And so another chapter arises. An answer is unveiled, but what else is lurking in the darkness now. Find out come part 10.

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Blood of the Damned
Part 9

The fires consumed the city. Flesh burned, and eaten. People turned against each other in their desperation to survive. Sins were committed as sanity fled like a bird before a great storm. Rape, murder, lies, there was nothing sacred within the damnation of the city.

John would puke if he could, but he couldn't find it within him. He couldn't find much in his heart these days, not even much of a reason to put one foot before the other. Except to find answers. That's all he wanted anymore. Who was he?

Turning a corner he saw a zombie hunched over a dead woman, tearing out her intestines with its teeth. John couldn't even tell what gender the ghoul had once been, so horrifically scarred it was. The creature lifted its head and turned, facing John. The zombie snarled, then went back to its feast, shoving glistening ropes of entrails between its eager jaws.

John lifted a hand and looked down at the pale skin of his forearm, covered in needle holes. Track marks some called the scars that pocked his skin. The other wounds...

John stared straight at the bones within his forearm. People called his other wounds rot. Something the body should only do when one was dead. Was he dead?

What was he?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jay blinked in surprise and frowned at the events that had just unfolded before him. He wasn't sure what to make of the fact that the woman who had just saved him was apparently a vampire.

It was impossible wasn't it? But then again, so was the living dead. Jay watched as Haley made her way up the stairs, M4 carbine in one hand, the other pulling the sword from its scabbard on her back.

"I wonder if that means there's werewolves and like... the gill man. Oh hell I hope we don't have to fight mummies or something," Joey said with a large grin.

"Shut up. That's just getting ridiculous," Lila told him.

"Yeah well, we thought that about vampires, but I mean, you just tried to blow her away. Fuck man, her blood is still dripping down that wall right there. And now she's just walking upstairs like you poked her instead," Joey said, pointing at the splashes of Crimson above the stairs that led to the darkness of the basement.

"I wonder what she was doing down there," Jay said.

"Getting her coffin ready," Joey said as though it were obvious.

Lila only rolled her eyes. From upstairs they heard a shriek which was suddenly cut off and followed by a solid thump on the floor boards.

"What the fuck? Did she just kill someone?" Lila asked.

"Oh right... vampire," Joey said, suddenly no longer impressed with himself, but pale with terror, as the thought of what was standing upstairs at that moment filled his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Haley moved down the hallway quietly. She was annoyed at the holes in her jacket. It was a nice jacket, but sometimes there was nothing one could do.

She had slung her carbine across her back, and gripped her sword tight. Five years of being amongst the undead, but what she had seen in the basement had somehow managed to sicken her. That farmer...

Haley shook her head and approached the door from where she could hear the faint sounds of movement, and the quiet rattle of chains. There was a sign on the door that said "Amy's Room" in big block letters.

With the sword tight in hand, Haley opened the door and stepped into the child's room.

The floor was spattered with blood, and a few severed and partially eaten limbs were strewn about. In the centre of the mess was a little girl whose dark brown hair was falling out of her scalp, her once adorable blue dress spattered with the blood of god knows how many people that the farmer had fed to his ghoulish daughter. Heavy chains attached the zombie to a stake planted by the window in the room, a window overlooking the grave of the farmer's wife.

Haley walked up behind the little girl and raised her sword high, tightening her grip to ensure it would swing sure. The farmer's greatest sin was here before her, to allow his daughter to live in the hell of undeath. So Haley would redeem that sin and give Amy peace.

The girl's head turned around, and her sunken eyes looked up at the vampire standing behind her. She let out an unholy shriek revealing her broken teeth, stained with blood and flecks of skin.

Haley brought her sword down, instantly decapitating the girl, and setting her free.

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