~~~ CHAPTER ONE: Welcome Back to Silas ~~~
Hello to anybody who's out there! My name is Laura Hollis. I don't know if anyone can hear this, or if there's even anyone left out there to listen, but with the armies of demons rising from the ground and the end of the world looking pretty nigh, I've decided to go full on I Am Legend and try my hand at radio broadcasting. Because chances are, my friends and I aren't going to make it past the next seventy two hours, and the world needs to know what went down here. So strap in non-existent listeners, because I'm about to tell you the best adventure story since they turned Fantastic Beasts into a movie.
So, some of you might already know me as the girl who saved her university from an evil vampiric cult run by an ancient Sumerian goddess who wanted to open up the literal gates of hell. But for those of you that don't, yeah that happened. And yeah, it was as terrifying and awesome as it sounds. But that was five years ago, and besides a brief stint into the ghosts of my 300-year-old vampire girlfriend's murderous past, it's been pretty quiet. So why, you ask, am I suddenly so close to life-threatening danger and end-of-the-world excitement?
Well, it all began when the physical manifestation of an underworld goddess, AKA my girlfriend's half-resurrected undead sister Mattie, came to warn us that the giant, person-eating anglerfish god that nearly destroyed the entire Silas campus had laid hundreds of eggs before it had died. So, like any experienced supernatural investigators would, we called up the Scooby Gang, told them to meet us at the school, and hopped on a plane to Styria…
I stared out of the car windows as we drove, watching as the dense clusters of shadowy leaves and branches melted in and out of the night's unbroken darkness. We were driving down one of those roads you see in horror movies - dark, foggy, and twisting through the thickest patch of forest this side of the Swiss Alps. Every time I looked out the front window I half-expected to see a guy with a hockey mask and a chainsaw standing in the middle of the road, waving us down. And the fact that Carmilla preferred to drive with the headlights off and took the speed limit as little more than a suggestion didn't really help. I squinted harder at the blackness, trying to make out a street sign or mile marker that would give me some idea of how far we had left to go. But all I could see clearly was my own reflection squinting intrusively back at me, hair messily tied into a bun, makeup smudged across my face, dark circles under my eyes. I looked tired.
Carm must have noticed the same, because she glanced over at me from behind the wheel and said, "You know creampuff, the trees aren't going to disappear if you close your eyes for a few minutes."
"But if I did that, who would keep you company?" I said, turning away from the window. I knew I was dodging her point, but I was too excited to close my eyes. My stomach felt like it was doing somersaults with every bend in the road, wondering if I was going to see the familiar outline of Silas shrouded in black each time we rounded a turn.
"Laura, we've been traveling for almost a full day, you look exhausted." She said, her voice losing its sarcastic edge. I should've known she wasn't going to let it drop that easily.
"I'm fine," I said, stifling a horribly-timed yawn. "I slept on the plane."
"No you didn't, you were too busy lecturing the women in front of us about the dangers of using non-polarized sunglasses when driving a sub-standard vehicle."
I was about to tell her that I only brought up that conversation after I had overheard them discussing some very questionable driving techniques when – BLAST! An explosion of sound erupted in the car - an immense drone of high, buzzing static which melted into an ear-shattering screech. Like the wailing of pure anguish, it was piercing and shrill, reaching octaves that I could only register by the shiver in my spin and the ache in my bones. And it was so loud that all the air in the car seemed to vibrate with its power. My body shook so violently that my teeth clattered together and I could no longer force air down into my lunges. I could barely think through the din and pain. I may have been screaming, I think I clutched at my ears with my hands, but it made no difference. My head felt like it was splitting open, tears streamed down my face, something warm and wet was leaking between my fingers. Somewhere to my side, Carmilla was also yelling. She jerked her hands off the wheel and held her head, her face contorting in pain. With no one controlling it, the car spun towards one side of the road, skidding violently towards the solid trees. Still yelling, Carm gripped the wheel hard and slammed her foot on the break. Through the confusion, I registered the smell of burning rubber. And as the squeal of the breaks mixed with our screams, I could just make out words formed from the torrent into garbled, choked speech.
"HE HAS COME TO TAKE BACK WHAT WAS STOLEN. BEWARE O MORTAL, FOR HE OF CREATION WILL DESTROY ALL THAT IS."
At once, the radio went back to silence. All I could hear was a deafening ringing in my ears, and the ghosts of my scream still echoing in my throat as Carm pulled the car to a stop less than a foot away from the start of the forest. We sat for a second, breathing heavily, half-deaf, with blood still trickling from our ears.
"What the hell was that?" I asked. My strained voice feeble.
Carm was staring at the blood on her fingertips, her face a mixture of shock, pain, and fear. Shaking her head slowly, she whispered into the charged air, "I have no idea."
...
When we finally got to Silas about two hours later, we were still reeling from nearly being blasted to death by the radio. Carm hadn't heard the words underneath the noise that I had, so I told her what it had said. She figured it was a warning from some powerful, magical being who didn't want us to be at Silas. Maybe a remnant of the anglerfish god. So now the bad guys are controlling the radio waves and can use them to basically blow our brains up whenever they want to. Great.
We could see that before we entered the grounds that the school was a mess. Where there used to be a front gate there was now a tangle of twisted metal and stone. Craggy fissures wide enough to swallow the car ran for hundreds of feet along the north quad, and the cafeteria's giant tower now sat in two huge pieces on the ground. As we drove across campus, I could see pockets of movement all around. Two teams of warring lizard people were fighting with each other by the Zeta house, a group of students were blowing neon smoke rings on the steps of the faculty building, and three girls in nightdresses were chasing around a giant, headless chicken that was frantically running in circles, slamming itself into buildings, trees, and the occasional bewildered co-ed.
"Looks like I'm not the only one who creates trouble at Silas." I said, watching as the kids by the faculty building starting trapping the giant chicken in a series of rainbow smoke rings.
"Oh, I'm sure that if you were involved, it would be much worse." Carm said back as she steered around a pit of fire in the road.
We pulled up to the library, which seemed to have escaped the worst of the campus destruction. It looked so familiar, even after all these years. I got out of the car and reached out a hand to touch the cool brick. "I know this place is, like, the root of all evil and we've almost died a million times because of it," I said. "But it's kind of nice being back, you know? It feels like home."
Carm cocked an eyebrow at me and crossed her arms. "I think I prefer our apartment in the city. It doesn't have rats, or a water sewage problem, or, oh yeah, the evil offspring of a demonic anglerfish that tried to eat us."
"Right, point taken," I said, taking my hand off the building. "Well, we're not going to get any closer to stopping said evil offspring out here, let's go say hi to everybody."
Just at that moment the door to the library burst open and out came Danny, Laf, and Mel. Danny wore the usual black on black combination that she had favored ever since turning team vampire, but both Mel and Laf were wearing strange, bright yellow visors around their heads which I could only assume were Laf's inventions. All three of them had stakes belted around their waists and Laf carried a large, metallic contraption that looked suspiciously like a Star Trek blaster. They were arguing.
"Well, if you want to go out and look for it, fine by me. But I am not going to be the one to scrape you off the ground when they're done with you." Danny growled as she stormed into the open air.
"That's what the body shields are for, obviously. All I need from you is to carry the thing back up once we get it." Laf said as they adjusted a small, wire-filled dial on their wrist. The obnoxious yellow visor on their head flashed in response.
"Forget it brainiac, I'm not risking my life for some magical book." Danny turned away from the door and looked straight at Carmilla and me. Immediately, the hard set of her mouth softened into a smile. She rushed forward and wrapped me in a hug that felt like I was getting crushed by a trash compactor. Even after five years of being a vampire, Danny hadn't quite regained the gentle touch.
"Laura! It's so good to see you!" She said, lifting me so that my toes barely touched the ground and causing my lower spine to erupt in a quiet symphony of popping sounds.
"Hey Danny. Not that I don't appreciate the love, but you're sort of crushing my ribs." I squeaked. She dropped me and took a chagrined step back. But before she could apologize, I laughed and I threw my arms back around her. "It's good to see you too."
"Hey, Frosh." Laf said, "What's it been? A whole two weeks?" They grinned and thumped me lightly on the shoulder.
"Nice of you two to finally show up," said Mel, crossing her arms and frowning, as was her usual method of greeting.
"It's good to be back," I beamed. It was true. Being at Silas with everyone brought back memories of freshman year. Fighting to save the world against overwhelming odds while tackling the difficulties of being in love for the first time, with a vampire no less. It had all been very romantic, and I'd forgotten how much I missed it. "So, what's the situation?" I continued. "You guys look like you're in full Buffy mode, and the school's a mess. Well, even more of a mess than it usually is. What'd we miss? Is it the anglerfish babies? Are they destroying the campus? Or is it something else? Because we've already had some weird experiences with the extranormal before getting to campus."
"Oh, you mean the demonic voice from hell? Yeah, we heard that too." Laf said.
"Yeah, my ears are still ringing. Who knew the sound of the apocalypse would be so painful." Mel said, rubbing her ears.
"So, that's unusual?" I asked, "It isn't something that's been happening on campus?"
"Not that we know of," Danny said, "But I only got here two days ago and everyone else came after me."
"So, we can't say for sure if it was unusual unless we question some Silas students, got it. That still doesn't answer why you three look like you're running off to battle and Laf has a gun that I can only assume you stole from the USS Enterprise."
"Lois Lane makes a good point," Mel said, "we should probably get back to it, it's going to be morning soon."
"Yeah, sorry Laura but we need to go." Danny said. I started to protest, but she cut me off. "Perry and Kirsch are in the library, they'll explain everything." And just like that the three of them ran off, leaving Carm and me standing on the steps of the library, even more confused than we had been before.
"Yeah, good to see you all too." Carm said as she watched their silhouettes get smaller against the lighting sky. She looked over at me. "What are you smiling for?"
I let out a short, maniacal laugh and rubbed my hands together. "Because the game is afoot, my dear Dr. Watson, and we're going to get to the bottom of it."
…
Laura: Alright, I know the Sherlock Holmes analogy may have been a little premature, especially with it looking like cut and dry case of monstrous activity, but things were about to get pretty crazy. Carm and I met up with Kirsch and Perry in the library. He was discovering the seemingly endless amount of food that the vending machines supplied while she was taking a page out of my old book and vigorously scrubbing every inch of the library's hundreds of bookshelves. They both seemed pretty siked to see us and they explained everything that had been going on over the past few days...
"Well Danny got here first a couple of days ago, I think." Perry was saying. "Lafontaine and I were coming from a meeting with some potential corporate sponsors in Japan so it took some serious fanagling to get a flight here on such short notice. I'm still worried we offended the buyers by leaving so suddenly. I should send them an email to apologize again. Anyway, after several hours of extremely unsanitary traveling accommodations we got here yesterday morning. Kirsch and Mel came together a few hours after that. Since then it's mostly been about damage control and trying to figure about what the heck has been going on here. And let me tell you, it has not been pretty. When we arrived, the alchemy club had just let loose some sort of pathogen that turned all the wildlife into giant beasts. Danny spent the better part of an afternoon subduing a twenty-foot tall squirrel that had gotten itself stuck in one of the girls' bathrooms."
"Yeah, I think we saw one of their test subjects as we came in." Carm said.
"Though it's nice to know that they've kept their membership up even after everything that's happened." I added. We were sitting on the floor of the library in a little space that we'd cleared out. Around us sat piles of books - stacks of rough-looking volumes that occupied all of the chairs, benches, and tables that had been scattered across the room as well as most of the floor. When we had walked in, Perry had been meticulously rearranging a particularly old pile of books from alphabetical order to the Dewey decimal system. Looking around the room showed that each stack had been similarly organized and sorted and each book had apparently been individually dusted. Perry had been busy. Kirsch on the other hand took a more laze fair approach to the mess. He was currently asleep on top of a pile of encyclopedias, surrounded by heaps of junk food wrappers, most of which I recognized as having come from the vending machines. According to Perry, he had chanced across the machines earlier that morning and had promptly ate himself into a coma.
"Well, we have worse problems than the alchemy club's membership to worry about." Perry said. "Something is seriously wrong here. Earthquakes every few hours, fire pits opening up with no warning, a lightning storm passed through and cut out all the power to the main campus, and I've heard some students are showing symptoms of the plague. Something or someone is causing all of this. I guess the only good news is that the anglerfish babies haven't been able to cause any real harm yet. They're all still trapped in the pit."
"Like mother like monstrous fish baby, I guess." Said Carm.
"So what was up with Danny, Mel, and Laf rushing out of here looking like the Ghostbusters?" I asked, "Did you guys find a lead in one of these books?"
"Sadly, no. Though not for lack of trying. We must've combed through every text in the mythology portion of the library and nothing. It's like all the information about ancient Sumeria just disappeared. So, the three of them went out to find the one book we're almost sure will have something."
"What? You mean the book the Dean used as a talisman five years ago to open the gates of hell? The one that Carm had to travel through a room full of fire and knives to get? The one that's still probably in a pit now swarming with the offspring of a demonic killer god, if it's even still in one piece after all this time?"
"That's the one. We've started calling it the Codex, you know, to minimize confusion."
"Those idiots are going to get themselves killed going down there." Carm said, standing up.
"I agree," I said. "We have to go after them. There must be another way that doesn't involve facing a horde of baby demons in an enclosed space." I lifted myself off the ground, careful not to knock over any of the books.
"Well, if you have a better idea, feel free to share it, Laura," Perry said. "But Lafontaine's been working on an advanced energy shield that they're pretty sure will protect them and Mel. Plus Danny went with them. And honestly, we have no other leads to follow. The Codex is our only chance at figuring out what's going on here."
"We should try to help them even so," Carm said as she moved through the piles of books across the room. "Danny Fresh Fangs won't be able to protect both of them if Laf's tech falls through. Laura?"
"I'm coming," I said, clambering over a stack of leather grimoires. As I turned to leave, I saw Perry nervously begin to rearrange a pile of atlases by cover size.
...
Author's Note: Hello and thank you for reading! I discovered Carmilla about four years ago at this point and have been working on this fic on and off ever since, so it's awesome to finally be able to start posting it. I've got 8 chapters written already with maybe another 6 or so to go, so this thing's gonna be long, but I'm planning on updating about every two weeks (pandemics are good for writing time). There's some super fun and exciting stuff in store, which I hope will do justice to the spirit and characters of the original series, so stay tuned! I really appreciate feedback and reviews on my work, so let me know what you think!
Till next time-
M