After the Fall

by Martinez, A. J.

  “I am a wanderer, going from place to place in search for other people.”

  “It sounds like a lonely road.”

  “Yes, it has been rather lonely.” Especially when I have to keep killing my companions to stay alive.

  “Well, you don’t have to be alone anymore. You are among friends. We are a very close-knit town, like family.”

  “We have to be,” Alaric added. “Otherwise we’d fail.”

  “Indeed,” she said. “Do you plan on staying long?”

  “Actually, I was just planning on passing through. If it wasn’t for your boy, I might have passed right by.”

  She laughed nervously. Of course it wasn’t her son, but she was his stepmother, and I had a bit of fun making her squirm just a little.

  “Well, I trust you’d reconsider,” said Alaric

  “Yes, we could always use another strong set of hands. You don’t have to struggle alone out there. I was raised here so I don’t know, but a few of our people have come from outside and they wouldn’t dream of leaving, not when they have a safe, secure place here.”

  Safety. That word scares me.

  “Not just a pair of hands, but a kind heart that controls them as well.”

  “Um, yes, of course. I just did what I felt was right at the moment.”

  The main course gave way to dessert and I was starting to feel the heat of the place. Someone must have turned on the furnace, I figured, because it felt like a sauna in here. All the people seemed to be doing fine, except their voices began to slow down and become muffled, like trying to hear underwater. The chandeliers above us began to dim. Now I knew something was wrong. I got up from the table without so much as excusing myself and walked out. If I could just get some fresh air, I should be all right. Someone called my name, asked how I felt and what was the matter with me. My legs were on autopilot, pushing up the stairs like pistons. I could hear my frantic heartbeat and ragged breath. There was definitely something wrong with me, but I had the feeling I had not seen the worst of it yet.

  It was dark upstairs save for a few oil lamps, but my eyes refused to adjust. Everything was starting to spin and going out of focus. The promise of fresh air was empty, for it felt just as hot up here. Someone was coming up behind me, once again asking me what was the matter. I tried to reply but I believe I had lost the ability to make coherent words at this point. My balance went soon after and I fell.

  Uh-oh. I’m going down.

  Infection

  The dreams that followed came like a short film marathon. There was one of me before the Fall, when I walked the streets in search of a new victim. Some old homeless woman approached me from the alley. Her breath was ragged and choked. She had sickly gray skin and glazed eyes. I figured her for someone who had contracted a very serious illness and would not be alive for much longer. I started walking into the mouth of the alley, thinking I might have found my next meal when the old woman tried to take a bite out of me! In all of my years as a Vampire, I had yet to see a human try to feed on me. I pushed the old woman with all my supernatural strength, driving her about twenty, maybe thirty feet into the alley until her head met a metal pole and stopped. Upon hearing that cracking sound, I knew that her neck was broken and she was a goner.

  I looked around to see who had witnessed this and found no one in particular paying attention. Even if they had, they would have more than likely not cared one bit about some homeless old woman in an alley. Some would have even thought what I just did was a service to the community, getting another useless moocher off the streets and under the ground. Not wanting to press my luck, I made a quick exit.

  The reel changed and now I was in the middle of the Fall. Throngs of people ran through the streets in a panic. It should have been a terrible time for me, but it wasn’t. Some part of me sensed the lean times ahead and feasted on every innocent victim that came my way. There was a young, innocent-looking girl that I saw going in no particular direction. I snatched her up and took to a side street, where I began to feed on her. Naturally, she did not appreciate this and screamed at the top of her lungs. All that noise for nothing, because no one came to help. Everyone was too busy helping themselves, trying to escape the city that had become a death trap. The safety we had once found in our numbers had become our biggest liability.

  My fangs sank in her neck. I did not care at this point. She thrashed and gave a mighty struggle, but she was puny and I was strong. Her struggles began to wane as the blood drained out of her body. It brought on a pang of guilt when I realized I had drained her dry, but knowing what I know now, I had done her a favor. I had spared her a painful death and a never-ending lifetime of wandering in a state of mindless hunger. I heard voices speak just down the street.

  “What’s he doing to her. Is he one of those things?”

  “Hey, what’s going on? Let her go!”

  I did as he said and showed him my open mouth, baring my fully extended fangs for their amusement. It was actually I who was amused as they fell over themselves trying to get away from me as fast as their feet could take them. Somewhere down the road, there were sounds of rifle gunfire and I knew the humans had begun a cleansing of their own. It was time to pay a visit to these good soldiers. They would donate some blood to the cause.

  “Martial law is now in place. Get off the streets now and seek the nearest shelter. You may return to your homes once the threat is eliminated. Remain calm and follow all instructions,” so sayeth the man with the bullhorn. I felt a great urge to feed him that loudspeaker. It seemed like such a good idea at the time that I decided to act upon it.

  Just as I knew, the soldiers were lying. This was not martial law for the good of the citizenry. It was an act of cleansing. Unable to contain the threat, the military resorted to attrition as a last-ditch attempt at regaining control. Squads of soldiers with rifles, shotguns, and machine guns marched into buildings. Gunfire ripped apart all things, living or otherwise.

  The sniveling colonel sat on top of his tank, looking smug while he ordered the death of innocent people. I resolved to change that. With lightning speed, I sprinted up to the tank and snatched him away.

  “Help! He’s got me! Shoot him! Shoot him!”

  Deaf to his pleas for help, I sank my fangs into his neck. I wasn’t even hungry at this point. This I did simply out of spite. My teeth sank further and further into his neck until I felt I was going to take a chunk out of it. That was when I heard the whirring sound and saw the tank turret turning.

  I remember hearing the boom, but it seemed to stretch from a split second into several minutes. The sound was deafening, like a roaring river in continuous loop. When I returned to normal time, I was several blocks away and the colonel had been pulverized. The soldiers looked around confused and began to search for me. I was miles away by the time they realized I was gone.

  The last dream was of me walking down the desolate roads in search of any living soul. The hunger was intense. I could feel it in my bowels, deep in my bones as the body drew on what little reserves I had left. It wasn’t much. Weeks ago, I had run across a small band of travelers—two men, a woman, and three children, one almost a teenager. I wasn’t above taking a pint out of each, enough to give me some semblance of satiety without weakening or killing them.

  It was one of the men’s turn to take guard, but he had fallen prey to the sentinel’s curse that night, a most fortunate development for him, since I would not need to knock him unconscious. After taking my tribute from him, I moved into the inner circle of the camp.

  I hate the analogy, but we really are like mosquitoes. Our bite seems to have a calming effect on the victim, which makes our task a little easier. I went through the other man, the woman, and the children one by one. The younger ones stirred and began to whine, but their mother reached out and shushed them. I guarded them for the rest of the night to pay them for their trouble. They would also check their backpacks in the morning and find some cans of food that weren’t there the night before
. Maybe the mother could say that the Blood Fairy left gifts for the kids. It probably wouldn’t happen, but it was amusing to think so.

  That night had ended well, but it was long gone and of no comfort now. If I could feed on memories, I would never want for sustenance. For the first time in my long existence, I cursed my condition and wished it to be gone. The hunger gnawed its way through my body like a terminal cancer. It was a pain even morphine could not blunt. Only that ruby red wine of life could soothe me.

  Something happened differently this time. Instead of walking down the road undetected, I was attacked by a pack of vicious undead. I struggled, but it was no use. They sank their teeth into me and tore me piece by piece. The pain was excruciating, but still nothing compared to my earlier hunger pangs.

  It was at the conclusion of the last dream that I awoke screaming into the ceiling. My mouth had been gagged with a thick leader roll that felt like a whip handle. They had also taken care to bind my hands and feet. This room had been transformed into a cell for holding terminal patients until they reanimated and could be “euthanized.” Such a nice term, isn’t it? Almost makes it sound like you’re not actually killing someone.

  A thick sheen of sweat was all over my skin, but the fever was still there. The sickness was invading my brain, trying to kill it and remake it in its own image. It all felt so hopeless and inevitable, but I was not one to surrender without a fight.

  There must have been someone listening close by, because here came my benefactor down the stairs and into my cell. He unlocked the door and came to the bedside to check on me. I must have looked ghastly, because this imposing man looked terrified. He took off in a hurry and did not come back for some time. When he did, he came in behind the doctor, or the closest thing to a medical man in these savage times. The doctor put on thick leather gloves and checked my eyes. He looked much more composed than Alaric, but no less perturbed by the sight of me.

  “I’m afraid he is infected. There’s no mistaking the signs. He has a high fever and delirium. His complexion is very pale and he looks to be dying. Out of all the people I have overseen, he has fought the longest, but it’s only a matter of time until it conquers him. I would suggest, like every other time, that we end his misery now.”

  No, no! I thought. My eyes must have betrayed something to Alaric, but it only served to cause him more anguish.

  I sank back into the fog of delirium and watched the walls shimmer and melt away. At some point I returned and saw an angel hovering over me. My time must be near, I thought. There really was an angel there, but it was an earthbound one, Alaric’s wife. She continued to gaze over her shoulder. When she was sure we were still alone, she continued to move her head closer to me.

  She seemed fascinated with me at this point. If she had been like this at dinner time, I could not tell. Perhaps my sickness drew her out of pity or curiosity. Her hand rested on my chest. It felt cold as ice and I shuddered. She drew a cloth out of a pan of water and wrung it lightly to place on my forehead. It felt cool at first, but the fire from within soon heated it. The cloth went to the pan and back to my head. Rinse, wring, repeat. I wanted to feel like it was doing something for me, but the fever felt all the worse for it.

  A singular expression of pity appeared on her face. It caused me pain to see her divine young face marred by any distress. She reached behind my head and untied the leather gag. I had not realized just how uncomfortable it had been, but the relief was enough to take a little edge off the suffering. My senses began to sharpen a bit. I could hear her heart beating in her chest and my tongue began to frolic in my mouth. I could almost taste her blood. The smell of it was so strong it seemed to emerge from her pores. Now there seemed to be two fevers inside my body.

  Of all the foolish things she could choose to do, she decided to lean in for a kiss. Her soft, smooth lips brushed over mine, only worsening the rush going through me. Now she caressed them over my forehead and let out a wistful moan. My illness faded into irrelevance as my instincts, prodded by hunger, roared into life. The fangs that had been tucked into my skull now emerged and begged to be put to use. I plunged them into her neck. By the time she had realized what was happening, it was too late. Her body relaxed and she slumped over me. This was something I did not mind. In the heat of the moment, I broke free of my restraints and caressed her body as I extracted that nectar of life from her. When I had my fill, I pulled my teeth from her neck and held her. I knew this was something I would regret, but as my last act on this Earth, I could think of nothing sweeter than a beautiful woman resting on me while her blood coursed through my veins. It was the closest kind of intimacy, beyond that of lovemaking.

  I slept what I suspected would be my last sleep.

  I was not far from the mark. When I opened my eyes, Alaric was screaming and lunging at me with an axe while several people held him back. Two female servants were carrying Rhiannon off the bed and into a chair. The other group had managed to push Alaric out of the room and upstairs. All the people in this house could not manage to still the raging behemoth of a man.

  Rhiannon got her own bed across from me. I now expected her to join me in un-death. Her neck was a bruised mess from the fang marks. Far from the version in vampire tales, the bite was not some small unassuming mark that could miss a cursory inspection. It was a large wound that would take some time to heal. One would only wonder how we survived in the old times without needles or blood banks. By feeding on the lowest of the low, that was how. No one misses a dead robber or murderer. In the grand scheme of things, we helped improve society. Vampires like me were, in a sense, great humanitarians.

  It was now my turn to watch her in pity. The fire was still in my head, but the blood had made me lucid enough to function for the time being. I saw a figure sneaking into the room. Matthias had finally decided to come pay his respects to his dying savior and the stepmother who was scarcely two years younger than him. He limped up to my bed and stared at me for a spell.

  “My mother died of the same thing many years ago. Now you’ve come in here and taken the woman that would take her place. Why didn’t you take me instead? I wasn’t worth anything to anyone. My father would have remained happily ever after without me.”

  He pulled a thin knife out of his pocket and gave me a look I did not care to see.

  “Die already!” he said, raising the knife high in the air and plunging it into my head. Well, he didn’t quite hit my head. He aimed for it, but he hit my pillow instead. I lay my head back and pinned his arm under it. He gave a short scream and wrestled loose. All the courage of his temporary insanity had deserted him. He scampered off and left us alone.

  Alaric was next to arrive. There was a sense of foreboding in my bones. It might have had something to do with the axe in his hand, or the way that he was holding it. His forearm muscles were like tight cords and his knuckles yellow going on white. Tears streamed down his face. He was sobbing softly, his lower lip quivering. His arms joined together and gripped the axe in that same crushing grip. He raised the axe above his head. Now it was time to worry.

  There was a loud popping sound, like rope snapping. It was so loud it made Rhiannon stir in her sleep. I held the axe at bay with one hand while Alaric tried to push it down with all his body. He might as well have been pushing it into a rock. My strength had returned. I gripped the handle tighter and heard the wood splintering in my hand. Alaric let go of the axe and backed into the bars. I tossed the axe to the side and stared at him.

  “What exactly are you, devil?” he asked.

  “I’m not one of them,” I said.

  We stood at an impasse for some time while Rhiannon slumbered on the other bed. Even with her ruined neck, she was still beautiful. I smiled on her for a moment.

  “Then…if you’re not one of…them. Does that mean she…?”

  “She will live. I am sure she will live.” There was a shade of uncertainty in my mind, but if she had not fallen ill at this point, she would be fine.

 
; The great big man was breathing hard and fast. His barrel chest was rising and falling, and there was fear in his eyes.

  “I believe you have saved me as well. That debt has been well repaid. However, I must ask your forgiveness for your wife. She was the instrument of my salvation and I have injured her. I accept that you must do what is necessary to avenge her honor.” I handed him the thin knife that his son had dropped on his way out. “Do what you must. Make it right.”

  The man gripped the knife in his bear claw hand. It looked like a toothpick compared to him. He looked at the knife, then at me, going back and forth until he settled his eyes on me and tossed the knife aside.

  “I cannot kill a messenger from God,” he said.

  After all I had seen, this was the point when it got weird for me.

  Complications of the Flesh

  “You are not one of the risen dead, but it is clear that you are different. How did you survive the bite? No one has ever survived it, but you did. What are you?”

  I took a moment to put my thoughts together and keep him in suspense. “First, I must apologize for not telling you that I was bitten, but I did not think that it would affect me. I also believed that your men would drive a bolt into my brain as soon as I said yes.”

  He stopped for a second to consider this. “You are right. They would have done so.”

  “Then you know why I lied.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you are.”

  “I don’t think you want to know.”

  “But I do! Why else would I ask?”

  “I believe you, but there are some things that should remain in the dark.”

  “Then tell me why you attacked my wife.”

  “It was she who removed my muffle and approached me while I was feverish. My restraints were still on when you came to dispatch me.”

  “Those were in place for our safety. We were willing to let you die peacefully and dispatch you in a humane way before you revived.”