Dominion of the Damned

by Jean Marie Bauhaus

  “Qualified?” she asked. “I’ve only had two years of nursing school. And my last semester kind of got derailed halfway through.”

  “That still makes you the most qualified candidate in this compound. Zach gets to the lab early. After the baby wakes up, go see him. He can take the sample from Noah while you watch, and he can go over the details of the job.”

  Again, she shook her head, more in disbelief than anything else. It all sounded too good to be true. And in her experience, if it sounded that way, it usually was. “I need to think about it.”

  “Of course. Just remember, time is of the essence. Please talk to Zach while you think.” He stifled a yawn. “I should be going. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.” He stood up and started to walk toward the living room, stopping himself just in time to avoid walking into a sun beam.

  Hannah went around him and closed the curtain. “I guess you’re not going anywhere for a while.”

  He stared in surprise at the sunlight outside, then at the clock in the kitchen. “I had no idea it had gotten so late. I had no intention of—”

  “Don’t worry about it. Can’t do anything about it now.” She watched him stifle another yawn. “Anyway, you need to sleep. Come on. You can take my room for the day. At least somebody will get some use out of it.” Without waiting to see if he followed, she went into her room and closed the blinds. She fussed with them for a few minutes, making sure they wouldn’t let any lethal beams of sunlight through. When she turned back around, Konstantin was hanging back by the door, peering into her room.

  “I really am sorry for the imposition. I’d happily sleep on your sofa, but I’d probably just be more in the way out there.”

  “It’s fine,” said Hannah. Actually, it was weird, and frightening. But if he was on the up and up, and he was about to become her boss.... If she wasn’t ready to trust him, exactly, then maybe it was time to start trusting what her gut said about him.

  And her gut was kind of starting to like him.

  “Thank you,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to unlace his sneakers. “Don’t try to be quiet on my account. I’m a very heavy sleeper.”

  “Okay. Good night, Doctor Konstantin.”

  “Hannah,” he called as she started to pull the door shut. When she paused, he said, “We were comrades in arms only yesterday. You can call me Alek.”

  “Alek?”

  He gave a little shrug and half a smile. “It’s short for Alexandr.”

  She was a little stunned at the realization that she was just now learning his first name. She’d known him for less than a week, but it felt like he’d been part of her life for longer. She nodded. “Okay, then. Good night, Alek. Or, I guess, good day.”

  He smiled. “Good day, Hannah.”

  She shut the door and blew out the breath she’d been holding. Her heart was about to pound through her chest.

  She returned to the kitchen with the aim of making another cup of coffee. As she picked up her mug, she noticed the present, still lying where he’d placed it on the counter. She set down the mug and picked up the thin, rectangular package. She poked a hole in the wrapping paper and peeled it back, revealing a picture frame. After tearing off the rest of the paper, her hand flew to her mouth.

  She stared at a family portrait, taken at Cocoa Beach at the tail-end of Hannah’s last summer vacation. Her dad stood between Hannah and her mother, with one arm around each of them, squeezing them tight. All three of them were smiling, and the smiles looked genuine, not plastered on for the camera. Hannah remembered how her dad kept making them both laugh. Her mom was already expecting Noah by then, although she wasn’t showing yet.

  A note was tucked into the corner of the frame. Hannah unfolded it and read, “I’m having the rest of your things brought down. They should arrive in a day or two. Also, please see me when you get a chance. I need to ask you about some things. Alek.”

  Hannah batted away a tear on her cheek as she looked back at the bedroom door, and wondered about the being sleeping in her bed. If he was a monster, he was sure a damn thoughtful one.

  A hungry cry came from the baby’s room. Hannah tossed the wrapping paper in the trash and carried the picture into the living room, where she set it in a place of honor on the mantle. She stepped back to give it one last, longing look, and then went to take care of her brother.

  TWENTY-ONE

  As Alek lay in bed and listened to Hannah moving about the house, he found himself thinking of Irina. Even after all these years, she was never far from his thoughts, as much as it pained him to think of her. But as he tried to envision her face, it was Hannah’s he saw.

  He shut his eyes and tried to push away the vision. He told himself it was only because Hannah was so fresh in his mind. Anything else felt like too much of a betrayal. Hadn’t he already done enough to let Irina down?

  The two women couldn’t have been more different. Irina had been sweet and gentle, easy-going and eager to please. She had been a peacemaker.

  Hannah was a fighter. She was bullheaded and fierce, especially when it came to her brother. He admired her resolve, her willingness to do what needed to be done. She was a survivor. Like him.

  Except, he wasn’t really, was he? He had survived the Nazis. Survived their camps, being forced into service, providing medical care to men he’d wanted to strangle. He’d survived it all for Irina, to get back to her, like he’d promised he would.

  But he had failed that promise, and he didn’t survive that. The discovery that he was too late, that she had ended up in the showers, had ended him. All of his fighting had been for nothing. By the time he gained his freedom, Irina was already long dead.

  He would have died, too, if Esme hadn’t found him. He had wanted to die. But not as much as he’d wanted to punish the monsters who’d destroyed their lives, who’d ravaged and tortured and starved his sweet bride before killing her and their unborn child.

  It shamed him still, the state of weakness Esme had found him in, the moment of vulnerability that had altered him forever, taking away his ability to die. He only survived now because he had no choice. And he would never be with his Irina again.

  As sleep overtook him, he dreamed of her. It was more memory than dream. They were together, in their little house, on the day the German tanks rolled into their village.

  “They’re here!” said Irina, rushing in from hanging the laundry out to dry. “Alek, the Germans are here! What should we do?”

  Alek dropped the newspaper he was reading and rushed to the window. Tanks lined the village square, and soldiers in S. S. uniforms were barging into houses and shops, dragging people out into the street. Swearing under his breath, he went to lock the door before turning back to his wife. “Stay calm,” he told her.

  “Stay calm?” She shook her head, her face frantic. “We have to hide.”

  He crossed the room to turn off the radio. “Hide where?”

  She looked around the room, as if the perfect hiding place might reveal itself. “Then we have to run. If we go out the back door—”

  “They’ll shoot us in the back before we make it twenty feet. ‘Rina, come here.” He opened his arms, and she dove into them, clutching him tightly. “We’ve done nothing. We have nothing to fear from them.”

  “But you have ties to the rebel faction! You’ve given them money. And we’ve given food to the Landaus!”

  “Shhh. They don’t know that. And that was all me. You’ve done nothing. You’re innocent.”

  She pushed back to look up at him. “It doesn’t matter. Sasha told me that they’re arresting people at random. Hitler wants vengeance!”

  He couldn’t think of anything to say to calm her. It was all true. She was right, they should hide. But where?

  It was too late. He could hear their boots stomping on the ground outside. He pulled Irina close. “Listen to me. It will go better for us if we cooperate. Don’t fight them. Just stay alive.” Tears welled up in his eyes as he lifted
her chin and looked into hers. He couldn’t bear seeing them so filled with fear. “Whatever happens, we’ll be together again. I swear it. I will find you, and the little one.” He put his hand on her swollen belly. “We’ll be a family again.”

  She sobbed against his mouth as he kissed her. They clung to each other, pouring all of their love for each other and their child into their last kiss, as the soldiers broke the door down. “No!” he shouted as his wife was ripped out of his arms. “Leave her alone! She’s innocent!”

  Someone shouted something in German in his ear, and the barrel of a gun pressed against his temple. He was forced to his knees.

  “No!” Irina screamed. “Please! Please don’t shoot him!” A soldier restrained her as she doubled over sobbing. “Please! Alek, I love you!”

  “I love you, Irina! I’ll find you!”

  They dragged him toward the door, but this time, he fought back. This time, he was too strong for them. His fangs extended as superhuman strength coursed through his body. He fought off his attackers, breaking bones and tearing flesh, until they all lay on the floor at his feet. He turned back to his wife. “We’re safe now.”

  But she had changed. Her head was shaved, and her naked body was reduced to skin and bones. Blood trickled down her legs, and she held her belly as she reached for him. “Alek!”

  “I’m coming, my love!” But even as he reached out to her, she doubled over, coughing and gagging. Her face turned purple, and as she dropped to her knees, blood and foam erupted out of her mouth. “No!” Alec shouted. “No! Irina!”

  He was still shouting when he sat up and opened his eyes. Disoriented from the dream, he didn’t know where he was at first. As he took in his surroundings, the events of the morning came back to him. Sunlight still peeked around the edges of the blinds, and he looked at the clock on the nightstand. He still had another four hours until sunset.

  He lay back on the down comforter and listened for Hannah’s presence. The house sounded quiet. He got up and padded to the door in bare feet, carefully cracking it open. There was no sign of Hannah or the baby, and she had left the curtains drawn for him. He found his way to the bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face. He studied himself in the mirror, and was surprised how haggard he looked. Of course he still didn’t look a day over thirty-two, even though he felt every one of his hundred years. It would be easier, he thought, if we had no reflection. How much simpler everything would be if I didn’t have to face myself in the mirror.

  He dried his face and returned to bed. The pillow smelled of Hannah. His head filled with thoughts of her as he drifted back to sleep. This time, he didn’t fight it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Hannah pushed the stroller down the main street, toward the building she’d first been brought to on her first night at the base. It was a gorgeous day, albeit hot for late summer. There was a slight spring in her step despite having only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before.

  As she walked past the house where they kept the store, she heard the bell on the front door, and looked up to see Chris coming down the steps. “Hey,” he said, coming over to her. “Out for a walk?”

  “We’re headed for the lab, actually. Alek offered me a job there. I’m supposed to go talk to Zach about the details.”

  His eyebrows lifted, almost imperceptibly. “He’s ‘Alek’ now?”

  “He asked me to call him that when he offered me the job. Why? What do you call him?”

  He shrugged. “Most folks around here just call him Doc. But then again, we’re not gonna be working with him on a daily basis.” He glanced around, as if looking for something that might be floating in the air, and shoved his hands in his pockets. He seemed slightly nervous. “Anyway, I was wondering maybe, if you’re not busy tonight, I could take you on the rest of that tour.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, if you’re not busy.” He pointed back at the store. “My mom already agreed to babysit.”

  Hannah grinned. “Then I don’t see why not.”

  Chris grinned back, and relaxed a little. “Cool. Um, I guess I’ll come by and pick you up about eight.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Cool,” he said again. “Um, okay. I’d better get back to work. See you tonight.” He backed away and gave her a cute little wave before turning and heading back inside.

  Hannah found she was still grinning as she made her way toward the lab. She bent toward the stroller and said, confidentially, “Sissy’s got a date tonight, Boo.” She could hardly believe it. An actual date with a cute boy. Talk about surreal.

  Her excitement about the date gave way to nerves as she entered the building that housed the lab. She followed the hallway back to the exam room where she’d gotten her stitches, but nobody was there. The entire building felt empty. She wished she was armed. “Hello?” she called out.

  Someone answered, “Back here!”

  She followed the voice to the end of the hall and through an open door. Inside was a white room filled with laboratory equipment. A lot of it looked fairly state-of-the-art. Zach sat at a counter that stretched across the back wall, hunched over a microscope. “Hello?” she said again.

  Zach looked up and spun on his stool to face her. Under his lab coat he wore a blue tee-shirt that read, “Lab Coats Are Sexy.”

  “Hannah Jordan! Come on in.” He pointed to Noah. “You here to get his blood drawn?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I mainly came about a job.”

  “Yes!” He slid off his stool and came toward her. “You don’t know how long I’ve been begging to have my own assistant. So you were a nurse, right?”

  “Nursing student,” she clarified. “But I was only in my second year.”

  “Close enough. Can you start tonight?”

  Hannah blinked. “Um, don’t you want to interview me, or—”

  “You’re the only person on this entire base besides myself and the doc with any kind of lab or medical training. Believe me, the job’s yours if you want it. You do want it, right?”

  “That depends. What are you working on?”

  “Didn’t Alek tell you?”

  “I want you to tell me.”

  He seemed a bit taken aback, and gave her an appraising look. “Well, the official story, as far as the High Council is concerned, is that we’re trying to synthesize a food source for the vampires.”

  “The High Council?” she asked.

  “Yeah. That’s the ruling body of vampires. They’re the ones running the show, and they could shut us down if they find out what we’re actually working on.”

  “A vaccine.”

  Zach pointed at her. “Correctomundo.”

  She folded her arms and gave him an incredulous look. “You’re seriously trying to cure the zeds?”

  “Zeds?”

  “Yeah. You know.” She waved a hand awkwardly to indicate their outer surroundings.

  Zach nodded as he seemed to get it. “Zeds, huh? I like that. But around here we mostly call them shamblers. Anyway, no, we can’t cure them. They’re already dead. There’s no coming back from that. Even a brand new shambler has already started to decompose, and if we did find some way to bring them back, the brain damage wouldn’t make their second chance worth a whole lot. What we’re looking for is a way to make the rest of us immune, to stop the spread of the infection.”

  “Do you really think that’s possible?”

  “I do. And I think we’re close. We’d better be, because it’s only a matter of time before either the Council catches on to what we’re doing or comes up with their blood substitute. Either way, it won’t be good for any of us.”

  “Paula told me that this camp is meant to be a pilot program. That the doctor wants to prove that we can all co-exist peacefully.”

  Zach nodded. “Unofficially, of course. I mean, clearly it’s possible, since we’re doing it. But....” He shook his head. “It’s gonna be an awfully hard sell out there. To the humans even more than
the vampires, I think.”

  “Yeah, it won’t be easy to convince people to live happily alongside their captors and murderers.”

  “It’s better than the alternative, though. Either we all learn to get along and help take care of each other, or we continue to be their prey until they figure out a way to survive without us. If we can develop this vaccine, then we won’t need them anymore, and that will give humanity something to bargain with.”

  “But why should humanity bargain?”

  “Because otherwise we become the same genocidal maniacs that they’re on the road to becoming. If we hunt them down and kill them all, we’ll be no better than them. Besides, the doc’s been working on a cure for them, too.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned that. So, what? He finds a cure, and then we hunt them down and make them all human again? How is that better than killing them? Either way, we destroy their race.”

  Zach backed away with his hands up. “Whoa. This discussion has gotten way too philosophical. So do you want the job or not?”

  Hannah bit her lip and looked down at Noah. He sat quietly in his stroller, entertaining himself by playing with his feet. Did it really matter what Alek’s motives were, or what would happen to vampire-kind if they found a vaccine? If they could actually make humanity immune to the spread of the resurrection virus, then they’d be able to combat the zeds, or shamblers, without fear of getting bitten. She would never have to watch Noah transform into a monster the way her mother had, and he would never have to watch that happen to her. This might be her only chance to actually do something, to help change the world for the better. Finally, she nodded. “But I can’t start tonight. I have a date.”

  Zach’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “A date? Huh. I think I vaguely remember what those are. Is Alek taking you out?”

  It was Hannah’s turn to look surprised. “No, Chris. Paula’s son.”

  She thought she saw a slight look of disappointment, but if so he covered it quickly. “Okay. How about tomorrow, then? I’m usually here all day, from about ten a. m. to ten p. m. You don’t have to work the whole twelve hours. I figure you can pick a six-hour shift — either ten to four or four to ten, or sometime in between. Whatever works best. We’re not picky.”