The Rising of Dawn and Her Vampire Crew: The Battle Against the Lichens

By Brian Painter

Dawn is a centuries-old vampire who remains looking like an attractive twenty-seven-year-old. She is transported to the room of Zen anytime she is ready for a new mission or has questions about the mission she is on. The missions ranges from the killing of a simple chupakabre that is killing innocent people to the destruction of the head of a group of lichens that are dead set on taking over humans as we are today. The plot thickens and takes twists and turns that you wouldn’t expect. Once you get to know Dawn and her lover, Josh, and their love for the taste of tequila and blood, you will realize how hard-core these vampires really are. You will not be able to put the book down because you will be right in Dawn’s mind for the entire adventure, meeting down-to-earth funny people the whole way. If you want to read a book where you are in the driver seat of the main character throughout the book, this is for you, and sequels will follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781684093847

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The Rising of Dawn and Her Vampire Crew

The Battle Against the Lichens

Brian Painter and Kim Benson

Copyright © 2018 Brian Painter and Kim Benson

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-68409-383-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68409-384-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

I awoke to the agonizing scream of my friend Keith. I had only been asleep, or what a vampire calls sleep, for an hour or two. Vampire sleep was more like being totally still and enveloped in a trance for a period of time. I determined it was time to hunt and feed to recuperate because it had gone over my customary two-day phase between hunts. I slipped off the bed and made it to the closet in the blink of an eye. This was no surprise. I could run a mile in five seconds easily. I had phenomenal skills, such as my being able to hear a pin drop over five miles away. It was no problem for me to lift a city bus. I was one of the last lingering vampires and the oldest, as far as I knew. As I slipped into my Adidas shoes, hole-ridden jeans, and a tank top, I thought about the years and generations I had lived through. Wars, diseases, and earthquakes hadn’t killed me yet. I wondered if any of God’s disasters could. I blinked this thought away as a wave of despair came over me. My relationship with my vampire lover of three hundred years or more had come to an abrupt ending recently. The wolflike creatures were the reason; whether they were from the tombs of Egypt or another planet, I wasn’t sure. I was sure the short battle was a disaster though. I had thought all was going to end well when they were outwitted, and the wolves were sent to a scorching death in the volcano, but disaster struck when the third wolf creature and my lover, Antoine, tumbled in. Slowly I wiped the tears from my eyes. I managed to change my sorrow to joy by thinking about the days I spent with Antoine. This thought was short-lived though. The thought of never being able to see my soul mate again made me wonder if life was worth living. This idea was broken when a bloodcurdling scream emitted from the room, where Keith, the recently made vampire, was.

It had only been six hours since he had ingested vampire blood. Keith, my best friend of ten years, had been at a beer bash at the neighbor’s house, downing tequila shots and smoking some lime-green pot, when calamity struck. After taking a couple tokes of a joint, he made a bad judgment call. He wasn’t a pot smoker, so the weed obliterated him. He vanished around the corner, and nobody saw him for a while until he popped up on the rooftop in zilch but his underwear and cheap sunglasses. Before I could stop him without revealing my powers, he sprinted down the roof and leaped for the trampoline, trying to spring up off it and into the discounted pool they had bought at the end of the season years ago. It all happened too fast. In a second, the most horrifying thing happened. He overstepped the roof. This sent him plummeting down in a spiral until he landed headfirst on the trampoline, snapping his neck like a twig. As if that wasn’t bad enough, after this, he bounced onto the pool wall, impaling himself on one of the poles that had been put together wrong. There was complete silence then, slowly, screams of terror as he started making disgusting gurgling noises as blood ran out of his mouth and down his neck, forming a red pool on the ground.

I took charge, telling my neighbor to call 911. Using my extrasensory command, without saying anything, I stared into some overweight redheaded boy’s eyes, instructing him to go to the shed and get a hacksaw. Most of the crowd of thirty had diminished to ten. I could use this to my benefit, I thought. I used my telepathic command to erase what had just happened in everybody’s mind and replace it with a minor fall and made them believe the ambulance took him away. It was then I realized I had to make one of the most important decisions of my long life. Do I let the girl complete the 911 call and leave it up to the cops and medics? I would most likely lose my best friend, Keith, if I did this, or I could do the thing I promised myself never to do. Should I bite him and let my potent blood flow into his already slowing heart, where it would take over and restore his health? He would transform into a vampire then. I had only tried once before, and it was a failure. The last man I bit, I had trouble letting go as the blood tasted so good. The man was the lifeline of the family. He had three kids but had been diagnosed with mesothelioma from tearing asbestos shingles off roofs. I wondered if anyone told him you shouldn’t do that without a mask or ventilator to shield you from the dust. Maybe they didn’t know that asbestos caused mesothelioma back then. Because of the disease, he was on a hefty dose of morphine. When my blood mixed with his, the morphine was intense enough to cause me to nod off. Because of this, I didn’t stop my blood from entering him when I should have. This caused his heart to rupture. Too much vampire blood drank at one time to a mortal is deadly. Vampire blood is a hundred times as potent as human blood.

I couldn’t just have Keith taken away from me without trying, I thought to myself. I summoned all my strength and said a prayer to not take Keith from me. Then I used my powers to hold all the partygoers at bay so they wouldn’t see what happened next. A strong wind kicked up because of all the power that I was using. I let it blow my hair back, and in one graceful move, I was on Keith, biting his neck. This put me in a state of pure ecstasy. It was hard to slit my own wrist open with my razor sharp fangs and allow my blood to enter his mouth. I permitted an equal amount to leave my wrist, and I poured it in his mouth. When I could tell he had drunk my blood, I lay back in a state of nirvana in hopes the change would take place. I hoped I hadn’t taken too long. Right after noticing the first sign of the transformation (his muscles growing), I somehow knew he was going to live to tell the tale.

The fresh blood of his that I drank was causing me to see all of infinity, and the most elated thoughts entered my mind. I could see how the whole universe was linked together and how the stars were completed. Suddenly, my whole world turned black as I exited my body and flew over the house and over oceans, deserts, and forest. I arrived in a room where the floor was made of swirling lights; the walls were the same. There were statues of Greek gods and even the Titans. The rest of it was bare except for a woman I did not recognize at first. Then it came to me; it was the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Aphrodite took me by surprise with her overwhelming beauty. Before I could say anything, she instructed me to not be afraid. How she said this without using words I will never know, and how she knew I was afraid I will never know but the thought that she has mental powers entered my mind. It was inconceivable just to be in her presence. I could not take my eyes off her. Trust me, I like men, but Aphrodite’s amazing beauty had me stunned. Every time the higher beings want to talk to me, they bring me to this place after I’ve ingested blood. Different higher beings bring me here to exchange a few words with me, but I have never seen Aphrodite here before. I asked her why she had summoned me, and she explained that I was going to need a partner for a battle coming up on the next waxing moon.

When the moon waxes, you will face the battle to save humanity, and it will take place where you lost someone very significant to you.

Immediately I knew she was speaking of the time Antoine died fighting the wolf creatures. It had only been a minute, and her instructions were a little indistinguishable, so I was surprised that with a nod, Aphrodite sent me whirling back into my body so quickly. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe it. I was staring at an entirely different Keith. He was ripped with muscles, and his hair had distorted from brown to black. I had to get him back to my house as soon as possible. I knew my blood must feel like voltage going through his veins. The change would make him more agile, faster, and his senses would be a hundred times keener; he might even pick up some powers or spells he could use. I picked him up and ran back to the house and put him in bed in his room upstairs. This was the room I kept out of most of the time to give Keith his space to himself. We were just friends, so he would be safe here. The neighbors wouldn’t be able to hear his screams above the music he kept cranked up in his room all the time. That was the last thing I thought after I already rearranged the night’s events in the partygoers’ thoughts so they would remember the spill, but they wouldn’t think he was injured until we were gone. There could be no hesitation we would have to leave so when they get their memory back, they would think I left to mourn, and he would be buried somewhere. They didn’t know us that well anyway, besides Amber, and she never stopped carousing long enough to have a rational thought.

Now that Keith was in a safe place for the change to happen, I got dressed and walked up the stairs slowly. The stairs creaked the whole way up, emitting an eerie sound. The echo of the stairs mixing with Keith’s screams made it sound like a haunted house at the fair. They had haunted houses by the beach’s boardwalk every Halloween. How ironic, I thought, a vampire that liked to visit haunted houses. I would usually go during the afternoon so I could ride the Ferris wheel and glimpse way out to sea when my car got to the top. The rumor we would explode in flames as soon as sunshine hit us was false. We just preferred to travel more at night because the sun could be annoying if we were in direct sunlight for hours, but for some reason, I seemed to trek more in the day. It wasn’t much of a nuisance after doing it for so long. Our extra powers were hidden better at night, like our speed. At night, most thought we were just an insect or bird that flew real close, since it simply sounded like a towel being whipped to get the sand out of it. We tended to kick up very minute noise at that speed, so we weren’t easily noticed.

As I rounded the corner, I sensed that Keith was conscious, so I returned to his room. As I noticed his body, a bizarre thought crossed my mind. The change was almost complete. From what my ancestors had passed down in my memories, or what was left of my recollections, it more often than not took twenty-four hours for the change to complete itself and it had not taken very long. I shook my head and put this out of my mind.

Hello, I said.

He looked up, bewildered, then rolled over. What the hell is going on, and what happened to me last night? The last thing I remember is smoking some bomb-ass dope and trying to jump from the roof to the pool. Keith said.

I wrinkled my face up, a little afraid of what he might say even though he had been begging me to change him. Well I guess there’s only one way to tell you, and that is the one wish you have had since I met you has come true. I whispered. Keith was the only person who knew I was a vampire. For some reason, I had unconditional faith in him.

What? he said loudly, then he looked me in the eyes, and his eyes glowed with excitement. He smiled brightly. You did it at last, didn’t you? He asked. He then bolted upright and flashed up the stairs and back down. I call it flashing because at that speed, there is nothing to be seen but a blur by the human eye. He sat back on the end of the bed, staring in my eyes in an affectionate way. I could see in his eyes he was wondering why I had done this for him when I had refused to so many times before. Instead of verbally telling him the whole story of what had happened the night before, I used my mental telepathic power and told him the whole story of what had happened. He made me laugh by shaking his head. Did you just say something? He asked.

I answered him by saying, No, you now have the second sense known as telepathic speech and hearing. I granted your wish by changing you into a vampire so you wouldn’t die. It shouldn’t take too long to get used to your additional powers: your strength, hearing, speed, and other senses you didn’t have before the change. I replied.

He gave me a look like he understood. What is this sound and sensation in my head that reminds me of a swarm of hornets? He asked. I was hearing it too. It was our sense of a threat in the future. Something big was on the horizon. I was waiting to see if he had that power also; that was why I waited for him to say something. It had been beaming in my head for a while now. We had danger senses that sounded like an alarm going off; this predestined that something was right up on us. The other alarm that was alerting us now was different. It told us of danger in the future and it made the sound of bells ringing. It made me think about the time my future alarm went off for three days on and off. I had to fight and kill a wraith that was feeding on people in Anchorage Alaska. The dead bodies were starting to stack up, and the locals were getting real spooked. Some were saying it wasn’t a bear. They were saying it was some unearthly beast. My sense of peril had led me straight to him, where I had to use a special deer foot knife blessed by a shaman to slay him. After an hour-long battle, that weakened it and allowed me to get close enough to stab it in its heart. Or what was left of it. Wraiths are very nasty creatures comparable to zombies but much quicker and smarter. They are creatures that go through some sort of hell so bad they lose all sense of humanity and prey on the good of others. They eventually eat the human they are plundering on.

Keith brought me back by waving his hands at me. Dawn. Earth to Dawn. Keith said over and over.

I realized I had been staring off into space, so I looked over at him. I’m here What did you say? I asked quietly. He had been asking questions about our different senses when I took a detour in my mind. We have trouble coming in the near future, I said. We need to instruct you to fight and to use your powers.

The remainder of the day and into the night and next day were spent with me training Keith jujitsu, karate, and other attacks we could do using our powers. Keith was a quick learner, to my surprise. The most comical ability he found that he could do was the way to sprint completely upright down a steep incline without obstacles tripping him up. The hill was so steep the average human couldn’t stand up on it without slipping. Keith just sprinted at top speeds without tripping over himself. Going on the third morning, I could tell something was wrong, and oddly, I worried. I couldn’t decide in my mind what this new feeling toward him was. It was above a friendship, but it wasn’t love. I think we were closer because he could relate to my feelings and needs, but it wasn’t love. No, love was a four-letter word in my vocabulary. Tears worked their way up again, thinking of Antoine. He always came to mind when the word love came up.

No, I said aloud without meaning to.

What? Keith asked. He wanted to know what I was troubled about, and I knew he wasn’t going to let up, because his eyebrows rose in the form of a question.

Nothing, I insisted while giving him a Don’t ask look. Sometimes he got a little too nosy, so I turned and walked away. Once I knew he couldn’t see me, I frowned and looked up at the sun, trying to guess how many sunsets I’ve seen. I shook the thought of knowing this train of thought would bring on bad thoughts, but I couldn’t stop trying to think of a happy enough time I had with Antoine to rid me of the sadness. So I tried. The first fun thought that came to mind was us sitting on the banks of the Pacific Ocean watching the sunset while holding hands. I raised my head, waiting for that smile, but of course, I hung my head and went straight to deep depression. Why? I asked myself, and the usual answer came up. The thought that I will never see him again. Oh, what’s the matter with you? I asked Keith suddenly. You look troubled.

Keith was holding his stomach. I’m not sure. I’m getting stomach cramps, something like a hunger pain. He replied. I had forgotten to feed him or take him on a hunt, and he was going through blood withdrawal.

You need blood. How could I forget?

You mean drink it like in the movies? he replied nonchalantly.

I thought about it and got a little humored, wondering how the people who made the movies didn’t get stopped by the higher beings. Then I almost burst out laughing after coming to the conclusion the higher beings made some side cash by making the movie. I could imagine them driving Porsches and gambling in Vegas with