Matt flinched as the weed-whacking spike tore aside the surface of his skin, drilled toward the nearest vein, which it then penetrated. It wormed at least another inch before resting and embedding itself, and then the process of extracting blood commenced. He turned to see his blood shooting through the clear, plastic tubing toward the steel canister.
The first goal of every system of torture is to strip the victim of their humanity.
After he was completely wired up, and one of the goons had signed off on all his connections to the donor machine, Matt was left completely alone in his pen to contemplate what the vampires had achieved.
They had come up with a form of torture with the assumption that their victim had already been stripped of their humanity.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ian hung from the barracks’ ceiling, staring down at Matt as he slept.
Anyone who might have looked up, if they noticed him at all, would only have seen what appeared to be a shadow cast from the moonlight streaming through one of the two barracks’ building skylights.
He had shared a room with his little brother until Matt was twelve. Ian would often lie awake and stare at his brother, who always slept like the problems of the world could wait to be dealt with until morning. It was this specific image – content, almost “clueless” about the problems that lay around him – that kept Ian anchored to the bedroom, their house, even though every fiber in his body screamed to escape.
At twelve, their parents agreed to allow Matt to have his own room. It was a huge concession. Ian and his parents all knew that leaving Matt alone in his own room would only make it easier for him to dream about being further away.
As Ian stared at his brother from the ceiling, he couldn’t believe the irony of the situation. He had stayed behind at the house because he was afraid of what would happen to Matt if he abandoned him. Now here he was, years later, once again looking over his youngest brother, and his greatest fear was that Matt would abandon him.
***
Winston Gaiman had his eye on a computer screen that spewed out the latest directory notes released by the Vampire Committee. When he finally looked up, he was dismayed to only see Ian standing before him.
“Where is Julian?”
“I don’t know, sir,” answered Ian.
“Certainly he knew I needed to speak to both of you?”
It had been awhile since Ian had seen Winston looking so exasperated and irritated. The fact that Julian Macy had missed so many previous meetings, and that somehow his latest absence was causing his mentor distress, was troubling to Ian.
“I saw him an hour ago, moving along the perimeter of the camp. I mentioned to him that we would be meeting with you later, but he did not respond in any way.”
There was the noise of another directive coming through, and it grabbed Winston’s attention. As he stared at the computer screen, a look of concern took over his face.
Ian was sure that if Julian had attended the meeting, Winston would not be so open about expressing his emotional reaction to what he was reading.
The CCC commander looked up to Ian and picked up the conversation where he had left it… more than a few minutes ago.
“Are you saying he did not respond to what you said…?’
“No, sir, what I meant to convey was that Julian did not respond to my very presence.”
The commander shook his head in dismay.
When Winston was assigned command of what turned out to be CCC197, the first decision he made was to select who would serve as the head of operational control. He could have gone outside his bloodline and chosen someone else. But he stayed loyal to the two he had turned – first Julian, then Ian.
Both of his scions would share the duties of operational control of the facility. Ian would focus on the outreach beyond the perimeter, while Julian would handle all of the issues associated with running the camp.
“It was obvious Julian was not pleased with my decision to divide supervision of the facility, which I anticipated. However, that was months ago. How would continuing to harbor such ill will be a productive course of action?”
“Sir, what would you have me say?”
“I would want you to say something…”
“I don’t agree with him… sir.”
“Then why aren’t you doing something about it…?”
Winston’s words shocked Ian, and he did not bother to hide his reaction.
There was another directive coming in from the committee, and Winston turned his attention to his computer screen.
The two had been bonded in blood for years, but Ian had always felt the two were even closer in spirit as well. And yet now that the takeover plan was in full swing, it appeared that the events of the last several months had ruffled Winston’s normally calm disposition. Perhaps the frustrations of dealing with the VC had started to wear him down.
Several more minutes passed before Winston looked up from his screen, but Ian did not give his mentor the chance to speak first.
“Julian does not consider my existence worthy of acknowledgment. More than two hundred years separates us in age, and perhaps that’s what prevents the two of us from ever achieving a bond that goes beyond the inherited bloodline we share. Sir, with all due respect, what exactly would you have me do?”
“Remind him that you share my bloodline.”
He waited for clarification, but when he remained silent, Ian had no choice but to run with what he assumed Winston had implied by his remark.
“Are you suggesting that I remind Julian by spilling his blood, the one thing that binds the three of us...?”
“I suggest you do what is necessary. I believe even without my counsel, Julian will be seeking the same.”
Ian was speechless. All he could fathom was that the turmoil of the takeover had somehow driven Winston to suggest such a repulsive course of action.
“I’ve never told you about the circumstances surrounding my decision to turn Julian?”
Ian shook his head, hoping his continued silence would invite Winston to speak freely about a subject he’d been curious about for as long as he could remember.
“Of course you know Roland Elridge’s old adage – ‘the living often declare the world has changed, but what remains the same is the changing faces of the living who utter those words’.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
The camp commander nodded, stood up, and moved from behind his desk to the window that overlooked the main compound.
“The world has not changed. It has always been the same. But before the takeover, what the living were doing was cruel and horrific, beyond our wildest imagination...”
Winston stopped and chuckled to himself.
“I know. Not much of a statement, because every vampire knows …”
“… those of our kind do not have much of an imagination,” said Ian.
He knew his mentor would receive his interruption and completion of the adage as a compliment of his teachings.
“But try to imagine that the world I plucked Julian from was the cruelest I had ever seen… until recent events. At the time I believed an escape from such horrific circumstances would free him so that he could start anew. But my observation of Julian all these years…”
Winston fell silent, as if he was playing back in his head every moment they had spent together.
“… my observation has led me to conclude – those who are turned can’t help but reflect the circumstances at the time of their rebirth. The echoes of our past life stay in our heart… even though the heart no longer beats.”
He turned to look at Ian.
“My loved one, please understand; the music that has played in your brother’s mind has been playing for centuries. It has managed to overwhelm any other notes that he has had the opportunity to hear. Elridge was wise in his words when he said – ‘The world changes, the living remains the same, and vampires will’…”
“…‘see both the world and the li
ving through eyes forever open’.”
The final part of a commonly known phrase, shared for thousands of years amongst their kind, was spoken by the two of them together.
The sound of another VC message coming through on the computer interrupted the silence.
Winston moved quickly to his desk and began reading the communique.
He knew it was not Winston’s intention, but after waiting more than ten minutes, Ian decided to accept the circumstances as a silent dismissal.
“Ian…”
He was about to close the door behind him when Winston called out to him.
“Yes, sir…”
“The three of us must talk.”
Winston’s words were spoken without once turning away from the computer monitor.
“I understand, sir.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ian knew well the species he had originally been born into.
All were “pattern seekers.”
It was part of their original genetic code.
His strategy of accumulating more blood donors had been to assign patrols to work a circular sweep within a five-mile radius of the CCC facility. The success of his strategy had been based on his decision to schedule all the sweeps at exactly the same time, lasting for exactly the same amount of time. Every day.
Then he changed the pattern.
Ian would randomly choose a night to assign all the patrols to make their rounds thirty minutes earlier or later. It didn’t matter which. Either way, the patrols on that one night always would rope in a new collection of blood donors.
“We’ve got two donors moving through Sector RR85.” The alert came over Ian’s walkie-talkie less than a minute after they had begun their second sweep of the night.
He knew the sector very well. It was Halcyon Ridge, a township that once serviced the needs of the Morris canal, which had been in operation for about a century. From the 1820s to the 1920s, the area included an inn, a general store, a church, a watermill, and a blacksmith shop, which serviced the mules that serviced the canal.
Halcyon Ridge was also where Ian had his first job as a busboy at an Italian restaurant.
Heat was radiating from two humans hiding behind the garbage cans in the alleyway of the Rocklin Bar and Grill. It was in that same back alleyway where Ian first kissed Kathy Peterson, who turned out to be his first girlfriend.
His outreach team had yet to come across a potential donor who chose to commit suicide rather than be taken. Though they still followed the VC-recommended acquisition technique implemented months ago in response to all the self-inflicted wounds by potential donors that had occurred during the first weeks of the takeover in the Eastern Hemisphere.
The rest of his team served as the “decoy.” They would make their presence known immediately while they encircled the perimeter. While the target donors focused on what seemed like an impending attack, he would suddenly swoop in and apprehend the donors flatfooted.
Oftentimes one of the donors in play would jackrabbit from the hiding space. This was expected and planned for.
Tonight’s quarry did not disappoint.
As Ian moved along the roof toward the alleyway, one of the donors bolted across the parking lot.
None of his patrol made a move to stop him until he was out of the view of the other, who still remained hiding.
As Ian silently descended, he could see the other donor was not even looking to see how his friend had fared in his flight from their hiding spot. He was too busy getting loaded on a 1.7 liter bottle of Ketel One Vodka.
Ian waited before announcing his presence. The donor only realized he had company when he went for another swig and discovered Ian was holding the bottle.
“How long had it been since your last drink?” Ian asked.
“Six weeks, three days…”
“And how many hours?”
“Five. Can I have just one more taste before you take me in…?”
He handed him the bottle.
Ian let him drink more than a third of the bottle, then grabbed it from him.
“That’s enough. It’s been six weeks, three days, and five hours. We don’t want you to get sick…”
After helping the man stand, Ian marched him across the parking lot to a member of his team, who would lead him the rest of the way to the transport truck, which would have him to the CCC camp just after daybreak.
He had been leading the outreach program for months, and there was an element of his nightly ventures that continued to repeat itself, to the point that it had stopped surprising him – many of the living he had taken in often greeted him with relief. They had been hiding for so long, and seemed to welcome his gentle touch and guiding hand. Their capture put an end to the running, hiding, and hunger. It also meant that they would no longer have to take care of themselves.
***
He grabbed Matt by his right wrist.
Then he sweated and strained as he pulled him up to the center beam in the barn.
If his little brother had fallen, he would probably have died.
And Ian would have blamed himself.
Even his parents would have blamed him.
Maybe not immediately, but one of them would have said something, even if it was years after Matt’s funeral.
“Why weren’t you looking after him…?”
All of those thoughts ran through Ian’s brain as he stood on the cold ground of the barn, staring up at the rafters.
After he saved his life, not once did Ian think about the stupidity of Matt’s action.
His brother had taken a huge risk crossing the longest beam in the barn’s ceiling.
What could he possibly have been thinking about?
He heard a noise.
And in a split second, Ian became one of the shadows in the barn.
There he waited until he was satisfied that what he had heard was his own outreach team in the distance sweeping the nearby area.
Ian entered his parents’ family room and looked around.
It was smaller than he remembered.
And the low ceiling felt like it was trying to crush him.
Could things have really changed so much since the last time he had walked around as part of the living?
After the takeover, he had no desire to revisit what he had left behind.
It was another life.
Ian stood at his father’s horseshoe bar, next to one of the stools.
Not behind the bar itself.
He would never have dreamed of standing on the other side while his father was alive.
He heard the sound of his father’s whistle to get his attention.
“This is for your Uncle Teddy.”
His father would then slide to him a glass of something he had mixed together that promised to make Uncle Teddy remember what it was like to be… alive.
Bernard Rickard Haynes.
Clara Maria Haynes.
Years ago his father and his mother’s full names was what Ian stared at before he read the rest of their obituaries. They had died in an auto accident while travelling north to meet with a real-estate agent to sell their vacation home on one of the Canadian islands.
He read only the first two paragraphs.
Whatever else had been written about his mother and father would be coming from someone else. Maybe even someone who didn’t know them at all.
One of the most important rules about being a “shadow” was to embrace the concept that what the living accomplished was not ultimately important. Any achievement, of any stature, would eventually disappear and become insignificant with the passing of time.
“Those riding the train do not see what those who stand at the station staring at the passing trains see,” wrote Lehand Mast.
But Ian could think of nothing that Winston had said or quoted that could stop the pain he felt as he finally got up enough courage to stand behind his father’s bar.
As he stood there, Ian looked all around the room, trying to
see what his father might have seen.
Then his eyes caught sight of his father’s humidor right underneath the bar. It was where he would store his cigars. There was a scotch taped note to the lid that read simply, “Mom & Dad.”
Ian recognized the handwriting.
He was forced to look away.
And then he was forced to step away.
Everything about death repulsed his kind.
But Ian forced himself to return back behind the bar.
He took off the lid and saw the ashes of both his father and his mother. He could smell their very essence floating from the box to his nostrils.
The stink of death began to overwhelm him, even as he tried feeling something about the sight of his parents’ wedding rings resting atop the ashes.
Ian was about to slam shut the cigar box when he saw something else that stopped him.
It was a dog-eared card that looked like it had been carried around in his father’s wallet or his mother’s purse for years.
He grabbed the card and dropped the lid back onto the box of ashes.
It was a clipping entitled “The Chimes Before Midnight,” and had 12 edicts matching the numbers on a clock.
I
Believe your existence matters in this world.
But never live like you are the center of the universe.
II
Our life on this planet is relatively short.
Some we love will have an even shorter life.
III
Beware of predators amongst us who kill or maim.
Sometimes with no discernible reason.
Someone we trust, even love, may be one of the predators.
Ian stopped reading after the third edict. He dropped the clipping, and fled the house where he had grown up.
He no longer needed any words of comfort from his mentor or any of his kind who had crossed before him.
What he had read only reaffirmed that he had made the right choice a lifetime ago.
His parents would never have understood the fate he had embraced.
Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood Page 7