Bloodrage: Chapter 2

2

            He had memories from a way back in time. Flashes of images which were shooting through his head without having power over them. Brow. That was his name or at least ‘one’ of his many names. They lived in caves, sheltered from the scorching sun that made the sand boil or against the destructive winds that tore through the plains.

            It was a whole other language they were talking then. Many gestures added by hard sounds that came from deep out of his throat. He pointed at one of the drawings on the walls of the cave. Images of slaughter, pictures of the bloodshed in his name. The blood of the little animals was only a drop in the ocean. Then the buffaloes came and the wildebeests and sometimes also a saber-toothed cat if they were lucky to cross his path. Also, eventually, this was too little to quench his thirst.

            He had seen the mammoth when he had made a reconnoitering expedition on the mountain ridge. The majestic creature was grazing in the valley that bordered on the lowland. Fangs, which were at least two times the size of himself gave the animal something unapproachable. It was a bull, a male, which was cast off by his own group to wander on the plains and lived a lonely existence. Nonetheless, he had approached the animal against the wind, it had noticed him. The animal had turned itself to him and had trumpeted loudly, letting him know he didn’t appreciate the company.

            Brow had returned with dreams about a hunt that was still more exciting and bloody than the tribe ever had experienced. His best men were called together and with a stick he drew on the ground where they could find the beast. With a deep grumbling, two of his men disapproved killing this holy animal. Brow growled back at them and quickly took a stone in his hand and attacked them without warning. He hit around him and despite the men stood up for him the best they could, they fell under a series of punches on the ground. Blood was flowing out of different wounds out of the heads of these men and their faces were distorted by wounds and fractures. He left them where they had fallen, humiliated in death and an example for everyone who tried to oppose him.

            In the early morning, they had left. Armed to the teeth with sticks, knives, spears and ropes made of dried intestines, which were intertwined, they went on a hunt. The biggest prey that walked on the surface.

            After a day’s walking, they had looked at the animal from the ridge. Some of them were frightened but didn’t have the courage to show or say it. Brow wouldn’t have mercy on them. Others of his tribe knew that when they would conquer this monster they would’ve passed a border. They wouldn’t be as before. Their name and fame would proceed them and for that they would take the danger dying with pleasure.

            Brow was smarter than the members of the tribe altogether. He gave orders to a part of them to make a surrounding movement and hunt the animal. After obeying this order, the warriors jumped out of the semi-long grass and made a lot of noises so that the animal was startled and ran away in the opposite direction. The rest of the group waited there to harass him with spears. The mammoth turned again to the other side and was received by this group with the same weapons.

            Brow repeated this tactical movement uninterrupted. Two of his tribe risked to come too close to the beast and were spiked on the long fangs. Their blood flowed over the white fangs. This battle lasted for about an hour. The beast little by little got tired. Brow and his men threw their ropes after which the animal stumbled and fell. With a deafening cry, everybody jumped on the lying beast and thwack and stabbed the agonizing mammoth as much as they could. It didn’t last long before Brow, who had the privilege, stabbed the long spear through the heart of the mammoth. The animal lay still after it had spiked a reckless man on his fangs.

            With his sharpest knife, Brow opened the chest of the mammoth-bull and pushed his weapon into the right place between the ribs through the heart. The heart still pumped up one time the blood that spattered on his face and flowed over his naked chest. The mammoth had died.

            When the first mammoth in a loud cheering and shouting of his tribe members breathed his last, he finally could satisfy his thirst. He burrowed himself in the body of the dead animal as a glutton that was starving.

            A group of men who meanwhile had kept them aside came suddenly closer to the mammoth. As if he had an extra sense, Brow turned around and knew the battle wasn’t fought yet. He realized these men would challenge his leadership. This was how their world was.

            The renegade warriors attacked immediately without warning. Brow fought like a devil. With his knife in one hand and his spear with the other, he waved around him. His own blood from different wounds blended with the blood of the mammoth. He didn’t falter. The white of his eyes was ominously glinting in blood red face. He sliced with his first attack the throat of two of them. A few seconds later, when one of the men stumbled, he opened with a strike of his knife his stomach so that the bowels bulged out of their protecting skin. The last two warriors surrendered, but they were stabbed through the heart without mercy by the conqueror.

            Brow turned on his axis, heavy breathing and looking if there were still candidates to follow the tribe members in death. Everyone was kneeling and bowed their heads as a sign of obedience. He felt the power of the blood of his men flowing through him. Much better than the mammoth blood, but today he had both. He could hold on this a long time.

……….

  

            Vladimir Sango had hiked to the log cabin of Daniël Ainsworth where he had washed himself and had pulled on other clothes. He now possessed the memories of this mortal, but the man’s soul had died if he ever had a soul. Ainsworth had always been a wicked psychopath who as spider steadily and patient waited for his victim.

            It didn’t matter to him if they were young or old, women or men. He got a kick out of their last glances, the moment when they realized they would die. He loved the panic in their eyes, their scare and their astringent cries when he took them to his log cabin. He bound them and tortured them till eventually he thought it was time to kill them. Ainsworth didn’t know how many victims he had made. He would keep doing this till someone murdered him.

            All these memories flowed through the head of Vladimir. He knew these were only some of the many of them he had taken over the centuries. New bodies and new bloody memories. Never had he felt stronger. In this century of high tech, the violence of the blood was alive more than ever. He had seen and heard news flashes about wars in the East, but also about troubles and riots in African countries, where a human life had no value.

            He had to keep the identity of this man to be not conspicuous in this society. However, the normal activities of this man would end. There would be no more victims taken to the log cabin to be cut into pieces and buried in the forest. There would be no more victims of Daniël Ainsworth, no more missing persons or abducted children due to the account of this maniac.

            Vladimir felt he would belong in this time. But at night he would hunt the prey he loved the most. No vampire would still be safe for him. Centuries long they were his enemies. He who could walk in daylight without being burned in flames. He, who had also lived by shedding the blood. Vladimir didn’t know where this deep rooted hatred came from. It was old, as old that maybe was created in the becoming of this earth. A concept, a piece of energy that in a certain way was clenched into a body. A thought that was burned with the spark of creation. A force nobody in this world could understand, not even him.

            However, he knew the urge. He knew how it felt to shrivel up from the inside when the blood didn’t flow, the thirst he got if he could not satisfy it with an abundance of violence. His heart did beat for real, if he could tear someone in pieces and drink out of his cut open throat. He wasn’t happy before he could do this to one of the nightwalkers, one of this baleful bloodsuckers who made the night unsafe. Maybe he was just the counterweight for these creatures, made to preserve the delicate balance. 

            He wouldn’t rest before the vampire community was decimated. Fortunately, he had not to sleep or rest during the day as the vampires, not even at night like these frailty humans. He didn’t need all this and could always draw from this inexhaustible source of power of… blood!!!

© Rudi J.P. Lejaeghere 26/12/2014