New Beginnings

12. Carmilla

"Ahhh, guys!"

Carmilla heard the panicked edge to Laura's shout and turned around immediately to see a humanoid skeleton burst out of the ground in front of a prone Laura and menace her with a rusty sword.

Her world became narrow. There was Laura, the skeleton and the distance between her and them. She raced forwards, shovel in hand. Someone yelled out Laura's name, it might have been her but that wasn't important. What was important was how long it would take to get to Laura versus the time it would take for the sword to slash downwards.

Her eyes locked onto the skeleton's rusty sword. It was short and curved wickedly, Carmilla dearly wanted to believe that the dirt covering it indicated that its edges had been dulled in however long the sword and its owner had spent under the hilltop cemetery, but the cynic in her knew otherwise.

The blade began to slash down. Too far away! Her narrowed world now seemed to slow down as well, much like it would when she had vampiric speed to aid her. Her running gait was a lope. Legs moving as long as possible with every stride just like a predatory big cat on the hunt. She had to get there, she had to get there.

Laura shrank down away from the blade, providing what in Carmilla's adrenaline rush felt like an extra second but was probably much less than that. She dived forwards in desperation, shovel extended outwards in her hand. The shovel travelled over Laura's body and the blade clanged off of it with a metallic clank!

She breathed a sigh of relief and then just a breath from her short burst of hyper, desperate exertion.

The skeleton turned its empty eye sockets to Carmilla as she lay on the ground next to Laura, shovel still held protectively over her body. Somehow even without eyes she knew it was glaring at her balefully. It raised its curved sword again, this time clearly meant for her.

But then with a sickening crunch it had the point of a shovel embedded into its rib cage. Carmilla looked from the skeleton to Laura and saw that Laura had taken the opportunity to find her own shovel and stab with it as hard as she could. The skeleton jerked back, eye sockets fixed down on the shovel that was now inside of it. It dropped the sword and reached for the shovel with both hands in an effort to pull it out.

With a cry Carmilla picked herself up and swung as hard as she could. Her shovel connected with the skeleton's skull and smashed it right off its shoulders. It flew off the edge of the hill to crash down on the grass land somewhere below.

Laura jumped to her feet and pulled her shovel out of the now headless skeleton's ribcage. Bits of bone came out with it and the skeleton collapsed the ground, hopefully dead for good this time. Carmilla hugged Laura tightly for a moment before urging her towards the sarcophagus.

"For one second, I look away for one second! And suddenly there is a monster right at your feet. You know, maybe your dad had the right idea after all. I'm getting you a suit of armour, a tank to sit inside, a moat of lava, not water and if anyone but me tries to cross it-"

"I hardly see how its my fault if a literal undead skeleton decides to burst out of the ground in front of me." Laura complained back to her.

"Of course it's your fault. If three hundred years of experience has taught me anything about monsters, its that they always go for the cute ones first, cupcake."

Carmilla kept her eyes on Laura as they bickered, searching for any sign of injury.

"Ahhh, guys?" Amaya said from the sarcophagus.

"I'm pretty sure 'Ahhh, guys' is now my line. I earned the copyright when a skeleton came out of the ground and tried to kill me."

"I don't think that was the only one." Amaya continued, ignoring Laura and gesturing around the hilltop cemetery.