by Brandon Hale
“It’s getting the Gettysburg treatment, isn’t it,” Grung guessed. “We’re going to burn the town.”
Lily stared at the empty chair on the other side of the table. “Iveyton will never belong to the dead. Never. I don’t expect you to understand.”
Grung held up his left arm and looked at the wooden stake attached to his wrist. “Yeah,” he said. “I would never understand what it’s like to lose something valuable in this war.”
Lily laughed. “Point taken,” she said. “But if we’re being honest here, I think you like that weapon-arm better than you ever liked the hand you lost.”
“I do,” Grung said as he looked at the weapon with admiring eyes. “I really do.” He dropped his arm and looked at Lily. “So is this your plan? Are we going to sit in the kitchen and be sad while the other soldiers get to have all the fun?”
Lily stood up. “Hell no,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve been in this house since I killed my own father. I just needed a moment, but now the moment’s passed. Let’s go clean my hometown.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Grung said with a grin.
Chapter 2
The Searchers
Commander Geoff Wallace stood on the riverbank, staring at the running water. He was a powerful man with short gray hair and a face covered in scars. As far as he knew, he was the highest ranking Day Soldier alive. He also happened to be a werewolf.
Sister Abigail Reid – the second highest ranking Day Soldier – stood beside him. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and said, “I’ll check it out.” She spoke with a very subtle Irish accent.
“No way, Abbie,” Wallace said. “I’m pretty sure this river is deeper than it looks.”
Ten soldiers stood behind them at the edge of the woods. “Sirs,” one of the soldiers said, “I just got a transmission from Iveyton. It was quick and hard to hear, but I think she’s planning on burning the town.”
Abbie laughed. “Of course she is.”
“You want me give them the go-ahead?”
Wallace cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think she would follow orders if we said no?”
“No, sir,” Scott Vellin replied with a smile. “I don’t.” He activated his transmitter and spoke into the mic attached to his ear. “Iveyton, permission granted to clean the town. Thanks for pretending what we say matters. Vellin out.”
Scott looked at the small female soldier beside him and gave her a playful wink. He was a handsome young man and he knew it. His face was always clean shaven, his complexion was always smooth, and his wavy brown hair always looked subtly styled.
The young woman just smiled, shook her head, and said, “Your charms won’t work on me, Howler.”
Scott’s eyes widened slightly. “Dammit, Ellie, would you stop calling me that. I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
Ellie shrugged. “Friends aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.”
“It was a direct order,” Scott groaned.
“At ease, soldiers,” Wallace said. “And Howler, I think you can disregard that order. It’s not like we have a database anymore.”
Scott looked at Ellie. “See what you’ve started?”
“If you children are done bickering,” Abbie said, “I think we should decide who’s going to check the base.”
“It’ll have to be me or Commander Wallace,” Scott said.
“I suppose,” Abbie agreed.
“I’m a very good swimmer,” Ellie said.
“I’m sure you are,” Wallace said, “but we don’t know the exact location of the entrance. It could take some exploring. We don’t have to worry about drowning.”
“A werewolf can’t drown?”
“Think about what you’re asking,” Scott said. “Unless that river is liquid silver, we’re fine.”
“Wow,” Ellie said. “I’d never really thought about that. So you could go to space if you wanted.”
Scott stared at her for a moment then turned to Wallace. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to go. All due respect, you and Abbie take too many risks on these scouting missions.”
To Scott’s surprise, Wallace simply nodded and said, “Permission granted. Be careful. Let us know what you see as soon as you see it.”
As they watched Scott wade into the river and eventually dive under the surface, Wallace leaned toward Ellie and said, “There’s actually a top secret werewolf colony on the moon.”
Ellie’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“No, dear,” Abbie said. “Not really.”
“Well,” Wallace said, “you gotta admit, it’d be cool if there was.”
Abbie sighed.
Scott quickly realized Wallace’s guess about the river’s depth was correct. The river was at least twenty feet deep and the water was murky. Finding a small hatch on the bottom wouldn’t be easy, especially with the current constantly pushing him downstream.
He had very little hope that he would find anything. Since the battle of New York a year ago, they had found and searched dozens of underground facilities along the east coast. Because no single soldier had a complete list of all underground facilities, they hoped the list stolen from the president last year was incomplete as well.
After a year of searching, they hadn’t found a single safe facility. A few were overrun with vampires, but most were just blood-splattered tombs of slaughtered soldiers.
It had taken them a year to make their way back to Virginia from the cave in southern Canada. Along the way, there had been a few encounters with werewolves, but they managed to avoid the vampires entirely. Just like Dennis had promised, the vampires were staying in the towns and cities while the werewolves had moved to the wilderness.
While they couldn’t strike the larger cities, The Day Soldiers made it a point to clean every small town they passed, rescuing the prisoners along the way. The obvious risk was that it could make it easier for them to be tracked, but vampire/werewolf politics had worked in their favor. Vampires were no longer welcome outside the cities and werewolves had apparently moved much deeper into the forests. This gave them a bit of a safety zone. As long as they stayed within a mile or so from civilization, they were able to remain relatively hidden.
When they neared Iveyton again, Lily had insisted on cleaning the town. Wallace of course complied. He gave her two teams and assigned Grung as her second-in-command for the mission.
Scott was glad Lily had the opportunity to say goodbye to her hometown, once and for all. The facility in the bottom of this particular river was the last one they were checking on the east coast. If this facility proved to be a tomb like the others, the team was moving west. Wallace and Abbie had decided it was too risky to keep going on such a deliberately straight path.
Scott agreed with their decision. Even with their safety zone, the vampires would eventually figure out what they were doing and prepare some kind of ambush at one of the facilities. Scott was actually surprised it hadn’t happened already.
That fear was the main reason Scott had volunteered for this search. He was a good soldier, but he held no illusions about his importance to the survival of the Day Soldiers. Wallace mattered more. End of discussion. Scott suspected Wallace understood this, which explained why his suggestion was accepted so quickly.
Scott was beginning to wonder if they had miscalculated this facility’s location when he noticed a rock on the bottom that was about the size of a manhole cover.
No, he thought. Not about... Exactly.
His suspicion was confirmed when he saw the small hole on the side of the rock. It was definitely the facility’s entrance. He swam to the hatch and slid his hand into the hole on the side.
Please have power.
He heard a faint click and knew he was in. The locking mechanism had scanned his palm and unlocked the hatch. Once unlocked, he pulled the hatch open and swam inside, then pulled the rock closed above him. The tunnel went down about ten feet then opened into a larger room.
Once in the ro
om, Scott swam toward a faint green light on the far end. He quickly pressed the button beneath the light and waited. After a few seconds, the water began to drain from the room.
As soon as the water was low enough, Scott gulped the air thankfully. Being a werewolf meant he couldn’t drown, but going without air was still a very unpleasant experience. As soon as the water was completely drained from the room, Scott looked around for a door.
It didn’t take him long to find the door, mainly because it opened as soon as the room was drained of water.
“One move, and you die, werewolf.”
A woman stood on the other side of the door. Her blond hair was cropped close to her head. Dark blue eyes stared at him from behind the wire-frame glasses on her face.
“You’re a human,” Scott said as he looked at her uniform. “You’re a Day Soldier. Oh, thank God.”
“I mean it,” the woman said. “One move and you’re dead.” She pointed at several small holes in the walls surrounding Scott. “There’s a gun behind every hole and each one is loaded with silver.”
“Look,” Scott said, “it’s okay. I’m part of the family. I can’t believe we found a safe facility.”
“How did you get Scott Vellin’s palm?” the woman asked.
“Huh?” Scott said. “I was born with it. How do you know my name?”
“The computer sent us his name as soon as you touched the lock sensor,” she said. “It let you through, so you’re obviously not a vampire. But you were under the water far too long to be a human.”
“Right,” Scott said. “I’m a werewolf. I thought we were past that already.”
“You’re a werewolf,” the woman said, “but Scott Vellin is not.”
“What the hell are you talking about, lady?”
“We have Scott’s file here,” she said. “And he’s not a werewolf. You have five seconds to explain how the hell you matched his palm print.”
“Oh, hell,” Scott said. “I’m not listed in the database as a werewolf because I’m a poser. I was under strict orders to keep my condition secret.”
The woman started to speak, then hesitated.
Scott seized the opportunity. “Look, I’m a Day Soldier. I trained at the Norfolk facility. Before the full invasion, I was an information specialist for a team of sneakers. I trained under Abigail Reid and served under Geoff Wallace. My team leader was Lily Baxter.”
The woman moved her hand to her ear and stood quietly, listening.
“I can hear the person on your communicator, confirming everything I just told you,” Scott said. “I’m not alone. Wallace and Abbie are by the river right now, along with nine more soldiers. And we have almost two hundred soldiers camped in a big cave about seven miles west of here. We’ve been searching for you for the past year.”
“Why us?” the woman asked.
She believes me. Scott immediately relaxed. “Well, not you specifically. Just any facility with living humans.”
Scott could see the pain in her eyes when she said, “We’re the only ones you found?”
Scott nodded. “We’ve hit every east coast place we could find between here and Canada. We found an empty place in West Virginia that looked untouched. Other than that, they all had been invaded.”
She shook her head sadly. “Okay, bring your friends down here. Our scouts have seen some vampire activity in the area. They don’t need to be up there.”
“Great,” Scott said as he started to walk toward the door.
She held out a hand. “Not yet, wolf. Once Wallace is here and confirms your story, you can come inside. Until then, you’re staying in this room.”
Scott nodded. “Fair enough. They’re on the way now. They’ve been listening to this entire conversation.” He tapped the communicator on his ear. “Gotta love waterproof equipment.”
“We live under a river,” she said. “I definitely appreciate waterproof equipment.”
Scott chuckled. “So you know my name…”
“Charlotte,” she said. “Doctor Charlotte Prince. But please, call me Charlotte. Asking to be called ‘Doctor’ after a vampire apocalypse is just the epitome of pretentious.”
“A doctor,” Scott said. “Impressive. Is this a medical facility?”
“No,” Charlotte answered. “We have a staff doctor here, but the rest of us are researchers.”
“Interesting,” Scott said. “I can respect research. I strongly considered joining the Searcher Division before settling on Covert Ops.”
Charlotte smiled. “Well, now you have an opportunity to reconsider.”
“Wait,” Scott said. “You’re not just general researchers? This is actually a searcher facility?”
“It is,” Charlotte said.
“That’s awesome.” Scott was pleased with this turn of events. Nearly a decade ago, the Day Soldiers had officially declared that vampires were inherently evil. Once they’d made that determination, they formed the Searcher Division, which was devoted to finding a creature that was inherently good. Scott found the idea fascinating.
“Sir, they’re here.” The voice was coming through Charlotte’s earpiece, but Scott heard it as if the person were standing in front of him.
“Is it Wallace?” Charlotte asked.
“It is,” the voice said. “Unlocked immediately. I think our friend’s telling the truth.”
“Okay,” Charlotte said. “Shut the door and let the airlock refill.”
“Oh, come on!” Scott said. “Don’t make me stand here as this place fills with water again.”
Charlotte sighed. “Alright. You can come into the hallway with me.”
They stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind them. It was a long gray corridor with no doors. Ahead, Scott could see that the corridor turned left. He looked forward to exploring the facility later.
“How many people you got here?” he asked. “Do you have enough room to squeeze in our entire group?”
“And then some,” Charlotte said.
“Really?”
Charlotte nodded. “Sadly, yes. This place is designed to hold three hundred comfortably. We have twenty people here.”
“Only twenty?” Scott asked. “What the hell happened?”
“Nobody showed up,” Charlotte said. “Simple as that. This facility isn’t exactly easy to find if you’re not a werewolf. Maybe they couldn’t find it. Or maybe they were killed. I don’t know. No matter the reason, it’s just us down here.”
On the other side of the door, they could hear the water draining from the room.
“Do you have an exact number of soldiers?” Charlotte asked.
Scott pointed a thumb toward the door. “Eleven in there. In the cave, we have a hundred and ninety-four people. Most are soldiers, but several are people we’ve rescued along the way. I’d say about fifty civilians.”
“That’s a lot of people to be trekking across the country.”
“No kidding,” Scott said. “Oh,” he added, “we also have fourteen more soldiers in a town about two hours east of here. They’ll be contacting us soon, and I have no idea how many rescued prisoners they’ll have.”
Worry filled Charlotte’s eyes. “What town?”
“Iveyton,” Scott said. “One of our soldiers grew up there and wasn’t fond of the idea that it’s overrun with bloodsuckers.”
“Scott,” Charlotte said, “you need to get them out of there.”
Before Scott could respond, the door opened behind him and Wallace stepped into the corridor. “You have no idea how happy we are to meet other humans.”
“Sir,” Scott said, “one moment, please.” He turned back to Charlotte. “What’s going on in Iveyton?”
Chapter 3
The Standoff
Lily and Grung stood in the center street of Iveyton, facing seven other soldiers. The remaining five soldiers were in the woods, rescuing the prisoners.
“The vamps in this town know we’re here,” Lily said. “There’s no doubt they felt the deat
hs of the two in my old house.”
“About that,” one of the other soldiers said. “Killing them wasn’t really what I’d call a thought-out decision.”
“Shut up, Carl,” Lily said.
At nineteen, Carl was the youngest member of the team. He was one of the snipers in the Battle of New York and had been part of the team since that day. He had curly brown hair, thick glasses, and a know-it-all attitude that always managed to annoy Lily.
“But,” Carl continued, “if we had attacked them all at the same time, we’d have had the element of surprise.”
“What are they going to do?” Lily asked. “It’s daylight. All they can do is sit in their houses and wait for us to kill them.”
“I just think—”
“I don’t care what you think, Carl,” Lily said. “There was absolutely no way I was gonna let the ones in my house run away. Besides, they would have figured it out as soon as the first one died. The element of surprise wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds.”
“Carl,” Grung said, “just say ‘fair enough’ and move on. Trust me on this.”
Carl sighed. “Fair enough.” He looked around the empty town. “How do you want to do this?”
Lily’s eyes were hard and uncompromising. “We burn every house and kill anything that comes crawling out.”
Grung placed a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Anything you want to get from your house?”
Lily stared at her house. “No. Everything I loved about that house is dead.”
“Then why did you have to kill those two—”
“Shut up, Carl.”
Lily turned around to face the rest of the team. “There’s a department store just down the street. We’ll see how many containers we can find and take them to the gas station. By noon today, I want Iveyton to be like an ancient dead vampire.”
“An ancient dead vampire?” Grung asked.
“Ashes,” Lily said. “Which reminds me,” she added as she activated her communicator. “Team one, how’s it going on your end? Ashley, you there?”
“Coming up on the facility now,” a female voice answered. “After we set these birdies free, you want us to head your way?”
