by Maxey, Phil
Vamps.
Three or four were staggering around with no purpose.
Don’t know I’m here.
He looked to the east and started running again. This time moving away from the main road and into smaller side streets. Warehouses with graffiti sprawled across their walls passed him by, and then metal fences surrounding single-story homes as the area became more urbanized. He slid to a stop in front of a shadowy figure at the end of the street he was at. This time, the vamp spun around and without pause sprinted towards him, clawing at the air.
He knew he could probably lose it by bounding over the fences and walls to his side, but instead he just stood, waiting for the creature. He also knew he could pull his Glock from its holster and blast it before it got anywhere near him, but he didn’t want to alert any more of them to his presence, so he stood, watching.
The vamp tore through the night air, hungry for his blood, not realizing Joel was not that different to it.
Joel figured that being so far out in the middle of nowhere, most of the populations of these towns changed, and who was left got the hell out.
No humans left.
The vamp screeched and lunged with its clawlike hands out in front of it. Joel deftly stepped to the side, grabbed the thing’s head and twisted, breaking its neck.
It fell to the road, tumbling a few times, then lay motionless.
Joel took a breath, then looked back to the east. He jogged this time, trying to sense his surroundings better, but still quickly moved down roads, with the occasional abandoned sedan or truck, and across neighborhoods arranged in a loose grid formation. Soon the ground was rising, and he was making his way up slight inclines.
He stopped and looked back to the west. The hotel was just visible a few miles away as a dark block against the sky.
The road he was on had hardly any homes on it and ended at a dead end some few hundred yards ahead.
I’m sure the light was up here.
Then he heard the voices. Men. A small group maybe.
He quickly moved up the hill and crouched behind a broken wooden fence. About a hundred yards ahead of him, amongst the worn grass and dirt was a flat concreted area, on top of which was an RV, and two pickups. Between the vehicles were five men, seated around a small fire that was burning in a metal barrel.
Humans.
He noticed they were well armed, each person having a rifle or shotgun.
He stood, then walked up the dirt track which led to the lot. He only got halfway along it when one of the men facing his direction leaned forward, then stood urgently. The other men grabbed their guns, and by the time Joel was at the edge of their area, all barrels were pointing towards him.
He raised his hands. “Easy there, fellas. Just a friendly traveler.”
“Ain’t no one friendly left,” said a scrawny man, wearing a cap.
“Quiet, Jacob,” said a thickset man, also wearing a cap. He looked at Joel. “Where you from?”
“Bellweather.”
“You don’t sound like you’re from Bellweather. There more of you?”
Possible responses ran through Joel’s mind as he looked over those that were watching him. “No, just me.”
“How you get here? Because you sure didn’t walk,” said another man.
“Got a pickup, not far from here. I heard the noise, thought I’d come say ‘Hi’. Where are—”
“You got stuff?” said the scrawny man again.
“I’m happy to barter if that’s what you mean.”
Two of the men walked towards Joel, their guns squarely pointed at his chest. He started to take steps backwards.
“I’m just here to talk, and maybe exchange some things. I don’t want any trouble.”
The larger man looked at another closer to Joel. “Lee, why don’t you see if this friendly person has any weapons on him.”
Joel could hear his heartbeat increasing, and a burning sensation start to build within him.
No…
Joel took another step back, further into the shadows. “If you don’t want to barter that’s fine. I’ll just be on my way.”
The man closest to him, then leant forward slightly, squinting. “What the hell! His eyes! They’re glowing! He’s one of them!”
“No, hold—” Before Joel could finish a bullet flashed past his head, followed by an explosion of noise. He pulled his own gun, and fired at the closest man, dropping him dead to the ground, then dived into the shadows. Bullets continued to split the air.
“Can you see him?”, “Where’d he go?” Came from the men, who were now behind their pickups.
A burning pain spread down Joel’s left arm and he felt his shoulder. His fingertips came back wet. But the pain from the bullet wound was nothing compared to what he could feel building in the root of his being.
No… I have to get away… I won’t feed on the innocent…
As the conversation was playing out in his mind, two of the men broke cover and walked forward, leaving the concrete lot behind and moving onto the dirt.
“I see him!”
A shot blasted against the collection of rocks and boulders Joel was behind, making him duck lower.
He could smell the blood from his own shoulder and that of the dead man just twenty yards from him. Each pulling him further from his humanity.
“Go! Leave me!” he shouted to the men who were almost upon him. Splinters of stone flew into the air as another blast from a gun impacted what he was hiding behind.
“Ah… found you, vamp.”
Joel looked up at the wild eyes of a man who didn’t realize he was looking at his own death. Joel sprang forward as the scourge took him. His hands, the nails of which had extended becoming claws, tore into the man’s chest, and the man fired off his gun into the sky. Before he had even hit the floor, the large canine teeth, which now protruded from Joel’s mouth, sunk into the man’s neck. As the sweet blood flowed into Joel’s mouth, he sensed the other man nearby, and swung his prey around, so the next gunshot hit his dead victim.
With one simple push the dead man’s body flew through the air, slamming into the other man who was trying to reload his shotgun. Before the shell even slid completely into the barrel, Joel was upon him, drinking from his body.
Other gunshots rang out, but Joel didn’t care. His mind was a haze of hunger and rage. Once the second man was drained he looked to the two remaining men, who observed the scene of carnage in front of them with wide eyes. They both looked at each other, then ran to the RV.
Joel watched the headlights switch on, then sprinted forward, tearing up the ground in a beast-like gallop towards his target.
The RV’s engine roared and it accelerated towards him, then veered off into the desert, its twin beams bumping up and down as they tried to navigate back to the road.
Every part of Joel cried out for more feeding. There could never be enough. But he found he wasn’t moving. Instead, he just watched as the large vehicle bounced back onto the road behind him and surged away into the night.
He fell to his knees as his eyes reverted to their normal human state, not out of exhaustion, but out of guilt.
As his heart rate slowed, he got back up and looked at the still-burning fire and the two pickups nearby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Marina looked out of her fourth-floor room’s window at the parking lot and the new vehicle parked outside. It was a dirty white pickup, with a number of boxes and equipment she couldn’t quite make out in the back. She was fairly sure it wasn’t there the night before. She wondered if that meant there were new people at the hotel.
She looked back at Jess who was sleeping, and Flint who was also sleeping by the bottom of the bed.
She picked up her handgun, putting it in the back of her pants and took a few steps towards the door, when Flint’s head shot up. He looked up at her with eyes she couldn’t say no to. She sighed then picked up the leash, attached it, then walked with him out of the room.
&nbs
p; “How’d I end up with a dog?” she said, standing in the corridor. Voices came from the room next door, where Bill and Evan were staying. She knocked on the door which was already partially open.
“Come in,” said Bill.
Marina walked into the cramped room with two single beds.
“Coffee?” said Bill, sitting on the bed, gesturing toward Evan who was pouring some from a small pot into a plastic mug. He then looked towards Flint. “Come here, boy!” Flint walked to the older man, his tail wagging enthusiastically.
“That sounds great.” She nodded towards the window. “I think there’s a new truck out there, anyone know where it’s from?”
Bill shook his head. “I saw it there too. If there’s new arrivals I haven’t seen or heard them.”
Evan handed another mug of dark brown steaming liquid to Marina, who sipped it. “We should probably go look.”
A softer knock came at the door. “Is that coffee I smell?” said Anna. She walked into the room warily, then quickly sat on the single chair against the wall. There was a slight pause as everyone absorbed how she looked. “I know, I already look like one.”
“What? No, you’re not going to become—”
Anna held up her hand. “Let’s not pretend. So, any coffee?”
Evan got back up and started to rummage through his backpack for more of the brown powder. “Err… sure.”
“There’s a new pickup out back,” said Marina.
“Really? I haven’t heard anyone. But then I’ve been a bit out of it, since… well, since last night.”
Marina took a few more sips of her coffee, then handed it to the doctor. “Here, have mine. I’m going to check out downstairs.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Claire from the doorway.
Marina went to walk out of the room but then stopped, looking back. “Is Joel awake yet?”
They all shook their heads.
Soon, Marina and Claire were back down in the lobby. As they walked to the side entrance, Marina looked across at the chaos of furniture that was still stacked against the door to the basement, trying to remember if anything looked different. She thought it didn’t. They then both walked out into the bright morning sun, and then further, the short distance to the pickup.
Marina looked in the driver’s side window. There were smears of blood on the red leather upholstery which looked fresh. She pulled the unlocked door open and looked around the cabin. A small plastic penguin dangled from the rear mirror, and paper maps lay scattered across the opposite seat. She reached across and opened the topmost. A rough pencil line stretched from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. Which was also ringed, with the word ‘Sanctuary’ written next to it. She dropped the old map to the seat and walked to where Claire was examining the contents of the cargo bed at the back.
“Looks like a mobile generator, with a few cans of gasoline. They also got some food, and a few guns,” said the older woman. Claire looked around the parking lot. “Seems strange they would just leave all this stuff out here.”
“Whoever all this belongs to, is on the way to Salt Lake City.”
“Why there?”
Marina shook her head. “No idea.” She looked at the empty lot and then back up at the hotel. The blinds in Joel’s room twenty feet above were closed.
*****
Even with the blinds completely closed, Joel felt as if the beams from the sun outside were somehow reaching him. His mind flickered in and out of a dream-state. One moment he was replaying his savagery from a few hours earlier, not quite believing it actually happened, to months earlier, when the situation in LA was reaching a crisis point…
He looked up at the bright lights flashing past overhead.
A redheaded woman came into his view. “Is he infected?” she screamed at the man on the other side of the gurney.
“I don’t know, I just found him like this!” Came the reply.
“His blood pressure’s dropping!” Came another male voice.
Joel tried looking down at the third person who had a grip of his wrist. As the screams and groans filled the air around him, he realized he could feel his heart stuttering, and whatever had already taken tens of thousands in the city where he lived and worked was about to take him too. Vague sounds and words wafted through his mind, such as ‘crashing’ and the lights around him grew intensely bright, then fell to an intense bottomless black.
He sat suddenly up like he had just emerged from the ocean, taking a deep intake of air into his lungs. He was in a room, with no other living people. Just the recently deceased. The air was full of an aroma, meaty and sweet. He swung his legs around, being aware of the tag on his big toe, but ignoring it nonetheless, and looked to where all the food must be that he could smell, then frowned on realizing how absurd a notion that was.
He presumed in all the commotion they must have wrongly thought he had died and placed him with all the other dead. For a moment, he envied those around him.
He dropped down to the cold floor. He was feeling strong. Better than he had felt in days. He looked at his arms and legs, expecting to see the cuts and bruises he had been dealing with, and instead, just saw smooth skin looking back at him. He ran his hand across where the previous lacerations were and felt only undamaged skin. There wasn’t even any scar tissue. For a moment, he wondered if he’d been in some kind of accident, and maybe the whole people-eating-people thing in the streets, and the loss of his family, was just some horrible dream.
His stomach rumbled.
So hungry. How long have I been here?
A bang came on the door at the far end of the room. He waited for it to open, but nothing happened.
“Hello?” he said, walking towards it.
Another knock boomed out. There was something on the other side. Someone who wanted to get to him. He backed away as the impacts increased and the door rattled in its frame.
Joel awoke in his hotel room. Someone was knocking at his door. “Yeah?” he croaked in their general direction.
“It’s me, can I come in?” said Marina.
He sat up against the headboard, dragging the single sheet higher. “Sure.” As she opened the door, he looked down quickly at where he was shot, then relaxed when he saw barely a mark left on his skin.
As soon as she entered she could smell the blood. She quickly closed the door behind her, so not to let the odor escape.
Joel noticed her agitated movement. “What’s the problem? Everything alright?”
She moved past the bottom of the bed and looked out at the pickup below. “You brought that here, didn’t you?”
“Yeah… I went for a little walk. Needed to clear my head. Found it abandoned.”
She looked back at him angrily. “That’s the story you’re going with? This room reeks of blood!”
He looked away from her.
“You promised you would be honest with me. So, what is it? Bullshit? Or you going to tell me how you really got that truck?”
“I came across some people. Five guys. They had guns. They wanted to take mine. Things went sideways. Now I have one of their pickups.”
“You…” She swallowed, not liking the idea of what she was about to ask.
“Yeah, but two got away in an RV. If it helps, it was self-defense.”
“But you went full vamp on them?”
“Yeah…”
She sighed, then looked back out the window. “I found a map in the front. It had Salt Lake City ringed, and something about ‘Sanctuary.’ You hear anything about Salt Lake City when you were in LA?”
“No.”
“Maybe we should check it out.”
“That’s some detour.”
“Yeah, but if it doesn’t work out, then we just head due east to Nebraska anyway. If there’s any kind of communities still functioning up there, it has to be worth us looking.”
“For months, I’ve not heard anything on any frequencies, government or otherwise…”
She sat on the end of the bed an
d looked down at the floor. “Civilization must have survived somewhere. The scourge couldn’t have taken everything.”
Joel nodded. He couldn’t see any reason why not to head north. “Okay, Salt Lake City it is.”
She turned to face him with a smile.
“How’s the doc?”
Her smile faded into something more glum. “She knows she’s probably infected. I hate to say this, but maybe it will be a good idea to keep her separated from the rest of us.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“How you going to explain the pickup outside?”
Joel smiled. “Well, like I said, I found it abandoned.”
She got to her feet. “If that’s the case, you might want to open the window and air out this room.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It didn’t take much to convince the others of the change of destination and, by noon, they were back on the road, now with an extra vehicle.
As the hours progressed, the landscape passing them alternated from subtle craggy hills surrounded by flat beige vistas, to hills infused with green bushes and small trees, back to flat panoramas, which made most of the occupants of the four-vehicle convoy feel as if they had been transported to another world.
Empty towns and truck stops devoid of any life, human or otherwise, slid by as they passed into Utah. Eventually, as it reached late afternoon, Joel considered whether they should stop at the next sign of civilization.
He looked in his rear mirror at the truck just behind his own. Anna was driving it, with no passengers. Marina had offered to ride with her, but the doctor politely turned her down, saying there was no point risking anyone else.
“There’s some kind of military base or something coming up. Maybe worth checking out?” said Marina to Joel. She kept her voice low as Jess was sleeping in the back seat.
“How far are we from the next town?”
“Not far. The base is at the start of it…” She studied the map closer. “Looks like there’s a small airport at the base as well.”
