by Derek Gunn
“At least I don’t look like a zombie reject from a Michael Jackson video,” Harris countered as he wiped dust from the man’s cheek and wiped it on his shoulder. “You know we still haven’t seen any black vampires.” Harris joked.
“Hey, what can I say? You white people don’t seem to care if you smell like dead shit. You won’t find any brothers sleeping in coffins and wearing the same clothes for eternity.”
Harris grinned as he watched his friend lead his men towards the basement door under the stairs. The house was now burning in places and the smoke made visibility difficult. Johnson smashed through the basement door and grunted as a bullet ripped through his upper left arm. Harris pushed past him, threw another grenade down the stairs and ducked back into the hallway. The explosion shook the floor and he had to grab the door for support to avoid falling. Using the wall as protection Harris peered into the cellar. No more shots came, but the cellar was pitch dark and Harris couldn’t see any light switch.
“Get me a torch!” he shouted, and turned to his friend. “You okay, Ty?”
“Yeah, went clean through. Hurts like a bitch, though.”
Harris grinned with relief and looked up as Anderson returned with the torch.
“Right, let’s get this done.”
Later Harris walked out to the garden. The sun burned into his body and he squinted along the line of his men. All of them were dirty from the smoke, some grasped various bleeding limbs, but all of them had the same look of determination.
At their feet lay seven coffins.
That basement held more of them than I expected, Harris thought. Jesus, we were very lucky today. There had been more guards than Harris had expected. It wasn’t that he hadn’t reconnoitred first, he had and quite extensively. But he hadn’t seen this many guards and he was fairly certain that there hadn’t been seven vampires staying here when he had made his plans. He had wanted to strike back at the vampires, make them notice them. Remind them that they couldn’t have it all their own way. But this was way more than he had planned.
There was no way the vampires would ignore this. They had never killed a vampire before. They had stolen supplies, blown up a few supply depots and killed their fair share of thralls. In short they had been a nuisance. But killing a vampire was different. Killing a vampire escalated them to a completely different level. Killing seven vampires, though, was a completely different league. Harris sighed as he began to realise the impact of their actions and he suddenly realised that this would change everything. He had wanted change but events had quickly spiralled out of control. He felt like a passenger on a rollercoaster. He was strapped in and approaching the point where the cart would suddenly begin its frantic journey. He could see what was about to come but he couldn’t pull back now. They were all committed now, for good or bad, he had committed them. He hoped to God he had done the right thing.
“Burn the bastards,” he said.
The men whooped and set about ripping the lids off the coffins. Harris looked impassively at the coffin nearest him. One of the men ripped the lid off and sunlight bathed the body within. The creature sat bolt upright and smoke began to wisp from the exposed flesh. It opened its eyes suddenly and Harris could almost feel the malevolence of its stare. Its skin puckered and blistered, stretched and split under the merciless assault of the afternoon sun. It tried to rise from the coffin, but pieces of flesh came away from the bone and bubbled like oil in a frying pan as it fell to the grass.
The screams in the garden were horrendous. The seven creatures thrashed and kicked in agony as they melted in front of the men. Harris looked around and saw another creature half out of its coffin. It was trying to pull itself into the shade of a nearby tree when the sun burnt though its hand and seared it at the wrist.
The creature fell forward and out of the coffin where the sun continued to char it until all that was left was smoking clothes and a pool of putrefying flesh. The faint wail of sirens reached the group as the last of the creatures died.
“Okay, we’re finished here,” Harris said. “Let’s go.”
The men picked up their gear and moved to the trucks. Harris paused briefly to drop a small note next to the coffins and then jumped up into the passenger seat of the first vehicle.
In the distance the sirens grew louder.
Chapter 2
“What?”
The word reverberated around the room. The sheer volume of the exclamation caused five of the six men present to jump and squirm uncomfortably. The six sat around a heavy, dark oak table that measured some twelve feet in length and five in width. If any of those present had had the time they might have noticed that the chairs did not quite match the grand table, the wood was of a different colour and the style almost matched but the plain sigils on the chairs did not quite fit in with the lavish carvings along the table’s legs. The room too, was an enigma. It was huge, but completely bereft of any other furniture. There were no paintings on the walls, no tables with ornaments and no books inside the shelves that covered one of the walls. A lone chandelier hung forlornly from the centre of the room and valiantly tried to push back the gloom. At least half of its bulbs were dark and the glow from the remaining bulbs seemed to create more shadows that they banished. The stark interior only served to emphasise the size of the room, and the bare walls amplified the thunderous report as it echoed around the terrified men.
Tony Williams fidgeted nervously in his chair. He looked down at the papers on the table in front of him, but knew that all eyes were directed at him. It had been his news that had made his master explode with such anger. He took a second to swallow and nervously repeated his message.
“Romulus and his clan were killed this afternoon. His mansion was att…”
“Attacked,” interrupted the figure at the head of the table. “Who would dare?” The angry figure spat the words out between pale lips drawn back over wickedly sharp teeth.
Williams felt warm liquid trickle down his leg when the figure leaned to within inches of his face. Foetid breath assaulted his senses and bile rose in his throat. He swallowed desperately to prevent his stomach from spewing its contents.
“We… we don’t know for certain,” he stammered finally. “There has been a group causing minor inconveniences …”
“Is that what you call the death of an entire clan?” Nero snapped at him.
“Nnno, Lord,” Williams stammered. “Of course not. But this group have never done anything …”
“Romulus fought with me alongside Alexander, did you know that?” Nero interrupted as he appeared to lose himself in thought for a moment. Williams felt his breathing begin to slow as he watched the vampire. Maybe …
The creature suddenly moved in a blur. One minute it was leaning over the table toward him, the next it was beside him. Williams felt the strength of its arms as fingers gripped his neck and lifted him level with its six-foot-three frame. Williams wasn’t a small man at just under six feet and he was at least two stone overweight but his legs kicked free in the air regardless as the creature held him effortlessly.
He gasped for air, but only succeeded in drawing small painful breaths. Cold seemed to seep from the creature’s hand into his skin and it spread throughout his body almost instantly. He had never been so cold in his life. The creature loomed towards him and he was immediately assaulted by a foul stench from the creature’s mouth. The smell was vile, like someone had killed a roomful of people and left them to rot in a heated room. But there was something sweet there also, something that attracted as much as it repelled, something intoxicating and terrifying at the same time. He struggled to swallow but the creature’s grip was too tight, his stomach lurched from the smell and bile burned its way up his throat. Williams felt his lungs burn as the creature’s vice-like grip blocked his airway and forced the bile back down.
“Romulus was one of the council.” The creature stared hard into William’s eyes. “Where was his guard detail?”
Williams was turning bl
ue when the creature finally loosened its grip. He fell to the ground and the bile in his throat spewed onto the floor and down his suit. “Dead,” he finally managed through his tortured throat.
“Dead?” the creature hissed incredulously. “How many thralls did he have?”
“Twenty-five,” Williams replied as he struggled to his feet. “They were slaughtered. Bodies everywhere. It was a very professional job. We arrived fifteen minutes after the silent alarm was set off in the house, but, by that time, the guards were all dead. Romulus and his clan had been dragged out in the garden, and the bastards who did it were nowhere to be seen.”
The creature crossed back to its seat and sat in one fluid, catlike motion. Williams took the opportunity to stagger over to his place at the table where he continued to shake uncontrollably.
“What about the serum records?”
Williams breathed a silent sigh through his tortured throat as the creature turned its attention to Jack Norton, administrative head of the city. Williams saw Norton stiffen and grinned at the other man’s misfortune. Norton took a manila folder from the pile in front of him, but before he could open it, the folder was torn from his hands.
“As you will see, all humans received their monthly quota on schedule…” Norton began.
“Don’t give me that,” the creature interrupted. “If they had received the serum they wouldn’t be out ripping Romulus” house apart, now would they? I want a full investigation,” he continued, not waiting for a reply. “Some of them have obviously found a way around it. Every one of these cattle is to be checked before and after each dose.”
“But, Lord,” Norton blurted out before he thought about what he was doing. “There are …”
The vampire silenced him with a glare and Norton felt his bowels loosen as his brain finally caught up with his mouth. Was he mad? Arguing with a vampire lord was insane no matter how impossible the task he had been given.
“We could always go back to the prison system,” Nero replied amiably and Norton paled.
“Nnno, Lord,” he stammered as he remembered the hell that they had all gone through when the humans had been held in prisons just after the war. “We’ll find a way.”
Williams chuckled to himself. The sheer numbers involved in that undertaking made such an investigation impossible, but at least failure in this would take attention away from his own failure in guarding Romulus and his clan. His job would be a lot easier if the humans were locked up again like they used to be but the resources for keeping guards in every prison was prohibitive.
He shuddered as he remembered the stink of the over-crowded facilities. They had lost more humans to disease than to the vampires” feeding. That was why they had introduced the serum in the first place. Besides without the serum too many of them kept trying to escape and they had had to waste good food to make an example of them. As well as the waste involved the threat of imminent death had never seemed to deter the humans anyway and it had been a constant battle to police the human population.
The serum had changed all that. Now the humans were docile enough to be allowed to roam free within the walled cities but still able to look after themselves on a day-to-day basis. Thrall resources required were minimal and life for the thrall officers like himself had become very easy. They had the best food, the biggest houses and an almost unlimited supply of humans for their carnal pleasures. All they had to do was keep the blood flowing for their masters. It was a perfect solution, at least it had been until those bastard humans had figured out a way around the serum and had started killing their vampire masters. This wasn’t their first attack but he had never brought this rebel group’s actions to Nero’s attention before because they were a minor nuisance. Something had changed though. The scale of this attack had shocked him. Why would they take such a risk? Why would they want to set the whole city aflame? He didn’t know but he had to find them and crush them quickly. Their actions threatened his own position. Now he, and the other thrall officers around the table were in the firing line and that was not a place he wanted to be.
“Lord Nero,” Williams really did not want to interrupt the creature. He knew that he was lucky to be alive, but he also knew that there were worse things than a quick death so he steeled himself and continued. “We found this beside the coffins.” He leaned forward and offered the card.
Nero snapped the card so quickly Williams didn’t realise the note was gone until the creature was unfolding it. He watched the vampire examine the neat flowing script and he tensed as he waited for its reaction. Williams had looked at the note earlier, when he had found it at the scene, and he fully expected the creature to fly into a rage. He wondered why the humans would add insult to their actions by baiting the vampires further. Why would they threaten them?
But Nero didn’t fly into a rage. Instead the creature smiled a horrible, grotesque smile, and crumpled the note. “I want two hundred humans rounded up at random for tomorrow night. These heroes,” Nero spat the word sarcastically, “will be shown the consequences of their actions.”
Chapter 3
The early morning sun began its laborious journey of the new day. Its rays, still weak from the early hour, fought with the myriad shadows that still dominated the city. Harris easily assumed the slow, awkward gait of those around him and tried not to stare at the surrounding scenes of disrepair.
The vampires cared little for the living conditions of their food supply. After they had taken over they had merely erected walls around the cities and left the survivors to do as they would within these huge pens. Except, of course, for the thralls and the serum.
The thralls were not vampires, but not fully human either. The vampires could not function in the daylight, so they needed others to protect them during the day and to police their food supply. The thralls, so named due to their total bond of obedience to the vampires, had all been bitten but not fully drained. The condition gave them strength beyond human capabilities, but nowhere near the level of their vampire masters. They were allowed to live in luxury and do as they pleased with their charges, so long as the quota of fresh blood was achieved.
“God-damned serum,” Harris fumed silently as he passed two thralls manhandling a woman too doped to defend herself.
The vampires had developed the serum to keep the humans docile. Each month everyone was forced to attend their local clinic for a fresh injection. The thralls kept records and they rounded up and killed anyone who failed to attend. Harris and the others did not know much about the serum; its ingredients and how it actually worked were still a mystery to them, but they did know that it acted to slow down the body’s ability to interpret signals from the brain.
Each and every one of the people living in the city were fully aware of the horror around them, but were physically unable to do anything about it. Although the city was surrounded by walls, each person inhabited their own private cell: able to eat, dress and perform simple, mundane tasks, but completely incapable of acting independently to save themselves or those they loved.
Harris had grown up in this city and it tore his heart to see the once beautiful Town Square, always awash with blooming flowers and laughter, now desolate and dark. His father had brought him here regularly and they’d sit and watch the world go by, neither one saying anything as they soaked up the life that surrounded them. Harris felt deep regret when he remembered his parents. His mother had been the glue that held the family together, although he never knew how she had put up with three men in the family.
She had died of cancer two years previously. Soon after that his brother Josh had taken off and they hadn’t heard from him since. His father, once a tall mountain of a man had shrunk terribly after the stroke last year and, though the doctors had said that he should recover fully, he never had. Harris knew that no medicine could have treated the real reason for his death. His wife’s passing had drained his vitality and spark; the prospect of a lonely old age was just not worth fighting for.
Harris had
enrolled in the local university to study Engineering and, although he had plenty of friends, he often came down to the square alone for lunch to enjoy the area’s sunshine and vitality and remember happier times. The fountain in the middle of the square, previously the centrepiece with water gushing from its twin spouts, was now dry. Clumps of weeds and dead flowers spilled out over the fountain basin; limp and desiccated. There was no life in the city anymore just the dull, grey hopelessness of a defeated people.
Harris stopped at a red brick building at the end of the street and joined a queue of about ten people. When he finally shuffled into the serum room, he suppressed the urge to run, and had a difficult time concealing the look of shock that wanted to register on his face.
Twelve thralls, he thought frantically. He tried to keep his emotions under control but he could feel his face flush and he tried to lower his head to hide his reaction. There had never been more than four thralls before, and that had been in the early days of the serum. In the last year one or two very bored thralls had overseen these sessions and it had been an easy matter to fool them.
Harris” heart skipped a beat when two thralls approached him. The first grabbed his right arm roughly, while the other pulled up Harris” sleeve and plunged a large needle into the soft flesh just below the elbow. Pain shot through his arm and Harris bit down firmly. He clamped his teeth firmly together to stifle the scream that threatened to burst from his throat. Somehow he maintained the stoical look of indifference that he assumed this “test” was meant to challenge. Properly sedated humans would feel the pain, but would be unable to react to it. Only when the thralls moved on to the person behind him did Harris allow a small grimace to appear.
Thoughts jumbled frantically through his head. Had they been discovered? Did the thralls know how they avoided the serum? All the time that his mind desperately searched for an answer his body continued to shuffle along in the queue. His heart hammered in his chest, but he reasoned that the thralls couldn’t know everything. If they did then they would have searched both arms much more closely. This test obviously meant the vampires knew that some humans had figured out a way to avoid the serum, but they didn’t yet know how. These thoughts calmed Harris somewhat and he was still deep in thought when he reached the top of the queue.
