This story is fictional, I'm sorry (actually I'm jelous) if it resembles your life in any way shape or form. Constructive criticism is welcome. If gay relationships offend you, then "How did I manage to start reading this story?" is a good question to be asking yourself. However you're still welcome to read it!
This story is owned solely by Gaco and may not be copied by any means by any unlicensed individuals, groups, or organizations.
Copyright 2020 Gaco. All Rights Reserved.
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Chapter 7
We got dressed as we were talking.
"So what are the plans for the day?" I asked Bryce.
"Well, we need to get you introduced to everyone else from the pack, and familiar with the house." He said as he was pulling on his jeans.
"OK." I said, as I finished getting dressed.
"Before we go down, let me go over the names and position of everyone in the pack." Bryce said, in a mentor's voice. "Obviously I'm the Alpha, as of last night Justin is Beta and Seth is at the bottom. You're one above Seth, which makes you uh... eighth I think. Then there is Brandon, who's third now, then Alexi, Jackson, John and Zeke."
"He survived!?" I interrupted.
"Oh, yeah, we can heal from just about anything. Though he was very close to death Lar night. I can smell and hear him moving around downstairs though." Bryce responded with a smirk.
"Oh, ok." I said with wide eyes.
"Challenges for rank are fought on Friday nights, and there can only be one per week. Challenges which are between higher ranks outweigh those of lower ranks, and the lowers must wait if a higher challenge comes up. You can only challenge the individual directly above your rank, and if you lose you cannot re-challenge that person for at least 6 months." Bryce continued to inform me.
"Every full moon we must eat flesh. Not just raw meat similar to what we had at Houston's yesterday, I do mean human flesh, and it must be fresh." I must have let the sick feeling I had cross onto my face because he followed up with "There's no option other than death, so let's avoid that thought for now, you just needed to know."
"Finally, until you come into your abilities, and your strength is tested, I do not want you to leave the den without myself or Justin. I don't know how the vampires knew about you, but obviously they did the other night. They must have been watching me following you around, and realized you were bitten at some point, somehow." He trailed off, looking to be in thought.
"That kind of bothers me but it is not TOO worrisome at this point. I don't know what I would do if I were to lose you, but it wouldn't be very good for the people in the surrounding areas at the time." He hugged me to him, kissed me on the forehead, and directed me towards the door.
We went down stairs to the kitchen. There were two guys eating that I recognized from the previous night, but I didn't know their name or anything about them.
"Hey Zeke, Jackson." Bryce greeted.
The shorter, younger looking one said hello first. "Oh, hey Bryce." Then he kind of nodded in my direction.
"Morning Bryce." The tall blonde said. He looked about 25 said. "Hey Tom." He said toward me, sticking out his hand. "I'm Jackson."
"Uh, hi." I shook his hand and nodded at him.
I looked back towards the other guy, who I assumed was Zeke, but all I saw was his back as he scampered out of the room.
"Don't mind Zeke." Jackson laughed. "He's pretty shy around new people. I guess it comes with being in a 16 year old's body." He shrugged.
I smiled and watched Jackson go back to his chicken sandwich. I licked my lips at the sight of food, and at that moment my stomach also decided to growl.
"Let's see what food we have left. I don't think anyone has gone to get groceries in some time." Bryce said.
I stood there watching Bryce dig through the refrigerator. Eventually he pulled out a pack of hot dogs. At first the sight of red meat almost made me sick, thinking back to our earlier conversation, but my stomach won out. I was starving! I nodded at Bryce to agree. He popped all four into the microwave and we waited the two minutes it required for them to cook. I got the buns ready, just ketchup on mine, and ketchup and mustard on his. We ate the remainder of the bag of potato chips which was on the counter in silence.
"We'll go out and eat tonight." He promised me once we were done.
"Hey, Jackson, where's Seth?" Bryce asked.
"I think he's upstairs in the bunk room trying to push the other guys around. I left as soon as I saw him wake up. He's got his shit all over the room." Jackson responded.
"Yeah, I can imagine all the crap he had in his big room crammed with everyone else's in the bunk room." Bryce laughed and shook his head.
"I'm going to go check in on them, and make sure he's not doing anything stupid... Or giving orders, since he's at the bottom now." Bryce said. "Jackson, when you're done eating, show Tom around the den.
Jackson nodded and Bryce went towards the stairs to go to the second floor.
"So dude, you ready to see what this place is all about?" Jackson asked me as he cleaned up his mess.
"Yeah, sure." I said, unsure if I wanted to be away from Bryce.
"We'll start at the basement and work our way up." He said.
We went down the stairs through the kitchen to the basement. In the basement on one wall were the cages I had been in before. On the other side there was a small shower area. Finally taking up over a third of the basement was the fighting/training area. There were weights, a punching bag, and mats on the walls.
"You got an idea of what this area was for last night." He waved toward the fighting area.
"Obviously the shower is where we clean up the losers of the fights so we don't track blood all over the house carrying their ugly asses up the stairs." He paused as we walked over towards the cages.
"And finally these cages are for us, on the full moon. Rather than go on a killing spree in public on the full moon, we'll lock ourselves in here. We'll bring our... uh... food... in here a couple days ahead of time. Usually Bryce had a section of his own, but I guess you guys will be sharing it now." He must have sensed my uneasiness of the situation because he quickly moved on.
We climbed the stairs to the first floor. "Obviously you've seen the kitchen and living room. The garage takes up the rest of the first floor other than the utility area where the washer and dryer are located."
We walked up the stairs to the second floor and he showed me around the second-floor area, which had two bedrooms, a bunk room, and a common room.
"The bedrooms belong to Brandon and Alexi." We walked past the rooms without going inside.
"This is the bunk room, where John, Zeke, myself and Seth stay. If you were staying in here with us, instead of Bryce's bed, Seth would be sleeping on the sofa in the common room. That would probably suck pretty bad since we have so many people and there's nearly always someone awake in there watching TV, playing games, or whatever. " He said waving his arm around the room.
The room was pretty boring. There were a couple televisions, stereo systems, and magazines. It actually looked a lot like college dorm rooms I had seen during my first year of college.
We went into the common room and it looked similar to the living room. There were two couches, a big screen television, a high-priced computer, and a sound system hooked up to the television. There was also an air hockey table and a foosball table next to each other in one corner of the room. Under the television there were all of the newest gaming consoles. There was also a sizeable number of movies.
"Obviously this is where we spend the majority of our time when we're not doing chores or out of the den. We hang out and spend time together here. Over there in the corner is a mini-fridge that we keep stocked with all kinds of drinks and alcohol, mostly beer." He said after giving me a bit to take in the sights.
"Where does all the money for this stuff come from?" I asked.
"Several of us were the sole surviving children of our families and our inheritance is invested well. There are millions in savings that we draw interest from and live off of it. You'd think we'd be rich but we are using it to house, clothe, and feed 8, well 9 people now. It goes away quick." Jackson answered.
"What, no armory?" I asked jokingly.
"Justin tried to get Bryce to get us some guns a while back but he doesn't really seem to care much for them. I don't think he believes they would do any good in a real battle. Justin was in the Army for 4 years, until he was bitten." Jackson responded.
"I'd love to have an AR or two, maybe another pistol. I don't know if you heard the story or not, but I guess I made quick work of a vampire or whatever with just my pistol." I gloated.
"Yeah, the trick is getting enough rounds in them that they can't regenerate. It works the same way with us. You just have to be a good shot and have the firepower." He responded. "Well maybe you can convince Bryce where Justin couldn't. It would be nice to have some sort of backup plan in case the den is attacked."
"I'll see what I can do. I definitely want some nice guns. Plus, I agree." I nodded and we walked out.
He showed me the 2nd floor bathroom, it was disgusting, but I after a thought I reasoned that it probably would be... At least four people share it. Brandon and Alexi share their own bathroom I learned, but it was only connected between their two rooms.
"Does no one clean?" I asked, the smell of piss making me turn up my nose.
"We usually take turns. Granted, the lower rank you are the more turns you usually get... You'd probably have already gotten a ton of menial tasks and chores by now, but no one is dumb enough to dump their chores off on you. No one wants to piss Bryce off." He said chuckling.
"Perks!" I said, pumping my fist playfully.
"You've already seen the majority of the upstairs. Let's hang out in the common room for a bit." He turned to head the other way.
We went into the common room and Jackson made Zeke move over in the couch for us.
He turned the channel from some cartoon to the video input for the PlayStation. He put in the Dragon Ball Z fighting game and handed one of the controllers to me. I guess Zeke expected something spectacular to happen because he watched with interest as the battle started between Jackson and myself.
The round started and we both moved around each other for a few seconds. I was the first to attack, sending out a blast of power towards Jackson's character, Vegita. My character, Freeza, has an advantage and can follow up on attacks with the same power in a different position, unlike Vegita's special move. Vegita moved in to get some punches and kicks in but I showed that I had played this game before by teleporting behind him and beating him into the ground. The game went on for a couple minutes, each of us getting in some really good attacks. At the start of round three we each had one win. Shortly into the round I noticed Jackson's fatigue bar was getting pretty high so I landed a series of kicks and punches in quick succession. Once he was dazed, I unleashed Freeza's Ultimate attack and took away the remaining half of Jackson's characters life. The game was over.
"Well you definitely have a flair for fancy endings." Jackson said to me.
"You ready to get out of here for a bit, Tom?" Bryce asked from behind me, making me jump a bit. I didn't notice him come into the room.
"Hell yeah I'm ready." I said after recovering, standing up and heading down stairs with Bryce.
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