She heard a slapping sound and was confused.  Something hit her in the stomach and drove the breath from her.  Several more quick slapping sounds and she realized that she was being hit.  She opened swollen eyes and saw dim basement type lighting and several men.

"She's awake, Reilly," shouted the man hitting her.

She groaned and looked around, trying to get her bearings.  The last thing she remembered was leaving home for work.  She closed her eyes and realized that she was firmly tied.  She felt a hand under her chin forcing her head up.  She struggled to open her eyes and dimly focused on a leering face inches from hers.

Her arms were stretched out and up at a forty-five-degree angle, firmly shackled, and her legs were spread and shackled the same way.  She squirmed to relieve the pain of the metal cutting into her wrists and took some of her body weight off of them.  She looked around and felt fear run through her.  She was being held by hunters.  They had her.  She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach and she really had to concentrate to keep from peeing on herself.  They were going to kill her.

The man she'd seen in the park walked over and punched her in the face.  She felt her lips split and felt the blood drip.  It hurt, but not nearly as much as she thought it would.  "You sure she hasn't fed," he asked.

"Yea, I'm pretty sure."

"I didn't ask if you are pretty sure.  I asked if you are sure! If she's just fed, we could have a real problem here.  She's young but stronger than average.  If she just fed, I don't want to be anywhere around her."

"Yea, yea, yea.  I've been following her and I know her schedule.  She's not due to feed for two more days."

Reilly grinned.  "Perfect.  Almost at the end of her cycle.  She'll be at her weakest."

"How are we going to handle her? Stake or Sun?"

Reilly considered the question.  "I'd say sun.  I want to spend some time with her for Jake's sake." He held up a wicked knife and slashed downwards, cutting her clothing and opening a gash from her breast bone to below her navel.  He reached forward and ripped her clothing off and let it drop to the floor at her feet.  He ripped her cape off and tossed it with the rest of her clothes.  The four men formed a semicircle to stare at her nakedness.

Eliza felt her face turn a burning red.  The staring men were laughing and leering.  "Aw, she's blushing," one of the men said, reaching forward and stroking her between her spread legs.  Eliza struggled and tried to escape but the bonds held her firmly.  He grinned in her face and punched her in the low abdomen.  She grunted and sagged forward.  Pain shot through her body.  She could hear them laughing at her, and finally, the pain from the shackles on her wrists finally exceeded the pain in her stomach and she tried to straighten to take the pressure off her aching wrists.

"Be careful, Dimitri, she gets hold of you and she'll do you in before we can save you.  Just cause she's chained doesn't means she's not dangerous.  Even if you live, you know what has to happen."

Dimitri shivered.  "Yea." He paused.  "Yea, I do.  I don't want to end up like poor Jake."

Reilly came forward and stared at her.  "This is for Jake," he said.  He slapped her in the face, right, left, right, left .  .  .  over and over until she lost consciousness.  She felt pain through the comfortable darkness and smelled something burning.  She screamed.  The burning was a cigarette being pressed to the inside of her thigh.  Reilly laughed and pushed the burning cigarette hard into her flesh until it actually was extinguished by her body fluids.  "Think that hurts? Wait till morning when we put you out in the sun.  You blister and peel and die screaming and smoking.  You don't know.  It's not quick and it's not easy.  You'll be a lot of fun to watch."

Jake came to her holding the long knife he had cut the clothing from her with.  With an evil grin, he put it at the base of her throat.  "Oh no, oh no, oh no," was all she could think.  She tried to twist away but that hurt too.  She felt the knife cutting her and she couldn't control herself.  She screamed.  The scream tightened her throat and made the knife penetrate further.  Her scream took on a liquid strangled sound and she could see a red spray form as she screamed over and over.  She started gagging an choking and realized she was drowning in her own blood.  Each time she coughed, she could feel the pain of the knife tearing more flesh and doing more damage.  There was no air.  She felt a strange tingle in her legs and groin; she saw black spots, and darkness descended.

She jerked as consciousness returned.  She took a long shuddering gasp of the sweetest air she'd ever breathed.  "See!" Reilly shouted.  "I told you it wouldn't kill her.  Only wood and only in the heart.  I know what I'm talking about."  Eliza gasped, trying to recover but recovery was not to be had.

There were four men and they took turns beating and hurting her.  They weren't too good at it because they kept letting her pass out.  As the night wore on, they got more and more intimate with their attentions.  Each one seemed to go a little further than the prior, but there seemed to be some sort of taboo about actually admitting they were getting a sexual thrill from her.  Hours passed.  She was a bloody mass of pain and ragged flesh.  The men were getting tired and sleepy.

"Ok, guys, enough of this.  Let's get some sleep so we can get up and stake her out to meet the rising sun." There were laughs, comments of agreements and an exodus up the basement steps.  Eliza slumped, alone with her thoughts and fears at last.

"I've got to get out of here! There has to be a way." She strained at the shackles but they were too strong.  She could hear the cross members groan.  If she had fed recently, she might be strong enough to break the wood and pull free, but not in her weakened conditioned.  She slumped with discouragement.  Her entire metabolism was working to repair the damage they'd done to her body.  There was no energy left for strength.  She heard a sound.  One of the men was quietly coming back down the stairs.

"You didn't think I'd forget you, now did you?" he leered.  He stood in front of her and dropped his pants and showed her his erect member.  "You want it one last time? In about one hour, you die.  One last time might be fun, huh? You can go coming!" He snickered

For the first time, Eliza felt anger stir in her.  So far, she'd been dominated by pain, shame and fear, but now she felt anger.  She looked at him fondling himself and felt utter disgust and contempt.  She opened her mouth to tell him what he was a disgusting piece of filth he was, but realized .  .  .  "You are big," she whispered.

He held himself out so she could see.  "Oh, you like that? Last vampire we killed had a weenie so small you cold hardly see it.  Bet you'd never get satisfied with that! Not a sexy thing like you." He stepped forward, fondled her and bent his knees so he could penetrate her when she dropped a few inches to his level and sunk her fangs into his neck.  One vicious shake and she snapped his neck before he could even scream.  She held tightly and sucked the rancid blood like her life depended on it.  It did!

She felt strength course through her body.  The fluid she was sucking from him may taste foul, but it was providing her much needed strength.  Finally, nothing remained to drink.  She dropped his lifeless body and once again strained at the shackles.  This time, a link in the shackles on her left hand gave and one hand was free.  She struggled and was able to free her other hand.

"What's going on down there? Rick, where the hell are you?" She heard foot steps pounding down the wooden steps.  She dropped to her knees and lifted her cape.  She couldn't believe it! Her .380 dropped to the floor.  They had been so confident, they had not even checked her cape for a weapon, or maybe they weren't used to vampires carrying weapons.  She sure hadn't read any rule books that said she shouldn't! She grabbed the gun and twisted around to face the stairs.  She saw Jake come pounding into the room.  She fired straight at his face and watched it vanish in a splash of blood and bone as the fulminate of mercury she'd had the hollow points packed with exploded.

The second man behind Jake skidded to a halt and started back up the stairs but a bullet caught him at the base of the spine and he tumbled back into the basement, much of his lower body totally destroyed.  He was groaning and unable to move, so he was not an immediate threat.  "Gawd damn! Rick, Dimitri, Jake! You guys ok?" There was a hesitation during which Eliza had freed one foot.  "Come on, guys! Answer me!" She had freed her other foot and tried to salvage some of her ripped and torn clothing while keeping a careful eye on the head of the stairs.  "Shit!" she heard him exclaim.

She reached out and grabbed the foot of the man, injured but alive, at the base of the steps.  Pulling him toward her, she saw him regain consciousness and realize what was happening.  Keeping her senses tuned to the stairway, she glared at him as she straddled his body.  "Ready for your ride to hell, little man?"

He whimpered and weakly struggled.

Laughing, she opened her bloodstained mouth and showed him her glistening fangs.  Leaning forward, enjoying the terror in his eyes, she tore his throat and sucked the life from him as he choked to death on the blood that filled his lungs from severed arteries.  She straightened and didn't even bother wiping her mouth.  The two quick feedings had rejuvenated her; most of her wounds had healed and the pain had greatly diminished.  She stood and adjusted her tattered clothing as well as she could.  Spotting a window, she leapt the intervening yards and crashed through into the sweet smell of night air.

Rolling to her feet, she sprinted a few yards to a growth of bushes.  She was in a semi-wooded area and had been held in a small vacation style cabin.  "This is not Kansas," she thought.  "Where the hell am I?" A bullet came out of the cabin and struck her in the left shoulder.  She grunted as it spun her around and knocked her down.  Her body obeyed the laws of physics, but her mind recorded no pain and her body, with its well fed accelerated metabolism, began repairing the damage almost instantly, but that mistake taught her to be careful.  She had no idea what would happen if her head got blown off and she didn't want to find out, but she realized that she needed to finish what had been started.  She could not let the last one live.  She rushed the porch area.  She was moving so fast that she only registered as a blur.  She kicked the door open, wood splintering everywhere, and rolled into the room.

The sole occupant of the room was turning toward her with the biggest gun she'd ever seen.  She leapt again and hit him with outstretched fists in the chest, driving him back against the wall.  She felt his bones break and blood gushed from his mouth.  The gun dropped from nerveless hands as he slid down the wall, to a sitting position, eyes glazing in death.  There was a pot of coffee on the stove, brewing.  She went over to it and threw it on the floor.  Taking some trash from a trash can, she put it in the stove flames and threw the burning papers around the room.  Window curtains caught fire, and surprisingly fast, the fire established itself and began to consume the cabin in earnest.

She could feel the dawn approaching and she was in the middle of nowhere.  Based on what had been said, she thought she'd better not take any chances with sunlight.  She ran into the heavy bush, some distance form the burning cabin and began to dig.  She lay in the shallow trench she'd dug, pulled her cape over her and used a stick to scrape dirt onto her.  As the sun peeked over the horizon, she pulled the cape over her head and rested.

Sleep came quickly.

Having slept the day through, she woke as the sky darkened into night.  Tossing the thin layer of dirt from her cape, she stood and stretched.  Oh, she felt good.  Totally healed, fed and well rested.  What could be better?

Looking around, she remembered she was lost.  Finding some pins in a pocket, she pinned her tattered clothing together as best she could.  Tightening the cape around her, she started walking.  There had to be a road around here somewhere, since there were a very few scattered houses.  Sniffing the air, she smelled the burnt wood smell of the remains of the fire.  Heading towards that smell, she stumbled onto a road just a little distance away.  Hopefully there would be a car along shortly.

“Wait she thought to herself, if someone picks me up, they are going to want to know what happened to leave me in this condition.  How can I explain the ripped and bloody clothing, but not a scratch on me.  That wouldn’t work.”

Chuckling lightly to herself, she wondered if vampires did really turn into bats.  If so, how did one go about doing this.  Laughing now, she thought, “turn me into a bat.”  Nothing happened, “Oh well, I guess that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.”

Still walking, and now aware of her surroundings, she saw that she was nearing a major roadway.  There were cars moving through the night.  “Oh, I know this road, I’m about 10 miles outside of town,” she thought.

Moving quickly now, she was only a blur.  Never realizing she could move this fast, she thought she’d see just how quickly she could move.  Knowing which way to go, she thought I should be home in a little while.  No sooner did she think home, then there it was.  “I could get used to this type of travel,” she thought.

Making sure no-one saw her, she quickly entered her building and went down the stairs to her apartment.  Walking into the bathroom, she looked herself over in the mirror to make sure all the damage they had caused had healed over.  Only a slight pink mark was left from where the bullet had entered and a slightly larger bruise type mark from where it had exited.

Turning the shower on full blast, she stepped into it and began to cleanse herself from the touch and smell of the days happenings.  Stepping from the shower, she dried herself and wrapped the towel around and stepped out the door into her bedroom.  Taking fresh clothing, she dressed.  Just as she finished, there was a knock on her door.

“Who is it,” she called.

“It’s John,” he answered.  “Are you alright, Eliza.”

“Oh John, I’ve just gotten up, let me get a robe on,” she called.  Hurrying back into her room she pulled off the skirt and sweater, pulling her robe on.

Moving back to the door, she pulled the chain back and unlocked the door lock.

John stood there with a slightly annoyed, slightly apprehensive look on his face.  “When you didn’t come to work last night, and I couldn’t get you on the phone all day, I was beginning to get worried.  I see you are alright though, so I’ll go.

Placing her hand lightly on his arm, she said, “please don’t go.  Come in and tell me what is wrong, John.”
 
 

Looking deep into his eyes, she gently drew him into her apartment.  Still keeping eye contact, she led him to the couch and they both sat down.  “Now John, please tell me what’s wrong.”   Breaking eye contact, she blinked, knowing this would give him a few seconds to “come to again.”

Looking nervous, he told her that she didn’t know just how close they were to losing the grant money and having to stop the research.  “Why, when it seems so promising,” she asked.

“Well, Eliza, we have not come up with any definitive proof that vampires do truly exist.  Its all been documented, but in tracking these things down, there has not been and proof that they exist.  I don’t know how much longer they are going to let me run this research, before they pull the plug.”

Eliza smiled and said she thought that it would be alright.  “They will have their proof sooner than they think.”