In the morning, the men let the saps out to take care of their needs, provided them with food, and returned them to the trailer. The driver slid the blinders over the windows and the windshield, and the men slept in the car. When darkness came, they drove on. They had to go further than they had thought, as Ander moved continually. Byron traced what he believed was a pod in Ander’s possession. If correct, it meant Ander had moved northwest of Houston. The roads crumbled in places, and once the government car had to backtrack to find a passable road.
Finally they reached a deserted area—miles and miles of sand and sagebrush. The landscape appeared strange and foreign to Draven’s eyes. He had lived his entire Superior life in cities, and so much open space made him a bit uneasy, although he was awestruck by the hugeness of the sky, the land, the silence around them, all of it stretching out as far as the senses could travel. It seemed endless, like nothing he’d ever known.
On the morning of the second day, the road ended. No abrupt halt, no torn asphalt track, no blockage stopped them. The road they had followed simply faded away into sand until the driver thought going further would render the car useless. He backed from the sand onto the last visible stretch of road. Draven and Byron drew from the sapiens, filled the last corners of their packs with bottles of water and set off.
They donned hats and sunshades, and walked away from the car into the endless stretch of desert sand. They could make a bit of headway, walk for an hour or two before the sunlight grew too intense. The eerie desert morning lay blue and bright before them. They spotted an animal in the distance, one that stopped and turned towards them with silver moon eyes. It darted away, and they walked on, into the lonesome landscape, silent as the morning around them.
42
Cali opened her eyes and immediately shoved her hand under the pillow in a panic. She closed her fingers around the crackly orange plastic and sighed. Still there. She took out the caramel and lay back, holding it between her thumbs and forefingers. She knew she should eat it. Every time she woke up and thought someone had taken it, a rush of panic rose in her chest. Not that it was illegal or anything—lots of Superiors probably bought sap treats for their pets and livestock. But she could only speculate, since she didn’t know anyone who had ever had a caramel except her.
She pulled back the edge of the plastic and pressed the sticky candy to her nose and inhaled. It didn’t smell as good as it tasted. She knew, because she’d licked it twice. It tasted so good she thought she’d died and gone to the afterwards. In fact, her whole life now felt like she’d arrived in the afterwards. People just couldn’t be this lazy and not get punished. The only way she knew she hadn’t gone to the afterwards was that Superiors still came to check on her every night, and she couldn’t get up and walk around or do anything. She had to stay in the bed at the clinic.
But she could go to the bathroom now, which she liked. Her legs shook so bad she could hardly stand on them, and she thought she’d pass out when she stood. Still, life was so easy and comfortable she thought there must be a trick. The very best part? No one sucked her blood. Not the ones from the restaurant, not the mean one, not the nice one who gave her the caramel. Not even the doctors. No one at all drank her blood. She’d finally done it, somehow, without even trying. She’d gotten them all to leave her alone. She figured it was probably on account of how bad her infected arm had stank, but she didn’t care. Finally, finally, no more painful bites.
And she had a caramel. She’d hated Man with Soft Hair after he’d caught Pat and Patty. Or she thought he’d caught them. She only knew for sure he’d caught Leon, and whatever he’d done to the boy had been so terrible that Leon wouldn’t speak anymore, not to tell what happened to Pat and Patty or to say anything else. And then Man with Soft Hair had been awfully mean to her when they made her go feed him after that. She’d wanted to knock his sharp teeth right out. She’d made herself feel a little better by thinking about how she’d gotten away with stealing from him.
But he’d been nice to her later, brought her to the clinic and told her his name, and even brought her a treat. She licked it inside the wrapper several times before closing the plastic wrapping and pushing the caramel back under her pillow. The day she left the clinic, she’d eat it. That day, she’d need a little encouragement. Maybe Man Who Hurries would come back and start giving her new painful bites. For now, the Superiors left her alone, and she didn’t need a caramel. She’d already gotten as close to heaven as she thought she’d ever get.
43
For many days they slept in the black, light-proof tents the government had issued and drank rehydrated sap. When they ran out of water, they ate it dry. They found water once, but only a polluted cesspool, floating with green slime and shiny with oil. At night, the temperature dropped so low that progress slowed considerably. The days broiled with heat, and when Draven came out of his tent, his body steamed in the cold evening air.
Although the warmth stayed in their bodies after dark had fallen, always by morning they’d grown cold through to the bone and much slower than when they started. Draven sometimes wanted to give up, but Byron kept on with silent determination, checking his pod, tracking Ander, pointing them in the direction the man had taken. In the course of their exhaustive search, Draven wondered if Ander had somehow apprehended their plan and eluded them by design. As much distance as they covered, they never seemed to draw nearer to Ander.
They wound through desert paths and through much desert without paths, and Byron assured Draven in his doubtful moments that they were closing in and that this had never looked like a short assignment. The men talked mostly during the first few hours of the night, and when conversation died away as the road had, they walked in silence until Byron estimated they had traveled far enough and stopped to set up camp.
Draven began to feel a strange sensation he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He was thirsty. Not in the way of wanting nutrition, but in the way of needing liquid. His body did not dispose of liquid the way humans did, but it required a certain amount, so as not to wither.
It seemed years since he’d last tasted water. Both men had cut down to one packet of dehydrated sap a night. They saved the rest, as they could not know when their mission would end and how long the return trip would take. One night they stopped walking before the sun rose, and they sat on their packs and looked out into the desert. Draven wondered if Cali had lived, and if she’d moved back in with her sisters, and if she’d escaped the man who had infected her. He wondered if she remembered that he’d brought her a candy when she awoke, if she had married, how long it had been since he’d seen her, and how long since she’d thought of him.
He lost himself in his thoughts until Byron looked up from his pod.
“I saw something a ways back,” Byron said. “I’ll be back.” He turned and disappeared in a moment. Draven sat facing east toward the coming light. After a time, he glanced at his friend’s pack. For a moment he wondered how much sap Byron had left, if he could slip a few packets undetected. He caught himself thinking of it and was ashamed.
He savored his friend’s return before he heard him. He spun to face the darkness and inhaled. He savored something wonderful, something wet. Byron returned with a cactus, cut open, and both men drew all the moisture they could from it.
“We can get more, any time we see them,” Byron said. “I forgot this could be done, since I’ve never had to do it. But I looked it up, and this is the best source of liquid in the desert.”
“Should we go on tonight?” Draven asked.
“I think it would be wise. We’re getting closer.”
They talked a few minutes longer before agreeing to push on a few more hours. They walked in silence for a while, and then Byron reached out an arm to halt his friend. They stood together, scenting the air. They looked at each other, and Draven nodded, his lips tight. Byron made a face to show his distaste, but Draven had no doubts. Many years had passed since he’d had to do anything to survive. At home, he
thought simply paying his rent and eating qualified as doing anything to survive. But now he faced the real thing, or as close as he was ever likely to get.
Sure, he had some packaged sap in his bag. He could go for days before he starved. Even then, he would never die of starvation. If he starved long enough, he’d shut down, of course. But the state resembled hibernation more than anything. If food became available, he’d awaken at once.
Byron stood and watched Draven remove his pack and set off. Draven left his companion for the first time, the first time he’d gone alone into the desert. Again, a tremendous sense of isolation fell upon him. He let his stride lengthen, his limbs cast off the chill of morning. He cast his senses, then turned sharply to descend upon his prey. The rabbit zigzagged across his path, then abruptly froze, eyes jerking in fear. It sprang forward again just as Draven leapt, but he landed close enough that when he dove, he just reached its hind feet.
He scrambled to his feet, shook sand from himself, and twisted the head until the neck snapped. He followed the trail he’d left and found Byron setting up camp.
“You killed it,” Byron said.
“I did it quickly.”
“But you’ve never killed an animal before, right?”
“Not since I’ve been an evolved creature,” Draven said, seating himself on his pack. “But I’ve never eaten one since then, either. Would you like some?”
Byron shook his head. “Go ahead, brave soldier. I can hardly bear the thought of feeding from a sap. I’ll eat what’s in the packets until they’re gone.”
As a Superior, Draven had never eaten from a non-human animal. He did not know how much nutrition he could absorb. He only knew animals weren’t like homo-sapiens, whose energy converted into Superior energy in exact proportion. Human blood contained the same elements as his own body, which only lacked the energy. His body absorbed every bit of human energy it consumed and wasted nothing.
He did not know about rabbit’s energy, but he would soon learn. Though he found the task unpleasant, and the taste even more so, it rehydrated him. When he awoke in the evening, he had more energy than when only eating a packet of dried sap. He ate his usual packet, as disgusted by the sap flakes clinging inside his mouth as he was by the animal’s blood. He needed nutrition, and added to the rabbit’s blood, it gave him a burst of energy he hadn’t experienced in several nights.
Two more nights he killed animals, and on the third, a small deer-like creature. He ate from it without killing it, although it made a sound worse than that of a screaming sapien. Byron did not draw from the animal, so Draven released it before taking sleep that day.
When they awoke, a storm had blown in. The sky turned an awful color that reminded Draven of Cali’s infected arm, and he wondered about her once more. He did not know how long he’d wandered in the desert, but it seemed quite some time.
The rain came, and the wind, and the men gave up walking and pitched their tents atop a ridge of sand. Draven unzipped the door of his tent a bit to watch the rain gush through the sand below, carving a gulley as it washed the sand away. Lightning split seams across the sky and thunder followed, tearing the jagged seams open from west to east, releasing torrents of water. When the storm passed, the men drank from the stream before it sank into the sand. Byron agreed to stay a few minutes, as Draven wished to bathe before they continued.
Although he emitted no waste of any sort, he cleaned himself often as a matter of course. He didn’t imagine he’d have another chance to wash the sand-dust from himself before they returned. Out there, it seemed a thin film of the finest dry particles covered them always. Draven preferred to keep himself neat, and like most Superiors, he liked his body’s natural cleanliness. He found the addition of environmental particles distasteful.
Not only that, but when the opportunity to bathe in an outdoor stream presented itself, he could not resist. He’d not done something so primal since he’d evolved. Under the fleeing clouds, next to the rushing stream, he undressed. If the water left him dirtier than before he bathed, he would not mind. Really the thing of it was the excitement of undressing under the endless sky, in the endless desert, and entering the frigid water. The aim of the act carried little weight. The clouds raced onwards and away, leaving an infinite space, strewn with stars, to watch over him as he stepped into the diminishing current.
44
Byron sat on his pack on the wet sand and watched Draven bathe in the streambed the storm had carved out of the dunes. He wouldn’t bathe until he returned home. He’d never been comfortable with his own nakedness, especially not in the presence of a man like Draven. So he watched the Third, envy stealing up in him despite his efforts to quell it.
The night became still, only the clouds continuing their ceaseless motion across the dark sky. The moon shone through jagged holes when the clouds began to break apart. The water rushed by, small clumps of tumbleweed rolling along in the current. Draven dropped his clothes beside the stream, stepped forward, and knelt to splash water onto his face with his cupped hands. He stood and splashed water onto his body, wet and glistening in the cold moonlight.
Draven didn’t have the kind of body that most men noticed or envied—his chest wasn’t burly enough, his calves a bit too thin, his muscles seemed to stay concealed under his skin instead of bulging against it. He had the body of a runner, muscled by hard work without tangible reward. He didn’t have the brawny look of the Seconds who had spent their human years as bodybuilders or weight-trainers or movie stars, or regular old gym rats, but Byron envied him all the same. Byron would always have the bulge around his middle that grew back no matter how many times he had it taken out. He would never have the strong, muscular build of those ripped Seconds, or even a hard, slender one like Draven.
Byron focused his attention on the man washing his hair in the dwindling stream without awareness of being watched. Draven had a physique that was rare among Seconds, almost unknown in Thirds, the body of a man who had grown strong by hard physical work. Byron had never worked hard physically, not before the Evolution. Of course he had during the War, but by then his body was set to look as it had at Evolution and would forever after. He’d never look like this lowly Third who splashed so carelessly in the stream as if he had no thought of modesty. And why would he? The girls would always come to him, and he’d never wonder if they wanted something else, someone younger or more toned or taller. Well, maybe taller.
Byron wondered what Draven had done as a human, where he’d been used so vigorously. Maybe in the fields, but even that work usually didn’t afford saps such a strong, lean look. Most of them looked weak and slightly unhealthy from their sedentary lives. Before the Second Evolution, some saps had done more strenuous work, though. Maybe that’s where Draven had acquired his fit look.
Draven dressed in the androgynous style currently fashionable, but kept the look very casual. Byron had always thought his friend looked a bit effeminate, but under his clothes he looked much more masculine. Byron had expected the softer body most sapien men had, the untoned, slightly feminine curve of the buttocks, the slender soft arms. Instead, Draven had a ropy, hidden strength about his form. Byron hated him a little for it.
Here he sat, a Second with a former model for a wife, a beautiful home and two well-behaved children, owner of two sapiens and a great job, jealous of his underling—a Third in a succession of ever-more menial jobs, possessing only a crummy apartment and a tendency towards ennui. Byron shook his head. He had nothing to be jealous of.
He thought maybe he’d look up Draven’s record though, and see if he could find anything about his sapien life. Asking him about it was out of the question of course, as inappropriate as asking another man the size of his penis. But he’d like to know. You didn’t see a body like that every day.
He found himself thinking of his wife, as he often did when he saw an attractive man. He wondered how she had occupied herself in his absence. He’d never caught her being unfaithful, never had reason to suspect
that she had affairs. Still, it was hard to believe that in all that time, she hadn’t strayed. Certainly she’d had opportunity. He still loved Marisol, and he knew she loved him, and when they had time together they coupled often enough. But she still looked twenty-seven, younger even, and he still looked forty-nine. She had managed to regain her model look even after two children.
Now, as he had when human, Byron had the insecurity and suspicion that came with having such a young and beautiful wife. Wasn’t she apt to change her mind one day? He’d thought so for several hundred years now, but he never grew entirely certain she’d stay, even after so long. In truth, he’d hurried their marriage, out of fear she’d change her mind, and hurried the start of their family. He’d thought back then that if he could get her pregnant, have a few kids, she’d depend on him more. And as much as he loved her beauty, a part of him wanted her to lose a bit of it so other men wouldn’t look at her quite so often.
He had thought she’d get that soft motherly look about her, and men would lose interest. But Marisol’s soft motherly look only attracted more men, as far as he could see, and she’d outgrown it when the second one reached the age of three. And the men kept right on looking. For some reason, always a mystery to Byron, Marisol hadn’t seemed to care much about the looks of other men, at least not as much as he did. She had stayed, raising their family and clipping coupons and struggling to childproof the apartment they’d shared. And that’s what they’d done right up until the Great Evolution.
Things had gotten better then—at least since the War ended. He’d never have been anything but mediocre as a human, and now he had so much—power and wealth and respect. But sometimes he still felt a bitter sense of inadequacy, like he’d prove unworthy and have it all taken away. Some younger, better looking, cleverer Superior would come along and pull it right out from under him.
Blood Moon: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Vampire Novel (The Superiors Book 1) Page 24
