The Last Vampire

by Jon F. Merz

  People lounged all over the place, but I could see there was a fair amount of trade and selling going on. Street urchins kept their eyes peeled for the unwary, but all they gave me was a quick once over. None of them were going to take a chance trying to take me out. Although the M4 on my back represented a tempting target. If they’d been able to take it, they could virtually guarantee themselves a hefty payday.

  But they’d never get it unless I was dead. And if I was dead, then most likely they would be too.

  Midway down, a cross street intersected the main drag and ran off in both directions. I could smell animals - horses probably - and a few chickens ran around in the back alleys. Surrounding us on all sides was the imposing wall that had ramparts and guards positioned every hundred meters or so. They were all armed with a mix of shotguns and single shot rifles. Some of them wore revolvers. One of them even had a crossbow on his back. Weapons in this post-apocalyptic world were a strange mix. It reminded me of when I’d grown up playing a post-nuke role playing game back in the 6th grade.

  Ares and I continued to walk, but she didn’t seem fazed by the attention she attracted from the onlookers. Or maybe it was me they were staring at. We made an odd pairing. I was strapped with weapons and she was walking beside me with a chain around her neck. In the old west, I might have been a bounty hunter.

  Now I hoped they just saw someone dangerous. I didn’t need idiots fucking around with me.

  “Can we stop soon? I’m tired.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s try that place up there.”

  Ares looked where I pointed. “Is that a hotel?”

  “Probably a combination hotel, bar, and restaurant,” I said. “It’ll do for our purposes.”

  “I could eat,” said Ares.

  We came to a stop at the entrance. A ramshackle sign hanging off of one metal hook read, “Warsaw’s.”

  I didn’t know who Warsaw was, but the place looked fairly decent. We pushed our way inside and the noise immediately died as the locals inside turned and gave us both the once over. Ares suddenly got shy and looked away. I didn’t give a shit and walked right up to the bar and ordered two waters.

  The bartender, a heavy balding dude with a bushy mustache brought out two glasses and gave us a drink. I downed it and then ordered a shot of whiskey.

  “You got money?”

  I slid a gold coin on the counter. “What does this buy me?”

  His eyes went wide when he saw the yellow metal. “Room, food, drink, hell whatever you want. For a week.”

  I passed it over to him. “That sounds about right.”

  He put the whiskey in front of me and I downed it in a flash, feeling the warmth score my throat as it went down. I licked my lips and asked for another. He brought it over and I nodded at him. “You Warsaw?”

  His eyes went wide and I couldn’t tell if it was from fright or not. He shook his head quickly. “No, not me. No way.”

  “Well, well, well…”

  The voice was new. I turned to my left slightly and saw a shabbily dressed hairy dude with a large knife on his belt looking me over. Check that, he was staring at Ares. Reluctantly, his gaze shifted to me.

  “Whatchoo got there? She looks mighty purty.”

  I smiled. “Leave it alone. You don’t want any part of that trouble.”

  But the scumbag didn’t seem to be the type to take a hint. “Maybe I do. How much you want for her? I’ll give you double if you throw in the chain, too. I kinda dig that.”

  “I told you to leave it be.”

  He put a hand on my left arm. “Maybe I’m not asking anymore. Maybe I’ll just take what I want. What do you think about that?”

  I held his gaze without blinking. “When you woke up this morning, did you think to yourself, ‘today’s the day I make the worst mistake of my life?’”

  He frowned, let my arm go, and started to reach for the knife. “You fucker-“

  I picked up the whiskey and downed it and in one movement unsnapped the holster on my right thigh, jerked the pistol free, and brought it right up under his jaw, thumbing the hammer back as I did so.

  He froze.

  “Now…I kinda think we’re all done talking. Don’t you?”

  It was hard for him to nod his head with the barrel of the gun under his chin, but somehow he managed. I lowered the gun slightly and nodded toward the door. “Disappear scumbag.”

  He ran for the door but kept turning around and I could see his mouth moving. He was probably saying something completely unoriginal like, “You’ll regret this.”

  The bartender came back as I slid the pistol back into my holster. “I don’t know if that was the smartest thing to do.”

  “No? And why not?”

  “Because he’s one of Warsaw’s boys.”

  “And who is Warsaw?”

  “He runs Diablo. He owns everything here. You want to be left alone? You play nice. Otherwise,” his voice trailed off.

  “Otherwise?”

  “It won’t end well for you. Or the girl you’ve got there. Warsaw doesn’t like people coming into his town causing trouble.”

  “Maybe someone should tell Warsaw that his boys are the ones causing trouble.”

  “He wouldn’t care. He’ll just kill you.”

  I smirked. “In that case, you’d better bring me another whiskey. And give the girl one, too.”

  12

  “Is there a tub in the room?”

  I glanced at Ares and then at the bartender. He smirked. “There’s a tub, not much hot water.”

  She shrugged. “As long as I can get cleaned up, that’s all I care about.”

  “And how are you planning to do that?”

  She looked at me in surprise, as if I’d just asked the stupidest question in the world. Then I rattled the chain. “We’re a bit hard to separate.”

  Ares sighed. “I’m not going to run.”

  “I would,” I said. “And I wouldn’t blame you for trying.”

  “There’s a radiator in the room,” said the bartender. “You could maybe lock the end of the chain around that. It ought to reach the tub.”

  I thought it over and nodded. “Save my place here. I’ll be back in five.”

  “Okay.”

  I led Ares up the steps to the second floor, which housed the rooms. Inside number three I found a simple bed and a window overlooking the main drag. There were bars on the window, which the management had clearly put there to make its guests feel safer from suckers and human scum. I didn’t know if it would work. I’d seen suckers tear cars in half. I didn’t think that bars were going to stop a determined one from getting into the room.

  The radiator was close to the bathroom and I was able to lock the length of it around the stem. Unless Ares knew how to pick locks, the only way she was going to be able to escape was if she yanked the entire fixture out of the floor. And I doubted she had the strength to do that.

  I looked at her. “Can you reach the tub?”

  She nodded. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yeah I do. This isn’t going to be some sort of relationship where you suddenly come on to me and I forget every ounce of discipline I’ve ever learned.”

  “I wasn’t going to come on to you.” Ares looked disgusted. “You could just take me anyway and no one would bat an eye. I’m a condemned criminal. Who cares what you do to me?”

  “I care,” I said. “And fuck what anyone else thinks. This ain’t some teen age fantasy where I drag you around like a sex slave. This is about you fulfilling a task that needs doing and nothing more. The fact that you’re a woman has nothing to do with it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  I held up the chain. “Do you remember the day I got you? It was barely two weeks ago.”

  Her voice went quieter. “I remember.”

  “And how many of you were there?”

  “After they hanged the others? Just me.”

  “And a crowd that was about to tear you ap
art from limb-to-limb. And that was after the men - if you could call them that - were going to take turns raping you.”

  Ares said nothing, so I continued. “This isn’t me being a hero to you. I’m not Prince Charming. I saved you from that crowd, but I didn’t save your life. Stop thinking that I did.” I nodded at the tub. “Get cleaned up. Feel better. I’ll have some food brought up. Then get your head down and sleep. I need to talk to our new friend downstairs a bit more.”

  “Anything else?”

  I thought for a moment. “Yeah, don’t get too comfortable feeling like a human being again. You’re still my bait.”

  I shut the door and walked back downstairs. The bartender brought another whiskey and set it before me. I sipped it now. I didn’t want to get drunk. Not in a town like Diablo. That would be a sure way to end up dead. “Tell me more about Warsaw,” I said.

  The bartender shook his head. “Probably already said more than I should have.”

  “What’s your name?”

  He glanced around. “Sam.”

  “I’m Declan,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.” But I didn’t put my hand out. Sam would never shake it anyway, afraid of how it might look if he did.

  He nodded at my tattoo. “That legit?”

  I looked down and remembered how it felt when they’d used a branding iron and held it to my flesh until it smoked. “Yeah. It’s legit all right. Got the memory of getting it seared into my skull the same as my skin.”

  “Another one of your kind passed through here recently.”

  I sipped the whiskey. “Yeah?”

  “Didn’t stay long though. Had a drink and then headed out of town.”

  “That so?” I eyed him. “He get a word with Warsaw while he was here?”

  “Don’t know. Was he a friend of yours?”

  I smirked. “Not much passes for friendship these days.”

  “I just thought that if you were both…”

  “Mortal Makers.”

  “Yeah. I just thought you’d be friends.”

  “Not exactly the sort of business that breeds after-work camaraderie. Not much call for a bowling team or anything like that.”

  Sam frowned. “Warsaw’s not a big fan of you guys coming into town.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Sam shrugged. “Just the unofficial word that gets handed down by his guys when they come around for a drink.”

  “That happen a lot?” I was going to need more whiskey unless this conversation picked up.

  “Probably happen sooner than you think now that you roughed up one of them.”

  “That guy I jabbed with my pistol?”

  “Yeah.” Sam wiped the counter. “You want some food upstairs?”

  I glanced back up to the second floor. Ares was probably done with the bath by now. I hoped she wasn’t the sort to linger. I didn’t need the internal conflict.

  “What do you serve here?”

  “Pretty decent stew. Potatoes when we get them. Stiff bread. It ain’t much, but it stick to your ribs plenty good.”

  “All right. Three portions should do us.”

  Sam smiled. “She’s easy enough to look at.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”

  Sam leaned back and held his hands up. “No judgment here, friend.”

  I started to argue, but then decided not to press it any further. People were going to think what they wanted to think, even if it made no sense, and went against every shred of logic they might have possessed. In this world, you got judged for what you did almost as quickly as you got judged for what you didn’t do. People were stupid like that.

  And I wasn’t going to change them, so why bother?

  I headed upstairs hoping she was finished in the tub. Truth was, I could have certainly used a bath of my own. But I didn’t want Ares thinking that I was interested in changing the dynamics of our relationship. That was the last thing I needed.

  I remembered how scared she’d looked when I got her from that group of deviants at the outpost back east. They were five minutes from turning the scene into something out of a Roman orgy ritual killing nightmare. I’d walked through the center of town as the townsfolk were working themselves into a frenzy over the thought of the sex and the blood. It was disgusting to me; they were acting like the goddamned suckers I worked so hard to put in the ground. Humans weren’t supposed to be such shits, and yet they were.

  Ares’ eyes had found mine across the way, pleading with me to save her. But she said nothing, just stood there stoic and accepting of her fate. I couldn’t even remember what they said she’d been found guilty of. Probably breathing.

  I stopped.

  That wasn’t it, and I knew it. She’d killed someone. I chastised myself for trying to minimize her crime. Still, whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve what would have befallen her if I hadn’t stepped in.

  It took two shots from the pistol on my side to convince the townsfolk that I was serious. I took possession of her using the authority granted to me by being a Mortal Maker and the fear that preceded the reputation of all of us in the organization. People wouldn’t fuck with you unless they were absolutely certain they could get away with it.

  Which wasn’t very often.

  As I’d led Ares away, the villagers grew more upset that I’d ruined their entertainment for the day. The throng of them started to acquire bravado and the situation deteriorated from there. There weren’t any kids, I’d noticed. Just adults. Drunk on the fear and the power they thought they wielded.

  When they started to rush forward, I shot one of them dead and watched him drop, hoping that would be the only necessary demonstration of my intent.

  It wasn’t.

  They’d paused for less than five seconds before rushing toward us again. I’d shoved Ares ahead of me and rushed us out of the outpost with the throng hot on our heels.

  The appearance of the grenade had a much bigger effect on the crowd and they suddenly remembered who they were dealing with.

  I could have put the pin back in.

  But I chose not to.

  Sometimes, the ones you fight for…well, it turns out they don’t deserve your protection after all.

  13

  The food arrived fifteen minutes after I got up to the room. Ares was done with the bath and had dressed again in her clothes, which, in truth, weren’t much more than rags. Then again, not many people wore anything decent these days. Even my cargo pants had seen better days. Most folks weren’t really interested in the latest styles out of Paris or Milan, though. Just staying alive was a lot more important than checking out the runway.

  We ate in silence, aside from the sounds of us chewing through the food. Sam had included a jug of water with the meal and I sucked it down. When we were done, I leaned back on the bed and rested my head on the pillow.

  Ares lay next to me. “So what now?”

  “We let our dinner digest. You anxious to go run a couple of miles after that?”

  “No.” She sighed. “I just thought…”

  I turned my head and looked at her. “You thought what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I was married,” I said.

  “Most people were,” said Ares. “Until they came for everyone.”

  I closed my eyes. The images were always close enough that all it took to see the whole scene play out again was to keep my eyes closed for longer than two seconds. I saw Denise.

  And Cole.

  He was twelve when the Event happened.

  Ares’ voice was soft in my ear. “What happened to your family?”

  I didn’t even realize I was talking. As far as I knew, I might have simply been talking to myself. But I wasn’t. I was talking to Ares. Telling her everything. Things that I didn’t want anyone else in the whole world to know.

  “We came off the plane and we split up. Everyone wanted to get to their families. You don’t tell a bunch of Alphas that their family waits until the first guy in
line gets his checked on. It just didn’t work that way. The discipline that had made us what we were broke down, and we all headed off on our own. I threw my shit in my truck and roared out of the base. I lived about twenty miles away, further inland than most.”

  I didn’t hear any sort of response from Ares. Maybe she was already asleep. Maybe she wasn’t. I kept my eyes closed, still seeing my past like some sort of stupid movie.

  “By the time I reached my town, it was completely abandoned. I drove through slowly. Neighborhood to neighborhood, the engine of my truck barely audible as I did. I kept waiting to see a dog or a cat or squirrels or something…just something that told me there was still life in this part of the world. But I saw nothing.”

  I took a breath. “By the time I reached my house, it was like I was the last man on Earth. Cars were abandoned in the middle of streets, their doors torn open. I could see the claw marks that had torn through metal doors like they weren’t even there. How in the world could you defend yourself against creatures like that?

  “I parked and got out and for some reason, I grabbed my M4 and approached my house. If you’d ever told me that one day I’d have to clear my own home like some terrorist shithead’s apartment in Mosul, I would have told you to fuck off. But here I was, easing open the front door of my house and letting the barrel of my M4 nose through the entire house.

  “I thought about calling out to them, but part of me insisted I stay quiet. Maybe that was the only shred of discipline I had left at that point. I don’t know. But for whatever reason, I didn’t. I just kept moving, trying to clear and think the best of what was an obvious war zone. The table had been upended. Chairs everywhere. The kitchen was a mess. The cabinets had been torn apart. Food was everywhere. The refrigerator door was hanging on one hinge with everything inside already spoiled and rotten.”

  I wrinkled my nose even now at the thought of it. “It stunk. The entire place. I couldn’t tell if it was just the food because it seemed like something on the very edge of the smell had a familiar scent to it. I knew what it was even while I tried to deny it. It’s something else, I kept saying. Knowing that it wasn’t.”