Upon a Time

by R. L. Stedman

  The punched man groaned. “That’s a Vay, I tell you. A Vay!”

  The crowd about the fireplace turned and their heads shot up, like predators looking for prey. Christine ducked into the shadow of a pillar. She didn’t need to be told to be still. She’d had enough experience of hiding. Once they’d escaped the Colony, not even the remaining Vay trackers could find them, and they were a lot better than anything a Normal could do. Except maybe Hunter. He had the look of a Vay tracker: the self-contained silence, the focus. But a Vay could run faster, climb further. A Vay could smell the prey, even if they couldn’t see it, yes, and they could hear it too. Normals didn’t stand a chance against Vay. So why was she so afraid of these drunk, noisy men?

  Because there were more of them than her. And her hands were tied behind her back, and her feet were shackled together. Stupid Normals. They’d made it hard for her to protect herself.

  She whispered to Guard Two: “Untie my hands.”

  The woman shook her head.

  “I won’t hurt you.” Christine tried to speak calmly. Guard One, club in his hand, watched the men leave the fire. He would try to protect her, what could one man do against so many angry men? They would grab her, and tear her apart. That’s what the Vay did to Normals; these men would probably do the same to her.

  She shouldn’t have come. She should have left Dylan with Controller and headed back into the forest.

  She shook her shoulders. “Untie me!”

  “No.” The woman’s voice was flat. She pressed a sharp blade against Christine’s neck. “Be silent.”

  “Now folks.” The tall guard spoke to the men. “Ain’t nothing. Back to the fireside.”

  “Like hell there is,” grumbled the punched man. “They’ve got a Vay! Those red eyes – I saw it.”

  The men muttered.

  Guard One drew his knife. “Move along. Come on.”

  They moved into a circle about him. Some of them glanced into the darkness, but their eyes would be dazzled by the firelight. They wouldn’t be able to see Christine. She hoped.

  “Shut your eyes, Vay,” hissed her woman guard. She pressed the knife into Christine’s neck.

  “You hate me,” Christine murmured.

  “Course I do. Hate you bad.” The woman whispered, pressing the knife harder. Ow, how it stung! Warm blood trickled down Christine’s neck. “But I do what boss say.”

  The woman was like a Vay. Except a Vay had no opinions. The Colony thought alike and each Vay did as demanded by the Colony. Except for her, Christine. She was different. She had a name, for a start. And she had Dylan.

  “That’s enough.” Hunter’s voice sounded from above. “First one to move gets an arrow through him.”

  The men grumbled.

  “Sure, we got ourselves a Vay,” Hunter said. “You think Controller goes to all this trouble just to have you kill it?”

  The first man, the one the guard had punched, shouted. “Them Vays, they killed our families. Ate my wife in front of me.”

  “Look at me, Jo. You think this didn’t happen to me?” Hunter’s calm voice cut through the shouts. “I had to shoot my brother. My own dammed brother, just a ’cos he’d turned. Poor boy wouldn’t have hurt a fly, then all of a sudden he’s at my dammed throat.”

  The men fell silent. Guard Two’s breath was warm against Christine’s ear.

  “Listen, boys: Can’t beat the Vays by killing odd one here, odd one there. Need to study them. Learn their weaknesses. This Vay we found? She’s our best chance.”

  The men behind him grumbled. “Goddam Vay. Can’t just let it walk through here, Jo. Might kill us in our sleep.”

  “Not this one. See.” Hunter raised his voice. “Bring her out.”

  Guard Two pressed the blade into Christine’s neck. “You hear him, Vay? Move!”

  Christine shook her head. She couldn’t walk out into the light, where those men would see her. They would kill her. They would tear her apart.

  “Come on, Vay.” The guard’s knife was relentless.

  For a moment Christine wanted to throw herself on the sharp blade. End the fear, the hiding. She’d never belong; never. This was the best place to do it. She braced herself. The knife. Would only take a moment. And Dylan would be safe – they liked him. Controller would look after him.

  “She afraid,” Guard Two called.

  The men muttered again. The knife at her throat pulled away. Christine’s eyes popped open.

  “Can’t blame her,” Guard Two added.

  Christine shook all over. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Sorry I scare you, girl.”

  “Christine,” Hunter called. “It’s okay. You can come on out. They won’t hurt you. Will you boys?”

  Moving carefully, gently, as if stalking a wild animal, the man the guard had punched stepped toward the darkness of the alcove. That’s what I am, to them. An animal. She stared into the darkness of the tunnel – perhaps she could run away, escape? And go where? She was neither Vay nor Human. She fitted in nowhere.

  Christine straightened her back. I am not an animal. Carefully, she wiped the blood from her neck. And I will not run away. Then, not looking at the guard, Christine shuffled forward into the light.

  The men stepped back, which was kind of funny, because they were much bigger than her. Hunter stood above them on a kind of platform. He had an arrow on his bow, knives at his belt, and a gun across his shoulders.

  All these eyes staring at her! It was like having no clothes on.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” she called to Hunter.

  He half smiled. “Okay, girl. Off you go. What?” he added to the men. “You want her to wet herself?”

  The woman guard grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

  “It’s a kid!” Jo, the punched man, sounded amazed. “A freaking kid!”

  Christine wasn’t lying. She did need to pee but she didn’t want to do that here, not with all these men staring at her like she was a freak.

  The woman guard pulled her away, hurrying her toward a door in the opposite wall. The guard pushed the door open, ushered her inside. Christine nearly choked.

  “What?” The guard asked.

  It was a lavatory, rooms full of stalls of white toilets. Sinks across one wall, a broken mirror above them. Below the sinks were buckets of water.

  “The smell.” Christine cupped her hands over her nose and mouth.

  Guard Two shrugged. “You get used to it.” She nodded at the toilets. “Here you are. Don’t close the door.”

  “Why do you have weird names?” Christine asked Controller.

  They’d given her a blanket, and curled up in her cage she felt safe. No Normal could get to her in here, unless Controller or Hunter let them. All around them, people were going to sleep, lying down on foam mats, crowding into the firelight, as if for protection. Christine didn’t feel sleepy, though. She felt awake, alert. This was her best time. When the sunlight dropped she could see even more clearly. The firelight was annoying, although the fire would die down overnight, and then she might be able to see a way free.

  Dylan, encased in a green sleeping bag, lay on a foam pad beside the cage. He’d wrapped his left hand around the bars of her cage before he fell asleep. She touched his fingers gently. There was a smudge of dirt on his face; she’d have to make sure he washed it tomorrow.

  “You want to play a game?” Controller asked, as if that was an answer.

  Christine picked a piece of straw from her hair. “A game?” She felt proud of herself; she’d replied with another question.

  “We take it in turn to ask each other things. If I answer you, you have to answer me.” Controller’s smile was shadowed.

  “Okay. Sure.”

  Controller smiled. “Great! Alright. My turn first.”

  “No!” Christine sat up. “It’s my turn. I asked you a question. Your names, remember?”

  “So you did. My apologies. Okay. You’re right, our names are weird. We – Hunter, me, the
guards, everyone who works here – we gave up our own names when we came here.”

  “There was a man called Jo? The guard punched him. He has a normal name. A name like me and Dylan.”

  “Jo doesn’t work here.” Hunter came over and Controller shuffled over to give him room to sit down. “He comes and goes. Lots of folk do that. He scare you?”

  Christine shrugged. “A bit.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “My name was Marie,” Controller added. “I was a nurse. Before.”

  “Before the Vay?”

  She nodded. “We give up our names, just as the Vay give up theirs. We do this as a reminder of our enemy. It reminds us too that the group is more important than the individuals.”

  Christine blinked. “You trying to make a colony?”

  “Sort of.” Controller – Marie – smiled. “My turn now. How old are you and your brother?”

  “I’m twelve, I think. Thirteen, maybe. Dylan?” Christine counted the years on her fingers. Move to the country. School. Vay. Dad died. Mom’s lab. Sick. Jeremy. Then Mom … no. She wouldn’t think about that now. “He’s eight. Or nine.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “One winter,” Christine said, and Controller looked blank. “One winter in the forest. Food is harder to find in winter. So I remember it better.”

  “You survived by yourself?” Hunter sounded amazed.

  “I had Dylan.” She didn’t mention Jeremy. Didn’t want to talk about him.

  Hunter shook his head, as though he didn’t believe her.

  “I don’t lie,” Christine said.

  “I’m impressed. How did you survive?”

  “I hunt, of course.” Dumb question. “My turn to ask you something.”

  Controller nodded.

  “That smell, in the forest. What was it?”

  Controller scratched her head. “That’s a hard one to answer.”

  “I answered your question.”

  She smiled. “It’s not that. I’m just trying to find words you’ll understand.”

  “Just tell her,” Hunter said. “I’ve got a feeling she’ll stop you if she doesn’t get it.”

  Controller grinned tightly. “Alright. We made a pheromone trap. You know what a pheromone trap is?”

  Christine felt stupid. “No.”

  “It’s a smell,” Hunter said. “A strong smell that attracts … I don’t know. Things.” He looked at Controller.

  “They were used in orchards,” Controller nodded. “Before. To trap moths, insects, and so on. A chemical that makes a smell that attracts something.”

  “You made something that attracts Vay?”

  Both Controller and Hunter nodded.

  “And you got me.”

  “We were just testing it,” Hunter said. “We didn’t mean to catch you.”

  Christine stared into the distance. The firelight was dying, and she could see better now. “It smelled like cookies.”

  “Cookies?”

  “Mom used to make cookies for me and Dylan.”

  Dylan’s eyes opened.

  “When we got home from kindergarten. You remember, Dylan?”

  Christine’s Vay eyes didn’t cry easily, but she wiped them anyway.

  “I remember.”

  Controller and Hunter exchanged glances. “You remember your mother?”

  “I’m tired.” Christine lay down in the straw. She didn’t want to talk about Mom. Besides, Dylan needed his sleep. She touched Dylan’s fingers gently. “Good night.”

  “Night, Chris.” Dylan closed his eyes. She closed her eyes too, and didn’t open them even when Hunter and Controller moved away.

  “She looks Vay,” Controller said quietly.

  “She survived winter,” Hunter replied, as if it was an answer.

  “She must have been with the Colony then.”

  “Perhaps. There’s the brother, though,” Hunter said. “They’d never have him.”

  Controller sighed. “Well. She sure is a puzzle.”

  “Need to find out more,” Hunter said.

  “How can we do that?”

  “Leave it with me.”

  “Hunter, she’s a kid.”

  “That’s the thing. We thought they didn’t have kids. Perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps they do.” His voice was grim. “No one knows for sure, do they?”

  “That’s why we’re trapping. We need to get answers.”

  “Take too long.” There was a rustle of clothing.

  “Where are you going?” Controller asked.

  “To see if there’s any more kids.”

  “You going to the Colony?” Controller’s voice was worried. “Hunter! You know it’s dangerous.”

  “I know. Don’t worry,” Hunter sounded amused. “I’ll be careful.”

  Christine opened her eyes, just a slit. Outlined by firelight, Hunter was adjusting a heavy rucksack. The straight lines of a hunting bow stuck over his head and made him look weirdly alien. Christine shut her eyes.

  Before long she was asleep. If Controller said anything else, she didn’t hear her.

  Chapter Four

  Mike

  The Vay hunted in packs like wolves, using teeth and nails, filed to killing points, but oh they were smart, much smarter than any wolves. Hunter had watched plenty of wolves when he had been a guide up in Alaska. They were cunning and persistent, but they were still dogs. Vay were much, much more intelligent than a dog.

  Hunter killed the engine. Couldn’t bring a motorcycle so close to the Colony, they’d hear it a mile off and come, like a swarm. He’d seen it once, when a group of young folk had caught two Vay and killed them. Which was bad, ’cos the Vay didn’t have an easy death and that wasn’t fair; even though Vay were no longer human they didn’t deserve to be tortured.

  Afterwards, the youngsters had left the building. Blood-splattered, they were laughing at themselves; proud of their actions, proud of themselves. They’d stepped right into a pack of Vay, a group of twenty individuals. Probably brought to the place by the scent of their own.

  Vay had killed every human in that group, and they’d moved off, and found others and killed them too.

  Hunter had hidden in a sewer. The smell near on made him sick, but it did the job. Sewers were the best place to hide from Vay.

  Didn’t eat their kills straight away, no sir; the Vay were disciplined. Organized. That was the worst thing, the spark of thought in their eyes. No, they’d dragged the bodies away, yes and the living, too. Couple of folk were still breathing. One, a kid for chrissakes, crying for his Ma, got dragged away with the rest.

  Hunter should have shot the kid. But he didn’t want to be caught himself, and nothing gave a man away like the noise of a rifle. But after that day, the dreams had gotten even worse.

  Hunter pushed the bike over to a garage, unlocked the door. Still empty. Good. He’d found this garage last time he was spying on the Vay. Only seven years since the world had changed and already trees had sprung up through the blacktop. Yards lay overgrown, creepers smothered houses. Some of the buildings had their furniture and carpets remaining, but most were damaged shells, walls decorated in black spray art. Even the graffiti looked sad and scarred.

  The sun felt hot on his back and the day was sticky but he didn’t remove his jacket. Kevlar, it might protect him from teeth and claws.

  The Colony was still six hours walk away. Hunter moved cautiously, flitting from shade to shade. At first he passed through groves of saplings, leaves glowing green in the sun, until finally he reached the forest proper, where the trees grew tall and shut out the light. These were small woods, puny memories of a once great forest, but soon enough, say in fifty years, they would be great again. Only good thing the Vay had given the world; the forests.

  Mind you, the woods were real quiet. There should be birdsong, and animals: dogs, cats, deer, or raccoons. But all about was silent. Like the whole world held its breath. Treading carefully, Hunter crept on. A misstep or a crackin
g branch could mean disaster. Now and again he glanced at the compass on his wrist, checked his bearing. Sometimes he stopped.

  After hours of wading through stuffy silence, Hunter stopped. The setting sun cast long shadows across the forest floor and in the undergrowth the light was dim. Night was coming. Time to rest; might be the last opportunity he would have. He found a hollow tree and crept inside. All going well, he would reach the colony tomorrow. As always, he slept lightly and as always, he dreamt of Mike.

  Before the Vay, Hunter had been a guide named Bevan. All summer long he had taken photographers to secret places, where bears fished and wolves ran. Come winter he flew south to NYC and Mike.

  Mike, Bevan’s twin, was his other half; his better half, probably. Mike loved the city life, eating out in fancy restaurants, wearing nice clothes. Bevan hated the crowds, the dirty sidewalks, the constant roar of traffic. Although Central Park was okay. Yet it was only when he was with Mike that Bevan felt whole.

  Hunter could almost name the hour and day that the world changed: the day he’d stopped being Bevan and had become Hunter. He knew this because he had been making plans to return north. Clients were getting in touch and it was time to prepare for the season ahead. He had been checking online to see which flights were available, when, quite suddenly, the screen went blank.

  At first he thought it was a glitch. He tapped his phone screen, like that would reset all the planes. Two days later a state of emergency was declared. A virus, a pandemic, whatever. Survival rates were only ten percent; less for kids or old folk. And any survivors might well have been better dead. The fitter you were, the better your chance at survival. Ha! Survival of the fittest. Not that the survivors were human.

  At first the media called it the Vampire Virus, because of the survivors. It was a catchy name with vaguely fifties overtones, but over time it shortened, and the survivors became known as Vay.

  Two days later Mike’s temperature shot up and his fingernails began to bleed.

  Hunter shot him. Afterwards, he reckoned that was what had saved him, that and the bleach he doused himself in. And the sedatives. And the bottled water that Mike had stashed throughout the apartment.