Created (Book 1 of the Created)

by Shaw, Shannon

  The feasting continued for a half hour. Bellies distended, many of the wolves laid down to rest. Others cleaned themselves, savoring the cleaning of bits and scraps clinging to wet fur.

  The feeding was both disgusting and fascinating. Lead by my own hunger, I too had my fill of the carnage. The ghastly feeding was a necessity among us. Rationalizing the need to consume the flesh of another being was status quo to make it through the strange new world which had accepted me. Returning to the fridge, I was about to open the door when there was a loud smack at my door.

  Darting to the door, I peeled back the curtain again to find the stripped of flesh fore leg of a cow lying on the floor of the porch guarded by a black wolf with a long silver of blond.

  The animal knew I was there. Outstretched, the wolf panted and watched me. Blood was thick around the muzzle with a chunk of flesh that was stuck in between the upper jaw teeth of the jaw.

  Finally, the wolf tired of our game of staring. The brash canine urinated on the gift of desiccated meat before walking around the house into the night.

  Befuddled with what had transpired, the night was swirling around in my head. The last two nights were in fact dancing inside my noggin. I decided a drink was needed, and since I had recently learned that I didn't drink anything for any purpose except blood, then blood would have to suffice. Alcohol would not quench thirst. Alcohol would not erase the thoughts since my militarily created metabolism would require gallons just to get a buzz. Fortunately, there was plenty of blood in the fridge. Blood I would need if I were to live forever like the pages in the binder implied.

  Grabbing a bottle of O negative, I hesitated then popped the top opening. The smell, the aroma was maddeningly delicious. Frantic compulsion filled my mind. My body acted without regard to my guidance which was becoming an occurrence for which I needed to find a remedy.

  The directions implied the special designed container would make the blood taste better if warmed for five to eight seconds.

  Throwing the bottle in the device, I pushed six seconds and waited. The warming blood wafted into my nostrils driving me insane with desire. Ripping the door open, I grabbed the bottle and poured the liquid into my mouth.

  The sensation of the dark red blood reacting with my taste buds left me tingling from head to toe. The bottle was empty before I knew I had consumed the entire contents.

  My head felt light. Dizziness followed. Steadying myself against the countertop, I waited for the feeling to pass. Feeling better took a while longer than I anticipated, but I recovered enough to know that I had to read the briefing for tomorrow and get some rest.

  Sliding across the room toward the bedroom, I feel a sudden uncontrollable need to lie down. Like any other teenager with an assignment due on short notice, I decided I would rise early enough to read through the paperwork then get ready for my first day of high school. I laughed silently to myself when my decision sank into the large cycle of thoughts, clogging my wearisome brain.

  A stray macabre thought did stand out as I removed my shirt. I couldn't help but to burst into convulsive laughter. Something I strangely reconciled to silliness. I wondered if while at school it would be ok to eat one of my classmates. I knew, of course, that it would at least be frowned upon by the school administration.

  Chapter 16

  Sleeping was not an issue for my generation of vampire.

  Many on the Farm had to hibernate during the day in an abandoned building or in a hole somewhere and roam at night. Some were the Hollywood style vampires that were created to live in coffins emulating vampires from the golden age of the silver screen which went into a canonic state while entombed. These were scattered within two zones as were others of different linage and stock. Many of the other generations, I had learned through reading, lived together in communal homes either in the red or pink zone. An entire generation may live together under the command of a single leader.

  The last three generations before me lived according to self-selected means and not the predetermined movie style nonsense that was meant to strike fear in the hearts and minds of the enemies of the U.S. These vampires had adapted to sleeping to recharge while positioned in beds like the humans we were to resemble. This approach brought us closer to the human aspect of our former selves thus maintaining a semblance of cover reality.

  Sleeping was the word loosely associated with the act of lying in a bed at night, though a vampire could go for weeks without a proper rest as long as blood was readily available for consumption. The pages from the night before had directed that each night I try to maintain regular habits of sleeping and eating to ensure my sanity. I had to accomplish fooling the humans to believing I was one of them and irregular habits might cause a break which could propel me to become vicious and inclined to feed upon weaker creatures. I knew the phrase weaker creature referred to the human teenagers I would be around every day. In retrospect, this was sound advice, especially since I was a newbie to controlling blood lust.

  The sleep was unlike sleep, but closer aligned with a waking coma. In the coma, I was aware of self and dreamed vividly of my days as a member of the undead, but there was a detachment that made the organic world, from whence I was a part of, a construct of fantasy and imagination. In a single word, the coma was relaxing.

  The buzzing of an alarm clock, that I did not remember setting, awoke me from a repeated loop of the previous day’s events. I was surprised that the dreams would not be prone to drive a vampire insane. A tortured hell so to speak, but the guide had listed this as item fifty-seven of one hundred sixty-eight. The imagining of past events was a safe guard to help maintain vampire identity and to be honest it was only an annoyance rather than the hell it should have been. Again it was calming.

  There was a lot to being a vampire I had yet to understand and was sure it would be a while before I learned enough to not be a danger to myself. The thought was redirected when a familiar smell brought me fully from the last vestiges of my rest. The smell was of limes. The limes were part of a recent memory. Where did I know that smell was the question fracturing my mind with possibilities? The question tugged at me. Somewhere in my scattered thoughts, I finally miraculously placed the origin of that fragrance: Darby?

  Eyes wide staring at the ceiling, I could detect there was another shape in the bed with me. Before I could turn my head to verify her presence, the form pushed the sheets back and stood, stretching toward the ceiling a couple of feet beside the bed. Daring to look, I sheepishly inched my head in her direction.

  She was standing with her back to me, her golden blonde hair loosely hanging down her bare back. Her seminude form was wearing only a pair of pink boy short cut panties, which accentuated her shapely and surprisingly muscular body.

  I tried to look away especially when I caught her casually watching me in return. The staring was hard to resist. Darby was delicate, yet alluring in ways I had never seen in a human.

  A small smile spread on her face when embarrassedly I diverted my eyes. I found myself wanting to look again, but chose to stop when primal stirrings began within me. I knew those urges would become more externalized if I did not stop the thoughts of how badly I wanted to feel her against me. Especially how it would feel to pull her back to the bed and have her body writhing against mine.

  Periodically, I would sneak a small peek that would become a leer even though it was never my intention. She dressed provocatively, teasingly at first. Darby slid her ruffled skirt up as deliberately and as agonizingly slow as she could. This was an elaborate game of seduction, and I appeared to be the prize she was seeking.

  I rolled over to face the sliding doors which I now noticed were slightly ajar allowing in a cool summer breeze.

  Whispering to myself, "So that is how she got in."

  She tilted her head to gauge my reaction or hear my mumblings, but maintained the same pacing.

  Then sped up to a blur, once she realized we were running late as broadcast by Veronica's voice echoing from the living
room that the bus would arrive in the next fifteen minutes.

  In an instant she was gone.

  The sliding glass door was fully shut. Relieved that the unbelievable situation was over, I flopped over on my back. I was hoping Veronica would give me a moment to relax and catch my breath, but she didn't.

  "We need to talk. Are you dressed?" Veronica inquired as she knocked.

  Not waiting for an answer, the vampire pushed the door open as if I had invited her into the room.

  She stood in the doorway allowing me time to adequately cover myself.

  Veronica was dressed in a reserved manner in a pretty red and pink dress. Her hair was a lighter brown today, pulled into a pony tail. She had accomplished the look of average girl next door except she still maintained a ravishing quality that Darby would never achieve.

  Veronica broke the silence, "I see Darby didn't waste any time in trying to get to know you or in leaving."

  I wasn't surprised that she knew because I could still detect the lingering scent too.

  "Nothing happened. I mean I woke up and she was here beside me. I don...,” I stammered before she cut me off.

  "I know that too. Darby is a great friend to me and will be to you too after we get her past this association, this bond that has been created between the two of you. She is naive enough to believe there is love after what happened. I have tried countless times to explain to her that there cannot be love between any of our kind. Unfortunately the innate qualities that were part of us as humans are maintained to a certain extent after reanimation and Darby seems to have been either a confused teen or a hopeless romantic. Neither one of those will help keep her alive during an assignment."

  I shifted uneasily in the bed as I spoke, "I never thought that I led her on. If niceness and civility are not allowed without being misconstrued here in bizarro world, then I guess I will never fit into the mold of heartless vampire."

  The words must have stung because Veronica remained without a response as she opened the closet and shuffled through the garments. The search she was conducting didn't take long to complete because soon she threw down a white and red polo and plaid shorts upon the foot of the bed. Then she pitched a pair of brown sandals onto the floor at the end of the bed.

  Facing me, Veronica's skin looked hard as stone as the direct sunlight pouring through the sliding door shone onto her face.

  Sensing my discomfort at the realization of what we must look like when the sun exposed our truth, Veronica stepped around the bed to avoid further exposure. "I think you misunderstood my comments about Darby. There was no accusation of wrong doing."

  She paused as if in deep thought about what to say next.

  I allowed her to gather her thoughts by sitting silently in my bed.

  Sitting down at my feet Veronica said, "You were Darby's first at two major events in her life and it means a lot to her that she try to continue her relationship she now sees with you."

  My few hours since I had been a vampire had been full of mystery, questions and growing danger, both perceived and real, so I should have known more than I had when I first started, but still I was a novice. I was tired of being full of questions and having to rely on myself appointed guide for everything which undoubtedly now included spelling out what she meant when she opened her mouth and picking out my clothes for school.

  With a huff, I asked in a perturbed manner, "What relationship? I didn't ask her to get in my bed and again I have never tried anything with her. Is she crazy?"

  Veronica was patient and did not resort to raising her voice though what she said next was very sternly presented. "Vampires in our world can neither sire others to become like us nor need to be sired in order to finish the process from changeling to vampire. The virus must be in place within a subject and allowed time to take the person to the next level. It reanimates then shifts the body from the human realm into the realm of the undead. Darby thought you would die without blood and offered you her blood which you readily accepted. The vampire blood prompted you to finish becoming your new self. Thus she has a perceived psychic bond with you that is unheard of so far in our generation, but I guess is possible that you two are now connected for eternity."

  Dumbfounded all I could squeeze out was a weak, "Oh."

  Veronica slapped my sheet covered leg hard then stood. "You need to get dressed. We still have some time."

  Sitting up and rubbing my leg I said, "I thought we only had a few minutes before we had to leave."

  She smiled before she spoke, "I lied to get Darby out of here without hurting her feelings. I just want you to continue to be yourself around her and hopefully the attachment might fade or lessen especially after I talk to her about her conduct this morning."

  I shook my head up and down to indicate I understood the need for the deception.

  To allow me to get dressed, she turned to leave. I called out to stop her, "You said there were two things and you mentioned only one. What was the other?"

  Veronica started walking away as she responded with a hint of laughter. "Her first orgasm."

  Chapter 17

  We watched the other bus depart before Veronica's team bordered the one to take us to our new high school.

  The team consisted of three female GV16s: Veronica Stace, Darby Clark, and Chloe Garrett, a willowy redhead who was about as friendly as a pissed off cobra. I determined quickly Chloe's disposition when I attempted to say a simple hello and she shot me an evil glare.

  The other half of the team including myself was all male. The other two were Logan Andrews, a skinny, weary looking kid who did not look old enough to shave, and Liam Mansfield, who was a huge mountain of a man with bulging biceps and who played the strong silent type to the hilt. Neither acknowledged I even existed as I took a position between the girls in the front of the bus and the boys in the back.

  The seating I had chosen was out of necessity on two fronts. One was to allow or separation from Darby and hope that Veronica was right and her feelings would dissipate. The second was to sit nearer the males in the unit in order to get to know them without hurting Darby.

  I didn't want to cause a rift in my new friendship with the girls because I privately worried that if I had to count on anybody except Darby and Veronica I would be in big trouble. So remaining close to the two could be critical for survival. The thoughts would make me worry and less believable so I fought to squelch the doubt.

  I passed the time of leaving the base by studying the changing environment of the Farm. We passed by the seemingly abandoned buildings that were home to Bayne and his vampires, then unkempt fields covered in tall weeds and grass, kept fields of freshly planted crops and the woods in which Veronica had rescued me. Clearing the last of the woods, a shape flickered along the edge of the tree line, but was gone before I could determine the nature of the being.

  The remaining base topography was similar to what I had already seen and for the next twenty minutes I considered the possibility of it was a test until another town of dilapidated buildings inhabited by many varieties of impatiently roaming wolves put us all on alert as we rolled down the main street.

  The wolves ignored us for the most part except for a lone howl from a monstrously huge grey wolf standing beside a windowless general store. The wolf seemed to issue a call that settled down the yelping and frantic pacing. A multitude of the wolves sat down on the sidewalks and the roadway to watch us drive through the town. Twenty or more scattered to hide in the shadows of hulled out buildings and alleyways to be given away by their glowing eyes.

  The event was tense for a few fleeting moments then the town was far behind.

  Soon the military facility was before us. The expanse of the base was not measured in blocks, but in miles. Pods of buildings and barracks stretched as far as even I could see. The active facilities were easily given away by the numerous guards surrounding each and the barriers within barriers with additional observation posts as compared to the less active ones which sat without
the additional protections.

  The gate before us was a mish mash of long concrete shapes and armed guards. The bus driver stopped the bus a quarter mile from the gate and allowed a human soldier to gain admittance. The first passed the manifest and id through the open door to a rather stocky bald soldier who was standing outside matching the information to the data on his clipboard.

  The young soldier on board with us was sweating and nervous, his hand inching ever closer to his sidearm.

  His actions made everyone on edge, including our very human driver who talked to the man calmly, "These students are just kids and mean no one any harm so we need to relax."

  The advice feel on deaf ears as the guard continued to fidget with his right hand until finally Veronica spoke, "If I were you Scott, I would realize that we are also trained soldiers such as yourself who are being sent on a mission. We are all on the same side here."

  Again the words did not have the desired effects as the man spoke, "You are a waste. You are not soldiers, but killers who are lucky to have survived this long."

  Veronica smiled then turned cold when she answered, "Listen dick, if you want to die today, try to draw your gun. Before it cleared the holster, you and your buddy would be dead."

  The clipboard toting soldier stepped onto the bus before the younger man could be react to Veronica. Pushing the upset man from his way, the guard passed the information to the driver, thanked him then shoved the other man in fatigues from the bus. The rough action caused the man to stumble and almost fall onto the pavement before the soldier righted himself.

  From my vantage point as the base was shrinking from view, I witnessed the bald soldier strike the younger man several times violently, the last blow knocking him to the ground. The fallen man was surrounded and dragged from the pavement by men wearing military police insignias into a nearby hummer.