Among the Living (Tyler G Book 1)

 Tyler G. : Book One

Among the Living

P.S. Power

Orange Cat
Publishing

Copyright 2015

The trick to running, Tyler
figured, was in not stopping every ten minutes.

That would have sounded pretty
easy, of course. Most people even knew that about long distance foot travel. It
was kind of a basic, nearly instinctual thing. Not that he wasn't doing it in a
funny fashion at the moment. Really, moving along like he was, being very
careful never to let his lead foot fall in front of where his shoulder was
while moving, wasn't even jogging. It probably looked a bit like he was skating
around the world, his hands sliding almost straight out and back, instead of
moving in arcs. It was really low impact though, and nearly as efficient as
walking, while letting him go a lot faster. Nearly eight miles an hour.

Still, though it wasn't that hard
physically, even having moved up the sidewalk of the hill next to the park,
there were reasons to get sidetracked from what he was doing. Like the girl who
was lying down on the other side of the hill, actually in the street, next to
the community college. She had a cell phone in her hand, and spoke into it
loudly enough that he could hear her, now that he was paying attention. She
sounded really out of it.

"Help." The word was
apathetic, and seemed nearly drugged. It was hard to tell much about her, other
than that she wasn't very big. Well, that, and it seemed she needed some aid.

Probably protection from the five
seedy people that stood over her.

The sun was just coming up, which
the hill and the variety of leafy trees on it had blocked until he went over
the top. There were no cars on the road, thankfully, or at least this portion
of it, since it was only about four-thirty. Tyler liked to get out early, and
get the hard work out of the way for the day. Plus, the way he was running made
him look weird, so this way, being out before anyone else got up, no one would
notice.

One of the men, who was tall, and
had light colored skin, grunted. It was a low, guttural thing that seemed out
of place. He was dressed to go out, which probably meant the girl with the cell
phone was drunk, and had just been out clubbing with the rest of her friends.

She spoke again, her voice tiny,
and scared.

"They'll... Kill me."
That was for whoever was on the phone, he bet, still moving that direction.

The gang of people, who were
all
pretty tall, seemed to be mixed as far as gender went. Race too. Three of them
were guys, and two were ladies. As he closed, he understood something else
about them. They were all also Vampires. It was the teeth and the solid blood
red eyes that gave them away.

His stomach clenched tightly in
fear. This gaggle of people weren't
regular
people, and they had this
girl on the ground. Ready to take her life. That was, from what he's read and
heard, a bit strange. The lady at the library who'd talked to the public about
Vampires, Linda, had mentioned that they all needed to keep their food, animal
or Human,
alive
. It was a kind of energy based magic that let them live.

Then again, the woman had also
mentioned that the new ones, the very young, weren't always perfect that way,
and
would
feel a desire to kill when they fed. It was why they were all
supposed to eat the bottled blood now. That way there would be no mistakes.
Really, Linda, who had been cute and harmless looking, had said it was so there
would be fewer. Even the head honchos of the Vamps didn't think it would work
all the time. It was what they others were
supposed
to be doing. Not
killing women in the streets.

Pulling a pipe from under his
long coat, a thing that was far too warm for late June, even this time of day,
the man in front grinned. He looked nearly normal, but had really did have
those blood red eyes, with no whites, and the requisite protruding fang teeth.
A classic, if Tyler remembered correctly. Like Dracula, except
that
wasn't a real thing. In fact Vampires kind of hated that story. The library
Vampire had clued them into that one nearly first thing.

They were fast, and strong. They
didn't have claws though, and while their bites were dangerous, it should only
be a bit worse than fighting a person as far as that went. People
could
bite, but the jaw and face shape wasn't really structured for it. Their flat
little faces just weren't up to the task of doing it right. The undead were
built the same way, even with the protruding and sharp looking canines, so they
weren't a lot better off that way than say, he was. It was a thing that he'd
studied, actually. When he was teaching himself how to fight. His mother had
suggested that a man should learn how to protect himself, and being that she'd
raised him alone, he'd sort of
had
to work that out for himself. Mainly
by using his head, and some books from the library. Not that he hadn't picked
Linda's brain on the topic, too. It was a bit weird maybe, but the kind Vampire
woman had stayed for nearly an hour, giving him tips.

Just to take the doubt out of the
whole thing for Ty, Pipe-Master the Vampire jumped in and hit the downed girl
in the head, making her phone fly away. The poor thing skittered on the ground,
moving off about ten feet. There was a voice on it, that sounded like a girl,
but he couldn't make anything out really. Tyler
did
notice that the girl
that had been hit was a bit older than he thought.
Also
a Vampire,
though different than the others there. She was chalk white, for instance, and
while her eyes were also a brilliant red, her teeth were different. There were
rows of fangs, when she was hit again, and her mouth opened as she flew back.
She was also tiny, which had made him think her age was younger than her face
spoke to. The look meant that she was a Manthori, he thought. Though they were
normally taller than this.

The man smiled, wickedly.

"That's right, bitch. We
will
kill you." He took a step forward, raising the pipe, a lead colored thing
about two feet long, once again.

Tyler yelled then, closing with
them anyway, very quietly as far as his footfalls went. The way he was running
wasn't that fast, but it was good as far as not making a lot of unneeded sound
went.

"No. You
won't
. Back
away from her.
Now
." It sounded pretty bold even, with only a small
fearful tremor to it. At least he could make that out. What these others
thought he had no idea. Probably, if they thought anything at all, it would be
about how their early breakfast had already arrived.

That would have to do though, for
the moment, since he was nearly certain that any of these beings could kill him
in half an instant. The honest truth was that Tyler probably couldn't have
taken them all, even if they were Human. Five to one was too much that way for
almost anyone. Two of them had knives that he hadn't noticed, and one was armed
with a pipe. So even if they'd been middle school kids, they could probably
take him. They weren't. All
he
was armed with was his charm and good
looks. Since no one had ever praised either of those things very highly, it did
not look good for him.

Not that he could let some woman
be killed in front of him. Not alone, at any rate. It was a cultural thing, but
one that was pretty strong. Otherwise he would have tried to flee for his life,
instead of being a moron.

The voice from the phone went
silent for a bit, so he called out, in case anyone could hear him.

"We're just off Fourth
Plain, by the Burgerville, up the hill to the left!" At the same time he
raised his hands, going extra high with them. His fists were pointed up, which
wasn't normally that good for hitting, and he hunched into himself.

The idea was, if he wasn't an
idiot, that it would make it a little harder for the Vampires to get at his
throat. It meant using hammer blows as a primary weapon, which might throw some
people off. For a bit anyway. People in America were used to seeing boxing and
traditional Japanese martial arts, so when you did something different, it
might just mess with them for a bit. That, using the bottom of his fist like he
was wielding a stick or club, was a harder way to hit, compared to jabs and
straight punches, holding greater power... but it was also slower. Hunching
like he was made all the sweet looking high kicks too hard to do, so he needed
to keep it to low straight and side-kicks, and stomps. Mainly those for the
same reason. No one really knew to consider them as a threat. Until they
landed. In theory.

He really expected the fierce
looking men and women to laugh at him, or perhaps take some time to mock his
strange stance. Tyler wasn't even bigger than any of them, or armed.
Regular
street toughs would have probably soiled themselves, seeing a skinny runner in
shorts and a baggy shirt in front of them like that. Not out of fear. The
crippling laughter might have done it.

So it was a bit shocking when
they left the girl on the ground alone, and came for him, all at once. There
had been nearly no pause in what they did, either. They just moved, nearly as
fast as he could comprehend. The first man, the one with the pipe tried to hit
him in the head with it. Ty knew that he wouldn't survive that, if it hit him.
Even taking it on the arm was a risk. That meant jumping in, and trying to get
so close to the guy that he couldn't do that very well.

No one was more surprised when it
worked than he was. It had been in some of the books that he'd read on
fighting, but it seemed
so
backwards. Everything inside of him screamed
that he needed to run away. To get back. Only, he knew that wouldn't allow him
to live either.

So he started hammering at them,
which really did lack a bit of speed, but actually staggered the man in front
of him when he connected with his nose. That was followed by a low stomp, and a
shuffle to the right, so that he could try and hit the knife guy too. One of them.
That sort of worked, since that man was only about six feet tall, and wiry,
which meant his rapid turn to the side while performing a blow to the neck took
him all the way down. He didn't even manage to cut Tyler at all.

The other knife man, who was probably
the smart one, just walked around behind him and stabbed him in the arm. It
wasn't an elegant, or deadly move really, for all it burned like he was on
fire. It was tempting to jump back and grab himself, but the ladies, who were
both relatively cute, moved at him then. It was harder to hit them, because
chivalry wasn't
totally
dead. Not inside of his head. It
should
have been, because either one of them could have killed him already if they'd
really tried. Still, he managed to batter them in the head a few times, just as
their buddies moved in, surrounding him.

Which meant he was, well and
truly, about to die.

Pulling the hair of the girl in
front of him, who was dressed in a tight skirt and heels that would have had
him looking away normally, being shy like he was, let him push her into the
blade of the smart knife guy, and move in a spinning motion, trading places with
her. Moving back now, even as the others followed.

It hadn't been a long drawn out
epic battle, but Ty noticed that two girls had walked up behind them, and were
standing there, watching the whole thing. One had long black hair, and looked
like she should be modeling someplace, and the other seemed cute, being short,
blonde and having slightly chubby face. Not too much, just enough so she looked
young.

"Run.
Vampires
!"
There was no need for
all
of them to die, after all.

That finally got the man with the
pipe to speak again, though he glanced over his shoulder at the women before
turning back. As soon as he did the younger looking girl went to the downed
pale form and started to get her to stand, moving her away.

"What the fuck are
you?" This was addressed to him, and Pipe-Man seemed interested, so Ty grinned,
not feeling it at all. It probably looked scared, if not panicked, but there
was no helping that. After all, he was fighting with five Vampires. At
one
time. Fear sounded like a pretty reasonable option at the moment.

He was kind of proud that he hadn't
wet himself yet.

"I'm Batman." He did
the deep movie voice, and got a strange look from the group he was fighting.
Then, one by one, they all started to try and stagger away. It was like they
were really drunk suddenly, and falling all over themselves.

That got him to attack harder,
since it could be a trick,
or
a ploy to get away from a legendary super
hero. Not that anyone had laughed at his clever use of popular culture. He'd
even done the voice right, too. All rough and gravelly.

There were punches, kicks, a few
hip tosses, and trips, which all suddenly worked really well. It was like they
weren't even trying, for some reason. Still, he forced himself to keep to good
form, even as he bled from his left arm. That hurt, he thought, especially when
he moved, but other than dying, there wasn't a lot he could really do.

Then after a few minutes of this,
they all stopped. Dead.

For the day, anyway.

The hot dark haired girl waved at
him a bit, smiling, which was a bit out of place. He would have been kind of
freaked if
he'd
witnessed some poor guy being beaten up like that.