by Phil Maxey
Marina knelt and tentatively put her hand on his shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she looked back and forth between the boy and her daughter.
“He just started shaking and then fell to the floor, and—”
A croaking noise came from the boy and he looked up at the woman next to him. His eyes, which were so pale as to look like they were covered in cataracts, were redder than usual.
“What?” said Marina.
“My father. He’s coming.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Who’s the boy’s father?” said Bill with a strained expression. “And how could he know that?”
The sun was setting beyond the mountains to the west of Haven, and a number of candles were already lit in the living room of Joel’s and the others house.
Joel was leaning against the wall. “Corvin said they tracked me with the boy’s help. Maybe he can sense his father that way.”
Marina appeared from the hallway.
“How’s he doing?” said Joel.
“He keeps shaking. Even Jess can’t make him smile.” She shook her head. “I tried giving him some candy, but he hasn’t eaten it… I don’t know if he eats anything…”
“Has he said anything else?” said Bill.
“Not since the store. Mary’s keeping an eye on him.”
Bill shook his head. “Why would he be so scared of his own father?” He looked at Joel and Marina. “Whoever this man is, we will protect the boy from him if he shows up.”
Marina nodded while playing with the finger that was missing the ring. It felt itchy. “So how did the experiment go?” She looked at Bill then Joel, the latter looked away from her gaze and the former wasn’t sure how to respond. “That bad eh?”
“Joel had something of an experience on touching the tablet. Because of that, we felt it best he stayed away from it for the time being, until we can—”
Marina looked at Joel more intently. “What ‘experience’? What happened?”
“It felt as if I was somewhere else. Some kind of temple or tomb—” He sniggered to himself. “—It was like being in a b-movie about mummies.”
“I’m glad you can find this all amusing,” said Bill.
Joel’s outward expression of humor masked the fears which he was only just keeping a lid on, and any semblance of a smile left his face.
“What did you see there?”
“There were pillars, sand covered slabs, and five huge sarcophagi.”
“Tell her what you saw on the side of one.”
Joel quickly gave her a retelling of the story which he had witnessed come to life.
A silence permeated the room while Marina absorbed what had been said. She knew everything she had been told was real, despite how insane it all sounded.
“I know, it’s crazy…” said Joel.
“What isn’t these days,” she replied, then looked at Bill. “You’re the professor, what does any of this mean?”
“Actually, I was a high-school teacher. But whatever Joel is, maybe something in his mutated genes is detected by the tablet, and then it allows him to use it.”
“So his genes act like a passcode on a cell phone?”
“Exactly.”
“Problem is, this ‘phone’ language setting is something far from English. I have no idea what any of the symbols are,” said Joel.
“Yes, it was too much to hope that the lexicon for whatever ancient language the tablet uses was built into the scourge virus’s DNA.”
“So… is the plan still to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex?”
Joel and Bill looked at each other without replying.
“I want to learn more about the tablet before we hand it over to anyone,” said Bill.
“I agree,” said Joel.
“And what about Copeland? You think he’s just going to stop? He now knows where we are. The people in this town are not soldiers. They saved us the other night, but only after we took out most of Copeland’s people. If a bigger force came at them… Will we be able to stop them taking the tablet and vials? We can’t afford Copeland getting it back.”
“Only our group know about the tablet and vials. And maybe just—”
A creaking floorboard made them all look towards the doorway.
“I know you’re there, Shannon,” said Joel.
The teen walked into the room. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“Take a seat… From now on we narrow the circle even more. Myself, Bill, Evan, and Marina—”
Shannon frowned.
“It’s better for you if you don’t know.”
She continued with her disapproval.
“We will be the only ones that know of the location of the tablet and vials. It can’t be here. We need to find somewhere we can find out more from the tablet, and where Copeland’s people won’t find it, even if they want to.”
“I know a place…” said Shannon.
“We’re trying to keep you out of this for your own safety,” said Marina.
Shannon whipped around to face her. “Show me a place that’s safe!? We ain’t safe in here, or out there. At least in here, we can… I dunno, maybe stay alive longer.”
Joel gave her a knowing nod and sighed. “Okay. Where’s this place?”
*****
The former mayor of Bellweather sat on a bar stool and looked into his empty glass. He pulled out a small slip of paper which had ‘Eighty’ written at the top together with John Sloan’s signature, the owner of the Haven saloon. Unfortunately, below that was written a further eight entries, each one detailing a reduction in Hardin’s credits.
Hardin slid the piece of paper across the bar towards the balding man who was cleaning a glass on the other side. “A..gaaain.” The word barely made it past his lips.
John frowned, although the expression was almost completely lost beneath a large moustache and beard. “Even if you did have any credits left, I wouldn’t serve you, Brother.”
“You…” Hardin caught his breath, waiting for his mouth to catch up with his brain. “You… don’t understand… I know things—” He hiccupped. “—Important things…”
“Yeah, well, now you’re just an overweight guy who can’t pay.” John moved along the bar to someone who could.
Hardin went to grab his glass, but his fingers refused to fully close and he ended up shunting it forward until if fell off the back. The sound of it shattering quickly followed.
John whipped around. “Ah hell. Get out!”
Hardin grumbled under his breath and slipped off the stool, his legs crumpling as he hit the ground.
A large man moved quickly forward, grabbing Hardin’s hand and placing it over his shoulder. “I got you, buddy.”
Vince shuffled forward, taking most of Hardin’s weight until they were outside. He looked at the man next to him, hoping the night air would sober him up, but he just stood, swaying slightly. “What did you mean?”
Hardin’s eyelids drooped then widened as if he was seeing his surroundings for the first time, and then drooped again. Vince looked back over his shoulder at John watching from behind the bar.
“Come on, I’ll get you home. On the way, we can talk.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lucian looked out from the third-floor window of his late Victorian home. It was the oldest building in Haven and was the home of the former principal of Haven High School and his wife.
In his hand, he swished some blood around a whiskey glass. He looked out over the town, his town. The sun had crawled above the horizon blending with an overcast sky.
Autumn’s on its way.
A year before, a sky like that would have meant it was time for him to move from the underpass and find somewhere inside. Abandoned buildings were usually the best options, but he found less and less of them in Salt Lake City during the past few years as they all had become apartments. More than a few days he had to sleep in a sewer during the winter.
When he, Vince, and the others stumbled
across Haven, the walls were already erected, and all it took was for him to announce his belief in a higher power and they were all let inside.
Within a few weeks, people, including the former principal had mysteriously gone missing, but it was okay, because himself and the others were ready to step in to maintain order.
The whole cult thing was something he thought up off the top of his head, and it worked perfectly. He even used his improved sight and hearing to convince his flock that he had been ‘touched’ by God, and that he had been sent to look after them. Mostly they believed him, and those that didn’t, well they were useful in other ways.
Still, he only killed if he had to. He had a good thing going in Haven, and he wanted it to be a real town where people could get on with their lives despite the scourge. Killing everyone kind of defeated that plan.
He looked down at his newest procession. A Humvee. The other six were parked up on the Reynolds farm, along with all the weapons and supplies they salvaged.
To the victor go the spoils.
He wasn’t sure where he had heard that, but he liked the phrase regardless.
Someone knocked on his bedroom door.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Vince, boss. You awake?”
“Yeah. Come in.”
The door creaked as Vince opened it. The big man looked particularly disheveled Lucian thought.
“You look like shit. Make sure you clean yourself up before you go around the town.”
“Will do, boss. Umm… I found out some things you’re going to want to know.”
*****
Joel sat inside the Humvee some ten yards from the wooden exterior gate to the town. He had grabbed the vehicle for himself when he discovered where most of them had been taken.
A guard walked up to him, trying to see the eyes of the man who was wearing sunglasses.
“Open the gate, we’re going to find supplies for the town,” said Joel, leaning out of the side window.
The guard, a young man wearing a hunter’s hat, looked unsure how to react. “Brother Lucian say you could leave?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know, sir… usually we are told if someone wants to leave.”
“Well, you can wake Brother Lucian if you want…”
The young man looked at the radio hooked onto his pants, then to the other guard who was walking towards them.
“Look, we’ll be back within a few hours, and, who knows, maybe we can find some good stuff out there.”
The young man looked inside the vehicle. Marina was in the passenger seat, with Bill, Evan, and Shannon in the back seat. The young girl smiled at him. He smiled back.
“Well, I guess it’ll be ok if Lucian knows.” He stood and waved to the other guard to go back and start opening the gate.
Soon, Joel was driving them on the narrow country lane away from Haven. He wasn’t the only one who was glad to be beyond the walls despite the risk they all knew existed outside.
“How you even know this is out here?” said Marina over her shoulder to Shannon.
“I saw it when we flew in.”
“I didn’t see it, and I’ve got like… vampire eyes.”
“Young eyes trumps vampire eyes,” said Shannon, looking out of the window.
Joel and Marina exchanged a brief smile.
Soon they were following the road which wound around the outside of the lake. They all looked across at the burnt-out shell of the Hensen’s farmhouse as they passed it, and each one commentated by their silence.
Marina looked at the forested mountainous terrain which ran steeply down to a plain which ended at the lapping waves of the water of the lake. The surface looked gray due to the clouds overhead. “It’s easy to see why they have survived out here. Plenty of natural resources, and cut off even from the city to the west.”
Shannon leaned forward and pointed to their right. “You see that headland? It’s there.”
Joel nodded, and ten minutes later they were driving down a dirt track which headed south back towards the lake and Haven on the opposite shore.
They passed a modern two-story house.
“Might be worth checking out,” said Marina.
“Yeah, we need to bring some things back with us.”
“It’s just at the end of this track,” said Shannon.
They rumbled slowly forward, stopping when they could go no further.
Joel nodded to what laid ahead. “There’s a track that runs down to the lake.”
“Yeah, exactly. You can get here by the boat. Might take ten minutes rowing. Easy,” said Shannon.
Bill was looking at the collection of buildings on their left at the edge of the field. “This is perfect.” He patted Shannon on her shoulder then pulled his hand back when he felt her stiffen.
Joel got out, then reached back in to grab the silver suitcase while Evan and Bill grabbed their equipment, they all walked across the uneven grassland to the first barn. Behind it sat two grain silos, half buried under faded long grass.
“We’ll check the large one out,” said Evan as he and his grandfather walked around the side of a building which was covered in rusting sheet metal, with a rounded roof.
Joel looked at the door to the smaller barn. Walking to it, he grabbed the chain holding it shut and, with a quick pull, broke it. Opening the door revealed a plethora of farming equipment which looked as if it had not been used since the Great Depression. Rusting forks, trowels, wheels, both metal and wooden, leaned up against tools and oil barrels.
He went to walk inside when the smell of blood hit him from behind. He whirled around, trying to locate its source.
“What?” said Marina.
“You can’t smell that?”
She sniffed, then shook her head.
Joel took off, jogging around the side of the larger barn. Evan and Bill were struggling to break the chains that were holding two warped metal doors closed. They stopped when they saw Joel.
“Everything okay?” said Bill. The chains an inch away from his hand then shuddered as something slammed up against the inside of the door. He staggered backwards.
“Get back,” said Joel. He took his sunglasses off, throwing them to the side, then slid a knife from his belt and placed it between the chains and the door. The doors rattled again, but he held the knife fast and looked at Evan and Marina. “Ready?”
Shannon came around the corner of the barn.
“Stay back,” said Marina.
She and Evan then nodded to Joel.
With one swift movement he snapped the chains, and the doors burst open. Claws swiped across where his head was moments before, but he had already ducked, and drove the knife into the stomach of the vamp.
The creature, which before would have been a twenty-something male, was now skin and bone. It’s clothes looked two sizes too big, and it moved like it was under water. It fell back, then ran forward once more. This time, Joe let the vamp move outside. It quickly realized it was outnumbered and snarled at those around it.
Marina could feel her bloodlust rising and, without looking, knew her nails were extending along with her incisors. She went to run forward, ready to tear the vamp apart, but Joel, contained within a blur, sliced the vamp multiple times until he collapsed in a heap, dead.
The human part of her psyche that went away when she went full ‘vamp’ started to shout to be allowed back, and slowly she started to feel herself again. She actively took deep breaths until her heart rate returned to something approaching normal.
The others walked past the dead thing on the ground to the entrance of the large barn.
Around the inside of the interior was a second floor, which hovered above stables and pig pens. But that wasn’t what everyone was looking at, for swinging gently from ropes tied to the beam that ran across the center of the building, were three bodies. Just to the left side of the first was a heap of rope on the ground.
Joel leaned down and picked them up. “His noose failed,
and then I guess he had second thoughts.”
“Someone else must have chained them in,” said Evan.
Joel nodded. “Whoever wasn’t infected.” He looked at the others. “Help me get these bodies down.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
From his lofty peak, Daniel Copeland looked across the canopy of trees in the Yellowstone park. What sky was visible through the cloud was covered in streaks of oranges and pinks. And as the colors deepened he could feel his energy levels rising. He could also sense his army waking in the valley below.
He stepped forward over the smooth rock. With each step, the sky darkened until he was at the precipice, and below thousands of glowing eyes looked up at him.
They had already been travelling for a few days, and he was pleased with the progress they had made over the mountains. If it had been a few months later he had no doubt it would have been far harder to survive. He had already noticed that he disliked the cold almost as much as the sun, but like one of his childhood heroes, Hannibal, he had brought his forces over the peaks and through the valleys to where they were currently.
Those in the pathetic excuse for a town hundreds of miles to the east had something of his. It was something that he had to have back, for it was his future.
Most of the hungry below came from the towns and suburbs around San Jose, and he could feel the anguish of every one of them. None needed convincing to join his march across the hills to the east, for his talent, one that he discovered when the scourge started to spread, was being magnetic to the infected. Not only did they not see him as a threat, but they were drawn as if he held the answer to the tragedy of their lives.
He spread his arms wide. His wings fanned out even further, and the vamps became transfixed by this figure on the peak above them.
“You are my children, for I spawned you all!” His voice boomed out, echoing off the sheer rock faces around them.
“Before you were weak. Struck down by your pathetic lives, but I made all of you something more!”