The Last City Box Set

by Logan Keys

  He’d stayed looking me up and down with a wolf-like grin.

  “What do we do with her?” they’d asked.

  Toby had rubbed his hands together and then he’d put them on each side of my face. “You are too pretty to be joining some freak army. You better believe it. Boy, someone is gonna come a lookin’ for this one.”

  So, they’d made sure it looked like a few zombies died in the process of taking me down. So, they’d made sure Tommy thought I was dead.

  And it took until now to know how he must have felt.

  Tommy would have come looking for me. He would have blamed himself. I know because now, thinking him gone, I blame myself too.

  Here I am again. Same hill. Different girl.

  Very different girl.

  If you can call a vampire, blood-sucking demon, a girl.

  Chapter Seven

  Dallas

  Joelle approaches, her face frozen in place to hide whatever emotion she’s filled with.

  Dread. I bet it’s dread. Because she knows she’s right.

  Whatever else she is, Joelle’s never wrong.

  Our numbers have increased. Even more brutal youths and stragglers found across the country-side have been brought into our ranks. We boast over a thousand now, and Joelle decided to make Lotte a general of some sort. I’d suggested it. Lotte had been a leader in real life, and as a creature of the night, she’s fallen back into her usual methods, only more vicious.

  She has free reign to hunt anyone who steps out of line.

  The life of a vampire is incredibly brutal and long, infinite, while also short as lightning. There is in-fighting for dominance. Joelle says, “Let them be.”

  We are not to interfere. Survival of the fittest.

  Lotte has put in place some semblance of order though, rules.

  They are incredibly intricate. You can only challenge peers. We are all set into a pecking order, and there are several levels like a regular army. You can challenge, but only at certain times. Now that we are on the move, no challenging allowed.

  Originally, I’d debated this with Joelle, but she’s puristic, the type of leader aiming for peace amidst the people of the night. I don’t want to admit that she’s right, but it’s true, we only understand reaction and violence, and we only speak a language of our animal side at times. They won’t respect us if we don’t rule with pure menace. And loose… they’d run like a flood of monsters down on the heads of what is left of humanity. Best we keep a firm grip on this great weapon, I suppose.

  We travel at night to LA, but slowly. Carefully. Joelle’s certain that Tommy’s gone. She has already spent many days in mourning. I try not to think about it. I block it, but it beats through my defenses, anyway.

  Mostly, Joelle’s worried about another one of the specials who she’d said can abuse her powers. Control her, she says, and control the rest. But then he’d passed out of reach.

  She could sense it and I could sense it through her.

  Joelle supposes that he travels to Anthem. She’d felt his reach even here, touching her mind, and then he’d moved on.

  I too had felt cold fingers in my mind, tickling the lobes, playing with the thoughts. Tweaking. Testing. Touching.

  If he’d been any closer, he’d have had us both, but something distracted him and then he’d disappeared in the fog that’s plagued this area lately.

  The fog.

  That’s another thing that’s changed over time. It seems to have a life of its own, painting the world in gray shades, making even our vampire eyes struggle to see through its veil.

  Today, it is exceptionally thick. I woke to a creeping, crawling fog, rolling before my feet, tumbling along as I entered its space.

  Joelle looks prepared for something big. Her shoulders are squared toward LA.

  “It’s time,” she says.

  I don’t have to ask, “What do you mean?”

  We are a hive mind. I saw her walk to my place in the cave before she ever arrived. I could hear her thoughts building, stringing together, and sense their meaning before they were finally formed. In their primordial ooze, a wisp of an idea, I knew them.

  And she knows my own.

  We orchestrate now, synchronize. And to humans, how strange and peculiar we will now seem. We will frighten them as the fiends had frightened the people of Ironwood before it fell.

  But for different reasons.

  We need to eat.

  We think the thought together. As one.

  We must hunt.

  We’ve met near the water, a moat across from the new fortress where the Underground resides.

  But we have needs before we can cross. Of one accord, we separate into the forest at hyper-speed. Blindingly, we fly.

  There is no scenting before hunting and then finding. As we work together, sending information, it is merely circular how we find a deer. It blurs together to make one thing: hunt, capture, eat.

  All the sequence combines at such speeds. We are quick because neither of us enjoys the process of filling our bellies. And we work well together because our guilt is also one mind. We are sisters of the night. Twins almost. Tommy brought us together.

  Joelle shies from my thoughts of his name.

  Now, we separate once again into her and me. Joelle breaks away from our mental tie, long enough to have her own musings separately and hidden. I do not dig around for these. I already know them.

  She thinks or knows Tommy is dead.

  I live in a land of denial.

  Together, fed, we approach the water that separates LA from the rest of the wilds.

  Entering the water, we swim like Olympians; our arms barely break the water’s surface, and soundlessly, we glide. We come out on the side of LA alone. Joelle wanted us to come in without the others.

  She’d rather we not start an all-out war.

  But what greets us is a surprise.

  Emptiness.

  We’d expected to find guards, a force, but there is nothing here. This part of the city has been hastily abandoned. However, I sense people. I smell them.

  We share a look and then fly through the empty parts checking for clues.

  Nothing.

  A quick escape was made from this part.

  We find what used to be a blocked off area that’s freely open now.

  Beyond the broken gate are some humans, but even if they see us, they don’t stop us from entering. We freely walk through the streets of the city. Those nearest, are watching us, all women so far.

  We approach two towers. Between them is a barrier. We are on the left side and I sense many more people are on the other side, to the right.

  Joelle approaches a soldier, a woman with a big sniper rifle that I’d love to borrow some time.

  “Your leader?” Joelle asks.

  The woman motions with her gun toward the tower on this side of the barrier.

  We head that way unimpeded. They give us strange looks but no one stops us. I know how well we seem like monsters. But these are not unused to monsters, apparently.

  Joelle and I arrive, and they let us right on in and up.

  As the elevator rises, Joelle pales more than usual. Sweat pops up on her brow. “It can’t be,” she says as the doors open.

  She doesn’t have to say anything more. Her mind is racing through memories. I’m shared a vision, not on purpose, of a woman with dark hair like hers. The woman is standing over her with a clip board. She’s telling Joelle how disappointed she is. I flinch as she reaches out to slap Joelle.

  I touch my cheek feeling the sting. The connection between us is only getting stronger.

  Joelle is steely eyed as she takes in the room that appears before us when the doors slide open. It’s dark, filled with… are those webs?

  “Spiders,” Joelle hisses, striding forward with angry purpose.

  There are guards this time. They stop us at the doors to the inner area.

  Every wall creeps with eyes and legs and arachnids slide down s
ilk to greet us.

  Even as I am now, a creature of the night, I shudder.

  The guards ignore the no doubt thousands of inhabitants, and one holds a hand up to stop Joelle as she approaches. Joelle grabs the hand that’s attempting to stay her. The guard is down on her knees in less time than it took for the hand to have done the offending halt motion to finality.

  Joelle shoves the other guard into the wall where she screeches having landed in a pile of webs and immediately becomes stuck. The spiders swarm as she fights out of the entanglements before they can eat her.

  Joelle has already thrown open the doors.

  More women soldiers funnel through, guns drawn.

  The large military grade weapons make us pause momentarily, but then Joelle shouts, “Adrian!” Top of her lungs. “Adrian!”

  And the guns go off, but they shoot empty air where we’d been only a split second before.

  Joelle and I separate, an arc around those with weapons so fast that they don’t see us move. Now we are rising up behind them, teeth at their throat, our hands on theirs pointing the guns at their own people.

  Joelle walks her hostage inside, and I follow.

  More webs and spiders, bigger ones. Some unnaturally so. Near the throne-like chair at the front is an arachnid the size of a dog.

  This one rears up on its hind legs, its massive underbelly showing before it gallops toward us and attacks.

  The woman Joelle has hold of screams, taking the brunt of the giant arachnid’s pinchers. She falls, blood spraying from a massive bite to the chest.

  Spiders of every size rush like a wave of legs from the walls, surrounding us, and I see Joelle pull a knife from her now dead captive, and thrust it through the head of the largest that’s still trying to bite her.

  “Call them off!” she shouts to a woman who sits at the front, obviously holding a macabre sort of court, surrounded by statues, watching the attack.

  I have to take the gun from my own captive, and I use this to shoot a circle around myself to keep the spiders from getting to us.

  “Enough,” the woman says, and her spiders stop.

  I turn to face her. Her eyes glitter through the darkness, but we have little need for light ourselves, so to us, she is plain as day.

  She squints at Joelle, and then she rises, coming forward. She weaves through morbid statues. These are not beautiful Michelangelo’s, they are wretched, tortured looking subjects.

  The woman herself is a sight to be seen. Eyes like gold flakes floating inside of her head, hair that is many dark colors, and then it all makes sense, Joelle’s anger, and though she’s changed quite a bit now, aged, and seems wilder than before, this is the woman with the clipboard who’d slapped Joelle.

  The woman smiles. “Daughter,” she says. “Welcome.”

  “Where is Simon? Where is the army?” Joelle demands. “What have you done with them?”

  “Behind the barrier,” she says. “Aren’t you surprised to see me?”

  When Joelle doesn’t answer the woman, Adrian, I assume, continues, “After so many stood against me, they’ve retreated to their side. All of the men. Bradford is their leader now. My, how you have grown. Let me look at you.”

  “Yes mother. Come look at your creation.”

  Joelle bares her teeth and her mother’s eyes widen. “They’ve gotten longer, I see.”

  Joelle frowns at the strange looking woman. “Have you become a special?” she asks.

  Her mother nods.

  “Did Simon change you? Where is he?”

  “They fear me now as they should.”

  She motions to a statue near where I am standing, they look so lifelike and that is when I realize…

  I move and Joelle gazes at me in question. I jerk my chin over to the statues.

  She approaches one quizzically.

  Her mother watches Joelle, and I can see she is waiting to see her daughter’s reaction. She’s anxious

  “Did you do this?” Joelle asks.

  “They were trying to take control.”

  Joelle touches the smooth stone. It’s obvious there was a man that had stood there once. He is no more. Pure marble instead of flesh and bone. And it was painful.

  “Your father,” Adrian starts then seems to realize her slip of the tongue as Joelle spins around to face her.

  Joelle’s eyes narrow. “Father? You said my father was dead.”

  “He is.”

  Joelle stiffens and comes closer to her life giver. The woman is obviously fascinated by what her daughter has become. Or rather, Joelle’s power, more like.

  Joelle seems unsatisfied by what she finds. “Is he?” she asks, and only I catch the hint of warning because Adrian half-hazardly replies far too soon, “Yes.”

  Joelle smiles. “Liar. I’m not the little girl I once was.” Her mother opens her mouth and Joelle snaps, “Shut up.”

  Adrian freezes. “Excuse me?”

  “I said shut your lying mouth before I shut it for you.”

  Our vampires peel away from the walls where they had entered and hidden. Many of them rise from the darkness and webs, all to come to Joelle’s aid, should she need.

  “Lie to me again,” Joelle says, her people surrounding us in warning, “and I’ll cut your tongue from your throat.”

  “I only meant to…”

  Joelle is inches from her mother in an instant. “You used to beat me. I know you probably hoped I’d forget. But I remember. You’d slap me around. Use me for your experiments. I would love to pay it back, so just say the word. Go ahead. Give me a reason.”

  The room becomes dead silent.

  “Now. I’m going to ask you again. Is my father dead?”

  Adrian decides not to press. Wise lady. “Not exactly.”

  Joelle waits.

  “He’s locked in a machine, a thing that made you and me. Do you remember it, Joelle?”

  “Where is the machine? With the men, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  Joelle does a mental sigh. "Did you put him there?”

  “No.”

  I can sense Joelle piecing together something new, and she turns to face her mother, chin up, eyes showing her soul as a regal, but lethal thing. “Simon.”

  I’m not sure who Simon is, but in my mind, images of a man in a long jacket and hat spring to mind. And now, Joelle gives him a second name mentally: Father.

  Joelle is stunned, but you’d never know it. Finding out she’s his child is not a boon or blessing.

  Her mother looks near tears. She reaches for Joelle, who hisses and moves out of reach.

  Adrian accepts the dismissal with grace, but I see a raw ache inside her beautiful face. “You despise me, my child? Do my eyes---my spiders make you think I’m strange? Do you not realize your drinking blood, and your love of the night was by design? Your father and I wanted you to be the most powerful, but, even more so, able to defend yourself from this world.”

  Joelle’s voice is a whisper. “I’d never choose to be like this.”

  “But Joelle, my sweet, sweet girl, don’t you see that circumstances made you? The world demanded us to become stronger, powerful, to survive… to become the fittest. In the web of life, lest it ensnare us, we became the spiders, the hunters. How could I leave you unprotected? A child of mine would never be easy prey.”

  “A mother’s love?” Joelle spits.

  “A mother’s ambition, my sweet.”

  I sense the emotions at war within our teenaged leader. Despite her mother and her past, she feels a grounding begin, a commonality, and in a girl that has been floating since all of this began, wild and alone for so very long, a warborn-wartorn being, she has a home now with two parents here in this crazy fortress.

  A terrible loneliness has eaten a hole in Joelle’s heart and made her weak where she’d be otherwise hard-hearted.

  Dark eyes dart to mine and away. They seek her mother’s approval, even now.

  If she thinks I’ll judge her for that,
she’s got another thing coming. I am the one who’s mis-loved so many times. At my own peril. A boy who didn’t want me, a man who was already taken…

  She’s in great company for loving the wrong person. And Joelle does love her mother after all, it seems.

  A fact that seems to devastate her.

  That may be the very nature of love… devastating on all accounts.

  “The men,” Joelle says touching a statue, “Are you murdering them for simply being men?”

  Adrian comes over and pets the stone with a loving caress. “They called me the Medusa, and you know what? My power is beyond turning men into stone. I can see the future as well, but who cares about their future when it may be doom and death. When I wanted to lead, they disagreed. Fearing my power, they refused and let that mad-dog of a man take over. Bradford is a raving lunatic, and I told him his future, for hanging that innocent girl, for torturing that poor one, and I told him he’d hang because of it himself.”

  Adrian smiles and I get a chill.

  “And he didn’t like that future.”

  Adrian turns with a confused expression on to me. “But that isn’t the right ending, is it? My sight has been blind to you two, you avenging angels of the darkness. Yes, I think the future is changing already?”

  “What is my future then?” Joelle asks, but drily as if she doesn’t believe.

  Adrian sighs, smiles softly at us both, and motions toward the balcony doors. “Come.”

  That swiftly she is in the good graces of our leader. Blood being thicker than water after all.

  The cool night embraces me and I feel as though I can breathe again. The dark gift is many things, but the human that wants to live in a cave, an abode, is well and gone. We enjoy the outside more than we did alive. It might be why we bury most people in the earth. Perhaps it is peace for those of us no longer living the living life.

  From here we can see half the city in ruins, the water, a moat, and across from that, vast wilds of what is left of America.

  From here we see the future and past all in one desolate viewing.

  “The men would lead us to war with the Authority,” Adrian says. “I mean to make peace with Cromwell’s widow, but with one exception, a new day, a sanitation of men. We’ll call it a glorious new beginning.”