Dominion of the Damned

by Jean Marie Bauhaus

  “A little groggy.”

  He nodded. “That’s normal.” He got up and went to a cabinet. After rummaging through it, he returned with a little paper cup. He held it out to her. It contained two little orange pills. She looked at them skeptically. “Ibuprofen,” he explained. “For your headache.”

  When she refused them, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I can’t think of a good reason to revive you and unstrap you if I was just going to drug you again.” He popped the pills in his own mouth and went to get some water to wash them down, leaving the tray on her bed. While his back was turned, she grabbed the tray and slid it under her shirt. It wasn’t very sturdy, but it would still hurt like hell if she used it to whack somebody upside the head.

  “Anyway,” said the doctor as he returned, “you’re not the only one with a headache.” He smiled. It was a nice smile, the kind that lit up his whole face and made the skin crinkle appealingly around his eyes, which she noticed for the first time were icy blue, and slightly luminescent.

  Hannah clenched the sheets in her fists as she drew back against the head of the bed. “You’re one of them.”

  His smile faded. “That depends. Which ‘them’ do you mean?”

  “Those people from last night. They wanted to kill me. They were going to eat my brother. I shot one of them, and he….”

  “Ah, yes. Albert and Marie. Don’t worry, they’ve been dealt with. You’re safe here, Hannah. So is your brother. You have my word.”

  “For whatever that’s worth,” said another voice. The click of heels on tile echoed throughout the mostly empty room, and the type of woman that Hannah could only think to describe as a bombshell came over to them. Her hair framed her pale face in soft curls so blonde they were almost white. She had the face of a movie star from the forties, and the figure to match. She wore a gray tweed skirt suit that looked like it belonged to the same era. Her shoes were high and red, the same shade as her lipstick, and her eyes matched the doctor’s. “I see our patient’s awake,” she said. “How close is she to ready?”

  “Ready for what?” Hannah asked.

  Ignoring her question, the doctor handed the woman the clipboard. “She’s slightly anemic. I’ve given her a vitamin drip, but she needs protein.”

  “Hannah Jordan,” said the woman, reading her name off of the chart. She glanced up at the doctor. “Will she be ready by Thursday?”

  “If you feed her well.”

  “Why?” asked Hannah. “What happens Thursday?”

  The woman smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. Unlike the doctor, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She repressed a shudder as the woman leaned in close.

  “On Thursday, you pay your rent.”

  “But I…” Hannah swallowed. “I don’t have any money.”

  The woman laughed. That, too, lacked warmth. It reminded Hannah of the girls in high school who would make fun of her for wearing clothes from Walmart, and it angered her as much as it chilled her.

  Her laughter faded, and so did her smile, as she straightened up. “I am Esme,” she said, “and this is my house. I provide your kind with shelter and refuge from those… creatures walking around outside. You will repay my kindness with obedience and blood.”

  “What if I’m not interested in your ‘kindness’?”

  That chilly smile returned. “If that’s the case, then I’ll be happy to show you the front door.” She sashayed over to a small television monitor mounted high in one corner of the room, and turned it on. A black and white image flickered onto the screen, showing a throng of people, all of them showing various degrees of decay, pressing up against a high concrete wall, and against each other. They seemed oblivious to one another, intent only on somehow getting through that wall. Every one of them wore the same vacant, hungry stare that her mother had worn at the end. Hannah closed her eyes as Esme said, “You’re more than welcome to take your chances with them, if that’s what you prefer.”

  Hannah lowered her head in resignation, allowing silence to answer for her. After a moment she said, “I’d like to see my brother.”

  Esme looked at the doctor. “The infant that was brought in with her last night,” he explained.

  She nodded. “If you cooperate and do as you’re told, you’ll be allowed to see him. Eventually.”

  “Perhaps if she was allowed to see him now, to confirm that he’s safe,” he suggested.

  Esme raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Perhaps what?”

  “Perhaps she would be reassured that she’s safe here, and less inclined to put up a fight.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” She crossed back over to Hannah, and bent down in her face. “Or perhaps you’ll just damn well do what you’re told if you ever want to see the sweet babe again.” Hannah’s entire body felt like a coiled spring, ready to pop. She slid a hand under her shirt and gripped the tray.

  “Oh, you are a pretty one, aren’t you?” Esme raised a hand and traced her finger down Hannah’s cheek. Then she grabbed Hannah’s face, nails digging painfully into her cheeks. She ripped Hannah’s shirt open and grabbed the tray. Handing it to Doctor Konstantin, she said, “This one’s going to bear watching.” She released her grip, and Hannah pulled her shirt closed and rubbed her face. Her hand came away with blood on it.

  Esme turned to Konstantin. “Don’t get any ideas about making her your pet.” She turned to leave, but as she passed him, she paused to add, “And don’t tell me how to run my camp. Save the reassuring doctor act for your own little project. It’s wasted here.”

  The doctor glared after Esme as she left, then went to the cabinet and brought some alcohol and cotton swabs over to Hannah’s bed. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling up a stool. “Esme always feels she has something to prove.” He dipped a swab into the bottle of alcohol and reached for Hannah’s face. When she jerked away from his touch, he paused. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me see what she did to you.” When Hannah still hesitated, he added, “Please?”

  She held still, and let him examine her face. His fingers were cool, but much gentler than Esme’s had been. She flinched as he cleaned the first cut.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is going to sting a little.”

  “What are you?” she asked. “Those things out there... are you some kind of mutation?” Did you come back from that? part of her wanted to ask, even though part of her didn’t want to think about what that would have meant.

  He kept working on her face as he answered. “Not exactly. I think they might actually be a mutated form of us. We have our similarities... we both come back after being significantly dead, we both require human tissue for sustenance. But vampires tend to be much better conversationalists.” He grinned.

  Hannah didn’t smile back. “Vampires. Naturally.” She shook her head. “I guess there’s really nothing that shocks me anymore.”

  He finished treating her and sat back on his stool, regarding her. “What’s your story, Hannah Jordan? What is it that makes you such a survivor?”

  “You want to know my story?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “Then get me my brother. Bring him to me safe and healthy, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  He tilted his head and regarded her for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  FOUR

  As a pair of guards escorted her through a series of barred gates and corridors, it became clear that they had brought her to a literal prison. Instead of prison guard uniforms, her escorts wore the same black combat fatigues that her captors had worn, and the only weapons they carried were non-lethal; tazers and dart guns and pepper spray, intended more for enforcing cooperation than anything else.

  They led her to a cell block, where people milled about in open cells, all of them dressed in orange prison jumpsuits. Hannah began to fear that she was being thrust into a prison full of convicts, but there was a mix of men and women, old and young. Those that looked at her did so with
haunted eyes that showed no hint of violence. Only submission.

  They stopped outside an open cell, and one of the guards rapped on the bars. Inside, a plump, middle-aged woman looked up from an improvised desk made of an old door resting on top of cement blocks. Her eyes sparkled with interest as she took in Hannah, but filled with wariness as they turned to her guards.

  “We have a newcomer.”

  They handed her a clipboard. She nodded and waved Hannah over to the desk. “Come here, girl.” She scanned the clipboard, and grunted. “New folks are a lot fewer and farther between, these days. Where’d you come from?” She spoke with the rasp of a longtime smoker, and her skin looked like freckled leather. Her red hair, short and wiry, had turned yellow at the temples. Her eyes were the color of olives.

  “You’re human.”

  “Yup. Guessing I’m the first one you’ve seen in a while.”

  “And you’re helping them? Why?”

  The woman looked up from the clipboard. “Because I do what I’m told. You will, too, if you know what’s good for you. Now, I’m Louise. What’s your name?” She sat down at the desk and rummaged until she found a pen, then looked up at Hannah expectantly.

  “Hannah. Hannah Jordan. What is this place?”

  Louise scribbled on the clipboard. “Refugee camp,” she said.

  “In a prison? Run by vampires?”

  Louise put down the pen and sighed. “This is the state penitentiary. The thing about prisons, little girl, is that they have big walls, and walls keep out the dead. This is the safest place you could hope to be.”

  “I was someplace safer.”

  “Must not’ve been, if they found you.”

  Hannah shook her head in disgust, mostly at herself. “I was stupid. I left.”

  “Well, you’re here now. And like you said, the vampires run the show. So you keep your head down and behave like a good little sheep, and they’ll take good care of you, keep you fed and safe. All you have to do is make a donation to the blood bank once a month, and don’t stir up trouble.”

  Hannah chewed the inside of her cheek as everything Louise told her sunk in. What kind of nightmare world had she walked into? Carried Noah into? “I have a brother,” she said. “He’s just a baby. Esme said they have him. Do you know where he is?”

  Louise’s demeanor softened a little as she gave Hannah a look of sympathy. “They keep the children separated, to keep all the families in line.”

  “You mean they hold them hostage.”

  Louise grimaced at the term, but she nodded. “I don’t know where they keep them. I do know that they take good care of them, and they’ll let you visit him every now and then if you behave.” With a sigh, she picked her pen back up. “All right, let’s get to it. Everybody here has a job, and we need to find one for you. What did you do before the outbreak?”

  “I was a nursing student. Second year.”

  “That’s good.” She jotted down some notes. “Anything else?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I worked as a carhop at Sonic.”

  The woman grunted. “Any special skills?”

  Hannah was an excellent marksman. She could field strip a rifle in under a minute. She knew which wild plants and berries were edible and which were poisonous, and she knew three different ways to start a fire without any matches. But somehow she didn’t think any of that would come in handy in this place. “I know first aid and CPR,” she said. “And I can sew.”

  “Good. I’ll put you down for laundry duty. We can always use people who know how to mend clothes. You can also help out in the clinic twice a month, and I’ll put you on the Emergency Response Team.” She glanced up at Hannah. “Think you can handle all of that?”

  Hannah nodded.

  “Good. In here, we all pull our weight. We all work, we all share, we all help each other out. This situation has forced us all to become communists.” She sighed, and there was a resignation to it. “I hope that doesn’t offend your sense of patriotism, but that doesn’t really matter. There is no America anymore.”

  That news stunned Hannah. “What about the rest of the world? Is there anybody left?”

  “There are other camps. Dozens, all over the world. All under the vampires’ control. There is no human government anymore.”

  Hannah felt her jaw hanging open, and closed it. “How did that happen?”

  Louise gave her a skeptical look. “Where have you been, girl? Hiding under a rock?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Louise sighed. “Well, first people started dying. Then they started coming back and killing. Nobody knew why. They still don’t. But it spread like a plague, too fast for the CDC or anybody else to keep up with.”

  “Through their bites,” said Hannah. “I got that much from experience.”

  “Bites,” Louise said, nodding, “and scratches, fluids getting into eyes, mouths or open sores... it all happened so fast. The government, the military, the UN, everybody... they couldn’t keep it from spreading.

  “Then the vamps showed up. Nobody knew where they came from... hell, nobody even knew they existed. But they were immune, and stronger than those things and us, and they need us alive. They rounded what was left of us up and brought us to these camps, to keep us safe.”

  “To guard their food supply,” said Hannah.

  Louise gave her a hard look. “The way I see it, we’re at the bottom of the food chain now, and we’ve got two options: either get eaten whole by those things out there, or a little bit at a time by the things in here. Now which do you suppose will keep you alive longer?”

  “Alive as slaves.”

  “Better to be a living slave than a dead meal. Or worse... you could be one of those things. Now, come on. Let’s get you settled in.” Louise tucked the clipboard under her arm and went to a set of bunk beds mounted on the wall. The top bunk held stacks of orange jumpsuits and folded white towels. She gave Hannah an appraising look. “What are you, a size four?”

  Hannah almost didn’t hear her as the weight of everything Louise had told her fully sunk in. “A size eight,” she said distractedly, before adding, “but I guess I’ve lost some weight.”

  Louise laughed. “Haven’t we all? It’s the new diet craze. Basic survival. Everybody’s doing it.” She pulled down some jumpsuits and flipped through them, checking the tags. She selected two and handed them to Hannah, along with a towel. “Those are smalls. They’re men’s, though, so they’ll probably be a little big on you. But at least it’s something to wear.” She looked Hannah up and down. “When’s the last time you showered?”

  “Not since before… everything.”

  Louise let out a low whistle. “That’s a long time to go without a hot shower. Come on. I’ll show you to your bunk, then I’ll take you down to the showers.” She headed out of the cell as she spoke, and Hannah followed. “Normally, we all start lining up for the showers before breakfast. It’s not someplace you ever want to go by yourself.”

  “Why?”

  She looked back over her shoulder at Hannah. “Word of advice, girl. You don’t ever want to catch yourself alone in this place, not if you can help it. Oh, I know they gave you the speech about how we’re all safe here, and under protection. And it’s true, the guards get in a lot of trouble for helping themselves, if they get caught.” She let out a bitter laugh. “But you’d be surprised how often they don’t get caught.” She glanced back at Hannah again. “You’re pretty, too. They’ll all want a taste of you.”

  Hannah stared in horror at the back of Louise’s head as she followed her up a catwalk to another row of cells. She said a silent prayer of thanks for all of the self-defense training her dad had insisted on before asking, “So, exactly how strong are they?” Her hand went to her bruised face and rubbed the scratches Esme’s iron grip had left there. If that little display had been any indication, she doubted that her green belt in Krav Maga would do her much good if she got cornered by one of those things. “Here you go,” Louise said, showing
her into an empty cell. “D 32.”

  Hannah stepped inside and looked around. It was a tiny square cell, about six feet by six feet, with a pair of bunk beds on one wall and a stainless steel toilet in the corner. A sink was mounted on the wall above the toilet, and a tiny shelf hung over the sink. High up on the back wall of the cell was a small, rectangular window, covered with bars. She’d have to climb up onto the top bunk to see out of it.

  “It’s getting close to lunch time,” said Louise. “I’ll get some clean sheets on your bunk while you’re down in the cafeteria. But first I’ll take you down to the showers. Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you while you get cleaned up.”

  The showers were in a big, square, concrete room, with exposed pipes running overhead. About thirty shower heads hung down from them, with no stalls or privacy curtains to separate them. Above the pipes, pale fluorescent lights flickered, their light almost swallowed up by the dark gray concrete. The room was creepy enough that Hannah didn’t relish the thought of being in here alone, even without knowing that the threat of being attacked by monsters was all too real.

  Louise looked around the room, and nodded. “I’ll be right outside. I know this is your first hot shower in months, but try to be quick.”

  She left her clothes on a bench near the door, and chose a row of showers next to a wall. She tried to keep her back to the wall as she turned on the spray. The warm water washing over her was the best thing she’d felt in ages, even though the water pressure was a little too strong. She wanted to close her eyes and imagine all of the hell of these last several months being washed away along with layers of dirt and grime. But she forced her eyes to stay open, even as the water stung them. Louise might have been right outside, but Hannah didn’t trust anyone to watch her back. She had to do that for herself.

  Once she was clean, she could smell how ripe her own clothes had gotten, and grudgingly put on the orange jumpsuit instead. It felt about two sizes too big, and the crotch hung halfway to her knees. She pulled the leather belt off of her jeans and wrapped it around her waist, cinching up the bottom half of the suit.