I've been writing this short story for a long time, I uploaded it online, edited it, and I am starting to reupload it as a better version of itself.
Hunted follows Diana Crowe, a vampire hunter searching for the monster who killed her best friend. But one night, everything in Diana's world is turned upside down and she must find herself facing monsters she didn't know existed, including those close to her own heart.
Hunted contains graphic violence and mature themes. You can read a sample of chapter one below.
"There was blood at the tip of my stake, dripping onto the pavement below. I stood panting, lowering my arm. The thing had put up one hell of a fight, almost besting me a few times before I finally put an end to its unfortunate un-life.
It was a warm summer night, mosquitoes buzzing around, the stale air making the stench of the dead creature even more prominent in the alley I stood in. We were in the warehouse district. I’d caught him just as he was about to swoop in and munch on a helpless factory worker. I left him there, leaving it to the sun to turn him to ash. I didn’t have to worry about anyone finding him bleeding in the alley. We used charmed stakes, ones that turned the monsters invisible to regular human eyes.
Once back in my car, parked a quarter mile away, I tossed my stake into the glove compartment, and turned on the radio. A catchy pop song about the usual clubbing and sex and alcohol was on, backed by a generic electro beat. I hated this type of music but I turned the volume up anyway, rolled the windows down and sped off to report back to HQ.
The normally twenty minute drive took over two hours, with the back road I always took blocked off, forcing me onto the busy interstate. It was eleven p.m., with many of the cars just now leaving the Lakers game we had tonight. Traffic in Los Angeles is notoriously awful, but that night was some of the worst that I’d ever seen. Finally, countless Top 40 songs later, I exited and drove down a lone road, peering closely so that I wouldn’t miss my turn. I’d been in the business for a year now and yet I still got lost too often. I turned left, checking my rearview mirror for cars. If someone had seen me, I would have had to turn around, making sure the other car saw me leave. We couldn’t prevent everyone from seeing us, but we tried to keep the witness number low.
I was in the clear and I drove for a few more miles before finally reaching HQ. It looked like a normal business from the outside. Our front was that we sold pencils and that’s it. It didn’t bring in much money. But then, we were government controlled so it wasn’t as if we had to worry about money anyway. I pulled around to the back, where there was an underground parking garage with only two levels of parking lots. I parked in my usual space, just outside the door leading into the lowest level of the building, and climbed out of my car. My ballets flats snapped against the gravel as I walked to the revolving door.
I was in L3, passing by a bunch of scientists and doctors, or “Undead Specialists”, who I’d learned had spent the past several years searching for a cure. In the late-00’s, a group of Specialists in London created the charm that allowed us to keep vampire re-deaths from the humans a secret. Until then, we had left them for anyone to find, and the police and government would step in and squash any questions public had about the dead bodies.
The cure, however, was the goal now. The Hunters could not allow vampires to live, as they had to either kill their victims, or worse, let them turn. But that does not mean that we aren’t conflicted by what we do. We don’t typically see the undead as people anymore, because they’re monsters that kill or curse others to their lifestyle. But we also know that it’s not the vampires fault. Someone forced them into their un-lives by drinking them to the brink of death, feeding them vampire blood, then letting the sunlight heal, and turn them.
This was why a cure was important. We’d tried to reverse the process, put the drained person into darkness for a day, then let them out, but at some point during the day, they would die of their wounds, even with the vampire blood in them. It was tragic and I’d hoped that something could be done about it soon.
“Crow Feet!” I heard someone call. I looked away from the Specialists and saw him barreling towards me, grabbing me by the arms and pulled me in for a hug when he finally reached me. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah, I am. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“You didn’t get the message?”
I shook my head. I was one of the rare American teens not glued to my cell phone.
He looked grim. “We were all called off patrol a few hours ago. We have an emergency.”
Charlie was my best friend, my goofy other half, the sun to my moon. But the expression on his face, the tone of his voice, held no trace of my friend. He was no longer the guy who first welcomed me when I got here on my first day of the job. He was in full on Hunter mode, stomping off with me right behind him. We took the elevator a floor up and he hung a quick right. Uh oh, I thought."
