What Happens in the Darkness

by Monica J. O'Rourke

  Gunshots filled the room, but either the victims were really bad shots or the strangers were really lucky.

  A bullet found the head of the female stranger wearing a fluffy blue sweater. It entered her forehead and exited above her ear, a spray of blood coating the wall beside her, but the woman barely reacted. Her head jerked for a second, but the impact didn’t even knock her off her feet. She reached out for the gunman and grabbed hold of his arm, pulling at his wrist until she took the gun away from him—hand and all. He fell to his knees and screeched, tucking his stump under his armpit, leaning forward until his head practically touched the floor. She lifted him by his scalp, ripping away a chunk of it. He threw his head back and squealed, blood pouring down his face, blinding him. He lifted his stump into the air as if a sacrifice, his mouth open wide, great sobs shaking his body. She kicked him over on his side and drank from the hairy, bloody chunk of his scalp like it was a chalice.

  Some managed to escape. The hidden exits had finally been remembered, but only a handful made it out. Janelle was nowhere near an exit and couldn’t get her legs to cooperate anyway.

  Across the room, the two little boys who had been fighting over the candy bar were being dragged toward the vault by their moms. But bodies were piled up on the floor, blocking the vault door, so they were unable to close it.

  The boys were grabbed by two of the strangers, and the two moms attacked, screaming and punching and kicking.

  “No!” the shorter mom cried, grabbing the woman’s long black hair, trying to pull her off her child. But the stranger turned quickly and backhanded her, and the short woman flew through the air, smashing loudly against the wall with such force her shattered teeth flew out of her mouth. She collapsed dead, her head twisted halfway around her broken neck.

  “Mommy!” the boy shrieked, but the black-haired stranger pulled him back by his shirt and grabbed him by the throat, tearing it out, the flesh separating from his body in a loud ripping sound, like fabric being torn. Blood poured out, covering the woman’s arm, and she lifted it to her mouth and sucked it back.

  For a moment blackness filled Janelle’s vision, and she knew she was about to pass out. She punched her leg wound hard, where the dog had bitten her. Pain streaked through her leg, but at least she was fully conscious again.

  Blood streamed across the room like a sprinkler gone mad. The screams were thinning out to dull whimpers and muffled cries. The seven strangers relentlessly attacked until almost no one was left standing.

  Janelle slid back across the floor, farther from the carnage, sweat-soaked fingertips sliding on the tiles. Her foot struck the wall. She’d backed herself into a corner.

  Bodies were piled everywhere; they lay draped across chairs and tables, piled in heaps scattered throughout the room. Everyone but a handful of children were dead.

  Janelle started crying, and she turned to face the wall, not wanting to see what was about to come after her. I don’t want to die! She forced herself to look back at the room.

  The killers wandered from body to body, kneeling beside them, leaning over them, their hands hovering over the dead faces.

  “This is taking too long,” the dark-haired woman said. There were two women. The other five violent strangers were men.

  Janelle wondered what was taking too long.

  “Patience, Lana,” the yellow-haired guy told her.

  Janelle slowly slid across the floor, moving stealthily, praying not to be seen by the crazy ax-murdering psychopaths. Well, psychopaths. They’d managed to slaughter a roomful of people without using weapons.

  Janelle had to get to that vault, but at least four bodies were in the way. She had to figure out how to move them and—

  This was suddenly no longer an issue.

  The bodies on the floor began to move, struggled to sit up.

  The dead bodies.

  They shook their heads and sprayed blood on the walls. They climbed to wobbly feet and fell back to their knees. They scratched the walls and moaned. They used what they could to pull themselves to their feet.

  Janelle’s eyes widened to the point of pain.

  Not everyone got up. The forms of babies and small children remained still. A few children had been left alive, untouched, but not many.

  Janelle waited until the vault door was clear and bolted to her feet, running shrieking inside the vault. She pulled the heavy door closed. It slammed and locked, as Matt had warned her it would. Pitch blackness overtook her, and she was reminded of her terror in the subway tunnel where she couldn’t see a thing. Her breath was ragged, and she ran her hands in front of her face, terrified one of them was in here with her, that somehow it had managed to follow her. Or a dead body was in a corner and was going to rise like the others had. They had been dead, she knew. They weren’t wounded or hurt or knocked out. They were dead! Their bodies were soaked in blood and brains, their clothing dripping with the heaviness of their own fluids. Their throats had been ripped out, their necks ravaged, limbs torn and broken and flopping.

  These people should not have gotten up again.

  And now one might be in here with her.

  It was still better than what was out there.

  But she was safe. She would stay here forever, in this blackness, curl up and go to sleep and never wake up. She would dream about her dead mom and dead dad and three dead brothers and knew she would see them again someday. The thought of her own death wasn’t as terrifying as she suspected it would be. She lay down on the cold tiles and curled into a ball. She thought her eyes were closed but felt them blink. Sleep would come soon enough. Then she would need water, but didn’t have any, and then she could die of thirst. Death would be—

  The vault door flew open and was ripped right off its hinges.

  The door Matt told her weighed hundreds of pounds and would keep them safe from anything, even a bomb exploding.

  Janelle sat up, her mouth opened wide in shock. Outside the vault the seven strangers stood, watching her.

  Janelle scrambled across the floor until she hit the corner of the small room.

  The yellow-haired man smiled at her. “I didn’t think you’d want be trapped in there, young lady.”

  What?

  He shook his head and smiled, flashing blood-stained teeth.

  The black-haired man moved across the vault with such speed Janelle was shocked when a split second later he was in front of her. He reached for Janelle and she shrieked, backing away.

  “Leave her be, Patrick,” the yellow-haired man said.

  “Go to hell!” Patrick responded, grabbing Janelle by her feet.

  She kicked at him, legs flailing desperately. He easily caught her shoes and dragged her toward him.

  The yellow-haired man appeared as quickly as Patrick had and grabbed Patrick’s shoulder.

  Janelle raised her hands to block her face, screaming for help at the top of her lungs. When Patrick let go, she scrambled across the floor, slamming her back against the wall, pulling herself into a ball to make herself invisible.

  “Bastard!” Patrick cried, pulling himself away from the other man. “How dare you?”

  He shook his head. “You defy me?” He punched Patrick in the face, knocking the younger man to the floor.

  “She’s food! What do you care—”

  Patrick scrambled to his feet and the two men stood face to face, Patrick’s arms straight out by his sides. His extended fingernails looked like tiny knives to Janelle.

  “Leave. Now.”

  Patrick stared for a few seconds more but then left without another word.

  The yellow-haired man stared at Janelle for a few seconds. Janelle froze, panicked, her breath hitching. The stink of death was powerful, and she knew it was coming for her.

  But then he left as well.

  She heard him address the dead people in the room. “Everything will be explained to you in time. For now, follow me.”

  But not everyone obeyed. At least three of the recently dead spe
d across the room toward the vault, their crimson eyes filled with hatred and bloodlust.

  Before they could reach Janelle, the yellow-haired man beat them there and stood in their way. “No!” he yelled, and the three immediately stopped. “Not now. Come with me.”

  He pointed toward the doorway, but the three refused to move.

  “I said come with me,” he repeated.

  Two left, but the third man stared at Janelle, his face pinched with rage. He ran his bloated tongue over his blue-veined lips, and his panting increased. He reached out toward Janelle …

  The yellow-haired man grabbed him by the head with both hands and twisted until the man’s neck snapped. He dropped to the floor dead. Again.

  With that, the yellow-haired man nodded at Janelle and left.

  No one else argued. They formed a small group and were led away.

  ***

  When her legs finally stopped trembling and she felt brave enough to venture out of the vault, Janelle crawled out. Most of the kerosene lamps had been knocked over in the attack and others had burned through the fuel. Small fires dotted the room, highlighting the carnage.

  Janelle fled the room, screaming until her lungs ached and until she reached the top of the stairs. Only when she reached the landing did she think it might not be such a smart idea to be yelling her head off. They might still be around.

  She staggered into the street screaming, not caring if they heard, but it seemed no one at all was around.

  Chapter 7

  Martin led them back to the base. The new sires were directed to the bowels of the army building, to the cavernous sub-basement rooms that had imprisoned so many for years. The difference now was Jeff had removed the bars, as Martin had instructed.

  Their sleeping quarters were in depths behind the covering of what had passed as a living room, a cave-like room with scalable walls and dirt floors. Why the army had thought this was an appropriate home for Martin and his family escaped him—he assumed they thought of them as animals—but they had adapted and felt comfortable there, in spite of it being their prison.

  The exhausted new members of his family stretched out on dirt or on blankets, curling into fetal balls, or wrapping themselves together, limbs entwining, bodies meshing like puzzle pieces. They fell asleep quickly and easily, no longer burdened by a conscience, no longer troubled with ordinary events that in the past had caused so many sleepless nights.

  Martin expected this, knowing they would need to rest for at least twenty-four hours. He left them and returned to the living room.

  Jeff was sprawled in the brown leather recliner, foot dangling over the side. He looked up as Martin approached.

  “I’m sorry if we woke you. We tried to be quiet, but they’re … new at this.”

  “I suppose it’s hard to keep a herd quiet.”

  Martin pulled up a chair and sat opposite Jeff. “You’re afraid. Aren’t you?”

  Jeff scoffed, dropping his foot to the floor, sitting up in the chair. “Of course I am! What the fuck did you bring back, Martin?”

  Martin rubbed his hand across his chin and looked surprised. “What did you think would happen?” He laughed. “Seriously—what exactly were you expecting? You ask me to help you win a war, and then act surprised when—”

  “Not this. Not this, Martin. I wasn’t expecting this! And you made me remove those damned bars.”

  Martin exhaled deeply, trying to remain calm. He wasn’t easily excited, but once angry, it was difficult to control. “So what were you planning to do? Keep us locked up? Have us return to our cage night after night? Get this through your head, Jeff. We’re out now, and we’re staying out. This isn’t going to change, ever! So don’t act so damned surprised.”

  Jeff studied a stain on the arm of the chair, tracing it with his fingertips. He stopped when he realized it was blood. “How many did you bring back?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t count. Maybe thirty.”

  Jeff whistled under his breath. “Manhattan?”

  Martin nodded. “There are communities everywhere. I found several groups living in bank vaults. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.” He folded his arms and closed his eyes. “I could smell them. I thought I’d lost that … living down here there was no need. I was sure I’d be unable to hunt the way I used to, so many years ago … but it came back.”

  “How nice for you.”

  Martin opened his eyes to see the expression on Jeff’s face, the curling of his upper lip, the narrowing of his brows. Yet Martin refrained from responding. He knew Jeff was upset and thought he could give him a bit of leeway here. Not too much; Martin didn’t have a high tolerance level, although Jeff was an exception.

  Still, it was annoying, waiting for Jeff to come around. Martin didn’t consider an alternative … he knew Jeff would adapt. He wouldn’t give him a choice.

  Jeff stood up, hands clasped behind his back, and paced. “I didn’t see any children.”

  “There are a couple in the group. The rest we left behind.”

  He stopped pacing. “Left behind?” His normally bright eyes were clouded with weariness and sadness, as if filled with the weight of the world. “What does that mean? Tell me you didn’t kill any children.”

  “Look, Jeff—”

  “Tell me! Oh, God!” he moaned, grabbing his head. “Not this. This is my fault. My fault.”

  “When we first got there— Look, you know we hadn’t eaten in weeks. Weeks. You stopped bringing us food. We had to choose between them and the adults in the room, and you know we needed the adults for other purposes.”

  “But couldn’t you have done both? Drank from them and still make them into what you are? Isn’t that right?” Jeff screamed, spittle flying from lips. “Besides—you’ve been surgically modified. You certainly have control over who you can change and who you can’t.”

  “Most we left alive. But it’s over now, so calm down. That way takes too long, and the one thing we don’t have in abundance is time. This way was quicker. And children don’t generally make good vampires, especially very small children. They do work in surprise attacks, but even then that’s a limited resource.”

  “Kids.”

  “Get over it! My plan is to obtain another hundred or so and bring them back here. My family and I will handle it. I won’t be using any new members yet—they’re still too weak, and I don’t have the time to start explaining everything. In another day or two we’ll begin moving about the country. Has the enemy reached the states yet?”

  Jeff nibbled on the cuticle of his thumb and stared over Martin’s head, deep in thought.

  “Jeff. I asked you a question.”

  His clouded eyes locked with Martin’s. “What? Um, yes. They have. There was no sign of them in New York City? I’m surprised. I understand they’ve infiltrated major cities. New York, Miami, cities with military bases.”

  “But they haven’t attacked us.”

  “They have, on a small scale. We’re not known as a major force, so I suppose that’s why they let a bomb handle it. This base was built here mainly to house you, and for some training purposes. But it won’t be long before they make their way up here. Before we lost radio communications, I learned those assholes are everywhere, taking prisoners.”

  Martin nodded. “So their ultimate plan seems to be domination but not total destruction.”

  “Resources are rich in this country. They’d be idiots not to want to take over. But like I said, we lost communications. I haven’t spoken to another base in days. And it’s not like I’ve been able to leave here. The last report I received, six more cities had been bombed, and each—”

  Martin grabbed Jeff’s wrist and leaned into his ear. “Join me,” he said abruptly. “Join in this fight!”

  Jeff took a step back and yanked his arm away from Martin’s grip. “I’m already in this fight.”

  “No. Become one of us. You—”

  “No! I’m not interested.” He stared at Martin as he took ano
ther step back. “I need some rest. See you in a few hours.”

  ***

  Bony rock structures pointed accusing stony fingers from ceiling to floor in the cave that was their sleeping quarters.

  Martin listened to the raspy cacophony of the dozens of bodies that lay sprawled in the blackness, the light sleep-sounds of the undead.

  For now they slept peacefully, all trace of fear and reservation gone. Of course, he reflected, they would no longer know love, but there was still loyalty and companionship. That would never change. So what were they giving up, really, for eternal life?

  Loyalty. Martin crossed his arms over his chest, staring into the blackness but seeing well anyway, another benefit of his life. He closed his eyes and felt the energy, the heart of the group. They would die for him—again. They would die for the one who had changed them. And his family was loyal. Always had been, this small group going back hundreds of years.

  Martin crossed to another room, a small cave with several beds. There was never a need for modesty, or privacy, and he and his small family had shared quarters since the beginning of their incarceration, when the military had first captured them, keeping them alive to study them like lab rats. He remembered how macabre—yet strangely funny—that they had first provided them with coffins.

  He stretched out on a bed, the springs creaking lightly beneath his weight. He crossed his arms under his head and blinked up at the ceiling of rock, planning their strategy.

  ***

  Dazed, Janelle ambled along the city streets, still searching for survivors. Hours had passed and she’d seen no one, and she began to believe she was the last survivor. Maybe everyone else was dead. She knew this wasn’t true, had heard cries and screams and yelling in the distance, but she might as well have been alone. No one was there to save her. This was so unfair. How could life be so unfair to a kid?