Elizabeth and the Vampire's Cabin (17 page)

Chapter
19: How?

"That's
impossible," Ren argued. "The aliens haven't set up a force field
since the Upper Paleolithic."

"Are
we so sure about that?" Kyla asked. "There has been plenty of reports
of contact over the years..."

"But
this is a force field!" Ren exclaimed. "I only saw the aliens use a
force field one time before they took off from the Black Island for good."

"It's
the only explanation," Aaron said. "How else can we explain the force
field? The government? This doesn't feel like that."

"Well,
it doesn't feel like space aliens either," Ren said. "I don't
remember space aliens threatening to kill us all. No matter what the case is,
it's getting late and we should keep our strength up. I say we hunt."

 
And with that, Ren morphed into animal form.
Ren's animal was a prehistoric owl. She looked to be about four feet tall and
had some very sharp talons for grabbing prey. The only caveat to all of this
was that she was a flightless wonder. When Ren had explained to Elizabeth that
she was incapable of flight, Elizabeth gave her a sympathetic look. But Ren
assured her that this was not a problem. Prehistoric owls were runners. She was
like the Road Runner from Looney Toons only more vicious. With her strength and
speed she could bring down a deer if she chose.
 

Though
everyone, with the exception of Ren, had lost their appetite, they all still
hunted for the sake of their strength. Extra precautions were taken and they
all promised to stay within each other's line of sight. Typically, Elizabeth
and Aaron would hunt for hours together. But tonight they only hunted for about
thirty minutes. They grabbed a couple of snakes and a beaver. Then they were
done. They just weren't in the mood for a big meal. Kyla hunted for only
fifteen minutes. She caught a wolverine and didn't even finish the whole thing.

Ren
hunted for a good hour and half. All her frustration was taken out on small
prey. Her animal was perfectly designed to quickly leap and grab onto smaller
animals with her talons. Once she was done, she morphed back into human form
and smiled from ear to ear. She had burnt off a lot of nervous energy.

"That
was some hunt! I love getting my adrenaline going like that. Maybe that's
something good that's come out of this. I'm a born predator, and my lust for
the hunt is getting renewed."

She
grinned at all of them and her eyes burned with power. Then she took a swig of
water from Gar's canteen. Her face changed almost instantly. She quickly
started to choke. At first Kyla, Aaron, and Elizabeth thought it was normal
choking from drinking too fast. She coughed and sputtered a bit. They waited
for her to stop, but she didn't stop. They watched in horror as Ren became
wild. She paced frantically. Her face turned purple and she grabbed at her
throat as if it pained her. And then she fell over dead.

"How...?"
Kyla breathed in shock.

Chapter
20: Take Me

"There
has to be vampire blood mixed in with that water," Aaron said.

And
then Kyla started wailing. The air was rent with her screams. Elizabeth watched
uncomfortably. Aaron started to cry quietly. He wasn't crying so much over Ren
as he was over Kyla's reaction to it. It was very rare to see her cry like
that. He hadn't seen her like this in centuries.

"Ren
has survived thousands upon thousands of years. How could she die so
quickly?" Kyla asked. “We’re all going to die!"

"Don't
say that," Elizabeth urgently commanded.

"Of
course you're not going to die! The aliens want you. You read the letter.
Everyone else is supposed to die." Kyla looked like she blamed Elizabeth
for all of this.

"Maybe
Cal can help us! He'll come looking for us and try to get us out." Aaron
said.

"There's
a force field. How is he going to undue it? With his fangs?" Kyla
countered sarcastically.

Elizabeth
looked at the sky and, for the first time in years, she prayed. Please send
help! she mentally pleaded.

It
was as if the Devil heard her prayer and decided to respond with the exact
opposite of what she wanted. A giant spaceship hovered above them.

"Aaron,
we have company," she pointed up at the sky.

"Run!"
Aaron yelled out. He grabbed her and ran just as a beam of blue light shot down
at them.

Elizabeth
ran as fast as she could, which was not as fast as Aaron, so he slowed down for
her. She knew he was slowing down for her and she felt awful. She would kill
herself if she got him killed. She wouldn't be able to take that kind of guilt.
They didn't look up, down, or sideways. They bolted past giant conifers and
vegetation. Eventually they came to a stream and they followed alongside it.
Elizabeth had no clue where they were going, and she wondered if Aaron did. As
they continued to run, she saw a waterfall up ahead. At first she thought he
meant to run into it, but he moved her to the side. The curtain of water was
pouring over a giant rock overhang on the side of a cliff, and underneath it a
small passageway had formed in the rock wall. A narrow, little path formed
behind the waterfall, and Aaron led her through the path. The rock passageway
was so narrow that it didn't even hold Aaron's feet. They hung over the edge as
he moved them both slowly through the passage. And then he stepped back and
disappeared. He stuck out his hand and she grasped it as she continued to edge
her way to him. When she felt his hand directly behind her, she stepped back.
She was in a small, sandstone alcove behind the waterfall.

"They
can't abduct us while we're in here. We have to be out in the open for them to
beam us up."

Elizabeth
broke down in tears. She hugged Aaron fiercely.

"Aaron,
I have to tell you something."

"What?"

She
told him about the dreams she had been having. She apologized for not telling
him about it, but they had frightened her. She hadn't wanted to believe they
were all coming true.

"I
think Kyla is going to die." Elizabeth said. "My last vision that I
had was of a dead, mutilated body on the ground. I'm holding a bloody throwing
knife in my hand, and you're standing in front of me."

"My
sweet, a bloody throwing knife?
 
I dulled
those down to nothing. You couldn't cut a bagel with those throwing knives.
They're glorified letter openers."

"We
need to find Kyla."

"It's
getting early and I'm too tired to go on. Let's rest for now. The sun will rise
soon. I won't be any use to you if I'm burning up and falling down tired. We'll
sleep for now and find Kyla when the sun goes down again."

"Okay,"
Elizabeth said. "Hang upside down. You'll sleep better as a bat in here
than you will as a person."

"True,"
he said. "Change yourself into a dog. That will give you some extra
padding and your fur will make you feel warm and toasty. We should both be very
rested by tomorrow evening."

They
morphed into their animals and began to roost. Aaron was asleep quickly. He had
always been a very deep sleeper. Elizabeth once saw him sleep through an
earthquake when he took a nap after a vigorous encounter in the bedroom. But
Elizabeth stayed awake tonight. She knew what she was going to do. She waited
about fifteen minutes to be sure Aaron had drifted off. He once told her he
felt like he typically fell asleep in under five minutes. Then she morphed back
into human form, walked out to the narrow passageway, edged herself away from
the alcove, and back the way she had come earlier. She stood beside the
waterfall and listened to the rush of the water crashing down into the stream.
The noise that came from the bursts of waves gave her strength. This was what
she had signed up for. She had wanted to go out into the world, bond with the
earth, and grow up. There was a sense of fulfillment deep in her heart. She had
done everything that she had set out to do. And now it was time to end the
adventure.

She
looked to the sky and thought, Take me. The spaceship appeared once again as if
on cue. The blue light came down on her and she was beamed up into the sky.

Chapter
21: The Plan

"I
wish I understood," Elizabeth said to the large feline alien sitting in
front of her.

Elizabeth
hadn't just been beamed up into an exam room as she'd expected. She was in a
large office, built for the large lion man behind the desk in front of her. She
tried to be polite and not stare, but it was difficult not to. He looked
astonishingly like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. He had a giant flowing
mane that framed his tan, humanoid face. The rest of his body appeared to be
covered in short, golden fur. But there was no way to tell that completely. He
wore something that looked like dark blue overalls that covered his legs and
core area. He also wore long black boots. She wondered at that. She imagined
giant paws for feet that would be padded enough to not require footwear. His
penetrating, catlike eyes were hypnotic. They were almond shaped with an upward
slant, and the pupils were long black ellipses. The ellipses were embedded in a
multicolored eye of yellows, greens, and blues. He locked her in with those
eyes. Stop staring, she thought to herself.

"I
wish things could be better explained. But I can't. You see, we aren't supposed
to be directly involved. There is only so much I can tell you..."

"Well,
let me see if I'm piecing this all together correctly. You're telling me that
you stopped studying Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens
neandertalensis many millennia ago after accidentally transforming a group of
Neanderthals into vicious, drunk with power, vampires. However, recently, you
and some others aliens thought it would be a good idea to revive the study with
some of the last few remaining ancient men. So you used a secret agent, whom
you cannot reveal to me, to collect information on ancient man in the modern
world. This agent went insane and has decided to kill everyone on the island in
order to get to me. Because he works for you, he has the ability to create a
force field. But you can't stop him....why?"

"Well,
he didn't create the force field. We did. He just activated it. We gave him a
wand with a little button on it. If he hits the button, it creates a twenty
four hour force field around a certain, designated area of land. If he hits it
twice, he gets a force field around himself for as long as he wants. We did
this just in case he was ever discovered and the vampires on the island decided
to take him out. It was a safety measure."

"Is
it really that difficult for you guys to just abduct him?"

"The
force field is getting in the way."

"Then
how did you abduct me."

"That's
a different kind of force field. We can weaken the force field around the land,
and we already have, because it stays still and we can work on it. That's how
we beamed you up through the force field. It's not very strong anymore. You
can't get through it, but a giant space ship or its high energy beam could. The
force field I mean is our agent's personal force field. He's constantly on the
move so we can't get a lock on him and disable his force field. Even if we
tried to beam him up, it wouldn't work because his force field makes him
invisible to our beam. He'll just run off. We need him to hold still out in the
open."

"So
just break through the force field around the land, send out some agents, and grab
him. He'll be still then."

"Did
you not hear a word I said when you first arrived? We can't have direct
involvement. Especially since that disaster with the Neanderthals during the
Ice Age. We can still do the occasional abduction if it's in a rural area and
the person is outside. But we can't land or go into anybody's home. It's
forbidden under any circumstances."

"So
what do you want me to do about it?"

"Disable
our agent so we can beam him up."

"How?"

"We've
already thought up a plan that sounds decent to us. Pretend to kill Aaron. Our
agent will let his guard down once he thinks Aaron is dead, because that would
leave you all alone with him in the force field. He has already killed Kyla.
I'm sorry. We couldn't stop it. But we can use this to our advantage. Tomorrow,
take Aaron and find Kyla’s body." He told her where to find it. "She
should be covered in blood. I want you to dip one of your throwing knives in
her blood, and then throw it at Aaron. It won't penetrate his skin because it's
too dull. Have him pretend to be dead. It shouldn't take long for our agent to
show himself. Try to goad him out. Call for him. And then you'll pull out the
secret weapon."

"What
is it?"

"An
IFFD. It stands for Individualized Force Field Disruptor. If you point it at
our agent, and you're within ten feet of him, his force field will be disrupted
and shut itself off."

The
lion man pulled what looked like an electric tazer from inside his desk. It was
a metal, rectangular device with a button. This could easily fit in the palm of
her hand. A painted arrow pointed toward the front of the device.