Vampire Americana

Author: AzardBrazul

Rating: M

Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray

Summary: On June 26th 1925 fledgeling actress Rachel Berry dies. But that is only the start of her story. A tragic tale of Revenge, Hate, Despair, and Love. Explores the life and times of Rachel, from the roaring 1920's LA to 2017 Lima Ohio. America through vampire eyes.

Disclaimer: Glee or American Vampire do not belong to me. This work is a non-profit production.

AN: The first arc of this story will have some heavy similarities to the first arc of the American Vampire comic. Those situations are not mine. Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque deserve credit for them. I simply have taken those situations and elaborated on them. After the first arc, this fic, 'Vampire Americana' will deviate from the comic and will contain mostly original situations. While the comic is loath to explore the Skinner-Pearl dynamic in its first stages, this fic is based on a Skinner-Pearl relationship (because of Faberry). So expect for dialogue and some situations and choices to be very different to accommodate for the new cast of character's personalities. Chapters will tend to be long and will be posted when they are done.

I hope y'all enjoy and have a very good time.

Edited on 03.26.13

Chapter 1 - Prologue: To the Moon

June 1925, Thirty miles east of Los Angeles.

"The first time I watched a moving picture, eh? Well... I was round eight years old, so the memories' a little blurry."

Dry leaves whip up and around as a brand new 1925 model Nash Advanced 6 races, engine screaming, into a pink sunburst horizon, wind howling in its wake as it throttles along the dusty, solitary road leading into the Mojave desert.

"It was my birthday, I can remember daddy's tight grip in my right palm as he led me out of the passenger seat of his car."

A million stars pop into life as the last lonesome strands of red horizon flare out of existence like party-snakes being pushed back into their cans. A sheet of Inky, velvet sky with a million sequins dances on the windshield, Twin pinpricks of red light glaring out at the semi-darkness from within the shadowed interior. A gloved hand, it's fingers curled like talons, flips a switch and the patented Nash fog lamps flare into life, illuminating everything within five meters in front of the vehicle.

Suddenly, it swerves to the left, kicking up gravel and leaves, throwing dust and red sand into a streamlined cloud as the car skids in an arc, before exiting the road into a dusty footpath.

"I remember the sign above the general store, what was it called? Ah! 'Sebastian's', I think. A great big sign, with Sebastian's smarmy mug plastered all over it, his left incisor glinting as he grinned his best -gimme-yer-cash- grin, and huge red letters spelling out -S-E-B-A-S-T-I-A-N-'-S- on top of his thinning head of brown hair.

But I digress, the store was built according to one of those newfangled designs with the square, flat roof instead of the traditional, triangle-loft-included deal. It also had one of those long twisty candy counters that, to my eight year old brain, seemed to go on forever."

Tires screech as the Nash comes to a stop. Gravel crunches underneath as it rolls back a bit before the brakes take hold. The driver's side door locks click as talon-fingers curl round the handle and throws the door open, brown suede booted feet landing softly on the gravel, one after the other. The driver was wearing a heavy brown woolen robe with its hood drawn up, casting silky black shadows over their face, save for two pinpricks of red, staring out from within the darkness like two dying stars.

The driver takes a few steps away from the door, the rest of his robe falling like a trickling pool of brown ink from the driver's seat, to trail behind him as he slams the door shut before walking round to the passenger's side and retrieving a kerosene lantern from its seat.

"I remember my daddy hand me an old worn one pound basket and then mussing up my hair he said to me, my Daddy told me, 'Go on Rachel, fill it up kiddo, I'll stand right here and have a little chat with Mister Sebastian.'

Now, I can remember clear as if 'twas yesterday, the look on mister Sebastian's face. He looked like Brittany did when some asshole ran over Lord Tubbington, tears and all. He had his hands out, clasped in front of him, like they did at church. and was babbling 'sorry' and 'Please' and 'I'll pay on time next month'. Daddy's hand was in his coat pocket and he looked real angry, like Lord Tubbington would when you pull his tail.

Dad always told me to do as Daddy told me to, especially when he looked angry. So me being the behaved little princess I was, walked over to the counter and began to fill up my basket with gummy bears and grape lozenges and BB Bats and orange chews.

So, I'm piling up my basket like my daddy told me to when I notice it, This strange light coming from beneath the curtains at the back of the store."

The driver reaches into his robes and pulls out a ratty looking box of matches and proceeds to light the kerosene lantern as he hums the easy tune of a Billy Murray song under his breath. When the lamp finally flares, he cranks up the flame before walking over to the double doors leading to the dual passenger seats in the back. He grips the handles, twists and pulls, throwing them open.

"It was as if I was entranced, drawn to the light like a hapless moth, pulled as if it was gravity itself doing the pulling and the light pooling beneath the curtains was the ground that my feet ached to land on.

I slowly laid my basket on the counter and turned around, staring at the curtains, maybe hoping that if I stared hard enough I would see what was behind them, but no such luck, as usual. So I slowly walk towards it, putting one foot in front of the other, and suddenly I'm there right in front of the curtains, their floral patterns wave in front of my face and for a moment I think of jungles and moss and ferns and horses.

But I finally work up the courage, and poke my head behind the curtains to see...

...And I can't believe my eyes!"

Crammed between the two back seats lay the corpses of eight young women, all in various states of undress. Some with their coats on, some with nothing to spare their modesty and the rest with varying degrees of in-between. Their skins are a patchwork of bites and scratches, with deep gouges and large chunks of pale skin missing, torn apart and pulled away.

Flashes of Crocodiles, biting onto antelope thighs and spinning around underwater to break free chunks of meat.

Nearest to the door sits a blonde, her legs are pushed up onto the seat to make space. Her head lolling to the left, unable to support itself. A massive chunk of flesh and bone and sinew is missing from the right side of her neck.

The torn ends of her jugular peek through the ragged and torn skin.

Peeking out like little brown Voles, staring out of their earthen burrows their pink noses sniffing the air, hoping against hope that the invading Mink, stoats and Weasels have retreated with their armies

Frothy blood and little pink bubbles seep from the corners of her mouth.

"Mister Sebastian and his wife, They'd turned the storage room into a make-shift nickelodeon. They'd set up some folding chairs, rolled out a torn piece of butcher's paper for a screen...

...And on that screen was the most amazing sight I'd ever seen, -better than the sight of the first flurries of snow, heck, even better than the sight of my daddy smiling,- All these men and women made of light... Pictures, but alive!

The people on the screen, they were loading this rocket into a giant canon, everyone cheering and counting down. I could almost taste the anticipation coiling in my stomach."

The driver snakes his hand under the blonde's arms and hauls her onto the ground. She doesn't look it, but she's pretty heavy. He then starts to pull her, his biceps straining, back bent over forward as he drags her from the gravel and onto the cool desert sand. He then pulls her backwards, deeper into the waiting darkness of the Mojave.

Her head lolls in salute to the chameleons and lizards and desert rats that gape unflinchingly at their passing.

Her creamy legs and thighs scratch and tear from the twigs thorns and even the coarse sand underfoot. Pink lines turning into red canyons in her alabaster skin before finally allowing the sea of sand to erode them away into craters of red and white flesh, leaving a thin dribbling trail of what little blood she still has contained within her.

After a while the driver stops and turns around.

Red eyes shift around in the darkness.

"And by now my daddy is calling my name. Telling me it was time to take my basket and go. I can hear the impatience and annoyance in his voice..."

Gaping open before him is the mouth of a deep worker-dug trench that was designed for easy corporate waste disposal. But instead of garbage, dozens of corpses litter it's floor. female corpses. dozens of young female corpses that would have looked stunning alive.

The driver turns around and reaches for the blond. He grabs her by her waist and throws her over the edge. For a moment, it is as if she floats, limbs spreading and back arching with strands of hair whipping everywhere with no rhyme or reason.

But that moment passes and she lands with a slick wet sound, rolling in a tangle of limbs onto the other bodies.

"...But I couldn't look back, not now, because the rocket, it was taking off! Flying!"

A corpse laying on the very top twitches, as if reacting to the weight of the blonde. Her deep chocolate brown eyes shifting first to the right and then to the left before settling to stare upwards at the crescent moon hanging midway on the sequined velvet sky.

Her jaw moves jerkily and a thin whisper creeps from within it, a pale, stretched sound that nobody hears...

"...Please..."

Her eyelids close as if to blink, and the mocha brown makeup on her eyelids meshes perfectly with its long chocolate brown hair. When she opens again a lone teardrop falls from her left eye and slithers down her cheek, before pooling and dripping from the tip of her chin.

Her eyes dilate as they stare up into the sky, stars dotting their glossy irises.

"...I'm alive..."

"It's going higher and higher... All the way to the moon..."