Jake shook off the debris, which was mostly made up of loose plaster, and stood up. Since Jake didn't know anything about either explosives or vault doors, his plan had been to cover everything with boom-boom in the hopes that something would shake loose.

Brushing aside smoke, Jake observed that in this case, the door and wall remained completely intact except for some scorch marks. "Balls. I'm gonna need more bang."

Turning toward the front door, brushing dust off the sleeve of his coat and trying to suppress disappointment, Jake heard a loud noise of two huge metal objects grinding against each other. A minor earthquake soon followed. Jake turned to see that the vault door had fallen out of the wall, and stirred up a storm of dust.

"I'LL GET HIM!" A voice shouted from inside the vault. Jake drew his .44 Magnum, expecting someone to come at him.

"No wait! Stay calm!" A different voice yelled, but to no avail, for at that moment, a thin, pale man of average height charged at Jake screaming obscenities, his face contorted by monstrous rage. His mouth hung open revealing huge black fangs.

Jake shot him four times in the face. The first two shots didn't seem to affect him, but the third caused him to stumble a bit, and the fourth finally killed him.

As the dust settled, Jake saw a mostly empty room with armored walls, three cots in a neat row in the middle, and a flat screen TV on one wall opposite a leather couch. Two extremely pale men stood beside the cots. One was furious, while the other seemed to be completely calm.

"Hold him off so I can call our master." The calm one said.

"I'LL KILL HIM!" The other one shouted; he sounded like the one who had advised the now-dead vampire to be cautious. He was now ignoring his own counsel, flung into a rage by his associate's death.

As the angry man charged, Jake lowered his pistol and fired the last two shots in his gun. They both reverberated off the man's vampiric skin. Before he could reach for another gun, the man was on Jake, and the two of them were rolling on the ground. Jake overpowered the angry man, rolling him over on his back, straddling his chest. He stunned the man with a crushing blow to the wind pipe, and then he twisted the man's head until his neck snapped.

Jake stood up, brushed himself off, and turned to the last vampire, who remained in the middle of the vault. Jake asked, "Are you gonna come at me or what?"

"I won't have to. Our master will be here any moment."

"Nope. My buddy bolted armored plates over the door to his little cave. He's not going anywhere for a while." Jake was rather pleased with himself, "I'll probably have enough time to kill your ass and drive over before he busts his way out all riled up. And to top it off, we locked him up a week ago. So he's got to be hungry, too. I wonder why you didn't know about that already. You guy's're psychic right?"

The man collapsed into a sitting position on his cot, "our master is very proud. He would never call the three of us for our help, or let on that he was in distress."

Jake shrugged, "well, then unless he has a back entrance into his cave, then you is shit out of luck."

"No, there isn't another entrance. Our master would never try to escape an assailant. It isn't in his nature."

"Heh. Then let's get this over with." Jake took a rather large machete from his coat and bore down on the penultimate vampire in New York City.

5: There and Back Again

After paying the bill at the cash register at the end of the counter, Jake turned to Dongle and said, "By the way, you never told me about why the King eats bone marrow."

"Where'd you hear about that?"

"Hear, shit. I fuckin' saw it," said Jake, holding the door open.

"You're kidding me, man." They walked across the parking lot.

"Nope," said Jake, "what's the problem?"

"It's a joke," said Dongle, aghast.

"I just fucking told you," said Jake, starting to get annoyed, "I fucking saw it-."

"No, what I mean is, acting like you're sucking marrow is to a vampire what William Shatner impressions are to normal people. It's supposed to make you look like an arrogant prick in a humorous way. And that's because sucking marrow is a very expensive habit from the standpoint that you need to kill someone every time you get hungry- so you can pull out their leg-bones to suck on. This guy sounds like an even bigger dick by the second, man."

"So...he can actually still drink blood, right?" Jake asked.

"Sure, especially if he was really hungry, then instinct would take over and he'd be inclined to bite somebody and suck them dry, ASAP."

"So what if I dump a pack of human blood all over something...say...a dog? Would he suck the dog's blood? And would it make him sick?"

"Maybe; a lot of tougher vampires have really strong stomachs, though he's been living off marrow for a while, so I give it about a 50-50."

"OK..." said Jake, pondering for a second, "but only because it's blood, right? What if I got him to drink something other than blood? Like mud, or wet cement, maybe?"

"You could probably make him pretty sick, yeah. I don't know how you're gonna fill a dog up with cement without killing it, though. And there's no way he'll try to suck anything out of something dead, especially if it's cold."

"I'll keep that under advisement."

Jake sat on the grass a hundred feet away from the entrance to the King's cave. A bum lay passed out next to him reeking of booze. Jake lit a cigarette as he watched the steel plate bolted to the far wall deform under a rain of blows. The King had already been at it for the 20 minutes Jake had sat there, and he suspected the vampire had gained some extra psychotic strength from the deaths of his associates.

The armor plate finally gave way amidst a fog of dust. The King stumbled out into the sunlight screaming. Still sitting, Jake pulled a smoke grenade out of his pocket and threw it at the King's feet. Then he took out a stun grenade and threw that, too. He covered his ears and shut his eyes while the stun grenade detonated. When he opened them, the King was no longer visible because the smoke quickly filled the far end of the space under the bridge. Jake could hear him bellowing and blindly stumbling around amidst the smoke, probably not yet fully recovered from the stun blast.

Jake dragged the bum toward a pillar and leaned him against it in a slumped, halfway sitting up posture. He duct taped bum's head to the wall so the passed-out drunk wouldn't fall over. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a bag of type O blood he'd stolen from New York Presbyterian Hospital. After taping the top of the bag to the wall just above the bum's head, he ripped off both the man's sleeves.

The King was screaming and pounding his fists against the embankment. The smoke had reached Jake, and now he could see very little aside from the bum. Jake took out a tourniquet, which was basically a length of cloth with a hand crank on the end. Essentially, one would insert the loose end of the cloth into the mouth of the crank and twist it to pull the cloth tight around a limb, thus cutting off circulation.

There was a tube at the bottom of the blood bag. It was several feet long with a needle at the end. Jake tightened the tourniquet around the bum's left arm so the blood vessels stuck out, then he poked the needle into the biggest throbbing vein. Warm blood started to ooze out of the pack into the bum.

Jake transferred the tourniquet to the bum's other arm. He cranked it just enough that another good tug would cut off blood flow, without disrupting circulation yet. Jake felt for the artery on the inside of the arm below the tourniquet with his thumb. Finding it, he kept his finger on the throbbing vessel as he drew his knife from the back of his pants. He took the tip of the knife and poked a hole in the artery.

A spurt of blood smacked Jake in the face and splashed all over his coat. It was so hot it steamed in the cool November air. The wound oozed until the bum's heart beat again, splashing blood down Jake's t-shirt. After a third beat, Jake was soaked all down his front.

"I CAN SMELL IT!!!!!" The King rumbled toward Jake, howling. Jake tightened the tourniquet with a twist of the crank, stopping most of the bleeding. He took a bandage out of his pocket, but before he could apply it, the King tackled him, appearing through the smoke and striking at almost the same moment. He seemed twice as fast as last time, motivated by desperation.

"BLOOD!" The King screamed as he took a big old bite out of Jake. He must have been extremely hungry, not having eaten in over a week. He sucked Jake mostly dry in under a second. He stood up, towering over a now slightly paler Jake.

As the smoke cleared, the King turned to look at the city. He threw his arms up toward the sky and breathed the fresh air in deep. Dark clouds started to overshadow the sun as Jake stood up.

Jake tested the air. "*sniff sniff* AAA! Can you smell it!?"

The King turned toward Jake, shocked stupid. "What? I sucked out all your blood, you should be dead!" The King bent over a little bit, clutching his stomach.

"Pff. Who needs blood?" Jake walked slowly, but deliberately, toward the King, who half ran, half stumbled back near the door to his hole, shivering and gagging. "Aside from you I mean...Hey, wh -what have you got a little rumbly in your tumbly?"

"What did you do to me!?" The King demanded between dry heaves.

"You did it to yourself buddy." The King bent over double and puked up all the blood he'd sucked out of Jake. "You were on to me last time I bumped into you. Don't you remember? You said something about how my blood doesn't smell normal."

The gallons of muck the King had just puked up began to dry unnaturally quickly, even for blood. Within a little under ten seconds, it had all decayed into a pile of black loamy soil.

It began to drizzle outside. Jake shouted, his arms held straight out in either direction, flinging droplets of the bum's blood through the air, "You figure it out yet!? I'm just full of dirt! I don't have any real blood! Gotcha, bitch!"

"Wh...I've never heard of anything like that! And I've killed one of everything," The King tried to gather himself together, appearing to be just on the cusp of standing back up.

"HA! You're like a douchebaggy Noah, right? Ha ha ha ha!!!" Flinging his coat aside despite the rain, Jake pointed across the Hudson River at the lump of utter blackness hovering over the city, thundering toward them. "Can't you smell it!? Here comes the hurricane!" Mixing with the rain, blood from his shirt oozed down the front of his shorts.

As the clouds covered the sun and turned the earth pitch black, he stepped up to the bent-double King from behind, just as he was wiping his mouth and starting to look up at Jake. A right hook knocked the vampire flat on his face. He slid sideways leaving a channel torn through the mix of blood and mud that was quickly filled in by the rain.

Jake grabbed the King's collar and dragged him to his feet. The creature tried to pry off Jake's fingers, but before he could, Jake pushed him and let go. The King stumbled a few feet but remained upright. Smiling broadly, Jake said, "Take a swing motherfucker. I'm gonna break your faggot -y little arms with my fuckin' face."

The King knocked Jake completely off his feet with one punch. Jake got back up, covered down his front in the slippery congealed blood-muck, and swung back. The King caught it in the mouth but barely moved. He took a swing at Jake, but this time Jake leaned into it and absorbed most of the blow. Jake gave him a right hook, and the King stumbled backward a few feet.

The King was now clearly suffering from the lack of sunlight. He squared up and took another swing at Jake. Jake ducked it, nearly slipping in the muck made slick by the pouring rain, but still managing to stun the King with a perfectly aimed jab right in the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him. He followed it up with an uppercut to the reeling King's jaw, knocking him flat on his back.
Before the King could even think to get back up, Jake rushed over, grabbed a handful of the guy's shirt with one hand, and started pounding him in the face with the other.

Ten punches later, the King's face was mush, and Jake was bored. He paused for a moment. When he saw that the King wasn't moving much, he walked back toward the bum taped to the wall. Picking up the bandage from the ground, he took the least-muddy looking part and made sure it covered the nasty oozing wound in the bum's arm, as he wrapped the cut up.

As he turned and walked back toward the King, Jake took his knife from the back of his pants. The King had flipped over on his stomach and tried to crawl away toward his hole in the wall. The Rain was making the muck ooze down the narrow slope toward the river, washing the King a few inches sideways as well, along with all the bits of flesh and corpses that had been left from before. Both Jake and the King were completely soaked by now. Jake kicked the King in the side, flipping him over and causing him to groan in pain.

Jake grabbed the King of New York's hair to keep his head steady, and sawed his head off with the knife in a few quick strokes. The King's neck didn't bleed much, since he hadn't eaten in days, and he'd just vomited up all Jake's blood. Jake held the head up to eye level to examine the effect of decapitation on the King.

The King's face was swollen and mashed up from the beating Jake had given him. He had two black eyes, which had become horribly bloodshot despite the King's deficit of blood. Most of his teeth had been knocked out of place or else broken off entirely. His lips and mouth were torn, having been caught in a vampire-fang/Jake-fist sandwich. Just like his neck, however, he bled very little.
Jake was surprised to find a great deal of malice remained in the vanquished King's eyes, and in fact he continued to convulse, apparently trying to take a bite out of the arm Jake held him with. Jake counted to thirty, and slowly the vicious gleaming light left the King's eyes, and he twitched less and less until he was motionless.

Jake punted the head into the Hudson River, where it came to rest along with all the other flotsam and jetsam of New York. As Jake howled at the moon-forgetting that it was still daytime-the rain washed away the last bit of the muck along with the King's corpse, revealing a regular old beat up concrete slab.

The King is dead. Long live the king.

Epilogue:
Jake tossed the bum in the back of his car and gunned it to the nearest hospital, crowing like a rooster all the way, as a flock of doves took flight.

An Associate's Handbook. Dictated but not read. (Bangarang [fyi])

I would like to say thanks to Coop for opening the thread back up for me. Check out the discussion thread and I'll explain the reasoning behind my entry being so late.

Also, this story builds off of my Halloween story. If you have time then read that before this one. (I did this because it was very fitting with the theme) I think you'll enjoy it much better if you do that. If you don't have time then judge it for what it is!

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1201 882/3#bbspost21993266_heading

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The Blinding Darkness 2

A blast, some static, yells of pain and confusion. I knew something was wrong somewhere, but had no clue what or who. For three seconds of eternity the radio laid silent. Troy reached for the walkie, grasped it in his hand, and quickly squeezed the button.

"This is car two, what's all the commotion?" Does anyone need backup?"

There was a few seconds of silence followed by several responses.

"Car one, nothing here."

"Car four nothing."

"Car 3, not a thing."

One by one the cars reported in, none of them revealing the mysterious conflict.

"Car fourteen here. Home base isn't responding. I'm not too far away from the station so I'll check it out."

Troy recognized the voice of the rookie Samuel over the walkie.

"Yeah, like I'm going to let that inexperienced twit run into a potential situation."

"I'll be right there Sam."

I couldn't imagine that anything too terrible could have happened at a police station, but the all too familiar screams that I had heard just moments before told me otherwise. It would take me about fifteen minutes to get there from the other side of town, but I was the most qualified for a dangerous situation.

Blood, bodies, and destruction. Samuel couldn't believe this nightmare he walked into. When he left the station this morning it was a normal day. At least as normal as it got in this town since the murders. He stood in the main section of the station in terror. The worst situation that he had ever been in was a simple hit and run, but now he had fallen into a bloodbath of mass murder.

"You son of a bitch! You'll burn in he..."

The voice was blanketed by an echo of a gunshot. Andy was pleased that his victim was angry till the very end. It was this anger and pain that fed his desire to make his victims suffer. All of his life he was given commands, orders, and treated like scum, but now it was his turn to return the favor. He knew he had to return back to darkness before they found him. He walked through the hallway from where he once came. Troy made it to the station about five minutes after the rookie. It was just enough time to have the events unravel perfectly for Andy.

Troy entered the main chamber just as Samuel did moments before. Even with his tough mentality he started to tremble in fear at the sight of death. He raised his sidearm and tried to formulate a plan.

"I need to sear.. what the hell happened here...?"

"No... I need to call for backup..., but what if the person or people that did this get away by the time I made it to the car to call out?"

He started to question his sanity as he knew no sane person could find time to argue with themselves in a situation like this. He took a few more moment to think of a plan.

"I can do this... I might still be able to find somebody still alive..."

To his left lay a corridor that led to the back of the station and to the right there were more offices. It made more sense to him that if someone were still there it would be in the offices where the majority of people stayed in the station. He made his way to the right with the hopes of seeing some sort of life that wouldn't slaughter him like the rest of the station.

Samuel pushed through the carnage that covered most of his surroundings. He knew that he had the skill to kill anything that might jump out at him, but that didn't mean he wanted it to happen. He opened the door to his left. Before him lay the body of Justin; the owner of the screams that he had just heard a few minutes ago. Even though it was quite clear the gun blast to his throat was fatal he still felt obligated to check for a pulse. As he suspected he didn't feel a beat of life left in his fallen friend.

"Freeze!"

Samuel didn't have time to comprehend what had been yelled. Relying only on his reflexes he blindy fired his side arm in the direction of the sound.

"Put it down Sam."

Samuel was now facing Troy; both of the men pointing their fire arms at each other.

"No fucking way I'm going to let you kill me like you did the rest Troy!"

For a few seconds each one carefully studied the other. Troy saw how terrified the rookie was and knew there was no way he could be the cause of all this.

"If I wanted you dead I would have shot you in the back dumbass", Troy mockingly said as he put his gun away. Sam still held his gun in the air, but slowly realized that it was true. If Troy wanted him dead he would have been dead already. Samuel followed suit by putting his gun away as well. Troy charged the rook and put his hands around his throat, squeezing until he felt no air left in Sam.

"You never and I mean never fucking shoot blindly do you hear me?"

Troy gave one last squeeze and threw Sam up against the wall. For awhile the both stood there waiting for the other to talk, but before either of them managed to get anything out they were interrupted by a noise from the front of the station.

Andy left the scene of blood and gore behind as he rushed to his car. The sound of the engine roared and he pulled out of the parking lot. He knew he had to get home and that he would probably have company, but he also knew that the faster he got there the more time he would have to prepare.
Troy and Sam bolted out the front of the station.

"That's Andy's car, he just gave me a ride to work this morning. Maybe he's the only one that got out of here alive," explained the rook.

The two men got into Troy's squad car and made their way towards Andy's house. They assumed he had run in fear and that would be the only place for him to go. They didn't care if they were wrong as they needed anything to get out of general area as quickly as possible.

Andy looked at the costume. It was a costume that he had once worn for Halloween, but now it was covered in the blood of his victims. He knew if he wanted to continue with his pleasures he would have to get out of there alive and the costume was the only way of doing it. The once bear costume was now lined with material from bullet proof vests and crude cutting tools for claws. As he was slipping his costume on he heard the sound of sirens. It was time for him to kill again.

Troy and Sam rushed to the front of the house and pounded on the door.

"Andy it's Troy! What the hell happened back there? Let us in man!"

Sam continued to nervously pound on the door and didn't stop until Troy had said something.

"Shut the hell up... do you hear that?"

Both of the men listened carefully. A strange noise was coming from inside the house. A noise that sounded like metal scraping against metal. Samuel slowly pressed his ear against the door.

"Yeah, it's like something's clawi.."

There was a loud pop and what seemed to be metal protruded from the side of Sam's head. Troy slowly backed away from the door. Whatever had killed the men back at the station had followed Andy home.

"Get to the car... I can still get out of here."

Even though his head told him the most logical thing to do his body would still only allow him to slowly back up. The metal had been pulled back in through the door and Sam's lifeless body slowly slid down the door, leaving bits and pieces of flesh and blood behind.

Andy kicked the door down. Off to his right was the body of Samuel. He despised this man the most and wish he had been able to make him suffer more. Directly in front of him was one of his few friends slowly backing away. Friend or not he was in his way. At least he would make the kill quick on purpose this time.

He charged Troy hoping to take him off guard. That wasn't like Troy though and it showed. Four explosions from the barely of his gun found his chest, but did nothing more than slow him down. He had hit the meat of the bullet proof vest like most of his other victims had before. Troy stopped firing and Andy figured he had given up.

"Just a little closer..."

"Now!"

Andy pulled out his billy club and brought it down on top of the killers head. Two more swings to the side of the head dropped the man in the costume to the ground. He was once criticized by the guys at the station, being called old fashion for being one of the only cops in town still having a baton in his arsenal. He wasted no time slapping cuffs on as he knew any second now and these metal claws could tear him apart. He brought the man to his knees and unmasked him, terrified of what he saw in front of him.

"An.. Andy.. what the hell... ww.. why?"

Andy could only laugh. A sick and demented laugh.

"I said why you son of a bitch!"

Andy's face was once again acquainted with the thickness of the baton. Andy peered into Troy's eyes and started to speak.

"I'm only doing what needs to be done. Those murders were all done by me, but what does it matter? I only killed the scum, the people who had no respect for life, and the people who don't deserve to live in the first place."

"And what about all of officers and innocent people you just killed? What the hell did they do wrong?"

"They were only in my way."

"What the fuck man! You know there's better ways of dealing with scumbags. That's why you became a cop remember?"

"Oh stop it Troy, you're no saint yourself you know. You murdered your wife and you think you have room to tell me about killing innocent people?"

Troy spent his night at the bar like he would any night after a hard day's work. Driving under the influence was something that he stopped people for all of the time, but it was something he did himself time and time again. When he got home his wife was waiting for him in the living room.

"Troy. I'm leaving you."

Troy didn't argue. He knew it was coming and even though he loved his family more than anything he knew he was hard to be around.

"And the kids?"

"They're already at my mothers."

He didn't say anything else. Instead of going right to bed like he had usually done after getting drunk he pulled out a bottle of vodka from the cupboard. Still in his uniform he stayed in the living room drinking for the majority of the night. All of a sudden there was a noise from the garage. He pulled his sidearm out and slowly stumbled his way over to the door.

"Crash."

The sound of glass breaking in the garage had made Troy's reflexes kicked into play. He kicked the door open and blindly opened fire into the blackness of the garage. His ears rang from the echo as he flipped the lights on. Inside the garage laid his dead wife that he had just shot down. Seemingly returning for some things they didn't have room for the first time.

"Troy, you and I have a lot in common."

Troy raised his gun and pointed it at Andy.

"You know you're right. I'm not a saint."

He pulled the trigger of the gun until the only sound left was the clicking the empty chamber.

"You have the right to remind silent. Anything you say can be and will be used against you in a court of law."

Each bullet had landed directly in the middle of Andy's chest hitting the protective material of the bullet proof vest. Troy had fired with direct precision. Andy was right, he wasn't a saint by any means, but that didn't mean he would blinded by the darkness.

Eceptional circumstances have allowed Fro into the mix for this - I understand that work can cause issues here and if you're close, I may well show mercy to your entry, allowing you in with a shout.

As a result, the contest is now closed.