Survival of the Fittest

Chapter Two: Frightened Hearts

‘Twelve vampires? All working together?’ my father repeated incredulously. Then he went into panic mode. ‘Are you both alright? Did you get hurt? Were either of you bitten?’ he asked worriedly, walking towards us and scanning our visible skin for wounds, wincing when he saw the deepest of our cuts, a six centimetre long scratch along my mother’s left forearm. My dad was a worrier, always had been, and always would be. Or at least he was when my mum and I left to hunt, and if you ask me, it was incredibly sexist, especially seeing as I was stronger and smarter than him in a fight. However, sexist or not, he had had a reason to worry this time, it had turned out. I had no doubt that if we hadn’t travelled in a pair than my mother would not have survived that fight, and maybe I wouldn’t either, had I gone alone. Although I probably had more of a chance.

‘We’re fine, dad,’ I reassured him, walking forward and patting him on the arm. I would’ve hugged him but I was still quite sweaty from the fight and didn’t want to inflict it upon him. Peter, however, that’s a different story. I would quite happily inflict my sweat upon him, but seeing as it was a little after two in the morning, he was already in bed. ‘But sit down. That’s not the only thing that was interesting,’ I told him, gesturing to the sofa. He followed my instructions and I did the same, perching on the edges of the cushions while my mum left the room, I expected to burn the bodies. Luckily we lived on a private estate, so no one got annoyed at our frequent bonfires. ‘There were three – well, more like three and a half – bloody footprints near our car, but there was no sign of any other vampires in the area that could have killed someone nor of any bodies they’d killed tonight. All the bodies there looked a few days old at least, and these footprints were fresh,’ I explained. ‘There could have been more too, but I couldn’t see without a torch. I only noticed these because the moonlight fell in the exact right spot.’

My father frowned. ‘So what were you thinking, then?’ he asked, and I sighed.

‘I’ve got a couple of theories, but I’m not sure which one is more likely. It’s obviously not a vampire that ran away, they wouldn’t go through the street, and plus they don’t bleed enough for a footprint. It could have just been someone who walked in on the fight and was injured, then ran away, but it would be almost impossible for someone to escape from a vampire, especially one injured like that. The other theory is that…’ I hesitated, my eyes flicking up at my dad. I knew he wasn’t going to like this idea. At all.

‘Go on,’ he prompted, and I sighed.

‘The other theory is that, well, you know who would be able to get away from a vampire whilst injured.’

My dad’s eyes widened and after a moment he shot to his feet angrily. ‘You think there was another hunter there?’ he questioned, fuming. I confirmed it with a nod. ‘This is our territory! We don’t need another hunter here! We can deal with our area! Who do they think they are, sending another hunter here? Do they not think we’re good enough or something?’ he exploded, and I sighed once more before standing up and giving my father a hug, not caring about sweatiness anymore. Slowly, I felt him calm down as he hugged me back.

‘We don’t know for sure, dad. It could have just been an unusually strong or fast normal person.’ I detached myself from his arms and stood back. ‘However, if that is the case, we’ve got the trouble of dealing with a human who’s seen vampires and is still alive to tell the tale – before they get to telling the tale, preferably.’

My dad waved a hand as if dismissing it. He looked tired. ‘Don’t worry about it. If they do tell, no one will believe them anyway. They’ll just say it was some type of animal.’

I nodded and bid him ‘goodnight’, which he returned along with a half-smile. I could tell he was still annoyed about the possibility of another hunter in our area, and I knew he’d be asking about that along with his report of the events of this evening at the next Hunter Council meeting. I know, it’s a really original name, isn’t it? They tried to make ‘hunter’ into an abbreviation once, hoping they could get it so it was the ‘H.U.N.T.E.R’ Council, but the best they could come up with was ‘Harmful and Ugly Nemesis Terminators Earning Respect’, which they didn’t really think matched our objectives – at all.