extremely sharp
teeth in his mouth – which were very evident when he smiled - made me hold my
hand still.
“Please just tell me why the rippers need humans?” I said
while looking at the Commander. Hoping he saw a ‘Please help me look’ instead
of a stupid face that would just make him laugh again.
“O.K., this is actually important for you to understand. The
small group of dissenters, we refer to as terrorists, have been losing a lot of
their own people in their attacks on us back home. About one hundred years ago
they decided that they could easily come over here to Earth and kidnap people
without drawing too much attention to their actions; either by the Earth
government, or our government.”
“After their first attack we realized something was off with
the suicide bombers. Yes, we have a similar issue with zealots who kill
themselves while trying to kill or hurt as many innocent civilians as possible.”
“I think their hope is that the Sennafae will just leave the
planet if too many civilians are killed. But that won’t work. We have nowhere else
to go. What these terrorists don’t realize is that both of us need to work
together to solve the overpopulation issue and that it is not possible to drive
us away.”
“How does a human change into a ripper? Is it just like our
folklore? If you get bitten by a vampire you become one after you exchange
blood?”
The Commander looked at me like I was crazy. “You really
need to stop watching so much TV.”
Be both started laughing which in turn caused us to laugh
more and before you knew it, we were both laughing so hard tears were streaming
down our faces. While his comment wasn’t really that funny, it did help to
break the tension that was starting to suffocate me.
“Please explain the process of how a vampire changes a human
and then uses them to become an interdimensional suicide bomber.”
“When a ripper who has been here on Earth for more than
three months bites and drinks almost all of the blood of an Earthling, that person
is then on the brink of death. The ripper then feeds its own blood to the dying
Earthling, which isn’t too different from what your movie vampires do. But the
resulting creature is very different from your vampires of lore.”
“That process begins a very painful change. It usually takes
about a day for the change to complete its cycle and then you have a hybrid
ripper who is very bloodthirsty. These hybrids are different from the vampires
you see here as they can’t change anyone else themselves. But they do look very
similar to the rippers who changed them.
“Sadly, these hybrids are more animalistic than anything
else. They will do anything for more blood. And just attack anything, or
anyone, that gets in their way. Although, they tend to revere their master who
created them and will follow their orders.”
Interrupting the commander I stated, “These hybrids sound
like the Nosferatu of our literature.”
The commander continued, but first gave me a look that
reminded me of my seventh grade teacher when I would interrupt him. Hmmm,
that look must be a universal sign of ‘stop interrupting me’.
“Are you are ready to finish listening to my story?” I
nodded to the Commander to keep going.
“The rippers take their hybrids back through the portal and
once they have built up a large enough group, the rippers send them out to
attack certain areas. Most of these hybrids don’t survive the attack as our
security forces easily kill them. But make no mistake; if they were left unchecked
they could easily destroy a small city within a few days.”
I was totally freaked out by this revelation. So much so, I
sat there with my mouth open and both hands wrapped around my neck, hoping that
a vampire – or ripper – did not touch me.
It was at that point that the commander noticed the injury
on my arm. “B’Lana, what happened to your arm?”
I pulled my left arm down from my neck and looked at it.
There was more