by Mazlow, J.
They stood there together, chests pumping in and out with their exertion and fear, looking around them at the buildings and at the glowing embers of the house fire muttering to themselves incomprehensibly. Some of them were looking back at the muddy pit that I’d just forced them from but I stood in the way of their return, others, especially the children were looking around curiously though the view wasn’t much different from where they’d been held.
I tried to shrug them off, push them from my mind as I turned my back to them and walked away with my shoulders hunched up around my neck against the wind. I’d done what I could for them. I’d given them freedom and told them of the village, now it was up to them to save themselves of death by exposure. As I moved away from them the alluring scent of their hot blood fell away and my mind cleared. I doubted I was the first vampire to set a group of men free. I wondered if all vampires felt as human as I did for their entire lives. It seemed implausible. I felt no less human that I ever had beyond the change in the abilities of my body except for my growing need for blood, but perhaps the transformation had been so slow that the slow slippage had transpired unnoticed. Perhaps I was delusional.
My thoughts fell away as I wound my way down streets upon which the buildings had collapsed in neglect and the General’s vampires had instead erected small metal sheds for storage. They appeared untouched. Several fires burned across the block, reaching into the sky with their greedy fingers and through the shells of rusted out cars across the streets. They filled the air with an acrid odor and an eerie orange and green glow. I licked my cold dry lips. I turned a corner and walked down a street lined with brick buildings standing shoulder to shoulder with one another. At the end of it my brother, Peter, Robert, a middle-aged vamp, and the twins stood leaned up against a mildew covered car. They stood watching a large white building fronted with columns as it burnt. The flames danced up the walls blackening them, raced through the roof, and sent black oily clouds of smoke rolling over and over itself in a column that blocked the sun. My brother stood apart from the rest of the group who were piddling with their weapons and grinning at one another. My brother had his back to the flames and his face was down with a hood around it against the wind. His rifle leaned against the car and both of his hands were shoved deep into his pockets. He bore a grimace inappropriate for a man who had just won the first major battle in a war of his own making as he stared at the trash littered pavement. Black specks of ash settled on patches of brittle snow that lay coiled in the shadows and flitted through the air like moths. My brother said something without moving his body, only his lips showed it. The rest of the group jerked around to stare at me.
I gritted my teeth keeping my face stony though a surge of anger climbed through me. He was sitting and pouting like a little child in the face of a victory he had claimed to have wanted so badly and claimed would benefit the men, women and children of the village who’d suffered to provide the food, weaponry and supplies for this mission. Wives and children of the particularly gullible, or a cynical side of me noted, savvy survivors were back at the village wondering if their husbands and fathers would return. He knew what each and every man at that village had gone through just to reach its safety and what they went through to supply his foolish war but he had hardened his heart against those that he was thought to protect. This war was not out of love for his people, or humanity, or a release from the curse of vampirism that had settled over the globe. He didn’t even do it for riches or fame. I think he did it solely out of a bitter realization that freedom from the bitter life of pursuit that was men upon the vampire-infested earth, he could no longer understand how to live.
As I walked around a fire hydrant flakey with rust and the husk of an old postal box my brother’s face lit up orange with the flames in the building as the roof toppled inward with a loud crackling crash. His vampires whooped. A moment’s hesitation and reason flashed through my mind. Our eyes locked and my grip tightened on the stock of my rifle. It seemed a sudden comprehension drew his face tight but then he hesitated as if another thought had occurred to him and it was in that moment that I made my move.
I had my rifle pulled against my shoulder before his lips began to move and I squeezed off two quick shots as his shout started. My first shot caught the vampire to the right of my brother in the throat. It fell instantly to the ground clutching at its neck and sliding around on the ground as its legs spasmed. The next bullet ripped into the short balding vamp’s shoulder spinning him around and sending him tumbling to the ground dropping his gun to the pavement with a clatter. My brother jerked his gun up and four machine guns roared as he, the twins and the young vamp with an elderly body fired. The twins bellowed and walked forward sweeping their guns back and forth. I dove behind a long boxy car whose body lay on the ground and crouched behind one of its tires. A scaly white ring clung to parts of the cracked black rubber. The car shook and shuttered as the bullets tore into the siding with loud pops. A hail of bullets smacked into the pavement around the car and ricocheted off the buildings behind me stinging my skin with chips. I peeked around the tire. The squat vampire was back up, his right arm hanging loosely against one side. My brother had his rifle up and his eyes were gleaming. The two humans screamed into the night and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the rest of my brother’s party would arrive.
The sun was beginning its decent and was moving towards my brother’s position. Wind whistled down the streets feeding the flames until the air was filled sparks, dancing shadows and their guttural roaring. I leapt out from behind the car and ran at a crouch for an alley firing in sweeping bursts. One of the brothers went down with a shriek firing his gun wildly into the air and along the ground as he fell. My brother moved calmly against the frantic backdrop simply tracking his barrel over me, and then fired. Everything fell silent except for its crack. I saw the bullet erupting from the barrel in a cloud of black and orange and then it ripped into my left side slinging me to the ground with the force of a giant fist. I rolled, leapt up, and then ducked behind a dumpster as bullets wind down the narrow alley. Blood oozed out of the wound, soaked into my undershirt, and rolled under my armpits. A ragged throbbing pulsed through the wound and the lukewarm blood took my warmth with it. I probed the wound with my index fingers and then recoiled as intense pain flared along the raw flesh as a smattering of bullets continued to bounce off the dumpster with unassuming metallic clicks. I ripped the bottom of my shirt off and tied it around the wound trying to cover it, gritting my teeth as the fabric drug across loose tendrils of flesh and as I shoved the cloth into the hole. Peeking out from behind the faded rusted brown of the dumpster got me a face full of metal chips. I spat the acrid ashy metal out. I was a fool.
My brother began to laugh a full-throated bull frog laugh that rolled across the town and echoed of its buildings. No one joined him. “You did always want to teach me a lesson older brother, didn’t you? Now you try to kill me after I gave you a gift more precious than life itself. You wouldn’t have survived that shot just now if it weren’t for me. I swear you have some kind of deep-seated hatred for your own family.”
I leaned against the dumpster crouched down, thinking for a moment, and cursing myself under my breath. All they had to do was keep me pinned down until the rest arrived so that they could dispatch me like any other animal at bay. I studied the street for more cover, but I saw nothing but a fire hydrant and the car that I’d leapt out from behind. I could hear their boots crunching through the broken glass that littered the pavement as they approached the head of the alley from both sides. They muttered back and forth to one another fretfully. If my brother had ordered this before the rest of his vamps had arrived, he was more of a cocksure fool than I’d thought. They peered out around the corners trying to catch me at an angle, but I clung to the side of the dumpster sliding to the left corner and bade them hurry if they were going to come. I saw the first one before he saw me, just a shadow parting the smoke with a rifle held half at his hip. I fired a
nd my burst of bullets ripped his stomach open as he crashed into the wall and slid down into the street. His partner leapt out from behind the dumpster, pistol in hand. Bullets whistled overhead and crashed into the dumpster and concrete behind me pocking it as I swung my rifle. The barrel caught him just above the boot, rebounding from his flesh. He fell cursing and I snatched his pistol from his hand by its hot snout and tossed it down the alley. It clattered and skipped along the pavement like a living thing before coming to rest. I shoved my rifle into the soft mound of flesh and cloth at his armpit and fired three quick rounds. The bullets tore through him with a wet ripping sound splattering blood and bile on the dumpster in an ovular blotch and throwing flecks of it into my hair. The air was filled with the smells of singed hair and clothing and the beautiful fresh blood that welled up out of him like liquefied rubies and poured out onto the pavement. I nearly fainted with desire. His body shook against the side of the dumpster as he slid down it to land hard on his tailbone, all the while spitting blood all over his chin and chest as his lungs rattled. I pushed myself up by the forearms away from his blood and looked into his eyes as he died. They were open wide, his lips were pulled back from his teeth and rapidly turning blue, his skin was ashen and pulled taut in a visage of pain and horror.
“Turn me,” he whispered bloody spittle running down his lip.
I shuddered when I realized he was one of the twins. He had been a man, a man who had clamored to become a vampire, but a man still and he had died at my hands.
“Men should not kill men for that is an abomination.” My mother had said. “Vampires kill enough, and paradise will not come to those with blood on their hands.” You must help your fellow man.” Most men did not live by my mother’s axioms, instead robbing and killing each other as they struggled for survival though we had not. Now I had killed again.
I’d killed my mother but that had been mercy. It had been what she’d wanted. She would never have suffered more than if she’d been undead. I could not look away as his body calmed, and his life faded away. He sat with his back against the dumpster and his legs splayed out in front of him as if resting. His face maintained a pleading look even in death. His eyes were vacant and going glassy. I didn’t close them. I didn’t touch him. I’d had to kill him. My brother had sent him to kill me and I had come to kill me brother. Weakness washed over me, running up through my knees in a dizzying rush to my head and I leaned against the cold rough side of the dumpster, my rifle butt planted against the ground. Would it have been better if I had died instead of being turned? This man hadn’t had the choice even though he’d so desired to become a vampire. I had stripped him of that choice. I searched myself but I still felt no different than I had as a human beyond barely restraining myself from licking the spilled blood from the pavement. Had my mother really wanted to die, really wanted me to kill her? I saw again her eyes and her gasping breath, and I was filled with doubt and self-loathing. I was suddenly very afraid of the death that could take a vampire. I shivered, my cold thick blood pumping slowly through my deflated veins.
The black hole of my rifle’s barrel staring at me jolted me back to the matters at hand. Two vamps and my brother were waiting for me and their brethren were on the way. I stood trying to force the rushing of indistinguishable thoughts into something useful. I wouldn’t get lucky again, they’d keep me pinned down. I briefly wondered if I could bear my vengeance through the process like a pack that catches on every branch and bramble. I reloaded my rifle’s clip with its shiny bitter bullets and chambered a round in my pistol.
The night seemed to settle as items in a pack do on a long jog. Suddenly an unwilling prayer dripped from my lips like wax rolling down a candlestick. I beseeched my mother’s spirit and my mother’s god, “Forgive me, protect me, never forget me as I can never forget you.”
Then I bolted from behind the dumpster as if I were breaking for the nearby car, moving like a gust of wind. My speed surprised even me, and I exalted in the feel of the cold wind rushing past my face. I caught the group of them off guard, smoking cigarettes and watching my position as if they expected me just to crouch down while they waited for their reinforcements. Before any of them could raise their rifles, I cut back towards them. They grinned wildly as if my charge amused them and loosed a spray of bullets that scattered across the pavement around me. I ran with smooth long glides, my feet barely touching the pavement as if I were running across water though my wound burnt with each step. I fired as I ran and took Robert in the knee. He fell howling, his rifle firing wildly into the air as he dropped it. His compatriots rushed for cover leaving him to struggle to one knee grasping for his rifle as I fired a burst of bullets that caught him in the chest and knocked him onto his back. I stopped and fired at my brother as he ran towards a nearby building. The shots flew wide, but he immediately dropped to the ground and rolled around. His companions returned fire and I dove to the pavement myself. Flecks of hot concrete sprayed my face and a bullet ripped through my jacket. My wound slammed into the ground and a searing pain shot through my side temporarily blinding me as my wound tore further.
The intensity of the pain quickly faded into a strong throbbing down the left side of my chest and my eyes unclenched. The day felt overly calm as if nothing else was moving and nature was isolating us in order to protect its own serenity. I could hear nothing though I saw my brother scramble to his feet. A snarl crossed his face and it seemed I could see the square bottoms of two of his teeth poking beyond his human teeth where his fangs should have been. The balding vampire was on one knee poking his head around one corner of a building and bringing his rifle up despite the shot to his shoulder. Leaving my rifle lying on the ground I pushed up and broke into a sprint. A shot went off, but my mind only distantly registered the sound. My brother’s eyes went red as I charged him with every ounce of energy that I could force into my legs. A bullet grazed my arm digging a furrow through the grey flesh and viscous blood, but it did not slow my stride. My entire world narrowed to his frame. I crossed the distance to him as he pulled his rifle up. I pulled the pistol at my side without even thinking and it moved from the holster into firing position as if my nerves had wound their way through its butt, wrapped themselves around its barrel and clustered in a dense bundle in the trigger. I squeezed with my index finger as gently as a mother would her newborn’s finger. It popped in my hand and still I flew on towards him as if I meant to crash into him and bring us both to the ground even as the gun returned to firing position and I squeezed its trigger again. The first bullet struck him in the center of the chest and the second followed. I continued firing even as he toppled backwards in the middle of the street. I ran right up to him. He looked up and seemed surprised to see me, his eyes wide with fear and pain and his lips rustling back and forth with whispers. Lying there in the street with a spreading stain of black blood running across his chest he looked human again. All the smooth power and speed was draining out of him and his wan skin was only the result of blood loss. I did not lean down to hear what he said. I felt empty and cold. “Drain me,” he spat as if he could be turned a second time, as if he truly believed that he was still not a vampire. There seemed to be no boundary remaining between his tattered shirt and the ripped flesh of his chest. It rose and fell rapidly for a vampire. His arms and legs skittered back and forth across the pavement like a crab that’s been flipped onto its back. I lifted my gun and leveled it at his head. Bullets flew by me hissing through the air like angry bees. My brother snarled at the barrel of the gun. “You fool. Without me they’ll be back to being hunted by next summer.” I fired into his mouth even as his lips continued to move. Instantly his face disappeared into a pit of teeth, blood, brains, and stringy bits of flesh. Then his body lay as still as the dead town around us. To his vampires I must have looked as if I was standing with my head bowed in morning as I stared down at his corpse. But bowed to what? I could no longer recognize him. Here was a body that was no longer my brother. Had it even been my brother for
the last few years? He had given no evidence of peace at the end, only fought on with every last bit of inhuman power that ran through his flesh and why not? There was no promised land at the end of this vampiric lifetime. Blood was all that it promised, and any fool could see that its supplies were dwindling across the land.
Shouts filled the air and then a hot sting caught me in the buttocks spinning me around and flinging me to my knees. Blood oozed out and ran down the back of my thigh. My brother’s vamps moved towards me, making their way slowly as they fired and crouched behind what cover was available. I emptied my clip in their direction and then bolted towards the river turning down the first side street. The vamps rushed up behind me but stopped at my brother’s body. I could hear their gasps and their uncertain murmuring, but I didn’t slow and continued to fly towards the river. I expected the wailing and gnashing of teeth to rise up and fill the air behind me. I expected them to fire their weapons in salute, or in anger and depression. Instead I was met with only the sound of the wind channeling through the buildings. The sun burned through the sky directly in front of me burning me with its rays even as the cold wind slowed my movements. An incredible wave of fatigue swept over me and all I wanted was to crawl in a dark hole and hide until night fell upon the land. My head buzzed with the hunger so loudly that it muddled my thoughts. My hands shook.
Now I was alone in the world. If I returned north at best, I would be driven out to face the cold alone and at worst I would be shot on sight. The preacher had not made any promises regarding my fate, or asked me to return as some kind of redeemed hero despite the fact that I had been asked to aid him in clearing the vampires from the camp only on the basis of my fading connection to humanity. He had not expected my return. I don’t know if he had even counted on my success. In the case of either his success or his failure I would not be welcomed back.