Undead Paladin Chapter 3: The Dawning

Yes, the poor farm house and the little family that rested so comfortably within it. Yes, the poor little dwelling overseeing several hectares of non-industrial farmland out in the middle of nowhere.

In that dead of night they would be sleeping, yes, sleeping, as the pigs were away in the barn and the grain that was part of their diet laid out there in the field soaking moonlight. The dogs employed to watch the farm at night were asleep in an open kennel by the barn, defending their charges while stray cats slept along the fawna nearby.

The poor farm during such a time of unrest as the night and the spread of the OPP can only cover so much.
Those dogs mentioned in the last paragraph were trained to gnaw on humans, yes, humans, for that many a vampire had been known to hide in the nearby wood, waiting to feed on their livestock. The family didn't have the heart to sell the family farm that they had be working with for a long time, and figured war measures would sooner or later be lifted.

Of course, in the dead of the night there was a heavy commotion, consisting of the barking of dogs. The dogs barked and the screams of a woman could be heard as out of the farm house emerged a big, burly man, with a hunting rifle. He walked out several feet to where his dogs where, only to find one of his dogs missing and a blood trail. A trail that lead him to a brown-haired Caucasian female in wrinkled clothing grabbing onto a piece of her side that was bleeding out.

The farmer held his gun up and pointed it at her.

“Where's my dog?” he asked in an angered tone. When the now shivering woman didn't reply he repeated himself loudly.

“What, what?” the woman replied, confused and scared.

“What the hell are you doing on my property?” he screamed at her. Before vampires he might have been more sympathetic, but in the era of diseased people who crave eating you it is sometimes better to just shoot them. “Don't make me shoot you,” he added, the words dropping in a mix of machismo and fear.

“Please, I...” the woman's words reverb with pure fear as she stared at the barrel of the rifle and she struggled to get up in the shadows of the darkness that was around them. After some quick wheezing she then continues between shallow breathing “I got lost in the woods, and I was in your field, and...”

“Really now,” the man replied as he slowly lowered his weapon, “you've seen my dog?”

“... no,” she replied quickly.

“Ok,” the man replied, “I want to know why you're on my farm.”

“I got lost... I was on a hike... I found your field... and your dogs...” the woman trailed on while breathing shallowly.

“Got lost eh?” he repeated before uttering under his breath “stupid city slicker.”

He looked back at the house and then looked in the direction of the woman. He noted that she seemed to be gaining some of her strength and was sitting upright, so maybe she wasn't fatally wounded. Still, he had a family and he wanted to be sure that she was just a lost dipshit and not a vamp on the prowl. He then asked “One of my dogs is missing, what happened to it?”

“How should I know?” the woman replied as she held onto herself and struggled to be in a seated position, “I... I get to your farm... thinking some nice country folk... like yourself... could help out a stranger.”  She wheezed, then continued, “then the dogs... dear god the dogs attack.”

At this point the farmer gave her his hand. “I'm sorry miss,” he replied while giving the young woman his hand to help her up, “You know the times: vampires, fangbangers, cults around vampirism, the damn cops and curfew bullshite. I had to be sure I could trust you.” The woman made a grab for the man before being lifted up to be taken to the farm house where his plan was to get emergency services out to help. About halfway to the farm house he spoke again, “Name's Riley by the way, and yourself?”

“Amanda kind sir,” the woman replied.

***

Riley placed Amanda on a couch of a small living room in the small farmhouse as a burly and round woman
came out from one of the rooms. “Riley, what's going on?” she asked in a low whisper. “Lost camper from the city, Lily,” he replied to the woman, “she found our yard and disturbed the dogs.” “You sure she ain't a vamp or something?” Lily quickly responded, “Them things lurk at night you know.”

“I believe her,” Riley replied, “she can't be no vampire, she's clearly not blood-crazy or anything, just a stupid city slicker... now, hit the light and get the first aid kit from the kitchen.”

Lily waltzed into the kitchen while turning on the living room light with a swift hand motion and a soft click of a switch. She could be heard rummaging for the metal box that contained things like bandages for the event of an accident on the farm. As Riley cooed to Amanda “Your going to be ok, miss.  We'll get you to town in the morning...” she returned from the kitchen with the kit, only to drop it on the floor and shriek.

“Riley! What did you do!?” she screamed in terror. “What?” Riley responded startled. “Riley, you dumb fuck! Look at her!” Lily returned in a concoction of fear and rage.

“Look at her!”

Riley did. Amanda's clothing was wrinkled and her hair was a mess, as expected, as well as blood on her shirt and pants. What else Riley was that the blood on her shirt seemed to be all over the front of her shirt despite the lack of injury that could have bled from. There was also blood on her face and in her hair – again with no corresponding injury. The wound she did have where bites to her arms and legs, which were consistent with being attacked by a dog. At a further look, her eyes where horribly dilated and something wasn't quite right about how her teeth sat on her mouth.

“Now, shoot her dead before she gains any strength,” Lily went in a panic.

“My god,” Riley took another look at Amanda, “I took pity on you... I thought you were lost. You were on the prowl, aren't you! You went for the livestock didn't you? Your going to kill us now, eh?”

“No... course not...” Amanda stammered with what strength she had, “I'm sorry... please don't...”

“Hurry up!” Lily screamed as she shoved the rifle onto Riley, “Hurry up and be a man.”

At this point two little kids were waiting from a stairwell that lead to the bedrooms of the farm house.

“Riley, I'm not here to hurt your family,” Amanda whimpered, “Please, just let me go.”

“Riley, that's a vamp!” Lily screamed out, “they eat humans! Think of the family!”

Amanda rustled from the couch and slumped herself onto the floor. “Please,” Amanda plead meekly, “Please, don't, I just want to go home.”

“Don't let the pity repose fool you Riley,” Lily interjected, “She's not human anymore: she's a monster now. Remember what happened to Kevin.”

“For God's sake...” Amanda whimpered as tears fell down her and she slowly inched for the door, attempting to pass Riley on the way out. “Don't blaspheme God's name you undead abomination!” Lily screamed, “shoot
Riley.”

Riley held the rifle up and pointed it at Amanda. “I'm sorry miss,” he quietly said, “I'm just thinking of my family. By God.”

Riley pulled the trigger, but missed as Amanda quickly got to her feet, while tripping Riley onto the floor and she bolted it for the door. She felt the door break before her more than open as she bolted out and ran for the fields, heading for the woods that concealed her so well. As she ran more gun shots where fired, all of them missing as she disappeared into the woods through the fields.

Riley stopped chasing her once she got past the barn and out near the trees, satisfied that he did defend his family that night. At that point he walked around the perimeter of the barn. As he did he found the carcass of that missing dog. It was obvious how the dog died: it was subdued and bitten by something, and it wasn't a mere coincidence that the dog's carcass was found nearby where Riley discovered Amanda.

At that point, Riley walked back to the farm house. He had a wife and children to comfort after all.

***

Amanda ran through the woods until the wounds she had sustained earlier came back to haunt her. She was
still amazed with herself of how little she was hurting at that moment despite the wound on her leg from fighting the dogs at the farm. The cuts of the barbed-wire from that prison of mad scientists she escaped from were still pronounced though they seemed to be healing.

After some time walking she found a small clearing in woods where she sat down. Much ran through her mind. The night she got in the prison was from the simple mistake of walking around at night. The prison was where they made her into a vampire. Finally, the farm was proof that she was no longer Amanda Sanders. She was something more sinister than that. She was a monster.

She licked her blood stained lips. The blood from the dog was still there. More disturbingly, it tasted good. It didn't have that taste one gets from licking a metal spoon for too long. It was more inline with one of the more tastier things she had ever tasted.

She looked to the sky. What was God trying to prove to her anyway? What did he want her to do now? What she was becoming she did not like. She was becoming the monster Lily accused her of being. She was inhuman now. Nothing more than a beast that stalked the nighttime looking for something to kill and feed on.

“Please God,” she screamed to the sky as though she had gone mad, “Please, take me while I'm still me. I will not sin by my own existence. Am I to die to serve you?”

She cried. Fear ran into her as she thought of her infant daughter and her husband back in Orillia. Her husband would have reported her missing by now. He and the church would be looking for her. They would have been calling the cops, asking if the OPP had picked her up that night as was custom if one was caught outside past curfew. They would be either looking for a body or a vampire by now. This made her cry harder.

So, this was how she ended up out in the woods awaiting with fear and excitement for dawn to break. She
looked up at the falling moon and the slow changing of the colours of the sky. While she had been waiting in the darkness she was praying the rosary.

“Our father, who art in heaven,” she went on as she thought of her God, and how she felt she was pleasing him by shedding of her new shell that was dipped in sin an wrapped in evil, “hallow be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,” this as she thought of the times she had sinned, and the fact that she couldn't get confession done for she couldn't find a church since being nabbed, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.

“Lead us not into temptation,” the last line of the prayer, being more important for this was what she wanted the most: “but deliver us from evil. Amen.”

Then, dawn broke. God would intact his will.