What Happens in the Darkness

by Monica J. O'Rourke

“We hide then?” one asked.

  Martin looked around at the people surrounding them, hidden from view, tucked into doorways and behind rubble. Faces full of fear and loathing, faces belonging to people wanting revenge to end the scourge in their lives.

  “Too dangerous,” Martin said. “We have to get away from here.”

  The children stepped out of the safety of the shadows from their crouched position behind a car.

  “Janelle,” Martin said, his back to her, “good to see you again.”

  She and a little boy crossed the street. The boy seemed reluctant and tried to pull her back. He nudged her with his elbow. “You know him?”

  She nodded. “That’s Martin,” she stage-whispered. Then she said, “Hey, Martin. This is my friend Thomas.” She walked up to the vampires, absentmindedly fingering the cross on the chain around her neck.

  Martin said, “What are you doing here? Changed your mind? Want to come with us?”

  “No way. But I heard what you said. About needing a place to sleep. I can help you if you want.”

  Martin smiled and cocked his head. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “’Cause you saved me once. I’m repaying you.”

  The vampires looked at Martin.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to trust you.” He glanced at the sky again. “Not much time left. What do you have in mind?”

  ***

  In the penthouse apartment Janelle and Thomas called home, the vampires slept. They had covered the windows with blankets and heavy drapes, obscuring the room from any possibility of light. They slept piled on the bed and on the floor, limbs entwined, curling against one another like a pit of vipers.

  In the living room, Janelle and Thomas sat uncomfortably, wondering if they’d made a mistake bringing the vampires here.

  “We should sleep now,” Janelle said. “Be up during the night. Like them.”

  Thomas nodded but said, “Do you trust them? I mean, if we sleep—”

  “They can’t come out in the daylight.”

  “Yeah, but suppose we sleep, and then it gets dark out, and they sneak up on us all fangs and stuff hanging out and drink our blood?” He looked panic-stricken, his dark skin ashy, his brown tea-colored eyes bulging.

  “No way, Thomas. They ain’t bothered us up to now. They didn’t kill us last night, did they?”

  “Well duh, of course we’re not dead, but that’s cuz we saved them last night!”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed a package of cupcakes off the coffee table. “You’re just being stupid,” she said, stuffing the cake into her mouth, wiping cream from her lips with the back of her hand.

  Thomas handed her a napkin. “Geez, wipe your mouth, Janelle. You raised in a barn?”

  Janelle accepted the napkin but ignored the remark. “They could’ve killed us anyway. Or even when we got back here. And besides, Martin saved me once before. I—” She cocked her head and shrugged. “I trust him.”

  “You gotta be kidding.”

  “No, really. Sorta.”

  Thomas grabbed another package of cupcakes and fought with the wrapper. “We could leave. Run away.”

  “What for? This’s our home. No reason to run.”

  Thomas stared at the bedroom door as if expecting Martin to come walking through, into the sunlight-strewn confines of the living room. “I dunno,” he whispered. “They scare me.”

  Janelle tucked her feet up on the oversized leather sofa and leaned her head against the armrest, burrowing into the soft, thick cushions, her eyes closing in exhaustion. “Stay up if you want, but I’m going to sleep. I want to be up at night.”

  She felt his eyes on her even with her own closed, but she ignored him. He could be such a baby sometimes. She thought boys were supposed to be brave, but all he seemed to do was whine and freak out over everything.

  What did it matter if he slept or not? She planned to be well rested, planned to become nocturnal. She planned to keep a close eye on Martin and his vampires.

  ***

  The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center had turned out to be the perfect location: moored off the Bronx mainland, entrances easily guarded and booby-trapped. This section of the barge contained fifty maximum-security cells, and satellite control rooms provided clear sightlines to Patrick’s fodder. Two hundred humans were packed into the fifty cells, locked down for the remainder of the night and the ensuing day.

  He left the cellblock, his vampires following. There was no reason to trust humans to guard his livestock, not when they could be securely locked in cells. If anyone bothered to infiltrate the prison and rescue them it wouldn’t matter anyway; he could always restock.

  For now they left the floating prison and returned to their quarters, a basement apartment in nearby City Island that they boarded up, blocking all windows and doors. They entered through the one door they had left unboarded and sealed themselves in.

  When they returned the next day they entered the cell area. Some of the prisoners rushed the bars while others sank into the back and tried to hide in the shadows.

  The din of curses and threats, of bravado and terror, rose in pitch, despite Patrick’s demand for silence. There had to be a better way to control them, Patrick decided. He couldn’t allow such discord—it was setting a bad example if he continued to allow them to disobey. He was losing control.

  “Get one of them out,” he instructed Kem. “I don’t care which one.”

  A cell door was opened, and despite the prisoners’ attempts to escape, they were no match for the strength of the vampires. A woman was plucked from the group and yanked out of the cell. She clutched the bars for dear life, wrapping her arms around them, apparently wanting nothing more than to be trapped inside once again.

  Her fingers were wrenched from the bars and she was thrown to the floor in the center of the room. Patrick hovered over her, staring down as if trying to decide the punishment of a puppy that had wet the floor.

  The endless begging and yelling from inside the cells had finally ceased. Patrick could smell their fear, could taste it on the air like a fine layer of dew, and could feel the tamping heartbeats.

  Delicious.

  The woman on the floor cowered, arms crossed above her head as if to stave off his blows.

  Patrick snatched her wrists and lifted her off the floor, her feet dangling, wrist bones cracking and snapping like dried kindling on a forest floor. With his free hand he reached for her, clawed hand outstretched, slowly finding its way to the wildly struggling woman’s throat.

  He thrust his fingers into her mouth, his arm disappearing down her gullet, clawing past the epiglottis, digging away at tissue and shredding the skin of her throat until he reached the trachea and esophagus. He severed pieces with razor-sharp nails and pulled them out of her throat, buckets of blood pouring out with the severed parts. Her arms batted away at Patrick, and her legs kicked like a dog scratching at fleas on its belly until she finally went limp.

  He dropped her and she landed heavily on the floor, legs twisted in unnatural positions, head cracking against the concrete.

  Presenting her esophagus to the prisoners like an ancient sacrifice, he lowered it to his lips and licked it clean. Stringy flecks of tissue and sinew dangled from his chin.

  Patrick smiled, wiping the gore away with his sleeve.

  “Anyone have anything to say?” he asked the terrified prisoners, his overly wide grin revealing teeth caked in pieces of the woman’s throat.

  From the corner of the room a vampire approached Patrick and whispered in his ear.

  “What? Where?” Patrick’s head snapped in the direction of the exit.

  The messenger vampire pointed at the door, then the ceiling, and then shook his head.

  For the first time, Patrick was concerned. “Well what do they want?”

  “What do you think they want?” the vampire minion snapped and then bowed his head. “I’m sorry! Please forgive my—”

  Patrick grunted, shoved the soldier aside.
Moving quickly, he approached the window and looked out. Torchlight, spotlights, and flashlight beams filled the darkness. Hordes of people stood on the shore, every one of them sporting a gun of some sort. Patrick assumed the bullets were now wood, lethal toward vampires. How quickly they had caught on.

  “We can’t get off this ship,” the soldier said. “They’ve taken our boats.”

  Patrick glanced over his shoulder. He was tempted to take his fear and anger out on the young vampire. But he knew that would be a waste of time. And even stupid vampire soldiers were better than nothing.

  The rest of Patrick’s small army filed around the room, glancing out windows at the scene outside. Ashy gray moonlight filtered through the clouds, spotlighting the people flanking the floating prison on vessels of all sizes.

  “Where the fuck did they all come from?” Patrick muttered. “And where the fuck are our boats?” How stupid he’d been. He hadn’t planned for this, had underestimated how many humans were still alive—and how many would be willing to fight the vampires.

  “I think I see the boats,” Kem said. “But they’re too far. We have no way off, unless we swim.” Kem rubbed his hand across his chin. “What do you think they want?”

  “Want?” He rubbed his eyes like a sleepy child. “Us, of course. What else?”

  So this is how it ends, he thought bitterly, long fingers wrapped around metal window bars. He cursed his stupidity, his cockiness. So sure no one knew where they were, certain no one would dare oppose him. Yet there they waited, eager for a taste of his blood—so to speak.

  His mind scrambled, tried to formulate a plan, but nothing would come. There was no way off this floating prison, and no place to hide here. They could use the prisoners as leverage, but even that would be short-lived. The ones outside could wait out the vampires, wait until sunrise, and then that would mean the end of any standoff.

  Hundreds out there, bearing torches and flashlights, arrows and wooden shafts honed to pointed, deadly ends, guns filled with specially made wooden bullets. If unarmed, he would be able to defeat them as he had time and time again; his speed and prowess would ordinarily be no match for them. But they had come prepared.

  “Um, Patrick?”

  He turned at the mention of his name. In the doorway, a man—a human—leaned against the frame, crossbow slung over his shoulder.

  “I’m Rudy,” he said, approaching Patrick, clearly not afraid of the roomful of the undead. “Can you spare a few minutes of your time?”

  Patrick forced a smile, an attempt to hide the sneer, and nodded. He was taken aback by the man’s assertiveness. And he wondered how in the hell the man had managed to not only make his way onto the ship but to find Patrick and approach unimpeded.

  “How can I help you, Rudy?”

  The prisoners in the cells approached the bars. The dead woman was still on the floor, the pooled blood congealing around her body, the viscera of her throat spread around her head like a cloak. The prisoners looked desperate, panicked, but chose to remain quiet.

  The vampires remained where they were, positioned around the room, also unmoving, waiting for Patrick’s command.

  Rudy grabbed a folding chair from against the wall and sat, his chest against its back, long legs splayed on either side. He shoved his long black trench coat aside and leaned on his forearms.

  “Mind if I sit?” Rudy smirked. “Anyway, as you can probably see—well, we’ve got you surrounded.”

  Patrick folded his arms across his chest. “I see. So, are we acting out some bad western, or what?”

  “Uh, no. Sorry. Just wanted to state the obvious.”

  “I hope you’re not waiting for us to surrender.”

  Rudy shrugged. “No. Nothing like that.”

  “We won’t go down without a fight. We’ll take as many of you with us as we can. Starting with you.”

  Rudy laughed, shook his head. “Patrick, Patrick. This is starting to sound like a bad western.”

  Patrick snarled, his eyes flaming, and he knocked Rudy onto his back before Rudy could even detect the movement. His legs were up in the air, dangling over the chair, and Patrick had him by the throat.

  “What the fuck kind of game are you playing, asshole?” Patrick’s face was inches from Rudy’s.

  Rudy struggled against Patrick’s hands, trying to dislodge the vampire’s fingers from his throat. “Wait,” he sputtered, trying to breathe. “Listen—”

  Patrick lightened his grip but didn’t release him. “Speak, pig.”

  “Let me up …” he gasped.

  “Speak or die!”

  Rudy’s ponytail had come undone and his dark hair fanned around his head. “I have a proposition. Please. Let me up.”

  Patrick let go, let the man crawl off the chair and struggle to his knees.

  Rudy slowly stood up, righted the chair, and sat. “We need your help,” he said, rubbing his neck.

  “With what?” Patrick dragged a chair beside Rudy and sat, waiting patiently for the man to continue. Now that boundaries had been established, Patrick felt surprisingly good about the situation. He might still end up losing this battle, but he felt sure of himself again. That momentary loss of confidence was gone. At least there was that.

  “We don’t like the way this is turning out,” Rudy said. “It’s chaos. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah out there. We feel we need to stop it.”

  “We who?”

  “There are several hundred of us. We started this battle fighting vampires. Wanting to, anyway—but we could never find any. We were always one step behind, it seemed. Always left cleaning up the aftermath of your attacks. Until now, of course.”

  “Don’t be smart,” Patrick snapped.

  “I don’t mean nothin’ by it. We got lucky. One a my guys saw one a yours one night and followed him here. It happens. Sometimes we get lucky, right?”

  Patrick shook his head, wondered which one of his army had gotten so fucking sloppy.

  Rudy continued. He rubbed one wrist until Patrick thought the man was going to flay the skin off his own body. “We all know where this is headed. It’s insanity out there. People running through the streets like wild animals. There are no rules anymore. No society. No control.”

  “So take control. Create a police force.”

  “No, it’s no good. We’re outnumbered a thousand to one, not to mention outgunned. It’s not just New York, it’s everywhere. I don’t know what’s happening out there, but people are loving it. The worst of it is, they’re armed to the teeth. We’d just be fighting another war.”

  “That’s impossible,” Patrick said. “It can’t be that bad. People crave order. They crave society.”

  “Some. But not enough. It’s just not enough.”

  Patrick looked around the room, studied the faces of his followers but received no help. They were sheep, waiting for him to guide them, to make the decisions. Their blank stares were no use to him.

  “We’ve created a task force,” Rudy said. “Will you and your … people … help? We need to start imprisoning people. Create order. End the chaos!”

  Patrick shook his head, wisps of hair falling into his eyes. If only he’d gotten a haircut before becoming a vampire … cutting it now would be useless—it always grew back almost immediately. He would forever be young and in need of a trim.

  “We’ve already done that, Rudy.” He gestured toward the cells.

  “This would be different. You could be more … selective.”

  “Imprison the people you want.”

  “Well.” Rudy blinked, looked around the room, settled in staring at the prisoners. “Like I said, we’re trying to rebuild a civilization. The way things are now, it’ll never get back to normal. We’re dooming ourselves. And don’t think for a minute the enemy won’t strike again.”

  “Most of the enemy are vampires! The rest are dead. Casualties of another war.”

  “Yes, enemy soldiers.” Rudy leaned forward, more animated, the hands in his lap twisti
ng like a pit of vipers. “Did you know they’re regrouping on foreign soil? What—you think they sent every soldier to the states? Think again. They’re plotting plan B. And even worse—”

  “The bomb.” Patrick smiled. “I’ve heard about it. Iraq’s chemical bomb. My army’s primarily comprised of foreign soldiers—some were key players in the Global Dominion intelligence. I know fully well what they’re planning.”

  “Oh. And that doesn’t bother you?” Rudy’s mouth clamped shut. He rubbed his palm down his face and cupped his chin.

  “No. Should it?”

  Rudy looked incredulous. “You’re asking if a bomb should concern you?”

  Patrick nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first bomb to go off on this soil. Won’t be the last. Odds are with us—my people—that it won’t make a bit of difference to us. Why should it concern me?”

  Rudy slowly nodded. “Makes sense. I guess. Then what do you suggest?”

  “As far as what?”

  “Winning, of course.”

  Patrick stood up and walked back to the window. He stared at the hundreds of faces below. The crowd was quiet. Waiting. “Other than leaving US soil? That’s a stupid question. There’s no way to win. Not for any of us. Man against man, man against vampire, vampire against vampire. It’s useless, Rudy. It’s a waste of time.”

  “We have to try something! We can’t continue like this.”

  “So while you’re wondering whether a bomb is going to annihilate your population, we should in the meantime lock everyone up? Makes sense to me …”

  The air felt suddenly warm, thick with sweat and worry, filled with a primal fear and desperation. The smell surrounded him, wafted below him. And he wondered for a fleeting moment if it wasn’t coming from himself as well.

  What would he be protecting if he said no? What would be left to fight for if everything was gone?

  He looked back at Rudy. Anxious, desperate Rudy with the long black hair and long black coat.

  “All right,” Patrick said. “Why not? I’m in.”

  Rudy exhaled, visibly relieved. “That’s great, that—”

  “One condition.”

  Rudy paused. “What is it?”