The Giver

I’m one of the last around my area.

Humans that is.

Yep, the vampires have taken over the Earth and there’s nothing that could be done about it.  Hunters like me simply gave up or were killed for trying.

The First found out who we were, where we lived and put tracking devices on us.  These damned things aren’t easy to remove either.  They were markers in our blood… and seeing it’s the 1970’s it’s not easy to find a scientist who isn’t a vamp now, who won’t go back to their Sire to dob us in.

So, the few humans who are left are turned into Givers.  We are paid to allow the vampires to chow down on us. 

Sometimes they’re good.

Most times, they’re not.

I have plenty of dead man’s blood in my car and on my person in case they get rude and take more than they’re allowed.  I also have a whopping big knife on me in case that doesn’t stop the bastard; and I end up chopping their damned head off.

Yeah, the Hunter in me is still hot and burning.

I hate the arseholes; probably as much as they hate me… why?

Well, by trade, I’m the absolute bitch of Vampire Hunters… I’m the one and only true blood line of Van Helsing; and they know it.

My name?  Tessa Van Helsing.

Tonight, I’m driving my Datsun Sunny to a place rife with vampires.  But I’m only there to feed one.  I hope I don’t get jumped on the way into their place; as they can hear our heartbeat from miles away.

I try to keep my nerves from being frayed, but it’s hard as the neighbourhood looks like it’s all hands on deck.  They’re walking around as though it’s daytime… as though this is all normal.

Some of them just want to be left alone to lead their lives as normal as possible, while others are just absolute dicks and will kill anything with a pulse and human DNA…and they’re the most dangerous ones around because you don’t know how rabid they are, not until they run at you.  Because it’s the calm ones that really do all the damage… they are too quiet.

I pull into a driveway where there’s a gate.  Before I get the window down, it opens from the middle just enough for my car to get in, and closes immediately to keep out anyone.  The walls are immensely high… I wonder if I’m getting outa here as the rest of the world is shut out.

Pulling up outside the front doors of the house, I get out of the car, feel for the three large syringes of dead man’s blood in the secret compartments in my jacket and the knife in hidden around near the small of my back and then pull my long jacket down, lock up the car and pocket my keys in my blue jeans. 

The front door opens and I climb the two or three steps to walk inside where He is waiting for me with his back to me staring at the blazing fireplace.

“So, you’re the Giver.” His voice is almost a whisper, “Could swear you’re a Hunter …”

“You’re the First.” I said.

He turns from it smiling, showing his hunger, “How smart you are.”

I want to kill him.  It’s in my blood after all, but I don’t, “Well, you called me here.”

Within a few quick strides, he had me against the wall, “Yes.  And nothing you do to me will rid me of this world.” Closing his eyes, he inhaled, “Not even those three syringes of dead man’s blood will help you Tessa.” His hand reached around my body and disarmed me of my weapon, showing it to me, “Or this.”

“What do you want?”

“You’re a relative of Van Helsing, you figure it out.” He stepped away as he handed my weapon back to me.

I didn’t know… honestly I didn’t.

“And don’t say you don’t know… you do.” He turned and looked at me, “You have the knowledge that I do, Tessa.  Where do you think your bloodline came from?”

“Germany.”

“No.”

“Holland.”

He smiled, almost laughing, “Nowhere near it.  Why do you think you’re the last one left?”

“I’m not the last one left.”

“Yes you are.” He nodded, “You have all the weapons and imagination to kill us off, and yet you don’t.” he offered me a seat by the fire and I took it, “Why is that?”

“I was trying to find you.”

“And instead it was I who found you.” He sat down across from me, “You don’t understand why nobody had tried to kill you lately?”

I was stunned as I started to think over what had happened over the recent weeks.  I had been a Hunter all my life.  All my friends and family were dead.  Every person outside my house were vampires and I had killed over two hundred in the last year, and still they kept on coming, and yet nobody had contacted me via mail or telephone… I looked at him, “Why am I the last one left?”

He smiled, “Because there are none left to kill for any humans.”

My gut turned, “What?”

“Where do you get the dead man’s blood?”

 I pulled one of the syringes from my jacket, and didn’t have a clue where I had gotten it from… then I realised I did.  A corpse in my house – a human I had attacked when they …

“Jesus,” I dropped the syringe and it bounced on the rug next to the chair, “Why don’t I remember?”

“Feeding does that.” He smiled, “Sometimes when you need it so badly, you block it out.”

My eyes flicker open, and I’m on a table.

“Damn, she woke up.” He swore under his mask, “You told me the vamp was properly asleep.”

“I’m sorry… I thought she was.  They need a lot of the shit to keep them under because they’re the undead.” A voice panicked.

I look around the lab struggling to get out.  I’m so damned hungry I can smell their blood.  Their human, delicious blood…

“Trying to find out how she came to think of herself as a Hunter – as something that doesn’t exist – is beyond us.” The doctor said, “But how she got turned into this creature which doesn’t exist…”

I break the restraints easily and grab his arm, “Don’t you go anywhere until you tell me something.”

He turned to look at me as he pulled the mask down showing a clean-shaven man, “What is it?”

“Exactly what year is it?”