by Jon F. Merz
There wasn’t much in terms of a legal presence there. Check that, there wasn’t much of a legal presence anywhere these days. If you walked into Diablo, then you were taking a real risk with your life. It was an oasis in terms of sucker attacks, but the human filth that lived there could be just as bad.
One thing I’d learned in my time: the supernatural didn’t have a monopoly on evil. Humans could sink pretty goddamn low.
Diablo wasn’t my jurisdiction. That shit hole belonged to Rask. And to be honest, they suited each other. Rask had come up the ranks with a reputation for being a violent, sadistic prick. But damn could he kill suckers. And to his credit, when our ranks started getting hammered, he chose to stay around and keep on the mission. Not an easy thing when you see your colleagues getting slaughtered.
I never knew if Rask was insane or not. Some of us thought he was. He wasn’t military or government or even law enforcement. Rask was just a killer. Plain and simple. It was almost like someone had shown up on his high school Career Day, sat him down, and said, “Now Rask, here’s the truth of it all: you’re a killer. It ain’t an honorable profession, but damn son, you’re gonna be good at it. The cops will hate you. They’ll try their best to nail your ass and either jolt you with enough juice to light a city or pump enough poison into your veins that it turns you into a copperhead. But they’ll never get you. And you’ll keep on killing.”
Rask wasn’t a psychopath; he was just someone extraordinarily gifted at depriving other people of their lives. He’d found work with the criminal underworld before the Event. But he never took sides. He worked for anyone and everyone who could afford his price. And he made it known that if he took a contract, there was nothing personal about it. He’d been hired to do a job and if anyone came after him for revenge, he’d not only kill them but extinguish their family line as well.
Not surprisingly, no one ever went after Rask.
I couldn’t say that we’d been friends. We were on the wrong side before the Event, but after it happened, everyone was just trying to stay alive. We found ourselves working toward a common goal of killing suckers.
It’s funny who you find yourself in bed with when you actually take a stand.
A lot of people before the Event were conflict-phobes. I knew a guy once who told me that he hated conflict, looking at me like I lived for the shit. At the time, I’d shaken my head and walked away. That’s the problem with pacifists: they refuse to acknowledge the fact that sometimes, violence is actually necessary. People had gotten to be so terrified of offending anyone that at one point - when President Fucknuts came to power - we actually had neo-Nazi shitheads marching in the street because they felt emboldened by the trust-fund racist in the White House. Rather than disavow them, the Orange Fecal Smear decided to tell the world that there was evil on both sides. Society’s policy of tolerating everything had come back to bite it on the ass. No one seemed to understand that in order to have a tolerant society, intolerance cannot be tolerated. After all, neo-Nazis didn’t want equality or religious freedom - two of the founding principles of my old country. They wanted a genetic cleansing or some dumbass shit like that.
What it took to drive them back under their rocks was a massive uprising against them. Knowing President Douchebag wasn’t going to do anything in terms of real leadership, the citizens of the country took it upon themselves to denounce the Nazi assholes and show them we would all stand up to them.
But anyway, none of that mattered now.
These days concepts like equality and religion were pretty much toast. All anyone cared about now was surviving the suckers and maybe getting some food. The Event had pretty much reduced living down to those kind of simplistic terms.
Rask and me ended up getting this swath of the country. We’d been splitting the zone in half these past two years. And we’d managed to do some real good work. Every time we plugged a sucker, we asked them the same thing: where was it?
The Source.
We’d stabbed our way through hundreds of bloodsuckers trying to find a way back to Vampire Zero. The One. And every time we killed a vampire, they all told us the same thing.
Diablo.
Rask had set out for the place a month back. We’d agreed to meet up as soon as I’d killed off the three vampires that had been nesting in my turf. Only then would we try to find the Source together. It was too risky going it alone. Even Rask admitted that.
It wasn’t a pride thing. Who the hell had that anymore? We didn’t kill them to look good; we put a stake through their hearts because it meant ours got to beat a little while longer.
So Rask acknowledging the dangers associated with Diablo didn’t mean he was a coward; it meant he was smart enough to understand that we were heading into some serious risk.
The plan was for him to reach the outskirts of the town and maybe set up a small campsite where he could monitor things. What we’d called an OP back in my days with the unit - an observation post. Covert and unassuming, it could be dug into the side of a hill and camouflaged so no one saw it. In that way, Rask could see who entered and who left Diablo.
The town had a bit of mystery around it. Like I said earlier, it had almost no known sucker attacks, despite being smack dab in the middle of a very active zone for such things. Because of that, it attracted a lot of survivors who would make their way to the town in the hopes of finding peace, maybe a chance to start some semblance of a life. If such a thing could ever be started again.
Rask had his own thoughts on why Diablo seemed so unscathed. I wasn’t sure if he truly believed them or not, but when I’d last seen him, he smirked at me with that trademark sneer of his.
“Going down to see the Devil.”
I shook his hand, my eyes staring at the tattoo we all wore that identified us as Mortal Makers. Whatever Rask had been before the Event, he was my brother-in-arms now. I’d protect his back exactly the same as he would mine.
“Play your fiddle hard,” I said with a smile. “You watch yourself. I’ll be along fast as I can once I finish off my work.”
Rask let my hand go, turned and walked off into the blinding sunlight. I watched him for a moment and then turned in the opposite direction. I had suckers to kill. And when they were dead, I’d follow Rask. Together, we’d head into Diablo and try to find out if there really was a Source - a Vampire Zero - that was the cause of all the hell in our world now.
If there was, we’d corner it together.
Then we’d put enough wood into its heart that it would never be able to spread evil ever again.
6
Diablo was west of our current position and we chased the setting sun. I coughed once or twice and spat the muddy sputum out of my mouth. Walking and breathing the dry caked earth had a way of giving you the sort of spit that looked like you’d been sucking down Oreo cookies for the last day.
Oreos.
I sighed. It was funny how the simple pleasure of life get lost on you at the time and only afterward do you realize how precious they were.
There weren’t anymore Oreos, though. Or the happiness they used to bring. I shook my head and stopped for a moment of silence.
“Are you all right?”
I looked back. Ares was watching me closely, her hands toying with the pipe on the leather string around her neck.
“Why?”
“You just stopped. Right after you coughed. Are you sick?”
I shook my head. “No. I just remembered something. Something that’s not here any longer.”
“What?”
I frowned. “Let’s keep moving. The sun’s starting to set and I don’t want to be out in the dark if we can help it.”
“You didn’t have a problem being out in the dark last night.”
“That’s because I was working.”
“But if there are vampires around here, isn’t it your duty to kill them?”
I glanced back at her. For a junkie, she had a set of piercing blue eyes. I didn’t like the way they seemed
to poke into my soul. “I’ll get to them after we finish our work in Diablo.”
“Okay.”
I shook my head. She’d answered like she was giving me her permission to continue on our way. I didn’t like the idea of that. I didn’t answer to her.
But I had bigger issues to face right then. Ares was right that we might be in sucker territory and if we were caught outdoors after dark, it could be a problem. I wasn’t sure what the situation was in this zone. Suckers weren’t always predictable: some of them hunted solo and others formed packs. Nasty thing, those packs. They’d set upon you like a pack of wolves and just tear you apart.
No, the immediate concern was shelter for the night. Preferably some place that was innocuous looking and at the same time offered up a decent tactical advantage.
Time was, people believed that in order for vampires to enter your house, they had to be invited in. That, like so many other legends, was bullshit. Vampires could pretty much go anywhere they wanted. Unless you had a special herbal mixture that you could smudge the joint with. Certain scents drove them crazy and they’d steer clear.
The danger was whether you had enough to last the night. If you didn’t, then you’d simply set up a beacon letting any suckers in the area know you were close by. They’d simply camp out until the scent died down to a tolerable amount. Then they’d attack.
Luckily, I carried more than enough. But we still needed a defensible position. I’d get minimal sleep; between having to watch the junkie and keep an eye out for any daring suckers, the night wouldn’t be comfortable. But I could catch a few winks in the morning.
I spotted the remnants of an old fence and thought we might just get lucky enough if we’d stumbled across what used to be someone’s farm. I led Ares off the road and we crisscrossed a fallow field that was quickly succumbing to the onslaught of weeds and scrub brush. In the distance, I saw a small farm house. It was a single story with the windows long since smashed.
But it might just do for the night.
I locked Ares to a thick oak tree and went ahead to scout it out. Suckers weren’t the only thing you had to be careful of out in the wilds. The M4 rested easily in my hands and every time I carried it, it brought back the memories of what I used to do before the Event.
Back then, everything had been so easy. We get a mission and then go and kill bad guys.
Sometimes, we lost a team member, but that was to be expected. You didn’t do what I’d done and think you were going to live forever. The odds were too stacked against us - even if we were the best of the best.
The grass grew fairly high as I approached the farm house. It reminded me of a job in Iraq. We’d been told one of the high value targets we wanted was living out of a farm southwest of Ramallah. We’d put OPs in place and when we confirmed he was there, we made the decision to hit the place. In that part of Iraq, it was close to the water and the grass grew high. As we threaded our way through it, we started taking fire from the farm house. It was sporadic. Not accurate, but even still, hearing bullets whiz past your head through the blades of grass was enough to get us to keep our heads down.I wondered if anyone inside this farm house was going to start shooting at me.
I reached the steps and took stock. The treads were busted and splintered with rusted nails jutting out in every direction. The rains had warped the boards and made them almost unsuitable for anything but firewood.
I stepped up and heard the entire porch start to creak. But it held.
Inside, I cleared the place room by room - including the root cellar - and satisfied, I went to get Ares and bring her inside. As I did so, the sun was already retreating much further to the west. The sooner we got in and I got our protection up, the better. Like I said, I had no idea how many suckers might still be hunting in this sector.
I put Ares in the kitchen and walked the house again. The windows were shot and there wasn’t enough time to hammer any wood over them. Not that it would have helped. Suckers could tear through it and be inside in seconds.
I heard something and froze. It sounded like scraping. The sound came from an old cabinet in the pantry. It was too small to have contained a sucker. But I drew my pistol anyway.
I opened the latch and almost fired as the thing inside vaulted at me.
But it didn’t sink its fangs into my neck; it started licking my face something furiously.
I fell back and away laughing as I did so. The Siberian husky puppy whined and pawed at me.
“Well, hello there, little guy,” I said sitting up. The dog nuzzled me again and again. I don’t know how he’d gotten into the cabinet, but he was grateful to be free.
Then I saw the bloody lacerations on his hind quarters. I carried him into the kitchen.
“What’s that?” asked Ares.
“Another survivor, apparently,” I said. I fished the medical kit out of my ruck and set about cleaning the wounds on the dog and bandaging them. The dog whined at first, but sat still the entire time, only licking my face when I was done.
“There,” I said. “A couple of days you should be good as new.”
From my ruck, I took out several bundles of the herbal smudge that made suckers sick. I got my supply from an herbalist back east who knew what she was doing. What they contained exactly, I didn’t really know. But they worked.
I lit the first bundle and walked the periphery of the farm house. The still air would dissipate it gradually; there wasn’t any wind tonight. And I wanted to set several perimeters that would be stronger the closer to the house the suckers got. The dog stayed close to my side the entire time.
Time to hunker down.
Darkness was quickly reclaiming the sky and any vampires nearby would be waking. And hungry.
I kept the smoldering bundle smoking by blowing on it as I walked the house. If the windows had worked, it would have helped keep the scent heavy in the house, but as it was, I knew the smell would bleed out through the busted windows.
By now, the entire farm house smelled like an old world Italian kitchen combined with sage, turmeric, garlic, and a dozen or so other herbs I couldn’t even name. It made my mouth water, frankly. In my old life, my wife had been an amazing cook.
But that was just another painful memory now.
In the kitchen, Ares was opening and closing cupboards as if she expected to find something.
“Keep the noise down.” I looked at the dog, but he seemed content to lay there and rest.
She stopped and then laughed at me. “Why? You think the noise is going to attract them? They’ll be far more interested when the catch a whiff of that junk you’re burning.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But I don’t need them hearing any noise. With any luck, they might think the smell is residual and give this place a pass.”
“They won’t,” said Ares. “They’ll come from miles around.” She grinned. “If there are any around.”
I frowned. “You almost sound excited about that possibility.”
“What do I care?” She shrugged. “My life is forfeit.”
“If you really believed that then last night you wouldn’t have been scared shitless the way you were.”
Ares eyed me. “There’s a big difference between facing a creature and being tied up with no means of defending yourself. I’ll bet you’d even have a hard time with that.”
“Maybe I would.” I glanced around. “We have to move. This room sucks from a tactical standpoint.”
“Where are we going?”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “Cellar. One way in and one way out. Much better than being up here.”
“If you say so.” Ares walked over and looked down the steps into the darkness. “You sure there’s nothing down there?”
“Positive,” I said. Then I brought out my flashlight and we descended together, the dog limping as it followed us down.
7
I started a small fire on the floor of the root cellar and laid some more herbs next to it in case I needed them l
ater. I kept the smoldering bundle close by, the smoke from it wafted up the steps and hung right at the door that I’d closed on our way down. It wasn’t an air tight seal, and even in the dim light I could see some of the smoke filtering through the parts of the door that had warped away from the jamb. And that was fine; I didn’t want us dying from smoke inhalation down there. Plus, any suckers that opened the door would get hit with a huge cloud of the stuff since it was all concentrating up there. The heavy smell would drive them crazy.
“He needs a name,” said Ares.
I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t. After tonight, we’re getting rid of him.”
Ares’ eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t!”
I held up my hand. “Relax, I just meant I’ll let him go on his way.”
She relaxed a little, running her hand over the dog’s mane. He gave her a quick lick and then limped over to where I sat, nudging his nose into what I was doing, which was getting dinner ready.
“Do you think there are any suckers out there?”
I used my spoon to stir the contents of the small pot I always carried in my ruck. I had beef stew in the pot and it was slowly simmering up to a hot temperature. “I don’t know. I can barely remember a time when the night wasn’t owned by them.”
“Will they attack us?”
I tasted the stew; it still needed more time. “Not likely if they get a whiff of the herbs. They’ll be pissed, of course, but I don’t think they’d be foolish enough to try to get down here. By the time they claw their way through the haze, I’ll be on them.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Ares. She leaned back against the dirt wall and bowed her head. “I could use a good night’s rest.”
“So could I,” I said. “But I don’t intend to sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Because someone has to keep watch. Suckers can be as silent as a cat. I wouldn’t hear them until it was too late if I went to sleep.”
“What about the dog?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if I can rely on him or not.”
Ares looked around. “Sorry about earlier.”