by Maxey, Phil
She briefly frowned. “I made an executive decision.”
The woman stopped drinking the blood. “I was going nuts in that small room.” She then resumed.
“Remember, Ally, our blood supplies are low. Once you finish that, there’s no more for a few days.”
The woman nodded.
“So what’s the plan?” said a tall bearded man in a red plaid shirt.
The question was echoed around the rest of the hybrids, and everyone, including Anna, looked at Joel.
The pressure of their expectation, that he knew any better than they did of what was happening next, made him pause before he started to speak. “We can’t stay here. The corporation knows where we are, and they will return.”
“Our homes in the village are gone. Where will we go?” said a gaunt woman with straggly blonde-gray hair.
“We are going to divide into three groups—”
Murmurs of unease rippled around the crowd.
Someone mentioned ‘Strength in numbers.’
Joel held his hand aloft and the background noise lessened. “Strength in numbers maybe, but also one missile strike and we’re all toast. It is true that we are all relying upon each other, that’s our real strength. But there are people out there that need our help.”
“Good eating!” shouted someone and a few laughed.
Joel knew it was only half a joke. “It’s true. All of you are now stronger, faster than you were before. You can kill any human you want.”
Many shifted uncomfortably.
“But do you want to live in a world where only the strongest survive? Because if you do? Remember there are plenty more even stronger than us hybrids out there.”
Many nodded in agreement.
“Having said that. As a hybrid, you will need blood. Especially this soon after your—”
People started kneeling on one knee.
Joel and Anna looked around wondering what was happening.
“… and you…”
More knelt.
“You will need to hunt animals, which there…”
Everyone was kneeling.
“What the hell are you all doing?” he said.
“We will follow what you tell us to do,” said the man in the red shirt.
Joel looked at Anna for help, but instead, she just looked back at him with pride.
*****
Carla and a group of others stood and sat, packed into the moderately sized former staff room, and looked at the map of the United States on the small round table. A few candles provided light.
“I grabbed this from what remained of a school building. I’ve marked the human settlements that I know of that were not yet occupied by the corporation. As you can see, all but one are east of the Mississippi.”
Six crosses in six states were drawn in blue on the paper map.
“None in Canada?” said Holland.
“If there were they never informed me. The town nearby was the only one I was aware of up here.”
“We stick to what we know,” said Joel.
Holland pointed at the closest to their current location. “What’s this place?”
“We got reports that there was a small camp still holding out at the base of Lake Superior. Near the town of Bettrow.”
“Then that’s where I’m heading.”
“Let's discuss first. It’s night. This is the worst time to travel…” said Joel.
Holland stepped back and whispered something to Art who was standing silent behind him. Art nodded and left the room.
“I got my hybrids on my vehicles as well as my men. We’re ready to go. I just needed a destination, and now I got one.” He looked at Marina standing at the back of the room. “How about you go with me?”
“That’s a hard no.”
Holland shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a shame. Well, you know where I’ll be if you change your mind.”
“Keep in contact as far as you can on the radio,” said Joel.
“Sure.” Holland turned and, with two more of his men, left the room.
As he did Jess, quickly followed by Mary, appeared in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, she couldn’t sleep. Said she was scared, so I thought I’d bring her up to see you,” said Mary.
Marina smiled and walked to her daughter, picking her up. “It’s okay, I’ve got her for now. You get some rest yourself, and I’ll bring her down in a bit.”
Mary nodded and left.
Joel smiled at the child in Marina’s arms, but she grumbled something and turned her head to look away.
“Anyone got any idea who he’s taking with him?” said Carla to those around the table.
“Not many hybrids went with him… maybe ten, twelve,” said Evan, sitting on a small sofa. “I think he offered them money or something.”
“Probably blood…” said Marina.
Everyone thought the same response. That Holland won’t care where he gets what the hybrids need.
“So that leaves five other destinations and two more groups to create. Have we decided who’s going to lead each group?” said Carla, looking at those around her.
“Well I vote Joel to lead one of them,” said Anna.
“You okay with that? You seem to be doing a good job so far,” said Carla to him.
“If everyone thinks that’s a good choice, then fine,” said Joel.
Carla looked around again, most nodded. “Okay, and unless there are any objections I want to head up the other group.”
Again agreement.
“I’ll be taking my guys with me, but it’s probably a good idea that one of mine goes with you… maybe Keller?”
Joel tried to hide his unease, but from Carla’s frown, he realized he failed.
“Keller’s a damn fine soldier.”
“He also knows what happened with Colvin.”
“Keller respected Colvin as a soldier, not so much as a man.”
“Okay…”
Carla looked at Dalton, Amos, and Kizzy that had remained completely silent throughout. “Joel or my group, what’s your choice?”
Kizzy went to talk but Amos beat her to it. “Joel’s.”
The young woman punched his shoulder, to which Amos grimaced. “At least let my thoughts come out of my mouth already!”
Carla then looked at the scientists, including Bill.
Max’s eyes flicked to Bill next to him. “Umm, we think it would be good if we went with you. Seeing that you are sort of still US military.”
Carla looked at Bill. “And you?”
Bill nodded. Evan looked up at his grandfather, surprised, but remained silent.
“What about the other guy?”
“Josh?” said Rachel.
“Yeah.”
“He’ll be coming with us.”
“Ok good, that’s mostly everyone…” Carla noticed Joel looking at Marina and asked her the question he was thinking. “What about you?”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“I’m with Joel,” said Anna.
“Right, well Bishop has some medical training, so that’s fine.” Carla looked back down at the map. “Now let's decide who needs our help first…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joel walked along what remained of the exterior prison wall. Dark clouds mingled above and light rain made the ground glisten in the few lights still working. To the north, the sound of sparks could be heard and blue flashes lit the sky. Some of Carla’s people were putting the one salvageable SWAT vehicle back together. Ninety degrees to the southeast of that, near the main entrance, people, hybrids and humans moved back and forth between a jam of vehicles, large and small, refueling and mending any issues they had.
Most inside the prison were still awake. Now that they were part vampire their sleeping hours had flipped and, despite the booze, he could feel them, all anxious, all hungry.
He needed to be outside and let the night air and rain quell his mind.
Unsurprisingly, Holland
had not radioed in, and Carla had to contact him after an hour to make sure they were still alive. They were and had already covered fifty miles with no contact with any vamps. Another hour and they would be out of comms range, but Carla’s theory was that Copeland had used all the vamps for a few hundred miles in all directions to form his army, so Holland’s convoy should be safe for a bit longer.
What she wasn’t pleased with though was the number of weapons the former crime boss had taken. Which was pretty much all of them. A few crates of M4s and rifles with ammo was all he left them with. Better than nothing, but they wouldn’t be doing any damage on a grand scale.
A bigger problem to Joel was an issue Anna had come to him with. Another leftover from saving people by turning them into hybrids. A number of children survived the battle… without being harmed. Most of their parents did not. Anna and Marina had already had to step in a few times when some parents had gotten angry with their kids, and that anger became something else when their hunger kicked in. The upshot was that the hybrids needed to be watched continuously by the doctor, and the original hybrids.
He pulled his cap off, shook the rain from it, and placed it back onto his damp head.
A crunch from the nearby field stopped him from continuing his walk. Instinctively he changed his posture ready to be attacked, but instead, a large man appeared from the gloom, with an equally impressive deer across his shoulders. The smell of blood drifted to Joel and for a split second, he bathed in the possibilities until he shook his head and he was back, standing in the rain.
Dalton walked up to the broken piece of wall, stepping over the masonry and dropped the carcass onto it.
He looked at Joel standing a few yards in front of him. “Thought you’d be with your new friends?” he grumbled.
Joel smiled, the rain dripping off his nose. “Rather be out here. I didn’t think there were any deer out here?”
Dalton frowned and stepped over the wall, placing the deer back across his shoulders. “Yeah, there wasn’t… But blood’s getting low, figured I’d find my own.”
The large man kept on walking towards the entrance to the prison.
Joel followed. “Looks like we’ll be heading towards a camp in Alabama.”
“I heard.”
Really not much of a conversationalist, thought Joel. He jogged forward and opened the door, holding it open as Dalton squeezed himself and his kill through the gap.
Joel had noticed and sensed the big guy's pulse had remained fairly steady from the times he had seen him walking around the prison. It was obvious this wasn’t the first time he had seen the inside of one.
Once they were walking the corridors, the buzzing of the myriad of hybrids crept back into Joel’s consciousness and he reached into his pocket for the small flask of alcohol.
Dalton turned a corner and started to walk in the opposite direction.
“Tell Amos and the others to be ready by sun up,” shouted Joel.
“Yup.”
*****
Joel sat in a light gray pickup, his hands on the wheel and the engine idling.
The sun was still to make an appearance, but the sky to the east was already being tinged with lighter shades of blue while ice sat on the fringes of the windscreen.
To his right sat Anna, who was rubbing her hands together to keep warm, and in the rear seats, Donnie, Shannon, and a new hybrid called Jarod. He was a tall man, maybe early thirties, who hadn’t uttered more than two words since Joel set eyes on him.
“How much longer?” said Shannon, her finger picking away at dry skin on her thumb. They had already been waiting ten minutes.
Joel clicked on his radio. “How’s everything looking? We ready to go? Over.”
After a slight pause, Carla’s voice came from the speaker. “We’re ready, moving out now. Over.”
Engine noises ahead gained in volume, and the orange rear lights of a motorhome in front of them dulled as the large vehicle bumped forward over the uneven ground.
“Finally,” said Shannon. “That’s the last time I want to see a prison.”
“Are you hungry? Anyone need a drink?” said Anna over her shoulder to those behind.
“I’m fine,” said Shannon.
The two men looked out of their respective side windows.
Joel knew the reason why Donnie was quiet. They had to head to the possible human camps as quickly as their vehicles would carry them. There was no time to head due south to the Bradley’s farm. Carla informed the young man that they might come within radio range after a few hundred miles, and the convoy would stop to allow him a chance to make contact, but she secretly knew the chances of that were slim.
Twelve vehicles, five for Carla’s group and seven for Joel’s, drove out onto the shadow-laden road, which led east to the town.
“So we all stay together, until… well when?” said Kizzy in the back of a brown sedan that Dalton was driving.
“We’re driving with them until they reach their camp. We see what’s going on there, then we keep on going down to Alabama,” said Amos in the passenger's seat.
A young human man named David looked anxiously at the equally aged woman next to him. He was sure she had six fingers on both hands but ignored the strange sight and instead looked out the window at the grassland and canals just becoming visible in the morning light.
Amos couldn’t help but smile. He sensed the guy’s fear at Kizzy and her disappointment that he chose to sit in the front. He also knew that she knew he could read her mind, so wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wasn’t forcing strange thoughts into her head just to throw him off.
He smiled again, but then remembered his run-in with Holland some hours earlier. The thuggish man had ordered him to go with him. Ordered! He took a deep breath on remembering. Up until that point Amos had resisted using his abilities again to affect the emotions of others, but there was no way he was going to be dragged across the country doing dirty work for Holland, so when he was alone with him, he sent a concentrated burst of regret and sympathy outwards, turning the older man into the most grateful individual Amos had ever seen. It took Amos fifteen minutes to revert Holland back to his former self, so powerful was the effect, and by the time his henchmen had returned, the crime boss wanted Amos nowhere near his group that was about to leave.
In the rearmost of the two motorhomes, Evan sat at a small pullout table, looking at his grandfather whose eyes were closed. When given a choice he had been surprised the older man had chosen not to go with Joel and his group. Instead, he chose the soldiers. People he hardly knew… but they were human. Maybe that was it? There was something going on with his grandfather, something Bill hadn’t told him, he was sure of it.
Up front Marina drove, watching the first motorhome in front of her carefully. She was feeling tired but was glad to be free of the oppressive walls where she almost died. In fact, Anna told her she did die, a few times, but each time a combination of keeping her heart going and her hybrid healing brought her back from the brink.
Jess would have been alone…
She shook the thought from her mind. She was alive. Everyone was alive. The future hasn’t been written yet. She reached down with her right hand and touched the top of Jasper’s head. For the first few weeks the young boy had been part of their group, he hated being touched. She wondered if it had anything to do with Copeland. But since then, slowly but surely Jasper stopped reacting when Marina scrunched his hair or tapped his nose. To her right, Jess slept soundly on Mary’s lap, who was also snoozing. Somehow she had gained extra members to her family, now she just needed to work out how to keep them all alive.
At the head of the convoy, which was now weaving through the streets of the destroyed town, Carla drove the APC. The leviathan of a vehicle which could probably drive through a wall. This was the second of the SWAT trucks that had taken a beating, but unlike the one Carla was in, came out of the ordeal mechanically intact. The outside was a patchwork of metal plates though, taken from it
s twin.
The convoy headed along fairly straight roads which cut through fields of lush green grass, small bushes, and the occasional group of trees. All laid out on a flat plane, with hardly any hills to disturb the view for miles. After a few minutes of driving, the dark splotches of vamp remains which tarnished the landscape vanished.
Max noticed the scene becoming clear of the black stains and wrote some numbers into his small notebook.
After half an hour they passed through a small town which sat on the border. The buildings were standing, unlike Westlands, but a number of trees and street lights were felled betraying the fact that a lot of vamps passed through, or rather over the town.
As the sun struggled to make an impression on the gray sky, they moved through agricultural land. Fields that should have long since been reaped and plowed stood as testament that since the Scourge took hold, nature was still doing what it always did. It was only for humans that time had stopped.
After almost two hours the trail of vehicles moved alongside a large town.
In the distance, five- and six-story buildings in a ‘downtown’ area, loomed over suburban streets and homes which stretched all the way back to the highway.
Joel could hear them. He guessed a few hundred vamps, sleeping in forgotten holes and was glad when the convoy had moved back into expanses of green.
Steadily heading south and east, small and large towns came and went, until some miles out from Minneapolis the rear lights on the motorhome in front brightened, and he had to slow then stop.
“What’s going on? Over,” he said into his radio.
“Looks like one of our trucks has got a problem,” said Carla.
They were stopped on a four-lane highway, a forest to their right, and a collection of stores on the top of an embankment to their left. Ahead, the highway rose slightly, not allowing them a view of more than a mile.
“What’s going on? Why we stopping?” said a sleepy Shannon from the rear seats. Donnie’s head was on her shoulder. He and the hybrid next to him were both deep in sleep.
