by Paul Freeman
“God damn it,” Jeb spat. Both men looked into the blackness of the trees.
“We haven’t seen a feeder around here for months,” Harry said, swallowing hard, clearly trying to convince himself more than Jeb.
“She could have injured herself, broke an ankle or hit her head and couldn’t make it back before the rest of the work detail quit for the day,” Jeb said, peering into the trees.
“It’s awful dark in there.”
Jeb cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out, “Amy, honey, you out there?”
“What the hell are you doin’?” Harry rounded on him, giving him a shove.
“What do you think I’m doin’?” Jeb answered irritably.
“Ringin’ the God damn dinner bell for any feeders, that’s what I think you’re doin’. You want to get us both killed?” Harry checked his rifle and scanned the tree-line. “Maybe we could build a fire. That’ll keep the feeders away if there are any out there and it’ll act as a beacon for your girl if she’s tryin’ to find her way back.”
“Or we could just follow the tracks into the wood,” Jeb said.
“I aint goin’ in there in the dark, Jeb. I’m sorry.” Jeb could see Harry’s hands shaking.
“You just go on back to Colony. I got this.”
“Don’t do it, man. Don’t go in there.” Harry dropped his eyes to the ground as he spoke.
Jeb clasped his shoulder. “It’s okay, man. I don’t blame you for bein’ scared. I am too, but I’ve got to find my girl. She’s all I got left in the world.”
“I’ll wait here. I’ll build a fire. I can use that old cart with the broken wheel and collect some dead wood from the edge of the trees.”
“Okay, Harry, you’re a good friend.”
“Stay safe, Jeb.”
Jeb simply nodded and pushed on into the trees.
It was hard following the tracks in the dark with only an oil lamp to see by, but there was a track winding through the trees and he figured he’d just follow that and see what he found. He knew exactly where he’d end up, down by the creek and the old farmhouse, at least what was left of the cottage. Crumbling walls was about all that remained, anything useful had long since been stripped out of it. He heard a rustle in the trees and swung around with his rifle up, the lamp swinging as he turned. Then an owl hooted, making him turn in the opposite direction. His heart was racing, but the fear of not finding Amy overrode the terror of the night.
He remembered back to the Fall and the night the cop turned. All night long sirens and screeching tires filled the air. Screams and shouts of fear and people dying didn’t let up till sunup. He’d heard later that hundreds of people had been brought to infirmaries and even mortuaries and later rose up to attack the very people who had sought to help them. At one stage, as he and his wife huddled together behind a barricaded door, they heard someone banging and begging to be let in. When they couldn’t gain access through the main entranceway they’d tried rattling on the windows, but Jeb had barred those too. They ignored the cries for help and then the howls of pain. The next morning when the sun rose and the dark walkers of the night had slunk away he went outside. The body of a boy of around twelve lay outside his front-room window, his fingers bloody where he’d torn his nails trying to get in the shuttered window. Jeb remembered the cop from the night before and he drove a knife into the boy’s skull. Then, remembering some folklore he’d once read he went into his shed and took out a mallet and sharpened piece of wood and, in front of his ashen-faced wife, drove the stake through the boy’s heart.
They packed what they could and loaded his truck and drove into the hills that very same day, as far away from any large population center as they could find. They never spoke about that night again, and his wife never, ever mentioned the boy to him. Little did he know then that he’d have to do the same to her a few years later.
The abandoned cottage stood ahead of him, the moonlight giving the walls a ghostly glow. He grimaced involuntarily at the thought of creeping inside. “Amy?” he said in a whisper. “You in there?” No sound came back. He swung the lamp in the general direction of the building, training his rifle on the dark entranceway. Sighing, he moved on, slowly and carefully watching each step. A glint caught his eye over by the creek.
His heart beat wildly now as the darkness loomed all around him. A splash and flutter of wings made him jump. He bit his bottom lip and wished his hands would stop shaking. He quickly found what had glinted in the moonlight: a knife. He had drummed it into Amy always to carry the weapon. It wasn’t much but it was a last line of defense. He picked it up and stuck it into his belt while he examined the rest of the grassy clearing. It didn’t take him long to find a shoe. It was about Amy’s size. Then he saw that the grass and dirt around it was stained red. He brought his hand up to his mouth in a reflexive action biting his finger to hold back the tears threatening to spill out of him.
Then he heard a hiss and a low strangled moan that turned his blood to ice. He swung around as the feeder launched out of the trees, flying at him in a burst of speed. He’d no time to aim as he swung his rifle up and pulled the trigger. The instinct of a survivor saved him as the bullet found its mark between the Demon’s spawn’s eyes. He followed up with a shot to the chest as the vampire sprawled on the ground, a dark stain leaked from its heart. His breathing was ragged now as he fought down the terror that threatened to paralyze him. He glanced at the farmhouse, wondering if he should run in there for shelter or if he would just be charging to his death.
He took a closer look at the feeder and a sob escaped from his throat; it was the Davis boy. The shoulder of his shirt was still stained with blood from a nasty bite mark on his neck. He must have just turned. Tears clouded his vision then and he let out a mournful wail. “Ammmy!”
She had been born after the Fall. Neither he nor his wife had planned it – who in their right mind would plan to raise a kid in such a world? When she came though she had filled both their hearts with joy. She became a symbol of a new beginning for them. Soon after they teamed up with a bunch of other survivors. They built a community together and did their best to make what they could of the new world. But the threat of the feeders was always a reality. Amy was only a child when her mother was turned. He pictured her standing there, her eyes wide open as her mother came snarling out of the dark, hungry for blood, and her father stopped her with a bullet in the heart.
He drew his knife and drove it into the boy’s chest. He wiped hot tears from his eyes with the back of his hand and scanned the trees. ‘Oh, Amy. My beautiful girl Amy.”
A snapping branch made him swing around, bringing up the rifle. An orange glow appeared on the track.
“Whoa!” Harry said when he saw the gun pointed at him.
“God damn, Harry, I could’ve shot you.”
“I heard gunfire,” Harry said.
“Then you should have gotten your ass back to Colony.”
“Amy?”
Jeb shook his head. “She ain’t here. That’s the Davis boy over there. He came at me out of the dark.”
“Aww Jesus. He was just a kid,” Harry said.
“Yeah…”
“He didn’t…” Harry began tentatively.
“Naw… he didn’t bite me.”
Harry nodded, unable to conceal his relief. “What now?”
Before Jeb could answer they heard a hiss and a low, strangled growl. Both men turned and a girl with dead, white skin and black eyes emerged from the trees.
“Shiiit,” Harry said softly.
CHAPTER SIX
The Fall hadn’t happened all at once. It had built slowly, creeping under the door like a slow moving shadow but when it escalated it became a tsunami. At first there were rumors and supposed sightings of vampires stalking the night whose victims were drained of blood only to rise from the dead the following night. In a big city such things can pass unnoted if the creatures of darkness chose victims less likely to be noticed missing: the homeles
s, the old and alone, and there were many such in all of the big cities of the world. Logan remembered watching a news item one night showing a small town way out in the sticks whose population had been devastated by the vampire curse. He laughed as he swilled from a bottle of beer while an overweight woman stood in a dusty street crying, ranting at the television crew about how her husband had gone in search of their missing son. He switched over to the big game before he heard the end of her story or those of her neighbors who swore they’d seen monsters attacking people in the center of their town, none of whom came home that night. Fucking rednecks, he’d thought, fools would believe anything. A week later his girlfriend telephoned him sounding really scared; someone was trying to break into her apartment. By the time the phone went dead her screams had turned his blood to ice. When he couldn’t get her to respond he tried calling the cops, but the emergency line was busy each time he called. He ran out of his own place and jumped into his car. The streets were eerily quiet with very little traffic on the road. He was stopped at a road block manned by heavily armed cops. They told him to go home and lock the doors but wouldn’t tell him what was going on.
“My girlfriend just called she’s in trouble, man, someone was breaking into her apartment. It sounded like he got in.”
The cop gave him a look that said he had bigger problems and wasn’t too concerned about one man’s girlfriend. Logan pushed past him and ran the rest of the way to her building. He wished he hadn’t. Some things are hard to believe until they affect you directly.
Funny thing is, it wasn’t the feeders who destroyed the city, it was the riots and the looters. It went on for days, the true devastation only revealed itself when the sun came up, all of the buildings gutted by fire, the broken glass everywhere where people had broken into stores and helped themselves to anything they could carry. Blackened cars, including police vehicles, some still ablaze quickly became commonplace. And worst of all, the terrible screams coming from people being murdered and raped, cries for help that would never come. Its own citizens destroyed the city he had lived in all his life, by day they took it apart bit by bit, by night they became victims and then added to the growing horde of feeders. By the third day the cops and any other form of authority had given up and retreated. He knew if he stayed there he’d die, but he had no where else, what could he do? He had to leave, and so he joined a long line of refugees all looking for salvation, all lost, the next big population center was under siege too and the next. Within weeks all form of government had broken down and society pulled itself to pieces.
How long had they been hidden in the shadows? Years? Centuries? Or simply weeks? No one had an answer. People began talking about the old myths and stories. They hung strings of garlic at their doors, carried vials of holy water and wore crucifixes around their necks. None of it worked. A bullet to the heart, or removing the head was sufficient, but by the time they realized this, terror already ruled and the civilization man had built tore itself down in blood and flame. In the months and years following, massive explosions devastated much of the world as enormously powerful plants and weapons were left unmanned and allowed to corrode and fall into disrepair.
“You think out there somewhere, maybe across the ocean there’s a world that escaped this hell,” Bart Wesley said, interrupting Logan’s thoughts.
He looked up from the fire and the hypnotic flames that had caught him in a trance. “I doubt that very much, Bart. If there was some nation out there with full technology and weapons they’d have rolled us all up by now and made themselves kings of the fucking world.” The fire crackled as the heated air warmed his face and hands.
“Yeah I guess so.”
Penny Wesley joined the two men having put the baby down on a wooden-framed bed. She handed both of the men steaming mugs. “God only knows what it is but it came from a jar labeled ‘Tea’,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s best not to ask,” Logan said with a smile creasing his face. He blew on the hot drink and grimaced when the bitter taste hit the back of his throat. “We grow a lot of herbs and such that can be used for medicines… and tea.”
“You sure have a great little community here, from what little we’ve seen. How have you managed to remain untouched by the plague?” Bart asked.
“Oh I wouldn’t say we’ve not been touched. Far from it. But yeah, we’re pretty remote out here and we do the best we can to deter the feeders. And of course we have Pastor.” Logan answered between mouthfuls of scalding tea.
“He gets mentioned a lot. Will it be up to him if we’re allowed to stay?” Penny asked.
“Yeah… maybe. Pastor has done a lot for us. I doubt a single one of us here in Colony would still be alive if it weren’t for him. I’ll be truthful, he don’t like strangers. He ain’t too trustin’ of folks he doesn’t know and he’s inclined to take a… pragmatic approach.”
“In other words he’ll cut us loose if he thinks we’ll be a bad influence,” Penny said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“So where is this high and mighty man of the cloth?” Bart asked, the scorn evident in is voice.
Logan regarded him with narrowed eyes, but before he could say anything Penny jumped in. “Bart doesn’t mean to be short. It’s just that we’ve had such a hard time and travelled a great distance. When we saw your settlement and all the evidence of good people working hard to form a community… I mean, we walked through a field of cattle! I haven’t seen anything like that in a long time. Folks just so… settled. We sure are grateful to you for offering us sanctuary. We’re just worried that you’ll send us away. Especially with the little one…” Logan could see her eyes begin to water.
“It’s fine. We’re all a little mistrustful of strangers if truth be told. And Pastor is a strange one even to us, but his rules have kept us safe after all this time. It doesn’t mean he’ll turn you out. All of us were strangers at one time or another. I’ll have a word with him on your behalf when he gets back.”
“Where is he now? Surely he wouldn’t stay out there after dark,” Penny said.
Logan looked around as if he was afraid of being overheard and in truth he was a little uneasy talking about Pastor with the strangers. What did he know about them after all? Then again how much of a threat could a young couple and baby be? “He’s hunting.”
“Hunting?” Bart sat forward in his chair.
“He hunts the feeders, tracks them back to their nests and kills them.”
“That’s insane!” Penny said.
“He’s… different to other people.”
“In what way?”
“We all hate the feeders, we all fear them, but there’s a fire burnin’ inside him. I don’t know if it’s God givin’ or if it’s a curse from Hell, but it drives him. I suppose we’ve all become used to his ways now.”
“I don’t know if I could stand to spend another night out there,” Penny said and shivered.
“It must have been hard on you travelling through the wilderness at night. You sure were lucky not to encounter any feeders,” Logan said.
“To be honest, I didn’t think we’d make it. Each night we tried to find somewhere safe to hide and prayed we wouldn’t run into any of those monsters. There ain’t many places of safety in the wild,” Bart answered.
“Yeah, the wild, that accounts for just about everywhere now,” Logan said. “You didn’t see any feeders at all? Those demons can sniff out a livin’ soul with warm blood in their veins from miles.”
“No, we was lucky. But we had no choice, you say your pastor is out there of his own accord.” Penny shivered again.
“Like I said, Pastor ain’t like the rest of us.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
An explosion of smoke and noise erupted from the shotgun barrel, distorting his senses, both blinding and deafening him simultaneously. Moments later the fog cleared, the blast had taken out the ugly dog who had returned with the pack, its head exploded while dogs either side of it took wounds from the
spray of buckshot. The remaining dogs howled and snarled, but lost their nerve when he slowly pushed himself to his feet. The girl was gone, disappeared back into the darkness of the trees. One dog was too injured to flee; it yelped once and died when he stuck his sword into its side.
He cursed and groaned as feeling returned to his body. He could feel his blood pumping through him, causing all of his extremities to ache, including his head. He looked around then to see if he could spot the girl, while doing so he took in the carnage of the horse and dogs, their blood forming grisly abstract paintings. He could still hear the remaining dogs barking and yapping in the distance, at least it was getting fainter. He holstered the shotgun and sword and contemplated going after the girl. Before he’d made a conscious decision either way he was bending down and examining the tracks she’d left in the forest floor, small, light footsteps. His reasons for going after her were not all entirely selfless, although his interest and concern for her had been piqued; he needed a place to shelter until his strength had returned and before the sun completed its inexorable path across the sky and sank behind the distant black hills. There was no way he’d make it back to Colony before nightfall, not without the horse.
Unfortunately, either his tracking powers were waning or the girl had suddenly sprouted wings, because any evidence of her passing quickly disappeared. He thought maybe she’d climbed a tree and dropped down somewhere farther on to disguise where she’d gone, but he could find no trace of her. Unless she was part ape and used the thin branches to swing through the forest. Probably more likely she’d grown wings, he decided.
“Son of a bitch,” he said softly moments later when he realized her tracks had taken him to the edge of the forest before they disappeared. Had she been showing him the way out? He shook his head. Ridiculous.
After a couple of hours of walking across the wide open plain he glanced towards the west and to the sun cresting the top of the mountains. He rubbed the coarse bristles on his chin and took his hat off to wipe the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Then he noticed a cloud of dust in the distance.
