What Happens in the Darkness

by Monica J. O'Rourke

  A look of savagery had frozen on his face, a true warrior looking only for blood and revenge and death. He brandished his weapons of war, and she wondered why he hadn’t killed her yet.

  “Why won’t you die?” he cried, raising his weapons overhead.

  “You first!” Martin yelled, attacking Patrick from behind.

  Rebecca struggled to her feet and raised her sword. Two vampires charged her. She was half-blind and completely exhausted. Something sharp pierced her kidneys. Something else chopped a chunk of flesh from her thigh, and she dropped to one knee. The sword fell from her hand and clattered against the sidewalk.

  She collapsed on her hand and knees and tried to crawl to her weapon. She felt the point of a dagger pierce her jugular and then felt nothing more.

  ***

  Martin quickly glanced over his shoulder in time to see Rebecca die.

  “You son of a bitch,” he growled at Patrick.

  Patrick lunged at Martin with his dagger and stake, but Martin kicked out, sweeping Patrick out from under his feet. He landed hard on his ass, both weapons scattering. Patrick lunged toward the stake, but Martin attacked from behind, drawing Patrick back by the throat.

  He pulled Patrick away from the weapons, dragging him in a choke hold down the sidewalk, Patrick’s feet kicking madly, his fists pounding at Martin’s arms, Patrick trying to brutally bite into Martin.

  Martin was jumped from behind by one of Patrick’s army. The soldier vampire separated the two and then dived through the air toward Martin, stake raised overhead. Patrick intercepted and used the soldier’s own stake against him, plunging him in the heart. The vampire exploded in a clump of stringy bowel.

  “No,” Patrick snarled. “He’s mine.”

  Martin struggled to his feet, dodging flying vampires and disemboweled humans, trash cans, empty newspaper bins—anything that could was thrown or used as a weapon.

  Martin looked around for a weapon and spotted a hunting knife a few feet away. He was half a foot away from it when Patrick attacked again.

  ***

  Jeff had reached midtown Manhattan with his band of several hundred vampires and landed right into the middle of the melee. They were swarmed almost immediately by black-clad vampire soldiers wielding every sort of weapon imaginable. Jeff himself sported a long black trench coat and worried for a moment he might blend in too well with them.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, realizing they were seriously outgunned. He dodged them as effectively as he could, avoiding being attacked, refraining from fighting back except when necessary. Not that he was afraid to fight, but he had a bigger objective in mind.

  He scanned the streets, searching for Martin—or better yet, Patrick—thinking about needles in haystacks and odds of finding either one. He didn’t see any familiar faces. Maybe one here or there he recognized from the caves, but no one of real importance. No one who could likely point him in the desired direction.

  A pair of young soldier vampires jumped in his path and brandished their samurai swords in his face, almost synchronized. He wished he had a gun.

  “Get out of my way!” he demanded, not exactly shocked when they didn’t step aside. He raised his arms in self-defense, dagger held in front of his torso, but the two soldiers were attacked from behind.

  Jeff hadn’t even seen them coming.

  Luke cut his vampire’s throat, nearly severing his head, and Tim plunged a stake in the other one’s heart, both vampires exploding in a heap of innards.

  “What the hell?” Jeff cried. “Where did you …?”

  “No time,” Luke yelled, resuming the fight with his brother.

  Jeff nodded and ran deeper into the throng. He moved quickly from street to street, searching for Martin or Patrick.

  The massive crowds were being culled, but the fighting wasn’t letting up. No one was willing to concede and lay down his weapon. No one.

  ***

  Martin and Patrick had lost their weapons and were fighting with their bare hands, each scrambling to retrieve a sword or a stake, anything they could reach, to no avail.

  Vampires fighting on both sides stopped to watch the spectacle, none daring to interfere, shouts and cheers egging on the fighters like they were engaged in some brutal cockfight.

  Martin staggered to his feet, exhaustion beginning to get the better of him. He wiped the blood away from the deep gash that dripped from the bridge of his nose up through his eyebrow. He wiped his swollen mouth with the back of his hand and spat out a large wad of bloody phlegm.

  Patrick was already on his feet and looking a hell of a lot better than Martin at this point. Martin was concerned at Patrick’s apparent excess amount of energy and wondered how much longer he’d be able to fight the insane vampire. Martin needed a plan and fast, but he was running out of options even faster.

  Patrick roared like a primitive beast and jumped at Martin, landing on him, bringing them both down. He punched Martin in the face, hard, breaking his nose. He lifted Martin by his shirt and punched him again in the face, splitting open his cheek.

  Martin tried to fight back but was just too exhausted, too spent, and he realized he was being overpowered by a creature much stronger than he ever gave him credit for. Martin realized, most likely too late, that Patrick was truly a demon, truly one-minded in his savagery, in his need to destroy his opponent at all costs.

  With one final burst of strength and his overall determination not to die at Patrick’s hand, Martin threw his arms up, blocking Patrick’s fists, and he leaned up as fast and hard as he could and smashed his forehead against Patrick’s face.

  Patrick screamed in pain as the cartilage in his nose splintered into a dozen pieces and drove their way into his brain. It wasn’t enough to kill a vampire, but it was enough to cause agonizing pain and cause Patrick to rear back and climb off Martin.

  Martin scrambled to his feet and quickly glanced around, hoping for support, but the faces looked confused or angry, not helpful. And if he started begging for help … the repercussions of doing that would probably be worse than dying as a martyr. No, he knew he had to fight this one to the death.

  “You bastard,” Patrick spat, gruffly shaking his head, flinging away streaks of blood. “You killed us all. You sold our souls for this country—and for what?” he growled. “For what?”

  “Shut up and fight,” Martin muttered, practically swaying on his feet. “I am so fucking sick of your whining.”

  “Bastard!”

  It was clear to Martin that Patrick was stalling. Perhaps he was more tired than Martin had suspected.

  “And we don’t have souls, you moron.”

  “You know what I meant!” That seemed to piss him off. Patrick attacked again, this time using a steel-toed boot to kick Martin square in the stomach. Martin realized immediately it wasn’t a steel toe that Patrick had used but some sort of blade. He glanced down and saw its shiny tip coated in Martin’s blood. Martin held up his hands, which had instinctively gone to his stomach in reaction to the fresh bolt of pain. His hands were covered in blood as well.

  Patrick kicked again, tearing a hole in Martin’s forearm when he raised it to block. Martin managed to grab hold of Patrick’s foot and flung him forcefully back, sending the evil vampire spiraling on his head.

  Undeterred, Patrick raced back and attacked once again, this time kicking high and hitting Martin in the throat with the knife-tipped boot.

  Martin flew back, smashing into the side of a car, and he slowly slumped to the ground.

  He realized this was the end. There was no way he could defeat Patrick.

  Something landed hard behind him on the roof of the car. He figured it was Patrick assuming some superior posture, that he had some spectacular plan for ending Martin’s life.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Patrick snapped, his voice coming from in front of Martin, not from the car. “Get down from there before I rip your head off.”

  Martin looked up—or tried to, anyway. He tipped over
onto his side until he rolled into the gutter, finally able to make out what was standing above him on the car.

  Jeff glanced down at him and waved, which just seemed profoundly silly to Martin. Martin waved back out of sheer shock.

  “Please move,” he said to Martin. “This is between me and Patrick.”

  “Bullshit,” Patrick said. “I’m not done with him.”

  “Afraid to take on someone who can actually stand?”

  “Don’t try your reverse psychology bullshit on me. I owe him a death!”

  “And I owe you a death,” Jeff said. “Makes us even, I’d guess.”

  “Impossible,” Patrick said. “I made you. You can’t turn against me.”

  “And Martin made you—look how well that turned out for him.”

  Patrick scowled. “It doesn’t work that way. I’ve had hundreds of years—”

  Jeff held up his hand, cutting Patrick off mid-sentence. “Silence!”

  Patrick advanced a few feet toward him, but Jeff again raised his hand.

  “I wouldn’t do that …”

  “Is that so? Why not?”

  Jeff flung open his trench coat, slipping it off his shoulders.

  Martin glanced up and gasped. Not much took him by surprise.

  The cavity that had once housed Jeff’s stomach—his vital organs, his intestines and bowels, blood vessels and stomach acids—had been carved out. It was filled instead with what appeared to be explosives.

  “What the fuck?” Patrick drawled, stepping closer. “What did you do?”

  Martin knew their internal organs were a formality, that their bodies no longer functioned as they did as living beings, but he also knew from experience what it felt like to have a vital organ punctured or ruptured, and while they may not be necessary to their survival, it hurt like a motherfucker when any of them got damaged.

  He couldn’t imagine how Jeff was even standing, never mind posturing and fighting.

  He sure as hell knew where Jeff had gotten the explosives and that he’d had extensive training in using them.

  Jeff said to Martin, “I’m sorry. There was no other way.”

  Patrick stared at Jeff as if deciding a course of action.

  Jeff turned again to Martin. “I wasn’t kidding. Please get out of here.”

  “But I—” he started weakly, but Jeff squatted, reached down for Martin’s collar, and flung him at least fifteen feet away. Martin smashed against a streetlight and lay there in a heap, too badly broken to move. He slowly turned, struggling up against the base to watch.

  The vampires surrounding Jeff and Patrick finally seemed to realize what Jeff was doing, but they weren’t fast enough.

  Neither was Patrick.

  In his hand, presenting for all to see, Jeff held what Martin figured was the detonator.

  Seconds later, as Patrick finally seemed to fully grasp what was about to happen, Jeff exploded.

  Martin threw his arms up to shield himself as pieces of vampire, car, and glass filled the air, pelting Martin and anyone near him with the shrapnel. He threw himself on the ground and covered his head, waiting for it to stop raining body parts.

  Dozens of vampires had been destroyed in the explosion, and dozens more lay injured. He had no idea how many humans were dead or injured.

  Martin struggled to his feet and limped over to where Jeff had faced off against Patrick. Nothing remained. The car Jeff had stood on was even further gutted, a giant concave hole in its center. He felt a momentary sadness for the loss of a man he had known for more than two decades and had even called friend. But the thought was fleeting; emotion just wasn’t something he felt comfortable or familiar with. The younger vampires seemed to like experimenting with emotion, but it wasn’t something Martin was interested in. And now that most of his army—and most if not all of his family, apparently—were dead, he did not desire exploring grief or any other miserable emotion.

  The area closest to the wrecked vehicle was fairly clean of debris … but the farther he walked, the thicker the area became with body parts and nonhuman shrapnel. Chains of intestine and stomach lining that looked like thick red cobwebs were strung across building ledges, on lampposts, across shards of broken glass jutting up in storefronts like bloodied, mangled stalagmites.

  The sky suddenly filled with a blinding light, and every surviving vampire cowered, or fell to the ground, sure the sun had suddenly and mysteriously risen. But the light turned into a series of explosions, starbursts like fireworks emptying into the night sky.

  Martin limped away, toward his followers, or what remained of them.

  The explosions continued for several minutes, finally resulting in a sooty brown snowfall.

  “What the fuck was that?” someone yelled. Human or not, Martin couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter.

  He staggered up the street, ignored by his own army and the enemy soldiers. What remained of them. Of the possibly tens of thousands of vampires fighting throughout the night, it seemed only a few hundred remained.

  A vampire soldier appeared, holding his severed arm close to his body.

  Martin looked up. “Don’t I know you?”

  He shrugged, apparently as exhausted and defeated as Martin. “I’m Kem. I was Patrick’s right hand.” He jerked his head in the direction of the battle. “I saw what happened.”

  Martin nodded. “Yeah, well.”

  “You know, I tried to warn Patrick. Tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “About what?”

  Kem glanced up. “The bombs. The shit falling from the sky is debris.”

  “Bombs? Nuclear?” Martin asked.

  Kem shook his head. “No. There was no damage. Look around you—nothing’s changed. I’ve never seen anything like this. There were rumors in my country that a bomb was being developed, one that could wipe out all manner of human life but preserve most of the plant life.”

  “That sounds impossible,” Martin said, “like science fic—”

  The air was suddenly thick with shrieks of pain, but it wasn’t coming from the vampires. Humans poured from hiding places and fell into the streets, writhing in agony, the skin melting off their frames like human candle wax, large gobs of fat puddling where they once lay. Their bones disintegrated, as if their skeletal frames might pose a threat and were being destroyed as well.

  “What the fuck?” Kem yelled. He grabbed a vampire by the collar and throttled her, as if trying to shake the answers out of her.

  “What is it?” Martin yelled. He leaned against a mailbox for support. He tongued the deep gash in his lip. He glanced at the sky and said to Kem, “This is how they plan to do it … kill off our food supply. They plan to kill the humans and let us starve out.”

  “But their own people?” Kem cried. “Surely they wouldn’t—”

  “They must know their own people aren’t people anymore.”

  “But we were human once,” Kem said. “Why isn’t it affecting us?”

  Martin shook his head. “I don’t know! Maybe because we’re already dead? I don’t know.”

  Kem paced, kicking aside chunks of vampire, walking around puddles of melted humans. “I warned him! I told Patrick we needed to leave this country. But he was too busy breeding his goddamned cattle. Now we’ve been attacked, and it’s too late.”

  “We can still leave,” Martin said. “The planes—”

  “They’ll be waiting for us on the other side of the oceans. There’s no place to go!”

  Martin shook his head. “There has to be someplace …”

  Kem looked hesitant to say whatever was on his mind.

  Martin glanced at him. “What is it?”

  Kem nodded. “Jeff was our spy. He’s the reason we knew your moves.”

  “I know,” Martin said. “He came back and told us your plans.”

  Kem raised his eyebrows. “Really.”

  “We have bigger problems,” Martin said. “Like figuring out how many humans survived and how many will be a
ffected by the fallout. Like surviving.”

  Chapter 33

  A little more than a week had passed since the last bombing, and the human population was dwindling. They were dying at an alarming rate. Even worse—the humans were toxic. Drinking their blood resulted in the same agonizing death, the slow decay, internal organs dissolving, leaking from the body in throes of death.

  The handful of vampires who had survived the war returned with Martin to the army base.

  The vampires were weak from hunger, each wondering how long they could survive without feeding. Starving still seemed better that the horrible death of the infection.

  Martin entered the cave to join those huddled inside. Janelle was by his side, her head bowed as if she didn’t have the strength to hold it up, her once energetic walk now a shuffle. She knew she was dying, had said as much to Martin.

  “Is it done?” Luke asked, looking away from them to stare at the wall.

  “Yes,” Martin said quietly.

  Janelle sobbed, her tears staining her dark cheeks. “He was my best friend,” she said weakly, lowering herself to a blanket on the floor. She smeared the tears out of her eyes. “I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s not fair.”

  The vampires had forgotten how to express sympathy but shared her grief in their silence.

  Janelle and Martin buried Thomas later that night in the bizarrely silent woods, at the foot of a dying evergreen.

  Paula moved across the room and sat beside her daughter on the sofa. She pulled the child close, resting Janelle’s head on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Paula said, and Martin wondered if she meant it. Not that it mattered, really—Janelle seemed comforted by her mother’s actions, regardless of their sincerity. But Martin suspected that on some level, Paula understood and truly wanted to comfort her child.

  “I’m sick,” Janelle said, curling up against her mother. “I wish you could make it better.”

  “So do I, Janelle.”

  ***

  “We have to get out of this country,” Luke said. Several days had passed, and nothing had changed. No miracles, no revelations on how to repair the damage. Most of the vampires had resigned themselves to this fate. Earlier that day, two had chosen to watch the sunrise. It was the last thing they would ever see.