Chapter 90: S#15. From Twilight to Space (4)
by fnovelpia
The sun set, and the moon rose.
As usual, I met the vampire hunter from next door.
I asked Brooke about Miller’s daughter and wife.
Brooke took out a cigarette.
“Who told you about Miller’s family?”
“Nancy did.”
“And who told Nancy?”
“Miller’s daughter herself. They must have met somewhere by chance.”
The cigarette tip glowed. His red round sunglasses gleamed.
“That’s strange. Miller is single. He has no wife or daughter.”
“Then who is the older woman living with him?”
“That’s Miller’s mother.”
His mother?
“That can’t be… I saw a young girl at Miller’s house. She looked like his daughter.”
“You must have seen wrong. Or maybe it was his niece visiting.”
So, the Miller couple (or not) and the daughter (or not)…
What’s the real story? Why would they lie to Nancy?
“Stop with the useless suspicions. Miller is an old friend of mine. Let’s go find the spaceship.”
Brooke dropped the cigarette. He crushed the butt under his foot.
Miller didn’t trust Brooke, but Brooke trusted Miller.
Miller’s words from his visit earlier kept echoing in my head.
“As you know, Mr. Brooke is not in his right mind. The spaceship was probably a hallucination he saw while fighting werewolves.”
Having fought alien wolf vampires for nine years, Brooke certainly wasn’t sane.
But was he crazy enough to see a nonexistent spaceship?
I hid my doubts and got into the car with Brooke.
We had almost eradicated the alien wolf vampire packs in Tromaville.
Ordinary vampires were manageable, but the Alphas, the leaders of the packs, were tough opponents.
We had faced death and the risk of becoming vampires multiple times.
But we continued the slaughter, killing the Alphas.
Our goal was to find the spaceship, meet the leader’s only kin, and kill the leader through him.
“I’ve got new information,” Brooke said, turning the steering wheel.
“What new information?”
“The leader’s kin is a hybrid. A mix of wolf and human.”
I was suspicious before I could believe it.
Our only informant, the drug addict, had died earlier. Who did he hear this from?
The car arrived at a gambling den.
Inside, colorful neon lights enveloped us.
A strip show was in full swing on a shady stage. The women, naked and pole dancing, had wolf ears and tails.
Was this a gambling den for alien wolf vampires?
Those pretending to be human panicked and ran out when they saw us.
The rumor about the duo of hunters who slaughtered vampires like butchers was well known in these parts.
We didn’t bother chasing the escapees. Our target was the Alpha.
Most people inside the gambling den fled.
Bartenders, dealers, and strippers screamed and rushed for the emergency exits or jumped out of windows.
But someone sat leisurely at a roulette table.
It was a young woman.
Brooke sat at the table.
“Are you the boss here?”
“Yes.”
The well-groomed woman said, her voice dripping with a strange allure.
She was fiddling with a casino chip. A flying saucer was drawn on the chip.
“Are you here to play a game?”
“Yes. We don’t have money to buy chips, so we’ll bet this.”
Brooke took out garlic from inside his coat and placed it on the table. He added a cross on top.
It was a provocation. The woman didn’t flinch.
“Interesting.”
“I’ll make it more fun.”
When Brooke raised his arm, the crossbow on his wrist unfolded its wings.
I also pulled out my silver axe and flipped it upward. The spinning axe handle landed back in my hand.
The woman did not show anger. She leaned slightly toward us.
“I heard you’re looking for the leader’s son.”
“That’s right. And to do that, we need to kill you first.”
“There’s no need for that. What you’re looking for is right here.”
The woman pressed a button hidden under the edge of the table.
The strip show stage began to rotate, revealing another stage on the opposite side.
On this stage was a massive structure.
In the dark, unlit space, only a shadowy outline was barely visible.
“Th-that…”
Brooke’s mouth fell open.
“It’s a spaceship! A spaceship!”
“What? A spaceship?”
“The Pandora’s Box that brought the first alien wolf vampire to Earth… Inside that is the leader’s kin! It must be! This is what we’ve been searching for all this time!”
Brooke, unable to contain his excitement, exclaimed that his plan was correct.
I stared into the darkness. The outline on the stage did indeed look like a round flying saucer.
Just then, the woman placed her delicate hand on my shoulder and whispered seductively.
“Do you believe that man?”
“……”
Brooke approached the stage.
The stage lights suddenly came on, revealing the structure’s true form.
It really was a spaceship on the stage.
But something was mounted on top of it.
It was a Gatling gun.
“What the…?”
The eight barrels began to spin rapidly.
Realizing it was a trap, the muzzle flashed.
Ratatatatatatatatatatata ─────────────────
The continuous gunfire pounded my eardrums. The Gatling gun swallowed the long ammunition belt, firing at a rate of 4,000 rounds per minute.
Everything in front of it shattered like rotten leaves.
Brooke belatedly dropped to the ground, but a bullet grazed his side.
He collapsed, intestines spilling out.
The woman who had been holding my shoulder threw me upward.
My back smashed through the ceiling panels.
As I fell, the woman slashed at me with sharp wolf claws.
I blocked it with my axe. I landed on the roulette table, splitting it in half.
“Foolish humans, I’ll kill you here!”
Nine tails sprouted from the woman’s backside. Pointed white ears emerged as well.
She howled and charged at me. Her hand, like a guillotine, was about to strike me.
Before she could hit me, silver arrows pierced her arm.
Brooke stood there, clutching his spilling entrails.
“I’m… still… fine…”
“Grrr, you bastard!!!”
The woman turned her body towards Brooke.
I reached out and grabbed one of her tails. I pulled her towards me and slammed the axe blade into the back of her head.
The female wolf vampire fell.
Just then, the spaceship’s hatch opened, and someone peeked out.
It was a familiar face.
“Miller…?”
“Did you believe me?”
It was Miller, smirking crookedly.
Brooke, bleeding, aimed his crossbow.
“It was you… You were the hybrid…”
He pulled the trigger.
The hatch closed. A powerful engine noise filled the space.
The spaceship advanced, firing the Gatling gun. It wasn’t a model but a functional machine.
The spaceship sped across the stage, ramming into Brooke. It sounded like a deer getting hit by a 5-ton truck.
With Brooke pinned to the front, the spaceship broke through the casino wall and continued outside.
I pulled myself together and hurriedly ran out.
I got into the car and started the engine. I sped off, chasing the retreating spaceship.
A night of madness—
The flying saucer and my car drove the wrong way down the highway.
A large full moon hung in the sky.
We left the highway and headed into a residential area.
The spaceship wasn’t flying. That made it even more terrifying.
It crashed through fences and house walls.
A flying saucer zipping through living rooms I’d never seen before.
It kept breaking through fences and houses.
Living room, fence, living room, fence. The insane destruction repeated.
A doghouse in a yard was sent flying.
It crushed a middle-aged man watching TV in his living room and threw a babysitter cleaning the house.
The spaceship barreled through numerous houses.
“Stop, you crazy bastard!!!!”
I honked as I chased after it at 80 km/h.
I drove straight through the holes the spaceship made in the walls.
The scenery started to look familiar.
Wait a second. This is the direction to Ellen’s house…
We hadn’t even lived there for a month, and it was about to be destroyed.
More importantly, Nancy was home. She would be sitting at the dining table, sipping beer.
The image of the spaceship crushing Nancy flashed through my mind.
I took off one shoe and wedged it against the accelerator. Then I climbed out the window.
I stood on the hood of the moving car, feeling like I was surfing.
I jumped and clung to the back of the spaceship.
Crash- Bang-
The spaceship smashed through walls in quick succession.
Dirt and building debris sprayed all over me. I could feel the impact of the hull breaking through walls.
I crouched down and swung my axe at the nozzle spewing flames.
I broke the nozzle, but I was a step too late.
The spaceship crashed through the wall of Ellen’s house.
It barely stopped after plowing through the living room and into the kitchen.
Thick dust billowed everywhere. I got off the spaceship.
Thankfully, Nancy was unharmed. She was passed out drunk at the dining table.
But Brooke was not okay.
Clinging to the front of the spaceship, only his upper body remained.
Brooke’s body fell limply. The table shook, and the beer can toppled over.
Nancy, still lying on the table, hiccuped and lifted her upper body. She met my eyes.
“Summer… I’m not drunk at all today…”
She collapsed again.
Ellen’s howling echoed through the wrecked house, filled with the large spaceship and debris.
As if responding to the howl, the spaceship’s hatch opened.
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