We had boarded up the windows to the point that no light escaped when we lit our lamps at night. Keeping to the living room, we would take shifts sleeping and guarding, never making a noise during the long dark hours of night. The dead would make the noise for us. Outside I could hear the not-so-distant screeches of the feral vampires, hunting their prey. At first it was human screams that accompanied their hisses. Then as the population grew tinier and tinier, they had turned to capturing lost dogs and cats, pets of owners that no longer came home. I heard the dogs barking and the cats screeching back at the monsters. It wasn’t long before those noises were silenced as well and the inhuman snarls faded as the neighborhood died and the lights went out.
I came back into the present as the street, now flying by in front of me as the van cruised down it, turned onto the freeway toward home. It was now about one hour from sunset and all I wanted was to forget the day and hide in my hole in the mountains once again. The sky bled translucent oranges and blues across the horizon as I rolled the window down, letting the air whip my hair around. I still felt suffocated, still felt an overwhelming angst within my chest that did not fade with anything but the air. The rush and noise of it made my mind a bit number, maybe even a bit clearer.
I raced through the abandoned cars and pieces of debris. The tears had dried into dirty streaks down my face and I once more felt the weariness growing in my bones and down my body. I wanted to keep driving, keep on until the road faded away into the endless desert plains and disappear with them. I knew that I couldn’t and I knew that I had to stay here and keep fighting, even for nothing more than for the memory of my mother and my brother. For them, I would not let my spirit wither and fade. I would continue on, regardless.
Chapter Eight
After a shower I sat on the bed, examining the vampire bite on my arm. It was clean and looked like it was starting to heal well. I doubted I would turn into a vampire, I had been bitten many times before without infection, but I might as well lock myself in here if I did. At least I wouldn’t kill anyone trapped in a cement tomb. I doubt I would be able to think enough to get out of here; the ferals didn’t seem to have that kind of higher brain function. Even though they gathered into groups to survive better, they couldn’t even open the heavy doors of most of the casinos. They were a bit zombie-like in that way.
I sighed, rubbing my face after bandaging up the wound to keep it from hitting anything or getting some other infection. My eyes felt dry and stung as I pressed my hand into them. I reached for a bottle of water on the table next to my bed and swallowed down the fresh fluid. It felt good on my scratchy throat. I hoped I wasn’t getting sick. The desert seemed to suck the hydration from my body without any effort like a dehumidifier working to turn me into a stick of jerky.
I laughed at the thought and plopped back onto the pillow of my bed. I reached over to click the overhead light off which left me with only the soft glow of the security camera monitors to see by. I sighed, staring up at the pipes that ran overhead along the cement roof of this small sanctuary. Only the hum of the monitors and the fans that spun overhead filled the space. I hoped that I wouldn’t have any kind of activity to deal with during the night. My body was already relaxing into a paralyzed bliss as the soreness of the day sat in my muscles and bones. I let my eyelids slowly meld together and the darkness float me into a temporary safe harbor.
*****
My eyes fluttered as I woke with a start. Sitting up, I saw that I had been lying in what looked like a hospital bed. The smell of alcohol wipes and bleach assaulted my nostrils as I turned my head, immediately and instinctually scanning the room. I even checked underneath the bed I was lying in, hoping to not find a feral creature lurking there.
Where the hell am I? The lights were on and blared down on me like God’s flashlight, examining me and making my eyelids flutter at the glare. How could there be electricity in this hospital? How the heck did I get here?
I swung my legs over the side, noticing I had hospital socks on and a flimsy white and blue gown that patients usually wore. I pulled at it, feeling quite na**d underneath it. I shivered, looking around the room for my stuff but none of my clothes were there. My confusion made me curious as I stood up and shuffled to the door, listening with almost disbelief as I reached for the door handle. Voices. The murmur of them slipped through the door like a hum. My eyes widened as my heart seemed to jump with excitement. Could it be? Did someone find me? Other humans?
Overwhelmed with happiness, I swung the door open and stared at the nurse’s station before me. I studied the nurses in their scrubs with their stethoscopes draped around their necks, busy at the desks. My mouth gaped open as the phones rang while they busied themselves, shuffling around papers and drawing up medications. They hadn’t even noticed me yet but I wanted to run to them and squeeze them tight. I stopped before leaving my room, feeling like something was not quite right. I glanced down the halls on both sides of my door. They seemed to go on forever with so many doors, all closed and quiet. I wondered if there were many patients here.
I breathed in deeply, deciding to head toward the nurses and see why I was there and how I had gotten there. I padded softly on the cold tile floor, feeling the cool breeze of air conditioning swirling about me. The place was clean, as a hospital should be. The floor gleamed as the fluorescent light bounced off the freshly-polished and cleaned surface. It was almost too clean. I reached the desk and was about to speak to one of the nurses, whose back was toward me, when I let out a yelp as someone grasped my shoulder.
“Do you need something, miss?” A calm voice sounded off behind me. I swiftly turned, restraining myself from smacking her. The nurse eyed me suspiciously, her blue eyes gleaming as she studied me. Her dark brown hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail that sat softly on the neck of her purple flowered scrub top. Her pants were a solid purple and her lilac-colored stethoscope hung from her neck. My eyes drifted to her name tag and read the name “Grace.” She wore light makeup and smelled like a combination of medicated soap and scented lotion.
“I–I don’t know. Where am I? What am I doing here?” I asked softly. Grace gave me a concerned smile and waved me to a chair at the station as she grabbed a chart from a wall rack and flipped through it, reading the contents.
“Ah, Miss April Tate, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, it seems you are here for treatment of a viral infection.” She smiled and looked up from the chart as I stared back confused. My fingers subconsciously reached over to touch the bite on my left arm. Feeling nothing but smooth skin I glanced down, sensing a shift in my surroundings.
“But how did I get infected?” I looked back up at Grace but found her gone. Looking around me, the same nurse’s station remained but looked ravaged. The fluorescent lights were dangling from their cords and flickering in and out. Papers and charts littered the now-dirty and streaked floors. I shot up from my chair and gasped. Along the hall were the same nurses I had just seen working but now they were lying face down on the floor, lifeless, with the color drained from their skin. Their eyes stared out into nothingness, blank and dead. I shivered, stepping over them, and noticing I was no longer wearing the hospital gown I had awoken in, but jeans and a white shirt. I paused, catching sight of Grace standing in the hallway, facing away from me.
“Grace? What’s going on?” I felt the hair on my neck stand on end as Grace turned around–she now owned the grey skin of a feral vampire and bared her fangs, flashing them at me as they dripped with fresh, red blood. A snarl crawled across her face as her red-black eyes gleamed in the nearly darkened hallway.
Oh shit!
I backed into the nurse’s station, searching for a weapon in the trashed mess of the desks and chairs. Finally spotting a scalpel lying across what looked like a prepped table for a chest tube, I grabbed it and a cart of charts, swinging the cart behind me, just in time to hit Grace as she scrambled toward me. She was fast but not fast enough as I spun around a pillar. I hopped onto the desk, swiftly bending as I pirouetted back, bringing my arm with the scalpel in hand around in an arcing motion to slash her throat. The thick, syrupy blood poured out of the neat cut like a bucket being poured down her scrub top. I had not cut far enough through to decapitate her but it was near enough for sure.
I landed on the floor inside the quad of desks and scrambled back onto my feet as she reached toward me, gurgling as blood continued to spout out of her neck. Her eyes were angry but sallow as she began to turn paler, her life blood draining away. Grabbing a thick bedside chart, I swung it as hard as I could into her face, sending her head reeling across the tile. Her grey-skinned body convulsed as it dropped to the floor without its brain to command it.
I sighed, dropping the chart and looking around, hoping she was the only vampire around. When I didn’t see any more I relaxed just a bit and started down the hallway. I avoiding the ripped wires from the lights above that swung into my path. I still couldn’t figure out why I was even here. This was not right somehow; I was at home sleeping, wasn’t I? I felt na**d without a weapon and searched among the rubble for anything I could use to kill a vampire. Finding a broken bar off a transport cart, I gripped it in my hand. I was ready to pummel anything that came at me.
I made it around to the back employee hallway when I stopped, realizing the elevators might not be working. I pushed the button but the console was dead. I sighed, hoping I wasn’t on the top floor; going down the stairwell was not going to be fun if it was infested with ferals. As I exited the employee hallway and made my way through the floor’s main passageway, where I finally found the stairwell. I dodged a few gurneys on my way and stupidly swung the stairwell door open without scoping it out first. So why was I surprised when three feral vampires lunged at me immediately, taking me down and biting into my upper arms and my thigh?
I screamed as I kicked and hit as much as I could, hoping to get away from them, but they latched on and sucked my life’s elixir away. The light faded in and out above me as I saw a shadow of a woman standing over me. Her eyes were not red but a desert sandy brown rimmed in a circle of gold. She snickered at me and bent down next to my ear. “You are one of us,” she faintly whispered just before the darkness overcame me.
Chapter Nine
The air around me was thick and noxious, and seemed to set my breath on fire. My chest burned as I heaved the air in and out, sitting up in my bed. I was back in my compound sanctuary, this much I gathered from darting my eyes wildly around the room.
Oh thank God, it was just a nightmare.
Grabbing my bottle of water, I took a swig of cool liquid down my burning throat as I tried to control my breathing and my racing heart. The sheets were soaked and my body was drenched in a film of wetness from writhing in the bed. It had seemed so real and I had let it overwhelm me. I was usually pretty good at controlling my dreams, able to wake myself up before anything bad happened. Yet my control had languished in this dream and had left me flattened.
Shaking my head, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and pushed my dripping strands of hair off my face. I hated nightmares; I had only wished to rest in a dreamless sleep that never seemed to come. I hoped my dream was not any kind of omen–that would not be good at all. The slickness of my shirt and shorts gave me a shudder as it reminded me of the coolness that the concrete emanated all around. Shivering, I stood up slowly and changed my clothes out for a fresh set.
I was about to pull on some new shorts when I noticed the alarm flashing on the console and the low beeping noise of the warning light. I froze, staring at the monitors, waiting to see what had set off a motion sensor outside. My heart wasn’t cooperating anymore and continued to jump in my chest as I watched the screens.
Quickly, I grabbed a pair of jeans instead and pulled them on, yanking back my soaked black hair into a messy, low ponytail. Slipping on one of my hoodies for warmth, I sat at the monitoring desk and waited, hoping it was a false alarm and that an animal had found its way across the property. As the camera flashed to the driveway, I realized what had tripped the sensor. Two figures stood at the van, seemingly searching its windows and circling it round and round. I gulped. They were so close–I prayed that the soundproofing of my sanctuary was working its magic at that moment.
Staring at the figures, they reminded me of the lone vampire girl from the other day, the helpless one I had killed without hesitation. Pressing my lips together, I felt an urge to gear up and slaughter these two, just like the girl. That is, until I saw another two figures walk across the screen.
My heart jumped again. Am I surrounded? I sucked in a breath as I realized I had been holding it for a bit too long. How many are out there? What if they find me?
The questions poured through my head as I stared wide-eyed at the scene before me. I couldn’t believe that they had come up so far into the mountains. Why would they do that? Was the lack of food bringing them to me? I frowned as I realized that my mother’s blood was still smeared across the van’s door and the light sprinkle of rain that fell on and off in the fall here had probably wet it enough earlier to bring out the blood-tainted stink all around the van. I suddenly regretted not washing the damn thing when I could’ve. It would have saved me this headache for sure.
I decided to get ready, just in case they barged through into my hideaway. I doubted they would, this place was fortified. Pulling on my socks and boots, I laced them tight and added some daggers to a bandoleer I strapped across my chest. My machetes sat cleaned and gleaming on the rack across from the desk. I pulled only one down, not feeling too hot on my left arm, and a hatchet to swing if need be. I was still tired but I was hoping I wouldn’t be doing any fighting tonight.
The monitor’s glow burned my eyes as I spent the next couple hours staring at the figures shuffling around. They had my curiosity up. Some glanced around the property and searched about for whatever they were looking for. Others were up in the cabin, checking it out, but none headed into the cellar for some reason or another. My hide out was safe. But the confused look on some of their faces made me suspicious. They were not the crazy ferals from the city who pounced without remorse and tore at a person with fangs. Like the girl from the other night, these ones walked more smoothly and did not snarl or look around crazed. I almost could mistake them for humans except for the glimpse of a fang every now and then flashing in the screen from their partially opened mouths. No, these were not feral, and this scared me most of all.