by Paul Freeman
The population of the world had been decimated after the Fall, leaving only pockets of survivors here and there, most without resources, food, weapons, barely eking out an existence. It meant there was a lot of empty space across the country and it was unusual to meet any fellow travelers. Those that did wander generally brought only trouble – marauders. He remembered the last group who had sought to make trouble for the population of Colony. They were all parasites, unable or unwilling to survive on the fruits of their own endeavor; they sought only to take from those who did.
Six of them came one day while most folks were either working the fields or practicing any trade they had that was still useful in the post-Fall world. Carpenters and cooks were worth their weight in gold – at least the value gold had in Old-World terms – computer programmers and bankers not so much. They killed two men who sought to bar them entry to Colony and then kidnapped two women, while taking all the food they could carry and any weapons and tools they could lay their hands on. The women were found the next day only a couple of miles from Colony, both had been raped, mutilated and then murdered. Both of them were found naked and scalped.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
He had nailed the leader to a tree in the following days when he hunted them down and left him there as the sun dipped below the horizon. He knew the screams of the man and scent of blood would attract any feeders in the area. The marauder had proved to be very good bait indeed. Two birds with one stone. At the following sunset the man turned, after he was drained of blood in the night, hissing and snarling his way through the night unable to break free of his bonds and the nails pinning him to the tree. Next morning he was incinerated by the rising sun whose rays were death to a vampire.
The dusty prairie was a mixture of dry, barren earth dotted with patches of coarse grassland here and there, mostly flat with some low undulating hills to deceive and trick the eyesight. Whoever or whatever was making the dust cloud had most likely already spotted him, unless like him they were travelers on foot, there’d be no escaping them. He was down to his final two shells for the shotgun. He unslung his pack and held the weapon down by his side when the cloud grew in size and three riders became visible within it.
The three galloped towards him in a direct line from the west. He was forced to squint and hold his hand up to cover the sinking sun as the riders came in fast. They reined in their horses dramatically in front of him. Marauders, he recognized straight away. Their clothes, skin and hair were covered in dust giving them a ghostly look. Their expressions were grim and not the friendly faces of innocent travelers. The world had become a primitive place, with those who sought to build something from the decay and others who tried to prey on those they perceived weaker than them. One lone man with iron gray hair falling beneath a wide-brimmed hat wandering on foot across the wild plain was one such, they thought… they were wrong.
“How do, friend?” the man in the middle greeted him, all the while scanning the wide open space, clearly looking for an ambush of some sort.
“Is that a collar you’re wearin’ there, mister?” a second said, a smirk cutting a thin line across his face.
“On account of you bein’ a man of the cloth we’ll just take your weapons and what you got in that pack at your feet. Then you can go,” the first rider said. It was the last word he would ever utter as he was blasted from the saddle, his face a mess of blood and gore. Every tough guy has the same failing – they talk too much.
Both of the other marauders looked in shock at the body of their comrade lying in the dirt, briefly choking on his own blood as it poured into the dry, hard earth. In moments he lay still. By the time they turned their attention back to the old preacher they’d intended robbing and leaving to the mercy of the wild and the coming night, they were looking down the barrels of a shotgun. Both were thrown from their mounts with multiple wounds in their chests and faces as the spray of shot from the second barrel spread wide and hit them both.
He casually walked up to the first, drawing his saber and without a word stabbing it into his chest. The marauder didn’t move again.
The third and final marauder was crying; tears spilled down his cheek, from fear or pain Pastor couldn’t tell. “Please don’t kill me. Please,” he sobbed.
“Suit yourself,” he said, glancing at the sun as it slipped behind the distant hills. He took a knife and axe from the man, ignored his screams as he turned him over searching for any more weapons. He found a box of bullets for a rifle the marauder had dropped when he fell from his horse.
He laid out a blanket on the ground and threw anything useful he found on the bodies and the injured man. Aside from the rifle, knife and axe he also found three canteens of water, a machete and several oil-doused torches. The leader had a semi-automatic pistol in a holster on his belt and three spare clips in his pockets. He strapped on the gun and stuffed the spare clips into his pockets. Once he’d satisfied himself that he’d taken everything useful he gathered up the three mounts. The wounded man watched him with a pitiful look on his face and red-rimmed eyes. Clear snot streamed from his nose and his eyes melted tears. He was bleeding from numerous wounds where the shot had struck him at close range.
“Help me,” he pleaded and was ignored. “Who are you?” he grunted between ragged breaths, again he was ignored.
Pastor mounted one of the horses with the other two trailing behind, one of them bearing his stash of booty.
“You’re going to leave me here.” It was more statement than question. “You’re going to leave me here to be killed by those dead things. I hope I come back and chew on your ass!” He managed to drag some defiance up from deep within.
The man had a point. The sun was on the verge of setting and the feeders would be abroad soon enough. He was loath to add to the population of vampires, but if they were busy elsewhere they’d not be troubling him. He regarded the man with a critical eye. He was pretty young, barely twenty he reckoned. Probably just a baby during the Fall, or maybe born soon afterwards. Like most young people this world, this hell that the world had become was all they knew. He slid the semi-automatic pistol from its holster and shot him in the leg. The man screamed in pain. Light faded from the sky as the setting sun turned the prairie into a sea of crimson fire.
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“It’s not her!” Jeb roared with relief in his voice. It soon turned to terror as the feeder hissed at them exposing her sharpened fangs. She had long brown hair and was wearing a pale blue cotton nightdress, the front of it stained with blood.
“Oh shit,” Harry said and both men raised their rifles and fired. When the smoke cleared they saw that they’d found their mark and the girl turned monster lay still on the ground.
Jeb slid the knife from his belt and walked cautiously over to the body. Half her chest had been blasted away, both men aiming for the heart out of instinct. Even so he hacked at the neck until the head was separated from the body.
“Where do you think she came from?” Harry said.
Jeb shrugged. “Lord knows, I didn’t recognize her. Looks like she ain’t been turned long, she still has her hair and isn’t quite as ugly as most of the sons of bitches.”
“We should get outta here now,” Harry said as he looked around him anxiously.
Jeb looked distraught; he was clearly torn by the need to find his daughter and the most base of all emotions: fear. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s like that,” he said, indicating the corpse of the dead vampire. “That was once someone’s little girl too. Could be they’re out searchin’ for her right now.”
“Come on, buddy, let’s go home. We’ll come back at sunup and bring a larger search party. If she’s out here hidin’ we’ll find her then.” He put a hand on Jeb’s shoulder.
He was about to answer when Harry suddenly let out a scream and Jeb was staring into the dark, evil eyes o
f a feeder. It had a hold of Harry in a deathly tight grip and was intent on taking a bite out of his shoulder. He still had the knife in his hand, still bloody and coated in gore from beheading the female. He jabbed it straight at the feeder. The vampire let out an inhuman screech, its mouth opened wide, baring wickedly sharp fangs. He grabbed Harry by the arm, pulling him from the vampire’s grip and pushed him ahead of him. “Run!” he roared. Both men slipped and staggered as they tried to gain grip on the slippery earth beneath their feet.
Vampires were faster, more agile and stronger than men. Whatever unnatural power gave them the ability to rise from the dead filled them with equally unnatural strength. The undead beast had been wounded but not killed by Jeb’s knife and followed them through the trees. They could hear it gaining on them as both fled for their lives, afraid to turn around, afraid not to.
“Did it get you?” Jeb panted as both men ran shoulder to shoulder through the undergrowth, thin wiry branches scratching their faces as they blundered their way as fast as they could.
“No,” Harry answered, sounding a little too unsure for Jeb’s liking.
“We’ll have to turn around and face it or it’ll be on top of us soon,” Jeb said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t need to run faster than it, I just need to run faster than you,” Harry said wide-eyed, before he started laughing wildly. Jeb grinned even though terror rampaged through his veins.
Harry gave a nod and both men suddenly threw themselves either side of the narrow track, rolling up with rifles pointed the way they’d come. The path was empty. Jeb could feel his blood coursing through his body, a vein in his head pulsed as he squinted into the dark. “Where is the bastard?” he said, glancing at his friend. Harry shrugged and then Jeb saw his eyes opening wide. He swung around but saw nothing. An explosion of gunfire made him jump and then something crash-landed beside him.
“Fucking thing was in the trees,” Harry said.
Jeb gulped down air and brought his hand up to his chest. Any moment his heart would get out of his mouth and back down to where it belongs. “Son of a bitch!” he finally exclaimed as he wrenched his knife free and started hacking at the vampire’s neck before finally falling back exhausted and out of breath.
“I dropped my lamp,” Harry said.
“Me too.” Jeb glanced up at the crescent moon visible through the trees. “You think there’s more of ’em?”
“Could be.”
“Now that’s a proper ugly son of a bitch,” Jeb said as he toed the hairless head now separated from the body. Its lips were drawn back in an evil grin exposing elongated fangs. Its hands ended in claw-like nails sharp as the knife, dripping blood, Jeb held in a white-knuckle grip. Its skin, like all the feeders was an unnatural, sickly white.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Harry said.
Jeb couldn’t agree more, but paused when he spotted something that made his eyes widen. “Harry, your neck.”
Harry put his hand up to the back of his neck, just below the hairline. “Son of a bitch,” he said when his hand came away sticky with blood. “The fucker bit me.” He just stared at Jeb.
“I don’t think he took much blood. This still might be okay,” Jeb said.
“Must have been back at the old farmhouse when he first attacked us,” Harry said, his gaze wandering off to the stars.
“Plenty of folks have survived bites and scratches, it just depends how deep and how much blood he took.”
“It’s deep. I can feel it now. Look.” Harry held his blood smeared hand between them. “I don’t want to die, Jeb… not like this.”
Jeb wanted to reach for his friend to comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. The sight of the bloody fingers made him keep his distance. A vampire’s bite could kill slowly if the wound was deep enough. Scratches and shallow bites could be cured with poultices and such, sucking out the venom released when the feeder attacked its prey. Judging by the amount of blood on Harry’s hand the bite was deep. The adrenalin must have numbed the pain for him.
“We’ll get back to Colony, there’s plenty there who’ll know what to do.”
Harry just shook his head, tears glinted in his eyes. He dropped to his knees, gasping as he did so. “I won’t make it. I can’t feel my arms or legs any more,” he said, as he kneeled in the dirt, his hands by his sides and his head drooping onto his chest.
“God damn it, Harry, I’ll carry you back if I have to.”
“Don’t let me turn into one of those things.”
“No,” Jeb mouthed.
“Look out for Maggie and the girls for me,” Harry said, choking back a sob.
Jeb just nodded, unable to answer his dying friend. Harry fell forward then onto his face. Jeb rushed down to help him roll over onto his back. “I can’t feel anything.”
“I know.” Jeb knew well that if a feeder didn’t kill its victim by draining it of blood then the venom injected during the bite would act as a slow killer. He slowly drew his pistol. The same one he’d taken from the cop a lifetime ago. He’d put down his wife with a bullet to the heart when Amy was still a baby, now he held his friends in his arms while he brought a gun up slowly. Life after the Fall was truly shit.
The shot echoed through the trees and Jeb eased the body of his friend onto the forest floor, his eyes watering all the while. He felt responsible, hell… he was responsible. He should have made Harry stay in Colony. That’s two down so far, Harry and the Davis boy. He prayed there wouldn’t be a third, or even a fourth if he included himself. He knew the chances were fairly high that there’d be more vampires around. It looked as if a new clan had stumbled across Colony and were intent on setting up home close by. The thought made him shiver.
He turned Harry’s body over so that he wouldn’t have to look upon his face when he did what had to be done. One more time he drew out the large hunting knife he’d used already that night. He closed his eyes when he placed the edge against the back of his friend’s neck. At least he wouldn’t turn. Jeb hoped that if there was still a god in Heaven and if he did occasionally glance their way that he would take Harry’s soul, unlike the countless others who had been damned to a non-life as a vampire.
A rustling in the trees made him snatch up his rifle. His heart beat wildly in his chest while he remained on his knees, scanning the dark undergrowth. The feeders had all the advantages at night. They could see better, move faster and the fear the very sight of them instilled in any warm-bodied human was often enough to paralyze the intended victim.
He hated the thought of leaving Harry’s body unburied; he hated even more the idea of abandoning his girl to the night. He didn’t see any other choice though. Harry was dead and he was beyond petrified now, jumping at every sound and shadow. Sometimes the greatest fear is fear itself, other times the monster hiding in the dark is real.
A crack and a flash of white. Jeb followed the movement with the barrel of his rifle and fired. He heard a shriek and then the now familiar hissing of a feeder. Where the hell is it? One moment the world was all darkness and the next pale skin glowing in the moonlight was right in front of him. Close enough to see the fangs glinting, close enough to smell the rot and decay from the undead body. Close enough to die. Jeb swung the butt of the rifle at the face inches from his own and was rewarded with a meaty thud. The vampire fell away then. It was another female, older than the last. All of her hair had fallen out, or rotted away. She was naked above the waist, her skin had a blue tinge to the deathly white in the moonlight. She swiped at Jeb with long nails. He jumped back out of the way, bringing the rifle up. The vampire snatched at his weapon, knocking it from his hand. It hissed triumphantly and launched herself into the air.
Jeb drew the pistol in a smooth action and fired three times into her chest. Its momentum through the air halted and it fell in a heap at his feet. He turned and ran without looking back. Cursed himself when he realized he’d left his rifle behind, thought about going back for it and dismissed the idea immedi
ately. So far he’d killed four vampires and put a bullet in his friend. The odds weren’t great that he’d survive another encounter with the undead.
He ran until he reached the edge of the forest and burst through the tree-line feeling as if his chest would explode. The fire Harry had lit before following him was still blazing away. A beacon his friend had called it. It was better than being stuck in the dark, blind and totally vulnerable to the monsters in the night. As he approached the fire he realized there was a shadow within its burning glow. A vampire would never get so close to a fire, leastways that’s what he hoped. Even so, he slowed and drew the pistol.
“Pa?”
“Amy?”
“Pa!”
“Amy! Oh my God it’s you. It’s really you, you’re alive!”
Amy was nodding her head and sobbing, tears streamed down her face as Jeb ran into the warm embrace of the bonfire and grabbed his daughter into a tight hug.
CHAPTER NINE
When the distant screams of the marauder went silent he knew the feeders had found their prey. The vampires could not run as fast as a galloping horse, but he was reluctant to push his mount and the two spares any faster than a trot in the darkness over the bumpy and pot-holed terrain. The light of the crescent moon and stars was all the light he had. His mind wandered back to a distant time, to his first encounter with a feeder. He’d been called out to the house of one of his parishioners. A woman by the name of Mabel Curtis, a nice woman who took part in many of the activities offered by the church and was a regular attendee at Sunday service. Her husband had been attacked by some wild beast—they thought perhaps a rabid dog—and had died from the assault. He assumed the man must have had a heart attack or some such as the wound, although a nasty bite, didn’t look serious enough to kill a healthy, full grown man.