The Hunters

For Danny

THE HUNTERS

A Novel by David Teves

Who has come to claim the hunters?

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

incidents are either products of the author’s imagination

or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events

or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 2018 David Teves

Table of Contents

PART ONE

Beginnings Carl and Quentin

Ferris

Ruben and Bree

PART TWO

Gilroy And That Unfortunate Trip to Carmel….

Virgil T. Waldrip (In the days before Direct Deposit)

The Proposition

PART THREE

The In-between

PART FOUR

Kansas

PART FIVE

A Caça Final Chegou or Let’s Get This Shit Over With

And in the End…

Acknowledgments

PART ONE

Beginnings

Carl and Quentin

It was noontime when Carl Winters pulled Elvis around the back of the Food Fair market. His brother, Quentin, slid from the passenger seat and opened the panel doors of the old International Travelall where they stowed their hunting gear in a concealed compartment. Carl stepped out and looked around. Their jobs had become more complicated since their ability to become dim had left them. Thank God they were alone. One thing you don’t need when hunting vampires is a crowd.

They’d been casing the abandoned grocery store ever since they received the text from the Home Office, AKA United Lumber, that vamps were camping out there. The brothers were veterans of countless crusades. They were hovering near seven hundred kills, an important milestone because it meant their hunting days were inching toward a close. Quentin was looking forward to retirement, of living a life that didn’t require looking over his shoulder all the time. Carl? He didn’t savor the idea of giving up his ax when he still felt he could do the job. What the hell were they going to do when this was over? Sit on a porch and wait to die?

Quentin placed the seeker on his head and positioned the sight over his eye. (Here’s to modern technology!) He grabbed his bag of stakes and his trusty Craftsman ball-peen hammer. Ball-peens are the preferred hammer for most hunters. Instead of a claw on its back end, it has a hemispherical head perfect for cracking skulls. He pointed to the steel door that would allow them entry to the stockroom. If there were vamps in there, that’s where they’d be, sleeping in the cool darkness. Carl knelt in front of the door and with the expertise of forty years of vampire hunting picked the lock. He stood and steadied his beloved double-blade ax on his shoulder. He had always been an off with their heads kind of guy. He glanced at his brother and raised an eyebrow.

Ready?

I was born ready.

Then let’s rock.

Carl turned his battered Giants ball cap backward (killing position as he was fond of saying), cracked open the door and peered inside. He could see the market’s soaped-over front windows through the swinging doors that led to the main floor, but the feeble light they offered was useless back here. The brothers appraised the situation. They didn’t charge in; surprise attacks were for fools. There was a careful, methodical way of killing vamps. As always, they had carefully made their plans and would execute them with precision. Perhaps that was the reason they were still alive after all these years. Carl opened the door a little wider and sniffed. Vampires had an unmistakable odor. He looked back at his brother, nodded, and they slipped into the storeroom.

Unbeknownst to civilians, vampires are for the most part invisible when in their restive state. The red LED of the seeker would turn green when it encountered one, possibly hanging upside down from the ceiling or tucked under a discarded shelf.

There’s number one, Quentin whispered, pointing toward a darkened light fixture. Two and three are to its right. Number four is in the far corner by the cold boxes. He poked his finger upward. Vamp number five was directly above their heads.

They said there were six," Carl said.

You’re right, Quentin said. Where is the bastard?

Behind you, a voice said.

Quentin whirled around. Crap!

The word had barely escaped his lips when the vampire was on him. There was no time for the stake and the trusty Craftsman. The only saving grace was that vampires are not as strong at High Noon as they are at midnight, but that didn’t matter. It still felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Quentin crashed to the floor, his ash stakes scattering, but he managed to hold the ball-peen’s handle across the vampire’s neck long enough to keep its razor-sharp fangs from finding their bloody home.

Behind him, Carl was laughing. Hey. Motherfucker! he yelled.

The vampire, dressed in tan khakis, matching work shirt with a nametag that said Ted, glared at him. It was all Carl needed. With a sure swing of his ax, the vampire’s head separated from its shoulders and went bouncing across the floor. The body collapsed on Quentin who threw it off with disgust. He scampered to his feet, grabbed the nearest stake, and pounded it into its evil heart just for good measure. There was no time to admire their work. Ted’s friends were stirring.

Quentin scooped up as many stakes he could find and stuffed them into his bag. The stake that had dispatched Ted was spinning like a top on the storeroom floor; the body it had violated was gone. The remaining vampires glided to the ground and surrounded them. The brothers looked at each other with unease. A routine job to dispatch six sleeping vampires had become a battle for survival. They took a defensive position, standing back-to-back and waited for the enemy to come to them.

We’re kinda in a fix, Quent.

Now’s not the time for fear, little brother. Now’s the time for death.

The vampires advanced toward them: three males, two females. Now before you start thinking that lady vamps might be easier to handle, think again. They are just as strong, just as crafty as their male counterparts—maybe even more so. The brothers appraised the situation. Carl’s trusty ax was perfect for battle, but Quentin was at a disadvantage. Stakes and hammers were designed to dispatch sleeping vampires, not for open combat. But forty years of hunting had made the brothers masters of improvisation.

How’s that throwing arm of yours, Quent? Carl asked as the snarling vampires closed in.

Strong as ever, Quentin replied, though that was a stretch.

Then let ‘er rip.

Quentin tossed a stake in his hand gauging its weight. Then he turned the business end outward, cocked his arm and threw it at the nearest vamp. The stake hit one of the females with surprising force. The razor-sharp dowel sank deep into her chest causing a sickening crunching sound followed by a massive flow of dark, foul-smelling blood that evaporated as it hit the air. She gawked at the protruding stake. Her eyes were black, menacing orbs. She growled at Quentin but didn’t die. His throw had been slightly off the mark, but before she could lunge forward, Carl finished the job.

Two down, four to go. The remaining vampires slowly circled the brothers, their fangs clattering, a sound that always chilled the hunter’s souls. Carl held out his ax, threatening the vamps with his blade.

Old men, one of the vampire’s spat. You should not have ventured here. Your time has passed.

The vampire might have been right about that. Five years ago, heck, maybe even a year ago, it wouldn’t have been a contest. Two against four? Piece of cake. But Quentin had just turned sixty-six, and Carl was only a couple of years behind him. Vampires never age. They are always in the prime of death if you get my drift. Had time finally caught up with the Winters brothers? They weren’t as agile, weren’t as fast. Their knees hurt, their backs ached, and damn it, they were tired.

We can’t go down like this, Carl, Quentin croaked. Not like this….

Then fight, Quent. Fight like there’s no tomorrow.

And fight they did.

-2-

Growing up a vampire hunter. That would be a great name for a television show except no one would believe it, but for Carl and Quentin Winters that was how their lives evolved. It hadn’t always been that way. In the beginning, they were like most brothers, living in a quiet East Bay town named San Leandro. As far as they knew their father, Quentin Sr., was a traveling salesman for a lumber company. What a joke, for handling wood would always be an integral part of their lives.

The 1950s was a time of idyllic peace in America. Dwight Eisenhower was President. The economy was booming, and the Bay Area was growing by leaps and bounds. The remaining farmland was filling up with houses, mostly populated by former GIs who wanted nothing more than to raise a family and put the memory of World War II behind them. They were the factory workers, auto mechanics, store owners, insurance salesmen. They went to church on Sundays and drove Chevrolets. They arrived home promptly at 5:30 each evening to find supper waiting on the table. They had weekends off, and in the summer, they played catch with their sons and daughters during the golden hours between dinner and sunset.

The Winters brothers had fond memories of those quiet years in San Leandro. Carl and Quentin lived on what was called the flats, the narrow plain between the San Francisco Bay and the East Bay hills. In those days there was still plenty of empty land, and if you had a note from your mother, you could get a cardboard television box from Scott’s TV over on 150th Avenue, haul it into the hills and spend hours sliding down the dry summer grass.

Above their home was a neighborhood known as Okie Hill, named after the migrants that flocked to California during the Great Depression. It was a place filled with narrow, rambling streets and clapboard houses meandering halfway up the hill. The boys had to navigate through it, dragging their boxes behind them on the way to higher ground. In the middle of the day, there was an eerie quiet about the place that always filled them with apprehension. They didn’t know it then, but in a few years, Okie Hill would offer the maiden voyage of their future occupations.

Their lives were filled with school, the Bal Theater on East 14th Street, where on Saturday afternoons you could see two black and white sci-fi movies and seventeen cartoons for twenty-five cents. After school, there was sandlot baseball and swimming lessons at Farley pool where the brothers began to appreciate the enticing allure of girls. On lazy summer days, they would take the bus to Candlestick Park to watch their beloved San Francisco Giants play a game.

On the whole, the brothers were mostly fatherless, raised by a loving but somewhat frazzled mother named Kathy. Quentin Sr. was gone a lot: days, weeks and once for almost a year. Carl always envisioned him scouting out virgin forests that could be harvested to provide sustenance for their family, but sometimes Dad would come home unexpectedly, looking as if he’d gone fifteen rounds with Sonny Liston. He never offered explanations for his appearance, but it sure stressed out their mom. Late at night, the boys would hear muffled arguments behind their bedroom door. What the arguments were about was a mystery, but as they grew older, the brothers figured out that their father was more than a wholesale lumber salesman.

Quentin Sr. appeared to have no family of his own except for the one he sired. His parents were presumed dead though no one spoke of it. He had no brothers or sisters, no aunts, uncles or cousins. He was a lone wolf living in the wilderness. Their mother’s family, all San Leandro natives, surrounded them. Carl and Quentin were showered with love and acceptance by their maternal grandparents, but the brothers always felt a subtle tension when their father was around. Grandma and Grandpa Reynolds were as perplexed about Quentin Sr. as they were.

Who was Quentin Winters, and where did he go only to come back sometimes looking as if he’d been beaten? What did their father really do for a living? Carl thought he might be like Superman, traveling the world fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Quentin was more practical. To his mind, it was as plain as the nose on your face.

Their father was a spy.

Quentin Winters Sr. was not a young man. He was forty when he met Kathy in 1949, who was ten years his junior. It was a year before he revealed the truth about himself. When she didn’t bolt out of his life, he proposed. It was his last chance at a normal life. Quentin Jr. arrived the next year and two years later Carl entered their lives. He could have stopped hunting then. He had well over two hundred kills to his credit and enough money saved to last for the rest of his life—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. The awful truth about vampire hunting is that it's addicting. It takes years to get the hang of it. Some never do and as a result, they die, but if you did survive, if you did get proficient at your craft, there was no greater feeling than plunging a stake into a vampire’s heart or cutting off its head. By the time his sons were teenagers, he was well on the road to sixty, his kill total topped three hundred and he had close to a million dollars in the bank.

During those years, Quentin thought he could have it both ways: do his duty for humanity and earn a decent living while still enjoying a piece of the American dream. He was thankful for his family, his two wonderful boys, and Kathy, the long-suffering woman who stood by him no matter what, but he realized it was a fool’s errand. Someone would have to lose, and the older he got the more he had to accept the fact it would be him. It was time to face the awful truth: he and Kathy would soon have to vanish….

It was hard for Quentin to pull the plug on his career, but he started going out less and less. He turned down lucrative assignments that would take him too far from his family. He needed a rest. And like his oldest son would say many years later, he needed to stop looking over his shoulder. He needed time to consider the truth that he would eventually have to deliver to his sons. He put it off as long as possible, but one day the news was delivered for him.

-3-

Saturn Drive meandered on the outer edge of Okie hill. It offered spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay and beyond. Other than that, it was an ordinary street, filled with generations of families who wanted nothing more than to live their lives in peace, but by the mid-1960s parts of Saturn Drive and the surrounding neighborhood had turned hard. Many of its residents had moved on to more modern homes that were springing up in the East Bay like weeds, and with their departure, a disquieting element emerged on the twisting road, and the roar of Harley-Davidson motorcycles trumpeted their arrival. Gang activity. Fits of violence. Drug dealing—and worse. Their raucous parties and occasional bouts of mayhem sometimes spilled into the streets. The Alameda County Sheriffs patrolled the neighborhood with guarded apprehension.

But amidst the growing chaos, there was one house that stood out from the rest. It sat near the corner of Saturn and Luna, a shabby, nondescript bungalow barely nine hundred square feet in size. For years it stood empty, seemingly abandoned by its owners. The front porch sagged. The yard was overgrown with angry weeds. Despite its diminutive size, the little house felt dark and foreboding. The neighborhood children avoided it as if it contained a deadly plague. Then one day something disturbing occurred. Someone moved into the little house in the middle of the night. The dirty windows were now filled with flickering candlelight, and for the frightened children of Okie hill, this was a most unsettling development.

It didn’t take long for word of the house and its mysterious, unseen occupants to reach the ears of Carl and Quentin Winters. They may not have known what their father was up to in life, but the blood of a vampire hunter was coursing through their veins and this blood screamed that the little miserable piece of real estate had to be investigated. And when did they choose to do it?

Halloween night.

Quentin Sr. never liked Halloween. It was one of those ironic holidays based on myths that held real meaning to those who strived to keep the vampire population in check. On the rare occasions he happened to be at home on that night, he wanted nothing to do with trick or treating. It was Kathy who took their sons dressed as cowboys or hobos on the journey to extort candy from the neighbors. Quentin Sr. wasn’t home the evening his sons ventured to the house on Saturn Drive. They hadn’t seen him in weeks, but they had no doubt he’d reappear, probably battered and bruised. Such was the life of a lumberman.

On this particular Saturday night, Quentin had just turned fifteen. Carl was thirteen. Their mother no longer escorted them on their Halloween ramblings. The night was theirs to do whatever mischief they could devise, hopefully without getting caught. There had been a light drizzle. It was cold and breezy, and as the sun set over the San Francisco Bay, a thick blanket of fog rolled in covering the sky.

When the brothers left their house after dinner the night was dark and foreboding, but it didn’t matter to them. A friend had called to tell them there was a Halloween party going on at a biker house up on Saturn Drive. Such affairs were always fun to watch even from a distance. The sheriffs would come, they always did, but this night promised more than that. There was a house to check out, the one no one dared get close to—except for the adventurous Winters brothers.

This time next year I’ll have my driver’s license, Quentin mused as they began their journey. We won’t have to walk up here anymore.

Yeah, if Mom lets you use her car.

Kathy drove a ten-year-old Volvo; ugly but reliable. Their dad had a green ’62 International Travelall that was big enough for a party of its own. They knew their dad would never let them drive the rig. He used it for business.

The boys walked in silence. Quentin used his Boy Scout flashlight to guide their way. They weren’t in any particular hurry. There was something foul in the air that evening. It felt mean and nasty, but the brothers were too young and inexperienced to understand what that might mean.

I hope there’s a fight, Quentin said. Remember last summer when they were going at it in the street?

Yeah. That was so cool.

They heard the party before they saw it. The thumping sounds of rock-and-roll reached their ears. Mick Jagger was complaining about not getting any satisfaction. The boys rounded the corner of Saturn and Luna and were within eyesight of the night’s festivities when they stopped. The little house, the one with the weeds and the slumping porch was directly in front of them. No candles glowed in the murky windows on this Halloween night. It was dark, so dark it seemed as if they were gazing into the face of death. The boys stood there like the stoic Moai statues on Easter Island; unwilling and unable to take one more step.

Our birthright, Quentin said sounding far away.

Birthright? What the hell are you talking about, Quent?

Quentin held up a hand and pointed. Look.

Carl saw nothing except for the black abyss that was the front door. Then his jaw dropped. For as stupid as it seemed, he saw it too: a window into their future, a glimpse of their destiny.

Without taking his eyes off the house, Quentin bent to the ground and picked up a rock. It filled his hand with its weight. He could feel its sharp facets digging into the flesh of his palm, but it didn’t hurt. As a matter of fact, it felt damn good. It felt as if the rock had been created for just this purpose. Carl followed his older brother’s lead and bent down, but instead of finding a rock, his hand discovered a rusted piece of the wrought-iron fence that had once surrounded the yard. One end was flat, the other sharp as a stake.

They moved toward the door. They didn’t speak. They didn’t ask each other what the hell they thought they were doing. They both knew what their mission was, though it was never put into words. It was visceral. It was implanted in their DNA. They reached the crooked steps. Quentin climbed the first riser which protested his intrusion with a sickly squeak. He ignored it. Up the second step. Squeak. The third. Squeak. Then onto the porch, whose rotting boards groaned under his weight. Carl followed his brother. Off in the distance the urgent voice of Mick Jagger was gone, replaced by Jefferson Airplane urging all that could hear to smile on your brother and try to love one another right now.

Right now.

The brothers didn’t feel love in their hearts. If anything, their blood was running cold. Their world had narrowed down to this one mystifying task. They approached the ragged screen door. Quentin opened it, expecting it to sound out like a burglar alarm to those who resided within. (Ready or not, here we come!) But the door didn’t sound an alarm. It silently glided open as if someone had doused it with 3-in-1 Oil.

Behind the screen was a cracked, wooden door painted an ancient coat of crumbling white paint. The handle was made of cut glass that despite the darkness sparkled. The brothers faced it.

Ready? Quentin asked.

Carl nodded. If the question had been asked a few minutes before, his answer would have been one of bewilderment, but all that had fallen away. Yes, he was ready, and deep inside it felt as if he’d been born ready.

The front door didn’t cooperate. It was locked. Quentin raised his rock and smashed the door handle. It shattered into pieces; its years of service completed. Quentin took his free hand and pushed. The door opened, and they entered without hesitation. Behind them, Jefferson Airplane’s message of love was fading into the night. Two steps in, only silence reigned.

Carl scrunched his nose. It stinks in here.

There was a frayed carpet covering a scratched hardwood floor. It looked as ancient as the house. It was once blood red with black trim but now it was nothing but tattered threads. Three steps in, the door slammed behind them.

Oh, shit, Carl whispered.

Oh, shit was right. What had they gotten themselves into? They were only in their teens and birthright or not, this was not a good situation to find themselves in. Quentin’s flashlight sputtered then died. They were alone in the dark, but it wasn’t quite dark, was it? There was a nauseous glow emanating from the walls that made the brothers feel disoriented. They weren’t alone. There was something in the little house with them. The stench increased; a musty, metallic odor that offended the senses. There was a wicked giggle that seemed to be coming from all around them.

The lambs have arrived for the slaughter, a sultry female voice said.

Carl and Quentin gawked at each other, their faces pale. Their eyes said it all. They had made a serious, if not fatal, mistake coming here. But fatal or not, Quentin raised his rock and Carl cocked his fence post stake.

Three creatures emerged from the darkness and surrounded them: two males and one female. Together they formed a horrible triangle of death. They all appeared young, maybe only a few years older than the brothers, but there was a feeling of timelessness about them. The males were dressed in street clothes—no Halloween costumes for them, but the female’s alluring dress barely clung to her voluptuous body.

Virgins, she said. In more ways than one. You come, my precious lambs, knowing nothing of the lives you are going to miss: the beauty of the hunt, the beauty of blood taken. You will die knowing nothing of the scent of a woman, but don’t be sad for another life awaits you with its own pleasures. Come to me, my lovers. Look into my eyes. Let the last image of your mortal lives be of beauty.

Her clothes fell to the floor, and she stood before them naked. The brothers had never seen a real live naked woman before, but strangely enough, they knew this wasn’t a woman. It was something else. Carl’s young mind was weirdly fascinated. Quentin wished the sight had been under better circumstances. Nevertheless, they were both aroused. They couldn’t help themselves. They wanted her. They needed her. Their feeble weapons slipped from their hands and fell to the floor. The creatures moved a step closer.

There, my lovelies, the woman cooed. Let us offer you the greatest gift of all: eternal life.

Another step across the threadbare carpet. Closer now. Two more steps and it would be over. The woman smiled, but as she did, a wooden stake flew through the air and embedded itself into her heart. Her body collapsed to the ground.

Duck, boys, a familiar voice said.

It was their father.

Carl and Quentin ducked, and what came next happened so quickly, it barely registered in their minds. Their father was wielding