The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
Training the village

“Charlie you need to be patient with everyone here” Jack said

“why?” Charlie asked

“because people do not understand why you are here” Jack replied

“and what did you tell them?” Charlie asked

“not a lot, what could I tell them” Jack said

“well, you could have told them that I am here to help” Charlie said

“I did that but they wanted to know why they had never seen you before and some of them who had been to your cabin when they were younger said that you still looked the same” Jack replied

“and” Charlie said

“you don’t understand, do you?” Jack asked

“understand what?” Charlie asked

“how is that after all these years you still look the same as when some of us used to come up there and watch you” Jack replied

“what is there to understand?” Charlie asked

“you didn’t want me to tell them what you are?” Jack said

“I did not, humans do not always understand things that are different from them, all they will see is a vampire” Charlie replied

“I understand” Jack said

“you are not like most other humans Jack, you seem to be able to accept what is in front of you and what you can see” Charlie said “so, what did you tell them?” Charlie asked

“that you are the daughter of the woman we used to see up there” Jack replied

“but that’s just silly, surely they would know having never seen a man up there, that it is impossible for that to be the answer” Charlie said

“I gave them that answer and they did not say any more about it, although they did have lots of other questions” Jack said

“like what?” Charlie asked

“like how you are going to help them? How do you know what you do? And why you haven’t helped before” Jack said

“and what did you say?” Charlie asked

“I told them that you were going to train them to fight, I also told them that you would teach them anything that you thought they may need to know, I told them that you knew what to do because it was what your parents did and as to why you haven’t helped before I just said that you didn’t, after all I did not want to tell them that you didn’t want to help because you were too busy hiding from the world” Jack said

“you know I was not hiding from the world I had no idea what was going on” Charlie replied

“you had no idea what was going on because you were hiding” Jack said

“I was not” Charlie shouted

“it’s not nice to judge people when you don’t know anything about them, yet you have judged everyone here as not be able to accept what you are” Jack said “and yes, you was not hiding from the world but you did nothing to help it when it was your job, I know that there are many others that are responsible for what happened but if you want to make this world right, then you may want to start treating people a bit better before everyone turns on you” Jack added

“if you say so” Charlie replied and walked off ahead of Jack, Jack was probably right that she had judged the people of his village before meeting them but in all her life she had never met anyone that would accept the fact that she was a good vampire, she was the only one of her kind, many vampires had tried to go good through the years but not one of them stuck to it which led to humans not wanting to trust them, Charlie would not accept the fact that she needed to be nicer to people, she was who she was and that was never going to change, not one of them could really help her in what was to come, not one of them was strong enough.

Charlie and Jack walked into the village hall where everyone was waiting for them, as soon as Charlie walked through the door, they all began shouting questions at her, it seemed that they had asked Jack but he could not answer many of them, Charlie took a deep breath

“enough, one at a bloody time” she shouted

“who are you?” Julie asked “Jack wouldn’t tell us” she added

“it really does not matter who I am, I am here to help you and that is all you need to know” Charlie replied

“how long are you staying?” Len asked

“a few days” Charlie replied

“if you can really help us, what do we need to do?” Len asked

“I can help you, I can show you everything you need to know to keep them away from here and we can both show you how to fight them and how to kill them,” she replied and this time not one person said anything, good she thought they were finally listening and not answering back “before we start there are a few things that I need” she added

“what do you need?” asked Len

“do you have a forge?” Charlie asked

“why?” Len asked

“because you need to forge silver weapons, silver can kill a vampire if you pierce their hearts with it” Charlie replied

“Tom” said Len and a man stepped forward

“hi, I am tom, the smithy, how can I help?” he asked

“can you forge swords and arrow heads?” Charlie asked

“I can but have not done so in a very long time” Tom replied

“fine do what you can and as many as you can” Charlie replied

“I will do my best but we do not have much silver here” Thom said

“use what you have and I will bring you some more in the morning” Charlie replied

“okay, I will make a start, it would be easier if I had some help” Thom said

“take one of the children and start training them” Charlie said

“okay, Lou with me” Thom said and walked from the room with a small blonde boy quickly following behind.

“next do you have a healer? “ Charlie asked

“I am Shianne and do most of the healing” a lady said stepping forward

“I need you to make as many of these as possible” Charlie said handing her a piece of paper, Shianne opened them and began to read

“easy enough to do” she replied

“also do you have any nightshade plants? “ Charlie asked

“yes, why?” Shianne asked

“grind it to a powder and mix it with water, once it is mixed decant it into small bottles and do not touch it” Charlie replied

“why what does it do?” Shianne asked

“to a vampire it is poison, it will not kill them but it will make them weak but do not get any on you, it will kill a human” Charlie replied

Shianne said no more and just walked from the hall to go and do the task taht had been set for her.

“do you have any books here?” Charlie asked turning to Jack

“we do” he replied

“I will need them after we start” Charlie replied

“what will all the rest of us be doing?” Jack asked

“are there any here that can already use a bow?” Charlie asked

“we have 6 good hunters” Len replied

“right good, you six I want you to build the guard towers nothing special just simple towers will do” Charlie said

“where would be best to put them?” Len asked

“one in each corner should be fine, as long as you can see all the way round the village” Charlie replied

“ok, Dean, Leon, Simon, Kane and Luke with me” Len said and the six men walked from the hall and went to make a start on the towers.

“everyone else follow us” Charlie said walking from the hall, once they were all outside, she turned to face them

“I want those of you who cannot move very fast with me, you will learn archery, everyone else will go with Jack and learn to fight” Charlie said

“what about the woman and children?” Jack asked

“they will learn too” Charlie replied

“my daughter will not fight, I have already lost my son and I will not lose her too” Jane said

“look you may not like the idea of your daughter learning to fight but everyone should learn whether they are young or old, she should still learn, if she does not, she will die” Charlie replied and Jane stomped off

“Charlie” Jack snapped

“whatever” Charlie said “archers with me” she added and walked off to the edge of the village where they had targets set up.

“it does not matter if you are left or right handed, pick the bow up so that you can pull the string with your lead hand” Charlie said showing them and looking down the line to see if they were all doing as she had told them “now, load your arrow in, straighten your arm holding the bow and bring it up to shoulder height” she added again watching down the line “bring back your lead arm as far as you can, look down the shaft to your target, when you have your target in sight, release” she said and let go and her arrow flew through the air and hit centre target, she watched as the others released their arrows

“do not lower your arm once you have released your arrow, if you do your arrow will drop and not hit the target” Charlie said “also do not hold on target for too long, once you have where you want your arrow to go, release it” she added

They continued to train all morning, Jack walked over to where they were training

“we are stopping for lunch” Jack said

“okay, take me to the books?” she replied to Jack “lunch” she shouted to everyone else

“are you not joining us for lunch?” Jack asked

“no” Charlie replied

“why?” Jack asked

“because I am not now, show me to the damn books” she snapped walking off, Jack followed and went slightly ahead of her, he walked into a house and left Charlie there, once she was inside, she looked at all the spines of the books, not many of them were any good, she found four that were interesting to her, two were on vampires, one was on history and the last one intrigued her, the title of the book was ‘a history of hunters’ she would read that one later but first to read the others

Charlie spent the rest of the day reading the books on vampires and history for she had a lot to catch up on, she had been in the cabin for over 400 years and did not know how the world had gotten so bad, she had been in isolation all that time and the humans had let them foul creatures take over, she had just finished when Jack came in

“we have continued to train all day but now the sun is beginning to set and it’s time for dinner” Jack said

“how did it go?” Charlie asked

“good I think, the towers are built and at least everyone can sort of fight” Jack replied

“good, where did you get these books from?” Charlie asked

“no idea, why?” Jack asked

“because most of what is written in them is rubbish, half of the ways it says to kill a vampire won’t work and the other half is only half of what you need” Charlie replied

“it doesn’t matter now, we have you” Jack said

“I suppose” Charlie said

“are you coming?” Jacka sked

“no, I am going to my cabin for the silver, plus I have had enough of humans for one day” Charlie replied

“Charlie” Jack said

“no Jack, I will see you at dawn, goodnight” she said and picked up her bag and walked from the house and towards her cabin.