What Happens in the Darkness

by Monica J. O'Rourke

  She realized she wasn’t breathing and slowly exhaled.

  “This is stupid,” said one of the killers. “It’s a waste of time. Why don’t you just—”

  “Easy, Luke,” Patrick said. Then he crouched down and extended his hand toward the man with the child. “We don’t want her. She’s too young. You can leave her. Someone will—”

  “No, please! She’s my baby, please!” He wiped tears on his cuff. The child was wrapped tightly in his arms and was clutched against his body. Desperation filled his eyes, a knowledge that this was a lost cause, but he wasn’t willing to give up. He had a moustache that looked like a large fuzzy bug crawling across his mouth.

  “Please. Please! She’s all I have!” He started sobbing and buried his head against the child, until they looked like one bizarre form, arms and legs entwined in a headless mélange.

  “It won’t matter in a moment,” Luke said gently. “Trust me. You won’t care.” Then he said, “Patrick, we don’t have all night for this. We really don’t.”

  Around them, the new vampires began to stir, sitting up. A few moans, some coughs.

  Janelle realized she could be in serious trouble if they spotted her.

  Patrick shook his head, waving his hand at the newly rising dead. “They’ll kill them both. They can’t help it. Take the child. We can use the man. They can have the child.”

  “No!” the man screamed, but Patrick yanked the girl from his arms.

  The child, who seemed to be about five years old, kicked and screamed in his arms, stretching out her hands toward her father, screeching for her daddy with all her voice.

  Patrick turned suddenly and faced Janelle. “You! Girl! Come here.”

  Janelle gasped, swallowing back a breath that stopped midway down her throat. Her bladder suddenly felt too full.

  “I know you’re there, kid. Come out here.”

  Her legs refused to obey. Tears streamed down her face. She wondered how she could have ever been so stupid.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Patrick said quietly. “I promise. Now come here.”

  He promises? Is he kidding? But slowly she walked toward him. She knew she had no choice.

  “Take her,” he said to Janelle, handing over the child. “Take her and get away from here.”

  Janelle stole a glance at the crying child’s father, now flat on his back, blood gushing from a gaping hole in his neck. The one called Luke hovered over the man.

  She clutched the child in her arms, a girl almost as big as Janelle, and ran blindly with her through the moonlit streets, the sky dark and heavy with fog and ash and smog.

  ***

  Dagan crouched beneath a tremendous rock and wiped his hands on his knees.

  Rebecca stood over him, arms crossed, tapping her foot. “What are you doing?” she asked loudly, knowing it would irritate him.

  “Shhhh!” he said, looking at her reproachfully, motioning for her to duck down.

  The third member of their scouting troop, Tim—the other twin—followed Dagan’s lead and ducked behind a clump of bushes beside the large rock.

  “Really, Dagan,” she said, tossing her head, her black-blue hair shining in the moonlight. “They can’t hear you. Stop playing cops and robbers.”

  Dagan whipped his head in her direction. “You’re a spiteful thing, you know that?”

  She laughed. “Poor Dagan! Always after me lucky charms! Can’t have his childish fun.”

  “Stop makin’ fun ‘a me accent, ya bloomin’ harlot.”

  “Harlot?” She shoved him hard, knocking him over a shrub.

  “Quit that!”

  Tim stepped between them. “Both of you quit that. Would you stop already?” He looked from side to side, as if expecting an ambush from the lush forests surrounding them. “Someone will hear!”

  Rebecca stroked Tim’s face and kissed the tip of his nose. “It’s been too long for you, m’dear, sweet boy. Too, too long. They can’t touch us, remember?” She whooped loudly, throwing out her arms and twirling, head thrown back, laughter ringing through the still, black air.

  Dagan grabbed her arm and shook her. “Covert,” he said through gritted teeth, his brogue stronger the angrier he became. “D’ya know what covert means?” Of course his accent was occasionally indeterminable, and it sounded like he said, Dooya nuh whaa coova mains?

  Rebecca always knew what he was saying. She’d known him too long and despite the teasing was quite fond of him.

  She pulled away and smirked. “Lighten up, leprechaun.”

  A commotion at the bottom of the hill, and moments later lights were flashed in their eyes.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Tim snapped. “Can we go now?”

  Rebecca grabbed his hand. “Wait. You boys wanna have some fun?”

  Tim shook his head, an emphatic no, but Dagan was grinning mischievously, his green eyes dancing with delight.

  Tim groaned. “I’m too old for such nonsense. I really am.”

  Rebecca called out, “We give up!”

  A dozen soldiers rushed them, surrounding them, guns aimed at the vampires’ heads.

  “Vstanʹte na koleni!” one shouted.

  “What?” Dagan said. “English. What does that even mean? We speak—”

  “It means ‘get on your knees,’” Rebecca said.

  “How many bloody languages do you know?” he asked.

  “All of them.”

  A soldier shoved him to his knees.

  “See?” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Told you so.”

  “Y’know, you were right,” Dagan said. “This is fun.”

  She laughed. “Wait.”

  Metal flashed in the reflection of the flashlight beam, and their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Rebecca twisted and contorted her wrists, easily slipping out of the cuffs, letting them fall to the ground. Dagan and Tim followed her lead.

  “What the hell?” Another soldier started yelling at the one who had cuffed the prisoners, cursing him out for being so inept.

  Rebecca turned in a slow circle, examining face after face. “Come on,” she taunted, “I’m waiting.” When the guards began to laugh, she yelled, “Lets go!”

  Dagan and Tim remained kneeling but attempted to move out of the way.

  The first guard grunted, shaking his head, unzipping his fly. He kicked her feet out from under her, knocking her on her back.

  “No,” she said without inflection, “please. Don’t. Stop.”

  He backhanded her across the face and lay on top of her, fumbling with the zipper and button of her jeans, kicking her legs apart with his feet, strategically planting his knee, his experience at this sort of thing apparent.

  She was more disgusted than ever.

  Before he could enter her she wrapped her arms around his head, clasping her fingers at the back of his neck, drawing him toward her. She craned to meet him halfway, her movement startling him. She sank her teeth into his throat and tore it away, drinking the river of blood flowing from his now dead body.

  Dagan and Tim quickly joined her, attacking and defeating the small troop of soldiers, enjoying the taste of blood they had been so desperately craving.

  “This one’s still alive,” Tim said minutes later, poking the soldier’s leg with the toe of his boot.

  “We could bring him with us,” Dagan said.

  Rebecca turned the soldier over. “It’s a woman. You’re right, Tim. She’s breathing.”

  “So why don’t we? You know, bring her?”

  “Dagan, Martin said no soldiers,” Rebecca said.

  “So what?” He knelt beside the dying woman and studied her face. “It could be an experiment. See if it works.”

  “If what works?” she asked.

  “Using the enemy.” Dagan’s pale face flushed with excitement. “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Martin said no!” Tim cried. “It’s a terrible idea. We can’t take a chance.”

  “It’s not ’bout takin’ chances,”
Dagan said, his brogue less pronounced than before. “Martin says we might be ta usin’ them in the future, if we dunnah have enough people left. But he’s worried ’bout problems with language, maybe even loyaltay issues. Some ’a them’ve been indoctrinated since birth to hate Americans, ya know?”

  “Coward,” Rebecca muttered, grabbing the guard’s head and twisting, snapping her neck. “Even if she didn’t speak English it might have been interesting.”

  Dagan grinned. “Okay then. Go ’head.”

  “She’s dead, you asshole,” she snapped. “But you knew that.”

  He shrugged. “Enough games. Let’s go before the sun’s up.”

  They raced back to the base, moving unseen by human eyes, detected more as a feeling than as any tangible object by the animals watching from the surrounding woods.

  Chapter 9

  The church lay in ruins on consecrated soil—now a contradiction, considering its current occupant. The church, a vehicle for God, had been destroyed so easily, yet houses of sinners remained intact.

  The earth smelled faintly of dandelions and rotting flesh. The church had become the final resting place for many worshippers after a bomb leveled it. Now those worshippers were scattered throughout the remains, and whatever the scavenging animals didn’t carry off rotted in the hazy midday sun. No sparing the house of God, no empathy for those worshippers ground beneath marble pillars and splintered mahogany pews, desperately searching for soul’s comfort, only to be crushed to death mid-prayer. Was this reward, or punishment?

  The ground might have been sacred once, but now Patrick slept on it, covered by planks and paintings, half-buried in soft dirt, sheltered from the sun’s deadly rays. The ground cannot harm him. It had been forsaken by God, and now by man. Whether it ever held any power over him he doesn’t know, and it doesn’t matter.

  Patrick blinked away moist soil and watched the stirrings of a field mouse near his head. Instinctively he knew when it was safe to come out, knew internally the rising and setting of the sun. There were still a few minutes to go before he could safely leave his bed.

  Pushing aside chunks of building and brushing the dirt from his clothes, Patrick climbed out of his makeshift bed and surveyed the area. He thought for a moment to remember how far he had traveled the night before. South. Martin had instructed him to head for Florida. Even at his rate of speed he wouldn’t have been able to make a round trip in one night. So he’d stopped in Virginia … grabbed a bite … and found refuge in the church. Beneath it, anyway.

  He’d been sent out alone because he preferred it and because he was a scout, sent to survey other states, report on their circumstances. Those had been his orders. And he’d gone solo, ditching Luke.

  Now Patrick had other plans.

  A short while later he ended his journey in Miami. Even in ruins the city mesmerized him. The buildings in pastel colors, the gigantic signs, once so garish and bold, now so much smashed piles of paint and plaster. But it was all so big, so bold. He’d never seen anything like it. The last time he’d been out of that prison was …

  He thought. More than a hundred years? Was that possible? Back then electric streetlights were just becoming the rage, and now once again the streets were black except for the occasional generator and random headlights from those few cars manned by enemy soldiers, scattered flashlights, lanterns, and campfires. Patrick had seen images on TV but nothing could do it justice, not until he was outside in the world, experiencing it for himself. Now he could see how the world had changed, and not just from sitcoms and documentaries.

  Waters along the east coast were swamped with boats, teeming with military in black uniforms, their Global Dominion emblem stitched on the breast. The vast number of ships and soldiers was staggering, but that didn’t faze him.

  In fact …

  Patrick ducked beneath the shadows and waited. He didn’t have long to wait before he started seeing people, until they drifted toward him, and he waited patiently for someone to come along unaccompanied by others. These soldiers seemed to travel in groups, but he only needed one for his experiment.

  A lone figure trotted along the beach, headed toward him. Patrick sprang from the dark cover of shadows and attacked, knocking the unsuspecting soldier to the ground. He grabbed the soldier’s arms and drew the body close, yanking the helmet off.

  A woman. She looked startled, her eyes widening, her mouth contorting into a smirk.

  But he lifted her effortlessly to him, his eyes burning a crimson intensity, glowing in the dark, his starkly white fangs gleaming in the moonlight. He sank his teeth into the soft spot between neck and collarbone, tearing salty flesh, licking the spurting blood.

  With slightly more than a moan she collapsed. He scooped her in his arms and brought her to the tall rushes that surrounded the beach and laid her down.

  Then he waited.

  The movement of the tide marked the passage of the minutes.

  Using his own teeth, he tore a small hole in his wrist, exposing the vein.

  He fed her.

  Finally she died.

  And then was reborn.

  Her lashes fluttered, and flecks of dried blood floated from them like dry paint.

  “Ty moy bog!” she said to him, and with a sinking feeling he realized he had forgotten to find out first if she spoke English.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “This can’t—”

  “You are my god,” she repeated, this time in English, the accent heavily Russian.

  He smiled, relieved. “What’s your name?”

  “I am Natalia, my lord.”

  “Call me Patrick. Don’t call me ‘lord.’ Not yet, anyway.”

  She stared dumbly at him.

  He decided to ask her a few questions to test her loyalty. “Who is your lord, Natalia?”

  “You are my lord!”

  “Do you love me?”

  “With every breath in my body! With every fiber of my being.”

  “Would you die for me?”

  No hesitation. “I would die for you, my lord, my Patrick.”

  He snorted. “Good. It’s a start.” He stood up and brushed the sand off his butt. Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her to her feet.

  She wasn’t yet used to her transformation and stumbled as he dragged her away. He had no patience for her groping hands and staggering footsteps. And they needed to find shelter quickly.

  They headed inland and came across a more populated area. He had no idea where they were, but it didn’t matter.

  Not wanting to attract attention, they moved quietly, unseen by the groups of people littering the streets, huddled together over trashcan fires, groups playing music and dancing in the rubbish-strewn streets like it was one big party. So foolishly close to troops, but doubtful these enemy soldiers knew they were so close to being captured.

  Natalia glared at them, a wild effulgence in her eyes. Patrick recognized it immediately: bloodlust. Those weren’t people she was staring at, they were snacks.

  Inching toward them, she glanced at Patrick to see if he approved. He shook his head and she scowled, baring her budding fangs. Raising his powerful arm, he backhanded her across her mouth, knocking her to the ground.

  He dropped beside her, grabbing her face in his hands, hooking his fingers over her ears.

  “Don’t ever disobey me,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare show me your anger!” He yanked on her ears until she cried out in pain.

  “I’ll rip your bloody head off,” he said, pulling her within inches of his face. “Do you hear me?”

  She nodded vehemently. He let go. Natalia pulled away and fell to the ground, clutching her head.

  “You can’t have them yet. Soon, but not yet.”

  She didn’t reply.

  Once again he pulled her to her feet and led them away.

  A few blocks later they came upon the shell of a movie theater. Carrying flashlights he found lying on a countertop—the electricity was off in Florida too—they made their way to a b
asement storage room. His eyesight in darkness was keen, but he knew hers wouldn’t be. Not so soon after he sired her. Her body was still transforming.

  They made a bed among boxes of paper goods, bags of popcorn kernels the mice had raided, movie posters, and uniforms. They closed and barricaded the door. There were no windows, no source of sunlight.

  Turning off the flashlights left them in darkness. He felt her beside him, her body as still as if in the grave, no rhythm of breathing, no pulse or circulation pumping through living veins. For all purposes she was a corpse, as was he, which gave him a strange feeling of comfort. He still needed to test her loyalty. She was a foreigner after all, and the enemy, sworn to destroy Americans. And although he wasn’t human, he was still an American, of sorts. He had to wonder how trustworthy she would be. Already she’d shown him her temper, something new vampires would ordinarily rarely try, even in the middle of their transformation. Although she really was behaving like a vampire pup, he still had to be wary.

  Had he made a mistake, turning the enemy?

  “Sleep now,” he told her. “You’re not to move from here. Do you understand?”

  Her head nodded against his arm.

  No dreams came to him, but they rarely did. Dreams are ethereal, otherworldly. Some believe dreams are the link between an earthly dimension and a spiritual one. Whatever the source, dreams were not for vampires, for Patrick at least. An imagination might have spurred a dream, and he didn’t have that either. Whether or not he missed dreaming he could no longer remember, had he bothered to consider it at all.

  Half a dozen hours later he woke, the sensation of eyes upon him strong. Natalia was no longer beside him. While his eyes adjusted to the darkness he groped for the flashlight. He turned it on and scanned the room. He barely needed the light now, but he knew she needed it to see him.

  Natalia was curled up in the corner of the room, bunched fingers pressed against her mouth and chin. Blood covered her face and neck and clothes, and the gutted corpse of a rat lay at her feet. Her fingers trembled and her eyes darted, and she looked every bit the guilty child.