Blood Thirst

by Lena Hillbrand

  He had never been foolish enough to believe sapiens loved their masters. Of course they wouldn’t enjoy getting bitten every night. But the government had enacted laws to protect them—laws against human cruelty, laws against overdrawing humans, even laws against overworking them. Killing a human was a crime. A small bite caused a small pain. It did not warrant what these sapiens had done to him. Before that night, Draven had never imagined anyone could hate him so much, even an animal.

  If a wolf or a bear killed a man out of fear or hunger, or perhaps madness in rare cases, it wasn’t out of hatred. Hatred was the exclusive property of man. Perhaps of homo-sapiens. Draven had never known a Superior to hate anything. He’d never hated anything since he had evolved, not even the man he’d killed. Not Byron when he found his friend had out-maneuvered him, nor the human who had almost killed him with a wooden shard.

  A scraping noise brought Draven back to the present, and he attempted to blink, but his eyes had swollen shut. Blood sealed his eyelashes together over one eye. And it had been only the sound of something outside shifting in the wind. He gave up his minute struggle and thought back to his human life. Although he usually preferred not to dwell on things that had happened so long ago, he’d thought of that time more since he’d gone into the wilderness. His memories came back at times, the Superior ones as fresh as if he had done those things yesterday instead of a hundred years ago, the human ones faded and vague. Had he hated anything then?

  He may have hated in brief flashes, in moments of anger. The Superiors who had found him with the survival books and kept him for a time before turning him over to the blood bank. The blood bank itself. The woman from whom he’d stolen the books, although he’d had so many conflicting emotions towards her that he’d never tried to make sense of them all. And himself. He’d hated himself plenty as a sap. He knew he’d never hated anyone after he’d evolved. Hatred required passion, and he had little of that to spare for anything.

  So what had he done to these homo-sapiens to bring their hatred upon him? In truth, he had meant them harm. He would have fed from them. But not too much. He never wanted to hurt the saps he fed from. He treated them as kindly as possible. But these sapiens had gone mad. They hated with a vicious passion that had nothing to do with who he was, only what he was. Hating him for his Superior nature wouldn’t change their circumstances.

  Certainly they had gone mad to believe they could escape from Superior rule. And yet, they had. Somehow they had regained power, at least in their six-person vigilante party. They had overpowered and outwitted a Superior, and they had him at their mercy. Draven didn’t want to imagine what they planned next, but he had a strong suspicion it involved his death.

  He lay with his face in his bloodstain and thought of escape. If he could somehow escape…if he could work his way out of the chains, surely he could free himself from the cage that surrounded him. Most certainly he could. He could go to the next town, Princeton they had said, once he healed. He could find someone, go to the Enforcement office and tell the Enforcers of this terrible place. The government would come and burn the house and wait for the humans to flee.

  Then they would kill them.

  Imagining this, he decided he didn’t mind as much as he’d thought he would. They had beaten him badly, broken bones, spilled his blood. He would not have killed them for that. But better they die than him. It appeared he was not as prepared for death as he’d imagined.

  His body had exhausted itself trying to heal, so he lay still and rested. When the door opened, however, he started awake. A blast of cold air came in with the man who had first begun kicking him. Draven became instantly alert to the man’s every movement. He didn’t have to see the man—his other senses told him with infallible precision where and in what position the man stood, the exact degree angle and intent of every motion. With eyes still closed, Draven could have shaved the hair off the man’s arm without once touching blade to skin.

  “How’s it going in here, boy?” the man asked.

  The voice of the man who had stayed in the shed with Draven answered. “Ah, fine. He’s been laying there all night. Get you some rest?”

  “Yup. Sure did. You ready to get you some?”

  “Sounds good,” said the younger man, whom someone had called Larry.

  The men stood looking at Draven. “What you reckon’s the matter with it?”

  “I don’t rightly know. He’s just laying there.”

  “I thought they’s day-sleepers.”

  “Yeah, I thought so, too. Hey, I read somewhere they’d burst into flames in sunlight. Think that’s so?”

  “I can’t remember iffen we ever took one out in the sunlight. Wanna try it tomorrow?”

  “Maybe after everybody’s seen it. We don’t want to burn it before they get a chance to see we caught one.”

  “Reckon that’s why this-un was all wrapped up in that black bag?”

  “It’s kinda creepy, ain’t it? That black stuff?”

  “We’ll take it off tomorrow and get any weapons he’s got. It’s real lucky you tied him up so he couldn’t get to them.”

  “We’s lucky we found him. I bet we’d all be dead by now if Sally hadn’t followed that trail.” The younger man smelled painfully wonderful. Draven’s body needed nourishment to heal, making him ravenous, and the age and activity level of the man matched his feeding preference.

  “That was Sally’s idea, huh?”

  “Both ours, truthfully,” Larry said.

  “Hey, dumb bloodsucker, what you looking at?” the older man asked Draven. “Look at you just laying there in your own blood. Ain’t that irony for you? I bet you ain’t feeling too ‘superior’ now, is you?”

  Both men laughed, but Draven’s thoughts had strayed. He’d managed to lift his eyelid halfway. He didn’t move his body, but his gaze roved about the shed. It rested not on the man who spoke, nor the one who watched him, but behind them.

  “Mon dieu…” Draven whispered under his breath.

  Against one wall, stacked row upon row, floor to ceiling, sharpened wooden stakes lay in waiting.

  12

  Byron finally made it out of the damn hotel. He didn’t think he could have taken one more day in his room that reeked of sapien. In his desperate moments, he had regretted bringing them at all. It hadn’t seemed worth it to have to smell their constant stench.

  But things were going well again. He had received the go-ahead from Princeton, the town that apparently needed him. Plows had cleared the roads somewhat. Although he had to drive more slowly now, at least the stink of sapien stayed contained in the trailer behind him. He kept time to the music by drumming on the steering wheel, and wondered about the other Enforcers back home, if they had gotten any interesting cases he would miss. He thought about his family and about Draven and his other friends.

  Lucky bastards didn’t know what cold was. Here he was freezing his ass off in the snow while everyone he knew basked in the tropical heat back home. They’d stay warm as a night-breeze in summer, while he had to run the heater in his car. He’d never used that feature before.

  When he arrived in Princeton, he went to the Enforcement Office to get his assignment and square away his living arrangements. The chief Enforcer struck him as a friendly, honest man, if a bit vain. The other two Enforcers he met seemed nice enough. And best of all, his apartment had separate quarters for his saps.

  Byron came out of the offices whistling and let his saps out for a bit. They picked their way through the snow making shocked, gasping noises. He’d have to get them some climate-appropriate attire. He’d forgotten that. Back home they wore the regulation shifts the government issued. Here, he’d need something warmer and some shoes. He watched his property with a growing sense of satisfaction. They appeared to be getting along just fine. Pretty soon they’d have little saplings hanging all over them.

  After Byron watched his sapiens play in the snow for a while, he called them back to the trailer. He stopped at the sapie
n supply store and picked up the local attire—a woolen jumpsuit whose design resembled a prison uniform from Byron’s days as a human. He got two pairs of chunky clog-type shoes and a bag of feed for them.

  Byron’s apartment, paid for by the government for the duration of his assignment, suited him fine. The apartment building had four floors, with Byron’s on the third level. The place had big windows overlooking the town and the mountains, a nice view this time of year. It offered a comfortable if not quite luxurious dwelling for him and his livestock. The sapiens’ quarters were separated from his apartment by a small hallway accessible only from his apartment but without adjoining doors. Byron checked out the arrangement with satisfaction. The saps couldn’t escape without going through their door, the hallway, the door into his apartment, and the door out of his apartment into the rest of the building. Basically, escape would be impossible, which comforted him a bit. He knew the female’s history. But this apartment looked secure. No chance of escape. All was well.

  On top of that, their smell wouldn’t come into his apartment as long as he kept the doors on either end of the hallway closed. He intended to do just that.

  After he’d settled in for a few days, he went down to the Enforcement office to get a better idea of his surroundings. Princeton was a small city. The crime rate must not be too overwhelming, even in the warmer months. Sure, the Enforcers couldn’t number more than a few handfuls. But the number of residents didn’t look too high, either.

  “We got all sorts of problems around these parts,” said the head Enforcer, Milton. “Most of them are probably what you’re used to down south.”

  “And the others?”

  “You may have guessed that we’re not equipped for all the problems we’ve got up here,” Milton said, running a hand over his shiny bald head. “I guess they thought you’d do us some good. We got two other Enforcers coming in another couple days. They were held up by the snow, too.”

  “Uh huh. Then I guess I’m not getting the whole story yet.”

  “Ah well, I don’t guess I’m doing you any favors by keeping you in the dark. We’ve developed a bit of a…sapien problem.”

  “A sapien problem? What’s that mean? Too many? Not enough? Are they dying or getting killed?”

  “More like…disappearing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep, that’s about it. They just disappear on us. No sign of them. It’s like they vanish into thin air.”

  “So I was called all the way up here because you folks can’t keep track of your livestock?”

  “With all due respect, Enforcer, it’s a little more complicated than that,” Milton said with a frown. “We’ve set our trackers on them, and there’s just no sign of them, no smell, nothing. It’s like the earth just opened up and swallowed them.”

  “So you think someone is stealing them?”

  Milton shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s possible. There have also been a few Superiors who disappeared in the last five years or so. Three, I believe. Could be they’ve hidden out somewhere and are keeping these saps. Maybe using them and accidentally killing them, and that’s why they keep taking more, or they’re just hoarding them and feeding off a whole bunch of saps.”

  “So they would be very powerful by now,” Byron mused. This made things more interesting. “How many saps have disappeared?”

  “Let me see,” Milton said, rubbing his brown head again. He kept his scalp shaved and highly polished, and he looked like a man who took as much time in front of the mirror as a woman. “Well, I’d say maybe ten or twelve of them in the last ten years. Might be more like twenty. Hard to say exactly. A missing sap isn’t usually cause for too much alarm. Not like a missing person.”

  “Right. I’ll check into it and see how many reports I can find on missing saps, sir. We’ll go from there.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll let my men know.”

  “Thanks, Enforcer. I’d appreciate any information anyone has on the matter.”

  “Of course. Oh, and Enforcer? There’s a lot of rumors that go around every time a sap goes missing. I wouldn’t put too much stock in them.”

  “Thank you, Milton. I’ll keep my ears open. Sometimes rumors turn out to be true.”

  13

  Fear gripped Draven when he thought of his coming death. But a small part of him thrilled at the thought, a lurch in his chest so like a heartbeat. He lay, his body broken and torn, and thought of his journey to this hell house. He’d been so scared when he entered the woods. Not scared of this, though. Now his initial fear of the woods struck him in all its ridiculousness. He’d never imagined, never could have imagined, that humans lived free somewhere. Not just any humans, but murderous, savage humans. If someone had warned him, he wouldn’t have believed it. He’d have thought they’d gone mad. Because everyone knew that saps belonged to Superiors, depended on them, needed them, obeyed them.

  But not these saps. These defied imagining, defied belief. He’d imagined hardships on his way, but never something like this. It was inconceivable. The hurdles he’d faced on the road had seemed like the worst that could happen. That silly incident, getting caught in the snow, had seemed the worst possible scenario.

  Never had he suspected he’d face much worse.

  When he’d entered this forest, he’d never have dreamed such a place as this, such vicious people existed. Now he remembered his hesitancy to enter the forest. If only he’d known then how right his apprehension would prove. But he’d misread it, thought he’d feared the trees alone.

  In his captivity, he let his eyes scan the stack of rough-hewn stakes again. If only he’d had some way to know, when he’d entered the forest, that as his fear had multiplied by untold thousands, this fate awaited him.

  When would they return? And what horrors would they bring with them when they came?

  14

  Cali explored the new apartment with Shelly. It was much nicer than the hotel room they’d stayed in. Well, maybe nicer wasn’t the right word. But it had a lot more space, and that was good enough for her. A door, locked to them, led outside to a small space enclosed by bars, which they could see through their window. The window opened a hand’s-width when she cranked a little lever. Cali had never had a real window before, with glass in it and everything. She opened the window despite the cold, and she and Shelly laughed as a blast of freezing air swept through the room. She closed the window and continued exploring.

  They had a bathroom—a shower stall with a floor toilet in one corner—and a kitchen area where they could cook their own food in a small oven and wash dishes in a tiny plastic sink. Across the room from the kitchen area, a floor mat big enough for both humans to sleep comfortably lay rolled against the wall. Cali had always heard about the advantages of being sold to a Superior, and now she’d started to see them. She had more privacy than she’d ever had, and she only had to share her space with one other person.

  She and Shelly delighted over their space, their own private world that belonged—almost—to them alone. “Girl, we’re going to have the most fun here,” Shelly said, clapping his hands. “Oh, I simply cannot wait. In spring, we’re going to pick flowers and put them on the windowsill. We can grow vegetables in this garden space outside the window. Imagine, Cali and Shelly’s private apartment! Have you ever dreamed of anything so fantastic?”

  “It’s pretty great,” Cali agreed, smiling, too. She’d never imagined she could smile so much. Shelly made her smile even when she wasn’t happy. He made her forget why she wasn’t.

  “Great? It’s more than great. Here, let’s both get showers. I don’t smell too pretty, and sorry, but you don’t either. Then I’ll show you how to do your hair up. You’ve got great hair, girl. You could really find you a nice man while we’re here. I bet all the Superiors in this apartment got their own humans. With that face clean and something done about your hair, no one will be able to resist you.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Cali said, not sure how to react to this. She wonde
red why, if she was so irresistible, Shelly wanted to find a man for her. He should be her mate.

  After they had both showered and washed their old shifts, they sat cross-legged on the floor, and Shelly pulled his fingers through Cali’s wet, tangled hair.

  “Girl, you are so pretty,” he said. “No wonder that Jonathan boy you told me about liked you so much. Sheesh, girl, you should’ve snapped him up while you could.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. Master already favored me before I met Jonathan. He still would have bought me, and then I’d be without my husband.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some masters are nice about that stuff, and they’ll buy a married pair just to keep them happy.”

  “I don’t think our master is one of those.”

  “Maybe not. He does look like a total stiff. I mean, can you even imagine that man laughing?”

  Cali laughed at the very thought of it. Their master was about the sourest, most distracted and hurried Superior she’d ever seen. She didn’t know what job he had, but it must be something that required an awful lot of haste. He always rushed in and out to feed on his saps. Usually he didn’t even draw from Cali now that he owned her. He just bit and left her to fill a cup with blood for him.

  She thought about the Man with Soft Hair for a minute while Shelly tried to untangle her knotted hair. Man with Soft Hair always closed up the incisions from his teeth, sometimes too thoroughly. It made her a little uncomfortable how he liked to lick on her arm for much longer than any of the others. But he’d been nice to her. He’d told her his name. Oh well, no use dwelling on that. Now she lived countless lengths from everything in her old home, from the warmth and the dry winds that blew in across the city, the swelling heat so intense she could hardly draw a breath, the months without rain and the months with steamy rains that came every day.