“I’m going hunting,” Cindy said. “I’ll see if I can find some wildlife in the area we can snare.”
“Hold on, Cin,” Stani said. “I’m coming with you.”
The crew dispersed as Angela and Adam began counting supplies.
“Alright,” Angela said. “What do we have with us? What did we lose?”
Hugging her arms tight to her chest, Aria slipped into the forest unseen.
* * *
CHAPTER 10
Aria wandered into the trees, stopping now and then to pick up a random stick.
She settled on a thin birch tree that had fallen. A bit of pressure in the right place would be enough to break it into sizable pieces. She hoisted an end of the birch and positioned it onto its own stump as the last several hours ran through her mind. Aria dropped her foot down on the log, but it only bounced in response.
Aria kicked again. The log bounced. Again and again, Aria kicked as images of her father and Caius raced through her head. Aria kicked. The Weeches closing in...
Kick.
Caius.
Kick.
The Space ship.
Kick.
The Weeches.
Kick.
Her father.
Aria fell to the ground and sobbed, shuddering at the chill in the air, angry with her own limitations.
“Aria.”
Aria gasped, and gazed at Mad Matt, standing in just his loin cloth, his boots, and the scarf.
“What do you want?” Aria said, sniffling as she shoved the tears away.
“No need to hide the tears, love. You’re right to have them.”
“Yeah, and what do you know about it? About any of it?”
“You’ve lost someone close to you. That much is apparent.”
Aria hugged her knees to her chest. “I shouldn’t be here.” “No,” Matt said. “You shouldn’t. None of us should.”
“I just want my father back. Instead, I’m here with…I don’t even know what this is! It’s madness! That’s what this is!”
Matt settled on the ground beside Aria and sighed.
“Bristol,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m from Bristol.”
Aria studied Matt’s face as he recalled a life long since lost.
“I was on my way home from work when the invasions in England started. The Prime Minister was the first to go and our cabinets. The royal family. I wasn’t feeling well that day, so I left. I don’t think I had ever been so happy to have a stomach bug. If I had stayed...If I was feeling well, I never would have left early and missed the slaughter. I would have died right alongside my co-workers.”
Aria gazed, too stunned to answer.
“They took out the media first. I learned that later. They realized an attack would be best if the public remained ignorant. No one saw it coming. No one knew…We all were sitting ducks.”
“If the media was taken out, then how did you know? About the Prime Minister and the governments and the royal family?”
“Because, love,” Matt said. “I was working with the Prime Minister to arrange the formal meeting of Weech to human. I rolled out the bloody welcome mat for them. Every media source, every government body was organized in the same building when they launched their attack. Everyone able to communicate and rule, wiped out in a single move. No one saw it coming. No one was prepared or even aware of the attacks that would follow. No TV, no radio, no newspaper, no satellite…no Internet or phones…All of it gone. Our only sources of communication was word of mouth. Not very effective when reporting on a full-scale invasion.”
“Everything gone,” Aria said.
“Yep.” Matt nodded. “Just caught me a Lapris, too.”
Aria looked at Matt in all seriousness. Together they burst into a fit of laughter. After a moment, they settled down.
“You were captured by Caius?” Aria asked.
Matt nodded. “I was.”
“Why? What did he want?”
“Can’t tell you that, love. Can’t give Caius any more reason to hunt you down.”
Aria looked to the skies, and Matt rose to his feet.
“Matt?”
“Yes, love?”
“Do you think my father is alive?”
“If he’s anything at all like you, he is.”
Aria watched as Matt headed back to the camp, sitting for a while longer as she stared up at the sky.
“Just beautiful,” she said.
Standing, she brushed the leaf litter from her backside and repositioned her foot onto the weakest part of the log. Finding her balance, she bounced lightly, ready to shift all her weight onto the log when a cold hand clamped down on her mouth, twisting her arm around and into her back, and holding her head back into a hard, cold chest.
“My clan is positioned and ready,” breathed Caius. “You move. You fight. They kill.”
Caius added a soft kiss to Aria’s ear.
“Come,” Caius said. “Someone has requested a meeting with you.”
Caius opened his mouth and sank his canines into the flesh of Aria’s neck. She felt herself fall limp into Caius’ arms and all the world went black.
* * *
CHAPTER 11
“Aria!” Norry called across the field.
“Aria!” Cindy shouted.
“Anything?” Angela asked.
“Nothing,” said Adam.
“Captain,” Norry said. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s a miracle we haven’t attracted the Weeches already.”
“We have,” said Chess, panting as she joined the group. “Stani and I’ve been holding them off.”
“Has anyone found anything?” Angela asked.
Stanushka joined them. Fresh Weech blood covered her arms and her barrels were smoking. “We can’t stay out here in the open,” she said.
“She’s right,” Adam said. “We need to find cover. Fall back. Regroup. Assess. Execute.”
“I’ll not leave her,” Norry said.
“We’re not leaving her,” Cindy said.
“Adam’s right,” Angela said. “We can’t help Aria if we don’t first take care of ourselves.”
“Fall back to where?” Norry said. “The Slush Brain is gone. We have no home. No supplies. No Aria...”
“Singer castle.”
All eyes turned to Matt who had remained eerily quiet since Aria’s disappearance.
“Matt,” Angela said. “What do you know?”
“Weeches don’t abduct,” Matt said. “If the Weeches had found her, there would be pieces of her everywhere.”
The words struck the crew, leaving a sickening silence among them. “If she were here,” Matt continued. “She’d answer. She isn’t here, which means…” “Caius,” Angela said.
“Caius,” Matt confirmed.
“We have no ship,” Cindy said.
“No provisions,” Adam said.
“And no plan,” said Stani.
“And you want us to launch an attack on Singer Castle?” Chess asked.
“It can’t be done,” said Norry.
“It can,” Matt said. “Besides, you haven’t considered our greatest asset.”
“What?” Cindy said.
“Me,” Matt said. “You forget—” Matt gave Angela’s 15-foot scarf a flourish, wrapping an end around his neck once, twice, then thrice. “I’m the Doctor.”
The crew watched, dazed as Mad Matt, wearing nothing but boots, a garlic infused loin cloth and a Doctor Who scarf, proudly strode toward the river with half the scarf trailing behind him.
“Are we really following a near naked English Man into battle?”
“Yes,” Adam said. “Yes, I think we are.”
“But he doesn’t even have laces in his boots,” Cindy said.
“No,” Angela said. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Angela,” Chess loudly whispered. “He thinks he’s the Doctor.”
Angela’s mouth tightened. “Yes. Yes, he does.”
“Do you think we should tell him that he’s not?” Adam asked.
“I don’t think that would matter,” said Angela.
“We’re going to die,” Norry said. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Angela said. “Yes, we are.” Shaking her head, Angela followed Matt toward the river, leading her crew into Singer Castle.
* * *
CHAPTER 12
The haze broke and the sleep faded as Aria awakened in the dark to the sounds of sobs, screams, and the familiar gurgle of Weech speech. A lingering stale stench of damp basement and human filth clung to the air. Fire seared Aria’s shoulders, stretched by chains that forced her arms painfully wide.
Screams wafted from somewhere in the distance fueling her panic. Aria pulled at the chains. She braced her foot behind her on the wall and pulled again at the chains that dug into her wrists.
“I wouldn’t move too much,” a smooth drawl carried across the cell.
Aria froze and peered through the darkness to the end of the room where a burst of light illuminated Caius’ tall silhouette.
With the light, Aria could see a pair of Weeches chained close enough to devour her should she manage to escape. Behind her, horror engulfed at the site of cages and cells all lining the wall like a corridor and each crammed to the hilt with the last of humans.
Women and children mostly remained silently crying and holding their children close to them in the filth.
“What the fuck are you doing to them!” Aria said.
Caius turned to the cages behind him.
“We’ve saved them.”
“This is Madness!”
“This is our only chance of survival,” Caius said.
“Then you have no business surviving!”
“Are we any different than humans who raise the cattle to eat?”
“We don’t sleep with cattle! We don’t wed them and breed with them!” Aria said.
“Your myths would beg to differ.”
“You’re monsters!”
“We have a right to survive,” Caius said.
“Not when your survival is at our expense! You’re no better than the Weeches!”
“The Weeches won’t give you a chance to live. They’ll rip you apart.”
“No different than what you’ve done here!” Aria said.
“The Weeches aren’t humane about it.”
“And this! This is what you call humane!? Oh, what difference does it all make! We’re arguing over which of you two monsters is the worst. And you want me to be part of it!?”
“You are a part of this, Aria. You were born into this, decades ago.”
“I was never any such thing,” Aria said.
Caius turned to better look upon the humans cowering in their cages.
“These are all that’s left…Too small or sick or young to eat…so we store them down here until we have use for them.”
“They’re people!”
“They’re lab rats,” Caius corrected.
The horror of the situation sunk in. As if to say, ‘let me show you,’ Caius stepped back, aiming the light to shine down a corridor where tables, instruments, corpses, and the source of the distant screams resided.
Aria thrashed as she kicked against the wall, paying no mind to the cuts and the blood as the metal cut into her wrists or the Weeches excited by her sudden burst of movement.
Exhausted, she slumped to the floor as much as the chains would let her and cried.
“What the hell are you?” Aria said.
“Exactly what you made us,” Caius said. “Forced to live in secret in holes underground. Forced to live like animals coiled away in dens to escape the genocide of Men. Everything we are today, you made…evolved to adapt to the lifestyle gifted by humans. Venom that paralyzes our prey, strength and speed that surpasses our predators…”
“And the blood lust and cannibalism?”
Caius smiled. “Oh, no sweet, Aria…That is a choice. Or, it was once.” Caius withdrew a vile and held it so Aria could see it in the light.
“What is that?” Aria asked.
“This.” Caius admired the vile like a lover. “This is a virus, manufactured, developed, and perfected within these dungeons. The infected will go on living with the craving of blood lust. It affects the brain and withdraws all inhibitions. It builds artificial muscle, and sharpens illusion.
“So, it’s a vile of booze,” Aria said.
Caius chuckled.
“There are side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?” Aria asked.
“Babbling. Insane ramblings. Sometimes delusions that the host is someone they’re not, or they contain superpowers that aren’t there.”
At once, Aria’s thoughts turned to Mad Matt.
“In the average host, it can have a number of effects.” Caius shifted his loving gaze to Aria. “But in the right host, it does something completely different.”
“Like what?” Aria asked. Her heart slammed into her chest.
“We found a way to alter the chemical components of a host...make them what they aren’t. Transform them.”
Arias scoffed. “But that’s technology that’s way beyond our science. We can’t possible come close to that kind of science.”
“Not us, perhaps,” Caius said. “But they aren’t.” Caius raised a brow in the direction of the Weech clawing at Aria.
She gasped. “No!”
“The same venom used in the Weeches to assimilate human to Weech is the same venom contained in this vile. We’ve found a way to assimilate humans and make them into whatever we want…and you, Aria, are the first.”
“No!” Aria screamed and thrashed against the wall.
“Your DNA makeup is unique. Only your blood will serve as the host we are looking for. DNA passed on from your parentage.”
Aria froze. “My father…”
“I was there, you know,” Caius said. “That night when your father vanished.”
Aria’s eyes widened with attention.
“The rains were pouring…and the siren blared…You never wondered why I knew to be there? How I came to be there that night?”
“Where is my father?” Aria whispered. “Did you…” Fire burned the tip of her nose. “Where is he?” she asked, and fought her chains. “What did you do to him? Where did you take him? Is he here?”
Slowly, Caius walked to Aria.
“Where...” Exhausted, Aria fell back against the wall. “Where is my father?”
Caius pulled back a lock of Aria’s hair.
“Please,” Aria said. A single tear slid down her nose.
“I understand your disdain for me,” Caius said. Gently, he cupped her cheek in his hand, allowing her head to rest in his palm. “I could give you anything,” he said. “You would want for nothing.”
“I would sooner die than live a moment of my life with you,” Aria hissed.
Caius frowned and withdrew a syringe from his coat. Swiftly, he fitted the vile into the syringe.
“I have all of eternity to wait,” Caius said. “You will learn to love me before this life is through.”
A fresh bout of screaming forced their attention to the rooms above them.
“But…seeing as I don’t have an eternity…” Caius dove, and plunging his teeth into one side of Aria’s neck, shoved the needle into the other side. Aria screamed as Caius emptied the vile. A moment later, she fell silent against the wall.
* * *
CHAPTER 13
Caius fled up the main stairs. His coolness and dignity vanished with his rage as he stomped toward the main hall.
“We’re under attack,” a vampire said as he met Caius on the steps.
“I have no tolerance for this,” Caius said. “Who is it?”
“The pirates are here.”
Caius froze and released a sigh. “Is he with them?”
“He is.”
Caius continued up the stairs as before. “Don’t le
t them leave. Dead or alive, the others can stay, but that Englishman does not leave here again. His cells contain all our work over the last twenty years.”
* * *
Back in the dungeons where Aria lay, the pair of chained Weeches snarled and pulled against their binds. A woman dressed in clothes tattered by filth and time effortlessly stepped forward, raising the blade in her hand. The katana slid through the Weech's head and it fell to the floor dead. As she turned, she swung the blade with her, cutting through the neck of the second Weech that fell to the dungeon floor.
The woman kneeled beside Aria who had begun shaking as if with fever. Upon closer inspection, she could see that Aria's skin had already paled in the likeness of Caius. The woman withdrew a vile from her rags and quickly pulled the liquid into a syringe. Carefully, she injected the fluid into Aria.
"Shh," she cooed and gently stroked Aria's face. "You're alright now."
The shaking subsided as a calm settled over Aria, and the color returned to her cheeks. A moment later, the woman was unlocking Aria's chains.
* * *
CHAPTER 14
Screams filled the Hall.
“What is it?” one of the vampires called.
“Where is Caius?”
More screams followed a distant explosion. The castle rattled under the tremor.
Kylie graced the room, descending the grand stairs as a vampire flew to the window desperate to look out across the grounds of Singer Island.
“What’s happen—”
A blast threw the door into Hall sending an avalanche of rock, dust, debris, and splinters of wood through the Hall.
‘Whoa! Come with me now!’ blared as the cloud of dust cleared, the Slush Brain crew emerged with a lingering stench of beets. Mad Matt dressed in his boots, Doctor Who scarf, and loin cloth armed with a bucket of water balloons, Cin Dixon with her flask and swords, Adam equipped with a cup of black tea that he slowly sipped with a world of patience, Stanushka, with a set of smoking M32 grenade launchers poised at each arm. Chess sporting her flintlock, and Norry, armed at the ready with a pair of scimitar. At the center of their crew, Angela stood, a tiara just visible under the captain’s hat and a katana in her hand.
Norry paused the boom box.
“A boom box?” Cin asked, wrinkling her face at Norry. “Seriously? How old are you?”
“Caius!” Angela shouted. “Come on out! El Capitan wants to play!”
“Kylie,” Norry growled across the room. “Where is he?”
Kylie stared from the stairs with a bored look on her face.
Zombies From Space...and Vampires Page 6