step.
       "Listen to me," commanded Jizi.  "You'll stop your anxiety right
now.  I want you to relax, is that understood?"
       "Yes," I said, though I couldn't remember my brain ever giving my
mouth the command to say it.  Next thing I knew, my heart slowed along with
my breathing as I became deeply relaxed.
       "Yes, that's it, boy," Jizi said.  "You'll do exactly what I tell
you."  He pulled himself out of me.  "And job number one is to please my
friends over here with the same energy that you just pleased me.
Understood?"
       "Yes," I said, and suddenly all I could think about was wanting to
please Bang and Wan over there on the sidelines.
       "Come here," said Bang, but for some reason his commands had no
affect on me.
       "Go suck off Bang, nothing he likes more," commanded Jizi.
       "Yes," I said, and sloshed through the white mud towards him, diving
down and taking his dick in my mouth again.
       "Put your hands on his butt, that's right, and hold on for dear life
as he screws your throat," said Jizi.  "Show him how much you want to
swallow his seed."
       And after he commanded me to do it, I was totally dead-set on the
task, while Bang's groans of pleasure let me know how pleased he was.
       "This one has a special something that we haven't encountered in a
long time," said Bang.  "Maybe we should, you know, make true on our
promise for once."
       "What are you saying?" asked Wan.
       "He means, take the boy with us," said Jizi.  "Alive, even."
       "No, absolutely not.  Neither of you have the first clue how to take
care of a human, do you?  No, he stays right here, thank you very much.
All you did is manage to raise my blood pressure, and I'm just going to be
forced to take out my frustration on his butt."
       "Boy, you'll do anything and everything Wan wants as well to get him
off," said Jizi as Wan moved behind me, and as soon as he said it, I was
again determined to follow orders.
       When Wan shoved himself all the way inside me, I felt so much pain,
and the pain only intensified as he mercilessly attacked my hole.  But even
though there was nothing but pain and absolutely no pleasure as there had
been with Jizi's softer touch, my mind was still totally focused on
pleasing him, so I never cried out in paid or tried to get away from his
huge, aggressive dick.
       Suddenly, I was getting plowed from both ends, and my focus was
entirely on doing everything I could to please both of my partners.
       That is, until the wooden door of the room opened and a naked,
elderly Korean man stepped inside.  His eyes went wide with shock as he saw
the activities taking place inside.
       Jizi moved with such speed, it was almost too fast for my eyes to
process.  First, he had slammed the door shut as he pulled the man inside.
Next, Jizi's hands turned broke the man's neck, and then ripped open his
throat with his fangs.
       Suddenly, all I could think about was the horror of the situation
and the poor fate of the helpless old man, as I stared in shock at the
gore.
       "Hasn't this backwoods country ever heard of door locks?" asked
Jizi.
       "Or knocking, even?"
       "I had no choice but to kill him."
       "Of course you didn't," said Wan.  "It's not like you could have
seduced him like you did this stupid boy."
       Disturbed, I started to pull away from Wan and even bit Bang's
penis.
       "Ow!" Bang yelped.  "Jizi, you need to talk to the boy again!"
       Jizi looked at me.  "Boy, you're going to totally ignore the kill I
just had to make," said Jizi.  "And keep your mind where it should be, on
giving these two men the best fucks they ever had."
       I nodded in agreement, and my horror faded away quickly, my mind
returning to the task at hand.  I didn't even flinch as Jizi carried the
body over me and poured the dead man's blood all over my body, the dark red
splashing on top of the white mud but not mixing in.
       Clearly the blood set off the other two vampires, as both of their
fangs popped out.  While keeping himself inside my mouth, Bang leaned
forward and bit into the side of my left buttcheek, just inches from where
Wan was doing his business.  As Bang started to feed from me, I instantly
entered that same sexual euphoria as I did before, surrendering not because
Jizi had told me to but because it felt so good.
       By the time Wan leaned forward, held me from behind, and bit into my
throat, the euphoria was that much more, and amazingly, my dick was so hard
you would have never believed I had climaxed just minutes previous.  The
pain I had previously felt in my backside because of Wan's rough thrusts
completely dissipated, leaving just the pleasure.
       As the two of them fed, Bang and Wan's thrusts intensified, and they
seemed to build up a rhythm, matching each other stroke for stroke.  It
wasn't long before they both climaxed simultaneously, flooding me from both
ends.
       It was only after both of them closed my wounds that the bloodloss
hit me, and I passed out.
       I came to as someone splashed water on my face.  I was sitting in
the water pool in the room, with all the mud, blood, and semen having been
cleaned from my body.  There was no sign of the body or any blood in the
room, and I might have thought the whole episode was some grisly wet dream
if Jizi's face wasn't looking down at me.
       "I'm going to let you go back to sleep, and when you wake up, I want
you to forget about what happened here with the three of us.  You'll
remember coming into this room, finding it empty, feeling tired, and
falling asleep here.  That's all you'll remember, is that clear?"
       "Yes."
       "Sleep now."

       *****

       Now.  I wasn't sure what had finally made this blocked out memory
surface, but I thought, no wonder I hadn't needed much convincing by The
Bridge that male vampires were bad news when I first joined them, as I had
highly negative repressed memories about them.
       I woke up with a mighty pain in my head, but pain meant I wasn't
dead, and I welcomed it.
       My bleary eyes tried to focus as I took in my surroundings.  I was
chained to a chair.  It looked like I was in some dimly-lit bedroom of a
penthouse suite somewhere, judging from the distance of the below
streetlights visible through the huge windows in the room.  From the
buildings on the street, I guessed I was back in Barcelona.
       I soon realized I wasn't alone.  I turned to see the masked vampire,
the one who had defeated me so adeptly, slip a piece of duct tape over
Abby's mouth, who had been hogtied in rope.  Good, she was alive still.  I
noticed that there was also tape over my mouth, which disappointed me.
Across the room, I saw Cayden, and I knew it was a blessing that he was
still alive as well.  He too was chained to a chair and had tape over his
mouth.
       Mask.  The masked vampire left the room without a word and shut the
door, leaving us alone.  We were alive, but with Cayden and myself tied up,
along with me having my mouth taped, would there be any chance for us to
escape this situation?  Cayden's eyes met mine, and they were wet with
sentiment, knowing perhaps just as I did how little hope we had.
       But fortune smiled upon us: I realized that the tape around my mouth
was placed carelessly loose.  I wiggled my lips and pushed the tape with my
tongue, working the tape enough to speak through.  Yes, so fortunate.
       Within seconds, the power of my words had my chains knocked loose.
I wiggled out of them and pulled the tape all the way off my mouth.  Both
Abby and Cayden's eyes were lit up with pure, happy excitement.
       I had to be totally quiet; I didn't want anyone hearing me and
returning.  I went to unbound Cayden first.  I couldn't find the key to his
locks, so I used my words to break him free, and then I pulled his tape
off.
       "Thank you, thank you, my love," Cayden said joyfully.  "Without
you, we would have been surely perished."
       "We're by no means secure yet," I said.  "It will be challenging to
sneak out of here with Abby.  I fear we will be forced into a
confrontation."
       Cayden stepped forward, his smoldering eyes locked onto mine.  "That
can wait for a few moments.  I've wanted to kiss you so badly from the
first instant I laid eyes on you.  Just a minute ago, I was cursing myself
that I was going to die without taking what I so desperately wanted.  Now,
before we do anything, you'd better prepare to be kissed."
       Emotions.  He moved in before I had a chance to brace myself, held
me in his arms, and put his warm, eager lips to mine.  Any resistance I
might have put up melted away at his loving touch.  He worked his magic,
enthralling me under his spell.  It was so shockingly perfect as the love
literally poured through every inch of my body, that at first I was unable
to react in any way; I had to summon all of my resolve before I was able to
respond in kind.
       Finally, I did kiss back, my passion breaking free, my lips pushing
back against his, my hands encircling his body just as his encircled mine.
Reassured by my response, he pushed us further and further into the kiss,
now slipping his tongue into my mouth for the first time, as if he couldn't
hold this back for another second.
       Bliss.  True, I'd never kissed anyone before.  But even if I had
kissed a million men, none of those kisses would ever compare to the power
and passion of this perfect kiss.  I wanted it to go on indefinitely.  As
he cupped the back of my head, I moved my tongue around his, our two
tongues dancing playfully.  Soon, I too had my tongue in his mouth,
searching out his teeth and gums, desperate to get more of the heavenly
taste of him.
       I could feel his fangs had extended, which I hadn't expected, but
with this level of excitement, didn't surprise me at all.  I continued to
kiss him, telling him with my tongue that I wasn't the least bit distressed
or disturbed by his fangs.
       The kiss continued with my eyes clamped shut, and I sadly knew that
this couldn't last forever, that soon we would have to stop.
       That line of thought never went anywhere, as it was shockingly
interrupted by a disturbingly bad pain in my tongue.
       Stunned, I whipped open my eyes.  My tongue was still in Cayden's
mouth, and I tried to pull it out, but I couldn't.  It was stuck.
       I yanked my whole head back away from him, but my tongue remained
painfully inside his mouth.  I realized, with a sense of horror, that his
fangs had pierced my tongue, causing it to be skewered.
       I figured he had gotten so excited that he couldn't help but bite
me.  Well, that was forgivable; I could heal my tongue.  It would just
teach us to be more careful with our passion in the future.
       I saw Cayden's eyes looking at me, a look that was neither guilt nor
remorse.  It was a twisted look of glee.
       And then it wasn't just his two fangs that were holding onto my
tongue.  All of the rest of his teeth cruelly tore into me as well.
       Panic swept me.  I frantically pushed at him, pushed his face away
from me, but the harder I pushed, the harder he bit into my tongue.
       I screamed in pure, tortured agony as the worst pain imaginable
poured through my mouth as finally our heads yanked away from each other.
       Blood was gushing down, pouring out of my mouth and covering my
chin.
       Shock.  Horror and disbelief swelled inside me as I realized that
there was a painful, sickening absence in my mouth.  Cayden confirmed this
suspicion when he opened his bloody mouth and proudly showed me the
bleeding stump of my ripped off tongue between his teeth.
       "Damn you to hell!" I tried to yell, but all that came out was an
incomprehensible mess.
       He spit out my tongue, knowing full well that none of my powers
would ever be able to reattach the thing, and laughed evilly.  "Pardon,
Jeong?  Can you speak up please?  It's gotten so hard to hear you."  He
licked my blood off his lips.  "Mmm, I've never tasted the One's blood
before.  It is different than human blood.  Different from everything.  So
much tastier."  He sickeningly licked his lips dry.  "I would love to enjoy
it in much greater quantity in the future."
       Realization hit me as I calculated in my mind just how far back this
deception went.  From the very first moment I saw him, when I stupidly
trusted a vampire telling me that he was somehow the one moral being of his
entire species.  I should have killed him right there.  Instead, he went on
to cleverly deceive me for months, inventing feelings for me until I
finally agreed to leave The Bridge, the only people who would have
protected me from his games, and run off with him into danger.  Cayden must
have planned out with the masked vampire exactly where we would cross the
border, he must have known precisely when he needed to slip under the car
and hold on.  Hell, those border patrol guards were probably paid off by
vampire blood money as well.
       Brilliant.  All of it just to reach this point, his sweet reward.
       In fury, I launched myself at him.  I didn't know now without my
tongue if I would be strong enough to beat him, but I sure as hell was
going to give it all that I had.
       "Uh, uh, not so fast," he said, lifting up poor Abby off the ground,
holding onto her while he pulled out a very large knife and put it to her
throat.  She struggled, still tied up tight.  Her eyes were wide in terror
as he grabbed her hair painfully with his left hand while he pushed the
knife against her soft throat.
       "Make one move, and she dies," he said, smiling at me giddily,
knowing he had won.
       Horror.  My first thought was that he couldn't possibly kill his own
daughter, but, I remembered, male vampires had no souls, no principals, he
would do it and he would do it gleefully.
       He pulled the tape off her mouth.
       "No, don't kill me, please, I don't want to die, please, Uncle!" she
screamed.
       Fine, let them kill me, it was worth it to save the life of this
poor girl.
       "Yes, disobey me at any point and I will kill her," Cayden yelled at
me.  "Oh yes, I have a long future planned for you, Jeong.  An eternity, in
fact."
       Forever.  These words scratched annoyingly at my mind, forcing me
into analysis.  I had expected all of this was about killing me, but I
realized now there was so much more at stake here.  He cut out my tongue,
making me effectively impotent from here on out.  He was planning on
keeping me around for an eternity.  Locking me up in a cell somewhere where
I would spend centuries without ever seeing another living soul.  By doing
so, he guaranteed that there would never be another One, because if I
didn't ever die, my powers wouldn't pass onto the next one in line.  This
would be of immeasurable importance to the vampire species.  They would
develop a decent shot at taking over and ruling over mankind, which had
always been their aim.
       Abby cried, looking at me in the eyes.  "Please, Uncle Jeong, please
don't let him kill me, I promise I'll be a good girl forever and ever,
please don't let me die."
       "I kill her on the count of three if you don't submit to me," Cayden
said angrily.  "One."
       I loved that little girl, and I wanted so badly to save her.  Every
fiber in my being urged me to help her, to save her from this terrible
death.
       "Two!"
       "Uncle, please!"
       I almost bowed down and submitted to Cayden, but something made me
keep my ground.
       "Three!"
       I watched as Cayden, his face twisted in pure hatred at my
resistance, cut deep through the girl's throat, a cut that was purposely
not deep enough to kill her quickly with pity, a cut that would surely kill
her but make her suffer as she watched herself bleed to death.  Her face
was one of tragic horror as she choked and gasped, dying terribly.
       Sorry.  I was so, so sorry.
       I turned in the direction of the huge window of the penthouse and
ran towards it with all my speed.  Soon, I had crashed through the glass,
and I was flying horizontally away from the building outside as the cold
air hit me, hearing Cayden's tortured curses coming behind me as he
realized he had lost me.
       I had saved so many lives in my existence, perhaps, if there was a
God, he would forgive me this one that I could not save, that poor little
child.  I was choosing the greater good.
       Gravity started to pull me down, and I saw the street dozens of
stories beneath me come rushing forwards.
       Right before I hit the pavement, I prayed that the next One would
not be as foolish as me, that the next One would not be betrayed by their
own imprudent heart, that the next One would make the world safe, once and
for all.
       I didn't even feel pain as I hit the ground and met my end.
       Gift.


       OCTOBER 31st


       I opened my eyes, screaming, terrified, desperately grabbing out,
trying to seize onto something, anything that would keep me from falling to
my death!
       I did grab onto something; I looked at my hands to see... blankets.
Sheets.  My bed!
       It had been the scariest dream of my life.  Never had a dream felt
this twistedly real.  I had felt my stomach being pulled out of my mouth as
I fell down the many stories towards that dark street!
       In the dream I hadn't been myself, I hadn't been Vadim Ivanov at
all.  I had been someone else.  A Korean man.
       Was this the dream that my family had warned me about?  A vision of
someone else's death, an omen that destiny had chosen me to wield the
unspoken powers?
       I didn't know what to make of it.  Honestly, I thought most of the
stories my grandparents had told me over the years were nothing but fairy
tales.  Sure, I believed them as a child, and even as a teenager, I had
been gullible enough to heed them.  But now that I was 23, the myths had
become harder and harder to accept as true, and the real world instead
occupied all of my time.
       But now, this dream, unlike any single dream I have ever had.  I
couldn't be sure what it all meant; I just had to ask my grandparents their
thoughts!
       Normally, I would have just left my cozy house and walked over to
their place not even 6 blocks through the quiet streets of
Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Russia.  But right at this moment, they weren't in the
town at all, but southwest, lodging in the nearby forest.  They had a tiny,
zero frills, but very romantically rustic cabin in the woods, and that's
where's they'd been for the past couple of days.  The cabin didn't even
have a phone line, and my grandparents never adapted to the whole cell
phone phenomenon.  The place wasn't even accessible by car; it was only
reachable by foot or by horse.  Backwoods for sure!
       But that couldn't deter me!  I couldn't let this wait a week until
their return.  I had to go now; I had to get my questions answered.  I had
to leave tonight!
       I jumped out of bed, my heart racing.  My feet landed on something a
lot softer, lumpier, and furrier than the bare hardwood floor that I had
been expecting.
       It was my dog, Pavlov, I had underfoot.  I heard a surprised yelp as
the poor dog shook awake from her sleep.  Truly I was the worst master of
all time.
       Pavlov spun her bushy head around to look at my feet, starting to
sniff my legs.  It certainly wasn't the first time I had accidentally
caused her pain, and wouldn't be the last.  I was a bit clumsy and
careless, which often resulted in Pavlov getting accidentally kicked, hit,
or spilled upon.  Luckily, she was a trooper, a large dog besides, a mix
between a black lab and some sheppard, I wasn't sure, but she always took
my accidental assaults in stride, never reacting angrily.  She brought me
such joy!
       So, it was beyond shocking when my girl responded to me this time by
baring her teeth, growling and snarling, clearly intending to maul me!
Sure, Pavlov had always had a wild streak.  I had found her outdoors as a
puppy, a stray in the woods, abandoned, the poor thing, and took her in.
She was the cutest bundle of fur I had ever seen!  That had been when I was
a teenager, and I raised her myself.  She had always been one of those dogs
who mistrusted strangers, though she was extremely loyal to me, my family,
and any close friends.  Most of all loyal to me, I discovered when she ran
off after I had gone to University and left her in the care of my
grandparents.  Pavlov chose to live in the wild, back to the forests that I
had found her in, and I worried constantly for her survival.  I'd heard
incidents of people spotting her, some of them even trying to capture her,
but those attempts had always ended up badly for the people.  Years later,
when I moved back into town and got my own place, I was walking through the
woods, and suddenly, she came out of nowhere, running towards me, her
tongue hanging out excitedly, pure love on her visage!  I started to cry, I
was so happy!  I rolled around with her in my arms as she licked my face.
After that, she had stayed with me just as before as if that interlude in
the wild had never happened.
       All of which is to say that Pavlov was extremely loyal to me.  So,
hearing her snarl at me in defensive warning was extremely off-putting.
       "Pavlov, have you lost your mind?  It's me, girl!"
       She cocked her head curiously at my voice, then looked up at my
face, her growl softening.  I reached out my hand to her, which she looked
at questionably.
       Finally, she gave me a reassuring lick, and let all the mistrust
fade into nothingness, seemingly accepting me again.
       "You must be getting old and senile, poor girl," I said to her, even
though she didn't seem the least bit old to me in any other respect.
       I combed through my house, packing a hiking backpack that could last
me a couple of weeks, making sure I had food, water, and all the camping
essentials.  I was no backpacking rookie, I had gone countless times with
my dad or my grandparents, later with friends, and even a few times just
with Pavlov.
       As I packed my things, I took in the coziness of my house.  Outside
the weather was chilly, but in here, this two-bedroom was always warm and
inviting.  I loved my house, felt like it was a part of my soul.  Others
had scoffed when I chose to keep this place instead of selling it,
expecting that there was too much sorrow in the history of this house for
me to want to come back to it.  And there was a grain of truth to that.
When I was fifteen, my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and we
were too poor with my parents' meager teachers' salaries to get him the
proper treatment.  He died in the house after a long battle with the
disease.  My mother, already extremely depressed during his illness, often
leaving me to take care of my father on my own, went a little mad after he
died.  She left me, left her entire life, and ran off to who knows where.
I still hadn't heard from her.
       Honestly, those memories saddened me at times, but didn't gnaw at me
the way they might have done to others. My dad had raised me to be an
optimist, to enjoy and appreciate life and friends and family and good wine
every second of every day, to always count one's blessings!  It would be a
dishonor to my father's memories to do anything differently.
       As I walked through the walls of this house, I was reminded of
countless happy memories with the best father that I could have ever
dreamed of!  And even plenty of happy memories of my mom, back when she too
was under the happy enchantment that my father's love brought into all of
our lives.
       As I turned off the lights in my house and carried my pack outside,
Pavlov coming with me, I knew my mother, if she was still around, would
frown deeply upon her son's actions.  She had never believed her parents'
stories, and regularly referred to them as lunatics, often not permitting
them to see me.  But she knew that she had one thing to thank them for; her
husband.  When she was a rebellious teenager in our town, her parents had
somehow, through much genealogy studying, traced a line from the Great Hero
of the nearby old towns' myths from centuries ago to a family that existed
in our town still, the Ivanovs.  The Great Hero had vanished himself long
ago and later pronounced dead, but he had left behind a son and a daughter,
with my family apparently being descendents of the son's line.
       My dad's father had been long dead by then, so they approached my
father instead, then only a teenager, and told them all of their myths.  It
was prophesized long ago that another Great Hero would rise in my town, a
man who descended from the last Great Hero of old.  He would rise to a
lofty stature never achieved by any living being before, and would either
save the world from vicious vampires, or die trying to do so.
       My father found my grandparents to be wonderful people and very
warm, though he never himself bought into any of their theories.  He
certainly wasn't a superstitious man or one prone to fantasy, though he
never showed condescension to people like my grandparents for their
different, eccentric notions.
       Still, them reaching out to him was enough for him to become dear
friends with them, and as he spent time at their home, he came to know
their daughter, and she him.  The two hit it off, and I was born right
after they graduated high school.
       Because my parents had me so young, and my grandparents had my
mother so young, they were just now turning sixty.  And they were damn spry
for that age!  They had always been ridiculously fit, trained to fight in
the old ways that had been handed down to them from generations past.  They
sparred with each other constantly, keeping their muscles toned.  Heck, I
was in my prime, yet either one of them could probably still wipe the floor
with me in a fight!
       They had boasted about using their battle prowess to kill vampires
themselves, telling me they knew all of a vampire's weaknesses.  While the
main floor of their cabin was innocuously ordinary, anyone going into the
locked basement would be astounded to see weapon after weapon, both new and
ancient, hanging on the walls.  Body armor, old texts and scrolls, relics
and treasure, it was all down there.  Seeing all that as a boy, it had been
easy to believe what they told me, that either my father or I was destined
to save the world.  When my father had died, they had told me that fate had
decided it would be me, and that my body would change into a hero's body.
This transformation would be marked by a vivid vision of death in my sleep.
       The dream had been terrible, but did I feel any different?  No; as I
walked through the town's streets, I felt exactly the same as I did every
previous day.  There was no notable difference that I could discern.  I
certainly hadn't turned into Superman overnight.
       I could remember my grandmother telling me, if for whatever reason
the two of them weren't around, or if something happened to the two of
them, if there was any problem, there were two other people to call on, the
only other two people in my town that had believed in my grandparents'
stories.  One of those would protect me physically.  The other would impart
the town's many histories to me.
       The second of those people lived just a quarter mile from my house.
I stood outside her cottage and rang the doorbell.  A moment later, Madina
Volkov appeared in the doorway, dressed in cotton pajamas and faux-fur
slippers.  Madina was approaching 50, her frizzy, chestnut hair starting to
grey.  She was naturally as thin as a marathon runner, though far less fit.
She was a librarian by profession, and her sharp face, always forming a
scowl, seemed to fit the librarian stereotype.  She fit other librarian
stereotypes too: she had been single her whole life, and she had an ever
increasing number of cats, two of which ran out among her feet as she
opened her door, already starting to hiss at poor Pavlov.
       "Oh joy, Vadim, I knew you would come to my D & D group one day.
We're right in the middle of it, but we can find a way to bring you in the
game.  All these losers ever want to be are elfish wizards.  We desperately
need some new blood."
       I looked past her in the doorway to see a few other oddball types
sitting around her table, obviously engaged in their game.  Madina's loopy
obsession with all things fantasy, including her Dungeons & Dragons group,
as well as her interest in the old town tales my grandparents believed in,
those were all traits that made her much too weird for most of the
townsfolk, and especially for her fellow librarians, who were much more
conservative.  In fact, Madina had an unfair reputation for being a bit
insane, and little children often whispered ugly rumors that she was
secretly a nasty witch.
       "I'm not here to play, Madina," I said in a lowered voice.
       Her smile faded back into her traditional scowl, looking highly
disappointed.  "Why, praytell, are you visiting my abode this evening then,
young sir?"  Yes, sometimes she spoke in this period talk for no
discernable reason; it was part of her charm.
       I lowered my voice.  "I had a dream.  The dream.  A vision of death.
And now I'm leaving for my grandparents' cabin, going to hike through the
night, put up camp, then continue tomorrow.  I wanted to know if you wanted
to come with me."
       She suddenly adopted my hushed, urgent tone, carefully speaking so
as not to be overheard by her visitors. "THE dream?  You had THE dream?
And you're leaving right now?"
       I lifted up my pack to show her.  "I'm all ready."
       "But I'm in the middle of D & D here."
       "Can't they play without you?"
       "No, I'm the dungeon master!"  I had no idea what that meant.
       "Okay, that's fine, you don't have to come, but I'm leaving now,
without you.  Take care."  I turned to leave.
       "No, wait, I'll come, just give me five minutes to change and pack."
She turned back to her friends.  "Sorry guys, adventure is over.  Which one
of you pointy-eared wizards wants to take care of my cats while I'm gone?"
       It was fifteen minutes before Madina was actually ready to go.  She
locked her door and joined me and Pavlov in the street, wearing a pack of
her own, though hers was decorated with white stars, looking like it was
crafted from a magician's cape.
       "I've called Olik but there was no answer.  Though, at this time of
night, I know exactly where he is.  Just follow me."  She led me through
the streets of the town.  "Tell me precisely what you dreamed."
       "I dreamed I was someone else.  A Korean man.  And it was so real,
it wasn't like any dream I've ever had."
       "And you died in this dream?"
       I nodded.  "I don't remember all the details now, but yes, I fell to
my death, then I woke up."
       "Think hard, Vadim.  Were there vampires in this dream?"
       I thought about it.  "Yes, there were," I said.  "Yes, it was the
vampires who killed me, I'm sure of it."
       She nodded.  "Not surprising.  The vampires are humanity's one true
enemy.  They are heartless menaces who kill ruthlessly and must be
stopped."  Her eyes went wide.  "You know what that means, Vadim?" she said
quickly and breathlessly.  "It is the sign we've been waiting for.  It
means you are the new Great Hero destined to rise from the humble roots of
our town to save the world.  Do you understand how thrilling this is?"
       I didn't know if thrilled was how I would have described my
disposition.  "Doesn't the prophesy say that I might die trying to save the
world, just like the last Great Hero?" I asked.
       She looked away from me, uncomfortable with my question.
"Technically, yes.  But only after you have risen to such greatness that
your deeds will affect every living person on earth.  That won't be for a
very long time."
       It was an exciting proposition, but I needed more evidence than a
vivid dream to really believe in any of this stuff.  I wanted to talk to my
grandparents themselves before making up my mind.
       Madina stopped us at the door to a rundown neighborhood bar on the
street corner.  "I bet my favorite four cats that we'll find Olik here,"
she said.  I left Pavlov outside and followed her in.
       The dimly lit, grungy bar was well populated by unseemly looking
fellows, and sadly, Olik Zavtsev blended in perfectly, sitting at the end
of the bar, downing what surely couldn't have been his first vodka.  He was
no older than Madina, but much, much fatter, ruddier, and furrier.  I could
remember Olik from my young boy's perspective as being fit as an ox and
swift as a lion.  It was my attraction for Olik that first led me to
realize I was gay.  That attraction was long gone.  It wasn't that he had
gotten older so much as he seemed to grow complacent.  While once physical
combat training filled his daily life, he hadn't trained in years, letting
his old skills decay.  While once he drank in moderation, never letting it
affect his performance, recently his drinking had become the sad focus of
his life.
       Olik had always been just as much of a social outcast in this town
as Madina, not just because most people resented him for choosing to never
find work after his father left him just enough inheritance for him to live
meagerly for the rest of his life, but because he too was open about his
beliefs in the town myths, and instead of just writing him off as being
harmlessly batty like they did Madina, Olik had devoted his life to
preparing himself for a combat with a foe that most everyone considered a
delusional invention.  In most other's minds, he had been a powerful man
mixed with crazy, and that made him extremely hazardous.
       Though nowadays, people only regarded him with a sad sort of pity.
       His face, already rosy from intoxication and laughing with his drunk
friends, turned even more red and merry when he saw Madina and I entering
the bar.
       "Ah, my friends!  Come, come, the drinks are on me tonight!"
       I followed Madina towards the stool Olik's wide rump was occupying.
That stern librarian look was all over Madina's face.
       "What can I get you to drink, Madina?" Olik asked her, oblivious to
her disapproving demeanor.
       "Nothing," she said.
       "She'll have a shot of vodka," Olik said.  "Maybe it will manage to
warm her frigid heart.  And, you, boy?  Maybe a soda for him?  He's not old
enough to drink yet."
       "I'm twenty-three, Olik!" I protested.
       "He's lying to us.  He can't be that old already," Olik whispered to
the bartender, plenty loud enough for everyone to hear.  "Get him a club
soda with a lime in it and tell him it's a vodka tonic.  He'll never know
the difference."
       "There will be no drinks for either of us!" Madina cut in sharply.
The bartender nodded.  She lowered her voice.  "Olik, we come with urgent
news."
       "Well, spit it out then," Olik mumbled.
       I looked around the bar, and it was clear many of the rowdy men in
the room were focused on our party.  I had to be subtle.  "I just woke up
from a dream."
       "Yeah, so?" Olik replied.  "What's so special about that?"
       Madina rolled her eyes.  "It wasn't just any dream, Olik.  It was
THE dream. The one important dream."
       It took a moment for Olik's glazed eyes to process what she was
saying.  Then, realization came upon his face as his eyes opened wide.
       "The dream!" he said, excitedly.  "Everyone, listen up!  Little
Vadim here just had his first wet dream, and has come to celebrate!  Let's
give him a round of applause!" Other drunken men clapped and hollered as my
face went redder than Olik's.  He knocked me on my shoulder excitedly.
"You're finally becoming a man, boy!  Pretty soon, your balls will drop,
you'll start growing chin hair, and you'll start noticing the ladies in a
whole new way!"
       "Olik, just to review, I'm twenty-three!  I went through puberty ten
years ago, and I'm gay!"
       At that proclamation, some of the other men gave me mean looks.
Russia wasn't the most progressive country in regards to homosexuality.
And though my University had its fair share of gays, sometimes I felt like
the only out homosexual in my town.  Some, like my grandparents and their
friends, embraced it.  But most just seemed barely to tolerate it.  My
mother had been the first person I tried to come out to, but every time as
a teenager I told her I had something very important about myself I had to
tell her, she refused to stay and listen to me, telling me she had enough
heartache in her life without hearing my confessions, and I should learn to
keep whatever it was to myself.
       "Enough of this ridiculousness," Madina said.  "He's done for the
night."  She pushed him off his barstool, almost making him lose his
balance.  Then she grabbed his rotund arm and pulled him out of the bar.  I
was surprised she didn't pull him out by his ear!
       When the three of us were back outside, Olik stuck out his hand to
pet Pavlov, and she backed away.  She tended to be mistrustful of
intoxicated individuals.  Madina looked around the street to make sure no
one was around before speaking frankly.  "Olik, you absolute fool!  The boy
just had THE dream.  His one true vision.  He has become the next Great
Hero, Olik."
       "Oh!" he said.  "Why didn't you just say that from the beginning?"
       "In front of everyone in the bar?  Don't you have a subtle bone in
your body?"
       "We're leaving tonight," I said to him, showing him our backpacks.
"Hiking to my grandparents' cabin!  We wanted to see if you wanted to come
on our adventure."
       "Of course I am coming!" he said.  "I've been waiting my whole life
for this!  Duty calls!"
       "He's not coming," Madina said.  "He is obviously too drunk."
       "I am not drunk!  I swear on Russia herself!"
       Madina shoved him ever so slightly, but it was more than enough to
make him lose his balance and fall over.  "Russia should be ashamed of you,
Olik!"
       "I don't care if I'm a little wobbly.  I'm coming with you!"
       "Fine, you can come," I said, helping him back to his feet.
"Madina, maybe you can help him home so he can pack for the trip.  I'm
going to see if we can't get horses for our journey."
       "This man is way too drunk to ride a horse without falling off,"
Madina said as she put her arm around him.  "Maybe we can tie him down to
the beast.  That will keep him out of trouble."
       "Take me home, woman, my weapons await!"
       "Great use those will do us when you're this intoxicated!" she fired
back.
       "Meet me at the forest entrance!" I said, taking Pavlov in the
opposite direction.
       We approached a pleasantly familiar farmhouse on the edge of town,
right up against the woods.  It was one of those places where the stable
and barn were much larger than the actual human abode.  At first I wondered
where he would be, often I would find him in the stables, attending his
family's horses.  But this evening, I noticed black smoke pouring out of
the kitchen window, and I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing!
       The kitchen door was propped open, so I just let myself in.  There
was Petro Lebedev in front of his ajar oven.  He was trying to put out some
dish in there that was on fire by beating it with a blanket, coughing smoke
in the process!
       "Oh Petro, not again!" I yelled, stepping towards the oven to help,
my eyes starting to sting.
       "Vadim!  I thought you were going to bed early tonight?"
       "I thought you promised not to do anymore baking!"
       "Change of plans," he said sheepishly.  "I can't just give up on my
dream!  I told you, it's my godforsaken oven!  It always starts fires."
       It was true that the oven had seen so many fires, the previously
white interior had long been encrusted with black soot!  But I doubted
whether his oven really was to blame at all.
       Pavlov, just then seeing Petro struggling with the fire, came
swooping in anxiously.  She got in between him and the oven, trying to push
him out of the way.  She was almost as protective of him as she was of me!
       "Pavlov, stay back!" I ordered, and only then would she back away.
       I grabbed the fire extinguisher I had bought him a few months ago
when the fires had first started occurring, and aimed it at the oven.
       "No, no, no!" Petro yelled, pushing the extinguished away.  "The
chemicals will ruin the chocolate soufflé!"
       I laughed.  "Petro, I think it's beyond ruined!"
       "No, it's perfectly salvageable!"
       He used the blanket to knock away most of the flames, then grabbed
the whole soufflé dish and put it in the sink, turning on the water to
extinguish the last of the flames.
       "See?  It's still fine.  And you're just in time to be my first
taster."
       "Oh, great," I said.  I had been his taster dozens of times, and the
first time had been one too many.  Though I was too sensitive to tell him
just how bad his desserts really were!
       He pulled out a plate and used a butter knife to try to cut me a
piece.  When that proved ineffective, he pulled a heavy duty, huge serrated
knife to finally cut through it.  He put my serving on the plate, and then
pulled out some powdered sugar, sprinkling it on top, and garnished it with
a few raspberries before handing it to me.
       "Like usual, it looks beautiful," I said, not lying in the least.
Petro had a good eye for presentation with his food!
       He stared at me while I stuck my fork into the rock-hard dessert,
trying to pry a piece free.  He had such a hopeful, optimistic look on his
face, that it made it impossible to kill his enthusiasm.  Even covered with
black soot, he was still damn adorable!  His beautiful blonde locks, just
starting to get long again after he shaved it all off in the military, fell
around a classically handsome face, with plump, red, kissable lips!  His
smooth upper body could be seen through his thin white tank.  He had always
been skinny in his youth, though his body was sinewy with muscle from all
the sports he played in high school, but the military had given him tight,
ripped muscles, not too bulky, but cut and clean!  His sparkling eyes, icy
blue, were wide with anticipated excitement as he looked at me.
       Just the smell of the bite as I put it close to my face was almost
enough to make me gag, as traumatic memories of all the burnt desserts I
had been forced to try came rushing back!  His non-baked desserts were more
palatable, sure, but even those had been horrendously awful in their own
way.  The poor guy just had no palate for sweets!
       Under his watchful gaze, I could not delay the inevitable any
longer, so I forced myself to put the soufflé morsel into my mouth.
Burnt carbon filled my senses, with just the tiniest bit of chocolate
flavor and much, much too much salt in the background.  I concentrated on
not gagging, but more importantly, to keep my absolute distress to myself
as I started to chew!
       The soufflé, if it really could be called that, was so hard and
thick and chewy that it felt like it would take an eternity to gnaw through
it all.  Once I had chewed it down to bits just small enough to swallow, I
forced it down, trying not to choke on it as it went!
       "Well?" Petro asked, smiling, sure that I would be delivering good
news.
       "Well, it's an improvement over the last one," I said honestly.  The
last dessert had been so acidic, it gave me minor chemical burns on my
gums.  I hadn't been able to brush my teeth for days.
       "Ugh."  His happy look faded into disappointment.  "I guess I'll
just give it the rest to Pavlov again."
       He set the rest of the dessert down in front of the dog, who sniffed
it a few times, then wisely avoided it.  Even she had enough sense to know
that was NOT food!
       "Why don't you just buy a cookbook and use recipes like a normal
person?" I begged him.
       "Because true chefs never steal other chefs' recipes, they make up
their own."
       "Well, everything you cook besides desserts turns out incredible," I
said.  His dinners and hors d'oeuvres were truly stupendous!
       "That would be fine if we were in Moscow, where the nice restaurants
all have their own pastry or dessert chefs.  But this is little
Anzhero-Sudzhensk.  Chefs here are expected to handle every part of the
meal, and it's just this one last piece that isn't working for me. And it's
the one thing I need to master before I can start the career I always
dreamed about, and I can finally stop working in my parent's farm."
       I reached over and put my arm on his shoulder.  "Don't worry, you'll
get it eventually.  I know it.  You always do."
       "Yeah, you're right.  I just need to keep at it."  He pushed the
disappointment away and looked at me with fresh eyes.  "So, what brings you
over here so late, Vadim?  Why do you have your stuff?" he pointed to my
backpack.
       "Look, I had a weird dream, a dream unlike one I've ever had, one
about the death of someone else at the hands of, well, vampires!  And now
it's got me shaken."
       Petro shook his head.  "This has to do with all the crazy stories
your grandparents used to tell us when we were kids, doesn't it?  About you
being some destined hero?"
       "Yes, it does," I said.
       "I thought you had stopped believing those myths when you were in
high school?" he asked me.
       "Well, I thought so, but this dream, it's really gotten to me."
       "It's just a nightmare, Vadim.  We all have them."
       "But about vampires?!"
       "Of course you would dream about vampires when your grandparents
were always scaring you as a little boy with those stories.  It doesn't
mean all the sudden all of it is real.  That's ridiculous."
       "I know it's probably nothing, but just in case, I decided I have to
go see my grandparents.  Tonight."
       He looked very disapproving.  "So, you're going to go backpacking to
your grandparents' cabin, and you're leaving tonight?  So late, all alone?"
       "Not all alone!" I said.  "I've got Pavlov, and Madina and Olik are
going too."
       "Oh, those two are great company," he said sarcastically.  "Well, if
you insist on going, at least take the horses, you'll get there faster."
       "Thanks, Petro!  That means so much."
       As I looked at him smiling back at me, I suddenly had this odd worry
that if my grandparents had been right, who would know how long it would be
before I would see him again?  It felt truly awful having to leave him.
There were so many unanswered questions and feelings I had for him!
       We had met in grade school, and became fast best friends.  Soon, we
were doing everything together, sleeping over at each other's houses
whenever possible, and that bond only deepened as we became teenagers.  We
had become as close as brothers, and at least for me, something more than
just brotherly love developed, though I never admitted my feelings all
through high school.
       The end of high school brought with it a tragic end to our
closeness, one which we both were dreading during most of our senior year.
I was heading to University, and he had joined the military, two completely
different paths in life!
       After graduation, on the day that he was leaving, I said my final
goodbyes to him in his bedroom as his parents warmed up the truck they were
driving him in.  I had been an absolute mess for weeks, but this day had
been almost unbearably hard!  He stood there in front of me, his eyes
locked on mine, and he started to tell me how much I meant to him, how
there was no one else he would miss like me, how he was so sad to leave me.
       I had managed to hold back my emotions all day, but upon hearing
those words, my defenses broke.  No matter how much I willed my tears not
come, they did anyway, and I started to cry!  Petro, saddened and moved by
the tears, wanted to comfort me like he did so many times before during my
dad's death.  He reached in and hugged me, telling me once again that
everything would be fine, though at that point I didn't believe him!
       He had hugged me like that so many times before, but this time
something different happened, something I will never, ever forget.
       Still holding me, he pulled his head back and looked me deep in the
eyes, so deep that he penetrated all my defenses and seemed to see through
to my bare soul.
       Then, incredibly, he shut those blue eyes, moved his head forward,
and kissed me on the mouth!
       My sadness turned instantly to shocked excitement as soon as his
magical lips touched mine, though I knew it must have only been a quick,
friendly peck.
       Though when his lips lingered on mine, the romantic in me started to
burst through!  Yet still, I was afraid to reciprocate, sure that he would
respond in disgust.
       Then, he opened his mouth slightly, and I felt his tongue tip stick
tentatively past his lips, landing onto my own, sending sexual excitement
and absolute love-struck passion through me in equal measures as I
realized, this was no brotherly kiss!  No, this was a romantic kiss, and I
was free to finally let loose with all my pent up feelings for this boy!
       But just when I started to kiss him back, the truck's horn blared,
and his dad yelled that they were waiting, and he'd better hurry himself.
       Petro pulled away, leaving me absolutely dazed, completely
senseless.  "I'm, I'm sorry," he said, and I wasn't sure if he was
apologizing for kissing me or because he had to end the kiss.
       He ran out of the room, leaving me all alone.  The truck drove off
with him in it, and all my dreams went with him!
       It took me at least half a year to shake off the depression our
separation caused us, though he e- mailed me frequently at school and he
called occasionally.  While that kiss in his bedroom seemed to change my
life, he never brought it up after that, or ever mentioned again anything
that would lead me to believe he wanted me to be anything more than
friends.
       When I e-mailed him freshman year that I wanted to know that I was
gay, he responded that he already knew, that my dad had told him I was gay
before he died, and that he was always fine with that.  He never mentioned
anything about him being gay or even bisexual, which left me absolutely
determined to know which way he leaned.  When I started to tell him of the
guys I was dating at school, he always congratulated me or gave me advice,
though he never once mentioned any girl or guy he was seeing.  It was
completely confounding!
       When we both found ourselves back in our hometowns more recently, we
resumed our close, brotherly friendship, though nothing more ever happened.
Even though the women considered him one of the most eligible bachelors in
the city, I never saw him go on any dates with any of them.  In recent
months, my old feelings for him had started to resurface, which I
considered to be dangerous!  Ever since he came back into my life, I hadn't
wanted to date any new guys, being too hung up on Petro.
       So hung up that now, standing here before him, having to leave him
for an indefinite amount of time, it was making me feel similar kinds of
feelings to that day he left for the military.
       I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes.
"I know this whole dream thing is probably a joke.  But just in case all of
my grandparents' imaginative stories turn out to be fact, just in case
something happens to me and I never see you again, I'd never forgive myself
for not doing this one more time before I left."
       "Doing what?"
       "This!"
       I reached my face in suddenly, closed my eyes, and kissed him right
on his lips, just like he had done to me all those years ago!
       He didn't pull back from shock; in fact, he opened his mouth, just
slightly!  I used that sign to gather my courage, and let my tongue graze
over his beautiful lips, feeling so lost and deliriously in love with him
all over again!
       It was absolutely perfect, until he finally pulled away from me.  I
opened my eyes, and instead of love and passion, there was confusion and
ambiguity on his face.
       "I'm, I'm sorry," he said one more time, his face turning red.  He
turned away from me and left the room, leaving me alone in his kitchen,
feeling absolutely wrecked!  I had just gambled everything on a stupidly
rash move, and had probably just lost the greatest friend I had ever had!
       Well, there was nothing to be done about it now except leave in
shame.  I grabbed my backpack and took Pavlov out of the door, back into
the black night.
       Damn, the horses, I had almost forgotten.
       I walked over to the stables, where I knew those four horses would
be.  It would be easiest for us if we took all four, one for each rider and
one for our gear.  Pavlov was well used to keeping up with the horses on
her own, she would be fine.
       Petro's little sister Tanja was tending the horses when I entered
the stable.
       "Hi Tanja," I said.
       "Hi yourself," she said rudely.  She was going through her rough
teenage years, unfortunately for all of us who were forced to spend time
around her!
       "I'm just going to borrow the horses for a few days," I said.
       She looked upset.  "No you are not.  I absolutely won't permit that.
I ride them every day."
       "Petro said I could take them."
       "I don't believe you," she challenged.
       "Ask him yourself!" I said to her.
       "You bring him here and have him tell me, or else you're taking the
horses over my dead body."
       While the over her dead body option didn't sound so bad, the idea of
fetching Petro was stomach turning.  I was much too shamed to face him
again, especially so soon!
       "Fine, keep your horses," I told her, and left the stable.
       I walked off the property, having failed my every reason for going.
Ah well, I tried to focus on the fascinating adventure ahead.  My father
always told me not to dwell on the sad stuff, after all.
       "Where are our noble steeds?" Madina asked as I caught up with her
and Olik on the forest border.
       "No horses," I said quickly, not wanting to relive my recent
heartache in any way, shape or form.
       "Hmmph.  Well, perhaps we should leave Olik behind?" she asked.
       "No, you absolutely will not," Olik said defiantly.  He had a very
large pack on his back, and it was some wonder he was able to carry such a
load at all.  I couldn't imagine why he had thought it necessary to pack so
much.
       "We'll let him come," I said as I pulled my lantern out.  "Let's set
off."
       Pavlov and I took point, striding into the forest and taking our
first real steps in this adventure.  I had been through this terrain
countless times before, but somehow, this night felt completely different.
So utterly full of new possibilities!  Though dark, the trees were
beautiful when lit by my lantern and the forest green and lush.  All around
us, nocturnal animals made their songs, from night dwelling birds, to
chirpy frogs and insects.  It was all pleasantly surreal!
       My reveries were interrupted not long into the hike by arguing
behind me.
       "What on earth are you holding?" Madina asked, her voice as
unpleased as ever.
       "Just my favorite crossbow," said Olik innocently, as if he had told
her it was something as innocuous as his favorite kitten.
       "Please tell me it's not loaded," she said.
       "It's loaded, cocked, and ready to fire into the hearts of the
enemy!" he shouted.
       "Olik, you are WAY too drunk to be holding such a dangerous
contraption.  I wouldn't even trust you with it if you were as sober as a
nun.  Look at you, lurching around like Frankenstein.  You cannot pretend
it's safe for you to have a weapon like that."
       "Hush, woman, and leave me be."
       "If you're not going to put that away, you should be leading the
party, not bringing up the rear where any rock that you stumble over could
result in one of us with an arrow in our backs!"
       "I would never, ever lose control."  His voice was interrupted by a
whiff sound behind me.
       "What was that?!" Madina snapped.
       "Okay, maybe I'll put this one away for now."  Olik stuffed his
crossbow back into his pack and pulled a sword out instead.  I was starting
to understand why his pack was so large.  "Better, woman?"
       "Marginally," she said.  "Only because with that weapon, you are
only likely to maim yourself.  Just keep a safe distance from me, thank
you."
       I had my map and compass out as I led them forward.  Now, normally
the direct path to my grandparents involved climbing and descending a large
hill in the middle of the journey.  I had just purchased a detailed
topographical map of the area, and was using that to come up with a new
route that seemed longer as a crow flies, but really would be much faster
as it bypassed the large hill.  It was a lot of fun to try out a new
course, to see undiscovered sights!
       Madina came towards me, an excited smile on her face.  "I just found
the Five Prophecies the town's one true seer, Prophet Valery, made about
the final Great Hero.  Let me read them to you."  She was looking at a
bunch of handwritten papers.  "The first prophecy is that the final Great
Hero will know he is what he is by a vision of death.  See?  That's you,
precisely."
       "It does sound like me, I'll give you that much.  What about the
other four prophecies?"
       She kept on reading.  "You'll fall in love with a friend whose
loyalty to you is unquestionable, but this friend will have to make a
choice whether or not to return that love.  If not returned, this could
have bad consequences on your future."
       "Does it really say that?"
       "Yes!"
       "What else?"
       "It says that your own flesh will unwittingly betray you to the
vampires."
       "Well I don't like that one at all.  What are the rest?"
       "The fourth is that you will have a vampire mole among your
followers who will betray you and cause you unspeakable pain.  And the last
one is that you are bound to the fate of the king of all vampires, his
death is the only way to save humanity from these demons.  It is fated that
after growing very strong, you will either succeed in killing this king or
die in the process."
       "Just because one or two of those seem to have happened to me
already, doesn't mean all of the bad ones are going to.  I believe, now
that I know these prophecies, I can avoid them."
       "You cannot avoid fate, my child.  I'm going to tell you a story
about Marta.."  Madina suddenly adopted the countenance of an expert ghost
story teller, every word totally dramatic.  "She found the Prophet Valery
in Moscow when she was just a teenager looking for entertainment at a
fortune-teller's booth.  He gave her three very specific prophecies about
her future, the last of which was that she would die on June 21st when she
was just twenty two.  She begged him to take it back, but he said he cannot
take back fate, that it would happen.  She laughed and said the only way
she was going to die on that day was if he or one of his friends killed
her.  He told her that he would not kill her himself, she would die on her
own."
       "What happened to her?"
       "She went back to her life just taking all of it as utter nonsense.
But when the first two of her prophecies happened PRECISELY as Valery had
said, she accepted the truth in her heart.  She went through great
depression knowing that she was fated to die so young.  She sought out
Valery but he had already moved back to Anzhero-Sudzhensk, so she followed
him there.  When she arrived, she demanded that she change the prophecy to
let her survive, but he told her that he cannot change fate, and neither
can she.  She should just accept the truth."
       "Did she?"
       "Yes!  She finally accepted she was going to die young.  She stayed
in Anzhero-Sudzhensk, working, sold all of her fortunes, and lived as
extravagantly as she could, burring through all of her assets.  When
finally the June 21st of her twenty-second year came, she was ready to die.
She wasn't sure how death would find her, but she welcomed it.  But when
midnight came and went and she was still alive, she went mad with anger.
She picked up a pistol and went and sought out Prophet Valery.  She
threatened to kill him, demanding to know why she was still alive."
       Madina had gotten me enrapt in her story.  "What did he say?" I
asked nervously.
       "He said, maybe it was because he had gotten the prophecy wrong, and
if so, he was sorry.  She implored him that this was unacceptable, that she
had given up everything because she knew she would die that day.  That she
had nothing left to live for.  She realized that instead of killing the
prophet, she had only one choice.  She turned the gun on herself and pulled
the trigger, ending her life.  And do you know what the prophet told her?"
       "What?  Tell me!"
       "He told her, or maybe he had the prophecy right the whole time.
And when he foretold it, they were both in Moscow, which meant it was still
June 21st in Moscow time.  He told her there is no outrunning one's fate.
Not ever.  You remember that lesson."  Her face, by then gone ashen, pulled
back behind me and left me to my thoughts as we continued.
       After a couple hours, the initial excitement of the adventure became
increasingly wearisome.  The forest, once inviting, was seemingly getting
more dark and gloomy the further we went into it.  The land was becoming
less verdant and more dry and brown, as if we were walking into autumn.
Perhaps it was only that my lantern was dimming.  But oddly, I stopped
hearing the comforting forest sounds as well, and we started to be
surrounded by an eerie silence.
       It had gotten beyond late, and all of us were looking forward to
getting some rest that night.  I started looking for a good place to set up
camp, somewhere where the trees were less dense so we could start a fire,
and where the ground was free of rocks and fit for us to sleep on.
       Before I found anything worthwhile, Pavlov started to bark.  My
first thought was that she must have spotted something in the forest.  It
wasn't unusual that she would see a bird or a small rodent running around
out there, and she would get excited and make a chase.  I didn't want her
killing any poor animal, or worse, get into a confrontation with something
that might hurt her.  So, I'd always call her firmly back to my side.  She
was able to dampen her chase instinct in that case in order to obey.
       When I first heard her bark, I stopped walking, tensed up, turned to
face her, expecting to need to reel her back in from whatever conquest she
was after.  But this time, she hadn't left my side.  She didn't even seem
focused on anything specific out in the forest.  She just looked alert, her
ears up, peering into the darkness in front of us.  The trees out there
seemed grotesquely shaped, gnarled and dark and dead-like.
       "What's wrong, Pavlov?" I asked her, weirded out!
       I figured it was nothing, and kept moving forward.  She kept to my
side, walking normally even though she seemed at a heightened state of
alert.
       Then, she barked again, just a single, unsettling bark.
       I stopped again and looked around, but there was nothing to see.
Even Pavlov didn't seem to be focused on anything in particular.  Just
those haunting, black trees!  So, I kept on moving.
       She started to bark more as we walked, almost uncertainly.
       "That dog of yours sure has a loud mouth!" said Olik from behind us.
       "She doesn't usually bark like that," I said.  "I wonder if she
senses something."
       "Dogs get scared of the littlest things," Madina said.  "Cats have a
much better sense for actual danger."  Madina had never really been a dog
person.
       Pavlov seemed only to get more riled up the further into the
dead-looking trees we embarked.  She even walked in front of me, and then
stopped herself, forcing me to a halt and almost tripping me!
       "Pavlov, come!" I said to her.  "You know, she's been acting weird
all night.  Almost bit me this evening like she didn't even recognize me."
       "Maybe she's sensed you've changed somehow," Madina offered.  "It
could be a sign.  If so, it would explain her odd anxiety tonight."
       "Maybe so," I said, though I got the odd feeling that there was
something more here than that.
       I kept moving us forward, and Pavlov obeyed and stayed at my heel,
though she continued to bark anxiously as she peered through the dark
branches that surrounded us everywhere now!
       Ahead, I could see just what I had been looking for, the perfect
place to camp for the night.  A small clearing in the woods, with soft,
leaf covered ground underneath.
       "Here's where we'll stop," I told them, and Medina and Olik moved
forward into the clearing, taking off their packs.
       I looked behind me and to my surprise, Pavlov was about ten feet
back.  She hadn't come forward towards the clearing, and instead had her
paws planted firmly into the ground as she growled.  At first, I thought
she was growling at me again.  Astounded, I walked up to her.  "Pavlov,
it's me, girl!"
       But I realized she wasn't growling at me, she was growling at
something passed me.  She was growling at that clearing ahead!
       I looked back at the clearing.  Everything seemed fine.
       "Nothing to worry about, girl," I said to her.
       But she kept on growling.  I stood beside her, grabbed her collar,
and pulled her forward.  She dug her paws into the dirt, not wanting to go,
but she finally did.
       She was still growling when I pulled her into the clearing.
"Pavlov, calm down, girl."
       "You keep that mutt away from me!" Olik said.  "I never had my
rabies shot."
       "Humans don't get rabies vaccinations Olik, those are for pets,"
Madina said.  "If a human gets rabies, then they have to take a series of
extremely painful shots."
       "That's an even better reason to keep her away!"
       "She is not rabid!" I said.  "She's just a little on edge.  She'll
be fine."
       "Hmm, this is odd," Madina said.  I looked towards her, and she was
standing right next to a nice, state of the art tent, already assembled.
"Someone's been camping here," she said.  "There's a fire pit right here
too."  She opened the tent.  "Nothing inside."
       "Why would someone leave such a nice tent like that?" I asked,
having a bad feeling about this place now!
       "They obviously just forgot it," Olik said, inspecting the tent
himself.  "This thing has been out here for a couple months at least.  If
the campers' haven't come back to reclaim it by now, I'm going to make use
of it."  He started to put his things inside the tent.
       "You can have the tent," I said, not getting a good feeling about
it.  "I want to camp outside."
       In no time, we had the fire going and our sleeping bags out.  I
turned off my lantern, letting the firelight illuminate the clearing for
us.  Its flames were soft and pretty, but on the skeletal trees around us,
the firelight danced around, creating shadows of branches that seemed to
move around in the darkness!  It was all creepily bizarre, and Pavlov kept
her eyes glued to those trees at all times.
       Just as I shut my eyes for the first time, Pavlov barked again.  I
ignored her, hoping she would stop.
       Then, another bark.  Then another.
       "Please tell me you brought a muzzle in that bag of yours," Olik
said.  "I'm already starting to feel hungover, and she's giving me a
headache."
       "Pavlov, quiet girl!"
       She stopped barking, but got up and started to actually circle the
three of us in our little camp.
       "Oh, that's seriously worse than the barking.  She's circling us
like a vulture!  I swear if she bites me, I'm going to grab my crossbow!"
       "Olik, just shut it!" Madina snapped.
       "Pavlov, come here!" I said, and she listened to me, coming to my
side, though she looked highly frustrated.
       We all shut our eyes again.  But then, she started snarling.  I
opened my eyes.  This time, she seemed to be growling at one of the creepy,
skeletal trees!  My spine started to chill and my hairs stood on end.
Something about this place just felt... well... evil.
       "That's it," Olik said, getting up and out of his tent.  "I can't
sleep through that, plus I need to take a leak."
       He pulled his sheathed sword out of his pack and tied it to his
side.  Then he grabbed his crossbow and held it in his hand.
       "You're taking your weapons?" Madina asked.  "To urinate?"
       "I don't want that crazy dog attacking me while I let my guard
down!"
       "You should take a lantern!" Madina snapped.
       "How far do you think I need to journey to take a leak, woman?" he
asked.  "I'll be fine without one."
       So, he trudged off into the gloomy woods, exactly where Pavlov
seemed to be growling towards, and he disappeared.  My heart quickened;
somehow I felt like he was unknowingly stepping into the entrance to hell!
I could hear him pushing branches around as he went until Pavlov's snarls
drowned out the noise he was making.
       After a few moments, Madina shut her eyes again and went back to
sleep, in spite of the Pavlov's barks.
       I tried to shut my eyes as well, but it was no use.  After a few
minutes of Pavlov getting increasingly irritated, I sat up, looking out
into trees that she was so scared of.  Something seemed seriously wrong
here.  Pavlov just wouldn't behave like this without good reason, I knew
it!  My gut told me that there was something terribly evil out there, I
just didn't know what.
       "Madina," I said.  Madina!"
       "Hmm... what is it?" asked the woman, finally rousing from her
sleep.
       "It's been a long time and he hasn't come back yet," I said.
       She sat up and looked into the trees, her eyes sleepy.  "Olik, are
you still out there?!" she yelled with a voice that was surprisingly loud
for a librarian.
       We listened, staring into the dark abyss of the trees.  Nothing but
silence returned, as well as Pavlov whose growls had turned into odd
whimpers.
       "Olik, respond!" I yelled.
       Again, nothing but cold, eerie silence.  The woods had had a dark
aura that was deeply terrifying!  I could sense it almost as much as Pavlov
now.  It was knotting my stomach!
       "We should probably go retrieve him, I suppose," Madina said with a
huff, rousing herself from her sleeping bag.  "Knowing him, he's probably
passed out from the drunkenness somewhere.  Hopefully he passed out after
he was done doing his business, not during, Russia help us if we find him
with his pants down."
       The last thing I wanted to do was to go into those woods!  "Hmm.  He
didn't seem so drunk as he was a couple of hours ago."
       "Well, one way to find out.  Let's go."  She put her glasses and her
shoes back on, and she lit up our lantern.
       A cold fear of those woods had taken root deep in my heart!  It was
against my instinct to follow that woman into the trees, but it had to be
done.  I told myself, best case scenario, he is passed out and all of this
fear is just irrational.  Worst case scenario, something IS out there, and
he needs our help.  Either option required me going in the woods to look
for him.
       I sighed, and then had an idea.  "I bet he has some other weapon
stowed away in his pack.  That's why it's so much bigger than ours, right?
Because he brought all his toys?"
       I walked over to his bag on the ground and started looking through
it, while Madina seemed a bit miffed that I was even bothering to do so.
She did extinguish our fire while I searched
       But after rifling through it: "Damn!  It's filled to the brim with
junk food and alcohol!  No other weapon at all!"
       "Come on, let's get this over with so we can get back to sleep," she
said, motioning towards the trees.
       Pavlov clearly did not like the idea of going that direction into
the dead still forest.  "Come girl," I said, and only then would she move
to my side.  The three of us started to walk into the eerie trees, my
lantern illuminating the space around us as we went.
       As we walked, Pavlov only got more and more agitated, growling again
into the dark at what was seemingly nothing.  We walked a long ways,
calling out to Olik every few steps.  After a while, I realized I was
twisted around, not sure which way led back to our camp!  I started to
panic, feeling like we would never find our way back, but tried to keep a
brave face for Madina's sake.
       Then, instead of Pavlov having to be dragged forward, she suddenly
sniffed the air in front of us.  She moved forward and to the left, seeming
to have some kind of scent, so Madina and I followed her.
       Pavlov led us to a large, dead tree.  At first when the light of my
lantern lit up the area, I thought I saw Olik ahead.  Then I realized all I
had seen was Olik's red shirt, hanging from a branch in the tree!  Pavlov
immediately began to sniff it, very concerned.
       "That's odd," Madina said, picking up the shirt in her hands.  "It's
completely shredded."
       I had a horrible, sickening feeling about Olik, and looking at her
face, I thought Madina had come to similar conclusions.  "Is there any
blood?" I asked.
       "Let me look."  She started to look over the garment.
       I thought I smelled an odd odor.  A musty smell.  "Do you smell
that?" I asked her.
       She sniffed the air.  "Yes.  It smells like the dirtiest locker room
of all time.  And surprisingly, it's not coming from Olik's shirt."
       Then Pavlov resumed her snarling all of the sudden, and she spun
around and around, trying to look at all those trees out there at once, it
seemed!  Somewhere out there, I thought I heard a tree branch break.
       "Did you hear that?" I asked.
       "All I can hear is the dog," Madina said.
       "Pavlov, quiet!" I ordered, and the dog reluctantly zipped it.  This
allowed us to really listen for the first time.  Now, I had noticed when we
were coming into this creepy region of the woods that there were absolutely
none of the regular forest noises here.  That made it easier to listen
attentively.
       Another tree branch broke!  This time, Madina had heard it
too. "Olik, is that you?"
       No response came from the darkness.
       I heard a thud, like a heavy footstep, in the trees.  "Olik?"
       No response.  Every hair on my body was standing tall, my heart
racing!  I wanted us to just run, but I wasn't sure which direction the
danger was coming from.
       Then, a loud huff came from the trees, like the sound of someone or
something exhaling quickly.
       Madina grabbed my arm, as scared as I was then.  "What is out
there?"
       Somewhere in the trees, there was the snap of a branch breaking!
       "Where is it coming from?" Madina whispered to me.
       I raised my lantern and we spun around.  Our eyes searched and
searched all around us, but all we saw were dozens and dozens of dark
trees.  I started to wonder if the trees themselves were out to get us!
They seemed to be moving in for the kill, but that must have been my
imagination, my fear running away with itself!
       More heavy thuds.  They sounded like elephant footsteps!  I realized
I could actually feel the footsteps, not just hear them.
       Madina clutched my hand hard.  "Do you hear the breathing?"
       I listened hard, and I could hear heavy breathing, not at all human,
but animalistic.  I nodded.
       "It sounds like it's coming from right next to us—AHH!!" her
sentence was interrupted by a scream as she seemed to trip and fall to the
ground suddenly!
       Shocked, I tried to help her to her feet, but looking down at her,
her feet were being pulled out of my view, into the trees, and her body
soon followed!
       Her shrill scream was piercing as she was being dragged feet first
into the dark forest.  "Let go of me!"
       No, no, no, I would not let them take her!  I started to run after
Madina's disappearing body, Pavlov at my side.  I could see something large
holding onto her left foot, using that handhold to drag her along the
ground.  She was struggling to get loose!
       "Help me!" she yelled to me.
       Diving to the ground, I grabbed her hands, holding onto her.
Whatever was dragging her didn't even falter for a moment!  It just kept
right on dragging, pulling me along with them!
       "Let go, you're going to rip me in half," she said to me, and I did
as she asked.  I started to cry as I saw her being dragged through the
trees, fading into the darkness, and I knew I had lost her!
       Looking through the branches ahead, I jumped when I saw a figure
running in from the dark, right for me.
       And then sweet relief when my lantern lit up Madina's anxious face
and dirty body!  "How?" I asked simply.
       "I had the brilliant idea finally of untying my shoe," she said, and
I noticed she was missing one of her hiking boots.  "Come on, let's run!"
       Even shoeless, she was running with a speed I never knew she
possessed, running through those trees with Pavlov and I at her tail, not
knowing where we were going, but just trying to get away!
       The first thing that went through my mind was: my grandparents were
right!  Here was the first evidence that there WERE supernatural, evil
forces in the world!
       "Was that a vampire?" I asked, hoping she had seen more of the thing
than I had.
       "No, I saw it, but it doesn't fit the vampire description at all,"
Madina said.  "I have no idea what it is.  It was impossibly large, some
sort of animalistic monster or demon.  And it had the most devious horns,
like the devil himself.  Must be something new.  Vampires we could protect
ourselves from.  But this creature, Vadim, I saw its face.  So much more
evil than a vampire.  So much hungrier.  These things are made for one
thing only.  For killing.  Vadim, it must be stopped, or else every living
person in this region could be in danger."
       Behind us, somewhere in the distance, we heard a blood curdling
roar, such a loud noise that not even a grizzly bear could hope to match
it!
       "It's after us!" Madina said, true fear in her voice.  "I'm not
letting that thing get close to me again!  Fast, fast now!"
       She ran at full speed, weaving through the trees at a dizzying pace,
and I somehow kept up.  My adrenaline was on fire!
       Behind us in the distance, I could hear branches breaking!  Huge
thuds accompanied by rumbles on the ground signaled the thing's approaching
footsteps, and the footsteps were moving fast too, directly towards us.
       "Your lantern!" she said, and at first I thought she was asking me
to light the trees ahead of us better, so I moved it up.  "No, turn it off!
That thing can see us!"
       I flipped off the lantern, leaving us in darkness that my eyes had
to adjust to.  Moving as fast as we were, I actually ran into a tree that I
had not seen until too late!  Madina stopped and helped me.  Already my
vision was adjusting.
       Very close behind, we heard huge, heavy breaths and snorts as the
thing made its way right for us!
       She shook her head.  "We can't outrun it, it's hopeless."  She
looked around.  "Trees.  It looks much too stout to climb trees," Madina
said.  "Can you climb, Vadim?"
       I picked out the most climbable looking tree nearby, with plenty of
low branches.  I was a good climber, but the hard part was carrying Pavlov
into the tree with me!  With both of us high in the tree, there wasn't much
room for Medina to get in, so I was trying to climb onto an outer branch,
making room for her.
       We heard another roar of the approaching monster!
       "I'll find another tree," Madina said not wanting to wait, running
off into the woods, and I instantly felt guilty!
       I could hear telltale signs that the beast was coming up fast; heavy
thudded footsteps plus branches and shrubs being thrown around.  Pavlov was
starting to growl in my arms.  I held her muzzle shut, trying to let her
know that we were hiding.  Then suddenly, right beneath me, tree branches
were pushed aside, and I saw a monstrous figure come through, chilling my
spine instantly!
       Now, it was very dark, and I still had not adjusted to the darkness
totally, making it hard to see any details.  I could clearly see the
creature outlined in the moonlight, massive in size, large as an elephant,
but shaped more like a bear.  Its body was covered with grey fur, but the
fur was very short, like that of a horse or a bovine.  Actually, it looked
much more bovine than horse, as if this was the lovechild between Satan and
the fiercest bull that ever lived!
       At least for the moment, it stood on two very powerful legs on a
pair of hooved feet.  Its upper body was just as broad with muscle.  It had
two very powerful arms, with hands that looked like hooves when their fist
was closed, but with fingers that could open into claws.  Mostly though, it
was its head that I couldn't turn my eyes from!  It had two very
animalistic floppy ears sticking out of the side of its bull- shaped head.
Its horrifying horns, very demonic and deathly sharp, were above the ears.
Its angry, squinted eyes glowed in the moonlight.  And its mouth, a broad,
stout muzzle was open, almost in a smile, huge sharp teeth many inches in
length fully displayed!  My god, one look at those glistening teeth and it
was like looking into the face of a great white: you knew that this thing
was made for ripping flesh to shreds!
       This grey creature from the night appeared through the trees and was
moving fast on two legs, pushing obstacles out of its way as it went.  I
was absolutely terrified when it approached our tree!  I was worried Pavlov
would make a sound, but she stayed perfectly still.  It moved right under
us, then, thank god, headed past our tree.  I noticed that from behind, I
could see a thin, bull-like (or was it Satanic?) tail.
       Then, when it got about ten feet past our position, it stopped
suddenly and started to sniff the air.  My heart sank when it turned
around, facing the tree we were in!  I wondered if it had smelled me or
Pavlov.  Probably both.
       It took a couple strides towards our tree, sniffing the area.  I
froze, staying still, not letting myself breathe.  It didn't matter, the
beast-thing sniffed up the tree until it saw us.
       It let out a huge, sickening roar, so loud I had to cover my ears!
Now we would see if Madina's hunch was correct.  Our lives depended on it
being so.
       The beast looked at the tree trunk and pawed the thing.  I thought
for sure it would just climb right up like a bear would.  But then it
roared again, frustrated.  No, it could not climb up after us.
       Snarling angry, the creature stood directly beneath us and leapt
upwards, swatting with its front claws.  Whoa, it had jumped way higher
than I thought it would, and ended up scratching my pants leg, but not
grabbing hold of me!  I carefully climbed up with Pavlov to the next
highest branch, which would be totally out of reach.
       The thing roared again, louder and fiercer than any previous sound
it had made!
       "Serves you right, you stupid animal," I said to it.
       Frustrated, the beast paced around the tree for a couple minutes,
and then roared again.  I wondered how long it would do that before getting
bored and leaving us alone.
       I heard a branch break out in the woods from the direction Madina
had gone, and I turned to look, afraid that Madina had come down from her
hiding place too soon!
       Bushes were pushed apart, and a figure came into view, though it
certainly was not Madina.  It was another one of those beasts, though the
second one looked almost an entirely different breed, more doglike in
appearance, without the horns, but covered with fur.  It was by no means
small, yet significantly smaller than the horned creature.  It was dark,
but I thought this beast's teeth, muzzle, and chest fur were covered in
red.  Madina!
       The first one continued to wail while the second one joined it under
the tree.  In a few seconds, I heard more footsteps approaching, and two
more creatures emerged from the dark shadowy trees, one of them more
catlike, the other harder to place, and none as large as the first horned
beast.  My God, how many of these things were there?!  The four of them
clearly were in league, some sort of pack, as strange as it sounded given
that they looked so dissimilar, and the large horned one seemed to give off
the cocky swagger of an alpha animal that was leading the others.  I took
comfort in that none of these new beasts seemed to have any more chance at
climbing the tree than the first one.
       The beasts surrounded the tree, all of them snarling and growling at
me.  I saw them all lean against the trunk, wrapping their arms around it.
       Then I felt the tree start to shake.  I held on for dear life, not
letting them shake me out. "I'm not going anywhere!" I yelled.
       But the shaking stopped and turned more into leaning to my left.  I
heard branches breaking and roots being up heaved, and it sunk into my head
that they were actually managing to push this tree over with their bare
hands!
       I barely had enough time for that fact to register before Pavlov and
I were falling towards the ground!  The treetop landed against hard earth,
luckily most of the impact crushing the branches beneath me.  When I hit
the ground, thankfully it was not enough force to seriously hurt or kill
me, but it did knock me cold for a bit.
       I saw the other three creatures disperse again while the first beast
approached me on the ground, standing over me.  Looking up at such a
creature was much worse than looking down, and my heart froze with terror.
I knew I was done for!
       Pavlov leapt to my rescue, attacking the demon with her teeth bared!
The creature knocked Pavlov away like a giant swatting a fly, causing the
poor dog to fly through the air, landing with a thud.  Then, it used one of
its massive back hooves to pin down both of my ankles.  Try as I might, I
could not even budge my legs under the weight of this thing.  Making
matters worse, the beast used its other hind leg to pin down my right hand,
until that arm too was helpless.
       Looking up at him, from beneath, I could clearly see the thing was
male.  Actually, that had been true of the other beasts as well.  He bent
over, moving his massive head towards my body on the ground, those evil
eyes looking me over, studying me.  His bull-like mouth was shut, but he
pressed his nose to my neck, wetting me with his huge nostrils.
       He inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes.  After his first sniff, he
moved his nose up to my face and started to sniff me there.  He lowered his
nose, sniffing my shirt, my armpit.  Meanwhile, I didn't need to stick my
nose in his armpit to know what this thing did not small pleasant.  He
totally reeked of body odor.  I punched the thing in the face with my left
fist.  He merely grunted, totally unfazed, and then reached down with his
massive right front paw/hoof to punch me hard in the face!
       I almost blackened out, but I forced myself to stay conscious,
feeling blood pouring out of my nose.  My free hand automatically went to
my face.
       He continued where he left off, sniffing my clothes.  He seemed to
like what he smelled as he kept inhaling deeper and deeper.  I'm sure I
smelled like something very tasty!
       He opened his chops then for the first time, showing me all those
sickeningly threatening teeth in that massive mouth of his! Leaning down,
clearly he meant to rip my stomach out, and I had no way to stop him!
       I braced myself and shut my eyes as his jaws clamped shut onto my
belly.  I felt his sharp teeth press into my skin!  But then they pulled
back unexpectedly.  I opened my eyes to see his monster teeth ripping
through my shirt, leaving me bare-chested but so far, unharmed, except for
some minor cuts where his teeth had gotten too close.
       Once he spit my ruined shirt out, he lowered his muzzle until it was
right over my crotch, and then opened his jaw wide once more.  I flinched
again, expecting him to bite into me, and even feeling his sharp teeth
painfully pressing into my crotch.  But once again, the teeth were pulled
back.  I opened my eyes, and to my surprise he was ripping my pants clean
off my body, spitting them out as well and leaving me just in my shoes!
Separating the edible parts from the inedible, surely.
       Only he didn't bite into me then either; in fact, he had his muzzle
shut.  Once again, he leaned down, put his cold nose against me (my chest
this time) and sniffed hard, seemingly thankful that his smelling assaults
were no longer impeded by my clothing.  As he did this, he started to make
an odd sort of beastly noise, almost a sound of pleasure!
       He lowered his nose to my upper thighs and crotch area, still
sniffing, and it became apparent that he was enjoying this.  He opened his
mouth, and slobber started to ooze off his huge teeth, way more slobber
than had been there before.  It landed all over my legs!
       He repositioned the paw holding my two ankles to the ground, pushing
them up and to the right, making it so my knees were tucked and pushed to
the right.  This pushed my butt into the air, and he lowered his muzzle
there, sniffing at my flesh.  I even felt his wet nose pressed against my
asshole.  He seemed transfixed by whatever scent he detected there, clearly
enjoying himself, as I felt the drool falling from his open mouth cover my
crack and asshole.
       While he smelled me there, I got a good view of his maleness,
dangling soft between his legs.  It was shockingly big.  Even when I took
into consideration the huge size of the beast's body, it was still
enormous, as large as any horse phallus I'd seen.  If the females of these
monsters were the same size, I could not wrap my head around how those two
would manage to mate, not unless the female also possessed genitals that
were equally huge.  The monster's penis looked somewhere between a man's
and an animal's in shape, color, and consistency of flesh.  His dangling
ballsack, which was proportional to his penis (meaning huge), was covered
in short fur that matched his body.
       I felt absolutely shocked as I felt his huge, canine tongue start to
lick my asshole.  What on earth was he doing?  His initial mild licks
turned more and more fervent as he seemed to taste something unexpected
that thrilled him, warm saliva covering my crack.
       Looking down his body, I felt new sort of sick anxiety as I came to
realize that his penis, once benignly flaccid, had turned dangerously hard.
Instead of hanging straight down to the ground as it was before, it was
sticking straight up against his body, so long it touched the monster's
taut chest muscles.  Looking at its huge length and girth, seeing all the
veins pop out of the steel-rod hard shaft, it scared me just as much as
seeing the beast's killer teeth had!
       I felt the very tip of the animal's tongue enter my asshole, and I
anxiously clamped my sphincter shut.  His tongue proved too strong,
however, as it forced its way through the barrier until it was totally
inside me.  Just his tongue was larger than most men's penises, and it hurt
to have it jammed inside me.  If it hadn't been so thoroughly doused in
slobber, I would have been in real trouble.  As the tongue stopped licking
around and actually began pumping me, I could feel the beast's evil sharp
teeth press against the flesh of my butt, clearly wanting to bite in.
       Meanwhile, this beast's hard phallus starting oozing the first
liquid that came from the monster that wasn't slobber, though it was
equally sticky and slimy.  So much of it poured out, that I at first
thought the beast's licking activities had somehow gotten the creature off,
and it made me relieved.  To my sad astonishment, however, I realized as
the shaft continued to be hard that what I had witnessed had just been the
creature's pre-ejaculate, clearly intended to prepare the monster for
mating.
       Finally, it came as a great relief when I the beast removed its
tongue from my hurting behind and began to lick up the front of my body.
His pink tongue lapped at my stomach, my chest, and then started lick
around my neck.
       But terror hit me all over again when I felt the giant head of the
creature's enormous phallus press against my asshole, the penis's slimy
slobber sticking between the urethra and my hole.
       I shook my head violently.  If this monster intended to rape me, it
would split me apart with that phallus.  There was no way I'd survive such
an act.  But the evil look on the creature's face told me that me surviving
was never part of the plan.  I felt his head push brazenly forward against
my hole.
       I remembered I still had a free hand, and I reached over and punched
hard at the thing's huge hanging testicles, doing the only damage I could
think of.  He growled angrily in response, and at least it momentarily got
him to pull his penis back away from me.
       He grabbed my hand with his right front paw, making me unable to use
it any longer.  He held onto it, his colossal mitt completely encasing the
thing.  I clearly got a good look at this paw.  His back paws were hooves.
They were for moving, and could either support the beast either standing up
on all fours, or standing in a bipedal mode.  His front paws were unlike
front bull hooves; instead, the hoof had been carved up into five fingers
with an opposable thumb.  That's how he could actually grab onto my hand,
crushing it between his massive fingers!  But when clenched into a fist,
the hoof fingers came together to form a functional hoof, clearly for
running on all fours.  Even as I struggled, I knew there was no way I was
going to free myself from the three paws which were making me immobile.
       He opened his mouth pressing his sharp teeth right to my throat.
This time, I knew it was to make the final kill.  It was done playing with
its food, and it was looking forward to a tasty meal!
       Right then, a skinny figure rushed in, attacking the beast's face.
I couldn't believe my eyes, Madina was coming to the rescue!  Her body
slaming the beast did absolutely nothing, but she then smartly shifted her
strategy, using her long nails to claw both of his evil glowing bull eyes!
       The tactic worked, if only for a moment.  The beast roared and took
a step back, shaking its head in pain, while I got to my feet and backed
away.  Madina turned to face me, turned to run away, but she should have
never turned her back to the beast.!
       "Madina, no!" I yelled, but it was too late.  The creature's open,
wet mouth was positioned right behind her, and I saw those huge jaws snap
closed.
       SNAP!
       A deafeningly loud pop was heard, and at first I thought it was the
sickening sound of Madina's bones cracking, but reason told me the sound
was much too loud.
       The beast hissed in absolute ear-splitting agony, probably the most
retched sound I had ever heard in my life.  It pulled its head back away
from Madina, and retreated, shaking its head in pain!
       I expected Madina to be dead, but she amazingly was intact!  She
reached her hands up to the undamaged skin on her neck, as stupefied as I
was that the beast let go before it could finish her off.
       A huge figure appeared between the trees, so large it could only
have been another one of those monsters.  Instead, I saw hooves on the
ground, and realized I was looking at a rider on a horse.  My eyes moved up
to see my favorite person in the world, riding towards us!
       "Petro, you came!"
       His face looked urgent, clearly he had met the same creatures we
did!  In his hands was a smoking rifle, the clear source of the loud noise
and the reason why that thing had been stopped short of killing Madina.
       "Madina, are you okay?" I asked.
       She was huffing, out of breath, half probably from shock, judging by
the size of her eyes.  "I think so, thanks to you, lad," she said to Petro.
       "How did you know we were about to be attacked?" I asked him.
       He shook his head.  "I didn't.  I just decided to join you, and
showed up in the nick of time.  I brought the horses."
       He motioned behind us, and I realized that connected to his own
horse was a rope that pulled along a second, unmanned horse.  And behind
that horse, two others were tied and being towed.  He had noticed I hadn't
taken the horses after all, so he brought them to us.  He was such a
sweetheart!
       "How did you find us?" I asked him.
       "Your fire," he said. "Anyone could have tracked you down that way."
       Somewhere in the woods, we heard a fierce, guttural roar.  Then, a
second responding roar!
       "We can catch up later," he said. "Right now, we have to ride like
hell!  All aboard!"
       Madina jumped onto the horse behind Petro's with surprising agility.
I looked around for Pavlov, finding her dazed but seemingly intact on the
ground.  I lifted her in my arms and ran over to the nearest horse, the
last one in line.  I had a hard time getting on.  The horse was, not
surprisingly, extremely agitated.  The moment I approached it, it reared up
and whinnied at me.  "Calm down," I said, trying to be soothing.
       "You'll do better with the other horse, an older female," Petro
said.
       I abandoned the last horse and tried the mare behind Madina's horse.
She seemed just fine with me.  I even scooped up Pavlov into my arms and
rode with the dog in front of me.  Though I can't say getting on the saddle
naked was much fun, I was too scared to care.
       "Anzhero-Sudzhensk is too dangerous to return to," Madina declared.
"We're not far from Vadim's grandparents.  Let's ride there as quickly as
we can.  They'll be able to keep us safe."
       Petro led us forward into the woods in the direction of my
grandparents' cabin.  He took off fast, but it soon became apparent that
moving at that pace was not an option; we were all roped together, and it
was too challenging needling between trees to move very quickly at all!
       I heard an evil snarl behind me, and turned around to look.  One of
the creatures was running on all fours, following us closely and catching
up to us with every passing second!
       "We need to go faster!" I yelled.
       My comment came too late: the beast quickly caught up to the horse
behind me, leaning its head in to make a vicious bite.  Luckily, the horse
kicked back, hitting the monster in the face dead on.  Amazingly, the kick
barely fazed beast, but it did knock the beast into a tree.  The large tree
stopped the creature cold.
       "It won't be long before that one comes back," I said.  "We need to
go faster!"
       "I can't go any faster without getting caught in the trees!" Petro
said.  "We'll have to untie the horses!"
       While we continued to ride forward, I saw Petro in the front quickly
untie the knot that held the rope to his horse.  Once he did, he moved free
of the rest of us.
       Hearing another snarl, I looked back.  One of those things was
behind us again, a ways back through the trees, but gaining!
       The leader of the caravan was then Madina; she too found the knot
that tied our two horses together.  She had a tough time undoing it, but
she finally did, and her horse two sprang free!
       Then I was steering my horse through the trees, picking up the pace,
but still not able to go nearly as fast as Petro or Madina because I was
still towing the fourth horse.  Meanwhile, that monster was coming in fast!
       Just when I managed to go the fastest I had ever gone, my horse
suddenly stopped short, almost sending Pavlov and myself flying off.
Terrified, I looked back, finding the problem.  My horse and the empty
horse had clotheslined a large tree with the rope that held them together,
forcing us to come to a sudden stop!
       Behind me, I could see the beast gaining on us fast!  We didn't have
time for this!
       I tried to pull the other horse around to my side, but the stubborn
animal kept pulling and pulling.
       "Just let it go," Petro said.  Both he and Madina had stopped their
horses and were looking back at me anxiously.
       "I can't let your horse go!" I said, thinking of the expense of the
animal.
       "It's not worth dying over, Vadim.  Do it!"
       I moved my hand towards the knot that held the last horse to us.
Man, it was on really tight, this was not going to be easy!
       Behind me, the fourth horse was bucking crazily, sensing the fast
approaching beast.
       "Hurry, boy!" Madina shouted.
       "I'm trying!" I yelled back, just not able to get the knot free.
Then I remembered I had a pocketknife in my pants!  I pulled it out and
started to saw through the thick rope.
       I looked back, and all I could see was that demon's wide open mouth,
full of dozens of pointy teeth and slobber, about to make its kill!
       The knife finally cut through!
       Suddenly freed, my horse took off automatically forward, while the
empty horse ran off to the right!  The beast stopped, seemingly uncertain
as to which way to follow.
       "Run home, Ivan!" Petro yelled at the empty, angry horse.
       Ivan ran off towards the other beasts, and I feared for its life:
clearly those things would consider it easy prey and kill it.  Oddly, the
beasts seemed to ignore it completely.  Why they didn't seem interested in
horses, I had no idea.
       Almost immediately, the demon started chase again!  Only this time,
we ran so much faster, using our significant riding experience to quickly
weave through trees, galloping as hard as we could.  Looking back, even at
a full on run, those beasts could not keep up with the horses, they were
too slow.  Yes, we had found their weakness!
       I felt sick when I saw beasts seemingly appear out of nowhere,
coming through the trees to the sides and moving it for the attack.  Petro
narrowly missed getting swiped by one of their paws.  Even as we left more
beasts behind in the dust, it didn't seem to matter, more would always
appear.  Either there were countless numbers of these creatures out there,
or those beasts were finding a way to move faster than us somehow, which
didn't seem to make sense.
       One of the beasts appeared right out of the forest, clearly gunning
for me!  Just as the creature started to swipe at my horse's legs behind
me, I made a sharp and sudden ninety degree turn to the left, holding onto
Pavlov and managing to keep us both on the horse.  The beast kept on
running towards Madina and Petro, while I switched my course and ran off on
my own.
       Just when I was wondering how I would find them again, another
demon-beast jumped right in front of me out of nowhere from the cover of
trees!  I tried to rear up and avoid it, but failed.  We slammed head on
into the beast, and suddenly I was flying through the air, Pavlov still in
my arms!
       I landed hard on the ground, totally shocked and stunned.  I was in
pain, and I figured I must have broken something!  My chest hurt like mad.
       I got to my feet.  Pavlov was still beside me, and next to us, the
beast was tangled up with our horse, clearly set on killing the poor thing.
Another one of Petro's horses lost because of me.
       There was a loud bang that made me jump.  I turned my head to see
Petro on horseback coming though the trees, his rifle again in hand!
       He hit the demon beast square in the head again, but amazingly, the
creature seemed to survive.  Though, the blast clearly annoyed the thing;
it backed off, shrieking evily!
       Petro was just in time again, the horse luckily seemed undamaged.
But, as soon as she was free of the beast, the horse ran off through the
woods.  Petro tried to call her back, but she was just gone.
       "Damn!" Petro said.
       Madina rode in with her horse as I gladly realized I was free of
injury!  The pain had just been the wind knocked out of me.
       In the forest, we could already hear the beasts shouting to each
other, signaling.  Another attack was eminent.
       "We'll never last on foot," Petro stated.  "Quick, get on my horse."
       "You mean, double up?" I asked him.
       "Yeah," he said.  "My horse is the biggest.  Madina, you take the
dog."
       I handed Madina Pavlov.  I couldn't tell which of them looked more
uncomfortable.  Pavlov clearly wanted to stay with me, and Madina clearly
hated being forced to hold onto a dog.
       I jumped up behind Petro on his horse.  There really wasn't enough
room for two, and me being naked against him would have normally caused
some discomfort, but I guess in life or death situations you manage to make
it work.
       Petro urged his horse back into the trees, and took off at a fast
pace.
       We rode for a long time.  For the first twenty minutes, we heard
distant sounds of the beasts.  Then for the last twenty, we heard nothing.
Though we certainly didn't slow down!
       Running so fast with such a load was taking its toll on our horse,
unfortunately.  Soon it was hot and foamy.
       There was a rock in the road that the horse just didn't see.  If we
hadn't pushed the animal so hard, it would have been fine.  But in its
condition, the creature stumbled, and then stopped completely.
       "Let's go, Nikolai," Petro urged, but the animal would not move.
       Petro jumped off and inspected the horse.  "An ankle sprain," he
said.  "He won't be able to carry anyone like that."
       I got off the horse myself.
       "What can we do?" I asked.
       "Let him go, and hope the best for him," Petro said, and that's
exactly what he did.
       Medina, who had been ahead of us, came riding back.  "Here, take my
horse," she said, dismantling.  "You two should leave me here and continue
on to the cabin.  Vadim's grandparents will know how to keep you safe from
these creatures."
       Petro shook his head.  "That horse can't take two," he said.
"Better you take it and go on your own, Vadim."
       "No, absolutely not," I said.  "You should take it and save
yourself, Petro.  You're not even supposed to be here!"
       "There's no way in hell," he said.  "You have to take it."
       "He's right," Madina said.  "You're the Great Hero, Vadim."
       I grabbed the horse reins from Madina, and they both nodded,
thinking I was following their demands.  Instead, I let it go, and slapped
it on the butt.  "Go home!  You're no use to us anymore.  I've already lost
one friend tonight.  I'm not going to lose anymore!"
       The horse ran off, joining the other injured horse in the trees.
       "You should have done as we asked you to!" yelled Petro.  "If
anything ended up happening to you tonight, I will blame myself."
       "I'm not going to die tonight, Petro.  Because I am destined to grow
in strength and then have a huge fight with king of the vampires.  That
means I'm the only one who is safe tonight."
       "He's right, Petro.  You and I aren't in the prophecies."
       "But just because Vadim is the only one guaranteed to live tonight
doesn't mean he isn't going to suffer some horrible assault from these
things that will scar him for life."
        "I saw a house not far ahead of us," Madina said.  "Perhaps someone
there can aid us."
       "Or, we haven't seen the--ah—things for a long time," Petro
offered.  "Maybe we've outrun them.  Your grandparents place isn't far now,
not even by foot."
       I heard the telltale sound of branches breaking and large paws
hitting the ground with massive amounts of weight, and I forced myself to
look behind us, a sour feeling in my stomach.  Maybe thirty yards back,
there was that same monster with the bullhorns, coming right for us!
       "Ah, hell," Petro said.  We all knew that we had no prayer of
outrunning that thing on foot.  We had barely been able to get away on
horseback.
       And worse, behind the first creature, there were at least seven more
of those things.
       "We have to run!"  Madina said.  "Go, now!"
       I turned forwards, and we all started to run as fast as we could
through the trees, though we knew how futile this was.
       Then I realized I couldn't se Madina anymore, I could only see Petro
and Pavlov.  I looked around, then looked behind us.
       There was Madina, running just as fast as we were, only back,
towards the beasts!
       "Madina, no!" I yelled back.
       "Just keep running!" she yelled back, just as she reached the
beasts.
       "Come on!" Petro said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.
       We ran and we ran until I was so out of breath I thought I would
faint.  Then, I stopped to catch my breath, and Petro stopped too, looking
back at me.
       I wiped away tears from my eyes, suddenly so overcome with emotion
that I found it hard to keep moving.  "Oh my god, she's dead.  Dead!
Probably Olik as well.  I just, I can't believe this."  Images of growing
up around those two people ran through my mind, married with flashes of
their horrible deaths.  Thoughts and feelings were coming so fast, I
couldn't process them, I couldn't do anything!
       "A lot of people go into shock when they experience something like
that, and rightly they should," Petro said.  "The human ego has no
preparation for such trauma.  But you can't let yourself fall apart now,
Vadim.  We can mourn their deaths later.  Right now, all we need to do is
survive.  After all, they died so we could live."
       I nodded my head, looking into his eyes.  He obviously had some
experience with turning it off from when he was in the military.  Yes, I
would do that too.  I would shut those emotions out for now.  We were going
to survive this!
       We kept running until we came to the house Madina had seen before.
The small, two-story house, set up on a short hill, looked deeply
foreboding from the outside.  It was taller than it was wide, with a
steeply gabbled roof that looked ready to cave in.  The whole place seemed
long decayed and rotted, parts of the walls chipped away.  Other parts of
the walls were charred black, as if the place had survived a fire at one
point.  All of it was covered with a large amount of grime.  There was
absolutely no way to tell what color the place might once have been
painted.  All that was left was dark grey, dark brown, and black.  But it
looked like someone had once built the place with care; a nice family home
that had some terrible fate to make it what it had become.
       The windows were boarded up, but in spots where those boards were
missing, the glass beyond was broken and jagged.  Even from this far way,
there was a bad odor to the place.  Everything around the house was dead
and brown.  Not even grass grew within ten feet of the property.
       Pavlov was on edge again, only instead of facing the forest, this
time she was looking straight at up that house on the hill as she growled.
She clearly did not want to take another step towards it!
       "I wonder if people live there," Petro asked.
       "People don't live in houses like that, Petro," I said.  "Ghosts
do."
       "Well, we can't just wait out here until those things kill us, can
we?  We need help."
       Petro started up the hill towards the house, and I reluctantly
followed.  Once again, Pavlov did not want to move forward, so I had to
grab her by the collar and pull her.  "I'm just as afraid as you are,
girl," I told her.
       As we neared the house, my nose wrinkled even more from the odor.
There were numerous overpowering bad smells coming from the house, but the
only one I recognized was urine.  It was sickeningly potent.  "Either that
urine is coming from one really territorial animal..."
       "Or a whole lot of people?  I know," he wrinkled his nose.  "Maybe
their septic tank is full."
       But it didn't smell like sewage to me, just urine.
       I followed Petro to the front door and watched him give a good
knock.
       "There are no lights on, Petro," I said.
       "But if anyone's in there, they'd probably be sleeping at this
time."  He knocked again, harder.  Somehow I wouldn't have been surprised
if Satan himself had answered the door!
       But nobody came.
       "It's empty," he said.  Then he moved his hand towards the
blackened, dirty doorknob, and I actually held my breath, almost concerned
that just grabbing a hold of the house could be lethal!
       "Locked.  Damn," he said.  "Well, we'll just have to break in."
       "Are you serious?"
       "Vadim, we are being stalked my monsters.  Breaking into someone's
old house seems like a reasonable plan of action considering the
situation."
       I looked again at Pavlov, who was eyeing the entryway with severe
mistrust.  "But we don't even know who lives there," I said.
       "Whoever it is, it can't be any worse than those man-eating beasts
out here, can it?  Plus, there's a line going into the house, see?" He
pointed to a wire going from up in the trees and disappearing into the roof
somewhere.  "My cell doesn't get any reception here, but if there was a
phone line in there, we'd be able to call for help."
       That hope was enough to convince me.  We found a first story window
whose wooden boards were the most decayed.  Working together, we were able
to pry the boards off, leaving just the broken glass of a very old window
left.  Through the fragmented pane, the inside was impossible to see,
beyond pitch black.
       Petro kicked the glass in with his foot, and then jumped through
feet first.  I almost wanted to stop him; seeing his lower body disappear
into the inky black nothingness of the house was highly disturbing to
watch, but I knew I was being irrational.  Then, his feet hit ground, and
he stood up on the other side of the wall.
       I reached down and grabbed Pavlov, handing her to Petro through the
window.  Boy, was she squirmy.  Then I started to climb through myself.
"Be careful you don't cut yourself on the glass," he warned wisely,
considering my lack of clothing.
       My heart raced as I climbed through the window and stepped into the
house, feeling deep inside that this was the wrong course of action!
       The first thing that hit me was the smell.  The urine smell had
subsided, apparently it was just the outside of the house that was
affected.  Inside, it smelled like rank BO, and something else just as bad,
so bad that I had to breathe through my mouth!
       Petro lit up his flashlight and shone his beam of light around the
room.  A rocking chair in front of us, an old, creepy settee.
       "Hey, a switch!" Petro said, finding a switch on the wall across
from us.  He moved to walk across the room.
       He flipped the switch, and a dirty lamp next to me turned on.  It
actually made me jump.
       "Electricity!" Petro said.  "Praise the lord!"
       Once we had the lights on, we realized just how bizarre the room we
were in was.  Part of this room seemed like a living room populated with
antique, old furniture.  But around that more normal stuff, in every open
spot on the floor, there were piles and piles of junk. Torn clothes,
utensils, papers, dolls and other toys, filthy sleeping bags – it was a
hoarders dream!
       "Let's see if we can find a phone somewhere," Petro said, obviously
intending for us to explore the house.  He shone his flashlight into the
next room, the large kitchen, and started to walk into it.
       "If we're exploring this place, I'm not going to leave your side," I
said, running to follow him, and pushing my shoulder against his.
       We found the light switch for the kitchen and turned that one on
too.
       "My lord," Petro said.  "Just as dirty as the living room."
       It was filled with kitchen supplies and equipment that was at least
a few decades old.  But once again, random junk was piled into this room,
filling up every floor and counter space.
       "You know, there's no sign of food in here," he said.  Or any sign
that anyone had cooked anything here for decades.
       "Seems like this place has long been abandoned," I said.
       "If that's true, then why would the electricity be on?"
       We looked, but didn't see any phones.
       "Where did Pavlov go?" I asked, realizing she had run off when we
were back in the living room.
       "I'm sure she's fine," Petro said.
       Moving on, we found a formal dining room that we didn't even at
first realize contained a large table due to the amount of junk on it!  We
also found a wooden staircase going up.
       The stairs were so creaky I was worried we would fall through, but
they held as we went upstairs!
       There, we found three bedrooms with antique beds, though the
upstairs had considerably less clutter than the lower parts of the house.
Infuriatingly, we found no sign of a phone or any phone jack anywhere.  We
went back downstairs feeling defeated.
       "What now?" I asked him once we were back in the living room.  "They
obviously don't have a phone.  Just like my grandparents' cabin."  Boy, did
I wish they were with us right then.  They would know exactly what to do!
       "We either go back out there and try to make a run for it," Petro
said.  That option didn't sound so great, since we already lost one of our
group the last time we had tried to run.  "Or we try to hide out here for a
while until it's safer.  It would help if we knew our enemy a bit better.
Did your grandparents ever say anything about these things?"
       I shook my head.  "No.  According to them, there were only two
supernatural beings in the history of man.  The vampires, and the Great
Heroes, they called them the spellcasters."
       "That's you, you mean," he said.  "You're supposed to save the
world."
       "I thought you didn't believe in their prophecies!"
       "It's becoming a lot easier to believe in them after tonight's
events."
       "Anyway, those monsters must be something totally new," I said.
       "They seem to have some sort of connection to the forest," Petro
said.  "I wonder if they can't leave the trees."
       "So far, I've seen no sign that they would be intelligent enough to
track us here, but it's certainly possible that they might.  What then?"
       He walked over to the couch and started pushing it towards the front
door.  "We barricade every possible first story entrance.  That includes
windows."
       "Let's do that," I said.
       Both of us worked hard at quickly getting the main door blocked off,
as well as the kitchen door, then we blocked off the window we had broken
through.  All the while, Petro was holding his rifle at his side.
       We had started barricading the remaining couple of windows in the
living room when I felt something furry jump out of nowhere and push
against my leg!
       I screamed, completely startled and thinking I was being attacked by
those things.  Instead, it was only Pavlov at my leg.
       "Pavlov, there you are, girl!"
       "See?" Petro said.  "I knew she was alright."  He was pushing a
bookshelf in front of a window.
       Even though she seemed physically fine, her demeanor was definitely
on edge, even more severely than before.  I worried that this might be a
sign that the creatures were on their way here!  She seemed to have an
uncanny sense when they were nearby.  I told Petro my fear, and he made
sure his gun was ready for them.
       But I soon realized that Pavlov's behavior was different this time.
She wasn't warning me of impending attack, she was trying to tell me
something else!  She kept pacing between us and the kitchen.
       "I think she wants me to follow her.  Maybe she's found something."
I grabbed the flashlight.  "Part of me doesn't want to know, but if I've
learned anything tonight it's to trust her instinct."
       "Vadim, we need to finish barricading the last two windows," Petro
said.
       "Alright, alright."
       When we had finished, Pavlov became impatient, came over to me,
grabbed my leg in her mouth, and pulled me towards the kitchen.
       "Let's go see what she wants," Petro said.  "Maybe she's smart
enough to have found a phone line we missed."
       Flashlight in hand, we let her lead us back into the disgusting
kitchen.  She was digging at something in the corner, under a pile of old
children's books.  She seemed confident that she knew what she was doing.
Then, under the mess, she disappeared entirely!
       "Where did she go?" Petro asked.
       Fearing for her safety, I went over to the pile and pushed the junk
aside.  Underneath there was a passageway that Petro and I had missed
before.  Stone stairs led down, into the ground.
       "She found a basement!" I said to Petro.
       "Good dog!  Anything of use down there?"
       He grabbed my arm and we went down the dark, dirty staircase
together.
       I saw Pavlov running down the stairs ahead of us, then disappearing
in a curve to the right.  "She has obviously been down here already."
       We followed her down, looking for light switches on the walls but
not finding any.  We came to the right bend in the passageway, and then
shined the light down the few remaining stairs in front of me.
       "Huh," Petro said.
       The stairs seemed to just end, and led to an open space.  There were
walls here, but they seemed more like the inner part of the house's
foundation that actual basement walls.  And the ground was all made up of
hard dirt and stone.
       "This is not really a basement," I said.
       "More like someone's plans for a basement that never got completed,"
Petro responded.
       There was just this empty, dirty space under the house!
       I wrinkled my nose.  That smell was far worse here than anywhere
else in the house, I realized.  They must have thrown their trash here.  It
was just putrid, stinging my eyes even!
       Pavlov had run off onto the dirt floor ahead of us.  I was feeling
disappointed; obviously this place wasn't going to hold a phone or anything
else that we needed.  But the dog sure seemed convinced this was where we
should be!
       We walked down the remaining stone stairs, and then put our feet
down into the dirt.  Just like the rest of this house, there was a bunch of
random, decaying junk just tossed about here.
       "Doesn't look like there is anything important down here," Petro
said.  "I think she's just found the best place to hide.  Good girl!  Did
you see how narrow those stairs are?  Those monsters will never be able to
fit down here."
       "I want to look around a bit, just to be sure we're not missing
anything," I said.
       "Sounds good," he said.  "I'm going to go upstairs, make sure all
the barricades are up to snuff.  Then I'll turn off the lights and come
down here.  I'll cover the basement entrance back up when I come down.  It
will make the perfect hiding spot."
       He left me the flashlight, and then went back upstairs, holding the
gun in his hands.
       I turned around, searching for Pavlov with the flashlight.  With
Petro gone, this place's creepiness factor went up by a hundred, and I
wasn't about to be left alone by my dog as well!  I started to get that
sick, funny feeling in my gut stomach again.  There was something about
this basement that was just sopping with evil, I knew it.  But if that was
the case, why was Pavlov so eager to be down here?
       It was so dark, and my flashlight was so narrow, that for a second I
thought I would never find Pavlov.  Then, I heard her, turned the
flashlight to my left, and found her close by, sniffing and barking and
looking extremely worked up.  She was digging through the garbage there,
looking agitated, seemingly wanting my help!  I obliged, coming to her
side, propping the flashlight up facing us, bending down on my knees, and
starting to dig with my hands.
       I cleared the junk from around us until we were just digging through
the hard, black dirt.  She kept digging frantically, so I did as well.  My
hands pulled large chunks of earth free, until I had dug a few inches!
       My hands touched something hard and sharp in the dirt.  A weapon? I
dug quickly until I uncovered part of the object.  I grabbed the flashlight
and shined it down into the dirt, using my free hand to clear the dirt off
the object.  What was it?
       A row of decayed, yellow teeth.  Human teeth!
       I shrieked, pulled my hand back away from the teeth in terror, and
backed off.  But Pavlov was still digging, and I watched her uncover more
dirty white bone beneath the teeth.  A jawbone!
       These were human remains.
       Pavlov soon had a skull uncovered, and I could see the spine
continue into the dirt.  Damn, since we came into this house I had smelled
two bad stenches, urine and something else.  This was the source of that
something else, I realized.  Human remains!
       I felt wrenchingly ill all of the sudden and keeled over, vomiting
into the dirt.  I had never seen anything like this before.  My nerves were
a wreck!
       Pavlov left the skeleton and went to another nearby spot on the
ground, where she started digging again.  I so did not want to help her
this time, but I felt there was something else she was trying to tell me.
My heart pounding, I followed her with my flashlight and bent down beside
her to dig once more!
       This time, my hand touched hard bone first, causing me to jump.  I
cleared away the dirt and uncovered a hip bone.  Pavlov dug the rest of the
leg out.
       Another dead body!
       She moved again, sniffing and moving to another spot in the dirt.  I
helped her dig again, this time uncovering a rib cage that was clearly
connected to more bones further down.  It was a third body!  I tried to
convince myself that the people who built this home unwittingly put it on a
burial site for some reason.  Maybe that discovery was why they abandoned
the place.
       Pavlov moved to another area, still whimpering, still eager, and dug
frantically into the dirt.  I helped her uncover a fourth body, only this
one disturbed me even further because it was clearly the skeleton of a
small child!
       Pavlov didn't even need me to dig up the next body, she did it on
her own.  It was another adult skeleton, with a decayed metal ring on its
finger.
       Deeply disturbed, I wondered just how many bodies were buried
beneath our feet.  Dozens?  Hundreds?!
       Pavlov went to the very back of the basement, getting out of sight
of my flashlight.  I turned to find her, heading towards the back end of
the cavernous room, where we had yet to explore.  I felt like every step
towards that wall was a step closer to my doom!  I got a very, very evil
feeling about that spot in particular, compounded by the fact that the
stench was just getting worse in that direction.
       I found Pavlov digging in the dirt there again.  Behind her, the
back wall was completely covered with a dark stain.  Five minutes before, I
would have just thought it was dirt.  But now, it looked like it could have
possibly been large amounts of dried blood.
       The dirt around this area was looser than the rest, and was easily
dug up.  I had such a strongly bad feeling about the spot, that I expected
something there to be worse than the other spots.  But really, what can be
worse than human remains?!
       Just like before, it wasn't long before we found traces of another
skeleton.  Pavlov and I uncovered another skull, but something was oddly
different about the bones here.  They were whiter than the other bones we
found, moister, less decayed.  Pavlov kept digging, uncovering more and
more of the skeleton.  Then she actually uncovered another skeleton right
next to the first, a pair buried together!
       Unlike before, Pavlov didn't move on when we had evidence of the
newest bodies to another spot.  She just kept frantically digging and
digging in this spot, sniffing the ground and clearing more and more dirt
from the bodies.  I couldn't make any sense of her behavior!
       Looking more closely at the skeletons, I noticed they both had rings
on their fingers, something some of the other bodies had, so I didn't think
anything about it at first.  People get buried with their wedding rings all
the time.
       I cleaned off one of the rings with my hand, uncovering a sapphire.
       My heart stopped.
       A sapphire ring with silver setting.  And over on the other body, a
solid silver band.  And on the other hand of the first body, a silver
bracelet with an engraving on it.
       I stood up in fright, my hand covering my mouth, absolute shock
passing over me!
       These were my grandparents' jewelry, I was sure of it!  These were
my grandparents' bodies!
       I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes.  No, no, no, it couldn't
be!  They had just been gone a couple days.  They couldn't possibly have
turned to bones, could they?
       But Pavlov knew.  She led me to them, knew their smell!  These ARE
them.  Oh no, my poor grandparents, what terrible fate did you meet?  What
could they have done to you to strip every ounce of flesh off your bodies?
       I didn't want to think of it.  I leaned over and retched again, but
this time there was nothing else left to vomit.
       No.  All four adults who could help me.  Dead, all of them!  Petro
and I would have to make it on our own now.
       "We have to get out of here, now," I said to Pavlov, knowing I
wanted to leave before whatever did that to my grandparents came back.  I
had to find Petro.
       I turned towards the entrance of the basement, shining my light in
that direction.  There, at the bottom of the stairs, was Petro!  He must
have just finished his barricades.  I needed to tell him what was down
here.
       I walked towards him "Boy, am I glad to see you," I said, and I
meant to lead him out of the basement as quickly as possible!  Pavlov was
at my feet, just as eager to go as I was.
       But I focused my light on him, getting a good look for the first
time.  His expression was oddly unreadable.  And his clothes were bizarrely
stripped off, down to just his shoes, as naked as I was.  My god, he was so
beautiful, standing there in all his glory like that, his perfect phallus
hanging soft, his cut muscles making him look the statue David.  He was the
one ray of light in this dark, dismal place!
       "Vadim," he said, stumbling towards me suddenly.  I wasn't expecting
him to get so close.  When he pushed himself into me, I wasn't prepared for
his weight.  I tried to take a step back, but tripped and fell onto the
floor on my back.  And he fell right along with me, landing with his front
against mine, our dicks pressing into each other, our faces touching!
       I know it was the worst time in the world to feel romantic, but
something about the combination of being seriously scared for our lives, as
well as the shocking trauma of losing my grandparents, it all just unhinged
me somehow, and all I could think about was how much I knew I totally loved
this boy!  I couldn't deal with thinking of the two of us as destined to be
just friends.  If fate had chosen me to be this Great Hero, then fate also
made my one true love be Petro Lebedev, and fate could not curse me by
having the one I loved be totally uninterested in me!
       So, I did the only course of action fate would allow: I kissed him!
       I pressed my lips to his, trying desperately to show him much I
cared for him, trying to melt his will, his resistance, to prove to him
that we were meant for one another!
       Then suddenly, he pulled his head back, taking his lips off mine
forcefully.  Tears were in his eyes and his face looked disgusted.
       "I'm sorry," he said for a third time, and it took three times for
those words to really, totally break my heart!  Tears were in my eyes,
tears that I was failing to hold back.
       That was it.  I was destined to live my life without love!
       "I'm so sorry," he said again.
       "Yes, I know," I said.
       "So sorry that it took me so long to do THIS!"
       Then, he leaned back down, and placed his perfect lips to mine.  For
the first time, he opened his mouth and kissed me with every fiber of his
soul, not holding any of his love back!  He kissed me with a more potent
love than I ever thought was possible, and as his tongue entered my mouth,
I knocked myself out of the shock of it all.  I recovered quickly, and
started to give it just as good as I got!
       He finally pulled away from me.  "Sorry for taking so long to tell
you how much I've always loved you.  Not as a friend or a brother, but as a
lover."
       He kissed me again, just as enchantingly, and I our mutual true love
flowed together endlessly!
       Then, I started to taste something warm and metallic in his mouth.
It was very strange, but it wasn't enough to make me stop kissing him.
       He pulled up again, looking me deep in the eyes.  "So sorry I can't
spend a life with you.  The sweet, perfect life we were supposed to have."
       "What do you mean, my love?" I asked him.
       "So sorry that I have to leave you," he said, his voice sounding
strained.  Tears were just pouring out of his eyes, falling all over me.
That's when I noticed his teeth were stained with blood, while just a
moment ago they had been clean!
       That whole time, my hands had been on his face and neck.  Now,
fearfully, I moved my hands lower until they touched his back.  I felt that
his clothes hadn't been removed, they'd been torn off.  I felt warm wetness
there, and worse, I felt holes where flesh should have been, and even some
bone!
       "No!" I yelled, terrified.  "No, no, no!"
       "Yes, I'm sorry I couldn't hold them back longer," he told me.  "But
my last gift to you is the one that will save your life."
       He touched his lips to mine so sweetly, so sadly.
       "Love you forever, Vadim," he coughed, then kissed me hard, pouring
all of his love into that one magical touch!
       I kissed him back, never wanting this moment to end!  It almost
seemed to last forever.
       But then more of his blood poured into my mouth, and his body went
limp, and I knew he was gone!  His eyes dilated and lost their focus. I
couldn't handle it, tears were pouring down my face!
       I heard loud whisks around me.  Then I heard the oddest sounds, like
flesh and bone being forcefully rearranged!
       In my peripheral vision, I saw the huge paw of a massive monster
beast step close to my head.  Then another paw on the other side.
       And then I heard them.  Evil snorts and growls coming from at least
a dozen of those monsters, gathered all around me in this basement of Hell!
How they got in through a staircase they couldn't have possibly squeezed
through I didn't have a clue.
       They gathered around Petro's body, and I realized I was skillfully
hidden out of sight.  Petro's last act while we were kissing had been to
bury me in the dirt and trash underneath him.  I was hidden from their
eyes.
       I could hear them sniffing around Petro's body.  Cleary they had a
keen animal's sense of smell.  They would surely smell me soon, and I'd be
dead as soon as they found me!
       But even though they sniffed around, they never seemed to detect
anything besides Petro's body.  They normally would have been able to smell
me, but Petro had deftly placed his body in such a way over mine that the
only thing I smelled like was him!
       All I had to do was keep hidden from their ears by not moving, and
Petro's plan would have worked.  Then, when they had left the house again,
I would be able to sneak out and make my escape.
       That meant having to do the unthinkable: hold back my emotions and
stay completely, deadly still until they left!
       I immediately choked back my tears and shut my mouth, breathing as
silently as possible through my nostrils.  I shut down my fear, slowing my
heart rate and calming myself.
       Then the one thing I had never prepared for happened.  The creatures
grunted, growled, lowered their heads, and started to eat Petro.
       Even so, as long as I didn't move, they shouldn't notice me.  But
that meant I was forced to sit there quietly while the demon beasts defiled
and devoured my sweet, beautiful Petro.
       I heard the growls and snarls not of one of the demon-beasts, but of
a familiar dog.  Pavlov, coming to my defense.  No, I just wanted her to
run out and escape, but I had no way of telling her so without blowing my
cover!
       Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her as she bit into the
huge clawed back paw of the nearest beast.  Although she was ferocious for
a canine, she had no prayer of stopping this demon!
       As if to prove my point, the beast kicked back its paw hard,
knocking Pavlov across the room!  She hit the stone wall with a sad yelp,
then fell to the ground, still!
       I almost cried out and blew my cover right then.  But I realized she
wasn't dead, I could see her breathing still, though she clearly was
unconscious!  I thought the beasts would surely go over to her and finish
her off, then eat her.  But they took no interest in her.  All that
interested them was the human body in front of them, Petro's.
       I remained perfectly still as they started to bite into him.  I
could hear their slobber dripping and drooling all over the ground.  I
could hear one or two of them snarling and biting each other, fighting over
which one got which part of my sweet, sweet boy.
       I tried to shut my eyes and just let them do their thing.  But it
was like he was calling to me, calling out in pain!  Every time I opened my
eyes, I looked at his dilated pupils, the sadness on his lips.
       I heard them ripping and tearing off his skin, then pulling out
organs and bones, and it was more than I could take!
       "Oh!" I cried out accidentally when they ripped his spine out.
       There were a few evil hisses, and then all of the creatures froze
around me.  I prayed they would ignore the sound!
       Instead, they slowly pushed Petro's body off me.  All of them looked
down at me and growled in unison, staring at me with those evil, squinted
eyes, those pointy devils' teeth.  My cover was blown!
       Knowing I had to act fast while they were still surprised, I jumped
to my feet, pushed through two of their filthy bodies, and ran towards the
exit.
       I knew I had them all in the basement, and I knew they couldn't fit
through the tight stairway.  It might buy me enough time to make my escape!
       Close to the exit, I had to jump over two fresh bodies that had just
been brought in, both stripped of their clothes and partially eaten, but
still recognizable as belonging to a heavyset man and a skinny woman.  No
time to think about that now!
       Just as I was about to reach the stairwell, reach safety, one of
those giants moved in from the left of the exit, the pack leader with the
bullhorns, blocking me!
       It was just one of the evil monsters between me and my probable
safety, but I had nothing to fight with but my bare hands.
       I shut my eyes, and prayed to whatever force was out there, whatever
it was that controlled my fate, I prayed for them to unlock my latent
powers to save myself when death was at my door!  I knew it was inside me,
I just had to access it!
       I swore I felt an answer, felt some sort of special force surge
through my body!  With a newfound confidence, I moved forward, pulled my
hand back into a first, and gave the beast's slobbering maw every ounce of
force that was buried in my soul.
       The beast didn't even budge!
       Instead, it opened its mouth wide, showing me every needle-sharp
devil's tooth, its hot, rancid breath hitting my face and smelling of dead
flesh, its burning saliva splashing my skin.  It held its gaping mouth in
front of me for a moment, my whole face easily fitting inside that wicked
jaw.
       I had failed to access the powers inside of me.
       Then, quicker than I could register, it snapped the trap shut,
spikey teeth piercing every part of my throat at once!
       As the jaws clamped down harder, and my blood spilled with red hot
pain, I knew that prophecies were always a fallacy!  I had counted on them
being real, thinking there was no way I could be killed here!  If I had
truly feared death, I never would have moved from under Petro.
       No one can predict the future.  Otherwise this was not how I would
have died.  There was no such thing as fate.  Everyone had to make their
own destinies!
       I hoped the next Great Hero, if there was one, would learn that
lesson better than I did!


       NOVEMBER 1st


       I screamed, clutching my bleeding throat, totally terrified of my
impending death.
       "Jacob!  Jacob, wake up!"
       I opened my eyes, tearing at my skin, screaming in pain.
       "Shhh, shhh, shh, it's okay."  I felt a strong hand cover my mouth,
muffling my scream.  "You're going to wake up the whole dorm."
       Darn it, where was I?  Who was I?  I wasn't some guy being killed in
the woods.  I was Jacob Groves.  It was night, and I was in my dorm room,
exactly where I had gone to sleep.
       I realized I was choking myself with the chain and cross my mother
had given to me when I was a child, telling me as long as I kept it, Jesus
would keep me safe.  I let go of it, and the pain around my throat began to
subside.
       One thing was very different here, and that was for the first time
since the start of my freshman year, there was someone in my bed with me.
Someone on top of me.
       I looked up.  It was Ahmad Achar, my roommate, a foreign student
from Abu Dhabi.  The one guy that I had let myself develop a crush on, the
one guy that I had ever lusted over like crazy, the one guy who was totally
straight and completely unavailable, was on top of me in my twin bed, the
warm weight of his powerful body pressing down on me, one hand holding my
mouth shut and the other holding my arm down.
       "If I let go, will you stop hitting me?" he asked, his silky,
masculine voice as soothing as honey.
       "Yes," I said, mortified that I had ever been hurting him, and he
pulled his upper body up into the air, hovering a couple feet over my own
body.
       Ahmad was a beautiful man, inside and out.  He was only eighteen,
like I was, but some combination of his genetics and his high school
athleticism made him look at least in his mid-twenties.  And he had a kind,
wise countenance that matched his look, an inner wisdom.  He had a way of
making you love him and love yourself at the same time.  He had everything
going for him, yet the attention he paid those around him eliminated any
envy they might have had.
       I looked at him from top to bottom, familiarizing myself once more
with his features, something I could never get fatigued of.  His skin was
milk chocolate and smooth, much darker than most Middle Easterners, making
him look almost Indian in appearance.  Capping his head were beautiful
black curls of hair, cut short, always making me want to run my fingers
through them.  Under thick black eyebrows, his penetrating light brown eyes
truly were the window to his sweet soul.  I could get lost in those eyes.
His nose was flat, and his dark pink lips almost always were upturned into
a disarming smile.  He wore what I thought was called a "chin curtain," a
strip of facial hair that looked like a goatee with the moustache and lower
lip portion shaved off, leaving a short cropped strip that accentuated his
masculine jaw-line.  He had slight dimples in his cheeks.
       Going lower, his upper body, now naked, was a sight to behold.
Smooth, brown skin covered the lean muscled body of a serious athlete.  He
was about 6' and just under 200 pounds of muscle, giving him a ripped upper
body, where every muscle showed a prominent vein or two.  He wasn't as big
as a bodybuilder would be, more like a fit wide receiver.  His nipples were
small, tight, and brown, and his abs currently glistened with sweat.
       I realized that the sweat was not his, it was my own.  My bare upper
body was covered with it.
       A sudden rush of the memory of that dream came through me, and I
trembled in pain again.  I had been sure that I was dead.
       The emotion was so bizarrely strong that I even began to cry a
little.  Just a little sobbing.  Seeing this, Ahmad closed the gap between
our bodies, his bare torso pressing against my own, and he wrapped his
strong arms around me, comforting me.  Ahmad was never squeamish about
showing affection, not even to his male friends, and that kind of culture
was something I had never experienced before.
       "Hey, it's okay," he said.
       "I don't know what's wrong with me," I said finally.  "I never cry."
I forced myself to stop my silliness.
       I became acutely aware of the feeling of his hard chest muscles
rubbing against the sweaty skin of my own chest.  His left nipple rubbing
against my right one, causing it to harden excitedly.
       "It must have been some nightmare," he said.  "The oddest thing was,
it sounded like you were speaking Russian in your sleep.  What was it
about?"
       "It was so weird," I said.  "I dreamt I was a short, skinny white
guy, getting killed in the woods.  I could have sworn it was real, that
that was really me."
       Ahmad looked down at my body.  "Don't worry, you're still about
5'11", 160 pounds.  An athletic build, not skinny, good looking black dude.
All seems to be right with the world."
       I chuckled.  "I also dreamt I was a Korean guy, I think... weird!"
       "I told you not to taste any of those strange substances they offer
you in Haight-Ashbury," he joked.
       "Funny thing is, I never dream," I said.  "Let alone have
nightmares."
       "Nightmares are your subconscious trying to tell you that you're
stressed out," Ahmad said, rubbing my shoulder.  "Maybe it's just your
newfound university life getting to you."
       "But I'm not stressed.  I love it here.  I love my classes."
       He laughed.  "Maybe you're stressed out about having such a loser
foreign exchange student for a roommate."
       I nodded.  "Yeah, that must be it.  Because we get along so poorly."
       "Aren't you meeting your shrink tomorrow?"
       "How many times have I told you he's not a shrink?!  He's a
counselor."
       "You can get him to go all Freud on your dream.  That will make you
feel better."
       The fear gone now, I once again became aware of Ahmad on top of me.
He always wore just pajama bottoms to bed, and although I normally slept
nude, since I began college I started wearing shorts to bed, really just
for his sake.  Having our naked upper bodies so close to each other,
exchanging our heat, was having an effect on me.  And even though our
crotches were covered by two thick layers of cloth, I could feel the weight
of his junk against my own.  Not hard, just there.
       I felt my dick starting to get hard, and I knew I would have to get
Ahmad off me or suffer embarrassing consequences.
       "You can go back to bed now, thanks."
       "Do you promise not to wake me up again tonight shrieking like a
banshee?" he asked as he got off of my bed and went back to his own across
the room.
       "I make no promises," I joked.
       As I fell back asleep, the dream that had seemed so important
disappeared from my mind, turning into just a hazy recollection of
something bizarrely wrong.