The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  Dan saw none of it, of course. The hood was still firmly on his head when Mancini hollered at somebody to open the gate, and the trucks rumbled inside. He listened intently, and heard the distant chorus of many voices, the background chatter of scattered crowds of people. It sounded like there were a lot of them, and overwhelmingly, the voices that he heard sounded young. Children; not nearly the hardened army of fanatics he had anticipated.

  Anxiety shivered in his gut as he considered for the first time that, maybe, the newfound confidence and assurance he had discovered might have led him in the wrong direction.

  The trucks continued on.

  Transporting Dan and the others toward the middle of the great circle drawn in the Colorado wilderness.

  Toward the centre of the bullseye.

  *

  Dan blinked as the hood was whipped from his head and harsh sunlight hit his eyes for the first time in an hour.

  He was sitting at a huge table in what looked bizarrely like a corporate boardroom, lit by a single window at the far side of the room. Through it, he got his first glimpse of the ranch, and felt a rush of surprise.

  Ranch in Colorado had conjured images in his mind straight out of old cowboy movies: he had half-expected to see rickety wooden buildings and horses, leather chaps and six-shooters, maybe even saloon-style doors. Instead, the low buildings he saw beyond the window were functional brick constructions, apparently erected with no consideration for aesthetics. Most were a single storey in height; none boasted anything in the way of decoration.

  He was instantly reminded of the Rennick compound back in south eastern England. There, the main house—a huge gothic mansion—had also been orbited by similar, newer structures, presumably built to accommodate the slowly growing population.

  Here, though, the effect was magnified: the rapid expansion of the place that Mancini had described had prompted Craven to create something like a fast-growing shanty town. The overall effect—completed by the series of high walls he could see in the distance, dividing the place into distinct, secure segments—gave the place the feel of a military base, or one of those giant American superprisons. The only thing missing was watchtowers.

  Which would, he thought, probably come in handy right about now.

  He lifted his gaze to the sky above the buildings. The sun was high now, and strong. He guessed it was already around midday. Time was slipping away, darkness approaching unnoticed.

  He turned his attention to the room itself. The walls were made of old, dark panelled wood; bare aside from three large LCD televisions which sat at head-height, their screens dark. Other than the dormant TVs and the huge table, Dan saw only one other feature in the room: a single side-table with a few decanters of liquor and some upturned glasses sitting atop it.

  The main table had seating for twelve, but for the moment, only four of the chairs had been taken. The British prisoners were still alone with Mancini.

  The American pulled a knife from his belt and slashed away the plastic cuffs that had bound Dan’s hands together since they had landed.

  Dan winced, rubbing at the sore flesh on his wrists, watching as Mancini freed the others in turn and removed their hoods. When it was done, only Remy remained shackled—leashed to one of the huge table’s sturdy legs by a length of rope. The dog looked distinctly unhappy about that, and peered up at Conny, as if silently asking for her permission to begin chewing through it.

  Conny scratched Remy’s ears, and he dropped his nose, chagrined.

  Mancini tossed the hoods into the centre of the table.

  “Nice place, Mancini. Decor needs a little work. Splash of colour would really make the place pop, you know? Hey, is that whiskey I see?”

  Mancini sighed heavily, and Dan chuckled to himself. Herb was just relentless.

  “I’ll be back with the Grand Cleric in a few minutes,” Mancini said gruffly. Apparently, he had decided that the best way to deal with Herb was to flatly ignore him. Dan didn’t think that would last long. “If anyone else enters this room while I’m gone, keep your mouths shut.”

  Mancini stared balefully at Herb for a moment and then, without another word, he stalked away. Moments later, Dan heard a door slam behind him and a lock engaged with a soft snick. Silence fell upon the room.

  “Alone at last,” Herb said, heaving a mock-sigh. He stood, making his way to the side-table and picked up a decanter, taking a large swig directly from it.

  “Rum,” he said grimly, wrinkling his nose. “Who keeps rum in a decanter?”

  He held out the drink, offering it around the table. No one responded.

  “What do we do now?” Conny said.

  “Now,” Herb replied, shrugging and taking another hit from the decanter, “we listen, and Dan talks.”

  Dan blinked in surprise as Herb turned toward him and met his eyes with a piercing stare. “You can start with the black river.”

  At the mention of the river, Dan felt a jolt of the old anxiety lancing his chest. Talking about it was the one thing he had avoided. For years.

  “You first mentioned it back in London,” Herb said. “It didn’t seem to me like something that had just occurred to you. It seemed important, and I’ve had a gut full of people keeping important information from me. So I want to know what it is, Dan. Right now. No more keeping us in the dark. If you know something, I...” he glanced at Conny, “we want to know it.”

  Herb sat back in his chair, folding his arms, and glared at Dan expectantly.

  Conny nodded, and her eyes, too, fell on Dan.

  Dan’s shoulders slumped.

  And he sucked in a deep breath.

  *

  Herb watched Dan’s reaction carefully. At the mention of the black river, his body stiffened momentarily, and his eyes lost their focus. Fear lined his face. It was, Herb thought, an instinctive response, like watching somebody snatching their hand away from a flame.

  Dan’s shoulders slumped, and for a second he stared straight through Herb. He looked like he was weighing up some terrible decision, some choice where every alternative was undesirable.

  Finally, he cleared his throat.

  “Two years ago, I was attacked by a mugger.” Dan reached up to his thick mop of hair, pulling it back from his forehead to reveal an ugly scar that ran down his temple. Herb blinked. He had noticed the scar once before, and had been aware of how keen Dan was to hide it. It was a subject Herb had meant to bring up, before events in London pushed it from his mind.

  “He stabbed me in the head,” Dan continued, letting his unruly fringe fall back into place. “I nearly died. Maybe should have died. I was in a coma for weeks. ‘Serious brain damage,’ the doctors said. “I was...lucky to be alive.”

  Tears filled Dan’s eyes, and he shook his head suddenly, as though he regretted saying anything. For a moment, his eyes were lost in memories.

  “I started to suffer panic attacks. Post-traumatic stress. That’s what the doctors said, and the therapist. It made sense, I suppose, and they told me that what I was going through was perfectly...normal. But each time I had a panic attack, I’d see the same thing. Visions, nightmares, whatever you want to call it. Always the same thing. A river of black water, pouring over me, sweeping me away. And every time I fell into the river, I would feel the same, like the current was dragging me toward something…awful. Death, perhaps. Insanity; I don’t know. Medication helped, a little, but I always knew it was there, bubbling away under the surface, waiting to take me away.”

  Herb’s eyes widened. “You think that injury changed you. You think that’s the reason the vampires can’t affect you.”

  It wasn’t a question, but it didn’t need to be. Herb saw the answer clearly. It was written plainly across Dan’s face.

  Dan remained silent, and stayed that way for what felt like an eternity.

  “I saw the river aboard the Oceanus, the first time one of the vampires tried to break into my mind. I saw it again in London, but it was different. When I was in the
vampire’s head…” Dan’s voice thickened. He swallowed audibly. “When I was in the vampire’s head, I think it saw the river, too, not just me. I think the river was speaking to it. Not controlling it exactly, but...I don’t know.” he shrugged. “I think the river is real. I think it is…how they communicate.”

  He shook his head again, slowly.

  “No, that’s not it. It’s more like something that is communicating with them. With all of them.”

  Herb frowned.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Dan snorted a humourless laugh.

  “That makes two of us. It’s hard to explain.” He paused, heaving a deep sigh, as though searching for the right words. “You know how ant nests operate?”

  Herb’s frown deepened.

  “I saw a show about it once,” Dan said, becoming more animated. “The ants have a queen, right? Each nest has a queen. And all the ants, all the soldiers and workers and flying ants, all the different types, they all operate in perfect harmony, because they are all directed by her. They work together, but it is the queen that lays down the rules, the queen who controls the whole nest. She is connected to all the other ants, and all her little footsoldiers are like one huge organism. I think the vampires work the same way. They are like insects. The ones we see are the soldiers, but something out there is commanding them. Organising them.”

  “So…each nest of vampires has a queen?”

  Dan grunted.

  “I think all the nests have one queen. I think the whole world is one nest. All the vampires, all over the planet, they are all in thrall to this one entity. They all swim in the black river. It is the river that directs them, that gives them purpose. The river that organises them; tells them when to wake, when to breed, when to attack.”

  “A river,” Herb repeated dubiously. The tale Dan was spinning was incredible, and difficult to believe, but it was abundantly clear that Dan believed it. As far as Herb knew, there was nothing in the history of the Order that suggested the existence of a vampire ruler, but that proved nothing. Virtually everything the Order believed had already turned out to be a lie, or poor guesswork.

  Could this really be true?

  Dan chuckled darkly.

  “I’m sure it’s not a river. That’s just what I see it as. Maybe that is how my mind makes sense of it, I don’t know. I think what I see as the river is the voice of their…leader, their queen, whatever you want to call it. Their god. When it speaks, I can hear it, just like they can.”

  “And can you understand it? What it is saying?”

  “No. When I see the river, the only thing I understand is that it is terrifying. Beyond my comprehension.” Dan shuddered visibly. “I don’t think the human mind is designed to understand it. But I think if we can kill it, we can affect all the vampires, maybe every single one.”

  “Affect how?” Herb said.

  Dan shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. I’m making leaps in the dark here.”

  Herb snorted. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Seems like my whole life has been one long leap in the dark, so why change now?”

  He grinned, but the humour was forced. Dan believed what he was saying, but Dan had also just got through telling them that he had spent years in therapy. That he suffered from brain damage. He used words like post-traumatic stress and insanity.

  “Let’s say this is true,” Herb said. “I guess if there is something that connects them all, it stands to reason that taking out that connection would harm them. But would it stop them? Kill them? That all sounds like movie-logic to me,” Herb’s expression was dubious, “if any of it is even correct. I mean, for all we know, this river really is just a product of your post-traumatic stress, right? No offense.”

  Dan smiled wearily. “None taken.”

  Silence fell around the table for several long moments.

  It was Conny who finally broke it. “How can you possibly know all this, Dan?”

  Dan shrugged. “A hunch.”

  “Not good enough.”

  Dan’s chin fell.

  “Back in Herb’s mansion, I sort of...flirted with a vampire’s mind. I didn’t take control of it—I didn’t know I could back then—but I did stop it for a moment. From that point on, I started getting these visions. It was the black river again, but it had changed. This time there were hands in it, reaching out for me. It felt like there was something out there trying to find me. I think when I did fully connect with the vampire on the roof of the hospital, it saw me. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I felt the connection. I felt its intelligence turning toward me.”

  Dan shuddered visibly. Clearly, it was a subject he didn’t want to talk any more about.

  Conny nodded cautiously.

  “When I was in the Underground system, in London, there were a group of them…in a train carriage. I was hiding, but I was this close to them. Inches away.” For a moment, Conny’s eyes fogged at the memory. “They were all…screaming together. Shrieking.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m not sure how to describe it. It was like they were all talking to something, all at once. As a group. It put me in mind of religious chanting, like they were reciting a prayer or something. So maybe what you are saying is true, but I’m not sure how any of this helps us. I mean; what do we do about it? They have a leader? Fine. It would make sense that if we can take out that vampire, the others would suffer. Maybe become disorganised. Maybe they would even all drop dead. But even if that were the case, we don’t know where it is.”

  “It’s not a vampire,” Dan said firmly. “I know that much. I’ve been in the mind of one of…those. I know exactly what a vampire mind feels like. This is something…” he trailed off, his eyes again taking on a vacant aspect as he searched for the right word, “bigger,” he said finally, shaking his head in frustration at his apparent inability to find the correct word. “Worse.”

  Herb rubbed at his forehead.

  “Do you have any idea where this river is?”

  “No. Not exactly. But it’s here, in America, I’m sure of it. It’s closer now.”

  “How could you know that?” Conny asked.

  “Because I can feel it all the time now. Before, it was distant. Sporadic. I could tune into it only when I was terrified; when I lost control of my emotions. But now...it’s here, right now. I can feel it in my head, running in the background. Like static. I’m close to it, I’m certain of that, but beyond that…”

  He trailed off, and Herb studied his expression closely.

  “There’s something you’re not telling us, Dan.”

  Dan looked at him sharply, and started to shake his head, but seemed to think better of it.

  “I think the only way for me to find out where the black river is, is to get inside the head of another vampire. Try to hold on to the connection as long as possible. When the river looks at me, I need to be able to look back.”

  There was guilt in his eyes; a sort of remorse in his tone. As he studied Dan Bellamy, Herb felt a dark revelation begin to unfurl in his mind. Dan wanted to face the vampires again. He was eager for it.

  “You don’t think the people at the ranch can fight them at all, do you Dan?”

  Dan shook his head.

  “But you’re willing to sacrifice them all, just so you can get a shot at coming face-to-face with a vampire.”

  “Better it happens here than in a city. It’s like you said all along, Herb: I’m special. Different. They will come for me, I’m sure of it. This way, hundreds die, not millions.”

  Conny slammed a fist on the table.

  “Fuck you, Dan. You could have stayed back at the runway, as far away from people as possible. You’re leading them here?”

  Dan shrugged.

  “I can only take one mind at a time, so I can’t take on more than a couple at once. I’ll need numbers to slow them down enough—”

  Dan’s words dissolved in Herb’s ears.

  “Numbers?” Conny repeated, aghast. �
��Is that what these people are to you? Cannon fodder?”

  “These people brought us here in shackles, Conny,” Dan spat back. “Craven thought she could cut me open to see what makes me different, just ask Mancini about that. And what do you think she would have done with you? All of you?”

  “Craven is dead,” Conny snapped. “You heard Mancini: half of the people here don’t know a thing about vampires. They’re just kids, Dan. Not soldiers. You know how these cults operate? How they aggressively expand? They sweep up homeless children, junkies, people the care system has forgotten about. Vulnerable kids who probably ended up here because it offered them a shot at having something like a home.”

  Herb watched as Conny’s anger engulfed her, and turned his attention back to Dan, waiting for him to respond, but the thin man seemed to think he had said enough.

  Christ, Herb thought. What a mess. He took another long swallow from the rum decanter, shuddering in pleasure as the warmth of the alcohol numbed his senses a little.

  “You’re certain they will come for you?”

  “Seems like I’m important to them,” Dan replied with a nod. “A threat. So, yeah, I think they’ll come for me.”

  “Then we have to make this place ready, however we can,” Herb said, ignoring the feeling of Conny’s eyes burning into him. “Mancini said they have explosives. We can rig this place to blow. If we’re lucky, we take them all out. Or most of them. Let them come for Dan. Draw them in here and blow this place sky-high.”

  “And what about all the kids outside, Herb?” Conny snapped, her voice laced with anger. “What about my child? What about all of us? If you two want to become martyrs because Dan had a vision, I’m not about to stop you, but I didn’t sign up for any of this. Neither did Logan. What happened to saving people? What happened to no more blood on your hands?”