1
The Vampire Apes Chronicles
A very, very, very serious novel
Based upon a true story I dreamt
Joe Legge
Dedication
The quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose, or the act of dedicating a building for religious purposes. From the Latin dedicatio, meaning devote, or consecrate.
The Vampire Apes Chronicles
Volume one: Contagion
Book one: Exposure
Part one: Contamination
Chapter one: Patient zero
1
It began as a normal day for Wolf Swordman, the muscular scientist with piercing blue eyes. After running ten miles through the sun-drenched streets of England, he returned to his penthouse apartment to do loads of push-ups and sit-ups, before stepping naked into his bathroom and showering naked.
He drove his expensive red sports car to the futuristic science lab where he worked on DNA with other scientists. He had gotten dressed after his shower. When he entered the room with all the microscopes and things, he inhaled the comforting waft of chemicals bubbling in test tubes as robot assistants bleeped and blooped. A lady scientist approached Swordman. She had a scared expression on her stunningly attractive, probably Asian, face.
‘Dr. Swordman!’ she said as she readjusted her lace bra which struggled to contain her epic breasts. Her enormous eyes shimmered the same dark green of the rarest emeralds, or wet spinach. Those eyes betrayed her relief that Swordman had arrived.
‘What’s wrong?’ he enquired with his rugged lips, and his penetrating eyes full of concern, and blue.
‘The ape whose DNA we were doing an experiment on, it’s acting strangely,’ she said worriedly.
‘Let me see,’ Swordman demanded authoritatively, and stepped toward the bit of the lab where the ape was. He called over to an intern who was ugly and fat.
‘Pudge!’
‘Um, um, um, um, yes?’ Pudge McDoof stammered stupidly.
‘Come with me,’ instructed Swordman, and Pudge dropped papers everywhere because he’s clumsy and then bent to pick them up and hit his head on his desk.
‘Leave the papers, you numbskull!’ Swordman roared.
They strode rapidly into the bit of the lab where the ape was and looked through the very strong, almost impossible to break, bars. These bars were so strong that the only thing that could break them would have to be really, really strong, like a military tank. Basically, everyone was super confident that the ape couldn’t break the bars and get out and attack them no matter how hard it tried.
The ape’s bloodshot eyes darted in every direction (while staying firmly in the ape’s eye sockets) as it thrashed around the cage like it was having a temper tantrum about something really bad. It growled a low simian growl, like a monstrous dog, or — even more accurately — like another ape.
‘Don’t stand near the cage bars, Pudge,’ Swordman said to Pudge because he knew that Pudge was too stupid to realise for himself, even though it was really obvious because of the massive angry ape.
‘What?’ Pudge queried, ‘You want me to stand near the cage bars?’ and he walked toward them.
‘No, you fat idiot!’ Swordman shouted but it was too late. The ape reached a leathery hand or paw through the bars and grabbed Pudge by his greasy face and pulled him closer. The ape opened its mouth and bared its multiple teeth and bit deep into Pudge’s neck flab.
‘No!’ yelled Swordman.
‘Aaaaaaaah!’ cried Pudge.
‘Grrrrrrr,’ said the ape.
The ape let Pudge fall to the floor and he lay there bleeding and unconscious. For a moment the ape stood, blood dripping from its lips into the fur on its chest. The ape looked at Swordman and then started raging again. It bellowed and howled and screeched. It was like Pudge’s blood was the ape’s version of three jaeger bombs and suddenly it was energised and out of control. It started yanking at the cage bars.
Swordman hit the fire alarm and everybody evacuated (the building). He left the ape and Pudge and went to look for a rifle loaded with tranquilliser darts. He found it in the rifle cupboard. Then he stood on the other side of the room and aimed the weapon at the ape. It was still yanking at the bars, but they hadn’t broken...yet.
Pudge continued bleed quietly into the carpet when suddenly his arm moved! Swordman’s beautiful eyes widened. He continued to aim at the ape, agitated by the sudden movements of Pudge’s arm. A crack in the ceiling started to form above the bars. Pudge pushed himself up to his knees. He turned to look at Swordman, and that’s when Swordman saw his face had turned sort of grey and had fur around it and his teeth had gotten really big.
‘Pudge?’ Swordman nervously called out.
Pudge stood, and as he did he continued to transform. His newly furred arms bulged with muscle. His shirt burst as he inflated and grew to be seven feet tall. It was super dramatic. His posture remained largely unchanged because it was pretty ape-like to begin with.
Pudge turned to the ape in the cage and tugged at the bars, his suddenly powerful forearms causing the crack in the ceiling to widen like a hole that’s getting bigger.
Swordman was stunned. He didn’t know whether he should tranquillise Pudge or the regular ape or just run. His answer came mere seconds later when a cage bar burst from the ceiling as if it had been ripped out, which it had. The original ape exited the cage and the two apes, one partially dressed in Pudge’s ill-fitting clothes, came slowly toward Swordman. He shot at the one closest and the gun clicked feebly.
‘Darn it!’ he expostulated and turned to run. Then he ran.
The apes chased him using their hands as feet and their feet as feet, the way apes are wont to do. Swordman leapt over a table of test tubes like a sprightly gazelle leaping over a table of test tubes. He ran some more, and the apes very nearly caught him, but then they didn’t, and Swordman kept running. He ran past a chair and threw it down behind him to slow the apes. It worked perfectly and Swordman got out of the lab with barely enough time to slam the door shut and use the rifle to lock the doors by sliding it through the handle and against the wall like he had seen in a film.
The apes slammed against the door and Swordman knew it would only be a minute or two until the hinges gave way. He ran out of the building and toward the assembled scientists.
‘What happened?’ the lady scientist from before said.
‘Gerald the ape got out,’ Swordman responded, breathing a little heavily from the running, but not much because he runs a lot.
‘And Pudge?’ she asked.
‘He’s...I’m not sure, but we need to leave.’
He turned to the handful of other science people there and said, in a loud voice like how a guy who’s in charge of soldiers might sound, ‘Gerald has escaped the cage.’ There were gasps mostly from the women. ‘He escaped and attacked Pudge,’ half of the women fainted, ‘and he has transformed. Pudge now has the body of an ape.’
There was a loud clattering sound from inside the building followed by two distinct, but very ape sounding, whoops.
‘We need to go!’ Swordman said and instructed everyone to get in their cars and drive away which they all did. The sexy lady scientist went with Swordman in his awesome car and they quickly drove away.
‘I’m just glad you’re ok, Dr. Swordman,’ she said and admired his jawline.
‘Thank you, Dr. Gemini.’
‘Please,’ she smiled coyly, ‘call me Alexis.’ She looked out of the window and then back at Swordman’s handsome face. ‘Who do we call about Gerald and Pudge? The police? The army? Who has any idea how to handle this?’
‘Don’t call anybody. I’ll handle it,’ Swordman said with fire burning in his heart.
‘But we have to tell someone about—’
‘No, we don’t. We can’t.’ Swordman looked deep into her eyes. ‘The authorities, the government, all of them, they must never know, or we’re all doomed.’
