Available Darkness Season 2

gun, bullets whizzing off concrete as Tiny went into motion, a blur of giant darkness descending upon the gunman. Within seconds, the gunman was reduced to a screaming, burning dead man as Tiny yelled, “Yeehaw!”
    Gunfire erupted around them as the other soldiers fired on Tiny.
    With seven left for John, he started two at a time, leaping toward the pair of soldiers closest to him, landing hard with one hand on each. The soldiers struggled, but never stood a chance. Their screams died inside their helmets, as everything they once were and ever would be flooded into John, teasing his hunger for more.
    As the soldiers’ lifeforces, and memories, swirled inside John, he swatted the guns from the three soldiers Tiny wasn’t taking care of.
    As John circled in on the now unarmed soldiers, two of the three drew pistols from their holsters. One of the men Tiny was tussling with, managed to break free of his grasp, as Tiny must not have found a way to breach the man’s suit yet to burn him. John looked up just in time to see the man’s pistol aimed at his head. While John could take numerous shots to his body, a headshot could be mean death.
    Tiny shoved the soldier he was fighting with aside and leaped on the other man just as he squeezed a shot off at John. Tiny smacked the man’s hand just before the shot got off, knocking the gun to the ground and sending the bullet into John’s right calf.
    “Sorry, John!” Tiny yelled, then grabbed both soldiers, wrapping them both in a giant bear hug, his hands finding their way under the men’s helmets, sending them both into screaming spasms.
    One of the three remaining soldiers got a hold of his fallen rifle and began spraying the tunnel in a desperate panic. John threw out his hands and sent a blast of energy into the man, sending him flying backward into the two men who had gotten behind him for safety.
    As the men fell back, John raced forward, and was on them in seconds, feasting on their energy, feeling it surge through his body like a thousand fires, but without the pain.
    John heard Tiny yelling in victory as he finished off the last of the soldiers, but John was in too much bliss to open his eyes. He basked in the power, feeling it heal him entirely, replenishing his strength, and making him feel unstoppable, like the perfect killing machine.
    He opened his eyes to the sound of Tiny calling out for Shadow, “OK, it’s safe to come out now.”
    But Shadow wasn’t coming.
    “Shadow?” John asked, an uneasy feeling ruining his good buzz.
    But there was no Shadow — he had used the distraction to escape.
    “So what the fuck do we do now?” Tiny asked.
    John said, “We keep walking. Follow Shadow’s scent.”
    “Think we’ll find him?” Tiny asked.
    “We don’t have a choice,” John said.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 2 — Abigail

    In the dream, Abigail was in school, and not a vampire.
    She was just a normal 11-year-old girl, sitting at a desk watching the boy beside her, but trying not to stare. He was cute, with brown hair and blue eyes. He looked like a baseball player. Abigail wasn’t even sure what a baseball player was supposed to look like, but the boy definitely looked like one in her dream.
    He turned to her, smiled, then said, “Hi, my name’s Bobby.”
    It was weird, him introducing himself in the middle of class. The teacher, who was only vaguely there, stood three feet from the front row, wrapped in a thick fog just like the rest of the room. In Abigail’s dream, the only things that mattered were her and the cute boy — Bobby.
    She wasn’t sure what to say. Abigail had never spoken to a boy her own age before, not since she was much younger, and back then they were gross, not … cute .
    “I’m Abigail,” she said, looking down shyly.
    Still smiling, the boy said, “Abigail, that’s a pretty name. What are you doing here?”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
    “Why are you here?” the boy repeated, his smile now faltering, creeping to fear to match the sudden concern in his eyes.
    The boy disappeared, and Abigail woke to the sound of a man screaming, immediately followed by a woman’s screech.
    She opened her eyes, confused to find a man and woman lying in her bed. The man was large, with curly dark hair, in his 40s, Abigail guessed. His wife was big too, blonde, a bit younger, maybe. They looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t remember where, or if, she’d seen them before.
    What are they doing in my