The young woman sported a body sculpted from hard work and equipment taken from gymnasiums. Her orange tank top was cut before the ends reached her pierced belly button. Poe balked at bruising around her belly. She must’ve pierced it recently. Ouch! “I 129
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thought there was food rationing. They get omelets and pancakes while we make do with lumpy oatmeal for breakfast?”
Most of the food was packed away in buses and trucks in case of emergency evacuation. Sainvire, Joseph, Morales, and camp leaders decided that in order to survive, the larger group had to be divided and tucked away in places where no vampire would dare look. Four groups had been settled so far.
“Now, now, Michelle,” Habib began. “These people have come a long way and suffered greatly.”
“Suffered greatly?” she laughed. “They’re still alive, right? The only one who I see suffering are Jorge’s grieving friends. And let’s face it. He’s dead because of you, Public Enemy Number Two.”
The pointed stare full of barbed accusation would have wilted the strongest of men.
Fortunately Poe wasn’t a man but a girl who’d learned a painful lesson about torture and ready violence not so long ago. Poe pushed her plate away and stood up. “Thanks for breakfast, Habib. It’s awfully nice to see you again.”
“And look at the spoiled little princess, leaving half her plate full while we starve around here.”
“Oi, Sharren!” Maclemar bellowed. He wiped his mouth with a disposable napkin. “How can she finish her food with you taking the piss?”
“You’re the other boyfriend, aren’t you?” she wrangled. Her heart-shaped lips twisted into an ugly line. “Why don’t you finish off her plate and mind your own business?”
“Nice one, Sharren,” he said and gripped the fork like he wanted to stab her. “It is my business if she gets harassed by a bunny boiler like you. Can’t you 130
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people understand that I brought her here against her will and that I shackled her up on the railing of my ship? She was nearly done for by Revenents for chrissake. Who’d want to face hostile gibbons like you willingly?” He cleared his throat and added,
“And she’s nobody’s woman as far as I can tell, so geroff her!”
Poe needed some fresh air and let herself out.
She tuned out Maclemar’s guilty rants and the girl’s insults. Nearly puking, she spit out the barely chewed egg to the ground. A mother hen pecked at the food until it disappeared into her beak.
“Gross,” Poe said aloud then was startled to see that various people were working not too far from where she stood. Some shucked corn, others ground different kinds of grains, and a few opened cans to see if the contents were still edible.
Torturing the balding human in the forest had done something to her, especially since Jorge ended up dying from the same type of wound. About a dozen circled a wooden table, pressing and casting bullets. Fire was roaring on the ground to melt metal.
The people at the end of the table dropped garlic oil on the finished bullets.
The wry faces that greeted her with punishing silence were in no danger of harm from her fist or her guns that she’d worn openly in holsters like she was in the viperous streets of Los Angeles. She noticed that the ex-cattle also carried guns tucked in their belts and night vision goggles hung somewhere on their person at all times. Some even wore Kevlar vests in the sweltering outdoors.
At least they won’t go quietly when the enemy comes for them again.
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She suppressed a smile. Karma’s got me by the throat. And at least I didn’t sock that obnoxious girl with thick muscles. If anyone could intimidate me, it’d be her.
“Chickens will eat anything,” said a squelchy eight-year-old. The girl with solemn eyes and dark hair looked up at her. She wore a stained Princess Mononoke shirt and equally filthy jeans cut off at the knee. Flies were having a picnic around her skinned brown knees. “Even each other.”
Penny sauntered over, tail wagging, followed by a limping Chops. Many eyes were on Poe, and she knew it. There’s no way I’m going back inside with that toughie girl in there. And I’m not gonna run away.
“I guess so,” she answered. She pet Penny and inspected Chops’ leg. Her wound was swollen but no infection had set in. “Chickens are like the flies buzzing around your bloody knee – not very particular. They’ll take what they can get.”
“I remember you.”
“That’s nice,” Poe said. She expected an insult from the kid who’d probably been sent by a cowardly adult.
“A baby vampire had me dangling on the ceiling of that smelly tunnel, and it was going to eat me, but you shot him,” she said without expression. “I fell to the ground and sprained my arm, but it’s all fixed now.”
Poe cleared her throat and took a deep breath before answering. She did remember a child, the first she’d encountered since the Gray Armageddon, dressed in a potato sack. “I’m glad to know that. I try 132
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not to think of the subway anymore. Not a pleasant memory.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” the kid agreed. She reached down to tentatively pat Penny’s head. Once. “When I have bad dreams about the evacuation, I think about you, and I don’t feel so scared anymore.”
Poe nodded. She was unable to speak. She reached into her pack, kneeled in front of the girl, and procured globby antibacterial gel and two Band-Aids.
Without asking, she cleaned the skinned knees with gel and tissue and covered them. The girl’s expression remained unreadable.
“Um, I’ll see you later, kid,” said Poe. She couldn’t take her audience of ex-cattle any longer.
Their eyes were much too pregnant with judgment.
“I’m Percy,” she said, nodding gravely.
“My name’s Poe.”
“I know,” said the girl. She watched Poe walk the gauntlet of stares with brisk strides. The terrier mutt and the limping pig followed behind, loyal to the last.
Country air suited her after the initial sneezes that came with unfamiliar pollen and dust. The stench of garlic was tenacious but didn’t register after a while.
In her haste to escape the company of people, Poe followed the two-lane highway that used to be known as Pacheco Pass, overgrown with dandelions, sage, and the ever present garlic bulbs and the closely related family of shallots, lilies and onions. It was gratifying to bend down and grapple a handful of keeled green leaves to bring up bulbous gems. Their 133
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liquid potency could cause a fatal allergic reaction to most vampires.
However, she refused to walk through the fields.
She believed them to be infested by snakes and strange animals. A city girl’s peculiar nightmare.
“It’s like Little House on the Prairie around here,” she said to her animal companions. “I hope they don’t have rattlers and such.”
All the same she basked at being alone at last.
Now that she’d found the companionship she’d dreamed of the past years, she seemed to have changed her mind. She wanted solitude and peace from passive-aggressive ex-cows. And from over-aggressive Michelle.
“Careful what you wish for, Poe,” she chided.
“Your wishes might come true. And in the future you might just say ‘fuck off’ to cotton candy cravings.
Stick to reading, watching films, and kicking trees.”
The golden colors of untended fields and farmhouses in disrepair tugged at her heartstrings like excessively saccharine nature calendars. “If they could just combine this scenic prettiness with urban concrete living, then it would be something.”
Three miles of musings later, Poe’s wanderings led her to Casa de Fruta, the world renowned local produce stop just off the highway. The billboards along the side of the road were a mix of history lesson and fodder for the imagination.
One in particular said: The historic intersection of California State Route 156 and 152 was once called “The Don Pacheco Y.”
Several billboards advertised tempting gastronomic allurements with images of peeling produce and train rides to ensnare the hungry.
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Hollister’s Own Casa de Choo Choo!
Need Casa de Bathrooms? How about Casa de Petting Zoo?
Casa de Buffalo, home of three generations of Bison.
“World Famous Cup Flipper at Casa de Fruta,”
read Poe, admiring the sign and unconsciously licking her lips. “What does that mean, cup flipper?
Maybe I can find some food around there for Habib.
That’ll shut Michelle up.”
The need to earn her keep and provide food for the group gripped her. It was a fantasy of one who enormously yearned for acceptance. She couldn’t eat if somebody tapped his foot to check how many ounces she’d ingested already. “And I’ve got a terrible appetite these days,” Poe said to the clouds.
“Maybe running less will slow down my metabolism.”
Poe cautiously inspected the grounds before going inside the dilapidated building with open walls and empty stalls crusty from calcified produce.
“What a great place. It would be even better if there was some food left,” Poe grumbled after two minutes. There really is a train here, she grinned, noting a miniature train in the back that could seat up to twenty passengers. Wagons, carousels, and a pond filled with happy geese peppered the site. “No bison or dwarf horses,” she frowned. She brightened up when she spied a sweet shop a few yards away.
“No nuts, honey, jam, dried fruit, dried anything,” she complained after finding the inventory looted and disintegrated after so many years. The candy shop proved to be as barren, and she felt depressed. As Poe was stepping out, her flashlight 135
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shone to a corner where Penny was sniffing. The dog sorted through a pile of old drinking straws, and her behind swayed to and fro with animation.
“C’mon, Pen, let’s go.”
When the dog gave her an I’m-not-ready-yet look, Poe grew impatient. “Don’t make me get a leash,” she threatened. Then upon closer examination she noticed that the pile wasn’t made of drinking straws at all. They were honey sticks.
“I love you, Penny dog!” Poe shouted, and rained her pet with kisses. “I love you, too, piggy!”
She patted Chops’ head in case she felt left out.
She doubled up a brown paper bag and threw nearly a hundred honey sticks in it. High from discovering such a goldmine and the three straws she’d sucked with greed, Poe didn’t stop there.
Honey wouldn’t impress them as much as fresh meat.
Poe sat on a tiny tot bench and followed the fat carefree geese with her eyes. She’d killed plenty of vampires but never an animal for consumption. In fact she’d mostly avoided eating meat, canned or otherwise, since forever. Eggs were the only animal products that she ate. An incident with a can of Spam from the One Dollar Store had turned her off meat for life. The gun in her hand shook.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Poe told Chops who lounged by her feet beside a box of triple-action garbage bags. “I’d have to use a silencer. Wouldn’t want to attract the wrong sort.” I’m a frikkin’
vegetarian. What am I doing?
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Four fat geese lay dead inside heavy-duty bags.
Combined they weighed more than Poe. She had placed them in a rusty shopping cart that left her palms orange. It had two wayward wheels that constantly hung right along the splintered highway road. Chops, tired from walking, napped in the child seat.
All happiness derived from finding the honey straws vanished and left her ill and miserable. Twice she vomited on the side of the road. The smell of game and blood sickened her. It was like being on Maclemar’s boat again.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Poe told the geese jiggling like gelatin inside the bag. For the hundredth time she apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s sick what I did to you, especially for a really lousy reason.”
I’ll never do anything like this just to fit in, she vowed silently. “I’d rather be a hated loner for the rest of my life.”
Penny barked, looking up at the sky. From the corner of her eyes, Poe saw a speck quickly approaching in the horizon. Poe dabbed her eyes and blew her nose to compose herself as much as she could. In no time at all, Kaleb Sainvire floated down to the ground. The vampire had many talents that few creatures of the night ever attained in the second life.
Flying was one of them. He didn’t speak. He merely met her hard gaze with his curious one.
“Hello, Poe,” he said. He looked solemn in black t-shirt and black Dickies. “I see you got some game for Habib. He will appreciate it. I don’t think the people have had much meat in a while. You see, most 137
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refuse to eat the chickens. They’re saving them for when they get a more permanent home.”
“What do you want?” Poe asked frostily. She didn’t appreciate his coldness a few hours ago when he looked past her like she was invisible. He may not care about me, but a little respect wouldn’t hurt. At least in front of his people. In her mind his slight made it okay for ex-cattle to treat her like shit.
“I wanted to ask if you’ll be going to the burial,”
he asked. His voice was pleasant but tempered. “It will begin half an hour from now.”
“As much as I’d like to, I don’t think so.”
Sainvire didn’t force the subject, and Poe assumed that the master vampire was relieved. He scratched behind Penny’s ear.
“You still remember me, little Penny? You’re a good girl. Goss would’ve been proud of you.”
He looked worn, like someone sleep deprived.
The stubble on his face and his twisted shoulder that showed through his shirt made him look less than a master vampire. His misshapen right shoulder, a memento from extracted shrapnel during the Spanish Civil War where he had volunteered for the Popular Front, reminded Poe of the scars she’d touched when they made love two years ago. The Chicago native was a pushover for aligning with the losing side.
Sainvire’s gaze flickered and met hers. His fathomless silver eyes, holding memories that only Poe shared, disturbed her. She focused on the vertical line under his nose that met his upper lip. Many automatically assumed that the scar was a hare lip, but they were wrong. It was from tiny mortar fire shrapnel. Being an idealist had a price.
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That’s why I liked you, Sainvire. You’re damaged like me.
“You look really good,” he said with a nod. “I heard that you’ve been eating well and training like the devil, kicking trees every day.”
“Passionada told me you had spies look in on me.”
“Of course. Sister Ann and Goss would haunt me if I didn’t.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts. Only vampires.”
He cracked a smile that disturbed Poe to the core and frowned.
Who am I kidding? I love this vampire. That’s the more reason to head back home.
“I need to go home,” she blurted. “I don’t appreciate you having me kidnapped and roughed up.
I don’t want to be here. There are too many people here, and I’m not, I’m not used to them anymore,”
she paused, breathing deeply. “And I need to save some of my parents’ things before the old neighborhood gets destroyed.”
“I’m sorry, Poe, but you can’t go back there,” he said, patting the dog’s head once more before straightening out and looming over Poe. His startling gray eyes bothered her. “I wanted you safe, and I’m sorry if it was an unpleasant trip. The dogs were an accident. Passionada couldn’t control them.”
“Remember Superman 2?”
“Vaguely,
” answered the vampire with a look of confusion. “What’s that got to—?”
“Superman ditched Lois Lane right after the kinky lava lamps and fortress of solitude sex romps,”
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she said while raising an eyebrow. “You never cared these past years. Why now all of a sudden?”
“Believe me, Julia,” he said. “I had to fight tooth and nail not to leave the cattle we rescued to follow you to West L.A. I’ve never wanted to retire and be with someone so badly.”
Poe’s lips trembled. It didn’t take you long to find someone to replace me, did it? “You’re telling me this two years too late, Sainvire. You don’t know the pain I went through retrieving Penny with vampires scouring the entire city. You left me alone!”
Her dog had been recuperating in her underground bunker in Little Tokyo, a stone’s throw away from vampire lairs. Poe, with all the damage to her body, had risked death to rescue Penny despite the odds against her.
“I asked you to stay with me,” he said somberly.
“You said no.”
“You could have hog-tied me if you wanted to,”
she said almost inaudibly. “You’d rather be with your people, Sainvire. That’s just the way you are.”
Before she could say anything more, he raised a hand to stop her accusations. “Our caravans have to move every twenty days to keep Trench and Newbitt off our scent. It’s damn hard on all of us, even the vampires. In the beginning four hundred of us moved together, but that took a lot of space and resources.
We were ripe for conflict and disorganization, especially when the cattle could barely walk. We’ve divided the group to give us a fighting chance to survive. Many of us have been picked off over the months by amateur bounty hunters.
“It’s a hard life, so hard that even the most loyal choose to sell us out for a permanent home and a 140
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handful of cattle,” he said. His face hardened. “As you can see, our numbers have dwindled from the days of Downtown. This life isn’t exactly easy. But I’d rather see you live in this environment than be tortured and killed in West L.A.”
Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles Page 12