by Derek Gunn
She snapped the binoculars to the other thrall and watched in horror as he replied. It was difficult to see clearly but the lights from the nearby plant threw just enough light for her to pick up the gist of the thrall’s words. Oh my God, she thought. She dropped the binoculars and ran over to Harris, tugging at his shoulder as she frantically gesticulated with her other hand.
“Calm down,” she saw Harris say and he laid a hand on her shoulder in a gentle motion. She shook her head violently as she saw that some of the team were already leaving to their designated positions. She had to get her message across before they left. They couldn’t use radios in case their frequency was discovered and she had to warn them all before it was too late.
She forced herself to calm down and made her fingers slow their dire tidings so that Harris could understand but the confusion etched on his face made her feel more desperate. She saw Sandra come over and she signed her warning again. It took a precious number of minutes and Ricks and Warkowski were already gone from view, but she forced herself to continue signing slowly.
Suddenly Harris’s face dropped as he caught enough words to get the gist. She saw him turn to Jackson but she couldn’t see his lips so she did not know if he had gotten the right message or not. But at least he was doing something. She saw Sandra ask what was going on and she felt relief as she saw Harris’s lips move with the words she had tried so hard to get across.
“April saw two thralls go into the pens and she read their lips. There’s another convoy heading into town. They’re bringing the prisoners along the same road where we plan on hitting the waste. If the hit goes ahead then we’ll end up consigning those people to a horrible death by radiation.”
“Not to mention having another twenty thralls coming up behind us when we’re already engaged,” Jackson sighed as he laid a hand on April’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he mouthed in exaggerated slowness. “It seems you’ve saved us all.”
April barely saw his last words as the tears welled in her eyes. Maybe there was a place for her on the team after all. She saw Ricks and Warkowski come back over the ridge and the news travelled fast as the group settled down to adapt their plan. It was funny, she realised, but this time she somehow felt more involved. This time no one moved their heads too far so she could not see their lips. This time she even found herself contributing. This time she was part of the team.
Chapter 14
Crossing the border felt strange to William Carter. It was as if he had passed into a different world. The road didn’t look any different; the surrounding scenery looked pretty much the same, maybe a little more overgrown than the main routes in his own state, but still relatively the same. But something had definitely changed. This was Nero’s territory and Nero was a completely unknown factor. He may have been low down in the ranks before his sudden, recent rise, but even he knew of the respect and fear that everyone held for Nero.
He had heard the stories of Nero’s cruelty and his genius. He had heard rumours of how Nero had forged his own empire over the bodies of anyone who stood in his way; human, thrall or vampire. The fact that he had disappeared from the scene once he had his territory had been a relief to the council and, especially, to those whose territories bordered his.
No one had seen or spoken to Nero in at least a year that he knew of, and invading with such a force might very well be the worst mistake of his life. On the other hand, if he didn’t find these humans he would almost certain lose everything anyway. He had sent his ambassador but the patrol had never returned. Did Nero know he was here already? Was there a huge force just over the horizon waiting to tear them to pieces? He hadn’t been this scared when he had led his campaign to join the two states together. It wasn’t that he was frightened of action; he was terrified of the legend surrounding Nero. The stories that surrounded the vampire were incredible. Who knew what a true vampire was capable of? Wentworth had only been a weak baby in comparison, and even Von Kruger didn’t have anything like the reputation of Nero.
The very fact that Nero had such a reputation had convinced him for some time that there was no way that the humans could possibly live in this state. Even Von Kruger had mocked him the night before for even suggesting it. But too much pointed toward it now that he could no longer ignore it. If he could convince Nero or his thralls to talk before they moved against him then there was a chance he might just survive. You never knew, he might even profit from this trip yet. His main worry was whether the humans were here at all or had he just fallen for a very elaborate trap. He knew that the humans were well capable of laying such a trap, hadn’t they already set two entire stats at each others throats?
Had the humans laid a false trail that was even now leading him to his death? He wished he could stop thinking completely. He preferred to act rather than analyse everything. However, his new role as leader was forcing him to do a lot more thinking than he was comfortable with. He just wasn’t a strategist; he had never been able to see the whole picture before. He preferred working to a plan that had been laid out for him. But if he wanted to rule he would have to start planning ahead and anticipating his enemies.
He knew that he had to consolidate his position. Now that there was no hope of a peace with Von Kruger it was more important than ever to remove the threat that the humans posed. He also needed their weaponry to back up his threat to Von Kruger and to ensure that his fledgling empire could defend itself from all those who surrounded him. He had to have something that would give them all pause. Something that would make them think twice before committing their forces against him. And the humans had what he wanted.
He was probably the only one who knew of their weaponry and how devastating it was. If he could steal this weapon then he would be able to consolidate his position. In fact, with this weapon he would be able to take the fight to the vampires and unite all thralls under his banner. It wasn’t that he was noble, that he wanted to make life better for other thralls. No, he wanted power and the best way to achieve and hold that power was to annihilate the competition. But he would need a lot of thralls if he wanted to make a move against the vampires.
His meeting with Von Kruger was still fresh in his mind, and, the more he thought of it, the more he marvelled that he was still alive. Von Kruger was mad, of that he was certain. Something had happened to change the vampire. Whether it had been the battle-lust that had driven them to attack the other vampires, he did not know. But something had definitely changed. He had served under Von Kruger for too many years not to know that. While the vampire had always been hot-headed and impetuous, he was also incredibly cunning and his performance last night was far from what he would have expected. The problem now was that this madness would make Von Kruger completely unpredictable, and that would make it virtually impossible for Carter to plan effectively against how he might react. He had to find these humans.
He looked out over the bonnet of the jeep and saw the road disappear around a corner in the distance. It was still strange to drive on a highway completely devoid of any other traffic. There were abandoned wrecks every few feet where the wreckage of the old world had been pushed to the side at some time in the past and left abandoned. There were even a few desiccated corpses still behind the wheel of some of the vehicles just like a disaster movie he had seen from before the war.
Nero obviously wasn’t as interested in housekeeping as he was. He had ordered his forces to clear away the corpses and the abandoned vehicles so that they could travel quickly on the roads. Nero had left everything just as it had been when the war had ended. Or were the abandoned vehicles merely there to give that impression? God, he hated this.
As he looked at these husks he shuddered as he realised how fleeting and tenuous the rule of man had turned out to be. They had ruled the earth for so long and had even begun to stretch to the stars, and then, in the blink of an eye, it had all disappeared. It was a sobering thought. And one worth remembering before his own growing empire fell into the same rut and went the same way
.
The cloud of dusk could be seen for miles, like the harbinger to a great storm. But this storm was not created by nature. Alfonso Corelli watched the dust roil upwards like the aftermath of a huge explosion as it began to paint the horizon in lurid colours. His heart began to beat faster. The sky was a beautiful clear blue but the air was freezing, causing his breath to form small plumes of mist each time he exhaled. The snows had gone for now but the temperature had not risen in weeks, and it seemed to Alfonso that he had not been warm since before the vampires had come. He was nineteen years old and seemed to belong to neither group within the community he had just run away from. He was too old to be a ‘Wolverine’ but still too young to be noticed by the adults.
He had only been ‘awake’, as they now called it when they were weaned off the serum, for six weeks or so. He had been in that last batch that Harris and his team had rescued before he had been thrown out, and he had never really gotten the opportunity to thank him. He, and many of the hundreds who had just been rescued, had still been too groggy from the serum to know what was going on, let alone help. They had woken into a community that was already fractured and reclusive.
The sudden influx of many hundreds of hungry and confused refugees had caused a deep resentment to fester. Those in the community resented their meagre supplies being shared further and those who had just arrived reacted to this hatred with a hatred of their own. Harris had become a focus for both sides, some blamed him for the problems and others considered him the solution to the problem. The committee wallowed ineffectively in the middle.
Alfonso still had a mother, father and a sister that were still missing. They had not been among the dead in the train but that did not mean that they were still alive. However, it did mean that there was still a chance that they could be prisoners of the thralls. It had been obvious that no one in the community was prepared to organise any more rescue parties. They promised to look into it, of course, but nothing was ever done. They had told him that they just didn’t have enough food or resources. There were many others among the community that demanded that they continue to send parties out. They needed closure if they were to move on. But the committee refused. It was easy to see that none of them had missing family members. Alfonso had seen the resentment grow in the community over the last few weeks, but no one was actually doing anything. They just complained and had meetings in secret where they grumbled and groaned. It was all so frustrating and Alfonso had done the only thing he could think of.
He had left the community three days ago. It had been easy enough, as security was not something they took as seriously as they should now that Harris was gone. He had been assigned a position in the fields where his youth and strength would be an asset in growing food and that gave him plenty of opportunity to slip away. He wondered briefly if they had even noticed that he was gone yet. They had hardly noticed him when he was there.
He had set out to find Peter Harris and join him and his group to help rescue others, and hopefully find his family. But it hadn’t turned out that way. He hadn’t found any sign of Harris and the others at all and he had searched everywhere in the city he could think of. Now, he was freezing and hungry. He had left with only the clothes he had on, and had been lucky to find a light jacket in an abandoned store along the way. It smelt a bit and the colour was awful but it was warm. He hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since he had left and his stomach hurt. More worrying was the fact that he had begun to get dizzy in the last day or so. He really didn’t know what he should do.
He had left with little thought as to the reality of this new world. He had thought that he would find Harris and be welcomed with open arms, but the reality was much more frightening. He could actually die out here. But could he really go back? Would they even take him back? His youth and his burning desire to find his family had kept him going up till now but the nights were so cold that he had had to stay awake and keep walking just to keep warm.
He hadn’t slept for two whole days now and he could barely manage to put one foot in front of the other. He really wasn’t sure he could survive another night. He had wandered out past the city limits and had reached the summit of a large hill to the west of the city where he had hoped to see some sign of Harris and the others. At some level he had accepted that if he had not found some sign of them from here that he would have to head back to the community or risk dying of exposure. He had felt defeated as he reached the summit, and then he had seen the dust in the distance.
Now he was of two minds. Was this Harris and his men returning from another successful raid? But even as he thought that he knew that it couldn’t be - Harris was far too clever to let himself be seen from such a distance. That meant that it must be thralls. A lot of thralls judging from the size of the dust plume. They were coming from the west and that meant that they were Carter’s army. He might be only nineteen but he certainly wasn’t stupid; if Carter found out that Nero no longer ruled in this state, then it wouldn’t be long before the whole state would be crawling with thralls again.
He had to warn the others. He wondered how much good it would do, though; their policy of hide and hope the danger will go away just wouldn’t work this time. It would be better to warn Harris, of course. He’d realise the importance of turning back this force - but he couldn’t find him so he would have to go back to the community and hope that they could get word to Harris and the others.
He looked at the cloud again before he turned and saw that the dust had spread across the horizon like ink spreading through water, corrupting and tainting the pure blue of the sky, and he shivered. If they didn’t somehow manage to turn this tide back they would all be swept away. He had to convince the others that it was time to fight for their survival or risk losing everything.
Emma Logan nodded at Danny Wilkins as she took over the tail and kept her eyes on the back of the woman ahead of her. She saw Danny turn off down another corridor after the man she had been following and disappear among the people there. It was her task now to follow Patricia Lohan until she was relieved or until the woman either went to her room or her office.
There were too many committee members to follow each one every day so they had split them up into high, medium and low risk suspects based on Father Reilly’s evaluations. The high risk would be followed every day and they would swap over when they could to avoid someone getting suspicious. They had found walkie-talkies sometime ago but had soon grown tired of them after the initial excitement. Now, however, they had become invaluable in timing their swap-overs and keeping in touch. Danny was taking after his father and had switched the three sets of walkie-talkies they had to the same frequency, and now they could keep in contact over short distances. They were hard on batteries but they had some of the younger kids constantly searching old electronic shops for batteries. The adults had taken all the larger batteries some time ago but the smaller sizes that the talkies used were of no use to them, so they were covered for now.
They had been following their targets for two days now and nothing had happened out of the ordinary. Some of the younger ones were already growing bored but Emma knew the importance of this assignment and took it very seriously, though she did agree that this assignment was far from the exciting adventure they had all thought it would be.
Lohan continued on along the corridor, as she had for the last few days. If she kept to her routine, then she would reach her office where, if it was the same as yesterday and the day before, she would stay until lunch. Then she would go to the only eatery in the community where she would have a sandwich and water and return to the office. Lohan seemed to be a creature of habit who seemed to do and eat the same thing every day, almost to the minute. How could anyone be so boring, she thought as she followed the woman? God, she hadn’t even met anyone for an illicit kiss, let alone sneak out and contact the vampires. She would have to see if she could swap targets with one of the others or she was liable to walk up to this woman and tell her to get a life.
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br /> They came to the corridor where she would turn right and Emma kept her distance as Lohan drew level with her turn. But she didn’t turn. She kept going. Emma felt her heart begin to thump in her chest and increased her pace slightly in case the woman…suddenly there were more people in the corridor than before and she lost sight of Lohan in the rush. She tried to push through the sea of people approaching her as she strained to see past them. She felt panic grip her and cursed herself for being so lazy. She should have been closer. God, the one time something happens and she wasn’t ready for it.
Finally, she made it through the throng of people and stumbled out into a relatively clearer space. Her heart hammered in her chest and she uttered a curse out loud that caused more than one of the people around her to stare in shock at her. She ignored them as she broke into a run, snapping her head down side corridors as she searched frantically for her target.
Shit! Lohan had disappeared.
Kavanagh watched the humans from across the square. There were nearly seven hundred of them packed into a huge caged area that stood on the ruins of the homes and businesses that had once stood here. There were other pens, with just as many humans, but this was the only one that contained humans who were still obviously free from the serum’s effects.
He had watched over the last two days and had seen the humans go through shock and then despair. For some of them that was as far as they got and they still remained huddled in their own worlds, trapped now far more effectively than the serum had ever managed. But it was the others who interested him most.