Night School Book 1: Vampire Awakening

by Alex Dire

  “That’s the point. We don’t want to avoid them. We want to lure a small group out and capture at least one of them. “

  “Who’s going up?” asked Matt.

  “It’s me, Skip, and Andrea,” replied Norman.

  “Who are they?” asked Ivol.

  “Skip is a former member of the VR high council. They figure he’ll be too tempting a target to pass up. And Andrea…I’m told she knows karate.”

  “What’s the VR?” asked Ivol.

  “Not enough time to explain. Matt, fill in the whole group once we leave.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Once Skeete’s little gang commences their attack, the rest of us will pounce,” said Norman.

  “The rest of us?” asked Ivol.

  “Well, humans not included,” replied Norman.

  “So you’re bait,” said Matt.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I don’t think this is a great plan. I don’t trust these guys. I’m not so sure they wouldn’t have eaten us already if you weren’t here,” said Matt.

  “Oh, I’m quite sure they would have. That’s why I’m telling you the plan. If we’re not back in two hours, it’s gone bad.”

  “How bad?” said Ivol.

  “They’re going to leave two vampires behind to guard you. You have numbers, you have stakes, and now you have information. Use it. If it comes to that, I won’t be here to lead you.”

  “That’s the plan? Use stakes?” asked Matt, astounded. “They’re vampires! They’ll tear us to pieces.” Matt paused for a response. When none came, he spoke again. “Please tell me you have a Plan B.”

  “I—” Footsteps echoed in the hall. Norman twitched his head around. He put a finger up to shush the little group. He betrayed a hint of a smile and winked at Matt. “Let’s get the food.” He quickly grabbed four more MREs from the box on the shelf and shoved them into the backpack.

  He gripped each student by a shoulder. “Two hours.”

  Matt flicked buttons on his watch.

  Seamus poked his head into the room. His bright red hair seemed to glow in the dim light. “It’s time.”

  24

  God Laughing

  Norman walked with Skip and Andrea at the head of the line. Seamus and Rufus walked with them. Skip wouldn’t shut up.

  “I really admire this plan of yours and am very glad I can be part of the solution,” prattled Skip. The only thing worse than a politician was a rookie politician. They still thought people cared what they have to say. A few decades on the council would have taught him that people don’t care, they want. If you give them what they want, they love you. It was only a matter of time until the people you say no to outnumber the people you tell yes. Eventually, you’ll have said no to just about everyone more than once.

  They’ll hate but tolerate you. They’ll say the system’s broken, even though it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. You learn who you have to appease in order to keep your job, and the rest is words. A lifetime of words. Skip would have no problem in that department. At least he wouldn’t have if there were still a VR High Council. Who knows, perhaps he’d have become VU Chancellor in a century or two.

  Norman wondered if a politician could handle this mission. The job was simple and could be summed up in one word: run. When Skeete’s little squad of henchmen attacked his fake re-supply trio, they were supposed to run.

  St. Elizabeth’s sat in the middle of Father Isaac Village, the worst part of town by most estimates. It was surrounded by derelict tenements, boarded storefronts, and other abandoned properties. Norman and company needed to flee the assault and lead the attackers to a scrap metal yard. It was the perfect place to get cornered. Then, Rufus and Seamus would lead the twenty-five or so other vampires in the counter-attack. It shouldn’t be too hard. Norman and the group would have them greatly outnumbered.

  If Skip couldn’t run as fast as he could talk, then…he’d at least give his all for one last service to his community. Norman felt bad for thinking so lightly on Skip’s life. He was a politician, but he’d been in the minority opposition. He was one of the few who publicly stood against the escalation. He had tried to avoid war. Perhaps Norman should have stood with him? Then he’d probably be dead now, as were most participants in the conflagration—willing and unwilling.

  Norman looked back on the remnants of the decent vampires of the world. He wondered if small cells like this had survived around the rest of the world. Did analogs of Skeete’s group also roam in pockets as well? Were they all working to snuff out the survivors and finally claim victory?

  Perhaps this was it. His group of vampires represented the last hope. Maybe they now marched into the final battle of the war: a war Norman had worked so hard to avoid. Now he led the charge.

  As he scanned the faces of his misfit brigade, he noticed Naseem and wondered anew why he had come along on this sortie. Norman dropped back to speak to Ian. “Why is he here?”

  “He has proven…valuable in certain, difficult situations.”

  Norman looked over at the symbol dangling from Naseem’s neck. That gold eye in the pentagram still perplexed Norman. Naseem also carried a rather full back pack. All of them had taken along supplies. Few of them, however, were as heavily weighed down as Naseem. A bag of tricks, perhaps.

  Sensing he would get no answers from Ian, Norman dropped back further and strode next to Naseem. He looked around at the walls and noticed they’d transformed from mortared cobblestone to smooth, poured concrete.

  “We’re in the city sewer now,” he said casually. Not getting a response, he added, “That’s a heavy lunch, you’ve got there,” and patted the back pack. Its contents felt hard, metallic.

  Naseem replied, “It’s always good to be prepared. I’m only human.” He smiled at Norman. The gloom beat the corners of Naseem’s mouth back down.

  “May I ask you a direct question?” asked Norman.

  Naseem did not reply.

  “Why do these guys keep you around? Ian hinted that you’ve been some use. How could a human possibly be useful in this situation? Other than as food?” asked Norman.

  Ian, having overheard, dropped back to join the conversation. Naseem looked up at him and kept quiet.

  “Naseem represents a group that is…let’s just say an interested party,” offered Ian.

  “A group of humans?” asked Norman. “What type of group? They know about us? What’s their interest?”

  “So many questions,” replied Ian, “for a schoolteacher who wanted nothing to do with politics.”

  Norman detected that upper class tone in Ian’s voice. He sensed that he was once again bumping up against privileged information and Norman did not share in the privilege. Ian’s air of superiority began to grate on Norman’s nerves.

  “If we’re all that’s left of the Vampire Union, then what’s the point of secrets?” asked Norman.

  “We’re not all that’s left,” reminded Ian. “Our enemy remains.” Ian let the words sink in. “Our mission is to extract information from them. However, if the tables should turn… If they should squeeze you, Norman… It’s best if there’s no juice inside to drip out.”

  The ignorant hold no secrets. Naseem stared ahead when Norman looked to him for something more. His secrets would remain hidden for now. Most of them, anyway. Norman knew that a human organization had taken an interest in his little group of survivors. How large was the organization? How far back did their involvement go? What were their goals? A tiny answer led to a plethora of new questions. Norman moved back to the front of the group.

  “How long have you known karate?” Norman asked Andrea.

  “I can fight if I have to,” she replied. “I’m a black belt.”

  “I think if you have to fight,” said Norman, “we’ve lost.”

  Andrea sighed and dropped her gaze to the ground.

  Norman scolded himself for draining morale in this moment of danger. “Don’t worry. If you can run li
ke you can fight, we’ll be fine. Right, Rufus?”

  Rufus remained stoic and did not reply to Norman’s encouragement.

  “There it is,” shouted Seamus who held the group’s map. “That juncture up ahead.”

  The whole band stopped and gathered around the map.

  Seamus pointed to a spot and said, “That tunnel ahead leads to the sewer grate near 227 Amory.” He slid his finger from the juncture on the map along a line that led to a sewer grate symbol. He tapped the mark. “Here.”

  Then he brought his finger back to the juncture on the map. “This tunnel leads to a grate just outside the scrap metal yard here.” Once again, he slid his finger along the map to show the path to another sewer grate. Seamus looked up at Ian.

  “This is where we split up,” said Ian.

  The group fell silent. They had been together a long time. Norman could sense the bonds between them as he reflected for a moment. Even the sounds of the tunnel seemed to pause. The dripping sounds ceased. The trickling of the putrid, tiny stream at their feet seemed to stop. Norman felt the stillness. He hadn’t felt this in a long time. He took the moment to occupy the emptiness. In that moment, he sensed something—a presence. He hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps it had been there all along, just beneath the noise of their situation, below the threshold of emotion that, until now, had remained too high.

  Norman focused his hearing to try and detect the source of this new variable. He heard the dripping again, the trickling. He heard the clicks of tiny rat claws along the concrete floor. He heard the rumbling of the earth from automobiles far overhead. Beneath this, he heard something else. Footsteps? Softer, faster. Breathing? Quicker, deeper. Norman strained, but couldn’t quite make them out.

  “Norman,” said Ian.

  Norman snapped out of his sensory zone. He looked up at Ian, blinking several times to refocus on the scene.

  “You’ll lead your group that way.” Ian pointed along the passage. “We’ll loop around here.” He waved his finger over to point down the other passage at the juncture. “We’ll be in the scrap yard when you arrive. Don’t be late. If you are…”

  Norman knew the ending of the sentence without Ian saying it. The only reason they’d be late is if they were dead. Ian would take the group back down to the catacombs and this would just be another scouting mission picked off by Skeete’s assemblage of murderers. That would mean very bad news for his students. He figured they might have a chance against the two vampires left guarding them, but against the bulk of the group? They’d become food for sure, even with Plan B.

  “We’ll be there.” Norman looked Rufus directly in the eye. “Will you?”

  Rufus nodded, betraying no emotion whatsoever. Norman wondered about the wisdom of putting his life in Rufus’ hands. Those hands that had so recently tried to squeeze the life out of Norman and killed one of his students. Norman decided he couldn’t completely trust Ian, but he trusted Rufus even less. Norman determined that if Rufus and company showed up at the scrap yard, Norman would have to take extra care to watch his own back. The enemies he was certain about might prove to be easier to manage than his ‘friends.’

  “We’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

  Norman looked at his watch. Seamus and Ian looked at theirs as well. Rufus never took his eyes off Norman.

  Norman walked next to Skip and Andrea. “Ready?”

  Skip’s congenial politician facade faded. His skin turned white and he nodded.

  Norman took the first steps along the passage with Skip and Andrea close behind. He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t give Rufus the satisfaction.

  After a moment, they heard the larger contingent begin to slosh their way down the other path at the juncture. Norman was alone, with his two new companions at his back. He felt exposed without his students behind them. He just began to realize that he had stopped thinking of them as mortal baggage. They had become his group, his tribe. These new followers would prove much more useful in a fight against enemies of their own kind. However, he could sense that they did not follow him so much as simply walked behind him. That would have to do.

  Norman wondered if Skip or Andrea had received secret instructions from Ian or from Rufus. He decided that he would have to watch his own back much more closely throughout this little mission. “We should be at the sewer grate in five minutes.”

  The minutes wore on. Norman counted excruciating seconds. Then, after an eon of extended moments, Norman stopped. They looked up. A rusty ladder extended from a hole in the ceiling halfway down to the floor. Norman wondered who should climb up first. He looked back down at Andrea and Skip.

  “Well,” said Norman, “who volunteers?”

  Skip, for once, found himself at a loss for words. He and Andrea both looked at Norman.

  “How about I go first,” Norman said, surprised he could muster sarcasm in this situation.

  Norman leapt up and easily grasped a rung of the rusty ladder. He climbed carefully, but the rust made him wonder if the rungs could support his weight. He looked down at his watch. They had made good time and should rendezvous with the rest within the twenty-minute window easily. He just hoped that some of Skeete’s henchmen complied with their plan and gave chase.

  Norman imagined a worst-case scenario in which he arrived at the scrap yard with no quarry following him to entrap. They’d go back and try again the next day. If that happened, Norman might have to stay up top for a solo mission to get some food for his students. Their supply of MREs was dangerously low. If the scenario went as planned, they might all be free to come up fairly soon.

  Three rungs left to climb. Then it was go time. Norman carefully stepped up, making sure each metal rung could hold his weight. He looked back down the shaft. “I’m here.”

  “Can you see the street?” Andrea replied.

  “I’ll push the manhole cover up now. Wait for me to check out the scene. I’ll signal when it’s clear,” instructed Norman.

  He looked back up at the manhole cover. Something seemed odd about it. No light shone through the holes. Perhaps they’d been plugged with street debris. He reached up to push on the cover. Even if it had rusted shut, it shouldn’t pose much resistance for his undead strength. His fingers touched the lid. It felt strange, non-metallic. He ran his hands along its undersurface. He felt the grit of sand.

  Oh no. Norman’s black heart sank into his heels. He checked his watch. Now the excruciatingly slow passage of time seemed to accelerate. Norman wished he could get those eons back that they wasted walking to the shaft. He turned back down. “It’s been sealed.”

  “Sealed?” replied Skip.

  “Concrete. We can’t get up through here.”

  And there’s no more time.

  25

  Unexpected Guests

  Norman dropped from the bottom rung and splashed in the putrescence that ran in a trickle along the floor.

  “Can’t we smash through it?” asked Skip.

  “We can, but that would make a lot of noise, ruin the street, and definitely bring us way too much attention,” replied Norman.

  “We have to go back,” said Andrea.

  “It’s too late, we’d have to wind our way to the sewer grate the others went to. I don’t know the way. I don’t think I could get us back to the catacombs, either.”

  “We should have taken a map,” said Skip.

  “Something tells me we weren’t meant to.” Then Norman thought of the supply cabinet bereft of human food and the twelve students who had grown far past hungry. He attempted to calculate how much time would pass before the group decided the kids had become too much of a liability and, in fact, represented a great opportunity for food. The VR wanted peaceful relations with humans, but at the end of the day, people were still prey.

  As Norman weighed their options, he sensed that presence again. It was near and silent. Curiosity beckoned him forward. What is it? “We’re moving on. We’ll climb up the next exit.”

  “But we hav
e no idea where that will put us up top,” said Skip.

  “We’ll figure it out. It’s our city,” said Norman.

  “There’s no time,” retorted Skip.

  “Then go back!” blurted Norman as he began to jog down the tunnel. Andrea followed. After a moment of hesitation, Skip trailed behind.

  Norman sought out that presence. He listened, smelled. The sounds of their own footsteps and the disgusting odors overwhelmed his senses. He lost track of whatever it was he was tracking. He continued on, blind.

  “How do you know which way to go?” asked Skip.

  “Any way but back.”

  After a few minutes, they came upon another shaft leading to the surface. Looking up, Norman could clearly see bright moonlight shining at the top. He made out the rectangular opening of a sewer grate rather than a manhole cover. No matter. The surface was the surface. They’d have to emerge wherever they could and take their chances.

  Norman didn’t wait for volunteers this time. He leapt up and grabbed a rung, ascending with quick steps. Halfway up, he looked back.

  “Come on, there’s no time.” Norman glanced at his watch. He wasn’t lying. Twelve minutes left.

  At the top of the ladder, he lifted his head up to see over the grate. His head was directly under the curb of a sidewalk and he could see out into the street. A streetlight directly across from him illuminated the cracked and bumpy pavement of the road.

  “Great,” he whispered down to the duo below him. “We’re right under a street light. That plus the moon would make stealth very difficult.”

  No choice. He pushed up on the grate and slid it to the side, holding it half an inch above the street to avoid a scraping noise. When he’d moved it aside enough to fit through, he very gently set it down with just a tiny clang.

  He slipped up through the opening and reached down to help Andrea. Skip came up last.

  Adrenaline cranked up his senses. He breathed a deep lungful of fresh air for the first time since they had descended into the sewers. How sweet it was. Norman wanted to sit down on the curb and just breathe for a few hours. The burst of clean air brought him renewed energy and tasted so sweet, almost as sweet as blood.