Post by Tony on Aug 29, 2010 16:06:52 GMT -5
The Tap Room was one of those old seedy bars established right after the Prohibition era, long past it's prime. Now it served mainly as the local watering hole for the old and broken, the air thick with self-pity. Tony was at home amidst the washed up losers and the depressed: he enjoyed the fact that they left him alone. They slowly trickled out, one by one, as the night dragged on into the early AM, eventually leaving only Tony.
Tony had just got off of his flight home, his DD 214 out on the table in front of him, crisp and new, with the word "Honorable" constantly showing it's ugly head on the certificate. In one hand he rested his head, propped up on the table by his elbow, and in the other he held an empty shot glass. In the booth, lying next to him, was his sea bag containing everything he had left. Tony was uncomfortably still, almost like a modernized version of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.
On his chest was a plain black t-shirt, and over that was a black and red leather jacket, his legs covered by simple blue jeans held tight to his waist by a leather belt with a western style buckle, and on his feet were black modernized utility boots. Around his neck hung his identification tags on a ball chain, and hidden on his person was his lucky Ka-Bar.
Tony had ordered four shots of whatever poison was cheapest, one empty glass in his hand with the other three immediately near his person, each in front of a small section of the booth as if Tony had been waiting for a party that never showed. It was partly true, seeing as those drinks were ordered for men who had been dead for a few months now. With a grimace, Tony exchanged the empty glass in his hand for one of the other three. The glass was lifted in a toast, followed by the phrase "To the shores of Tripoli," in a low gruff voice. Tony quickly downed the horrible liquid, dismissing the bitterness with a shake of his head.
"Last call, buddy," the bartender called out from his vigil behind his wooden keep.
Tony turned and finally noticed that he was the last man in the bar. In response to the bartender, he shook his head before standing. He didn't have a home to go to but it didn't matter, and it wasn't like he would be able to fall asleep even if he found a place to rest.
The graying bartender waddled out from behind his fort to the front door, looking after Tony impatiently. "C'mon buddy, let's go."
Tony quickly feigned a second toast to nothing, this time offering the phrase "Semper Fi" before downing the two remaining glasses. With nothing left to keep him, Tony stuffed his discharge certificate into the sea bag before slinging it over his shoulder. He began marching towards the door into the night, only to be interrupted by movement on the other side.
Three faces appeared in the glass linking the bar to the cold AM, three pairs of eyes intently studied both Tony and the bartender, and three devilish smiles slowly stretched across the darkness, almost as if there were three Cheshire Cats peeking in from Wonderland. Tony froze mid-stride as the small bell meant for announcing customers rang, heralding the arrival of the three pale newcomers: two male and one female.
On the surface they resembled normal people, but there was some dark cloud of foreboding following them. They didn't sit well with Tony, and this was enough to put him on edge. After surviving as long as he did in the war, he learned to never doubt his instincts. Tony planted his feet in an aggressive stance and tensed up, ready to react.
The old bartender turned to face the newcomers, keys in hand ready to lock the front door. "Sorry, we're clo-" the sentence was lost in bloody gurgles as one of the males effortlessly ripped out the bartender's throat, as if he were pull starting a motor. The idle male and the female began voicing their approval, congratulatory statements and endearments a stark contrast to the dying bartender on the floor. Tony had expected a gun, maybe even a knife, but not this. He was in mid-air, diving for cover behind the bar, before he realized what he was doing.
"Awww, I think he's shy," the female voice cooed mockingly before erupting in a childish giggle. Three pairs of footfalls slowly advanced toward the bar, clearly exaggerated: they were toying with him. "Oh, I wonder where he went," a male voice mocked condescendingly.
Tony silently cursed as he peered up from his position on the ground, expecting to see a pale face flashing an evil smile at him. Instead he found a Remington 870 Express hidden underneath the bar, a 12 gauge pump-shotgun, and a damn fine one at that. It was all black with a synthetic stock and foregrip, capable of holding 7 shells plus 1 in the chamber. Tony silently got up to one knee from his previous prone position, steadily prying the shotgun from it's perch. He quickly checked to see if it was loaded, thanking the dead bartender when he confirmed the shells, and silently disengaged the safety.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," taunted one of the males.
Slowly, two pale masculine hands appeared, angrily gripping the bar, followed shortly thereafter by a smug pale face. "Boo," the pale man said as Tony pressed the barrel of his borrowed shotgun against the pale man's brow, the victorious smirk disappearing as he realized his situation.
The brief awkward silence was interrupted by the shotgun, sending bloody chunks of grey matter confetti spraying across the room. Tony immediately emerged from behind the bar while cycling a fresh shell into the chamber, ejecting the spent one to the side, useless. His face was contorted in an ugly war cry as he fired upon his next target, the female. Her eyes widened in surprise as she fell, knocked off her feet by a storm of buckshot.
Time slowed as Tony cycled the shotgun again, every fiber in his body was screaming to hurry up and engage the final hostile. The pale figure was bearing fangs as Tony leveled the shotgun at him, sending a swarm of pellets and fire hurtling into his chest. The angered man only hissed, ignoring Tony's attack as if it were just a swarm of flies. Tony was undaunted by the enraged man, sending another three shells in rapid succession, each hit jerking his body violently, the last of which finally knocking him to the floor.
Tony scanned for movement in the following stillness, incredibly calm from the combat high. When he found none, he quickly vaulted over the bar to take a closer look. As he neared, the fallen enraged man sprung up to his feet suddenly and was upon Tony without warning. However, Tony was trained to always aim his weapon where his eyes were focused, and he had been looking the monster in the eye when he reflexively pulled the trigger. The enraged man fell again, his head turned to bloody mush by a combination of his unreal agility, and Tony's spastic reflex at point blank range.Tony finally relaxed, a sigh of relief escaping his chest as he claimed victory.
It was then he noticed the sound of someone stirring, and turned to find the female sitting up. With wide eyes she looked at Tony and the damage he'd done to her partners. "You killed them," she whispered, in shock. She was barely turned and inexperienced, but she knew that if a vampire was decapitated all you had to do was reattach the severed head and feed it blood to heal. However, she was dumbfounded as what to do if there was nothing to reattach. The regenerative ability of vampires were great, but, as far as she knew, there was no way to grow back your brain, eyes, and skull from nothing. "I...you killed them," she whispered, her eyes beginning to mist.
The female acted as if she was recovering from fainting, ignoring the large shotgun wound to her chest. Tony idly kept the shotgun pointed at her as he carefully inched closer, hoping that he would not need the last shell in the weapon: it was time for an interrogation. "Your buddy there," Tony acknowledged the enraged man, who had taken five shotgun shells to put down, with a tilt of his head before continuing, "What was he on? Meth?"
When Tony was serving in Iraq, some of the terrorists he fought had doped themselves up on opium and had shrugged off rifle bullets like mosquito bites. Unable to feel pain, making them fearless in the process, they only fell when their body was either too damaged to work properly, or if their brain was destroyed. This was the only thing Tony could think of that explained the pale trio's bullet resistance, in absence of kevlar vests. It still didn't explain the enraged man's abnormal agility and the fact that he hissed and bared fangs at Tony like a startled cat.
"No, stuff like that doesn't work on us," the pale girl stated matter-of-factly. "We are children of the night."
"What, vampires?" Tony questioned with an arched brow. The female slowly nodded in response. "So if I sprinkled you with holy water you'd burst into flames or something," asked the liquor in Tony, his mind beginning to haze. "No," answered the pale girl, "that's just Hollywood bullshit."
"So what does hurt," Tony asked through an exasperated sigh. The pale girl on the floor just looked up at Tony with a tear stained face; Tony hadn't even noticed she had begun to cry. With a sudden movement, Tony shouldered the shotgun and planted his feet aggressively, ready to pull the trigger.
"Sunlight," the pale girl yelped, turning away from the shotgun barrel aimed at her face. Back when she was turned, she was told she didn't need to worry about mortality anymore. She was special now, and she would live unaffected by diseases and enjoy the finer parts of human existence forever. Yet here she was on the floor with a shotgun wound to the chest, alone, and afraid for her unlife. "Fire and sunlight!"
Somehow, from the time she entered until now, the roles had been reversed: Tony was the monster now.
Tony had heard enough, it was time to leave, however there was no way he was about the trust this girl with his back. With his head, he gestured at the front door. "Go." The pale girl tentatively arose to her feet and backed towards the door, not trusting her flank to Tony. When she arrived at the door, she took one final look at her two male friends, face twisting in anguish as more tears rolled down her face, before crossing the threshold and disappearing into the night, the little bell on the door announcing her exit.
Tony hesitantly lowered the shotgun after the pale girl's leave, turning to face the carnage he'd wrought upon the bar. His hazy mind couldn't accept the thought of vampires existing in anything other than in the works of Bram Stoker, or Anne Rice, but he had no other logical explanations at hand. Regardless of what he thought, his current situation was a bit dire.
Here he was, a recently discharged war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, holding a shotgun and harboring a combat knife hidden on his person, in a bar with three dead bodies: Two with shotgun wounds, and one with a torn out throat. If he was arrested right now, he'd be lucky to be admitted into an insane asylum. He had to leave now, but he had no time for destroying the evidence that linked him here. He was in the military cleared for sensitive operations, so a single fingerprint was enough for the federal government to identify him and pull his record.
"Fire, huh?" Tony mumbled as he eyed the liquor behind the bar, a bad idea forming in his stressed mind. With no other options, Tony retrieved his sea bag from behind the bar, forgotten earlier in the tense moments with his new friends, along with a discovered box of shells and an old Zippo lighter. He then began smashing the bottles of liquor, setting up a flammable trail from the door to bar, a haphazard fuse at best; It took maybe a minute for him to set up.
There Tony stood at the doorway, shotgun in one hand and lighter in the other, before igniting the improvised fuse. The flame spread quickly as Tony left and engulfed the two pale bodies along with the bar.
Tony hoped the fire would have a chance to do it's job before the authorities showed up as he was ushered into the night by sirens.
Tony had just got off of his flight home, his DD 214 out on the table in front of him, crisp and new, with the word "Honorable" constantly showing it's ugly head on the certificate. In one hand he rested his head, propped up on the table by his elbow, and in the other he held an empty shot glass. In the booth, lying next to him, was his sea bag containing everything he had left. Tony was uncomfortably still, almost like a modernized version of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.
On his chest was a plain black t-shirt, and over that was a black and red leather jacket, his legs covered by simple blue jeans held tight to his waist by a leather belt with a western style buckle, and on his feet were black modernized utility boots. Around his neck hung his identification tags on a ball chain, and hidden on his person was his lucky Ka-Bar.
Tony had ordered four shots of whatever poison was cheapest, one empty glass in his hand with the other three immediately near his person, each in front of a small section of the booth as if Tony had been waiting for a party that never showed. It was partly true, seeing as those drinks were ordered for men who had been dead for a few months now. With a grimace, Tony exchanged the empty glass in his hand for one of the other three. The glass was lifted in a toast, followed by the phrase "To the shores of Tripoli," in a low gruff voice. Tony quickly downed the horrible liquid, dismissing the bitterness with a shake of his head.
"Last call, buddy," the bartender called out from his vigil behind his wooden keep.
Tony turned and finally noticed that he was the last man in the bar. In response to the bartender, he shook his head before standing. He didn't have a home to go to but it didn't matter, and it wasn't like he would be able to fall asleep even if he found a place to rest.
The graying bartender waddled out from behind his fort to the front door, looking after Tony impatiently. "C'mon buddy, let's go."
Tony quickly feigned a second toast to nothing, this time offering the phrase "Semper Fi" before downing the two remaining glasses. With nothing left to keep him, Tony stuffed his discharge certificate into the sea bag before slinging it over his shoulder. He began marching towards the door into the night, only to be interrupted by movement on the other side.
Three faces appeared in the glass linking the bar to the cold AM, three pairs of eyes intently studied both Tony and the bartender, and three devilish smiles slowly stretched across the darkness, almost as if there were three Cheshire Cats peeking in from Wonderland. Tony froze mid-stride as the small bell meant for announcing customers rang, heralding the arrival of the three pale newcomers: two male and one female.
On the surface they resembled normal people, but there was some dark cloud of foreboding following them. They didn't sit well with Tony, and this was enough to put him on edge. After surviving as long as he did in the war, he learned to never doubt his instincts. Tony planted his feet in an aggressive stance and tensed up, ready to react.
The old bartender turned to face the newcomers, keys in hand ready to lock the front door. "Sorry, we're clo-" the sentence was lost in bloody gurgles as one of the males effortlessly ripped out the bartender's throat, as if he were pull starting a motor. The idle male and the female began voicing their approval, congratulatory statements and endearments a stark contrast to the dying bartender on the floor. Tony had expected a gun, maybe even a knife, but not this. He was in mid-air, diving for cover behind the bar, before he realized what he was doing.
"Awww, I think he's shy," the female voice cooed mockingly before erupting in a childish giggle. Three pairs of footfalls slowly advanced toward the bar, clearly exaggerated: they were toying with him. "Oh, I wonder where he went," a male voice mocked condescendingly.
Tony silently cursed as he peered up from his position on the ground, expecting to see a pale face flashing an evil smile at him. Instead he found a Remington 870 Express hidden underneath the bar, a 12 gauge pump-shotgun, and a damn fine one at that. It was all black with a synthetic stock and foregrip, capable of holding 7 shells plus 1 in the chamber. Tony silently got up to one knee from his previous prone position, steadily prying the shotgun from it's perch. He quickly checked to see if it was loaded, thanking the dead bartender when he confirmed the shells, and silently disengaged the safety.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," taunted one of the males.
Slowly, two pale masculine hands appeared, angrily gripping the bar, followed shortly thereafter by a smug pale face. "Boo," the pale man said as Tony pressed the barrel of his borrowed shotgun against the pale man's brow, the victorious smirk disappearing as he realized his situation.
The brief awkward silence was interrupted by the shotgun, sending bloody chunks of grey matter confetti spraying across the room. Tony immediately emerged from behind the bar while cycling a fresh shell into the chamber, ejecting the spent one to the side, useless. His face was contorted in an ugly war cry as he fired upon his next target, the female. Her eyes widened in surprise as she fell, knocked off her feet by a storm of buckshot.
Time slowed as Tony cycled the shotgun again, every fiber in his body was screaming to hurry up and engage the final hostile. The pale figure was bearing fangs as Tony leveled the shotgun at him, sending a swarm of pellets and fire hurtling into his chest. The angered man only hissed, ignoring Tony's attack as if it were just a swarm of flies. Tony was undaunted by the enraged man, sending another three shells in rapid succession, each hit jerking his body violently, the last of which finally knocking him to the floor.
Tony scanned for movement in the following stillness, incredibly calm from the combat high. When he found none, he quickly vaulted over the bar to take a closer look. As he neared, the fallen enraged man sprung up to his feet suddenly and was upon Tony without warning. However, Tony was trained to always aim his weapon where his eyes were focused, and he had been looking the monster in the eye when he reflexively pulled the trigger. The enraged man fell again, his head turned to bloody mush by a combination of his unreal agility, and Tony's spastic reflex at point blank range.Tony finally relaxed, a sigh of relief escaping his chest as he claimed victory.
It was then he noticed the sound of someone stirring, and turned to find the female sitting up. With wide eyes she looked at Tony and the damage he'd done to her partners. "You killed them," she whispered, in shock. She was barely turned and inexperienced, but she knew that if a vampire was decapitated all you had to do was reattach the severed head and feed it blood to heal. However, she was dumbfounded as what to do if there was nothing to reattach. The regenerative ability of vampires were great, but, as far as she knew, there was no way to grow back your brain, eyes, and skull from nothing. "I...you killed them," she whispered, her eyes beginning to mist.
The female acted as if she was recovering from fainting, ignoring the large shotgun wound to her chest. Tony idly kept the shotgun pointed at her as he carefully inched closer, hoping that he would not need the last shell in the weapon: it was time for an interrogation. "Your buddy there," Tony acknowledged the enraged man, who had taken five shotgun shells to put down, with a tilt of his head before continuing, "What was he on? Meth?"
When Tony was serving in Iraq, some of the terrorists he fought had doped themselves up on opium and had shrugged off rifle bullets like mosquito bites. Unable to feel pain, making them fearless in the process, they only fell when their body was either too damaged to work properly, or if their brain was destroyed. This was the only thing Tony could think of that explained the pale trio's bullet resistance, in absence of kevlar vests. It still didn't explain the enraged man's abnormal agility and the fact that he hissed and bared fangs at Tony like a startled cat.
"No, stuff like that doesn't work on us," the pale girl stated matter-of-factly. "We are children of the night."
"What, vampires?" Tony questioned with an arched brow. The female slowly nodded in response. "So if I sprinkled you with holy water you'd burst into flames or something," asked the liquor in Tony, his mind beginning to haze. "No," answered the pale girl, "that's just Hollywood bullshit."
"So what does hurt," Tony asked through an exasperated sigh. The pale girl on the floor just looked up at Tony with a tear stained face; Tony hadn't even noticed she had begun to cry. With a sudden movement, Tony shouldered the shotgun and planted his feet aggressively, ready to pull the trigger.
"Sunlight," the pale girl yelped, turning away from the shotgun barrel aimed at her face. Back when she was turned, she was told she didn't need to worry about mortality anymore. She was special now, and she would live unaffected by diseases and enjoy the finer parts of human existence forever. Yet here she was on the floor with a shotgun wound to the chest, alone, and afraid for her unlife. "Fire and sunlight!"
Somehow, from the time she entered until now, the roles had been reversed: Tony was the monster now.
Tony had heard enough, it was time to leave, however there was no way he was about the trust this girl with his back. With his head, he gestured at the front door. "Go." The pale girl tentatively arose to her feet and backed towards the door, not trusting her flank to Tony. When she arrived at the door, she took one final look at her two male friends, face twisting in anguish as more tears rolled down her face, before crossing the threshold and disappearing into the night, the little bell on the door announcing her exit.
Tony hesitantly lowered the shotgun after the pale girl's leave, turning to face the carnage he'd wrought upon the bar. His hazy mind couldn't accept the thought of vampires existing in anything other than in the works of Bram Stoker, or Anne Rice, but he had no other logical explanations at hand. Regardless of what he thought, his current situation was a bit dire.
Here he was, a recently discharged war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, holding a shotgun and harboring a combat knife hidden on his person, in a bar with three dead bodies: Two with shotgun wounds, and one with a torn out throat. If he was arrested right now, he'd be lucky to be admitted into an insane asylum. He had to leave now, but he had no time for destroying the evidence that linked him here. He was in the military cleared for sensitive operations, so a single fingerprint was enough for the federal government to identify him and pull his record.
"Fire, huh?" Tony mumbled as he eyed the liquor behind the bar, a bad idea forming in his stressed mind. With no other options, Tony retrieved his sea bag from behind the bar, forgotten earlier in the tense moments with his new friends, along with a discovered box of shells and an old Zippo lighter. He then began smashing the bottles of liquor, setting up a flammable trail from the door to bar, a haphazard fuse at best; It took maybe a minute for him to set up.
There Tony stood at the doorway, shotgun in one hand and lighter in the other, before igniting the improvised fuse. The flame spread quickly as Tony left and engulfed the two pale bodies along with the bar.
Tony hoped the fire would have a chance to do it's job before the authorities showed up as he was ushered into the night by sirens.