by Derek Gunn
He could see three pens in the distance and, as he brought his binoculars to his eyes to examine them, he could see humans shuffling vacantly within the prisons. He wondered again why the prisoners were still being given the serum. Didn’t the vampires know the danger? He paused in his sweep of the area for a moment as he realised that maybe that was it. Von Richelieu hadn’t told the other vampires of the danger the serum posed. But why? Was there friction between the vampires? That would be an interesting development that he might be able to use in the future. For now, though, there was work to be done, and he shook himself from his thoughts as he refocused on the job at hand.
Harris wasn’t sure what he expected from the plant itself but this certainly wasn’t it. The plant was surrounded on three sides by lush forest, and it looked out over Lake Michigan on its fourth side. Access to the plant was via a road which ran parallel to the water for over a mile, and the views were spectacular. He hadn’t really expected such a plant to be so beautiful or for it to fit into the landscape so well. A huge, grassed and well-kept area surrounded the plant, providing an ordered and controlled space before the wild and chaotic majesty of the forest took over. The flowers were a little ragged now that no-one cared for them and they had overgrown their designated areas. The grass was more of a meadow than the neat, landscaped area it had once been, but he could imagine what it would have looked like before the war, and he was impressed.
The front of the plant was dominated by a huge, perfectly normal office block which did not look threatening or out of place, despite its size. In fact, Harris wondered how such a powerful and potentially dangerous structure could be made to look so innocuous. The backdrop to the plant was incredible, though, as it looked out over a well-kept beach front. The rumble of the waves as they rolled up onto the beach in front of the plant reached him from where he was observing the plant. It all seemed so normal, except for the thralls walking the perimeter, of course.
The plant contained two nuclear reactors according to Ricks, but Harris never would have known what they were if he hadn’t been told. They didn’t spew toxic smoke into the air, they didn’t have huge ‘DANGER’ signs with skulls on them as he had expected. Behind the office block, two huge structures, like large breasts, thrust upwards and dominated the building despite their innocuousness. There was something powerful about them, something that announced their importance, and their majesty made him shiver when he considered how dangerous they had now become in this new world.
There was a small pen just behind the reactors that contained around twenty or so humans, all of whom stared vacantly as they shuffled aimlessly within the confines of their prison. Harris wondered why this pen was here at all when there were far larger enclosures only a few miles away, and he felt his anger begin to boil as he realised it was probably there for the convenience of visiting vampires. God, he thought bitterly. Is this what the human race has become? Merely a fast food stop on the way to the nearest city.
He turned to the others, his anger still flushing his cheeks as he regarded those he had brought. Ricks was with them, of course. The boy - young man, he corrected himself - was the only one with any knowledge of nuclear waste and he was essential to their planning. April sat beside him. There had been no point in trying to dissuade her, and they needed the numbers if he was honest. April had become very focused since Sherman had attacked her and Von Richelieu had sent Steele back to them as a vampire. She had lost her innocence and, as far as Harris could tell, her ability to smile. It had been her sixteenth birthday last week but, despite the effort of the small group to mark the event, she had not joined in with the celebrations.
Harris was worried about her. He had hoped that having Ricks around - he was around the same age after all - would have had a positive effect, but, while they got on well and always seemed to be together, he didn’t sense any joy in her at all. Ricks was trying his best to learn sign, and his hands were constantly moving as he practised, but no one really had the time to teach him so his progress was slow. In fact, very few of them had a very large vocabulary in sign, so April was increasingly being left out of conversations. She could lip read incredibly well, but couldn’t put her views and ideas across if no one understood what she was saying. He would have to make a special effort to involve her more or risk isolating her further. There was just so much to do and so little time.
Warkowski was there, of course. He was the only one left from the original group, except for himself and Sandra, and Harris couldn’t help but see the others in his mind when he looked at the big man. Warkowski had grown more sombre in the last few months; in fact, the only time he smiled now was when he was with his family. They had been left behind at the Cave as this was a strike and withdraw mission which did not have room for non-combatants.
As he thought about it now, he realised that there was nothing for these people to look forward to really, just more danger and death as they continued to risk their lives relentlessly day after day. They were all capable, of course, or they would not be here, but, Harris realised suddenly, they also needed a goal. Rescue mission after rescue mission did not give them something to strive for and he could see now that everyone in this small group was close to breaking. How could I have missed it? He had been so caught up with trying to save others that he hadn’t seen that those who had already been saved needed more than he had given them.
His cheeks flushed deeper as he realised suddenly what each of these people had given up in following him when he had been banished. Some of them had even left their families behind, thinking they’d be safer with the community. Their forced separation was beginning to hurt them though, more than they had expected. Joshua Perkins, one of those who had joined after Ricks had come forward, had left his mother behind in the community and Carlos Mendez had left his younger brother.
These men were promising recruits; Mendez had already gone through formal training with the local detachment of the National Guard before the war and then had been conscripted into the army, however, he had not seen much action before the serum had defeated them all. He had a good head on his shoulders though. Perkins had been an office worker. He had worked in Marketing and wasn’t really all that co-ordinated. He did make up for his lack of ability with a desire to improve though and Harris couldn’t ask for much more than that.
Al Warnback sat a little to their left and he wore a frown on his weathered face, he always wore a frown so that was nothing new. Warnback had surprised Harris when he had joined their small party and it had taken him a while to figure out why he had come. Sure, he was one of the more promising recruits, but that really wasn’t enough reason to throw his lot in with them. Warnback had come from Chicago and his last memory had been that of his wife and two-year-old child being torn apart by a vampire before he had been taken prisoner by the thralls.
He was a quiet man, but there was something disturbing bubbling under the surface that worried Harris. Of course, he had every right to be angry and to hate the vampires, but he was a borderline obsessive who seemed to enjoy killing a little too much for Harris’s taste. On the other hand, the man was brave, competent and Harris really needed the manpower so he had welcomed him into the group. He would just have to watch him carefully in case his zeal put anyone else in danger.
Sandra sat beside Delilah Franklin and they smiled as they shared a confidence. The two women looked tired, with their hair pulled back severely into tight buns. It saved washing constantly and getting in the way at the wrong moment but did little to soften their features. Their faces were pale and drawn, but they both sat straight and alert. Their weapons lay across their knees, cleaned and oiled but dulled to prevent reflections off the metal. Would it ever end? Should they just forget everybody else and concentrate on their own survival? Would life be any better?
The thoughts tumbled through his head as he was afforded a rare insight into those who followed him. He knew they were all committed to the same cause, but was it his strength that drove them? Wo
uld any of them be here if they hadn’t followed him?
His obsession, He was honest enough to recognise that he was obsessed, driven. But why were they here? Did he have the right to ask them to risk their lives and those of their loved ones for his cause? The only thing they had achieved so far was to be thrown out by those they had saved in the first place. What was it about him that demanded such all-or-nothing reactions from those who knew him? For that matter, why was he himself so driven?
He knew his obsession had its roots in his surviving when everyone else who had followed him had been torn apart. But that didn’t explain everything. He had found of late that he could not set his mind to anything else. He had tried to concentrate on training recruits and staying quiet but there was something inside him that drove him to rescue one more batch of prisoners, and then another. He found that the thought of thousands, millions of humans helpless in their captivity was too much for him and he had to do something or risk going mad.
His dreams were filled with prisoners dying agonising deaths as the serum burned them from within. He saw each individual die horribly, their eyes locked with his in accusation. He had no idea what was causing it, social conscience, guilt, humanity - it could be any or all of them. But his dreams were so extreme that he had gotten into the habit of sleeping less and less in order to avoid them. It was as if he had to do something and whatever it was that was causing these reactions would not go away until he had fulfilled his task. Unfortunately he didn’t know what his task was, so he was forced to go out again and again in the hope that, one day, he would achieve whatever it was that was driving him.
He caught Denis Jackson’s eye and smiled wanly at him. The man’s white teeth were like a beacon against his dark skin and his eyes seemed to dance in the air, unsupported in the dark until the clouds moved past the moon and they were all bathed by its pale silvery light. Below them he heard a deep cough as an engine turned over and then a raspy rumble of thunder as an engine roared to life.
“There’s some activity over here,” Benjamin Franklin whispered and Harris moved over to his position to have a look.
There were two large container trucks in the open area behind the large reactors. The beds of the containers looked like any other base that he had seen on the docks when cranes lowered the huge metal containers like slabs of Lego into place. On these containers, though, were strange concrete dumbbells. One of the trucks was loaded and ready to go but the other one was still empty.
“That piece in the middle is where the nuclear waste is housed.” Ricks bellied up beside Harris and pointed down toward the loaded truck. “The two ends are what they call ‘impact limiters.’ They’re meant to protect the waste in the event of a crash.”
“You don’t seem too confident,” Jackson said as he looked over at Ricks.
“Nobody really knows.” Ricks shrugged. “The only tests they ever did were by computer simulation based on data from the 1960s. My father argued that the parameters did not take into account the higher speeds and the hotter-burning fuels we have now.”
“Just how bad will this spill be if it all goes wrong?” Harris asked as he began to realise the reality of what they planned.
“Based on the stats my Dad was using,” Ricks paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing. “His stats estimated that one truck could cause around 42 square miles of damage if left untended for a few hours. Of course, there are also prevailing winds to consider and the chance that rain could wash the waste into local streams and travel further that way.”
Harris went pale. This really was so far from their comfort zone. If they managed to pull this off it would tie up a lot of resources for months. The thralls would be forced to clean up the spill if they wanted to continue to use the power station or risk losing the station for a few hundred years. This was the best plan they had. It was just blind luck that the thralls seemed to be in the process of moving one of the trucks now.
Ricks had suggested that they would have to transport waste at least once a month to a holding facility which would be off site. The danger of leaving the waste anywhere near the plant was too great and most plants moved the waste to large silos where they waited for transport to a more secure facility. He had no idea what level this holding facility was at or how the thralls planned to empty these silos. He wasn’t even sure if they even knew they had to be emptied at all, but that wasn’t their problem at the moment. The important thing was that they had planned for a long-term wait. They had been pleasantly surprised to find that one truck was already loaded when they had arrived so it looked as though they would not have to wait too long after all.
As the growl of the engine faded to a low rumble, Harris heard another engine start up and then another until it seemed that the whole plant was alive with roaring engines. A number of thralls suddenly appeared from a door to the rear of the facility. They were all well-armed and they crossed to the waiting vehicles and settled themselves in the open trucks that surrounded the waste vehicle.
Another thrall appeared, a huge man who dwarfed the two aides that struggled to keep up with his long strides. The thrall eased himself into a waiting jeep, brought his hands to his lips, whistled sharply and then motioned for his driver to move forward. The gates opened as the jeep approached and the level of noise escalated as each of the vehicles followed one by one.
They were on.
April switched her view between the speakers around her as if she were at a demented tennis match, trying desperately to take in the conversation between them. She understood that they couldn’t all sign and that it would take too long to involve her fully, but it still made her feel like an ignored, small child.
Her life had changed that night when Sherman had attacked her. Not only had she lost her innocence, she had inherited a mistrust of others that she had never had before. She had always been different; she had learned to accept the furtive looks and the sudden, awkward silence that almost always greeted her when she entered a room. People had always felt uncomfortable around her, as if her inability to hear made her a different species. She had worked hard to involve herself by learning the craft of lip reading until she was able to read and even make out partial words so she could fill in the gaps. No matter how she reminded people, they still tended to move their focus among a number of people as they spoke, and she lost sight of their lips many times during a briefing like this.
She had caught the gist of what they were about to do but there were gaps in her knowledge that could lead to problems later. She operated in a vacuum during these missions. She couldn’t hear the gunfire, shouted commands or even the radio, so she knew she could be more of a liability than a help. Harris had spent some time last night going over with her what was going to happen, but, now that they were here and could actually see the layout, there were so many things that could change once they began and no one would be able to update her once the action began.
She wondered again if she should be here at all. She felt as if the group, while they were always nice to her, didn’t really see her as a part of the team. She wondered if she was here only because Steele had thought so highly of her. Was she really capable of contributing to this team or should she be back in the community, minding children or caring for the sick? She knew that she was more withdrawn than before. She had noticed Harris looking at her at times with a worried frown. He had tried to talk to her about Steele and about how his death had affected her, but his ability to speak sign was limited and his fumbling attempts had only reminded how much she missed Steele.
She was sixteen, a young woman, but what was there for her in this world? Every member of this team contributed so much, and she felt insignificant. She was desperate to fight the vampires. They had taken the one person that she had felt safe with from her and his loss had created a hole in her that she was not certain would ever find substance. She had looked on Steele as a kindred spirit; they were both outsiders, tolerated but never really fully accepted. She had
looked on Steele as a father figure or an older brother, and when he had returned as a vampire her world had shattered.
Even the fact that he had fought against the vampiric nature growing within him and saved her, taking his own like to save them all, had not been enough to prove the goodness within him. Phelps had ignored Steele’s sacrifice and used him to further alienate Harris from the community. She had wanted to stand up in front of the community, shout at them until they understood that the very people they were turning against were the only ones who had stood up for them when others were too selfish to see beyond their own pathetic greed. But she could not. They would not hear or understand her though. In fact, all she would achieve would be a feeling of pity. She didn’t want their pity. She wanted their understanding.
She felt bad about forcing her way onto the team, but there was something in her that seemed to tug her in this direction. She felt that there was something she had to do but she did not know what it was. She couldn’t even try to explain it to the others. Not only did they have limited sign but she didn’t even understand it herself. A sudden overwhelming sense of impotency gripped her and she looked out over the plant and studied the thralls below. She picked up the binoculars Harris had left and studied the figures still in the courtyard.
Her gaze passed by the humans in the pen and she wondered again how the thralls, who were still human on some level, could treat their own with such abuse. She felt a deep burning inside her that as she saw the thralls open the cage door and begin to push and shove the prisoners around as they laughed. She caught the last few words on a thrall’s lips as he turned towards her and a cold hand clenched her stomach and squeezed hard.