Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood

by Richard Finney

  A figure stepped from the steam into view. It was Matt.

  “What is this, like a strategy session?”

  Barrett stepped in front of Matt.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Matt leaned out to one side so he could see Tyra.

  “I’d love to get in on this meeting. Especially if what you’re talking about is another escape attempt.”

  She tapped Barrett on the shoulder to stand aside.

  “Matt, I didn’t extend an invitation because you made it perfectly clear you weren’t interested in being part of… the team.”

  “Yeah, fair enough…”

  He looked around at all the faces staring at him – one of the guys was a psycho and his presence at the meeting spoke volumes about how desperate the situation had become; one guy had lied to him the first day he arrived at the camp and he still wasn’t sure if all he had been doing was lying to everyone else so he could stay alive; two of the guys, both in his face at that very moment, were doing their best to pretend they were still in high school; another guy standing in the circle he had seen before, but because he couldn’t see him back, he didn’t feel the need to even learn his name; the last guy was someone he was sure he had met since he arrived in camp, but somehow his personality wasn’t distinct enough to show up on his radar.

  And then there was the ringleader.

  Matt was sure she had begun life as the child of a father who had originally picked out the name, “Ty,” then was forced to switch to “Tyra” when he saw his newborn didn’t have a dick.

  “… But that was then,” said Matt, “this is now.”

  “Yeah, so how is ‘then’ and ‘now’ so different?” asked Juarez, practically spitting the question in Matt’s face.

  “Before I answer, I just want to make sure Tyra has kept you all up to date on my recent effort.” He looked over at her, “You did tell everyone that I drew up a map of the local area. As requested. So even though I might not have been wearing a jersey, there can be no doubt I was committed to playing for the team.”

  Tyra nodded her head and waved him forward. “He’s totally right. I’m glad to see you joining us, Matt. Hey, guys get out of his way…”

  Slowly Barrett and Juarez stood aside and allowed Matt to join Tyra in the middle of the circle.

  “This is nice,” Matt said. “Like the round table… with a lot of steam.”

  “More like a ‘circle jerk’,” said Juarez.

  Standing next to her, Matt could practically hear the adrenaline that Juarez’s words caused to start pumping through Tyra’s body.

  “Ty here just proposed we sign onboard to an escape plan that frees all the prisoners,” said Barrett

  Matt looked at her, then hung his head sheepishly.

  “Well, now I’m afraid some of you will suspect my appearance was somehow… prearranged.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tyra said looking at Matt with an incredulous face. “Are you saying you have an escape plan that gets all of us out of here?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  But before he could say another word, Barrett stepped into the middle to the address the others.

  “This guy has uttered two syllables since he got here, ‘fuck’ and ‘you.’ Now suddenly he wants us to follow his lead.”

  “I agree with Cliff,” Juarez immediately chimed in. “This guy is out for himself. You can see it in his eyes.”

  “Look, when I first got here,” said Matt, “I didn’t know who I could trust.”

  Grouse blurted out, “You still don't. I know a loner when I see one and this guy is completely out for himself.”

  “I can't believe I'm saying this,” said Juarez, “but for once I actually agree with Grouse.”

  “Fine. I hear you,” interrupted Tyra, quickly stepping in before the negativity spread like a cancer through the entire circle. “But tell me this – what’s the harm in at least hearing what he has to say?”

  No one had an answer. At least, no one standing in the shower stall disagreed strongly enough to speak up.

  “Go ahead, let’s hear your plan,” said Tyra, before stepping back and yielding the center of the circle to Matt.

  “Well, as I said before, I happen to agree with Tyra. If we’re going to spring a few, we might as well get everyone out of here,” said Matt. “The reason I feel that way is because, frankly, getting out of this camp is relatively easy…”

  “Chast and Tulliver might raise an objection if either of them was alive,” said Barrett.

  Matt resisted the urge to look over at Murphy, instead quickly responding to Barrett’s objection.

  “Actually, you’re wrong. Their deaths confirm what I just said. You see, Chast and Tulliver weren’t caught on this side of the fence. They were eventually tracked down on the outside.”

  Matt turned to Tyra and said, “Which is exactly what I warned them would be the problem, right?”

  Tyra nodded, and her response was sincere enough to convince the others in the circle to hear more. But Matt also saw the doubt even in her eyes – she was waiting to hear his plan.

  “See, the real strategy to escaping from this shithole is what happens after we’re on the outside. How do we defend ourselves? What weapons do we use? Where do we go when the vampires start looking for us? Will we be in the right place to fight back? I actually have the answers to all those questions…”

  He looked around, trying to gauge how many in the group were listening and who had already tuned him out.

  “Sorry about that! I fell asleep right in the middle of the bedtime story,” said Juarez. “Hopefully I didn’t miss my favorite part about the really tall castle just yonder and how the unicorn kills all the bad vampires…?”

  Matt made sure to laugh along with the other prisoners.

  Then when he had the floor again, he responded, “You’re right, Juarez. If anything I propose sounds like a fairy tale, then we all die… including me.”

  There was silence, but everyone was listening to whatever Matt had to say next.

  “My plan has several steps, but the key to its success is that it involves… two escapes.”

  Immediately his words triggered a reaction from the group, but Barrett stomped his foot on the shower tile. “All of you keep it down! Besides, I want to hear what he has to say!”

  Matt wasn’t sure why Barrett took it upon himself to give him a fair hearing, but ran with the opportunity to continue.

  “As I said, ‘two escapes.’ The first one will allow for a trip to a nearby town, to gather a ton of weapons and supplies, which will then be stashed in some key areas, including a strategic stronghold where we’ll all make our stand against the vampires.”

  “What do you have in mind as a ‘strategic stronghold’,” asked Tyra.

  Matt wasn’t put off by her question. She could have suspected that the place he had in mind was the same place to which he had directed Tulliver and Chast – his ex-wife’s house – which could have been the very place where they were eventually caught.

  “My family’s old farm,” answered Matt. “There’s many advantages to going there, including the farm is at the top of a hill. You don’t have to be a West Point graduate to know the high ground is always the best place to defend.”

  “And who exactly goes out during this ‘first escape’?”

  The question came from Barrett, and Matt noticed that his words had a cynical undertow.

  “Because of some necessary requirements for the operation to be successful, my plan only allows for one person to make the escape…”

  His answer was buried in a groan of objections from the circle of prisoners. They all knew who Matt would propose to be the one prisoner making the first escape.

  Tyra stepped forward with a raised hand that finally quieted the surrounding men. She then asked, “Matt, what’s your plan, and why does it only allow for one person to escape?”

 
He looked around, unsure if he should continue. The more details he shared, the less likely the plan would end up including him. But he realized he had no choice.

  “I’ve noticed the bloodmobile makes two daily trips to the camp – once in the mornings to deliver empty bottles; and then again about ten hours later, before sunset, to pick up the most recent supply of canisters filled with blood.”

  Tyra shook her head, ashamed that she had totally missed what Matt had noticed after just being here for a few days.

  “But since the truck never goes past the first security checkpoint, the bloodmobile would have to be used as the escape back into the camp at the end of the day, hopefully before the second roll call… before any of the goons actually realize that the escaping prisoner had been gone at all.”

  “I’m sorry,” interrupted Chong. “Call me slow, but you just described the way back into the camp. Did I miss the part of the plan about how someone is going to get out?”

  “As I said, the bloodmobile never actually drives into the compound,” said Matt. “So the way out has to come from a vehicle which enters the main compound so we have the opportunity to hitch a ride out. The only vehicle I’ve seen that meets those needs is… the cadaver van.”

  Around the circle, almost everyone reacted with a sense of recognition. They all realized that Matt was right; the cadaver van was the only vehicle allowed into the main compound to pick up any dead bodies, then it would leave the camp to dispose of the corpses.

  “My plan puts me in a body bag in the cadaver van, riding out of the compound, out of the camp, then at the perfect time jumping out to begin getting the resources we’ll need for the second, bigger escape involving all of the prisoners. And then at the end of the day I hitch a ride on the bloodmobile, getting back to the camp before any of the goons even know that I’ve been gone.”

  He looked around and saw a lot of positive reaction to his plan. But Matt also saw a few faces that didn’t look so convinced.

  One of the naysayers was Barrett, and he was the first to speak. “Look, I admit; what you’re pitching is a real plan. But c’mon, how stupid do you think we are? We help you get out of here on the cadaver van; we’re supposed to be standing in the main compound with our dicks in our hands, waiting for you to come back…?”

  Matt didn’t hesitate with a response. “Yeah, that’s right. All except for the dicks in your hands part.”

  “We help this guy escape,” said Grouse, “we won't even get a postcard. And then we’ll be the ones doing the payback to the vampires.”

  Juarez chimed in as well. “I hate to agree with Grouse twice in an hour, but I totally am seeing things his way…”

  The gathering of prisoners all started to grunt with agreement, until Tyra joined Matt back in the middle of the circle.

  “What if I and someone else rolled with you during the first escape?”

  There was no need for Matt to look around to verify that it was either he went along with Tyra’s suggestion, or there was no chance his plan would get any support.

  “As long as you… all of you, are willing to do what it takes to make sure we’ve got… three body bags.”

  She knew what that meant if Matt was being sincere and not just trying to scare her off.“What do you think everybody? What if Juarez and I go with Matt for the first escape? Would everyone be cool with that?”

  All around the circle there seemed to be a general positive reaction to Tyra’s suggestion. Until Murphy spoke up.

  “This guy is gonna get us killed.”

  Murphy looked around the stall.

  “I can’t believe I’m the only one feeling this way.”

  Barrett took a few steps toward Murphy, which only caused the objecting prisoner to take a few steps back in response.

  “I hear you. Believe me I do. From day one I have not been a fan of this mercenary jackal, but if he's willing to go with Ty and Juarez...”

  “No, you're not hearing me! Listen to me, none of you should trust this guy,” said Murphy. “Look at him. Stop looking at me and look at him… don’t you see what I see? He’s on a suicide mission, and he’s trying to grab as many people to join him before he crash-and-burns.”

  “As long as we’re talking about crashing and burning, what the hell happened with you and your Wall Street buddies, Chast and Tulliver?” asked Juarez.

  Murphy did not hesitate with his answer, though his explanation sounded a bit rehearsed.

  “There was a plan. It ended up being a bad plan. And they died. What I want to know is why hasn’t anyone come up to me and congratulated me about making the right call?”

  Barrett looked around, before being the first to respond.

  “Maybe because congratulating you would be like exchanging high fives at the airport after you missed a flight that crash-landed.”

  “Or worse,” said Chong. “I heard the plan needed three men to fly the plane, but someone who was supposed to be in the cockpit grabbed a parachute and bailed.”

  Murphy’s face turned beet red. He slowly started to move backwards, even though no one was moving toward him.

  “There’s a reason I’m still alive,” he mumbled to the group.

  “Yeah, for sure,” said Juarez. “Hey, where are you going? Stick around. We’ll kick around some more reasons and then you can pick the one you want us all to believe.”

  Several of the prisoners smiled.

  “Fuck you. Fuck all of you. Believe what you want.”

  Murphy then pointed at Matt. “There’s no way some hotshot is going to put my name on some lottery ticket.”

  Tyra raised her hands and started to approach the now completely unhinged prisoner. “Where are you going, Murphy? You need to calm down…”

  “Don’t even try to tell me what I need to do…,” he said, each word getting louder than the last, but then he backed right into a shower-stall wall and the impact scared him into falling silent.

  “He’s right. Let him go.”

  All the prisoners turned to verify the words were really coming from… Matt.

  “No matter how good my plan is, it's a huge risk,” said Matt staring at Murphy. Then he turned to look, one by one at all the other prisoners. “Do me a favor, each one of you here – forget I even said anything.”

  Murphy didn’t wait for any of the prisoners’ reaction to Matt’s request. Once the spotlight was no longer on him, he scrambled out of the shower stall and disappeared into the surrounding clouds of steam.

  Tyra sidled up next to Matt with an incredulous look on her face.

  “Just like that… you're punking out?

  “No, I’m still in.” Matt then turned to look at Tyra… and the rest of the group of prisoners. “And hopefully all of you are still in as well. It's Murphy who is out. Now we have to wait and see what that might mean to our plans…”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Murphy was standing at the end of the second row during the second head count.

  All Matt and Tyra could see from the fifth row was the balding back of Murphy’s head. Nonetheless, Matt was convinced the former Wall Street analyst had something on his mind. Murphy had spent the entire roll call looking all around the compound as if he were the star of a grade-school play and was trying to locate his parents in the audience.

  “166 men present and accounted for, sir.”

  “Dismiss them,” the security supervisor told Williams.

  “Okay, you’re all dismissed until the next head count.”

  The prisoners broke formation.

  Matt and Tyra turned as if they were talking to each other, but both continued to keep an eye on Murphy, who stayed planted in his spot while all the other prisoners around him scattered in different directions.

  “There’s Spector,” said Tyra.

  Matt looked over. On the side of the compound, near the security-staff mess hall, the head of camp security was walking with another one of his goons.

  “Perfect. Now we’ll get to see if I’m r
ight… or just paranoid.

  But then when both of them turned back…

  Murphy was gone.

  He was smoking a cigarette in the alley between the security-staff barracks and mess hall. Standing there, waiting for Spector to show up, Murphy couldn’t resist and opened up one of the three portable BBQs the goons used to cook on the weekends.

  The inside of the grill smelled of cooked, red meat. He also caught the whiff of salmon.Murphy closed the BBQ lid the moment he saw a large figure appear at the mouth of the alleyway.

  He stamped out his cigarette and rehearsed the first few lines he wanted to use to kick off his tip about a “rebel” being amongst the prisoners. Murphy knew enough about Spector that if his first few words didn’t come out right, the head of security might ignore everything else he had to say and dismiss him.

  Suddenly, he felt a sharp jab in the small of his back, causing him to grimace and let out a small yelp.

  He wheeled around to discover a football at his feet.

  “How you doing, Murph…?”

  Barrett came running up to him, clearly the one who had thrown the football.

  “What are you doing here?” Murphy growled.

  “A few of us are getting together for a game. I came to see if you wanted to play.”

  Before Murphy could respond, a gravelly voice echoed between the two buildings. “What the fuck are you two doing in this area?”

  “Oh, shit,” said Barrett under his breath, but loud enough for Murphy to hear, “looks like we might be in trouble.”

  Spector pushed aside one of the potted plants next to a bamboo cocktail bar as he barked at both of the prisoners.

  “I hope you two have an believable explanation for why you’re in a totally restricted area.”

  “Actually, sir…,” Murphy began.

  “We lost our football,” Barrett interrupted. He reached down and picked up the pigskin on the ground next to Murphy. “Sorry, but it’s the only football we have.”

  Spector swept his hand across a wooden rack attached to the BBQ, sending all the stainless-steel tools flying.

  “You both better get the hell out of here before I make you eat that football!”“Absolutely,” answered Barrett.