by Logan Keys
And he doesn’t come back after that. He stares off, his emotions clearing to blankness, and he rests.
At least in these spells he has that… escape.
Chapter 4
Crystal
Goodman walks with me to the ship. We’ve got a window of maybe ten minutes for my second in command to get on board and hide between the Guard’s shifts.
“When will you be taking this trip with me, you think?” Goodman asks.
“I’m not sure.” I glance back at the building.
Bodega Island is a beautiful place except for the drab compound, and electric shields newly erected to keep all the sick kids inside. Surrounded by falsely enticing green waters, teaming with sharks who swarm anything living in their unfished oceans.
“He needs me,” I say.
Goodman nods, but I can tell that he doesn’t understand. How can they?
I’m supposed to be with my rebels, my people. Instead, I’ve joined Jeremy in his exile, and I’ve practically joined him in his mental grave.
The island is quiet, and without the politics of the city. Anthem, walled away from America only a short half hour trip from where we are now.
I see it in Goodman’s eyes, the worry. Do they think I’ve given up?
I look at the paper in his hand.
Not after today, they won’t.
“Will you be okay?” he asks me, awkwardly.
I can’t help but smile. “Will you?” I ask. “If you make certain that everyone in Anthem with eyes sees this, and every person with ears, hears the words of Jeremy Writer returned, I’ll be just fine.”
Goodman reads the words once more. “He never signed it, though.”
He waits… for me. The leader. To do something.
“Give it to me.” Goodman hands it over. “Pen?”
I sign it with a flourish and he reads the words as I do, “The Paper Prophet.”
Chapter 5
Dallas
Tommy’s rejection hurt a lot when I was a mere ten-year-old figuring out my feelings. Being sixteen, following him to join the army after the world fell, and our families were both dead, his rejection was ten times harder to stomach. But I’d grown used to my solemn neighbor, the boy next door, hero. And eventually I understood the brooding behind those big brown eyes wasn’t anything to do with me after all.
Some of us ask for the beatings to stop.
Tommy challenged the world to just try it.
Maybe that’s what happens when you are loved. You feel secure in your fight with all the things that are wrong with the world. You want to fix them.
Or… you die trying.
The thing is, everyone waits for the next best thing, but I was always opposite. I had Tommy. I got away from my father. I didn’t care about what was next.
He was the one who’d pushed us to leave the farm. It was him who said we couldn’t stay.
I never really understood why not.
Traveling to the coast, we’d joined the Underground in California, not far from where I stand right this moment.
I’d offered to go on watch that last day before the Underground had shipped off. I’d wanted to give Tommy space and blow off some steam. I knew us being together and traveling day after day, we’d eventually have that same struggle as before. Me crushing on him, him blowing off my flirts.
Tommy being Tommy, dreaming Tommy-sized dreams.
Me getting my feelings good and hurt because they didn’t include me.
He didn’t want to be together, and I couldn’t seem to quit.
My neighbor was a friend first, then a crush, and lastly, he was my knight in shining armor. My Lancelot. It wasn’t fair to him, but it was a cruel world for me already, and I wasn’t about to give up on my happy ending.
But looking back now, with these grown eyes, it’s all I can do not to kick myself in the ass. The past self that is. She’s not seeing what’s clearly in front of her: Tommy wanted me to save myself.
He wanted Daisy to be her own prince charming and realize her value.
To stand strong.
And now, too bad he can’t see that after all this time… I finally have.
Chapter 6
Dallas
That first day with the Underground, not far from where I stand now, changed everything. The guys I was with were cordial, but nice enough to show a newbie like me the ropes. I was even dressed in army fatigues, a real soldier… for a day.
They’d coughed behind their hands when the jokes turned raunchy and were good natured for strangers and adults. No one was inappropriate.
It was like being around a bunch of Tommy’s. The good guys. They didn’t treat me like a kid or anything.
But I was a crack shot. Far better than most. I always was a better shot than Tommy, even.
The Underground’s soldiers took me serious after I’d taken out a few zombies at thirty yards dead to rights.
When they realized I could take care of myself, they’d left me on a hill for my first round of guard duty. I was so proud of being a part of the fight I never stopped to question if it was a good idea. If I was ready. Or even if I should run and tell Tommy that, “Hey! Look at me. I’m a real soldier, too.”
And when my shift was up, I’d headed back for camp, alone. It was then that I’d run into a soldier on the way, or at least I’d thought he was. His fatigues looked a little worn, outdated, and he wasn’t haircut and shaved like the rest of the Underground men, but he’d been nice enough, smiled a safe looking smile.
He was carrying a bunch of stuff, juggling, dropping, and laughing a charming laugh at his own antics.
I’d offered to help.
His voice was warm and welcoming. Like a good ole boy. “Well thank you, missy. This was getting heavy, you better believe it.”
I had been used to being brushed off so often that I’d blushed and eaten the seemingly benign attention right out of his hand. Even so distracted as to not notice we’d gone the opposite way of the Underground’s camp. He’d kept saying, “It’s just ahead.” And we’d walked and walked into the wilds with our burdens.
Evil men are supposed to attack you, snatch you off the street, try to get you to find a puppy, or offer you candy. The one that lets you press through all your gut instincts and warning signs, that lets you choose to step right into his trap, that’s the one that should frighten you the most.
Because later, when he has you in his grasp, he wants you to doubt more than the world around you, he wants you to doubt yourself.
When we’d gotten close to a truck, his men had jumped out, ambushed me. They’d beat my face in with the butt of my own weapon.
Then the guy, the one I’d followed, he’d cut my arm, a deeper cut than necessary. He’d used it to smear all around, on my boots, then drained a bunch of it into one puddle large enough that you’d think, “This person didn’t live.”
The “soldier” had then ripped off his jacket, grinning at me like a fool.
“Toby,” one of his guys had called over to him.
He’d stayed looking me up and down with a wolf-like grin.
“What do we do with her?” they’d asked.
Toby had rubbed his hands together and then he’d put them on each side of my face. “You are too pretty to be joining some freak army. You better believe it. Boy, someone is gonna come a lookin’ for this one.”
So, they’d made sure it looked like a few zombies died in the process of taking me down. So, they’d made sure Tommy thought I was dead.
And it took until now to know how he must have felt.
Tommy would have come looking for me. He would have blamed himself. I know because now, thinking him gone, I blame myself too.
Here I am again. Same hill. Different girl.
Very different girl.
If you can call a vampire, blood-sucking demon, a girl.
Chapter 7
Dallas
Joelle approaches, her face frozen in place to hide whatever emotion she’s
filled with.
Dread. I bet it’s dread. Because she knows she’s right.
Whatever else she is, Joelle’s never wrong.
Our numbers have increased. Even more brutal youths and stragglers found across the country-side have been brought into our ranks. We boast over a thousand now, and Joelle decided to make Lotte a general of some sort. I’d suggested it. Lotte had been a leader in real life, and as a creature of the night, she’s fallen back into her usual methods, only more vicious.
She has free reign to hunt anyone who steps out of line.
The life of a vampire is incredibly brutal and long, infinite, while also short as lightning. There is in-fighting for dominance. Joelle says, “Let them be.”
We are not to interfere. Survival of the fittest.
Lotte has put in place some semblance of order though, rules.
They are incredibly intricate. You can only challenge peers. We are all set into a pecking order, and there are several levels like a regular army. You can challenge, but only at certain times. Now that we are on the move, no challenging allowed.
Originally, I’d debated this with Joelle, but she’s puristic, the type of leader aiming for peace amidst the people of the night. I don’t want to admit that she’s right, but it’s true, we only understand reaction and violence, and we only speak a language of our animal side at times. They won’t respect us if we don’t rule with pure menace. And loose… they’d run like a flood of monsters down on the heads of what is left of humanity. Best we keep a firm grip on this great weapon, I suppose.
We travel at night to LA, but slowly. Carefully. Joelle’s certain that Tommy’s gone. She has already spent many days in mourning. I try not to think about it. I block it, but it beats through my defenses, anyway.
Mostly, Joelle’s worried about another one of the specials who she’d said can abuse her powers. Control her, she says, and control the rest. But then he’d passed out of reach.
She could sense it and I could sense it through her.
Joelle supposes that he travels to Anthem. She’d felt his reach even here, touching her mind, and then he’d moved on.
I too had felt cold fingers in my mind, tickling the lobes, playing with the thoughts. Tweaking. Testing. Touching.
If he’d been any closer, he’d have had us both, but something distracted him and then he’d disappeared in the fog that’s plagued this area lately.
The fog.
That’s another thing that’s changed over time. It seems to have a life of its own, painting the world in gray shades, making even our vampire eyes struggle to see through its veil.
Today, it is exceptionally thick. I woke to a creeping, crawling fog, rolling before my feet, tumbling along as I entered its space.
Joelle looks prepared for something big. Her shoulders are squared toward LA.
“It’s time,” she says.
I don’t have to ask, “What do you mean?”
We are a hive mind. I saw her walk to my place in the cave before she ever arrived. I could hear her thoughts building, stringing together, and sense their meaning before they were finally formed. In their primordial ooze, a wisp of an idea, I knew them.
And she knows my own.
We orchestrate now, synchronize. And to humans, how strange and peculiar we will now seem. We will frighten them as the fiends had frightened the people of Ironwood before it fell.
But for different reasons.
We need to eat.
We think the thought together. As one.
We must hunt.
We’ve met near the water, a moat across from the new fortress where the Underground resides.
But we have needs before we can cross. Of one accord, we separate into the forest at hyper-speed. Blindingly, we fly.
There is no scenting before hunting and then finding. As we work together, sending information, it is merely circular how we find a deer. It blurs together to make one thing: hunt, capture, eat.
All the sequence combines at such speeds. We are quick because neither of us enjoys the process of filling our bellies. And we work well together because our guilt is also one mind. We are sisters of the night. Twins almost. Tommy brought us together.
Joelle shies from my thoughts of his name.
Now, we separate once again into her and me. Joelle breaks away from our mental tie, long enough to have her own musings separately and hidden. I do not dig around for these. I already know them.
She thinks or knows Tommy is dead.
I live in a land of denial.
Together, fed, we approach the water that separates LA from the rest of the wilds.
Entering the water, we swim like Olympians; our arms barely break the water’s surface, and soundlessly, we glide. We come out on the side of LA alone. Joelle wanted us to come in without the others.
She’d rather we not start an all-out war.
But what greets us is a surprise.
Emptiness.
We’d expected to find guards, a force, but there is nothing here. This part of the city has been hastily abandoned. However, I sense people. I smell them.
We share a look and then fly through the empty parts checking for clues.
Nothing.
A quick escape was made from this part.
We find what used to be a blocked off area that’s freely open now.
Beyond the broken gate are some humans, but even if they see us, they don’t stop us from entering. We freely walk through the streets of the city. Those nearest, are watching us, all women so far.
We approach two towers. Between them is a barrier. We are on the left side and I sense many more people are on the other side, to the right.
Joelle approaches a soldier, a woman with a big sniper rifle that I’d love to borrow some time.
“Your leader?” Joelle asks.
The woman motions with her gun toward the tower on this side of the barrier.
We head that way unimpeded. They give us strange looks but no one stops us. I know how well we seem like monsters. But these are not unused to monsters, apparently.
Joelle and I arrive, and they let us right on in and up.
As the elevator rises, Joelle pales more than usual. Sweat pops up on her brow. “It can’t be,” she says as the doors open.
She doesn’t have to say anything more. Her mind is racing through memories. I’m shared a vision, not on purpose, of a woman with dark hair like hers. The woman is standing over her with a clip board. She’s telling Joelle how disappointed she is. I flinch as she reaches out to slap Joelle.
I touch my cheek feeling the sting. The connection between us is only getting stronger.
Joelle is steely eyed as she takes in the room that appears before us when the doors slide open. It’s dark, filled with… are those webs?
“Spiders,” Joelle hisses, striding forward with angry purpose.
There are guards this time. They stop us at the doors to the inner area.
Every wall creeps with eyes and legs and arachnids slide down silk to greet us.
Even as I am now, a creature of the night, I shudder.
The guards ignore the no doubt thousands of inhabitants, and one holds a hand up to stop Joelle as she approaches. Joelle grabs the hand that’s attempting to stay her. The guard is down on her knees in less time than it took for the hand to have done the offending halt motion to finality.
Joelle shoves the other guard into the wall where she screeches having landed in a pile of webs and immediately becomes stuck. The spiders swarm as she fights out of the entanglements before they can eat her.
Joelle has already thrown open the doors.
More women soldiers funnel through, guns drawn.
The large military grade weapons make us pause momentarily, but then Joelle shouts, “Adrian!” Top of her lungs. “Adrian!”
And the guns go off, but they shoot empty air where we’d been only a split second before.
Joelle and I separate, an arc around those with weapon
s so fast that they don’t see us move. Now we are rising up behind them, teeth at their throat, our hands on theirs pointing the guns at their own people.
Joelle walks her hostage inside, and I follow.
More webs and spiders, bigger ones. Some unnaturally so. Near the throne-like chair at the front is an arachnid the size of a dog.
This one rears up on its hind legs, its massive underbelly showing before it gallops toward us and attacks.
The woman Joelle has hold of screams, taking the brunt of the giant arachnid’s pinchers. She falls, blood spraying from a massive bite to the chest.
Spiders of every size rush like a wave of legs from the walls, surrounding us, and I see Joelle pull a knife from her now dead captive, and thrust it through the head of the largest that’s still trying to bite her.
“Call them off!” she shouts to a woman who sits at the front, obviously holding a macabre sort of court, surrounded by statues, watching the attack.
I have to take the gun from my own captive, and I use this to shoot a circle around myself to keep the spiders from getting to us.
“Enough,” the woman says, and her spiders stop.
I turn to face her. Her eyes glitter through the darkness, but we have little need for light ourselves, so to us, she is plain as day.
She squints at Joelle, and then she rises, coming forward. She weaves through morbid statues. These are not beautiful Michelangelo’s, they are wretched, tortured looking subjects.
The woman herself is a sight to be seen. Eyes like gold flakes floating inside of her head, hair that is many dark colors, and then it all makes sense, Joelle’s anger, and though she’s changed quite a bit now, aged, and seems wilder than before, this is the woman with the clipboard who’d slapped Joelle.
The woman smiles. “Daughter,” she says. “Welcome.”
“Where is Simon? Where is the army?” Joelle demands. “What have you done with them?”
“Behind the barrier,” she says. “Aren’t you surprised to see me?”
When Joelle doesn’t answer the woman, Adrian, I assume, continues, “After so many stood against me, they’ve retreated to their side. All of the men. Bradford is their leader now. My, how you have grown. Let me look at you.”
