by Maxey, Phil
It was a sound plan he thought. And he could sense them. Vamps. Not many of the basic kind but a good number of those that had more of their minds still intact. But even if it was an Alkron he was being delivered to, he was confident he could get away.
The two soldiers were still talking, but it was not anything of any importance so he tuned it out, and instead shuffled to the rear and peered out through the flap in the tarpaulin. It was raining. Gray needles fell from the sky, just visible against the black of the night. Stores and businesses passed by and after the truck had traversed across some train tracks and into a more industrial part of the small town, they stopped. He quickly slid back to his original position.
Truck doors opened and boots clattered across the wet concrete then stopped just outside the tailgate.
“Note says we should take him inside.”
“Inside? Nope, not doing that.”
“You just want to leave him on the sidewalk? What if he gets away?”
“He—”
There was a gust of wind then the first man produced half a scream as if he had seen a Gorgon.
Joel sensed there was someone or something just a few yards away outside the back of the truck. He readied his arms to break the ropes.
“Hybrid! Why don’t you stop pretending to be bound and come out.” This was a new voice. It sounded artificial, and followed another vocal sound, which he swore was in a foreign language.
“Who’s out there?” shouted Joel.
Slowly a rip started to grow across the back part of the tarpaulin, and then the whole piece was torn away, revealing a solid looking man, his blonde hair tied back into a long ponytail. Blood dripped from his mouth. Joel straight away recognized another hybrid, although this one was unlike any other he had come across. Whoever this was, they had a confidence that most infected by the Scourge never had.
“Come! Don’t be shy. You are among friends!”
Joel slowly got to his feet, kicking one leg out to break the ropes across his ankles, and then doing the same with his arm for his wrists. He lowered his head slightly. “I don’t want any trouble. Just want to be on my way, sir.”
The hybrid’s face was one of bemusement. “Trouble? Well, I was hoping we would cause some trouble, but no harm will come to you from me I can assure you.”
Now it was Joel’s turn to be bemused, but he hid the emotion, instead, he walked across the back of the track and climbed down to the road.
The first man was nowhere to be seen, but the second was propped up against the rear wheel of the truck, one bloodied hand around his throat which blood was oozing from. The man looked up at Joel and held out a hand.
The blonde-haired hybrid in one movement that was just a blur leaned over, twisted the man's head, then was standing in front of Joel once again. He smiled and placed his hand across Joel’s shoulder. “Finally, someone to properly have fun with! Eltir is so damn boring! But you know, older brother and all that.” He removed his hand then started walking away.
Joel looked at the warehouses surrounding him. He calculated he could probably make it to one fairly quickly, but the strange hybrid a few yards away intrigued him. So instead he started walking in his direction. “Where we going?”
“To where the food is!” shouted the hybrid over his shoulder.
Joel ran forward to catch up. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Tyror!” he said with a smile.
*****
Carla looked out from the side of the dark gray storage container, her hair sticking to her face from the torrent falling from above. The damp streets ahead were empty, but there were zero places to hide if someone suddenly came out of one of the buildings dotted around.
She looked back to Amos behind her. “Anything?”
“I can’t sense him yet. There are a few human and Alkron patrols a mile or so from us, but most of the activity is where we thought at the school.”
“They got to have him at the school,” said Dalton.
“That’s where we’re heading,” said Carla. She looked back to the streets. Grass, gravel, and concrete were all there was for a hundred yards before buildings cast shadows for them to hide in. She pointed at the dark angular shape of a church in front of them. They nodded in reply.
They then took off, running down the alleyway they were in, across the road and then the sidewalk until they were plunged back into darkness at the side of the church.
In the shadows, Carla reached out and felt the cold metal of a vehicle parked up against the wall of the building. Beyond the lot were more roads and then homes. She stood to run again when a hand held her back.
“There’s a vehicle coming!” said Amos.
As soon as she crouched again, the sound of an engine became clear amongst the noise of the rain hitting everything around them.
“Get ready to do your thing!” she whispered.
He was already inside the minds of the two individuals driving a Humvee in their direction. One was human, the other not. This was their second time moving along this road since they started their patrol and both just wanted to get back to the school and change shifts.
The car drove past without slowing, its headlights illuminating the side of the church then moved off, its sound being quickly masked by the downpour.
“Clear?” said Carla.
“Yup.”
She pointed ahead. “The house on the corner!”
They nodded and all three ran again, out of the lot, across the road and the overgrown lawn, only stopping when they reached the porch of the building. They all immediately crouched, then ran around to the back of the property and through a gate to the garden.
Lights from the school twinkled in the dark just beyond the garden fence twenty yards away.
They knelt within a series of drenched bushes.
“Now?” said Carla almost desperately.
Amos took a deep breath, the rain dripping off his nose and concentrated his mind outwards. Minds came and went as he slid between them, looking out of the individual's eyes, or searching their memories for the sign of a captive. Then he found something. A human officer had given an order to two others to take a human to a particular location across the tracks. There was something else as well. This human had references to kings?
He pushed the last snippet of information away, focusing on where the human was taken. “I think I have some—”
Before the words could finalize, he was again standing in a desert, the sand being blown up stinging his face.
“What the fuck…” he said into the sharp wind. He swung around and staggered backward, he was at the entrance of a huge temple, its pillars surging skyward. He was with two others, they were hybrids… like… himself. Now he was running with them, towards salvation…
“Amos!” shouted Carla who was shaking him by the shoulders.
His mind returned to the rain-soaked garden, but the sensation of whoever’s mind he was just in this time stayed with him.
He sprang upwards and walked out to the long grass scouring the other fences and buildings around him. “Where are you…”
Carla and Dalton emerged as well.
“What is it? Have you found Joel?” said Carla.
“Not Joel but… something, or someone. They’re old, real old.”
“We need to find Joel! Is he in the school!”
Amos tried to push the strange ancient beings thoughts away, but they clung to his own mind like a web. He held his arm out to Carla. “Just give me a moment, this is important…”
“Important!” The words came out louder than she meant, and she immediately looked into the darkness for any sign of movement.
Amos did his best to relax his mind, trying to get a lock on this person who belonged in a time long before.
Ah… got you.
This time he was ready, and his consciousness moved into the being's mind, but this time the memories did not overwhelm him. This person was a hybrid… and he was moving towards one of
the barracks at the back of the school, towards where the humans are and—
The hybrid was looking at Joel. The shock made Amos lose his grip and he was back in the garden with a frustrated looking Carla looking back at him.
“I found Joel, he’s with… another hybrid.”
Confusion flowed across Carla’s face. “He’s being taken somewhere by the hybrid?”
“I think this hybrid likes Joel… but I don’t think he knows who Joel really is, other than he knows he is a hybrid… they’re moving towards where the humans are sleeping. I think the hybrid means to kill some…”
Carla shook her head. “Okay, whatever. Where is this?”
“Behind the school.” He pointed. “Over there. Northwest.”
Carla looked at the other properties’ gardens lined up in a row just visible from the school lights. “We go over those fences, that takes us towards the back of the school.”
Amos and Dalton nodded, and they ran forward, climbing over the first obstruction, then the second, moving ever north, until finally, they reached the end. A street which ran to the school sat on the other side of the last fence.
Carla climbed up on it. The street was dark, but they would be completely exposed, literally a hundred yards from any Alkrons in the school building and the human soldiers in the building behind that. She went to climb over when Amos tugged at her backpack once again. She dropped down. “What?”
“They’re already inside. If we wait here, they might come back this way when they leave.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Joel stood in the dimly lit hallway which had a series of entrances to dorm rooms. Tyror looked through the glass panel of one door to the sleeping bodies inside.
“Look at the human food!” he said gleefully.
In the twenty or so minutes since he had dropped out of the back of the truck, he had been told from the hybrid standing a few feet from him, that he was a king, had lived thousands of years ago, had two older brothers, and was fed up being told how to act.
Joel was now certain he was also insane. Another hybrid, like Josh, who had been driven crazy by the change. Chances to kill the hybrid came and went, but Joel couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he waited for a chance to escape, but the hybrid always kept him in his view. Crazy he might be, but stupid he wasn’t.
Now though he was back inside the dragon's cave. Back inside the school, and the crazy hybrid was about to get both of them in a lot of trouble.
“We need to leave,” said Joel at an audio level that only an Alkron would hear.
“Leave! We just got here!” Tyror looked back to the people sleeping. “Which one do you want? Or do you want to just start at this end and eat our way through to the other side?”
Joel turned and started to walk away. “I’m leaving.”
In a blur, Tyror was standing in front of Joel, just a silhouette against a single light at the end of the corridor.
“You! Don’t tell me anything! I told you, I’m a king. You might be a hybrid, but do not confuse—”
Joel walked past him, pushing Tyror’s shoulder as he went. “Eat if you want to eat. But I’m waiting outside.”
Tyror watched Joel walk away and frowned, his head switching between the dorm room door and the stairwell that Joel was heading towards.
“Aggh!” he said loud enough for a human to hear. He chased after Joel, who was now at the bottom of the two flights of stairs. “So do you not eat?” he shouted downwards.
Within the time that it took for Tyror to be alongside him, Joel had devised a plan.
“I know where there are humans who won’t be missed. Wouldn’t that be better?” he said to Tyror as they walked across the parking lot towards a road.
Tyror laughed, manically, then slapped Joel on the shoulder. “I knew you were fun! Yes, you are—”
Tyror grabbed his head as if his brain was on fire and sunk to his knees. Joel looked down at him, at first in shock then in scorn. Clearly another aspect of this hybrid’s madness.
“Joel!”
A voice he instantly recognized as Carla’s came some tens of yards away. Focusing his eyes, he just about saw her standing near the side of a fence in the street ahead. There was another with her, with their hand stretched out in his direction.
“By the Gods make it stop!” screamed Tyror.
As he writhed around on the drenched floor, Joel looked anxiously at the school buildings he had just left. How long until someone from there would hear?
Carla waved him towards her but stopped when she saw Amos running in the opposite direction. He quickly arrived at where Joel was standing.
More cries of pain came from the crazy hybrid. Joel heard Carla shout that he should kill him, or they were going to be caught.
Joel’s hand became razor-sharp claws which he held near the throat of the anguished hybrid.
“No! Stop!” shouted Amos. “He’s important, we gotta take him with us!”
“What?” said Joel, his hand hovering near Tyror’s throat.
“Just trust me!”
Joel knew that the young man always knew things he couldn’t. His hand changed back to its human shape. “We can’t take him like this, you need to—”
Tyror’s body fell limp. In one movement Joel scooped him up, throwing him over his shoulder, and then with Amos ran back to Carla.
“This way!” she said, pointing along the road.
As Carla, Amos, and Joel with his passenger ran along the dark street, up ahead a pickup screeched to a halt in front of them and lights started to turn on across the school buildings.
*****
Sasha Jacobs sat inside the cold metal container which had been her refuge from the constant drama inside the warehouse where she and the other hybrids and Alkrons were being kept. The solid box was at the back of a storage room on the second floor. She wasn’t sure if anyone else was aware of it, which suited her fine.
When she agreed to be injected by Joel’s blood she was prepared for the change. To become strong and to have super speed, and most of all to not die. She was done with death. She had seen her parents and younger brother become infected, and she stayed with them all right up until the point they tried to kill her. Then she did what she promised each she would do and used the shotgun to end them. After that she ran from the small Canadian town she grew up in, and headed south, towards the border and America. Luckily, she stumbled upon one of the only human camps that managed to keep going. She couldn’t believe that was only two months back.
But by the time Anna came to her with the question, the answer of which being the only way she would stay alive from her wounds, she didn’t need much time to say ‘yes.’ She was even ready to drink human blood, although the idea of that was probably the worst aspect of becoming a hybrid in her opinion.
Except that never happened. She became something else. Something nobody seemed to understand, least of all herself.
She hated when it happened. Her body disintegrating. When it first occurred she screamed, or she would have done, but her mouth turned to a fine powder which hung in the air, with no allowance for sound making. Her special Alkron ’ability’ was to fall apart. Literally.
Since the moment she realized she wasn’t going to get super speed or any of the sexy things that made hybrids better than your basic vamp, depression threatened to overwhelm her. This ability of hers, that made her different, she didn’t want. If there would have been a way to reverse it, she would have taken it. But as far as she knew there wasn’t. She was stuck with a body which seemed to break up, to transform into an infinite number of tiny particles, and each time it happened she was afraid that she would fade away, a strong gust pulling her apart never to reform.
So each time she felt her hands, feet, or any other part of her grow tingly, she fought with all her might to stop it going any further. The phrase ‘keep it together’ was never truer than for her she thought. For the past two days that had worked, but the constant stress of k
eeping her mind focused had made her incredibly tired.
She leaned back in the open-topped box and closed her eyes.
“Pssss…”
The noise shocked her out of her mind, and back to the dingy office.
“Hey!”
Evan was looking down at her from a skylight. His face only just visible from the glow of lights on the ground floor.
“What do you want?” she said without getting up.
“You want to get out of here?” His words were slightly muffled due to coming through the glass barrier.
Her instincts were to say ‘no.’ Going outside would mean more stimulus. More chances for her strange ability to take hold of her.
But she hated being in the warehouse, so she got to her feet, pulled the desk under the window in the ceiling, then climbed on top of it. She still couldn’t reach.
Evan pulled the window open breaking the latch in the process, and hung his arms down, his hand grabbing hers, and as if she was light as a feather, lifted her up and onto the roof. She immediately grabbed her elbows with her hands. It was bitingly cold.
“Come on, follow me,” said Evan, walking across the roof.
They quickly made their way to a lower ledge, which was only ten feet from the ground. Evan offered his hand to her which she took and he lowered her most of the way, then jumped down himself. That was when she realized they weren’t alone.
“You only got one?” said a young man in military uniform.
“She was easy to get. To get more would have meant going further in!” said Evan.
The man frowned in disappointment. “It’s not going to be much of a party, with only two otherhumans!”
“Wait? What’s going on?” said Sasha.
“I was asked to find some hybrids or something to take to the party that’s going down a few miles from here. I was kinda hoping you would want to—”
“Sure, I’ll come.” She was never much of a partygoer but any behavior even remotely normal she wasn’t going to miss out on.
Soon they were driving with her in the back seat through pitch-black country roads.