What Happens in the Darkness

by Monica J. O'Rourke

  “What of it?” Patrick dropped his dinner on the floor, a look of shock forever frozen on the dead woman’s face.

  “Don’t you want to form a plan? We should get ready for them.”

  Patrick laughed and wiped his bloody palms on his pants. “We’re ready. We outnumber them a hundred to one. We’re stronger. Faster. Smarter.”

  “You underestimate the enemy,” Kem said. “That was our downfall as humans. You want to make that same mistake?”

  “They’re coming tonight,” Patrick said, “but it doesn’t matter. Tonight we kill as many of them as we can, but you know it doesn’t matter. They’re insignificant. They’re a passive lot, easily dispatched, easily ignored. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You keep saying that. Why doesn’t it matter?”

  “Because we’re not staying.” Patrick walked along the cellblock and glanced at his cattle.

  Kem rushed to keep up. “Rudy wants us to regain control of the city,” Kem said. “You have something else in mind?”

  “The city. Who gives a fuck about this city? This country?”

  Patrick stopped at a cell and watched the prisoners scuttle to the corners like roaches. “There’s no challenge here. I knew this would make things easy, but it’s no fun. There’s no excitement, plucking some stupid human from a cage. This is not how it’s supposed to be. I spent more than a hundred years in a cell being fed the same way … I don’t want this anymore.”

  Kem stood silently at Patrick’s side, his head cocked like an inquisitive dog’s.

  Patrick said, “I’ve secured passage to Europe. Tomorrow at sunset we fly to Russia.”

  “Russia?”

  “We start in Russia. Unopposed. No vampires to worry about, Kem. Nothing to stand in our way. We work our way across Europe, building our army. Then we return here and control the states in ways Rudy never dreamed of.”

  “How many are you taking?”

  “Thirty to start. You’re to stay here to continue operations.”

  Kem nodded. “But what about food?”

  “What about it?”

  “If you keep creating these vast armies, you’re going to diminish the food supply.”

  Patrick pointed at the cells, waved his hand, and spanned the room. “We have our food source. We’ll raise them like cattle, breed them. Our own farm. Only we’ll let them run free within confines.” He chuckled. “Free-range humans.”

  “Yes, but what about the bomb?” Kem asked but quickly shut his mouth. If Patrick heard him, he gave no indication.

  “Very good plan,” Kem said quietly, but then looked away from Patrick’s stare.

  ***

  Janelle flashed her crucifix in the monster’s face, but he slapped her hand away and grabbed her by the throat.

  “Wait—” she gasped, her voice choked off.

  Janelle saw a second vampire grab Thomas and twist the boy’s arms behind his back a moment before she dropped the flashlight.

  “What are you doing?” the first vampire asked Janelle. It was too dark to see them, and her flashlight now lay useless on the ground, the beam spotlighting a shrub.

  Janelle coughed and struggled to get away. The vampire loosened his grip but didn’t let go. “We’re here to see Martin,” she managed to say. “He, he, um, invited us.”

  The vampire dipped in close, bringing his nose up to Janelle’s neck. He sniffed hard. “You’re human. Why would Martin invite a human?”

  Janelle swallowed the lump in her throat. “Huh-he, he’s, he’s a friend,” she stammered, chuckling from terror and not humor. “Wuh-we sorta saved each other.”

  “Let her go!” Thomas said.

  Janelle rolled her eyes, afraid he was going to make things worse. “Shut up, Thomas.”

  “Let’s go,” the vampire said. “This way.”

  ***

  Janelle and Thomas sat on the sofa in the dimly lit cave. Martin sat facing them on a folding chair.

  “I just want to know if she’s here,” Janelle said after telling Martin why they’d come.

  Martin remembered a conversation he’d had with Paula after she’d seen her daughter in Manhattan. How Paula seemed distressed that she’d lost her maternal instinct and wanted nothing more than to drink the child’s blood.

  “Why?” Martin asked.

  “She’s my mom!”

  Janelle glanced at Thomas, who was scanning the room, his eyes impossibly wide. Vampires entered and left and barely gave the kids a second glance, but Thomas had curled up in the corner of the couch, his knees raised to his chest, and he hugged himself as if that would somehow protect him.

  “Janelle, I don’t think you understand. Your mother … she’s … it’s not what you think. It won’t be like it used to be,” Martin said.

  “She’s one of you. I know. But I don’t care!” Her head dropped so she could hide the tears that fell no matter how hard she fought to keep them in. She wanted to look strong, not like some crybaby girl.

  “It matters,” Martin said. “I don’t want you to be hurt. Your mother isn’t the same as she was before the war. Do you understand?”

  Janelle nodded and looked up at Martin. “But she’s still my mom. Doesn’t she want to see me? Doesn’t she love me no more?”

  “I really don’t know. But we don’t feel love the same way humans do. We feel loyalty and a sense of family for each other. I don’t know if she can care for a human being, even her own daughter. It’s just the way we are.”

  “Well it sucks,” she muttered. “Can I see her anyway?”

  Martin nodded. “I’ll get her for you. But I wanted us to have this talk first. I wanted you to be prepared.”

  “Okay.” She examined a scab on her wrist. “I still want to see her.”

  Martin was silent for so long Janelle finally looked up at him, fell into his dark eyes, wondered what he was thinking. His eyes had a calming effect, as if she was falling asleep inside them, as if they could somehow protect her.

  “I don’t want you to have unrealistic expectations.” His voice was soothing.

  She nodded numbly, suddenly aware of how relaxed she felt. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Thomas had fallen asleep beside her, finally succumbing to exhaustion.

  But Janelle was too excited to sleep. Excited and nervous. As relaxed as she now felt, sleep was still not a possibility.

  Martin extended his hand. “Come with me.”

  ***

  They entered what was apparently a bedroom, still inside the caves. Janelle craned her neck, awed by the impossibly high ceiling. She didn’t think they had wandered this far underground.

  A cold draft drifted through the cracks in the rocks and made her shiver. Janelle pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. The blanket smelled odd—she was unsure just what the smell was—something like a plant, an earthy aroma, like when her mother repotted ferns. Mom …

  Janelle looked up. Paula stood beside Martin in the doorway.

  “Mom!” Janelle jumped up, wanting to run to her, but she hesitated.

  Paula stepped inside the room and Martin quietly backed away.

  Whatever fear or hesitation Janelle had felt melted, and she ran to her mother, the mother she’d thought was dead, the mother now standing with her inside the room. Janelle threw her arms around Paula’s neck and squeezed, and waited for Paula to hug back.

  “Oh, Janelle,” Paula whispered.

  Janelle sobbed and clutched tighter, afraid to let go, afraid of losing her again.

  But Paula never hugged back, and she finally pushed Janelle gently away. “Are you all right?”

  Janelle nodded, unable to stop crying. Now everything would be okay. Now her mom would be here for her, would make everything all right.

  “I thought you were dead, Mommy. I thought I’d never see you again.” She ached to be in Paula’s arms, wanted to be rocked, to be held. She didn’t care what Martin had said—she knew that once her mom saw her again, everything would be bac
k to normal. But now, she finally understood what Martin had meant, and she didn’t know how to accept it. The mother Janelle had known would have held her. The mother she had known wouldn’t smell like the blanket, like dirt. This wasn’t Janelle’s mother. Not anymore.

  “Janelle …” Paula led her to the bed and they sat. “Didn’t you know that I … what happened to me? What I’d become?”

  “When I saw you in Manhattan, I knew what you were. But I don’t care! It doesn’t matter, Mom. I have you back, that’s all I care about.”

  “It’s different now. I’m different. I’ll always remember you, Janelle. But I’m not the same. I don’t … feel things the same way. Do you understand?”

  Janelle wouldn’t look at her. “No. I don’t understand.” Speaking was difficult because she was trying to hold back the tears now. Her bottom lip trembled with the effort. And she was terrified to ask what Paula was thinking but knew she had to ask. She was more afraid not to.

  “Don’t …” She swallowed and licked her lips. “Don’t you love me, Mom?”

  She had her answer in Paula’s silence.

  Janelle sobbed and buried her face in her hands.

  Paula stroked Janelle’s hair, but it wasn’t comforting.

  She wished she’d never come here. She wished her mother had died in the explosion.

  “I’m sorry, Janelle. I really don’t know how I feel. If there’s a part of me that can still love, I haven’t found it yet.”

  Janelle nodded but couldn’t look at her mother.

  “Janelle, do you …?”

  Janelle looked up. “Do I what?”

  “Do you want to become one? That way we can be together.”

  This was something Janelle had considered long before their reunion, and even though her heart was breaking with the yearning to be with Paula forever, becoming a vampire just wasn’t an option.

  “I can’t,” was all she said. She ran out of the room and refused to look back.

  Chapter 30

  The following evening Martin gathered everyone and shared his plans. “This is another war,” he reminded them all. “Only this time, it’s vampire against vampire.”

  A short while later they were gone, leaving Janelle and Thomas behind.

  They reached the outskirts of Manhattan, hundreds of Martin’s family—now his army—waiting for him to lead them across the George Washington Bridge. Hundreds more were circling around, entering the island of Manhattan through various means, their rendezvous point midtown.

  Traffic on the bridge was at a standstill; drivers and passengers gawked at the undead procession. Although vampires had become a normal sight for most, this many at one time was cause for alarm. It was as if life had been put on pause. Of course it wasn’t much of a life to begin with, Martin knew. These idiots couldn’t even fill the tanks of their cars—oil refineries still lay dead—and they siphoned what gas they could from dead cars. “Driving” meant moving their vehicles through city streets crowded with detritus from the war, avoiding car-sized potholes.

  Martin smelled their fear. He watched most retreat deeper inside their vehicles, probably wondering what had been so damned important in New Jersey to have to go for a ride at night. But he watched dozens climb out of their vehicles for a better look, clambering onto the tops of their vehicles or on the hoods, some sitting, some standing, all seemingly fascinated by what the vampires might be planning.

  “Stay together!” Martin yelled. He hoisted a sharpened stake above his head and waved it in triumph; a wooden axe hung from a belt loop on his jeans. “Protect yourselves!” He waved his arm in a forward movement, and his army started across the thirty-five-hundred-foot bridge.

  He abruptly stopped in his tracks, holding his arms up in a halt gesture.

  In the center of the bridge a barricade was raised, and a man clad in black stood behind it. Everyone behind the barricade was armed, most with crossbows, others with high-powered guns.

  This was really starting to get on Martin’s nerves.

  Everyone in that group—probably fifty strong—was human. Human! How dare they think they could get away with this? He knew what kind of weaponry they possessed, how the ungrateful idiot humans were arming themselves with advanced weaponry, but Martin and his group were prepared. They were a hell of a lot smarter and faster than some of the less experienced vampires who had faced off against morons like these.

  Martin stood his ground and waited for them to make the first move.

  ***

  Rudy was sure Patrick had lost his mind. Did he really think Rudy’s small band could defeat Martin and his several-hundred-strong gang on the bridge? Rudy tasted terror on his tongue. The problem was, his fear of Patrick was even stronger, and he knew he had no choice but to take his chances on the bridge or Patrick would display Rudy’s head on a pike.

  “I want you to take fifty guys,” Patrick had told him, “and meet Martin on the GW.”

  Rudy was taken aback. “Meet them for what?”

  “For a fight, of course.”

  Rudy cocked his head to the side, like a dog listening for his master’s voice … “Wha—” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

  Patrick looked on the verge of ripping Rudy’s head off, so Rudy tried to take it down a notch.

  “I’m sorry,” Rudy said, “but how do you expect us to defeat vampires?”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  This wasn’t going well … and Rudy was smart enough to know he was being sent to his death. But he also knew if he planned this carefully, he and his men might survive. He might, anyway.

  “Where and when?”

  “I told you—the George Washington Bridge. I’ll let you know when. A few days at most. And Rudy—”

  Rudy had glanced at Patrick, too afraid to look away, to leave himself defenseless.

  “Don’t think about running, because I’ll find you. And then you’ll wish you’d died on that bridge.”

  Patrick stormed off. Rudy already wished he was dead, and he wished he could take Patrick and half the asshole vampires with him.

  This was a death sentence, he knew, but he didn’t plan to go down without a fight.

  Later that day Rudy gathered half a dozen men and put them to work inside an old machine shop, building weapons they could use against vampires.

  Rudy’s favorite was a retro-fitted PVC pipe bomb filled with jagged shards of wood, designed to penetrate deep and in mass quantity. Of course the wood needed to penetrate the heart to work, but it would at the least incapacitate a bloodsucker, making it easier for Rudy’s boys to send the damned thing screaming to hell.

  The grenade launcher was modified to work the same way—sending out shards of wood—only this weapon remained stable.

  At least now they’d have a fighting chance.

  ***

  “What are you doing?” Martin asked quietly.

  Rudy looked up, pulling himself out of his thoughts at the sound of Martin’s voice. He knew who Martin was—he knew all the key players in Patrick’s little game.

  He was confused by the question. “Doing?”

  “Patrick sent you. Right?”

  Rudy nodded, lifting his gun against his shoulder and taking aim at Martin’s head.

  Martin didn’t move, which greatly unnerved Rudy. Why wasn’t he defending himself?

  “Patrick doesn’t want you setting foot on his island!”

  Martin sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Rudy swallowed. What next? What game is he playing? The vampire versus the modern-day Van Helsing, he thought proudly. I will defeat you, vampire! I will taste your blood, for you are—argh!

  A second later the man’s throat was in Martin’s clenched fist. A moment after that the throatless, lifeless body of “Rudy Van Helsing” was tossed over the side of the bridge.

  Silence reigned on the bridge. The only sound was the churning waters of the Hudson River lapping at pilings and mooring buoys two hundred fe
et below, or the occasional shrill shriek of seagulls practicing hara-kiri moves overhead.

  A number of Rudy’s army exploded into action almost as one unit, while at the same time members of Martin’s army launched themselves at Rudy’s group.

  The human fighters barely had time to raise their weapons before the vampires swiftly attacked, taking obvious pleasure in disemboweling their victims, wearing shredded ropes of colon as bloody, smelly spoils of war. The majority of the humans went for a swim or had body parts scattered along the surface of the bridge.

  Martin stood off to the side watching the attacks, sizing up the enemy.

  A second row of humans moved in, lining up what appeared to be pipe bombs and other military weaponry Martin wasn’t familiar with. He wondered why they thought normal weapons would have any effect on vampires. Sure it might slow them down, but really, how—

  “Fire!” someone yelled, and Martin watched as half a dozen pipe bombs exploded.

  The front line of vampires—about fifteen, Martin quickly estimated—was hit by the shrapnel, but the vampires fell to their hands and knees or on their backs, screaming in pain, some clutching their faces, writhing around the ground.

  Martin was taken aback and whipped his head from the vampires to the humans. “What the hell?” he cried. He leapt from the hood to the top of the car to get a better look.

  Some vampires were smoking as if on fire, and others clawed at the dozens and dozens of shards sticking out of their bodies—and Martin suddenly realized they’d been hit with wood.

  “Stay away from the bombs!” he yelled, but his voice was swallowed by the roar of the fighting on the bridge. He dropped off the car and sprang into action, reaching the pipe-launching humans before they could start round two.

  But the line behind these humans moved into place, firing their weapons. Martin dived for cover and managed to duck, but his arm suddenly exploded in pain. His jacket was embedded with dozens of tiny hunks of wood that he knew reached right into his flesh. He was lucky he’d moved in time. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t have time to stop and pluck out the shrapnel.