Dominion of the Damned

by Jean Marie Bauhaus

  Abby nodded enthusiastically and got up from her chair. He handed her the flashlight. “Hold it still and shine it on the back of Hannah’s head, like this.”

  Hannah continued to feed the baby as Konstantin unwrapped her bandages. Warmth filled her chest as his fingers gently pried off the tee-shirt strips. She was already getting used to the feel of his hands. She tensed up, fighting the urge to relax and let her guard down.

  If Konstantin were a man, it would be all too easy. He would be a dream. Handsome, strong and capable, good with children. And a doctor, to boot.

  But he wasn’t a man. No matter how nice or caring he might seem, Hannah could never let herself forget that. Everything he did for her had an ulterior motive, and when he looked at her and the children, all he saw was food. Food, and fodder for his experiments.

  He picked up the rubbing alcohol. “This will probably sting. Try to hold still.”

  Hannah braced herself. It did sting as he flushed out the wound, and it exacerbated her headache. But it was over quickly, and he dabbed at it with a wad of gauze.

  “What about you and Carl?” she asked as he re-wrapped her head in the gauze. “What are you going to eat to tide you over?”

  “We can go a few days without feeding. Don’t worry about us.”

  “It wasn’t you I was worried about.”

  His movements paused, but only briefly. As he resumed he said, “Do you really think I’d bother trying to keep your wound from getting infected if I was planning to feed on you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why you’re doing any of this.”

  He tied off her bandages. “Thank you, nurse Abby, that will be all.” He set the light back on the table, then pulled a chair out to face Hannah. He sat down and leveled a gaze at her. “We’re in a survival situation here, Miss Jordan. We’re not going to make it if we can’t trust each other.”

  Hannah laughed. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to be afraid.”

  “No? The sun will be up soon. Carl and I will be vulnerable then, especially if we fall asleep.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I hope we can count on you to watch our backs, as we’ve watched yours. You’re under my protection, Hannah. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Any of you.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “I think someone’s given you the wrong idea about me and my camp.”

  “Then what’s the right idea?”

  He leaned forward again and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, Carl came through a door on the other side of the kitchen. His arms were loaded down with an LED lantern and several flashlights. “Basement’s clear,” he said, bringing everything over and dumping it on the table. “Found more light.”

  “Thank you, Carl,” said Konstantin. He looked back at Hannah. “Something tells me you’ll have to see our camp for yourself before you’ll believe anything I tell you about it.”

  “Hannah,” said Abby, “It’s hot in here. And I have to potty.”

  “You can go upstairs,” said Konstantin. “The windows aren’t boarded over up there. You’ll be able to get some air. And you’ll be safe in the daylight.” It looked like it pained him, having to add that last bit of reassurance, but Hannah was glad to hear it.

  “Come on,” she told Abby, standing up. “Let’s go find the bathroom.”

  FIFTEEN

  Alek watched Hannah leave with the children. As much as he hated to admit it, Esme was right. Hannah did remind him of Irina. It wasn’t that there was a physical resemblance, beyond the dark hair and eyes. Nor could their personalities have been more different. It was the haunted look in Hannah’s eyes, a perpetual look of distrust, like she never felt safe. Irina’s eyes had been filled with that same look of despair the last time he had seen her.

  He hadn’t been able to remove that look from his wife’s eyes. He found that he wanted more than anything to see it gone from Hannah’s.

  But how was he supposed to do that when all she saw when she looked at him was another dead thing that wanted to eat her?

  It was a ridiculous thing to feel, anyway. He barely knew the girl. And she was just a girl, barely out of her teens. He wondered what she was like before all of this started, before she became burdened with her parents’ death and the care and protection of her infant brother. With the simple act of getting through each day alive. He tried to imagine her as a care-free student, her biggest worry passing her classes. It was difficult to picture her like that. He realized that it was something he’d like to see, someday.

  “What now, Doc?” asked Carl, snapping him out of his reverie.

  “Now, we wait. You should try to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  Carl nodded. “You want to sleep in shifts?”

  Alek shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping today.”

  As Carl left the kitchen, Alek closed his eyes and tried to think about the formula he and Zachary had been working on when he left. He wondered if his assistant had made any progress in his absence. He tried to run the numbers in his head, but he was too tired, and too hungry. He’d gotten no sleep the day before, thanks to Esme’s stunt with hiding Hannah in solitary confinement while allowing him to keep searching for her. And he hadn’t fed since leaving his own camp. Despite what he’d told Hannah, the hunger was beginning to get to him.

  The scent of blood wasn’t helping. It filled his nostrils, making his teeth extend and his stomach growl. He saw the wadded up tee-shirt strips that he’d used to bandage Hannah’s head lying on the counter where he’d left them. He got up and went over to the counter.

  The cloth was still slightly damp, soaked with blood that hadn’t yet had time to dry. Alek held it and stared at it. He held it up to his nose and inhaled, but that only made it worse. His mouth watered as he held the cloth to his lips, so tempted to taste it, to suck out every last drop. But he imagined Hannah’s horror at finding out that he’d tasted her blood without her consent, and instead he looked around the kitchen until he found a garbage can. He tossed the bloody strips of cloth into the can and then set the entire can inside the basement door and shut it, shutting away the scent and the temptation.

  But he could still smell it, even through the door. Growling disgustedly at himself, he left the kitchen and went into the darkened living room, where Carl was already asleep on the sofa.

  Alek sat on the foot of the staircase and put his head in his hands. He hated these reminders of what he had become. Hannah looked at him like he was a monster because that’s exactly what he was. She was a smart girl to keep that in mind. No matter how much he tried to help humanity, no matter how much he tried to live among them, he wasn’t one of them. Esme had seen to that.

  The first time he’d seen her, he thought she was an angel. An angel of mercy, come to put him out of his misery once and for all. He would have welcomed that. But he had been drunk, and sick with grief, and she had taken full advantage. She had promised him vengeance, and served it to him in abundance.

  And he had been a willing partaker. Even a gleeful one at times. That was what tortured him the most. Not that he’d killed those men—if Nazis could even be called men—but that he’d taken such pleasure from it, from the fear that he inflicted, the pain and cruelty of a slow, drawn-out death.

  He closed his eyes and saw himself standing in that tavern in Berlin, bodies piled at his feet as Esme’s laughter rang in his ears. The wall behind the bar was mirrored, and Alek remembered looking up and seeing himself as his last victim—his wife’s last surviving tormentor—slipped to the floor, drained of his life’s blood. Blood that covered Alek’s face, neck and chest, stained his hands with guilt. He saw himself truly in that moment, what he had become, and he hated himself for it, and he hated Esme for making him that way.

  She was there, of course. She sauntered over to him, laughing all the while. She bent down and pulled off the S. S. officer’s hat, put it on and flung her arms around Alek’s
neck and proceeded to lick the blood from his face. He grabbed her and turned her around, forcing her to face the mirror. “Look!” he said. “Look at us! You should wear that hat. We should both put on the uniform, because we’re no better than the men we killed.”

  She only laughed harder. “Oh, Alek,” she said when she finished laughing at him, “be serious. You’ve avenged your sweet Irina. They had it coming.”

  “Did they?” He pointed to the barkeep and the waitress, whose bodies lay in a tumble before the fireplace. “They were innocent.”

  “They were Nazi sympathizers.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “They were serving them, weren’t they? And gladly taking their money. Besides, I was hungry. You were keeping all of the officers for yourself. What else was I supposed to do?” She pried herself out of his grip and turned to face him. “You got your revenge. Isn’t that what you wanted? Why this sudden attack of conscience?”

  He pointed at the monstrous image of himself in the mirror. “This isn’t me.”

  “Of course it is. You’re a vampire, Alek. You’re no angel.”

  “Neither are you.”

  Again, she laughed. “Yes, well.” She shrugged. “What we are is better than angels. Better than them.” She pointed at the bodies around them. “We are the superior race, Alek. You’re a scientist. You should understand survival of the fittest.”

  “I’m a doctor,” he said. “I’ve forsaken my oath.” He looked around at all the harm he’d inflicted. “This isn’t me,” he repeated. “I’m not a killer.”

  Esme grabbed his blood-stained hand and shoved it in his face. “I beg to differ. You are a killer, and a magnificent one at that.” She threw his hand down in disgust. “You’re just like me.”

  “No.” He looked at her. How deceived he’d been by her beauty. He could see it clearly now, the ugliness of her soul. “I don’t know how you became this way, Esme, and whatever it was, I’m sorry. But I’m awake now. And I’m nothing like you.”

  He’d walked out of the tavern then. She had shouted his name over and over, ordered and then pleaded with him to come back, but he had kept walking, never looking back.

  He looked at his hands now, hands that from that moment on he had rededicated to healing instead of killing. That was the last time he had violated his Hippocratic oath. But that didn’t erase the stains on his soul, and it didn’t change what he was.

  A scream from upstairs snapped him out of his brooding. Alek sprang to his feet and practically flew up the stairs.

  SIXTEEN

  The master bedroom upstairs was cozy and filled with sunlight. Hannah settled the children on the bed on top of a lacy white duvet, then cracked open the window to let in some air. Below, zeds roamed aimlessly around the yard. They didn’t seem to be trying to get into the house. Hannah considered whether it was safe to leave the window cracked. If Noah woke up and started to cry, that might bring an attack. But she knew they’d have to get past the vampires downstairs first, and whatever doubts Hannah had about them, she knew they weren’t likely to let that happen.

  Satisfied that the children were safe, at least for the moment, she went to look around. Konstantin had already checked the place out, but she wanted to check for herself that they were really alone up there. Gripping the gun and keeping it ready, she made her way through each of the bedrooms, shining the lantern in them, looking in the closets and under the beds.

  When she was satisfied, she made her way back to the bathroom. There were no windows to let in even the light of pre-dawn, so she set the lantern on the vanity, where the mirror doubled its light. She placed the gun next to it and turned on the sink. The pipe sputtered before spitting out muddy water, just as it had downstairs. As she waited for it to run clear, Hannah looked at herself in the mirror. What she saw startled her. It wasn’t just that she looked rumpled and dirty, with dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. She looked thin. Too thin. She hadn’t realized she’d lost so much weight. And she looked older. Her face didn’t have lines or wrinkles, but something about the gauntness, and the tired look in her eyes, combined with the gauze wrapped around her head made her look years older.

  Clear water ran out of the tap, and Hannah rinsed her face. A hand towel hung on a bar next to the sink. It was clearly decorative—green terrycloth, with a four-leaf clover stitched on the front—and unused. It must have been hung there in honor of St. Patrick’s day. But the world had ended a few days before it got there.

  She felt bad as she grabbed the towel to dry her face and hands. She remembered how violated she had felt upon discovering that vampire couple living in her house. Now here she was, making herself at home in a stranger’s house, eating their food and using their things.

  It was a survival situation, like Konstantin had said. Still, that didn’t make it right. She wondered what happened to whoever had lived there. Did they become those things? She thought of the lady with only half a face who had charged her outside, and wondered if that had once been the lady of the house. Or maybe they had made it out. Maybe they were back at the prison. Maybe Hannah had stood in line with them, or gone to group with them, without even knowing it.

  With a sigh, she rummaged through a drawer and found a hairbrush and a ponytail holder. She pulled old hair out of the brush, noting its redness as she tossed it in the trash can. She gently brushed her hair around the bandages, careful not to pull too hard on the strands that were attached to her wound. She started to pull it back in a ponytail, but her eyes fell on the plastic floral shower curtain behind her. Only the cold water worked, but even a cold shower would feel good at this point.

  She put the ponytail holder back on the counter, went to the tub and pulled back the curtain. And screamed.

  Before she could even reach for the gun, the doctor appeared in the doorway. She grabbed the gun and pointed it at him out of reflex. He held up his hands. “What is it?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  She pointed the gun back at the tub. At the grinning skeleton in the tub. Well, it was mostly a skeleton. Most of the flesh had rotted away, but patches of decayed skin still clung to it here and there. Konstantin picked up the lantern and brought it closer. Hannah saw a few wisps of red hair clinging to a patch of scalp on the skull. She looked back at the hairbrush on the counter, and felt nauseous.

  “I don’t know how I missed this,” said Konstantin, sitting on the edge of the tub. “I guess I relied too much on my nose and not enough on my eyes. This one’s way past giving off a scent.” He glanced at the gun. “You can put that away. She’s not getting up.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because a bite didn’t kill her. This was suicide.” He pointed to a reddish brown substance that coated the bottom of the tub. “That’s not rust, it’s blood.” He reached into the tub to pick something up, and held it up for her to see. “Razor blade.” He stood up. “I guess she decided to take her fate into her own hands.”

  Finally, Hannah lowered the gun. She realized she was still panting, and tried to slow her breath.

  “Are you okay?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “That must’ve been hard to see.”

  She shrugged him off. “I’ve seen worse.” Glancing back at the remains, she said, “We should do something with her.”

  He nodded. “I can move her to the basement.”

  “No. I mean, like, bury her.”

  “We can’t. At least, not now. The sun’s coming up, and the house is still surrounded. None of us can go outside.” He reached over and closed the shower curtain, hiding the remains from view. “But if our rescue hasn’t arrived by sundown, Carl and I will bury her this evening.”

  Hannah leaned against the sink and stared at the shower curtain. “I tried to bury my parents.” She didn’t know why she told him that. She supposed she just needed to get it out, and he seemed willing to listen for some reason. “I dragged my mom outside, and I dug a hole. But then my dad showed up, except he wasn’t my dad. I had to put
a bullet in his brain, and that brought others. I put them both in the grave, but I didn’t have time to fill it in all the way.”

  “You did the best you could for them.” After a moment, he added, “I wasn’t able to bury my wife.”

  Hannah looked at him, startled. The possibility that he could be a widower had never even occurred to her.

  “She was buried in a mass grave,” he continued. “I’m not even sure where. It’s a hard thing, when the world you know ends, and you’re forced to face a harsh, new world without the people you love.” His lips turned up into a small, sad smile. “You’re better at it than I was.”

  Hannah wasn’t so sure about that. She shut her eyes against a wave of tears that tried to escape. She’d thought she’d spent all of her grief in her cell a couple of nights before, but here it was again, welling up in her chest.

  But she didn’t let it out. She knew it would be a mistake to show that kind of vulnerability in front of him. Possibly even suicidal. So she wiped away a stray tear, and nodded. “Thanks,” she said, and picked up the lantern. Outside the bathroom, she paused, and looked back. “I’m sorry about your wife.” Even if he wasn’t human, she could tell that it had been painful for him to talk about her.

  “Thank you.” He followed her into the hallway, where she walked toward the bedroom. The sun had risen, and it filled the room with light that spilled through the open door into the hall. Hannah stepped into the light, but Konstantin stopped at its edge, just past the stairs, safely ensconced in shadow. “Try to get some sleep,” he told her. “I’ll be downstairs, keeping watch.”

  She watched him head down the stairs before going into the bedroom and crossing to the window. She drew back a lace curtain and looked outside. In the yard below, the dead still milled about, without any direction or purpose. She started to turn away when a flash of orange caught her eye. Looking back at the yard, she saw a small, flame-haired child wandering into the middle of the zeds. She turned to the bed, where Noah lay sleeping by himself. “Oh my God,” she muttered as she ran for the stairs.