by Robert Brown
“Lloyd!” Her running embrace of him would have caused them both to fall over had he not gone through The Shattering. “I wish you would tell us how you are doing more often.”
“Phones aren’t working anymore, Mom, but I’m here now. Dad, can you back me up on this one?”
Patting his son on the shoulder, Greg gives Lloyd a smile while shaking his head. “I’m sorry, son, your mother is right. There have been vampires from your group coming through here for the last five days leaving messages with our prison guards. You could have sent word with any of the travelers that you were okay.”
“Why do you call them that? You know those vampires we leave here are for your protection.”
“Protection or not, we aren’t able to leave this place and are kept here against our will. Now stop changing the subject and explain to your mother why you haven’t given word about how you’ve been.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I was coming back with the first wave heading to the north but something came up.” Shrugging his shoulders and sheepishly hanging his head. “I’ll let you know how I’m doing more often.”
Evelyn grabs her son and gives him another crushing hug. “We already thought we lost you once, Lloyd. Knowing you are out there fighting a war is too much to take without you sending us word or hearing how you are. You’re gone for days or weeks at a time, and I don’t even know if you’re still alive.”
“I know, Mom, I’m sorry.”
She gives him another hug.
“Enough of that now, are you going to be here long? Are you hungry?”
The awkwardness of her question hangs in the air. He doesn’t eat regular food anymore, but it is a mother’s prerogative to inquire about how her children’s stomachs are doing.
“I don’t know how long we will be here, a few days, maybe a week. We’ve cleared Oregon to the southern border and are regrouping here to figure out our next move. The Angel wanted to speak with someone at Willamette University, and I’m trying to figure out a better way to fight our opponents.”
“The Angel, who is that?”
“Um, Cora is The Angel.” He blushes a little and points up to her in a group of vampires hovering a thousand feet above them. “Something happened during a night battle we had and I said, I mean everyone said, she looked like an angel. She is incredible out there. You should see the things she is able to do.”
“I understand what you mean. Even I think she looks like an angel when she flies, and I know it isn’t just her wings or the pheromones she says she releases.” Evelyn looks at her son with a huge motherly grin, thinking she knows what his term for her probably means. Greg looks on without registering the possibility. “There is a magnetism about her, a purity that everyone is drawn toward.”
The assembly above them breaks up, and they watch Cora spiral down from the sky readying to land in front of them. She reaches out for Lloyd right before she sets her feet down and when they take each other’s hands, it appears as though he is helping her down from a tall platform. Taking a few steps closer to his parents, Cora and Lloyd don’t let go of each other’s hands.
“Lloyd tells us he is calling you The Angel now. Does this have anything to do with you two holding hands?” Greg gets a giant grin of mischief as the two pull their hands apart quickly and both blush.
“Thanks, Dad!”
“I keep telling everyone they should just call me Cora, Mr. Cavanaugh. It is sweet when Lloyd calls me Angel, but it’s a little embarrassing since our troops and some of the people we rescued started calling me that also. I’m not used to so much attention.”
“Well, the name certainly is fitting.” Evelyn grabs hold of Cora’s hands. “Don’t let Greg embarrass you like that, it’s just what fathers do. You do look like an angel, and I think you are a perfect girlfriend for my son.”
“Thank you, Evelyn. Please excuse me, I have to go see my parents and let them know I’m all right. Lloyd, I’ll be leaving for the city after I see my parents, could you gather everyone for a discussion here this evening?”
Lloyd nods. Cora smiles and moves away from them in a running blur to find her family.
*
The vampires are assembled in a clearing by the campground waiting for Cora to return. Relieved family members are gathered around their returned warriors, knowing the time for them to be together is short. Other people from the wooded shelter are arriving as well in anticipation of news about the outside world.
Lloyd steps to the center to begin. “Many of you here, including my own parents, have asked how things are going and what we are dealing with. My father told me I should be honest, so I will be. This might be hard for some of the younger children to hear.” He waits a moment to see if anyone wants to take their kids away but no one moves.
“The fighting we have engaged in so far is brutal and unforgiving. There is no surrender in this war of mutants. Each individual has made up their mind on what kind of world they wish to live in. As we have expanded our territory, we have so far encountered as many bad mutants controlling territories as good ones. We are also having to fight the behemoths that are still out there.”
“What are behemoths?” someone calls out.
“Those are what we originally called mountain trolls. Unlike those of us that have become vampires or giants, the trolls continue to grow when they… when they eat someone. We have encountered some that are twenty-five feet tall and nearly half as wide. For some reason, they have remained as aggressive and bent on destruction as they were on the first day they changed.
“They are difficult to kill but are largely mindless in their behavior and lash out at anything that moves. The greatest danger on the battlefield for us is mutants like me, other vampires. They have our strength, our determination, and our ability to heal. The fight to capture Newport was particularly difficult and bloody. Both sides had major military hardware in the fight, and while the bombs and bullets can’t kill us, they still cause pain and damage us when the explosion is large enough.”
Several mothers and fathers give gasps when Lloyd mentions explosions.
“Is that how my son was killed?” George King is standing with his arms around his crying wife in the crowd.
“I’m sorry, George, hasn’t someone spoken to you about your son yet?”
“No. No one has, but we knew he must be gone when he didn’t come back with the rest of you. I have to know what happened, Lloyd.” Grabbing his wife tighter, he added, “We have to know.”
Turning to his soldiers, Lloyd calls out, “Does someone know what happened to Phillip? I sent him here right after we lost George’s son and his squad.”
One of the winged soldiers steps up to him and whispers in his ear.
“Your son was killed in an attack at Newport along with the eleven other members of his own squad and another fourteen soldiers from different squads. We were attacked by humans using tanks and artillery against us as a decoy. They were being controlled by Michael, an arch-vampire that claimed the Newport area. We were trying to stop the humans without killing them and that extra effort on our part enabled Michael and his soldiers to catch us while we were distracted. Our compassion is what enabled Michael to succeed in killing so many of us, in killing your son.
“I apologize to you and your wife that you are finding out only now and in such a manner. The boy I sent back to let you know was found murdered on our return trip here. Michael must have had some soldiers in the forests behind us expecting us to disperse and run. They would have been ready for any of us leaving the main battlefield. Phillip was a capable soldier, but I shouldn’t have sent him on his own.”
Tears flow down George’s face, and he turns away from Lloyd without a word. Holding up his wife, they walk through the parting crowd back toward the campsite. Lloyd stands there silent with his head slightly lowered as the couple leave.
Lifting his head back up and taking a deep breath, Lloyd wipes tears from his own face and returns to his task.
“
The fighting hasn’t been easy, and we expect it will get worse rather than better as we gain territory and increase the size of our army. We have lost a lot of good people, and as difficult as that conversation just was, you should all prepare for the possibility that some or all of us won’t return at some point. Those of you in this campsite are fortunate that only one of the children from this area have been lost. I have had to inform many people in different parts of our state about the losses we have had.
“It has taken three weeks to capture all of the Oregon coastline, and we are mobilizing to move north through Washington and into Canada. We are also moving east to capture the rest of the Washington and Oregon cities and towns. With each area we free from oppressive vampires, we are encountering new problems we have to deal with, and I need help from my parents and the rest of you adults to figure out what to do about it.”
Once again, the people of the camp are reminded that the pale people with adult bodies were all just young teenagers a few weeks ago. With their own children, they instinctively know that their eyes are lying to them. With the vampires they didn’t know before the change, it is too difficult for their minds to unwrap the illusion The Shattering created with its change.
“Are you having to fight everywhere you go?” someone asks.
“No, some of the towns are controlled by human-friendly mutants like us. They just want things to return to as normal a situation as possible. But often in the larger cities, that isn’t the case. With so many children that mutated at the same time in such close quarters, the bad ones always seem able to gain control through coercion and threats. Many of the decent vampires end up leaving. They move to the outskirts of cities or suburbs with their families and other humans they can rescue.
“Sometimes, they are killed outright by those that want to enslave humans. I’m afraid in many areas, as we gain control over more cities and towns, the decent vampires and their families will be murdered by the bad. Right now, what the enemy vampires may view as uneasy alliances with friendly mutants will be seen as more of a threat as we approach.
“One of the issues I need your help with is in dealing with aggressive humans that we’ve freed. The territories held by the enemy vampires are usually run with brute force and the humans held in those areas are often put through various levels of abuse, neglect, or even torture. We have had many people fighting against our changes in areas we have freed. Sometimes they attack us directly. They say we are no different than the other monsters that controlled them before, and they won’t be tricked by our attempts to be nice.
“You’ll continue to have that sort of problem as long as you force people to stay in containment zones,” Greg tells his son.
“I know what you’re saying, Dad, but I don’t think freeing people to go wherever they want will work either. The attacks against us are more of an annoyance than anything else, but we aren’t the real victims in the attacks. The people that are really angry with how the vampires treated them are attacking other humans. Our wounds heal faster than we can scratch at them, the real casualties of the violence are the people working with us to secure their towns. The ones helping out and pitching in so we can all rebuild our lives.
“Right now, we are able to keep track of the agitators but I’m afraid of what could happen if we give everyone complete mobility to go from town to town. I think those humans that are angry will organize and specifically target all the humans that are working with us. I don’t understand what they think they will gain by killing other humans?”
“What are you doing with the families of the enemy vampires you have to kill, son?”
“What do you mean? We aren’t doing anything with them.”
“That might be a big part of your problem. If an opposing group of vampires came in here and killed you and your men and then claimed we were free, how do you think I would respond to anyone that worked with them?”
“I guess you’d be pissed off.” Lloyd’s eyes go wide with uttering a curse word in front of his parents. “Sorry, Mom and Dad, I didn’t mean to swear.”
Ignoring his son’s apology, he continues. “Lloyd, if some strange mutant came in here and touched a hair on your head, your mother and I would be more than pissed off at them and anyone that was helping them. You aren’t just running around freeing humans from their oppressors, Lloyd. Some of the people you think you are freeing will have more power before you kill the vampires they are related to. In this world, parents are under the protection of their evil children just as we are under yours, and you are taking that away. You are dealing with power, politics, and family, and it isn’t going to be easy figuring out what to do with those people.”
“Not all of the troublemakers are family or friends of the vampires we killed, but I think you’re right that they feel they lost something when we moved through to free everyone.”
“That’s another problem in your thinking,” a man calls out. “You may be going from town to town getting rid of the vampires you claim are being bad or evil, but you aren’t returning anything to normal. I believe you when you say you are stopping the bad guys, but as long as you keep us in containment zones, all you are doing is changing management on a bad situation. Prisoners don’t care how nice the guards at the prison are.”
“This isn’t a prison, the towns aren’t prisons!” His irritation breaks through in a frustrated tone.
“Maybe to you and your family, but this is a prison to me. I’m John Rutledge, and I’m the man that flew your parents and several others out here from Eugene. You may think we have things great here, but I’ve spent most of my life being able to hop in my car or plane and go anywhere I like, whenever I like. You and your vampire buddies have kept us ‘locked up’ in the woods for nearly a month. When is it going to end?”
“I should have said something about this earlier. We were planning on moving everyone out of the woods and into Salem in the next two days.”
“I don’t want to go from a wooded prison to a concrete one! I want to go back to my life and be able to travel wherever I want.”
Lloyd looks at his father pleadingly while several other voices rise up expressing the same frustrations.
“Everyone!” Greg calls out. “Everyone, listen up!” He walks out to stand next to his son.
“I agree this isn’t the situation any of us want to be in. I am also sick of being in the woods and want to return home, but my son is just a teenager and so are the rest of his people fighting on our behalf. They came here for advice and we are giving it to them. We won’t solve anything if this meeting turns into a mob demanding immediate action.
“I think the zones of control are a bad idea, and we will all work to have them eliminated and have our real freedoms returned. I will offer myself as a liaison between vampires and humans in order to work through any issues that come up once we have mobility again. Let’s just remember there is a war being fought out there right now and the only safe area we could travel to at this point is the Oregon coastline.
“John, I know you want to find out what is going on with your own family beyond our borders, so let’s all work together and give them the best information we can so they can win back our country.”
“Thanks, Dad,” he whispers as Greg walks back to stand by his wife.
“Zones of control are a bad thing. I get that now.” Several chuckles emerge from the crowd. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it the way you put it, but I’m glad you’re letting me know how you feel. We’ll do what we can to make sure you are free to travel in the areas we control.”
“The next big issue we are dealing with is food. Being stuck here in the woods, you may not know how devastated the world outside has become. All aspects of our easy access lifestyles have disappeared. Groceries stores are no longer being stocked and goods are no longer being produced. We can’t fill up massive carts of our favorite foods that have been shipped in from around the world.” Turning to look at his mom, “I can no longer neglectfully throw away
a third of the food I had on my plate like I did as a child. That was when I knew you would always keep me fed and free from hunger.
“Every morsel of food must now be cherished and protected so it can be eaten by you humans. Currently, almost every human out there is completely dependent on us to provide whatever food items we can scavenge for them. There are some cases where people living in out of the way properties and farms have managed to remain independent from vampire control but those cases are rare.
“In the areas we have cleared so far, we are preparing to allow people to return to farms and orchards to grow and gather what they can. Unfortunately, in a world without electricity and modern food packaging, many of the items pulled from the ground, from trees, or culled from herds must be eaten immediately or it will all rot.
“We may be the current rulers of this world, but most of us still have the mentality of children. We know nothing about food production and storage. On top of that, like many of you, most of the remaining adults were city dwellers before the change and didn’t have direct farming or gardening experience. Most of us only know things can be grown but have little clue as to how to properly do it. Here in the free territories, the most valuable members of the new society will be farmers and those with any type of skill in animal or plant production.”
“How about fishing?” a man calls from the crowd. “I’m no good with plants, but I’ve worked the Alaskan fishing and crabbing boats. There’s a lot of food out in the ocean for us.”
“Yes, fishing will be great as well. Thank you, that is what we need, ideas! Ultimately, we need tactical knowhow. We need some ideas on how to properly protect the human areas or how to leave those areas and allow you to protect yourselves without the risk of destruction. And we need everyone that has the ability to hunt, grow, or fish for food to tell us how, where, and what to do.”
*
“We have a choice to make about the direction we should head,” Lloyd offers to the large group while they await the arrival of Cora. “Now that we control Oregon and Washington, we can move east fairly easily and keep gaining ground. If we do that, it’s likely that we won’t run into major resistance until we’re halfway across the country in Minneapolis. That will give us territory, but not bodies.
