Vampire Storm (Volume 1 : The Hurricane Journals)

All the eldest and most powerful witches were gathered in the center chambers of the church during the height of the storm. All of them were nervous about the belief that the settlement was the safest place to be during a terrible storm of this nature. But with the church lying at the center of the settlement, and with it having two floors, they believed it to be the safest place they could be, considering the circumstances. They knew the swamp would flood, but they hoped to not get much water where they were. Even the mortals had told them not to worry.

  Nonetheless, the storm raged on around them, the church shaking and rattling, nonstop. The sounds were horrifying, even to a witch. It sounded as if the church was being systematically ripped apart from around them, the rips and snaps never ceasing for even a moment. They persisted for hours on end. The bending of wood, the snapping of iron restraints, nails being vibrated loose. Over time the witches became accustomed to hearing them. But after a while the ‘booms’ and ‘bangs’ they had gotten used to over the last few hours were suddenly replaced by the sounds of wood snapping and the ceiling above them beginning to rip apart.

  King Orleans then stood up in the small room to address everyone.

  “This storm is becoming much worse than any of us believed it would be.” He said what everyone else was thinking, speaking in a calm manner to his self-proclaimed subjects. “Shall anything happen to this building, I need everyone to remain together. Do not become selfish. I need every one of you to look out for those standing next to you, because if we do find ourselves out there in that storm, it will take us all working together for us all to survive this.”

  Before the king could finish his speech, though, Jade burst through the large front doors and interrupted him. “Everyone needs to get high, now!” She yelled, causing Marigny to rise in his seat, nodding and moaning to himself, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell these witches for years.”

  Jade then composed herself and tried to speak as calmly as she could. “The water is here, more than we anticipated, much more. We need to do move, and we need to do it right frening now. Every second wasted is…” Just then, before anyone could react, in mid-sentence, there was a horrible sound at the door behind Jade, a loud collision that rattled the entire building.

  A moment later, as the door began to shake, almost as if someone was trying to burst in, water began to seep through the cracks in the floor.

  “What in fury is happening?” King Orleans asked as he moved cautiously away from the seeping water.

  “I told you, the water has found us.” Jade told him as the door rattled aggressively. “The wind shifted direction for some reason and has begun pushing the water of the river towards us.”

  The king’s eyes told the fear that suddenly filled his bones. “I’m not finished yet, damn it,” he whispered to himself as he quickly snapped back into focus. “We need to get our books upstairs!” He shouted. “We must preserve our history!”

  “Forget the frening books! We need to get upstairs!” Jade yelled back at him in reply.

  In return, King Orleans shot her a crazed look, becoming furious that she would dare to question his orders. The knocking at the door was becoming louder, and before an argument could even begin, water started pouring in through it, right onto the floor behind Jade. And it did not take long before the weight became too much for it to bear. Before anyone could think of what to do, everyone still scrambling around the alter room, it came bursting open.

  Jade jumped out of the way as the attention of the other witches was drawn out the door, its hinges being ripped from the wall, to see the flowing waves of water filling the already dismantled settlement, tumbling and cascading across the open land, swallowing everything in sight.

  The wave of water that knocked open the door entered the church and started to pick up pews, dragging them across the room. Some witches were knocked over in an instant, the water hitting them at their thighs, caught off guard by its strength. But all of them were picked up by their fellow witches, just as their king had told them to do.

  “We need to get upstairs!” Jade yelled out again, but Orleans was already going for the books.

  “I need to get the books first!” The King yelled out as he splashed through the water towards the door behind the altar, almost tripping on the short stairs already covered by the initial wave. “We should have taken them all upstairs to begin with, damn it! I knew we should have!”

  “By the frening furies,” Jade cursed aloud as she followed after him, running up the stairs as the water rose up the rungs of the staircase beside the open door.

  Marigny was right behind her. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” He yelled out to her.

  “Yeah, well I guess it’s just another damn day in frening paradise!” She exclaimed sarcastically in return as she rushed after their king, pushing her way through the constantly rising water.

  Jade didn’t notice at first, but other witches besides Marigny were following behind her. After she got to the open door and looked behind her, though, she saw them coming.

  “Are you frening serious?! Are you actually listening to him?!” She asked aloud as they began to storm past her and into the room, answering her question.

  “We need to get upstairs!” Jade yelled yet again, this time right into the small room, but her words moved not a single one of them.

  Marigny was outside the room with her, looking around at all the pews beginning to swirl around the nave. “I believe that Jade is right. We should all try and get upstairs as quickly as we can.” He said, though much less forcefully than she had. And just as he said it, they began to pile out, one by one, each with a stack of books in tow as they ran out of the room and up the stairs.

  “Good,” Jade said after the room had emptied, “Now, maybe we can bring you to safety, sire.”

  “Nonsense!” The king exclaimed. “I told them to get everyone else back down here to get the rest of these books out of this water.”

  Jade’s eyes widened as she spoke aggressively. “Sire, if you have not noticed, this church is flooding! We are not safe down here any longer!”

  “You just told everyone to stay together if this happened.” Marigny spoke up. “Now you are telling us to put the books above our own lives?!”

  “To fury with what I said!” Orleans shouted back at them as he clutched at every book he could. “This is our history here… you know that! We must protect it at all costs!”

  Marigny was taken aback. “But none of it is worth our lives! I would much rather tell someone about having lived through this myself than have them read about how we all died here in some frening book!” He growled in disbelief. “This is not the Orleans that I know!”

  “Then you know nothing of me, Marigny!” The king yelled back into his face. “Now get the fury out of my way!”

  Marigny, though, stood stubbornly in the doorway as the water rose up beyond his thighs. The rest of the witches then returned to the room, rushing around him to grab more books. But Marigny just stood there, staring into the eyes of his old friend, the now king, Orleans.

  Jade had heard enough, however. She stepped out in front of the doorway to stop any more witches from entering, with Marigny at her back. She was about to speak, but just before she opened her mouth she noticed it tumbling in the water behind the witches. “Look out! Move!” She yelled as she pushed them out of the way.

  An entire pew then slipped right by them and slammed into the open doorway, being pushed against it by the water’s growing current. Marigny looked back at Jade just in time to see another one coming. Everyone was out of the way and the pew rolled past them, slamming into the doorway just beneath the water.

  “We need to get these books upstairs, fast!” One of the witches in the room said as they moved around Marigny to leave.

  Marigny just shook his head as he let the witch pass, keeping his eyes still and locked on those of his king, and the witch leaving the room tripped over the pews under the water to fall straight down with a splash,
the books flying from her hands.

  “No!” Orleans shouted as he watched the books disappear into the flood, the glare of Marigny being forcefully broken. “Those could have been the one.”

  Marigny didn’t know what he was talking about, nor did he care. He just wiped the water from his face and pulled the witch back up by the lace of her shirt, finally taking his eyes off Orleans. That is when the king tried to move around him. But just as he did, another pew came tumbling at them, pushing the both of them back into the room as it blocked the doorway beneath the water with the other two.

  “We are going to get trapped in here! We must move those pews!” Marigny told everyone.

  And to his surprise, everyone listened. They all moved the three pews out of the way, setting them against the wall beside the door. But just as they did, as the witch Cabrini tried to reposition the door, it slammed shut in front of her. Jade spun around at the sound of it to try and open it back up, but was knocked over by another pew being pushed beneath the water. Jade flipped over it sideways and crashed head first into the flood. She popped back out a moment later and sat down on the pew, wiping her now dirty red hair from her face. She took a breath and stood back up to move it, but Marigny yelled for her to turn around.

  “Jade, behind you!” He yelled as he trudged his way over to her, the water trying to hold him back.

  And just as Jade turned around, she saw it, a huge alligator lunging out of the water towards her, its jaws wide open and ready to snap shut around her.

  Her adrenaline began to flow faster, forcing her into action, and she reacted by grabbing each of its jaws. The creature’s teeth were digging into her palms, but she was preventing it from snapping its mouth shut. The weight of the beast pushed her against the door and back onto the pew, where she did well to hold its head away from hers as it crawled on top of her, hissing loudly in her face as lines of blood began trickling down her arms. That was when Marigny made it over to her and lifted it up off of her. With that distraction Jade then pushed against each side of its long, protruding mouth until it began to snap apart. She was now on her feet again, and she used that leverage to break its jaw in two.

  As the blood of the writhing beast began to pour into the water, Marigny pulled it off of her and tossed it out into the water, away from them, but was then pulled towards a witch’s fearful screech. He turned to see the young witch Damsil in distress, swatting at the water.

  “The snakes are everywhere!” She screamed with fright.

  Marigny shook his head and smirked as he allowed one of them to slither up his arm and wrap around his shoulder. “They are only searching for high ground, just like us.” He spoke with a look of respect for the innocent creatures upon his face, and then emphasized, “Just like everything in this damn swamp.”

  Then they heard banging, not on the church, but instead coming from the inside of the door. “What is going on out there?!” Someone asked from inside.

  “We are getting you out.. Do not worry!” Jade responded as she started to move the pew out of the way.

  She found it hard to do so alone, though, as the water was holding it in place. But before Marigny could help her, he had to pull her out of the way as two more pews went tumbling against the door. They were followed almost immediately by two more, and then another. A loud cracking sound then filled the air. It seemed to be coming from above them, and as their eyes turned towards the roof, the entire church rattled and vibrated violently in turn. Then they started to hear the screams of the mortals upstairs, yelling and screaming and begging for their lives to be spared.

  But after only a few short moments, as the witches stared upwards in curiosity, all the screams abruptly ceased.

  Jade and Marigny looked at each other as more pews continued to pile against the door. The higher the water got, the stronger its pull became. And with it rising up their waists, they were beginning to be pushed against the wall, just like the pews.

  “We need to get that door open!” Marigny yelled.

  Jade shook her head and let him know, “It will not be easy.”

  But before they could do anything, the sound of cracking wood returned, and this time it was much closer to them. Everyone’s attention was pulled out into the main room of the church, the nave, and then up towards the ceiling, where they watched it rip suddenly upwards towards the sky and get torn away by the wind, peeling from the front and then being thrown backwards with great force, towards the rear of the church. They all ducked and moved away from the debris that was now falling and being blown towards them, chunks of wood splashing into the water all around.

  “We need to frening hurry!” Marigny yelled out as a chunk of wood splashed into the water beside him.

  “We do not have time! This structure will not stay together much longer!” Jade yelled back to him.

  Then the wall to their left began to crumble, being ripped apart from the front of the church back towards them, just like the ceiling had.

  Marigny wasted no more time.

  He crawled up onto the pews that were stacked against the door and began punching it repeatedly. As he did this, the top of the church’s left wall bent over and splashed down into the water, hanging only by a few splinters. The wind rushed in through this new and gaping hole within the church, nearly knocking Marigny off the pews as he threw his fist into the thick wooden door again.

  The wind then began to chip away at the wall in the front of the church, tearing it out where the wall no longer stood. A huge crucifix that hung on that wall, just above the entrance, was soon knocked into the water below, descending into its depths, first the feet of Jesus, as it dropped straight down to the floor, the water lapping for a moment at his oversized knees before finally tilting forward and falling face first into the ever rising floodwaters. Then, as the image of Christ slowly sank beneath the waves, the entire wall was torn out, leaving standing only the front doors as it was ripped open and torn down, crumbling into the floodwaters that filled the nave.

  With that, Marigny finally punched a hole through the door. He then stepped back and started kicking it until it broke in half. It was at that moment that everyone inside looked out to see that half the church had been blown away in just the few minutes they were trapped inside.

  Most of the front wall and half of another, along with a large chunk of the roof, were all gone.

  With the pews piled on top of each other in front the door, essentially blocking the witches in, and with Marigny staring down at him through the busted open wood, King Orleans had to make a decision.

  He looked around at all the books, all the history around him, which the world would never know of if he did not protect them, and he was genuinely unsure of what he should do. His decision was not a simple one. He did not want everything to be moving as fast as it was. He wished fruitlessly for just a single moment of calm. But the ceiling that was beginning to crumble down on top of him forced him to decide.

  “We have to get out of here… now!” He yelled out as the building shook and debris fell down around them all. “Forget the frening books! I need everyone to file out two at a time and wait for everyone else on the other side of the door. We must all remain together, as I said!” He had finally found reason in his decision making, and two at a time the witches began to exit the room, crawling over the pews that blocked the doorway.

  The water rose quickly around them as each group helped the next through, with King Orleans remaining inside the room, waiting until everyone was out before he left, just as a true king should.

  But with no more than half of the witches outside the room, and all of them huddled around the shattered door to help, the entire church suddenly collapsed down onto itself, all at once.

  King Orleans and the few witches left in the room suddenly found themselves under water and buried beneath the same books they sought to save, fighting to find the surface, while the witches outside the room were all washed away with the debris by the fierce current that was still s
wallowing the settlement.

  It was not until the water had destroyed the entire room around them that they were able to swim free to the surface and face the carnage, and be swept away with the rest of the swallowed settlement.

  As King Orleans reached the surface, he saw nothing but open water and tree tops poking out, and despite being out of breath he began to call out names, “Heather! Jane!? Marigny! Jade!? Cabrini! Can anyone hear me!?” He tried to yell out over the wind, but its howls silenced his calls.

  It was not until morning, when the storm had finally ceased and the water receded, that he was able to find some survivors, mostly those who were still in the room when the church collapsed, all searching through the debris of the church for any signs of life.