Thank you everyone for all the compliments on the last chapter! I was proud of it, and it was a blast to write, as was this next one. Let's see how this harrowing situation turns out :).


Chapter 35:

Die Never


Walter wouldn't know if all, or any of his team listened to his plea, but that didn't matter anymore.

He was going to get Ralph home, no matter what it took.

That started with making sure he survived his wounds.

Which meant he needed blood.

The man threatening his life at the barrel of a gun had gotten very close to him, so when Walter moved, he doubted the man even realized what was happening until it was too late.

Walter felt his fangs lengthen as he pounced on the man in front of him with a roar. The man screamed as he bit into his neck and started drinking as fast as he could.

It took only a few seconds for the pain from the gunshots to start fading, but in order to be strong enough for the next few minutes, Walter couldn't afford playing it safe with the life of a terrorist.

For Ralph's sake.

He took as much as he could, as fast as he could. The terrorist wouldn't survive this.

He was forced to stop when he heard two more men start running to his position, and Walter couldn't stay stationary any longer.

Now Walter had used his vampiric abilities before, of course, but he never had really put them to the test in their entirety. Suddenly having multiple automatic weapons firing at him, having Ralph and a bus full of other children at stake, there was no better time to truly see what he was capable of.

He jumped straight up off the man he had just fed from just as spread of bullets hit the wall where he had been crouching. In less than a second he was quickly running and jumping from catwalk to floor, to catwalk. He just started moving.

With everything suddenly happening so quickly, he discovered an interesting effect of his combined reflexes and genius mind. As a vampire he was able to react and move at speeds the human eye almost couldn't follow. Combined with the processing power of his brain, he was able to observe and react to his environment at nearly impossible speeds.

When he focused, he observed his attackers, their rate of fire, the angle of the barrel of their guns, measured the probabilities of the path of the bullets based on weapon and shooter accuracy, and could calculate when and where a bullet would hit, and make fast adjustments to avoid them if needed.

In short, he started dodging bullets.

There were two men actively shooting at him as he wound his way around the warehouse. He stayed on one side, opposite from the bus to keep the gunfire far away from the bus, the children, and the explosives. Instinctually, they were moving closer to him as they fired to try and get better accuracy.

There were four other men in the warehouse, he concluded. The one he placed his compulsion on was just standing, watching everything unfold. He wasn't registering Walter's presence, and he wouldn't fire his weapon as ordered. He was not a threat. The second and third were currently shooting at him.

The last one had done what they'd hoped, and emerged from the side of the bus, and started sprinting towards the box that would set off the explosives.

Walter estimated he had about ten seconds before the explosives would be triggered. He couldn't move to stop him, though, until the other two men were incapacitated. He couldn't risk bullets hitting the drums or the bus with the children inside.

With a roar he launched himself down at the shooter closest to him. He was on the lowest catwalk to Walter's left. Walter hit him squarely and slammed him down into the grated floor. Walter picked him up and threw him over the rail and to ground floor below him. Walter followed over, falling about twenty feet, and landed squarely on the floor. That left one active shooter to deal with before he could safely approach the bus.

Walter looked up and found the third man was not shooting at him currently, but had started screaming.

Walter realized he had started screaming out of fear. Fear of him.

Good.

The man didn't stop shooting for long, though. He raised his gun again in terror. Walter screeched at him and charged. He hit him square in the chest and the man flew backward at least fifteen feet and slammed into the wall of the warehouse and collapsed to the floor.

The men were incapacitated for now.

With a growl, teeth bared, Walter turned to the man who was just reaching the box.

Walter moved. In less than a second the man's throat was in Walter's grasp as the man hung off the ground. At the sight of Walter's extremely angry, vampiric features he kept trying to scream, but couldn't due to the pressure on his throat.

This man had almost murdered a bunch of children in cold blood for some twisted, misguided cause. Walter saw this man, without hesitation, ready to detonate the bombs if Walter hadn't stopped him in time.

Walter had a true monster, literally in his grasp.

Why shouldn't this man now die by his hand?

"Walter."

Walter heard Ralph's voice from inside the bus. He turned at the sound.

Walter was standing just a few feet from the back window of the vehicle, and he saw Ralph looking straight at him from over the back of the driver's seat.

Ralph had received his message, and enacted his plan. As soon as the shooting started and the bus was abandoned of its guard, Ralph had instructed his classmates to get under their seats and stay there, and they had listened. They couldn't see him. Then Ralph had moved up to the driver's seat to hot-wire the bus in case Walter had to drive it out of there. It had been best to keep their options open.

As Ralph met Walter's eyes, he didn't look frightened by him. Even so, the thought that Ralph might see him do something very frightening was all the motivation he needed to drop the man he held, and simply punch him unconscious.

He looked at Ralph again, and saw pride in the young boy's eyes. They had done it. It was over.

Or Walter thought it was.

A bullet suddenly hit Walter in his side. Then a second and a third. He roared in pain and looked over to see the man he had thrown over the balcony attempting to stand on a broken leg while shooting at him from the far wall. He must still have been very disoriented because he started simply spraying the area with bullets.

The area was still full of explosives. Walter saw many of the bullets spark at the drums. There was likely only seconds until one was pierced, and set off.

"Ralph! DRIVE!" Walter screamed.

Ralph had been nearly done with his task of hot-wiring the bus just moments before. He ducked down and only a second later the bus roared to life.

Tires squealed and children screamed as Walter jumped on the top of the bus and held on tight. The bus started accelerating towards the wall and without slowing, violently broke through.

Not a second later Walter heard a dull "thud" of one of the drums being finally pierced by a bullet. The roar of the drums detonating immediately followed.


Yeah I do have an issue with cliffhangers, don't I?