by D. S. Murphy
I went to shut it, peering outside first, and saw a dark silhouette standing near the sidewalk past the lawn. I sucked in a breath, grabbing my hood and my knives, before stepping outside lightly.
His back was to me, but at my approach he turned around. I sighed in relief. It was just Luke.
“What are you doing out here?” I hissed.
He looked around, blinking his eyes then cringing as a piece of hot ash landed on his bare arm.
“Don’t know,” he said. “Just needed some fresh air, I guess.”
“Without your mask?” I frowned.
He shrugged, folding his arms.
“You compounders are scared of everything,” he smirked. “You haven’t lived until you’ve stood in a hailstorm, feeling the ice and fire against your skin.”
“Okay, psycho,” I said. “But next time you take a time out, could you shut the fucking door at least? Please.” I went back inside, picking up my candle again. I grabbed some books from the office, and was heading back to my room when I saw the rectangular hollow under the stairs. I peered closer, holding up the candle for light. The space warped and blurred, almost like it was resisting observation, but I pushed through. The shadows fled, and I could see a dark door. It was nearly flush with the wall and had no handle.
I felt around the edges for a latch or key. Finally I scanned the surrounding area for a latch or lever. Nothing, except some small framed family photos. One of them was slightly crooked, so I straightened it. I heard a click, and the door creaked open. I went down into the darkness and cold air.
At the bottom, my bare feet scraped against rough concrete. The room was stark empty. A large door was set against one wall, this one imposing, with the doorknob carved into the shape of a lion. I reached for it with trembling fingers, and turned the knob slowly.
“Is everything alright, Dear?”
I jumped at the voice behind me.
Rebecca was standing in the dim light at the top of the stairs, wearing a black nightgown.
“Just came down for some books,” I said, lifting them up.
“I see,” she said. “Then you’ll be off to bed.”
I nodded, climbing the stairs again under her fierce gaze. She leaned to the side, leaving just enough space for me to squeeze past her, and the intoxicating scent of her perfume.
“Just one thing before you go,” she said, making me turn back around. “I’ve been generous, haven’t I? A gracious host?”
She leaned closer, and I saw a thin gold chain around her neck, dangling suggestively down the low bustline of her lacy negligee.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then please do me the small courtesy,” she said. “Of allowing an old woman her privacy. Most of the house is free to explore, but there are some rooms you must not open.”
“Why, what’s behind that door?” I asked, glancing back down into the dark basement.
“Memories,” she said. “Painful reminders I don’t have the strength to face every day, so I’ve tucked them away in storage. Nothing I’m sure that would concern you or your quest.”
I nodded, heading past the clock and up the stairs alone, but her voice called out softly from below.
“One more thing,” she smiled, her face in shadows.
“Don’t ever lie to me in my own house.”
22
By lunch the next day I’d gotten into a bit of a habit. We’d eat, read or play card games, taking turns going through the books and materials. It was the most like real life I could remember since leaving Algrave. Despite sleeping more than usual, I felt tired all the time, with a constant headache and stomach pain. My brain felt slow and foggy, and every time I opened a book I’d start to feel my consciousness fade after only a few minutes.
“Where’s Penelope?” I asked suddenly, counting the others in the room.
“Sleeping I think,” Jazmine said. “It’s normal, at least from what I read in the capital. New elite don’t moderate their consumption. They’re either half starved or deliriously full; which makes them manic and unpredictable when they feed. But if they feed too much, they’ll pass out for a few days, making them vulnerable. By the way, find anything?”
“No,” I said, closing the article I’d been reading, about the regenerative properties of salamanders. It was all general research or academic publications. Nothing about the elite or the elixir.
“We should just tell her why we’re really here,” Camina said. “Maybe she can help.”
“And tell her we want a cure for elitism so we can murder them all?” Trevor asked. “Think she’ll just hand it over?”
“We could torture her,” Luke mumbled.
“I’m just saying, we can’t stay here forever. We’re supposed to be meeting Tobias tomorrow. You’ve already been through the books and papers at least three times.”
I made more coffee in the kitchen. Becky had told us to make ourselves at home, and we were starting to. During the day, she made herself scarce but popped up when we needed her.
Trevor helped himself to a large slice of carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting, and followed me back into the living room.
“Come look at these,” April called from down the hall. We leaned over the screen and she brought up a series of webpages.
“Cached videos from the internet,” she explained, hitting play. The image was glitchy, but seemed to show a woman smiling into the camera, just before a dark blur seized her from behind and ripped out a chunk of her throat, sending up a spray of blood that obscured the lens.
Vampires among us, read the title.
“That can’t be right,” Trevor said, pointing to a number by the video. “Over ten million views?”
“There were a lot more people back then,” April said, scrolling down to the comments.
Fake news.
Nice try.
Really great CGI, almost looks real.
She clicked on another video, which showed a harrowed reporter in a dim studio, reading from a script.
“Due to the widespread and disturbing string of brutal murders sweeping the country, the government has been forced to issue a nation-wide curfew. Please, for your own safety, stay indoors after sunset.”
The comments shifted quickly to abuse, calling it conspiracy and refusing to comply. Many people vowed to break the ordinance, or boycott businesses who enforced it. A whole folder was full of images of people out drinking and organizing parties using the terms #curfewcrew and #mylifemychoice.
When I looked up again, it was nearly dark and I was alone. Had I spent all day watching old videos? I started setting the table for dinner once I smelled all the food Rebecca had magically whipped up in the kitchen.
I was almost finished when I glanced out the window and saw April standing outside in the fading light and swirling ash. I grabbed my mask and hood and went out to stand next to her.
“Dinner time,” I said, reaching for her arm.
My fingers came away thick with blood.
She was standing over a rusted grate below the curb of the sidewalk, dripping blood from a deep incision in her forearm.
I shouted at her but she looked at me blankly. I applied pressure with my palms until I could get her inside and wrap the wound tightly with a piece of cloth.
“What the hell were you doing?” I asked.
“I… I don’t know,” April said in confusion. “I was dreaming, and then—”
“Sleepwalking?” I asked, “but why this?”
The blood. The drain.
I looked out the window. The drain wasn’t far from the house. Maybe it led to downstairs. Was there something hiding under this house that needed to be chained up and fed blood? What secrets was Mrs. Hartmann really keeping in her private room?
Dinner was a quiet affair. Luke was right, we couldn’t stay. Trevor was the only one who tried to engage our host in conversation, asking what Rebecca remembered about her life in the Before. She
was lively when talking about her childhood, riding horses at summer camp, but whenever the subject got back to the elite or the race wars, she’d get flustered.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. I think I probably locked myself away and shut down for awhile. When I looked up again, the world was burning.”
I looked around the table at the others. If I concentrated, they seemed to shrink before me; becoming thin and wane, their skin blue and pale, despite all the rest and food. Something was really off. But I had a plan to find out what.
At night, I snuck downstairs again, clutching the vial of elixir I’d gotten from Augustine in Crollust. There were only a few drops left, and I knew I should save it for an emergency, but somehow this felt more important. I hesitated, wondering if the thirst was making me imagine things. But if my friends were in danger, we should leave immediately.
And there was only one way to find out. I tipped back my head and drank the elixir, letting it roll down my tongue and coat the back of my throat. Energy flooded into my veins and my thoughts felt clear for the first time in days, but something was wrong with my vision. Everything looked gray and droopy, like my vision was fuzzy. But I blinked and things cleared. That’s when I realized the world was fuzzy.
The immaculate house and cozy furnishings melted around me, leaving behind jagged scraps of burnt wood, shattered dishes, torn wallpaper and broken furniture—all covered in an inch of mold, fungus or fallen ash from the holes in the ceiling. On the remains of the dining table, rotten fruit and weeks-old bread was being consumed by writhing worms and cockroaches.
I gagged in disgust, vomiting into a hole in the floorboards near the corner and disturbing a nest of spiders. They crawled out from under the thick ferns growing up through the floorboards.
I tripped over someone’s foot, and that’s when I found the others. Laid out in a pile behind the furniture, staring at the ceiling, their eyelids fluttering gently.
Compelled. But what kind of elite was this powerful? Even Tobias told me he couldn’t control people for more than a few hours. We’d been here days. I didn’t have enough elixir for all of them, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure it would help. I needed to find the source.
With power rushing through my blood, I ran back to the blank door under the stairs. The illusion was mostly revealed; I could still see it, draped over reality like a thin veneer, but it was translucent now, like floating water. This door had a handle and opened easily, but downstairs in the remains of what looked like lab equipment, there was a rusted metal door, sealed with chains and barricaded from the outside. I pushed away the heavy metal cabinets, then grabbed a pipe and gritted my teeth as I smashed off the padlock, twisting the handle until it snapped off in my hand. I kicked the door in and entered carefully, brandishing the pipe like a weapon.
The darkness was impenetrable, except for the slits of the grate above, which cast thin rays of light down on the thick bar of an iron cage. The wretched figure inside was shrouded with long dark hair that covered most of her body. Her entire face was stained red from the still-dripping blood above, her neck arched back as she strained to gulp it down, revealing sharp white teeth and a long tongue.
Then her eyes snapped to me and she jumped up, clawing at me through the bars with long, bony fingers.
I backed away, trembling, dropping the pipe I’d been clutching until my knuckles turned white.
My stomach roiled again with sickness. The elixir in my veins only heightened my senses, and the stench was overpowering.
It was like Penelope all over again, but so much worse. How long had she been caged down here... since before the Culling?
“Why are you doing down here?” I asked, daring to take a step closer.
“What does it matter?” she moaned, her voice like gravel. “You’ll leave me. They always leave.”
“I swear I won’t,” I said. “I’m afraid we haven’t been completely honest with each other. I was chosen, by your son Damien. I can get him a message. I can let him know you’re still alive. I know he’d come for you. But you have to tell me about your husband’s research. It’s the only way to stop King Richard.”
“King,” she spat. “So his plan worked out then. I mean, I assumed, but it’s been so long.”
She crawled closer to the bars to get a better look at me.
“I could smell him on you, you know,” she grinned, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and rocking forward, hitting her forehead against the bars.
Now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, I could see the cage had once been equipped with some small comforts; a pile of books, pillows and a radio. But it was all so old and nearly buried under layers of rat skeletons and filth. Rough sketches and notes were scrawled on torn bits of paper, a dark descent into madness.
“I’ve read the articles. King Richard, he invented the elixir here, right? Trying to cure you, your cancer. So how did you end up... like this?”
“He succeeded. The cancer was cured, but I was cursed. I was stronger, faster, but I had this terrible thirst, and a sensitivity to sunlight. It was so loud I couldn’t think. Every time my husband, my son were in the room, all I could hear was their heartbeats, their pulse.”
“I made him lock me up down here until he found a way to make it stop. I was afraid I’d hurt someone. In the meantime, he brought me fresh pints of blood.”
“But the days became weeks, and then months. He was getting famous for his miraculous panacea. He had investors that gave him millions.”
“I begged him to cure me or kill me,” she said. “He did neither. Then he truly started going mad. He started talking about evolution. The human race was the plague; those with the elixir became elite specimens in every way. All we needed was a stable blood supply.”
“At first, he started signing private contracts: the elixir could cure cancer, it could cure anything – and provide decades of robust health; in exchange for a weekly blood donation.”
“He was going to let me out; we could rule together, we could be like gods. Always just a few more days. But then he turned Damien, and I knew I could never forgive him.”
I leaned forward, captivated by the tale, as she continued. Letting my guard down a little, it felt like we were in the kitchen, having a casual discussion over tea.
“By then, he was selling complete conversion therapy, or gifting immortality to those loyal to him. It made him untouchable. He could control congress, the government, the billionaires. But it was a racket; you either joined him, or you became food for the new apex predators.”
“And once the elixir was out there, there was a complete breakdown of society. The elite were feared and hated; some of them kept their own blood banks or farms. Richard would bring articles or tell me what was happening, he let me keep a small TV down here to stay informed.”
“And then what happened?” I asked. This history was so different from what I’d learned growing up.
“He didn’t count on the black market demand for his product. People were kidnapping elite and draining them for elixir, a drop of which was worth its weight in gold. Foreign corporations, espionage, he couldn’t contain it or control it.”
“The only thing that kept the elite at bay was the sun; the sensitivity was almost unbearable, it made them weak, blister up, rashes. Regular humans started locking their doors at night, letting elite roam the streets. Some of them enjoyed hunting, and gave into the blood lust.”
“Until the race wars,” I said, finding a thread I recognized. “And the Culling. When the bombs fell and the sky was shrouded in poisonous ash.”
“You poor Dear,” she croaked. “Is that what he’s been telling you?”
My skin prickled with dread, before she continued.
“The truth is, the elite knew to survive, they had to turn off the sun and make the world less hospitable for humans.”
“What are you saying?” I asked. Her eyes gleamed
in the darkness of the destroyed basement.
“Richard said we could block out the skies and live openly outside; that it was the only way for our kind. He’d build giant furnaces, that spew out a million metric tons of ash a day, like giant, raging volcanoes.”
She leaned close, pushing her face between the bars until her eyes bulged, displaying her black teeth and the rat bones stuck in her tangled hair.
“I called him crazy and foolish. I vowed to stop him. So he left me here to rot. But when the first flakes of burning ash fell, I knew he’d succeeded.”
I thought by this point, I would have been immune to surprises, but I wasn’t. This one knocked my feet out from under me.
He created the ash.
Just days ago, I’d stopped rebels from destroying the purification engines, because I thought they were absolutely necessary to the compounds. It was the reason I left Havoc, the reason I couldn’t join the terrorists.
But this truth was so much more insidious. The elite created the ash to force us into compounds. They were still creating it. Poisoning the whole world, just to maintain control; to make sure humanity couldn’t expand, grow independent, and become a reckoning force again. My mind spun as I tried to grapple with this new information. This truth shattered everything.
I stumbled backward, leaning heavily against the rough brick, the remains of the basement. The glamour I’d been under was almost completely gone now and I could see clearly. The basement was damp, covered with green moss and grass, apart from the deep red stain under the grate. A mound of small white bones gleamed from the corner, most rats or squirrels, with a few cats.
I shuddered thinking about it. She’d been down here like this for a century; pinned beneath the building, unable to die – luring innocents to her and corrupting their minds.
