Second Genesis

by Eric Williams

  He landed on top of the deer’s back, and allowed his instinct to feed overtake his senses. He broke its neck to put it out of its misery and then bit into the animal’s throat without a single compunction as to what he was doing. He simply gorged. A lion like growl could be heard from his actions, scaring the herd away as he savored the creature’s warm blood. The thought brought back the memory of finding his mother feeding in the woods. He figured she went all week without feeding on blood, and gorged like he was right now when they went camping. The taste of the blood was far better than the cow he had tried, it was a little bitter, but still savory.

  Unlike his mother, Xairin was a full vampire now. When he stood upright, the animal’s blood began to absorb into his flesh, removing any hint of what he had done. Even the hairs on his chest, began to vibrate as they absorbed the blood in his hoodie. Within a matter of a five minute walk down the avenue he was exploring, the traces of his kill had been erased. He felt refreshed, stronger.

  He had never had a fresh kill like that, only the cloned blood products. There was definitely a difference in the potency. He thought.

  It took him a few blocks, a few right and left turns until he found the parking garage that was near the camp. The smell of old dead blood was a clear give away and allowed him to find it quickly.

  Upon his arrival, reservations of what he was doing began to creep back in. He saw several bodies around him, each one mauled beyond recognition. The buzzing of flies and the sight of newly growing maggots in the flesh wounds caused him to want to vomit up his meal. He had to get it together.

  It took Xairin almost ten minutes to pull himself together. He had ran out of the smell of the stench. Finally his blood began to bolster his olfactory senses so that he could withstand it better. When he returned, the smell didn’t bother him, only the sights of what was left.

  He counted seventeen right in his immediate area around a few old oil drums and an old broken down bus they were using as a camper. If it wasn’t for his night vision he couldn’t have seen a thing. His enhanced vision gave him the gory details that he wished he didn’t have to see, but it was necessary. He knelt down at each body, trying his best to evade the maggots as he searched the corpses for anything useful, all the while apologizing to each corpse. “I’m so sorry, forgive me.”

  He found a few old handguns, a few knives, and finally a machete which he decided to keep. He even took the holster with him and fastened it to his hip. So far he wasn’t finding anything that made him go, OOH AHH.

  He decided to venture inside the bus, and the stench there in the close quarters forced his blood have to amp up his resistance to the smell. .He was grateful for that growing bond.

  Xairin found a flamethrower, that was something he figured would be of great use. Fire was one thing that could easily kill an immortal, and surely it would kill the bats.

  He found a few canisters of gasoline. The smell was unmistakable. He had never seen or smelt it before, but knew what it was. Now things were shaping up.

  A satchel of old fashioned dynamite was next on his spoils that he found inside the bus. Nineteen sticks of it. There was even a laser lighter in the pack. Now he just wished he could find a detonating device and just blow up the building after he got the people out. At this point he figured he would just have to blow up the nest and hope he could outrun the blast by taking to the air once everyone was safe.

  He started thinking up his plans. Find the nest, plant the explosives light the wick and get the hell out of dodge. If that didn’t work, he would hope that burning them out would have to do. But he needed to really think this through, there were several lives at stake. Also, if the building fell, would it effect other camps of scavs nearby? He worried about this because the last time he could recall anyone saying anything about scavs in the ruins, was it was estimated a thousand or so was living in them. Eventually they would have to leave once restoration efforts came in to play, but for now, they were living their own laws in a post-apocalyptic setting. Scavs avoided the GA dominions, and occasionally there were turf issues, but that rarely made the news any more.

  As for the bats, they were nocturnal and it was night time. He could tell that the newly infected bats were not developing overly fast like the originals did, but possibly before dawn, they might stir and attack the people he was trying to save. “God I’m not good at this.” He thought.

  Then he remembered that if he did kill the albino, he might fall into a coma and start Alpha morphology, he started to realize that the blood pact with Ethan was weak. His blood whispered that to him, it was like a profound knowledge, he just knew it. So now the dilemma of escaping without evolving presented itself.. If that happened, how the hell would I escape? He wondered.

  Xairin stood there for a moment. His blood continued to whisper knowledge into his mind about Ethan. The link was holding to some degree because Ethan was sired by his grandmother… Sara… Xairin knew that now. But the link to the bat that created him was stronger because it had made him full vampire, even more vampire than others because he started out as a dhampling sensitive. He was unique.

  Xairin wondered if Ethan even knew much about Sara, he had questions, but that mark on his shoulder, made him have strong reservations in who he could even talk too about it.

  Returning to the issue at hand his mind wondered. I really need to try and get a hold of Alex. He figured.

  Xairin stepped out of the old bus and started typing on his watch. Before he could hit the hologram key, he heard a noise that caught him off guard. His biosonar relayed the electric outline of a human walking his way, heavily limping. OH my god, He’s hurt! Xairin turned to the man’s direction. He figured he would try and help by letting the man drink his blood to help heal the wound causing the heavy limping. The sonar showed the man was dragging his left leg almost behind him with each step..

  Xairin started walking faster, hoping not to startle the man. “HEY, I’M OVER HERE!” Xairin yelled.

  Xairin saw the limping man’s biosonar outline change course in his direction, limping faster. Another person emerged from the structures and joined the limping man, this one was moving oddly as well. Three others came into his biosonar’s reach. Each one moving like a drunkard or having a severe injury. Man these people must have got hit hard. He figured.

  He saw them now. “HEY!” He waved.

  Xairin’s red eyes zoomed in like a camera. What he saw coming his way, caused a chill to run up his spine and made his goosebumps pop up to the point of stinging.

  Xairin remembered some information given to him back in quarantine warning about trying to turn the dead. What Xairin saw coming at him were no longer human. They were rotting, with their flesh ripped, gashed and shredded. The ghouls were missing parts of their chest, Xairin could make out many of them being heartless, literally. Some had black eyes like most vampires did, others, the eyes were glossed over from decay. They had sharp teeth, but not a defined set of fangs, just long sharp teeth, nail like and yellow. They picked up their pace when they saw Xairin. Even ghouls would try to eat an immortal.

  He saw one in particular. A man dressed in what looked to be the black kevlar that most law enforcers wear. He could see the sharp teeth had bitten through the man’s kevlar armor. His eyes were glossed over. He also had the nail like teeth, chattering as he ran in Xairin’s direction. Xairin knew there were patrols out here from time to time, he figured the ghouls had hit them too.

  “OH SHIT!” Xairin said.

  A dozen of them had come out of the structures. Xairin’s eyes widened. He turned around and was getting ready to bolt out of there. When he turned around he saw another group heading his way. Twenty two in all were converging on his location.

  They moved like a human did when it came to picking up speed. Once they had a kill in sight, nothing would stop them aside from true death. Xairin remembered the brochures and what Ethan had said in the quarantine. He also knew it was like the movies in some respects, you had to sever the
head to kill a ghoul, that or use enough silver.

  The group coming from behind him had no interest in the animal life here. They only craved only one thing, and one thing only, the blood of what they used to be, human blood.

  They moved around the deer fleeing the area like river around a rock, and came running at Xairin with their arms reached outward. Immortals after all did have human DNA merged into their genomes.

  Xairin knew he couldn’t fly out of here, it would take too long to simply get off the ground so he reached for the machete. He had it ready. There was no choice about it, he had to fight to stay alive. The first ghoul was easy enough with his vampiric strength allowing him to slice right through its head with ease, as was the next one. The third had a hold of his arm, but Xairin managed to turn around and drive the blade upward through the jaw and out the top of the head.

  They were surrounding him. A hint of panic set in. He had to think fast.

  Right as a ghoul grabbed his left arm, he could feel his blood vibrating inside him. A memory emerged. He could see through the eyes of someone else, a distant memory, a memory from someone far older than his mother. He could tell it was a man, but that was the extent of who it was. He saw a blade in the right hand of whomever it was that the memory belonged too, swinging valiantly in combat with what looked like dark haired men, middle eastern perhaps. The attire was aged, chainmail and metal armor raged around him. Swords and metal shields surrounded him. He could feel whomever it was that he was experiencing this though, was an expert with a sword. He watched through his ancestor’s memory as he impaled a few of his adversaries right as that muscle memory fed into Xairin’s own muscles. It had only been a second, when that information arrived.

  Xairin’s eyes opened quickly. The ghoul’s grip around his wrist was strong, crushingly strong. Xairin twisted himself, to flip the ghoul to the ground, he managed to get his wrist free, and stomped the creature’s head in, causing its brain matter to spray outward.

  It was almost as if he had become possessed by some sword swinging militant demon. His blood taught him to fight like his ancestor did. Xairin swung the machete, aimed perfectly at the heads of the ghouls coming his way. His vampiric speed hastened his results. Ten of the running rotting corpses fell easily, another five met his blade next. Xairin used the machete gracefully until the blade became too dull to behead another ghoul. The blade broke with his next swing.

  “FUCK!” Xairin yelled.

  He leaped over a raging corpse coming at him that it's nail like teeth were ready to bite him, the teeth were dripping black thick goo from each pointed tooth. When he landed behind it, he turned around and reached out for its head, instinctively he twisted the things head completely around until he was able to rip it upward from its resting point and toss it aside. Xairin was surprised at that move.

  Ghouls moved as fast as an Olympic human sprinter, they had no fatigue, didn’t wear out, they simply ran until they caught what they were chasing, provided the rot hadn’t weakened the limbs. Xairin had to rely on his vampiric speed to evade many of the swipes at his chest and extremities.

  The combat he was experiencing furthered his blood’s resolve. His cells dug deeper into his genetic memories for answers, spurred on by the need to survive.

  With each evading move, Xairin found himself moving faster than before. His blood prepared his muscles with additional muscle memory, hastening his instinctive drives. Within seconds he was using martial arts, though this was far more advanced than what his mother knew. He was doing backflips, acrobatics, combined with deadly precision when his claws sprang into action. He found that his claws didn’t dull like the machete did. He clawed at the heads, ripping the corpses skulls wide open with razor sharp efficiency.

  His body moved faster and faster with each clawed blow, resulting in half a head being exposed or worse. The gangs of ghouls that had surrounded him were falling like flies running into a bug zapper. Xairin’s movements were too fast for them to react, they simply fell, until there was the last one was coming at him. It was the ghoul in kevlar. Xairin just turned around and went into a round house kick, the last ghoul’s head went flying and the body hit the crumbling concrete.

  When Xairin stood up, he looked around at the sights before him. He couldn’t believe what he had accomplished. The ghouls were dead, he had won, and had barely broke a sweat in the act. He just shook the black blood from his hands and looked at his fingers right as his claws retracted. “HOLY SHIT!”

  Xairin searched the corpses for anything useful. He found a second machete in a little bit better condition amongst the ghouls. This would have to do. He thought.

  One thing that struck him as odd, was the fact that there were so many ghouls. He doubted that the vampire bats were to blame for this. He figured someone, a scav, was likely a vampire, and attempted to vamp the dead that the vampire bats had left behind. Given they had awoken out here, they wouldn’t have known what Xairin knew from Quarantine. This posed an additional threat. Fighting ghouls was one thing, fighting another vampire with assimilation glands might be another.

  Xairin found a dirty rag lying on the concrete and used it to wipe off the black tarry blood. His body wasn’t about to try and absorb it, it knew the distinction.

  He kept up a brisk pace, as he made his way back down Madison Avenue. He used his biosonar to keep himself aware at all times. He didn’t feel like running into another pack of ghouls, but at the same time, felt a duty to dispatch them. If they made it across the river, Bastion City would have an entirely different issue on their hands. A genesis of ghouls being created had to be stopped. One way or another he figured.

  Along the way, Xairin noticed a few rats scurrying about. He hated killing anything, except ghouls, that needed to be done. However, he also knew he just used a lot of energy fighting them, so feeding again was a good idea. It took him a few tries, but he finally caught one. It tried biting him which thwarted his reservations in killing it. He simply crushed it's head in his hand, and twisted the head off. He poured the blood into his mouth. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as the deer. He had to catch another.

  _____

  Apartment 706J

  Alex had arrived at Xairin’s apartment with Lillian alongside him. Lillian was going to take a chance, and try again to enlist the young vampire into her forces. That or at least see if he would help them located the roost of the vampire bats he had warned Alex about. She wasn’t too overly concerned about the humans Alex mentioned given they were scavs. It's not that she didn't give them some thought, but scavs were known for some terrorist activity which made her have a few reservations. For her, the main thing was taking out that roost. If they could save lives in the process, that was fine.

  Alex knocked on Xairin’s door. They stood there looking at one another for a few moments before Lillian scoffed. “He’s not home.”

  “ Are you sure?” Alex questioned her.

  She gave him a sarcastic glare. “OF COURSE I AM.”

  She tilted her head. “Please tell me you at least installed a failsafe so we can open his door and wait? I hate being out here in this dismal looking hallway.”

  Alex was a little ashamed that he had hidden that fact from Xairin. He had a remote in his pocket that had a direct link to the door’s hand scanning module that he could use, to override it. He looked shameful when he replied. “I did as you asked.”

  “Good, open the door.”

  He pulled out the small hand held remote, pressed number 8, and the door opened. The two headed inside, where Lillian began inspecting his quaint apartment. “Humm, not much, but then again, it's simplistic in its charms.”

  “So where do you think he’s went off too?” She asked.

  Alex shrugged. “I have no clue. I expected him to be here. Let me try and contact him.”

  Alex entered the number on his holocomm and pressed the send button. On Xairin’s end, his watch didn’t vibrate. The ghoul that had gripped his wrist, had crushed the
device just enough to disable the alerts. Xairin had no idea Ethan was trying to contact him as he hunted for additional rats to drink.

  “That’s weird, it's going to voicemail.” Alex announced.

  Alex looked at Lillian, “He was so adamant about it.”

  She looked around the apartment and sighed. “Maybe he’s at work. I have been spying on his healthcare provider listing. I know he’s attempting to work nights.”

  Alex rebutted, “He hasn’t went to work yet, or at least I don’t think.”