Red Sky: Rising

by Ben Archer

  No eye contact.

  Nothing too unusual.

  Keep my head down, concentrate on the tremors in the cuffs, and wait for them to end.

  It’s not long before my wish comes true. I keep just enough tension in the cuffs so my hands fly apart the second they release. I instantly whip my neck forward and the thrust yanks the leash from his hands. The pole only bounces once before I snatch it up and smash it into the side of his skull.

  The sound echoes across the valley.

  CRACK!!!!

  He drops to the ground so hard there will have to be a crater left behind. I don’t waste time going for another hit on the already collapsed man, instead, I choose to get some much needed distance between us. That turns out to be extremely easy thanks to the fresh infusion of blood. My legs are able to tear across the sand like never before.

  …until they’re suddenly not anymore.

  The familiar tremors start in the base of my thumbs, and quickly work their way up. That’s before my arms experience the abrupt stop of a dog finding the end of a short chain. The impact drops me to one knee, but I continue digging in the sand to keep moving forward. Nothing will stop me from crawling my way out of here.

  Except, even buried deep in sand, the tremors eventually overpower me. My churning legs have stopped. When they do, I’m up in the air sailing backwards towards th---

  BAM!!!

  Quinn Chapter 7: Remedy

  I don’t wake up until a particularly harsh bump bounces my sleeping head off the steel slab. The abrupt awakening leaves me struggling to make sense of the endless smear of blurred colors rushing by. It seems my mind is having a very hard time recovering from the extended forced nap. Even the basics are gone; who I am and how I got here, are completely lost in the fog.

  Discovering the lifeless Hayden helps to fill in some of the missing pieces. Falling out of Vegas, Mr. Templeton, those crazy cute robot babies, the Rat bastard, and of course my family. That part I wish I could forget again.

  One major difference is our location. This certainly isn’t the lifeless desert anymore. There’s actually stuff here. Not good stuff though ─most of it is on fire.

  The worst are the barrels releasing fiery debris into the air. They’re real-life fireflies floating around looking for a place to land. And the swarm bites at my frozen skin every chance they get. Then, when I’m paying too much attention to them, my head will bounce off the truck again. These cuffs have me pinned so close that almost any little bump crashes my skull off the steel wall.

  None of this matters to the assholes up front. They’re too busy shouting at each other to actually drive. They also seem really fond of swerving off the road every few minutes. Every time they do, gravel sprays up my bare legs. The extra pain in my left foot probably means I’ve lost a shoe somewhere along the way.

  When we drive into a pitch black tunnel, it comes to mind that I’ll be wiped off the side of the truck if we swerve in here. This causes my heart to skip a beat from every twitch of the fidgety steering wheel. I can’t tell how close we actually are, but the echo makes it sound as if we’re right along the edge.

  A plume of sparks erupt from the front fender after another collision. The metal shavings give off just enough light to illuminate the wall only inches away from my nose. The deafening wind, burning metal flakes, roaring engine, and fear of becoming a long smear on a wall, makes me consider just leaning forward to get it over with. Thankfully, before I can make peace with the idea, the punishing tunnel ends.

  The shot nerves have left me hanging off the side of the truck in a melted mess. I’m stuck somewhere between unconscious and insane. Probably about as close to crazy as you can get and still being aware of it. I fantasize about floating away to leave this all behind. Simply abandon my body and let my spirit blow free on the wind. It’s surely a hallucination, but I swear I see myself hanging off the truck from several feet away. I’m floating high above, looking down on myself in sympathy and disgust.

  How long this mental limbo lasts is impossible to tell. The next real thought that comes is that feeling is finally returning to my frozen fingertips. That means the icy wind has stopped. It means our truck has stopped too.

  It’s an actual challenge to lift my head to greet whatever fresh hell this will turn out to be. I need to know, but don’t really want to know. When the courage finally does come, I find something completely unexpected. I had imagined those filthy bastards were taking us to some run down shack in the middle of nowhere. This is definitely not that.

  It’s more like a chemical plant than anything else. Every building is meticulously maintained and spotlessly clean. They could best be described as sterile looking, even though dozens of giant smoke stacks are busy shooting massive balls of fire out every few seconds. Surrounding the entire thing is a thick row of razor wire that leads to a VERY closed front gate. “VERY” because of the extremely uninviting spikes covering the whole thing.

  Crow flashes the lights four times as some sort of signal to the guard shack. After the forth flash, a large amount of automated guns spring out of the previously blank wall. They form a tight grid of red dots down the length of our truck. The men scream franticly at the radio between hitting each other three stooge’s style. Apparently the forth flash was a big mistake.

  They shout, “Runners! Night runners, dammit!!!” when the entire cabin lights up in a spectacular laser show. Several of the dots have migrating to the center of my chest now. Even though they aren’t applying any actual pressure, it feels as if they’re shoving me against the hard slab. Luckily, before something stupid happens, an all-clear sends the guns back to their hiding spots.

  Air refills my starved lungs the instant they’re gone. Not everything is good though, my head clumsily falls back and cracks the steel wall again. I’m still reeling as the truck sputters through the open gates. Maybe it’s the minor concussion talking, but everything about this place says “STAY AWAY.” Even the way the doors slam shut behind us is ominous. They close with the force of two colliding cars. I worry I’ll never see the other side of them again.

  Quinn Chapter 8: Love Don’t Live Here

  The wide open doors unleash a foul smell from inside the building. My stomach churns from the stench of rotten blood pouring out. The odor is nothing like the salty sweet smell of regular plasma. Whatever this is, it crawls up my nose like corrosive acid.

  Rat threatens me with a cocky, “Ah ah ahhh, kid. Don’t cha go tryin’ to run away.” His voice has lost the devilish growl. “I’ll have ta’ snap them pretty little knees of yours.” Obvious joy pulls his leathery face into a sarcastic smile that has me aching to carve him up pumpkin-style. Crow is too busy working to join in Rat’s game of threating me. He swipes his finger four times and Hayden drops off the side of the truck. There’s still no sign of life when he pours out over the filthy concrete ground.

  Then, from seemingly nowhere, a tiny machine hovers in over the lifeless body. The silver robot is as round as a Frisbee and just about as wide. There’s a small antenna on top that wiggles as it makes weird clicking noises like a cricket. After a few seconds, a hidden panel slides open to release two lengthy cables from the bottom. On the ends are round disks that automatically seek out the metal bands attached to Hayden’s wrists. They continue searching until the familiar “Schink” sound rings out.

  A loud whirring sound begins when the bottom of the mini droid abruptly lights up. The noise surges as it struggles to lift Hayden’s limp body off the ground. By the time it revs high enough to take off, the scream could be mistaken for a crying baby.

  A matching droid flies in for me a few seconds later. Just like the last one, two cables drop down and search for my wrists. Rat’s careful not to let me touch the ground this time. It seems I’ll be leaving directly from the steel slab. I helplessly watch the cables snap on my cuffs, while imagining wrapping them around his tube-filled throat. Then the new droid revs up to peel me off the side of the beat up truck. Rat flicks h
is tongue through cracked lips, “Bye bye now lil’ mama. Maybe I’ll swing by later to give you a little taste.”

  Nasty son of a bitch.

  I kick toward him, but that only makes me look even more helpless. The freaks relish in my misery by catcalling while the little bots carry us away. The humiliation sharpens the fangs of my rapidly growing anger.

  This suffocating helplessness remains as we sail over the grimy factory. Below us are dozens of people rushing around like crawling spiders. Every one of them is as nasty looking as Rat and Crow; same blood shot eyes, skeleton faces, and they’re all covered in whatever is in those tanks. This whole place is nothing but huge vats of the gross smelling ooze. Giant paddles constantly stir the foul concoction, sending fresh waves of it into the air. This is definitely not a smell I could ever get used to.

  The little droids are really picking up speed as we enter a new section of the building. At least this part smells slightly less disgusting than the other. Most likely because the vats are completely missing. The only things in here are countless rows of frosted glass tubes stretching from wall to wall. They’re almost coffin sized and connected by endless pipes and hoses.

  A voice breaks in from behind, “Slow up TT’s” and we drift to a gradual stop. A floating chair, piloted by somebody that couldn’t be much older than me, glides up beside Hayden. The occupant is a homely looking guy with the same sunken face, but with a much dumber outfit. It may sound weird to notice how a person is dressed in this life or death moment, but he’s just so ridiculous looking that it couldn’t be ignored. He got the black leather memo; however, his stiff jacket is two sizes too large, while the striped polo under it is two sizes too small. And I’m not even sure what his pants are made of. They appear stitched together from several sets of equally terrible curtains. Although his defining feature has to be the slicked back hair that leads away from an acne ridden face. The crazy amount of grease sitting on his forehead reflects the florescent lights with mirror-like accuracy.

  Then he opens his mouth and every other word cracks like he’s in the middle of full blown puberty. Directing his attention to the Hayden’s bot, “You know we can only use live ones! TT-K did you run vitals? Which runner was responsible for the feeding?” The bot responds with two quick beeps and a pop-up hologram of Crow’s ID.

  “Were the proper vitals ran?”

  “Beep beep” chirps the bot. The picture converts to numbers that the nerd swiftly moves around in midair. He grabs and shuffles them with amazing speed to decipher Hayden’s vitals. Clicking through screen after screen, reading charts and tweaking settings, until he’s finally satisfied. “Alright, this one passes, but just barely. Make a note if he doesn’t survive the spike, it was runner Crow’s catch.”

  Then his attention turns to me.

  “So what do we have here? Don’t you just look full of life!” His chair moves in ridiculously close. Close enough to appreciate every sad hair randomly poking out of his chin. Close enough to get drunk on his musky cologne that’s somehow worse than all the other putridness in here.

  He attempts to lower his voice and it cracks even more under the strain, “Well, hellloooo laaaaaady!” Drawing a few fingers through his oily hair at the same time. After it’s been slicked completely down, he attempts a dreamy, smoldering look that comes off as confusion with a touch of constipation.

  “Now aren’t you a sight for these sore eyes!” he croons while rubbing my cheek. The sludge from his hair smears my face with every stroke. Dangling here leaves me no actual way of avoiding his filthy touch, so I smile and not-so-patiently wait for him to make a mistake.

  The pitiful smooth talk continues, although my attention has turned to Rat and Crow. They’re clumsily strapping Hayden into a large mechanical spine sticking out of the floor. Its giant centipede arms look ready to wrap him in a dozen rigid steel bands. His wrist cuffs clamp onto the prongs, then the spindly legs bite down to hold him upright. Rat shoves another feeding tube down his throat after its all finished. Crow mutters under his breath, obviously still fuming over what the nerd said about him, but the grease ball is too busy stroking my hair to care.

  I keep my repulsion buried since he seems like the key to getting out of my own cuffs. I bite my lip to look overly sexy. It also helps choke back the disgust. My mouth manages to vomit, “Hey yourself, good looking.” The words are more spat out than said.

  “I really like, that… that jacket.” I slather on lies and watch him eat up them one by one. “And that hair! Are you a bad boy, handsome? What’s your name?”

  “Nick.” he responds with a sharp squawk. He’s obviously not used to anyone flirting with him. Like, ever.

  “…but my friends call me Diesel.”

  “I’m sure they do! And I see why! Look at those big, strong muscles!” I worry about laying it on too thick, except it doesn’t take super senses to hear his racing heartbeat, or see the tiny bulge in his pants. “Would you flex those big muscles for me? I want to see that strong body!” He stammers while flexing the little mounds of sadness on both arms.

  “The right muscle is so much bigger than the left!”

  “That’s my gaming hand!” the silver-tongued Romeo excitedly exclaims while circling me. It rolls from his tongue as smugly as a Shakespearian quote. I can feel his unblinking eyes trace my body. They make my skin crawl, but at least I don’t have to worry about him seeing me watching the other two assholes. They’ve began latching several smaller tubes onto Hayden’s cuffs. After they’re secure, dozens of tiny prongs spring out from the edges. They’re curved under like fishhooks and point around the bottom of his hands.

  Rat activates the machine and the entire thing becomes a flurry of activity. Hayden’s body is instantly lifted in the air, then laid inside one of the large glass tubes. The hooks bury themselves deep into his wrists as soon as he’s in place. This causes a steady crimson stream to begin pouring into the smaller tubes. Nick Diesel yells over his shoulder, “It’s your lucky day, Crow! Looks like he made it after all!”

  “Wha… What are you doing to him?” I ask as non-desperately as possible.

  “Oh baby, he’s going to make me a whole bunch of cash! You play nice and maybe he’ll make us lots of cash! You like that, don’t you?” I want to remove the bastard’s heart through his ass. Instead, I force another pained smile, “Well how is he going to make us that money?”

  “Not just him, honey ─all of them.” He points down the rows of frosted glass and I finally see the faces watching me from their crystal tombs. Thousands of them. Most are little more than skin, bones, and pumping veins.

  And they’re ALL alive.

  Quinn Chapter 9: Money Maker

  The bottom of my chest falls out. These people are living blood farms! It brings a sudden rush of traumatic memories from the feeding lines back home. I’ve been on the wrong side of a draining needle before. The feeling of watching someone take that from you is an emptiness that never fades.

  Nick snaps me back to reality with a limp-wristed pinch, “Don’t you be scared honey. Maybe we can keep your sweet cheeks out of there?” He doesn’t even pretend to look at anything other than my breasts.

  I unintentionally break my pretend-to-be-sexy act for only a moment. Either a disgusted look, or hateful smirk, causes the slimy prick to back away. I’m going to be in those things next to Hayden if I don’t recover quickly. He needs to be convinced that I could, somehow, be interested in anything he has to offer. Thankfully, all it takes is one good smile and he comes fluttering back with stars in his eyes.

  “We make V from these blood suckers. That V equals cash money for Nick Diesel!” This guy’s ego will give me all the information I want as long as I play along. “You like that don’t you?” He slathers those filthy fingers all over me again. “Why don’t we head up to my room so I can show you a King-sized mattress in search of a Queen?”

  Ughhhhh…

  This conversation is quickly going in the wrong direction. In an effort
to steer it away, “Oh, V? All my friends love it!”

  I’ve never heard of it.

  “So, then, how do… how would you spend all that money? Buy me nice things?” I’m grasping for anything to talk about, other than his bedroom, and this seems repulsive enough. I need more time to figure out how to get Hayden out of that blood-sucking machine.

  “Does it kill them?”

  “Certainly not! We couldn’t filter the V through them if they were dead. It’s a beautiful process of pumping blood in through their mouth, then taking it back out with those prickly bracelets.” He pokes my cuffs to simulate the needles I saw stabbing into Hayden.

  The longer he goes, the higher his squeaky voice gets. “And what comes out is V. People will pay out the ass to be a vampire for just a few minutes! Everyone wants to be able to do the things you all do. Want to climb buildings? Bench press a car? A shot of V is all you need!”

  “Not that I need it.” He boasts while flexing those puny muscles.

  So all these workers look like they’re out of their minds, because they really are. They get high and it eats them alive. That also explains how Rat went from zero to rampaging hulk back on the bus. Hayden said something about V-heads back in Vegas; this must be them.

  I might be new to being a vampire, but one thing I know is that it’s a disease. So how can they be a vampire for only a few minutes? That stirs up a question that may be a little too smart for the bimbo role I’m playing. “Why aren’t you infected after drinking our blood?”

  Luckily it appeals to his inner geek instead of giving me away. “Oh I knew I liked you! Brains and beauty in one! You would be right, except we’ve already thought of that. See, I don’t go in through the fangs to harvest the blood. We go through the wrists! That way the Hyaluronidase in your teeth can’t activate the venom. So without activation, the effects are only temporary. Like catching a cold versus the flu!”