Chapter 22: Disneyland (6)

1

Joachim was in the middle of hell.

Deep down, he knew he was responsible for this. He hadn't wanted to kill him. He didn't want to kill anyone, but he had lunged at him, trying to take the gun when it was still in his pocket. He had trusted them even after they turned their backs on him, planning to abandon him to his fate, only to be betrayed again.

Of course, he had pulled the trigger. What else could he have done?

But this nightmare.

If he had known that this would be the result, the price, of defending himself...

He probably wouldn't have done anything different, but that didn't mean it couldn't hurt. After all, it wasn't just the bastards who had offered him as a sacrifice to Dracula, the first of the betrayals actually, who were paying for their actions. Dozens of innocent people were also dying.

No, if they were dead, that would be good. At least they could rest.

But they revived, transformed into vampires as well.

Vampires. What madness. Things of myths and legends, of fiction. And now they were running around everywhere in broad daylight.

I myself am one, he thought, crawling along the road.

His right leg didn't work. Not only could it not support his own weight, he couldn't move it at all. He was leaving a fresh trail of blood behind him. Which would undoubtedly attract the sharks that swam in these waters. Being a monster like them wouldn't save him. He understood it instinctively, even if he didn't want to admit it. The moment Dracula sank his fangs into his neck, it was all over.

The brief time afterward had been nothing more than a desperate attempt to rebel against that fact. And this was how it had ended.

He didn't know.

No one could know.

But if he had, he might have been able to muster the courage to take his own life and end it sooner.

Wait.

Why was he talking as if there wasn't still time? He had kept the gun in the midst of this chaos and still had at least one bullet. Uncounted, but of course, he hadn't kept track. He hadn't even thought about it.

But at least one bullet, yes. That, for sure, and it was all he needed.

It should be enough even for a creature like him.

He had shot that bastard, yes, but he died when he flew out of the seat and crashed into the tree. The impact had shattered his head, and he had stopped moving. So it should be enough. It had to be.

The monsters were already there. Crawling on the ground, moving through the stopped vehicles like giant spiders, tongues out and fangs gleaming with blood. It didn't matter that he was one of them. There could be no solidarity or camaraderie. They were newborns who simply wanted to quench their thirst for blood. They would devour him to the bones before realizing what they had done.

He didn't need Dracula to give him a long explanation about vampires to understand that. Popular culture had gotten enough right, it seemed, and he saw it in their inhuman eyes. He saw it. That inside there was nothing, only instinct. Only thirst.

Joachim put the gun in his mouth.

He had many questions. For example, now that he was no longer human, what would become of him when he pulled the trigger? Would he be forever away from God's grace simply because he had the bad luck of being chosen as the target of an unholy creature?

Maybe he wouldn't go to heaven or hell. Those possible afterlives were for humans, after all.

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Maybe as a monster, only nothingness awaited him.

But that was its own form of peace, and at least he wouldn't be reduced to an animal like one of those creatures. He would die with as much humanity as he could preserve, on his own terms, commending himself to God's grace.

Joachim pulled the trigger a second after a dozen of those monsters pounced on him, jumping over the vehicles.

There was a click and nothing more.

Of course. He hadn't counted, only hoped, and hope was treacherous.

There was no last bullet.

His blood, guts, and screams from the depths of his soul soon painted the afternoon air.

2

Dracula felt it.

He felt the connection cut off forever, and he leaned forward in the airplane seat with a face as if he were about to vomit.

"No, my pizza maker, no!" He pounded the armrests with his fists, frustrated beyond measure. Justin was passing, he had a certain nostalgia for being the first human he had transformed in years, but come on, he had managed to kill himself somehow, a shame... for him.

But Joachim?

Dracula shook his head.

"Why do I have such bad luck?"

Davy Jones looked at him sympathetically from the seat next to him. Or something like that, his eyes weren't very expressive.

"Things happen, man," said Davy Jones. "Things happen."

He patted him on the back.

"It's true." Dracula sighed deeply, only vaguely aware that most of the passengers were looking at them. Anyway, he wouldn't care a damn, of course. "At least I have you here by my side, buddy. You're an interesting new toy."

"Thanks."

His mouth wasn't very expressive either, but Dracula imagined he was smiling as he said it. What could be better than receiving his attention? A tiny creature, compared to him they all were, talking to the very Prince of Darkness. This must be the happiest day of his life, hypnotized or not.

"When we return to my new territory, I promise, we'll go around killing people. Just because. You'll learn from the best."

Davy Jones smiled.

"Yay!"

He liked him much more hypnotized. After the show, he had only responded with nonsense to his clear and direct questions, now he was exactly the kind of person he liked to have by his side.

And he would be forever.

3

Damien 'woke up' with his teeth in the jugular of some poor bastard.

The neck broken. Hands stained with blood. The feeling of something thick going down his throat. He understood everything in the first moment of consciousness, even if he didn't want to understand it.

He dropped the corpse. The sound it made when its head hit the ground made him tremble.

He wanted to tear his eyes away from that terrible image. But, wherever he looked, the same hell surrounded him. People savagely killing other people. Not even like criminals, but like animals. They used their teeth and nails to make rivers of blood and guts flow.

The road had transformed into a completely different place. Rather, it didn't seem to have been built by human hands.

His life had never been easy. His father had been an abusive alcoholic. While it was true that he had never directly hit his mother, he had done everything else, and still, his mother had chosen that man. No matter what she said, she had chosen him over and over again. Crawling, forgiving him, giving him a thousand and one chances.

While he acted as her psychiatrist from a very young age.

Trying to console her, validating her feelings.

Only for her to repeat the same thing over and over again.

She loves me because I love her, he thought once. She just returns the affection I give her. But no matter how badly he treats her, she crawls back. I guess that's love.

Even now, he thought about that more than the important thing, the real danger in front of his eyes. That was nothing but the past.

Anyway, he hadn't had an easy life.

But if he had known that so much effort, so much pain and tears would have led him here, then, well...

He would have stopped fighting.

Maybe one night he would have tried to see if he could fly, and that would have been it.

Now he could fly.

Several of the monsters passed by, ignoring him to continue sowing death. Why would they attack me?, he thought. I'm one of them after all. Until recently, I was eating that poor bastard.

He could still feel it.

In his mouth, in his throat.

In the air he breathed.

It was a sin that would never leave him.

Mom would forgive that man for this, he thought. But not me. Not me.

Why should he think even now about that woman who only claimed to think about him? Why should he think about anything? Even if he survived this disaster, what was left for him? A life of crawling through the darkness? Being hunted like an animal?

The alternative was even worse. Winning. Killing and feeding whenever he wanted, to satisfy his thirst for blood, his animal instinct.

A life that wasn't life, just a perverse parody.

Damien fell to his knees in the middle of a sea of blood.

Disneyland (6): END