This short story popped into my head as a dream I had after binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on YouTube. I always wondered what would of happened when the Slayer dies, how she feels in those moment. Although not explicitly explored and divulged into the protagonist and antagonist do share a familiar bond which adds a complicated layer to the story. This story isn’t arguably the best one I’ve written but I wanted to share this story here on my blog with all of you because I’m still super proud of it. So here, without further ado, I give you a sample of my new short story ‘A Slayer Slain’

A Slayer Slain

A Somewhat Short Story

by B.M. Schmidt

(Please note that NO part of this story may be shared or reproduced without explicit permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.)

Rory stood in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to her right. A hill rose above them to her left. Rory could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside. There was a moment of peace, before she was ambushed and all she could think of was her brother. Her smart, funny, slightly arrogant brother Jared Whitmore. He had been missing for one month, two weeks and eleven days. The clues that lead her to this place would lead her to the clan that had him. Luckily she didn’t need to wait long as she fought.

In hindsight, Rory would have defeated the vampires if it weren’t for Jared.

‘Kick left! Punch right! Kick right! Roundhouse!’ Her instincts screamed.

Rory had no choice she stood alone,surrounded by twenty or maybe even thirty vampires. She grabbed her stake and hummed to keep herself sane as she ripped through two, watching them fade to dust but they just kept coming. She was nearly out of breath, it hurt to inhale as she ducked the one which tried to grab her.

“Where’s my brother?” She bellowed at each one before delivering the fatal blow and they all smiled at her as though they shared some heinous secret about Jared that made her want to wretch violently. There was no time. There was never enough time, their Mother used to lament that on days she’d need to run errands with two young, often bickering kids in toe.

As she fought, Rory thought back to when she and her brother would play cowboys and Indians and how she’d often let him kill her so he could be the make believe hero, ‘I’ve killed you traitor, now Rest In Peace!’ He’d shriek as Rory faked an over the top dramatic death and they collapsed into a heap of laughter together.

Quickly she pushed these thoughts aside as she used the wooden heel of her shoe to dust off another foe. With little grace, Rory back-flipped off of one of her attacker’s torso and landed behind a headstone, coming back around with her stake.

She swiftly cut the heads off five vampires. The putrid scent of blood and decay filling the air as she moved with a sense of urgency and purpose.

‘Twelve left.‘ Her mind told her. ‘Where could they have him?’

Rory ducked a swing and cut the legs off of another, stoping him from getting around as she stepped on his chest, piercing his heart and keeping her balance as he turned into dust. She was on autopilot. Decapitate. Stake. Decapitate. Decapitate. Stake. Stake. Stake. Damn it, broken shoe. Back with a vengeance. Decapitate. Decapitate. Decapitate.

They were nearly gone, there should only be one more. She could feel him, watching her, just outside of her line of vision. She rested her stake in her hip and headed over to her weapons bag, to fetch her battle ax.

“Very impressive.”

Rory whirled around to see a familiar face attached to her final foe sitting atop a mausoleum. Jared was standing a few feet away from her, arms folded, looking at Rory curiously. There was no menace in his face or stance. He was so very average-looking, nothing remarkable about his face or body at all. Just the white skin, the circled eyes she’d was horrified to see. He wore a pale blue, long-sleeved shirt and faded blue jeans.

“Jared, you’re-?” Her breath caught in her throat as she realized she was too late, they’d turned her brother into one of them. Forever. Her heart sank deep in her chest, too late, but could she destroy someone she loved and shared blood with? What of their parents would they be safe?

“I’m immortal now, with power beyond my wildest imagination…but there’s one little problem, Ror, you’re killing all my new friends and this isn’t a game of cowboys and Indians you want to play…this is real life Sis,” he said casually observing the deceased members of his clan as nonchalantly as though he were discussing the weather.

“Get out of here, Jar, I don’t want to have to turn you into dust.” Rory warned, dropping her axe. It sliced through the leather of her shoes and cut her foot, but she ignored it and sprung up a tree, and leapt on top of the mausoleum.

“Well, I don’t know about the dust, but I’m impressed again. You’re a skilled Slayer, Rory…who is your guardian ?” Jared asked.

Rory glared, “I didn’t learn a damn thing from my guardian .”

Jared stood, smiling again, “So you have one. Well, sister dearest. Let me show you how it’s done.”

The pair launched into battle, as Rory managed to kick him down, “No, let me go! Just go! It’s kill or be killed, Jared and –” she gasped in a breath as a searing pain went through her chest along with the deafening crack of her rib cage.

The vampire, Jared, grinned as Rory fell to her knees, “And you just got killed, traitor, Rest In Peace”

Rory’s eyes widened, she was definitely sick now. There was more pain coming, she could see it in his eyes. It wouldn’t be enough for him to win, to feed and go. There would be no quick end like she’d been counting on. Rory’s knees began to shake, and she was afraid she was going to fall.

Jared stepped back, and began to circle, casually, as if he were trying to get a better view of a statue in a museum. His face was still open and friendly as he decided where to start.

Then he slumped forward, into a crouch Rory recognized, and his pleasant smile slowly widened, grew, till it wasn’t a smile at all but a contortion of teeth, exposed and glistening.

With a steak in her chest so she couldn’t help herself- Rory tried to run. As useless as she knew it would be, as weak as her knees already were, panic took over and she bolted for the wrought iron cemetery grates.

He was in front of her in a flash. She didn’t see if he used his hand or his foot, it was too fast. Another crushing blow struck Rory’s chest driving the stake further into her organs- She felt herself flying backward, every breath she drew labored and painful that’s when she heard the crunch as her head bashed into the angel statue . The stone head and wings buckled, as some of the pieces shattering and splintering on the grass beside Rory. She entered shock, a point she was too stunned to feel the pain. She couldn’t breathe…not anymore…

‘Bless Mother…Bless Father…Bless Brother…Bless family and friends…those good and those bad…to God almighty my soul I commend’ Rory thought as her brother walked toward her slowly.

“That’s a very nice effect,” he said, examining the mess of porcelain and stone, his voice friendly again. “I thought this would be visually dramatic and ironic place for you to die. That’s why I picked this place to meet you. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Rory ignored him, searing blinding pain ripping through her and yet still she scrambled on her hands and knees, crawling toward the gates.

He was over her at once, his foot stepping down hard on Rory’s leg. She heard the sickening snap before she felt it, but then she did feel it, and Rory couldn’t hold back her scream of agony as she fought twisted up to reach for her leg, the adrenaline was the only thing keeping her alive so she dared not try for the stake nor did she want to look up at him- he was standing over her, smiling.

“Would you like to rethink your last statement?” he asked pleasantly. His toe nudged Rory’s broken leg and she heard a piercing scream it took moment before she realized it was her own.

“Wouldn’t you rather have stayed at home with Mom and Dad and not looked for big, bad Jared?” he prompted.

“No!” I croaked. “No, Jared, don’t I’m your-” And then something smashed into her face, throwing her back into the broken stone angels.

Over the pain in Rory’s leg, she felt the sharp rip across her scalp where the glass cut into it. And then the warm wetness of blood began to pool out of her and spread through my hair with alarming speed. Rory could feel it soaking the shoulder of her shirt, hear it dripping on the wood below from her stomach, chest and head. So much blood was lost now, she wished for death as even the smell of it twisted Rory’s stomach.

Through the nausea and dizziness Rory saw something that gave her a sudden, final shred of hope. His eyes, merely intent before, now burned with an uncontrollable need. The blood – spreading crimson across her off white shirt, pooling rapidly on the floor – was driving him mad with thirst. The boy she grew up with was gone, his own turning is what inspired Rory to become a slayer. To destroy who distorted and destroyed her brother. No matter his original intentions, he couldn’t draw this out much longer.

‘Let it be quick now,’ was all she could hope as the flow of blood from Rory’s head sucked her consciousness away with it. Her eyes were closing…

She heard, as if from underwater, the final growl of the hunter which had once been her younger brother. Rory could see, through the long tunnels her eyes had become, Jared’s dark shape coming toward her. ‘The casket need to be open’ she thought sending her last conscious thought to her brother, her killer and with her last effort, Rory’s hand instinctively raised to protect her face. The face that she was told a million times resembled her Mother’s…their Mother’s beautiful face which was smiling at her that morning …was her last coherent though as Rory’s eyes closed for the last time, and she drifted to nothingness…

–Fin-

ah man that was dark, want to know a fun fact? I can’t stand scary movies but some of my best writing samples are horror and suspense. I blame my nightmares and an overactive imagination.

Love you. Mean it.

Brittany

Xoxo