The Child of Seras - by MindAsylum - Anime - http://www.hellsingfanfic.net/hellsingfanfic/The_Child

The Child of Seras

Chapter XIV

It was 6:47pm at the 32nd street metro station. On any other night, it would have been flooded with travelers, most of them just coming home from the day’s work or just beginning late shifts. They would get on their train, dodge each other’s glances, ignore the stench of sweat, garbage, and exhaust as well as the omnipresent noise of trains and conversations and blasting iPods, all the while trying to think of the people that made it worth their time.

But tonight it was quiet, save for the clicking of magazines and the sound of boots hitting the concrete floor, and the prevailing scent was one familiar only to those who knew the reasons why.

Jake Rivers knew. If he hadn’t have fed once today already, he would have found it insufferable.

“It’s a bloody mess, ma’am,” began Riley’s status report as Jake loaded the BAERLKS rifle, “We had the bastard cornered, then he pulls a Houdini and goes straight for the Metro right in the middle of rush hour. We shut the place down and evacuated everyone we found.”

“What about the people whose trains were still moving?” asked Seras.

Riley didn’t miss a beat. “There was one in the west tunnel, a station and a half away. Ten to one they’re already dead, and we don’t have the time or the men to check. Besides, we’ve got reinforcements closing off that way, in case the target tries to escape through Maintenance Access.”

Jake grimaced. Why was it, he wondered, that for all of Hellsing’s resources, they always managed to show up just late enough for the vampire to have his lunch?

Seras nodded gravely, and hefted the massive Harkonen over her shoulders like it was plank of wood. “Right then, we head through the east tunnel. Rivers and I will be your support. Let’s move out.”

It was strange, seeing her armed and in civilian clothes, as though it exemplified how she sheathed her strength inside her beauty and gentleness, only letting it show when it was needed. Jake held the BAERLKS at the ready.

“We’ve got second and third squads covering the first two tunnels, but we need your support for the east tunnel toward Manchester.”

Riley turned toward his squad of fifteen, Jackson being among them, and barked his orders in his rough, Irish accent. “You heard the lady, let’s move out!”

Jake looked back to the west tunnel. It didn’t seem right to just ignore the people that very well could still be alive simply, even if it would increase the vamp’s chance of escape.

“Come on, kid,” Riley said impatiently, “what’s the holdup?”

“Those people could still be alive. We can’t just leave them out to dry!”

“Jake...” began Seras, doubtless about to tell him not to argue the point, but it was guilt more than anything else that made him speak, and as much as he hated to cause problems for her or anyone, he just couldn’t stay quiet on this.

“Well what you want me to do, kid?” said Riley, like a father explaining to his son why people fight wars. “We need to close off every exit, or the bastard might bolt, and that train is a good clip past the last maintenance door. We send in men to check, she could just walk out the door and past us. Alucard is ghoul cleaning in the West London tunnel, so he can’t support us. We’re already spread thin as it is, and I don’t want a score of men dying for a train full of corpses.”

“Then let me go.”

The words sounded so strange coming from his mouth that for a moment he wasn’t entirely sure he was the one who said them. One look at Seras’ face was proof enough.

“And what happens if you run into the target alone?” she chastised, like an overbearing mother, “You don’t have the experience to—“

“Then I’ll call for the squad blocking the exit, they can cover me.”

“We don’t have any idea how many ghouls are between there and here.” Seras went on, practically grasping for straws.
“What difference does that make? I’m armed, they’re not.”

“Out of the question. I’m not letting you risk your life for—“

“Then what the Hell am I doing here!?”

He said it much louder than he meant to; it echoed many times before the tunnels fell quiet again. He snapped at her. Seras was his master, his best friend, and he snapped at her. He wanted to apologize, to tell her to forget about it, to just keep on going, but then she turned to Riley, who just shrugged, and said, “Your vamp, your call.”

“Please...” he said, his voiced tinged with regret, “I just want a chance, that’s all.”

Seras looked back up at him, suddenly reminding Jake of how much taller he was, and her face conflicted and uncertain, an unsettling change from her usual confidence. She plucked a radio from her side and handed it to Jake.

“If you find anyone, guide them through the tunnel where third squad is waiting; I’ll tell them you’re coming. The second you see anything, you call for backup, and do not engage, understand?”

Jake took it, and nodded tersely. He had never thought of himself as being “brave.” Not by a longshot. He just hated the idea of a train full of people being eaten alive just because no one was willing to take a chance.

I won’t let you down, Seras, he thought to her.

Just come back in one piece, and you won’t, she said with the soft smile she reserved for him, and him alone.

He turned and sprinted into the tunnel, vanishing into the opaque shadow. It mattered little to him; he could see just as well. He just wished he was better at disguising the echoing crunch of gravel made by each step. If the target was out this way, he’d have already heard him a station away. He’d have to ask Seras about that later: vampires were supposed to be stealthy, but Jake might as well have been a galloping horse for all the noise he was making. It didn’t really matter, he supposed: if the vampire got spooked and tried to flee in the opposite direction, then he’d get mowed down by the perimeter Hellsing set up. If he tried to meet Jake head on, well, then things might get ugly.

He’d never faced another vampire before, and especially not alone. He was too focused on potential survivors to worry about it before, but now, with the dark closing behind him and stretching endlessly in front of him, and the silence that broke only by his own footfalls, he began to wonder if he should have heeded Seras warning. If they were both undead, then surely that would level the playing field.

Wouldn’t it?

The more he watched the brick surrounding him pass by in a blur, the more he realized that he’d never given himself the time to marvel at the physical prowess being undead brought him: he wasn’t getting tired or even strained. It might have simply been the bag of blood that Seras kept in her jacket just before the mission, but even so, he knew he never could have kept this up as a human.

There was a light ahead, meaning he was about to come upon the station. The train couldn’t have been much farther. He would have simply sped past it, but he heard something that stopped him dead in his tracks: footsteps.

They were quick and light, barely audible over Jake’s own, but their rapid succession meant one of two things: either a civilian with short legs was looking for an exit, or the target was doing the same. Jake put his back to the wall, clutching the BAERLKS in his hand. A cold feeling crept into his gut, and he ceased breathing, thankful for once that he had no audible vital signs. He stepped as carefully as he could, praying that Seras wouldn’t call him on the radio. The flickering florescent lights betrayed no movement, the tunnels echoing no sound, not even a draft.

Sidestepping as quietly as he possibly could toward the station, hating the unseemly silence and stillness of the place, he found a whole new appreciation for Hellsing’s human soldiers. What must it have been like, to constantly face creatures so much more powerful than you, hiding in places you can’t see, moving in ways you can’t hear, knowing that one missed shot, one cough, could mean becoming its meal or worse, its puppet, all the while paradoxically being forced to work with the same creatures? And when the night’s work was over, no public recognition was given, and they had to tell their wives and children that the security job was going great, and that their pension might cover their college funds. No ?

other soldier in the world could boast that, and for that matter, Hellsing couldn’t either. The secret had to be kept above all else.

For all they have to lose, they face this every night, without so much as a “thank you “. He mused. And here I am, a vampire, with no family, no friends, no life outside of Hellsing. What excuse do I have?

Jake broke cover, sweeping his rifle into the light and around the station. Nothing but empty benches and full trash bins.

Then he looked down.

Bloody footprints; leading from out of the men’s bathroom to a large bloodstain on the bench in the center. They were probably sneakers by the look of the soles, and they were small—too small for any adult. A tiny, rust colored handprint was stuck to the door where it had been pushed open. This couldn’t have been the target...could it?

Jake felt himself being pulled toward the door, following the footprints. Trembling, his hand found the handle, and in a single, frantic motion, he pulled it open.

The footprints continued, coming from a stall on the far end. Spurts of blood congealed on the white tiled walls, trickled off the mirror, but invoked none of the bizarre hunger it normally did. Suddenly, he felt as if he’d returned to his days as one of the living; when blood made him dizzy and sick, rather than anxious and hungry, when it was not a food source but a reminder of the painful frailty of life.

And how easy it was to snuff out.

He found himself at the front of the stall, where the footprints ended. There was a pool of blood at his feet, and idly, he realized his heart was beating, his lungs frantically sucking in air as if it was a necessity again, and there was a cold sweat brimming on his forehead. Even so, impossibility of what was happening was lost on him, as he took a deep breath, and pushed the stall door open.

Sprawled on the piss stained, pubic hair-ridden floor, was a mangled hunk of meat and black fur that might have once passed for a dog. Its head had been smashed to pieces, and the rest of it was so twisted and broken that it was impossible to even guess at the breed. One of the pieces still had an eye, and as Jake looked upon it, he felt a sensation he hadn’t since becoming a vampire.

He snapped around and lurched into the sink. Thick, reddish-brown vomit splattered across the white marble counter, oozing down the edge onto the floor like rotted meat juices dumped outside a butcher shop. The sight and smell of it was enough to make him dry-heave several more times before his heartbeat vanished and his breathing stopped. He ran the water over his hands and washed his face, as though tainted by what he’d seen. After a the few minutes it took for his nausea to go away, he brought his head back up to the mirror, to see if he’d washed the blood off of his mouth.

And found that the dog was gone.

Not only that, but the footprints that had once lead toward the corpse, were now leading away.

A bloodstained, child-sized jacket hung halfway out of the trash can on the opposite side. He regarded it for a moment, and felt soiled, as though he’d just taken it off himself. He opened the door, and sitting on the bench, staring blankly at the wall, was a small child.

His hair was sticky with sweat, and streaks of dry blood congealed on his face. His blue T-shirt was clean, but his pants and shoes were covered in reddish-brown stains. A jagged piece of rebar lay at his feet, covered in blood, hair, and chunks of red meat. He turned to Jake, never breaking from his stare.

“I never liked dogs,” he said, in a voice monotone and disconnected, as it were really a ventriloquist speaking through him, “you never know if they’ll bite.”

The fluorescent lights shined so brightly in Jake’s eyes that he had to look away. He blinked away the blur, but the boy, and the blood, were gone. Jake stared at the bench, as though the child might reappear and explain the bizarre nightmare. It didn’t happen.

That couldn’t have been a memory, not like the one before, but then what was it? A daydream? A vision? Was it his own mind fighting against him, sabotaging any potential success with a horrifying image to paralyze his will to act? He couldn’t allow it. Jake shook his head, trying to physically prevent any doubts of his sanity from settling into his consciousness. The mission and a train full of potential survivors were at stake; now wasn’t the time to play psychoanalyst with himself. He had a job to do.

He repeated this thought again and again, like a mantra, his vision still a little blurry, and with his icy nausea refusing to let go as he pressed on, hoping that this brief stop in wonderland hadn’t cost dozens of people their lives. Another stretch of darkness, this one longer than the one before, and his footsteps seemed louder the closer he got to that train.

He stopped as the smell of burnt blood hit his nostrils, still inducing that strange sickness in him, like someone offering you a third Twinkie when you know the first two might have given you cancer. No screams, groans or shuffling steps. He prayed it didn’t mean what he thought it did.

He found the first body ten yards later.

It was a middle-aged man with graying hair and a growing bald spot, wearing a drab brown sweater that reminded him of an old English teacher he had in high school. He was sprawled on the tracks, the limbs contorted, poking out at odd angles like a squished bug, but not broken. The right hand rested on the third rail, most of the skin blistered and peeled back by the thousands of amps that had ran through it in what was probably an escape attempt. His eyes were wide open, as if held by scotch tape, staring along the darkened tracks that stretched on for miles. Not a bite mark on him. The vamp must have liked his meat rare.

He checked the pulse anyhow, still holding out some kind of hope that the current didn’t stop his heart. No dice. He was spared the fate of a ghoul, but for Jake, this wasn’t near enough. Without knowledge of what you were faced with, were those really the only options when you were hunted these creatures? A quick death? A momentary turn as a puppet for the amusement of some depraved monster?

Joining their ranks?

Ahead lay the train, where the scent was so strong Jake gagged. It smelled like bad food, the kind that sits in the back of the refrigerator for months, and is unidentifiable by the time common sense dictates that it be thrown away. That smell meant that they’d be ghouls within the hour, maybe even sooner, where either he or Hellsing’s soldiers would have to dispose of them.

The moment he got onto the train from the open emergency door, raised his rifle, pressed it against the first victims head—an elderly woman in a flannel shirt and a grey skirt--submersed in that God-awful smell; surrounded by the drying bodies of a dozen men, women, and children who’s only crime was wanting to get in home in time to catch BBC or eat their dinner warm or stare at the ceiling wondering what to do with themselves; these ordinary, naïve people, the reality of it hit him:
He failed.

BLAM!

More specifically, he failed them. He’d argued with his commanding officer, snapped at his best and only friend, and risked his own unlife only to show up a day late and a dollar short. A single flash of light erupted in the room, highlighting what remained of his work.

Another victim, this one a girl, not much older than he himself, her Ipod headphones still in her ears, still playing some grotesquely cheery pop song. He idly wondered if that made the vampire’s job any easier.

BLAM!

Hellsing’s duty was to protect people, not sweep them under the rug and file them under “collateral damage,” like they were broken toilet seats or bullet holes in the side of a building. It was his duty. And he failed.

BLAM!

Maybe his “dream” had slowed him down just enough for the vamp to get away, or maybe, like Riley said, they were dead before helping them even entered Jake’s mind. Either way, it changed nothing. They were still dead, and all Jake could do for them was make sure they stayed that way.

I’m not a soldier, he thought, I’m a janitor with a gun.

He finally made his way to the engineer’s cockpit, where he was sure the last victim was just beginning to twitch back to life. Lost in his own disappointment, it was no surprise that he didn’t see the shadow move out the corner of his eye, or hear the whisper quiet footsteps against the thin, stained carpet over the sound of his gun clicking as he prepared to load another magazine.

The cold iron of the crowbar sank into his temple like a nail into an orange. He dropped his gun and for a moment all he could see were the hands of his assailant: pale and thin with long fingers and nails, painted red. He didn’t even remember his face smashing through the thick, Plexiglas window, just that he was on the ground, his face sunk in the gravel, covered in his own blood—or did it technically belong to someone else?

He felt himself being lifted by the lapel of his uniform, and he managed to get a vague outline of her face. Gaunt, pale, and bony, just like her hands, only with more red smeared about her lips and neck like a bibless two-year old, with the gleaming, bloodshot eyes of the dope fiends that held the high school kids at knifepoint back in L.A. The kind of face you’d only see as pretty after your fifth shot of vodka and a decade of celibacy. Her teeth were red like the rest of her mouth, so in the crimson haze it seemed she just had a gaping, vacuous hole where her mouth should have been.

It was no surprise that she was mistaken for a man. In fact, Jake was convinced that the creature that held him was never even a person, just some warped animal that barely resembled one. Like a walking stick bug that blended in just enough to go unnoticed.

She spoke then, or at least it looked like she was speaking: his brain hadn’t healed enough to make out any real words, but somehow he was able to gather her meaning.

“Are you afraid?”

It was funny, because if his head hadn’t been bashed in, he might have asked himself the same question. Not waiting for an answer, she reared back a fist, much like Alucard had in the woods weeks ago, and slugged him the face, turning his nose from splinters to dust and sending him skidding across the gravel floor.

His head had mostly healed by now, but as he reached for his sidearm, the vampire’s foot connected with and broke his ribs, sending him careening into the wall. He got off a one shot, but it was thrown off by his back meeting the wall, and disappeared harmlessly into the gravel beside his target.

Finally able to land on his feet, he knew she was too close to attempt a shot just yet. He threw a right hook at her face and she ducked, jamming her elbow into his gut, nearly breaking the skin, and followed with an uppercut that broke his jaw in two.
It didn’t take long for him to figure out that he was outclassed. This vampire didn’t just know how to fight; it knew how to use every ounce of its strength into each strike with the cunning savagery of a tiger.

Seras, “You really need to stop holding back.”

Alucard, “Are you flinching again!?”

{continued...}

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