Vampire School

Growl was somewhere in Colorado, being chased by a few young vampires who had made the mistake of singling him out in a bar and trying to make sport of "that strange nigger" over there. He had been minding his own business in an out of the way hole in the wall when three young and well-dressed White Anglo-Saxon Protestants sauntered into the small bar. Two of them had revolvers on their waists, but from the smell of the young men, Growl knew the weapons were only for show. All three wore their ten gallon hats low; all three walked to the bar silently, where a flustered barkeep put a shot glass and a bottle of rum in front of each. All three glanced at an indifferent Growl Alpha and, if his sense of smell had somehow become occluded, the red glow of their eyes in the shadow of their hats confirmed to Growl that these three were indeed bloodsuckers.

It was March of 1920 and the weather was still as cold as Macbeth's heart towards his own king. Snow was falling steadily and was pretty high but the clothes on these three appeared completely dry. Plus, there had been no telltale neighing or chuffing of horses, so they had come on foot. The few patrons in the bar, however, were more suspicious of Growl - he, too, had not come in on a horse. And, of course, he was Black.

"Well what do we have here, Nate?" the tallest of the three said loudly, his voice a shrill counterpoint to the previous and more engaging crackling of firewood. "Nate," the shortest of the "Three Mouseketeers" (as Growl called them in his mind) looked over at Growl in his corner and stood beside his friend. The third and still silent member of the trio sat at tye bar, slowly sipping his rum.

"I dunno, Les. Why don't we go fund out!" the shortest one ventured. As they walked to Growl's table, he barked a laugh, startling the approaching duo. Nate put his bottle and glass on Growl's table. In his mind, Growl had already killed and/or maimed him severally. "You find something funny, blacky?" Les put his bottle and shot glass on Growl's table, and laughed at his friend's racist remark.

Growl took a sip of good whiskey from his glass. "Yes, actually, l do find something highly amusing." Nate sat opposite Growl, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table.

"Do tell," Nate said, pouring himself a shot of rum. It was a lie that vampires could not eat or drink anything. Well, not too far stretch of a fib. They could ingest copious amounts of alcohol as the composition of liquor was more favorable to dissipate in the process of absorption. Almost every part of the inside of a vampire's body served as a semipermeable membrane. Cooked meats, fish, and poultry, juices and most fruits and vegetables were out of tye question for the undead. Growl wondered if he should become a doctor just to be able to analyze the composition of a bloodsucker. A hand slammed down on the table, easily splintering the edge. "I said, 'Do tell'!"

"Oh, sure!" Growl said, also leaning back and keeping the third vampire in his vision. The quiet ones were almost always the most dangerous. "Well, I was just picturing me kicking your head off, is all." He took another sip as the bartender and several other patrons sought for cover anywhere they could.

Nate appeared dumbfounded. Then outraged. Then amused. At which point he began laughing, laughing so raucously that his fangs sparkled in the low electric and lamplight. "I kinda like you, boy. For a Black thing, you sure are funny." He removed a knife from inside his coat and inspected it. "But I fear this is the end of the road for you." He casually flicked the dagger at Growl who, with a greater supernatural reaction time, caught the long knife and also inspected it. Nate and Les sat up straight.

Growl nodded, turning the dagger this way and that. He licked the blade and his tongue sizzled but, to his surprise, only a bit. "A silver dagger?" Growl asked rhetorically and in great amusement. "You of all people are carrying a silver dagger? What a joke!" The vampires stood and flared their longcoats, getting ready to draw. Growl squinted at the revolvers. "Don't tell me you're packing silver bullets too?" Nate moved to draw but a blur and a sharp pain caused him to look down. His hand was lying on the floor, twitching spasmodically. He cried out and held his wrist tight, in order to stanch the flow of viscous and almost 3d like blood. When Nate looked back up, Les, for some reason, was hurtling towards the back wall. A moment later, he slammed into and through the back wall, where Growl had just been sitting. "You'd better pick that up, vamp. I don't think your kind grows limbs back." Growl pointed to the still madly twitching hand.

"Big mistake," the third and quietest vampire whispered, before unloading a flurry of bullets into Growl's back. Growl went flying against the side wall and crumpled in a mass of thick leathers.

"Aw, Taz, why'd you go and kill him?" Nate asked, as he stumbled over to pick up his restless extremity. "Taz" walked past Nate without responding, holstering his revolver. He stepped out of the hole made by a still slightly shaken Les, who was just getting to his feet.

"You killed the Black son of a bitch?" Les asked Taz as they both ducked back into the bar.

"Yeah," Taz replied. "He's right over th-" But the Black guy was not "right over" there.

"Now that wasn't very sporting of you to have shot me in my back, now was it!" Growl stood at the open front door, grinning, although still in some pain. He held two of the half dozen or so bullets in his hand. "And silver bullets? Sheesh! Wonder what you guys are so afraid of around these here parts." Then he sprinted out the door. The three vampires looked at one another in no small consternation, and then the chase was on.

The night was already blanketing the nearby forest, but the pursued and his pursuers needed no light to see clearly. These vampires were still young, new to their powers, which was just fine by Growl, as a trio of flying pursuers would have made his job that much harder; not impossible, just harder. He led the trio into a copse, at which point he stopped at the center. He was not even winded and joy rose in his heart as the vampires attacked, simple and straightforward, as the "children" they were. Growl shoulder rammed the three inexperienced vamps, sending them flying into the boles and branches of the trees behind them. Nate was knocked unconscious as his head made a dent, and entered, into the tree trunk.

Taz nimbly clambered along a branch and leaped down and towards Growl. Les was just getting up and watched in horror as Growl waited until the last moment, spun to the side and easily decapitated a still airborne Taz, with Nate's silver dagger. As Les turned to run, Growl launched the dagger and it pierced into his back and right on through his chest, almost to the hilt. Silver could also harm vampires, a point of weakness for both species, but, apparently, only older members of either species built an immunity to the noisome and paralyzing effects of silver. Les struggled and writhed on the floor, his bright blood splashing against the now heavily falling snow.

Growl removed the dagger and toed Les over. Les spat clots of blood that glimmered against the snow. "Mercy! Please, mercy!" Without a word, Growl thrust the silver sword into Les's mouth. Left in that state, even a young vampire would heal from such a wound, but Growl was not going to take any chances. He decapitated Les and Nate, added Taz to the duo and built a largefire wherein every part of them were burned. Growl stood by and watched this; towards the morning, he gathered the seared skulls and wrapped them in a small burlap sack. The charred bodies were cut apart and buried at three different and unremarkable removes from one another with crosses inside the graves, against the bodies of the vamps. Filling the burlap sack of heads with some stones and a handful of small crosses, Growl dumped the tied sack into a nearby lake.

Growl's wounds from the silver bullets had fully healed by morning. He was on his way back east by the early afternoon.