Blood Harvest

by Michael Weinberger

  Shifting and scooting with tremendous effort, he was able to push himself in reverse and away from the approaching footsteps until his back struck a solid wall. He had no real idea whether or not he was in any kind of contained area and the fear of scooting right off the edge of some unseen ledge haunted him prior to striking solid rock. Tensing as the footsteps grew louder and closer, Steve did his best to stifle any new noise which might alert whoever was approaching. The sound of the footsteps was becoming so loud it was if they were now walking inside his head.

  Then, unbelievably, Steve thought he heard the sound diminish slightly and the footsteps sounded as if they were moving away, quieting and distancing. Realizing he had been holding his breath, Steve slowly let the air out of his lungs as his whole body relaxed.

  “That was quite an effort.”

  Steve’s head shot up so fast at the sound of the voice he struck the back of his skull against the rock wall he had worked so hard to scoot up against. He hadn’t heard or sensed anyone near by and the thought of someone having watched him the whole time chilled him.

  “Alpha?” Steve said aloud, almost reflexively.

  “I have to say boy, we seem to be having a terrible time always running into each other.” The voice was low, rhythmic and harmonic with the accent Steve had always thought to be musical. Now the effect of the room caused his voice to echo in as menacing a manner as it was once melodious.

  “Knock it off Alpha and let me up.” Steve tried to sound intimidating but really felt ridiculous given his bound state.

  “You are a little bit outside your jurisdiction, officer, to be giving anyone orders,” the voice chuckled.

  “You’re not really that mad at me are you?”

  “How could you bring an ultraviolet light into our home?” Alpha spoke in a low tone which Steve knew meant he was beyond furious.

  “I hadn’t meant to use it as a weapon. Who were those three?”

  “New arrivals of course, triplets, all of whom share our common fate. Unfortunately one of the brothers suffers from XP as well.”

  “Oh God!” Steve gasped. Xerotogenous Pigmentosa, or XP as it is more commonly known, is a genetic defect where the melanin in the skin isn’t functional in absorbing ultraviolet light. Steve knew this weakness is rare but not uncommon among those living in the silver mine, although those affected usually keep to the darker and deeper sections of the cavern system.

  “Alpha, I swear I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t, but you should have known better than to bring a UV light into the community.”

  “I wasn’t in the community yet. I was still in the tunnels. Besides, since when are you making one of us with XP into a hunter?”

  “It was a favor to his brothers. I was against it but the boy was so capable otherwise. Anyhow, someone had to take your place.” Alpha spoke with distaste. “And if you didn’t bring the lantern in as a weapon then why…?”

  “You know I hate scorpions.”

  Alpha was quiet a moment then said softly, “Actually, I had forgotten.”

  The voice came from a completely different area around twenty feet to his right and yet Steve hadn’t heard a single footfall.

  “It has been a while, hasn’t it?” The warm manner in which Alpha now spoke made the situation all the more disconcerting. Steve felt a quick tug at his ankle and then his wrists.

  “All right, you can get up now.”

  Steve slowly raised his hands to his face and slid the blindfold from around of his eyes. Warm light from two firelight torches filled the room as Steve inspected his surroundings. The room he was in was enormous with a high ceiling, rounded walls and floor all carved from solid rock. The room itself was as open as a large cathedral with sparse wooden beam supports throughout the central area. The rock appeared to be polished to a semi-gloss shine which assisted the fires in illuminating the area. It was primitive, but the effect was also magnificent. Steve actually felt as though he was inside some kind of ancient royal chamber.

  “You’ve been busy in my absence,” Steve said with a certain amount of awe in his voice.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Steve looked toward the direction of the voice. On the far side of the room was a large stone carved throne with Alpha seated casually within. “Sometimes I feel surges of guilt when I take for granted the enormity of this room and the craftsmanship it took to construct it.”

  “Where are we?”

  “This?” Alpha chuckled again. “This is a place where we do some of our most important work.”

  Steve scanned the room noting a few patterns in the floor that were far from random. He also noted the shape of the floor was slightly conical, with the perimeter of the room rising slightly higher than the center of the room.

  “What work would that be?” Steve found himself asking aloud.

  “You will find out soon enough,” Alpha said cryptically. “First, I have some questions.”

  “Well, I have several questions as well,” Steve said honestly.

  “I’m sure you do, however, my interest lies less with enhancing your knowledge as with assuaging my need to learn what I can from you.”

  Steve gazed directly at Alpha’s uncompromising amber eyes.

  “That may have been the first inhospitable statement you have made so far. Is this trend going to continue? I thought we were going to have a friendly dialogue.” Cynicism oozed with his every word.

  Alpha’s face twisted and contorted with a ferocity Steve had never seen in his former mentor. He drew back a few paces.

  “Fool! You have no idea what is happening, do you?” Alpha burst from the chair and closed the distance between him and Steve with unbelievable speed. The very chamber seemed to quake as he spoke.

  Steve heard the sound of panting and quickly realized it was coming from his own heaving chest.

  “How long was I out?” Steve thought his words sounded weak and desperate as he spoke them. Remembering the pain he suffered before losing consciousness, he rubbed the sore area on his neck.

  “Not quite a full day.” Alpha’s voice had become melodious and polite again. “Not surprising really after the nerve strike I gave you.”

  “Nerve strike?” Steve couldn’t believe what he had heard. “You hit me with a nerve strike?!? Are you insane?”

  “I didn’t realize it was you until after I hit you.”

  “What? My yelling ‘Alpha, it’s me, it’s Steve’ didn’t clue you in?” Steve asked with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  Alpha seemed excited by the reference. “Ah, I must not have heard you.”

  Ignoring the evasive answer Steve pressed for more: “What’s going on Alpha? What did you mean when you said I wasn’t aware of what was happening?”

  Alpha casually walked back to his throne chair and as he sat down his whole body seemed to deflate. He rested his forehead in his hands. “We’re being hunted.”

  Steve frowned. “You and Lei?”

  “No, all of us. Some of our people have gone missing recently and several others have been attacked when they ventured out of our home.”

  Steve moved closer to Alpha. “Do you know who is behind it?”

  “In a way.” Alpha looked at Steve, took a deep breath and continued. “Three years ago we sent some emissaries to a small medical research center in Philadelphia. The idea was to open a line of communication between their hematology department and our people in the hope of finding a more efficient serum than what we are currently using to stave off the effects of our condition.”

  “After arranging the meetings we sent a sample of our blood to the center. Their initial skepticism about our existence and our need was soon replaced with intense scientific curiosity.”

  “Curiosity about what?” Steve was getting wrapped up in the discussion.

  “They didn’t tell us, they simply seemed astounded when they heard the blood came from a fully functioning adult. The researchers were requesting, almost
demanding to help us. Many of our people took their enthusiasm for charity and altruism, but something about their requests to see an actual ‘patient’ sounded a little too…aggressive to me. With a steady dose of cynicism we accepted their help and told the facility of our special needs for complete privacy and anonymity, daily injections of our serum, etcetera. We were told all arrangements would be taken care of prior to the volunteers’ arrival.

  We sent three of our people to the research center: Jonathan was thirty-two years old, Tiffany was twenty-three, and Jackie was eight. Their first week at the facility consisted of what I am told was routine testing and was relatively uneventful. All three were able to communicate with us and actually seemed to be enjoying their stay. I suppose the facility was catering to them in a way they had never before experienced. Then, in the middle of the second week, we lost all contact with our people. Every time we asked the researchers about our people we were reassured they were involved in some more extravagant testing and were unavailable. By the third week the researchers cut off all lines of communication between not only our people, but with the whole facility.”

  Steve listened intensely as Alpha began to shiver.

  “I went to investigate the facility with Lei only to find the space had been abandoned. Contacting the landlord revealed that what I had thought to be a small reputable company was actually the research and development branch of some anonymous corporate superpower. The corporation had paid off the remaining two year lease of the space, folded up their tents and left town without a word. When we asked the name of the corporation the landlord said he didn’t know, and the check he had been given for the rent was in the name of the old facility so there was no paper trail to follow. We had no leads, no one to guide us and no way to involve the authorities without risking exposure to the entire community. We had no idea why such a big company would want to kidnap or kill our people. It was a place of science, not of religious persecution like the old days.”

  “Six weeks later we heard from Jonathan. He had managed to escape and called us long distance from Washington D.C. We instructed him to hold up in a low rent motel until we could pick him up. He told us to stay away. He was being pursued by security from the facility and he would find his own way home. Jonathan was a hunter, like you and Lei, and was well versed in the art of the kill. Normally, I would have had every confidence he could survive and manage his way back to us, but I could hear the weakness in his voice and decided to go after him. I could tell he had been without the serum for too long and he was going to need to feed in order to survive.

  After that it was only a matter of following the body trail. Jonathan preferred a certain type, mostly drug dealers and other street criminals. I suppose it appealed to his sense of morality to drink those people. His first couple kills were more like an animal mauling compared to the neat and tidy manner in which he normally struck. I was incredibly concerned by this and with the frequency at which he appeared to be working. Just before I caught up with him in Denver he had killed a particularly nasty drug dealer in his usual, neat and organized fashion, which revealed to me he was recovering and led me straight to him. When I found him he was still in a desperate state, even after all of the blood he had taken. I shudder to think what he had been like before I found him.”

  “I was able to take him home and eventually he recovered. Once he was well enough to recount his tale, he told us of how, after about a week into the research, the staff at the facility was herded out to be replaced by all new technicians. The tests became uncomfortable and the three of them were refused their serum. Each of my people became more like lab rats than volunteers. Tests were performed mercilessly and by Jonathan’s account, felt more and more like torture. By the third week there was no question that it had became pure torture. They were strapped to gurneys and exposed to different intensities of UV light to determine how fast their flesh would reach the third degree burn stage. They were injected with strange drugs which caused excruciating pain. Each was subjected to endless hours of torment followed by the extraction of more blood samples.”

  “In the end Tiffany was exposed to ghastly chemicals which always made her very sick. Jonathan said they had injected her with bleach to see if she could survive it. She couldn’t and died about four days into the third week. Little Jackie was strapped to a table, placed under florescent lights and denied her serum. Jonathan overheard the techs saying they were to document the girl’s rate of deterioration. One asked how long they were going to allow her to decline and was told to test her until she went into cardiac arrest. Then they were to revive her and continue the test. The test didn’t last very long and the third time they tried to revive her, she died. Not a single person there took pity on one as small and kind as that little girl. Fortunately, her soul was able to escape her tormentor’s grasp.”

  Alpha was shivering violently and seemed on the verge of collapse. When he spoke again his voice was filled with such pain Steve could feel tears welling in his eyes.

  “I was present when both of those girls were born and you know how I hold a particular fondness for those born here, though all who share my home are dear to me.”

  Alpha looked like he might start weeping, but after a few moments he straightened himself and continued in his original tone.

  “Jonathan was exposed to several different diseases for which there are no current cures. Obviously, with what we know of our own blood chemistry and our immunity to virus and bacteria, Jonathan never suffered any effect of the diseases; however, he was wise enough to feign illness until he managed to escape when they left him unattended. There’s more, boy, much more, but the point is we tried to seek outside help and were rewarded with a cowardly betrayal of the most foul. Oh, what I would give to find those responsible for Tiffany’s and Jackie’s deaths, but the name of the corporation has ever eluded me.”

  Alpha went silent, while Steve remained speechless at the horror perpetrated on Alpha’s people.

  Steve broke the silence, “I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”

  Alpha nodded, “There’s nothing to say. The human race has always visited horrors on us. We may be no direct threat to the outside world, but the outside world is a direct threat to us. As you know, for that reason we stay safely invisible.”

  His voice trailed off as he seemed to lose himself in contemplation. Within a few moments he regained his composure as his body straightened: “That bastard Daniels betrayed us three years ago and ever since we have been hunted on a grand scale. This time the inquisition comes not from priests but scientists and…”

  “Alex Daniels?!?” Steve blurted out before he could stop himself. The name hit Steve’s ears like a slap across the face.

  Alpha stopped mid-sentence and stared at Steve is disbelief.

  “You don’t mean Alex Daniels, do you?” Steve asked in shock and confusion.

  “What do you know of him?” Alpha’s voice was a hushed whisper oozing with malice.

  Chapter 27

  The ground on the earth’s surface barely hissed out a sound as rubber soled shoes trod over the terrain. Dozens of pairs of padded feet advanced hurriedly toward the opening of several different mineshafts spread out over a nearly five mile circumference. Their black clothing covered them from head to toe while night-vision goggles supplied the illumination necessary to traverse the landscape. Blue tooth technology allowed each member of the team to keep in constant communication while speaking in otherwise inaudible whispers. Having reached their initial destinations apparently unnoticed, they quickly began assembly of their equipment.

  Every team waited for the last to finish their set-up of repelling equipment followed by a thorough weapons check. While final confirmations came over the blue tooth from each team, Kunnert stood in front of a fallen wooden pole studying it and the attached repelling gear as it descended into the darkness of the mineshaft opening. The gear looked brand new and was clearly not the leftover of a hiker or cave diver from the past. De
spite being born an American citizen, Kunnert shared a common German/South African trait of being overly organized. Everything he did was completely according to plan. Thinking through every possible contingency and contending with them prior to execution had made him a very effective officer in the military before his retirement to the private sector. However, he had not expected this repelling gear, which meant he had an unknown in his plan. Kunnert did not like unknowns.

  * * *

  “Alpha, do you even know who your enemies are?”

  Alpha said nothing; he just kept staring at Steve with suspicion.

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “How do you know the name Alex Daniels?” Alpha’s tone was now a malevolent threat and his whole body was tensing as if getting ready to spring.

  Steve was too lost in his own thoughts to notice the change in Alpha. The wheels were turning, puzzle piecing the mystery together with every passing second.

  “I know who is after you.” Steve finally said. “What I don’t know is why.”

  Steve told Alpha everything about what had happened at The Inferno and what he had heard about the Glitter Gulch. Alpha seemed keenly interested in the static state the victims of each occurrence remained captured in afterwards.

  “You mentioned your people started disappearing after you dealt with this research facility, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alex Daniels owns a corporate pharmaceutical company called Pharmanetics and is the CEO of the company.”

  Alpha looked as though he was going to start shaking uncontrollably. Instead, he winced and sighed, ran his fingers through his white mane and began to pace the room.

  Steve watched as the connection he had made burrowed into Alpha’s mind. Clearly this had a far greater meaning to him than he had expected.