by J. Thorn
“How long have you been down here?”
Chuck raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you want to be friends?”
“Fuck this." Chuck was right. Dax shouldn’t waste his time trying to befriend the same man who’d already cost him so much.
After his comment, another moment of silence blossomed until Chuck spoke again.
“I’ve been down here since the last time you and I saw each other. They killed the rest of my crew, but kept me alive for some reason.”
“You mean when you tried to kill me?”
“I was never going to kill you, dawg. I wanted you to join forces with me. I saw how strong you is. And besides all that, can you really blame me for trying to take advantage of such a fucked-up situation?”
“What you did was pure evil. It was no better than those motherfuckers who traffic women.”
Chuck raised his hands. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down now, nigga. That’s fucked up that you be saying that. You and me, we need to be working together. There’s no war between us anymore. Just this one against those goddamn animals out there. You get me?”
“The vampires.”
“What?”
“They’re not animals.” Dax went to the side of the cell again and grabbed the bars. “They’re vampires.”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Chuck waved his hand and turned around.
“They are. But not everything we know about vampires is true. They don’t feed off our blood to stay alive. They consume thoughts, draining our minds to satiate their hunger. I thought they were nocturnal, but I’m learning that some of them can be out in the sun for at least a little while. They’re vampires, Chuck. And they’ve been after me since all this began.”
“And what exactly is it that they want with your dumb ass?”
Dax swallowed. Given their history, he wasn’t sure how much to tell Chuck. But then again, what did he have to lose by telling him what Papa Midnight had thought? “I’m the only one who can save the human race from going extinct.”
After a brief moment of silence, Chuck burst out into laughter. He fell to the ground, holding onto his belly as he rocked onto his side.
“So, what you saying is that those things are mind-eating vampires and that you supposed to be some sort of Messiah?” He burst into laughter again. “That’s the funniest shit I ever heard.”
Dax gave Chuck the middle finger. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I don’t give a fuck what they do to you. You nothing but a gangster wannabe anyway.”
As Chuck continued to laugh, Dax dropped to his knees. He reached into the back of his pants and drew out one of the stakes he’d formed, brandishing it for Chuck to see. It was the only one he had on him.
Chuck stopped laughing. “What the shit is that?”
“My ticket out of here.”
Dax tucked the stake back into the rear of his pants. He then dropped to his knees, tumbling onto his side and clutching his chest.
He screamed. Saliva dripping from his mouth, and he writhed on the floor like he was possessed by a demon.
“What the fuck? Stop messing around, dawg. This ain’t funny.”
Dax continued to wail. He made guttural noises, kicking his legs and clutching at his chest with both hands. He rolled onto his back and thrust his hips into the air. Then he suddenly stopped, his mouth wide as he stared at the ceiling.
“Oh, shit,” Chuck said. He ran to the front of the cell and started shaking the bars. “Help! You ugly motherfuckers need to get your asses in here, now!”
Chuck rocked the cell violently until someone finally arrived at the door. It swung open, and one of the vampires appeared.
“Open the fucking cage and help him!” Chuck said.
The Screamer stood there and stared at him.
“Isn’t he important for some shit?” Chuck asked. “You need to help him!”
The vampire turned its attention to Dax, looking at the struggling man through the bars.
While continuing with the act, Dax closed his eyes and focused on the Screamer in the room. Based on what he had learned from Papa Midnight, he thought he might be able to communicate with the Screamer telepathically.
Please, open the door and help me. I’m going to die if you don’t.
The Screamer cocked its head and then inserted the key into the lock, opening the door.
Dax slowly reached for the stake, still lying on his back. He kept his eyes open wide enough to see the creature kneeling beside him. When the vampire leaned in, Dax sat up and drove the wooden shard into its chest. He used his other hand to cover the creature’s mouth and mute its scream.
Within moments, the orange eyes faded, and a thirty-year-old man stared aimlessly past Dax and up at the ceiling. Dax withdrew the stake from the man’s chest and laid his hand on his stomach.
“I’m sorry.”
He stood up.
“What the fuck?”
Chuck looked on, eyes wide and mouth open.
Stepping out of the cell, Dax shook his head and went to the door.
“Where you going? Don’t leave me here.”
Dax scoffed as he grabbed the handle and started to turn it.
“What would Gabby have wanted you to do, man?”
Dax froze. He had already moved the handle all the way and pulled on the door when Chuck’s words had grabbed his attention. Slowly, he let go of the handle and turned all the way around to face the gang leader.
“What the fuck did you say?”
“When Leo first told me your name, it didn’t click. But then I started thinking back. Gabby talked about having a little bro in jail, but she always called you Jackson. I think she might have called you Dax like once or twice, but I didn’t really remember all that.”
Dax walked toward the cell as Chuck continued.
“Then I remembered this one conversation she and I had. Somehow, we got talking about her little bro—you—and Gabby started talking about this girlfriend you had and how much she liked her. I felt stupid that I hadn’t thought about it sooner. She mentioned how the girl had lost her leg in a car accident and everything. Chloe was—”
“Don’t you say her fucking name!”
Chuck raised his hand. “Sorry, bro.” He stared at Dax and nodded his head. “Yeah, man, I totally see it now. Gabby look just like you.”
“Looked. She looked just like me.”
Chuck furrowed his brow. “What you mean?”
“Gabby’s dead.”
“What? … No. How?”
“I went by her house and found her hanging in her closet from a goddamn bed sheet. Then I found empty bottles of prescription drugs next to her bed.”
Chuck stared blankly. He stepped back, placing his hands behind his head.
“Oh, shit.”
“What? You got something you want to tell me, Charles?”
“I thought she’d stopped doing that shit. She told me she had.”
“You got any idea how she got all that shit in the first place?”
“Whoa, man. I know you don’t think I—”
“Well, considering I’ve just found out that the same guy who was kidnapping people to put on an assembly line for a meth lab was fucking my sister, then yeah, I’m going to point some blame at you.”
“Bro, the reason I called it off with Gabby was because of that shit,” Chuck confessed. “She wasn’t gettin’ any of those pills from me. Last time I talked to her, she was getting clean. We were maybe going to go out again. You gotta believe me on that.”
Dax bit his lip and turned around. He closed his eyes.
“I loved your sister, bro. I did. And I was there for her when she really needed someone. You were in jail, and she was having trouble with Darrell and trying to gain custody of Anthony, Kanesha, and Kim.”
Opening his eyes, Dax looked at Chuck again. Chloe had heard about Gabby’s struggles with drugs, but she hadn’t known about all the stuff going on with Darrell and their kids. Those matters had been kept private.
&n
bsp; Dax went to his cell and pulled the keys out of the lock. He then walked over to Chuck and inserted the key.
“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, then I will kill you. You understand me?”
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “Of course.”
Dax sighed. He turned the key and popped the lock.
With a big smile on his face, Chuck left the cell. He stuck out his arms, ready to hug Dax.
“Hell yeah, nigga. We about to show these vampires what—”
The punch sent Chuck flailing back into the cell. He fell on his ass, staring up blankly at Dax.
“That’s for all the shit you did to me before, and waiting so long to tell me you were Gabby’s man. And I’m not playing with you. If I find out you’re lying to me about giving my sister drugs, then I’m going to rip off your fucking arms and shove them down your goddamn throat.”
Dax extended his hand to Chuck.
The former gang leader rubbed his cheek with one hand and accepted Dax’s hand with the other.
“We got a lot of shit to catch up on later,” Chuck said.
“Yeah, well, we’ve got to get outta here first. Let’s go.”
Chapter 39
As Dax cracked open the door, Chuck put his hand on his shoulder.
“You got anymore of those stakes?”
“Sorry,” Dax said. “This is my only one.”
“Well, what am I supposed to use for a weapon?”
“We’re going to try to get out of here without fighting any of them.”
“Okay, but what if we do run into ‘em? What am I supposed to do then?”
Dax shut the door and turned to Chuck. “A stake through the heart isn’t the only way to kill them. You can break their necks, as well.”
Chuck laughed. “That’s reassuring. I’ve got to engage in hand-to-hand combat and hope I can get close enough to kill with my bare hands. This ain’t some Chuck Norris bullshit, yo. This is real life.”
“I know you can fight. I’ve seen you. The soldiers—these vampires—are on the bottom of the food chain, and they’re the ones we’re most likely to run into. They aren’t much stronger than you or me. You can handle them if the situation comes up. But I suggest that we try to be quiet and avoid fighting them altogether.”
“And where are we going to go once we get out of here?”
“One thing at a time.”
Dax pushed on the door again. They stepped into a dark hallway without lanterns, candles, or windows to light their way. Dax couldn’t remember how long he’d been inside the camp, and had no way of knowing if it was night or day.
Dax moved slowly down the hallway with four closed doors, two on each side. He thought to open them, curious if there were other human prisoners who had been locked up inside of these rooms, but resisted the urge. His immediate goal was to get out of the building. For all he knew, there could be Screamers behind the doors. And with no real stock of weapons, it wasn’t worth the risk.
He reached the corner, peeked around it, and looked down the hallway. Dax quickly ducked back, though, flattening his back against the wall.
“What is it?” Chuck asked, whispering.
Dax put his finger to his lips, eyes wide to tell Chuck to shut up.
A Screamer walked by. Dax waited for it to look his way, but it kept its eyes straight ahead. Dax didn’t make a noise. He held his breath even as the thing passed by. When it was completely out of view, Dax poked his head around the corner again. Nothing, this time.
“You’ve got to keep your mouth shut,” he whispered to Chuck. “It doesn’t matter how low you talk. Shut up. You feel me?”
Chuck nodded. Dax returned the gesture, then signaled with another nod for Chuck to follow him.
This corridor appeared longer, but there were no lights to allow them to know for sure. Doors lined each side of the space, all closed like those they’d passed before. At the end of the hallway, they came to two double doors. Each door had a small square window in the top of it. Dax stood flat against one wall while Chuck did the same on the opposite side of the hall. Dax pointed to his eyes and then to the window, signaling to Chuck that he would look through.
Dax pushed off the wall and stood in front of the doors, squatting below the windows. He raised his head until he could see. Candles provided some light in the open room, which was about the size of a doctor’s office waiting room. Two Screamers stood at the front, their orange eyes reflecting off the walls. Dax scanned the whole room and saw no other vampires or humans. But the thing that caught his attention was at the back of the room.
A door with an exit sign above it.
He squatted again, ducking beneath the window and resting against the wall.
“There’s only two of them in there.”
“That’s two more than I want to fuck with,” Chuck said. “Why don’t we try somewhere else?”
“Because there’s an exit door in the back of this room. And we’re going to get there.”
“How are we going to fight off those two without them alerting any of their buddies?”
“We’re not,” Dax said. “We’re going to try and sneak by them.”
“You don’t think they’ll hear two heavy-footed niggas like us stomping across the room?”
“I don’t think they hear too well. They do most of their tracking with some infrared seeing or some shit.”
“That’s comforting. They’ll see two big-ass red blobs moving across the room.”
“Only if they turn around.” Dax lifted his leg and untied his boot. “We can take our shoes off to make less noise.”
“I think you’re full of shit. But all right,” Chuck said. He began taking his shoes off. “Even if we make it all the way to the door. Ain’t that shit gonna be loud when we open it?”
“Probably.”
“Well, what do we do then?”
Dax shrugged. “Move like hell and pray the sun is out.”
“Motherfucker,” Chuck mumbled, shaking his head and lowering his eyes to the floor. “We gonna be two dead niggas.”
“No, we’re not. Just be quiet, and stay close to me.”
Dax moved in front of the door closest to him, and Chuck did the same.
Dax counted down from three, and then they opened the doors.
They pushed slowly, so the hinges wouldn’t squeak. Dax opened his door enough to move inside of the room, then shut it carefully. Chuck followed his lead and they both stood inside the room, the doors closed behind them.
The vampires stationed in the room continued staring out of the windows. Neither had noticed Dax and Chuck entering.
The exit door in the back of the room had a large push-bar handle, a sign next to it warning that it would set off an alarm, but that wasn’t a concern. The alarm would have died weeks ago, with the power. Knowing they were on the upper level of the building, Dax hoped the door would lead to a ladder which would take them up to the roof. If not, at this point, Dax was prepared to jump into the dangerous floodwaters to escape.
When they were halfway to the door, Dax glanced over his shoulder. The two Screamers were still staring out the windows, and Chuck trailed only a few feet behind Dax. Chuck looked scared, and Dax raised his finger to his mouth to urge him to be quiet.
Dax turned back around then, but not in time to see the box lying on the floor in front of him. He kicked it and tripped, falling to the ground.
Oh, shit.
The two creatures near the door screamed.
“Run!” Dax yelled.
He jumped to his feet as Chuck hurried past him. Chuck pushed through the door and quickly started up a ladder to his left. Dax followed as the Screamers raced through the room behind them.
Outside, it was sprinkling from an overcast sky. But the sun was out, shining through the clouds. Dax took hold of the ladder and started to climb. A hand grabbed onto his ankle, pulling him down. But the grip disappeared as the vampire screamed. The two creatures continued screaming as they closed the door an
d ducked back inside, beyond the reach of the sun’s rays.
Dax climbed up to the roof. Chuck was doubled-over and breathing heavy by the time Dax reached him.
“Damn, bro.”
Chuck looked up. “I’m not used to being chased down. I ain’t some pro like you, Messiah.”
“It’s all good, man.”
“It was all good until you kicked that goddamn box,” said Dax.
“We made it out, didn’t we?”
“Barely.”
“All right,” Dax said. “Next time, I’ll leave your ass rotting in a cell. How does that sound? Don’t think I’m going to forget all that shit you did to me just because you were with my sister. Now quit your bitching and let’s figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Chuck stood up. “Yeah, you right. My bad, bro. Feeling a little overwhelmed right now, that’s all.”
“All good.”
“What’s our next move?”
“We need to find somewhere we can regroup. I need to really think about how we’re going to fight.”
“Fight? Shouldn’t we try to find a refuge or something? There’s got to be a military checkpoint or something around. Surely they aren’t gonna leave us here.”
“I found the last military checkpoint around here. And now it’s gone. I hate to tell you, but leaving us here is exactly what they’re doing. This blackout is widespread. The whole country was hit.”
Chuck shook his head. “Nah, man. That can’t be right. We got to get out of here.”
“We can’t leave.”
“And why the fuck not?”
Dax stomped over to Chuck, stopping inches from his face. “Because he’s got Gabby’s kids.”
“Who’s he? Darrell?”
“Serafino. The vampire leading these fools.”
Chuck’s eyes went wide. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. And he’s got two other kids who I’ve been taking care of. I gotta get them back, too. He’s already turned one kid I was responsible for into a vampire. That little dude, Kevin, that was with me. You remember him?” Dax lowered his eyes and shook his head. “There’s enough blood on both of our hands, and we aren’t going to abandon these kids.”
Chuck grabbed Dax’s shoulder. “I’m with you, bro. We gonna find Kanesha, Anthony, and Kim.”
