by Phil Maxey
The sound of hurried footsteps came from the door behind her, and Joel, Evan, and Shannon appeared. The latter with a small handheld scope, which she immediately put to her eye.
“Will they see us if they fly in this direction?” said Evan.
“If we make enough fuss, they should,” said Joel. He swung around to the south. The once motionless hungry beings were now slowly moving. In the blink of an eye Joel crossed to the north side of the roof and looked down to the large empty parking lot which resided there. He turned back to the others. “They can land there!”
The fuselage of the helicopter could now be clearly seen along with its lights on the outside.
“Its wheels are down!” said Evan.
As the thunderous sound of the twin-engined aircraft consumed the early evening air, they all started waving their arms to try to get its attention.
Bill, Mary, and Hardin appeared and started doing the same.
Flint started barking, but Joel quickly realized it wasn’t at the object in the sky, for the dog was standing next to the west wall, barking into the sky. Joel quickly ran across.
Hundreds of vamps were scurrying up the road towards the building. Inside his brain was the same constant droning, but the volume was lower. He was glad for that.
He whirled back around to the helicopter and ran across the concrete, waving his arms towards the parking lot.
“I think it’s going to land!” shouted Anna as it descended.
Joel looked to the others. “Get downstairs, and into the RV, we’ll drive it as close to the chopper as possible,” he shouted, trying to be heard over the sound engulfing the area.
Everyone ran into the stairwell, as Joel still waved his arms, directing it to a spot just tens of yards from the building.
He shook his head trying to stop the other sound from overtaking his own thoughts, and ran to catch up with the others.
Evan kicked out the tire iron, and pulled up the shutter. The RV’s engine was already running, and he jumped in through the side door just as Joel did the same.
Anna reversed out, turning at the same time. As she did, something slammed into the rear window instantly shattering it.
“Drive!” shouted Joel. He ran along the confined central aisle, picking up his M4 rifle as he went, and started firing at the vamps that were just yards behind.
The RV skidded to a halt and Marina pushed open the side door, pulling Jess and Flint with her.
As she ran around the front of the RV, she looked at the helicopter on the ground, and a man holding onto a Stetson with one hand while waving them towards him with the other.
As they all ran towards him, he threw his hat back into the cockpit, pulled a shotgun from inside and started shooting as vamps got within a few feet of the helicopter’s draft.
The side door of the helicopter was already open, and everyone started to bundle inside, squeezing in where they could on the leather seats.
Joel ran across the lot, firing multiple shots and felling vamps as they scampered towards him. He approached the man.
“Jump in alongside me!”
Joel nodded and ran around the other side and climbed onboard, while the man got in the cockpit.
He immediately pulled on the stick and the aircraft lifted into the air. As it did, they all got a view of swarms of vamps descending upon their location from every direction.
The man leaned to his right and held out his hand, which Joel briefly shook. “I’m Everett, but folks call me Ev. How’d you all get out here?”
“I’m Joel. We drove up from the south. We were almost swamped by vamps but we hid out in that building.”
Ev looked over his shoulder as the airbase slid by hundreds of feet below. “She’s only meant to take six, so I know it’s a bit of a tight fit back there, but the Sanctuary isn’t too far.”
Joel looked at Ev who was now wearing his hat again. “Sanctuary?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A blanket of dark green spikes and shadows effortlessly slid past hundreds of feet below. Jess sat on Marina's lap, with Flint at her feet, and they both watched as the mountains bathed in an orange glow, flowed past.
“Where you from originally?” said Ev to Joel.
The man next to Joel had graying black hair and similar whiskers across his jaw and chin. A headset sat beneath the weathered looking hat, and his dark brown leather jacket looked just as worn.
Small points of light twinkled on the far side of a lake they were flying over.
“LA. Picked up everyone else on my way moving east,” said Joel.
The helicopter flew lower still until it was just tens of feet above the waves, and the dark shapes of buildings became clearer even in the shadows of the mountains.
“Where we heading?” shouted Anna from the cabin.
“A community of like-minded souls!” shouted Ev over his shoulder. “You'll be safe there!”
Ev lowered his head as if listening to something on his headset. “Bringing in about eight… Yes… Not sure. Okay. Over.”
They flew along a thin piece of land which contained a number of structures and then became wider. Joel noticed a string of lights to the south. He pointed in the direction. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the south wall. There are two more on the east and north.”
Soon the buildings grew even more common, and they flew over a small town, towards a ring of lights contained within a large field.
“It doubles as our sports ground!” said Ev.
The helicopter drifted smoothly to the ground, landing with a small bump. Ev flicked downwards a number of switches, and the rotors began to slow.
Joel looked outside to the three men that were waiting with guns. “Hey, what’s that about? We’re no threat.”
Ev smiled. “I’m sure you’re not, but you might be infected. We need to keep you in quarantine for a few days. But after that, you’ll be free to roam.”
Joel nodded. He had passed as human for months, he was sure he could manage a few days, but those that were new to the condition, he wasn’t sure about. He glanced back to the three others like him, the anxiety on their faces was obvious. He looked back to Ev and smiled. “It’s a relief to be somewhere with walls.”
Ev patted him on the shoulder and opened the door. The others got out as well and walked towards the three burly looking individuals with rifles. Ev produced a radio from his jacket and got some instructions. “Follow me,” he said to the group.
Night had now well and truly got a grip on their surroundings and the lights within the town were at a minimum, meaning they couldn’t see much around them other than a few rows of seats on the sports ground. A nearby complex of rectangular buildings looked to everyone like a school. Beyond that were only dark pointed shapes of buildings.
The school was what they moved towards.
As they walked towards it, Joel, as well as the others, started to notice something strange about its outside walls. They were covered in painted crucifixes. Large and small, in what appeared to be various colours.
He knew by now the symbol had no power over vamps, but he still felt a bit uneasy as they approached the entrance.
Two more weapon-carrying men stood guarding the door. Ev looked back to the others. “We now use this place for quarantining.”
Ev nodded to one of the men, who slid a key into a padlock and pulled some chains which bound the large handle of the door. Once that was open, they all piled into a small area, to inner doors which Ev opened with his own set of keys.
The pictures and posters on the clean walls, gave the school the look as if nothing had changed.
Ev led them through the halls and into a gym with a high ceiling. It reminded Joel of the one in Bellweather. Inside were a number of camp beds, and around the outside were tables with plastic water containers and boxes containing packets of instant soup.
“So, this is where you’ll be staying for around three days. As long as everything checks out then you will all be offered acco
mmodation in Haven.”
“That’s what this town is called?” said Marina.
Ev nodded. “If, though, any of you are infected, unfortunately you won’t be able to stay, and you will be escorted from the town.”
Joel noticed a few exchanged glances between those around him, but he kept his smile and walked forward and shook Ev’s hand. “We appreciate you taking us in.”
“We are happy to have you. Sister Abigail will be around in the morning to see how you are all doing, but for now, get some rest. There are some books and games for the young ones if they are so disposed.”
Most of the group smiled in silence.
“Oh, there’s one other thing. I’m afraid it’s something we ask of all visitors to Haven. You will need to hand over all weapons.”
“I don’t think so,” said Marina.
The two guards raised their rifles slightly.
Ev shook his head to them, and they lowered them back down.
“If you keep them then we will be escorting you to the gates, and you can be on your way, but if you want to stay, then we can’t have you in here with weapons. It would kind of defeat the object of us waiting to see if any of you are infected or not. For, if you are, and you have guns… then. Well, let’s just say we have learned the hard way.”
Joel looked at the others and nodded, and one by one they removed what guns or rifles they had, and handed them to Ev and the guards.
Ev smiled. “You’ll see it’s for the best.” He then turned and left, taking the men with him. The door they entered from was closed, and the sound of it being locked echoed throughout the mostly empty space.
Hardin’s face grew red. “What are we going to do when they discover what you all are?” His head shifted between the four that weren’t fully human. “Well?”
Joel walked closer to him, then leaned in. “Be quiet… we’ll figure it out.”
Hardin shook his head then walked to one of the beds and sat.
Joel walked to Marina, Anna, and Evan. They stood close together in a small huddle.
“I don’t know if I can go three days without blood, Joel,” said Marina.
“Leave the blood situation to me.” He looked at the high up windows and then briefly to the locked door. “I’ll find a way out of this gym, and I’ll get you what you all need. You just have to hold out for a bit. Can you do that?” He looked at the faces in front of him, most of which were not meeting his gaze.
“I guess we got no choice,” said Evan.
“What’s the worse they going to do if they discover what we are?” said Anna. “Kick us out? I can deal with that.”
Marina sighed. “If they know what we are, Anna, they’re not going to kick us out…”
The doctor looked at her and Joel. The realization washed over her face as she got what was obvious to the others already. She looked back at Joel. “You need to get that blood.”
He nodded. “I will.”
*****
Levi Corvin looked out into the nothingness that the convoy was moving through. Taking direction from the young boy that sat behind him in the Humvee, they had been driving north for close to an hour, and only had to use the high-intensity ultra-violet beam perched on top of the other Humvee a few times to clear a path.
He would have preferred to have gotten out, stretched his legs and tore through a few vamps with his assault rifle, but their target was moving away from them, and they needed to catch up.
Twice decorated during his tours of Afghanistan and Iraq as a Navy Seal, he couldn’t resist the lure of the private sector, and when Copeland Security came knocking, he found himself with a high paying role in the organization.
He and his team knew, of course, what affect the scourge was having on the surrounding areas of north California, but even they were surprised when it spread as it did. The last few years were spent returning to the hot zones where he had fought a decade before, together with archeologists and his boss, Mr Copeland. At first, he thought the whole escapade was another example of a silicon valley founder with too much money and time, but when the ground-penetrating radar displayed a temple complex a few miles in diameter that had never been discovered, even he began to believe.
When they finally broke into the ‘Tomb of Kings’ and found what was contained within, his whole world view changed. That still didn’t mean he drunk the ‘potion,’ as he called it, that the Copeland scientists developed from what they learned from the ancient tablets. And seeing what it did on the test subjects, he was glad he refused. He even tried telling Copeland not to take the final batch, but he knew in his gut the younger man was always going to follow-through. As California drowned in blood, and then the country and world shortly after, he wondered if that was always Copeland’s plan.
As he looked out of the Humvee window, seeing more of himself in the reflection than any sign of life beyond it, he didn’t care what the scourge had done. The world was now playing by rules he understood. It was Darwinism at its finest. And he had a seat at the table, next to the man that made it happen.
Hmm… man…
Corvin wasn’t sure that was the right noun to use anymore to describe what his boss had become.
He felt a soft hand on his shoulder. Looking behind, a young anxious face looked back at him. The boy pointed off into the darkness.
Corvin held the radio to his mouth. “All stop. Over.”
The convoy quickly slowed, then ground to a halt. Corvin looked back to the boy whose fingers were now pointing off to the side, towards a field of mud and grass.
Corvin got out then walked around the front, moving through the headlights. Two soldiers came with him, and they walked down a small bank. He pulled out a flashlight and waved it in their path. A large piece of wooden fencing was laying flat. Slowly, he lifted the beam into the darkness beyond. A dark shape stood out about twenty yards off.
The soldiers slipped their rifles from their back. Corvin’s handgun remained in its holster, but he marched forward into the shadows regardless. It didn’t take long to arrive at the pickup, which was on its side. As the soldiers looked out into the darkness, he turned his light in to the cabin. The remains of a body lay slumped across the seats. He couldn’t tell who, or what, it was, and he presumed they were already practically dead by the time the vehicle came to a stop, and the vamps finished the job. Either way, the boy wouldn’t have got him to investigate unless this dead person was connected to the man they were chasing.
He bent down and crawled into the small space. He wasn’t bothered about getting bloody. Like piranhas, there wasn’t a drop left in the body. He reached into the pants pockets and then the jacket pocket until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small leather wallet, flipping it open in the light of his flashlight. A late middle-aged woman looked back at him. “How you end up here, Claire…” he said under his breath. He flicked through the credit cards until he reached a business card, which proudly announced that Claire was the chief proprietor of the Bellweather Hotel. He smirked.
Kid’s never wrong.
He crawled out and stood, looking into the darkness. The stars burned bright above his head, and a light wind brushed across his face, but apart from that, there was no sign of any life, human or otherwise.
“Back to the convoy,” he said to the soldiers.
As they approached the line of vehicles, the boy was standing in the glow of the headlights.
Corvin knelt next to him. “What?”
The boy pointed into the distance, far along the two lane road they were already on.
Corvin stood, and squinted into the night ahead of him. Just visible, was the dark monolithic shape of a building.
CHAPTER NINE
Joel looked at those around him that were sleeping, mostly those that had not been through the change. He could see that Marina was still awake though, sat up looking at one of the books from the shelves which ran along a part of the gym’s wall.
The large space was kept alight
by a single bulb which resided above the door they entered from hours earlier, but it was still more than enough illumination for Joel. It also made it easier to see the secret cameras that were attached to the walls high up, near the windows.
He had seen the slight red glow, and heard the buzzing of the tiny devices as soon as he entered the large space, and passed on the information to the others shortly after. Since then, everyone had been trying to do their best to act normal. For those like Joel, that meant not making it too obvious that they had extra energy during the night, although he was fairly sure the occupants of the town had not come across hybrids before. ‘Hybrids’ was the name he had settled upon for what he and the others were. When it was just him, there was no need for an extra classification, because as far as he knew there was no one else. He was special. Now he was one of four and calling each other ‘vamps’ didn’t seem right.
The tablet and vials were back in the silver case and were now under a part of the mattress he was sleeping on. He figured, at some point, someone from the town was going to go through their belongings and keeping them there was just asking for the case to be taken. But as he laid with his head against the wall, he tried keeping all of the problems he had to solve in his mind, straight.
Get the blood. Make sure no one finds out about the hybrids. Keep the case secret, and get it to any authorities that are still left. Figure out what the visions mean…
Could that have been what the other vamps he encountered meant when they said he was special? He wasn’t sure. Just another piece of the puzzle that seemed to be growing larger each day.
He also knew his time inside the town was probably going to be limited, but maybe they had comms he could use to contact the outside world. First things first though. He needed to get blood. He had figured out the restroom and accompanying showers were not covered by the cameras.
He got to his feet, taking his backpack with him, and walked across to Marina. “I’m getting a shower, be about an hour,” he said a little louder than he needed to.
