by M. D. Massey
To be honest, their reticence didn’t bother me much at all. However, I noticed that they didn’t act nearly as antisocial toward Bobby. In fact, they almost coddled him, for lack of a better term. Each of them spent a great deal of time watching him when he wasn’t looking, which I interpreted as watching his back. It gave me the feeling that they weren’t there so much to help us out as to make sure Bobby got back safely.
It also reminded me that there was a lot going on that I didn’t understand, and I berated myself for sticking so close to the settlements all these years. I could’ve been getting out in the great wide world to make connections and gather intel on our enemy; if I had, I might not be in the dark so much now. But hell, hindsight’s always 20/20, so I resolved to do my best to play catch up and learn all I could about the supernatural from here on out.
The dogs were well ahead of us by the time we realized where they were headed. Although Bobby and the other ’thropes could run forever, and Gabby would’ve if I’d let her, I found myself needing a bit more rest than usual. My bite was still acting up, and it pissed me off how much it slowed me down. I did my best to hide it, and we took a few breaks on our way to Austin in pursuit of the undead dogs that threatened our home.
Gabby and the ’thropes had taken turns following the trail, which led to a patch of woods along Onion Creek, just north of the old Travis County landfill and south of the airport. We arrived at night, taking cover to observe movement around the control tower in the distance. That was curious enough, but what really piqued my interest was all the activity at the old Armed Forces Reserve Center across the creek from us.
Sledge sniffed the air and scowled. “You smell that?” he asked Bobby and Trina.
Bobby nodded. “Vamps.”
I belly-crawled up alongside them to get a better look. “Nos-types, or the higher variety?”
Trina’s expression went from a scowl to a deep frown, and her worry lines deepened around her mouth and eyes. “The pretty kind, and lots of them. I don’t like it. We’re outnumbered and have no idea what they’re up to. I say we do some quick recon and get the hell out of here.”
I couldn’t disagree with her, but I also needed to know what the hell a bunch of vamps were doing in Austin. We’d just only dealt with Piotr and his gang of ’thropes, and narrowly prevented an inter-dimensional vampire invasion from hell—or wherever the things originally came from. No way was I going to let these assholes try some crazy shit like that again.
I tapped Bobby on the shoulder to get his attention, as his eyes were glued on the Reserve Center. “Bobby, why don’t you take Gabby and your packmates and hang back a bit? I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the building, and once it gets light I’ll take a closer look.”
He shook his head and pursed his lips in a hard line. “I don’t know, Scratch. I don’t like it.”
“I know, kiddo, but we didn’t come all this way for nothing. I want answers, and I need to know the severity of the threat we’re now facing. I’ll wait for daylight and do a quick bit of recon, just like Trina said. Then, we’ll haul ass back to the Facility and figure out our next move.”
Bobby looked back at the buildings, where a half-dozen vamps were moving boxes and equipment onto an Army troop transport truck with superhuman speed. The rumbling clatter of a diesel engine firing up startled Gabby and got the gears inside my head turning.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered. “Just where the hell do you think they’re getting clean diesel from?”
Bobby pointedly ignored my question. “If you’re going to take a closer look, just don’t get caught, alright? I don’t want to have to explain to Samson how I ended up in a fight with a bunch of vamps.”
I smiled. “I’ll be careful. Besides, how much trouble can I get into while these vamps are asleep?”
FEUDS
The Reserve Center consisted of five buildings: a large main office building with two wings, three large aircraft hangars by the helipads, and a motor pool building. I recalled that it had once served as the training center and headquarters for several Army and Marine reserve units, but I doubted there’d be any useful gear lying about. Scroungers and punters had probably been through the place a million times by now; what the vamps wanted here was a mystery to me.
But they’d obviously come looking for something, and I doubted it was military-grade weapons and gear. If I had to guess, there was intel stored here, locked up inside the place or hidden on some random computer’s hard drive, and the vamps aimed to get it. Intel on what was a mystery, but whatever they were searching for, I intended to find out what it was and why they needed it.
The fact that they had working vehicles running on diesel fuel sure made me wonder what things were like in Dallas. I’d heard rumors that the vamps had revived certain industries and conveniences of modern living, but I’d taken it as nothing more than crazy talk. Not many people had made it in and out of Dallas alive, so any news that came out of there was always taken as two parts hearsay and one part speculation. But before daybreak, I’d seen half a dozen vamps flitting around, loading boxes and computer equipment into that transport truck and a couple of Humvees.
So, I had to accept that somewhere, someone had gotten a refinery working again—and perhaps the vamps even had a few oil wells running as well. Lord knew there were tons of them scattered across the state, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think they’d gotten a few producing crude again.
But enough with speculating about which technologies the vamps had revived. I needed to find out what the hell they were up to inside that building. I waited for first light, then began sneaking my way closer to the grounds.
Doing so wasn’t hard, as there was plenty of cover between the creek and the Reserve Center. Deaders were scarce in the area, and I was able to steer clear of the few stragglers milling about as I made my way to the military installation. I was completely exposed when I crossed Burleson Road, but after that, all the overgrowth kept me hidden as I approached from the southwest. I entered the facility by walking over a section of downed chain link fence, then crept through the undergrowth toward the south hangar.
A quick peek through a window in one of the hangar entrances revealed there was nothing of interest inside for the vamps. By all appearances, the place had been untouched. However, dead bodies scattered all over the grounds and inside the building revealed that a pitched battle had taken place here—probably in the early days of the invasion. From the looks of it, it hadn’t gone well for the soldiers and Marines. The corpses told a tale of checkpoints and cordons that had been overrun.
I left the dead to their silent rest, and continued on toward the main building. That was where I’d seen most of the activity, so I assumed it would also be where the vamps’ plans would be revealed. I decided to start with the transport truck, to see what the hell they were collecting.
Stooping to maintain a low profile, I ran through the weeds and brush toward my goal. Halfway there, I vaulted an interior fence to access the parking area behind the main building, then I crouched in the tall weeds and overgrowth to assess the situation. Feeling eyes upon me, I searched the area for the culprit, or culprits.
There. Two deader dogs had rounded the corner of the building, and they were now looking my direction. I reached back and adjusted the sword scabbard across my back, then drew my katana as quietly and with as little movement as possible. The reflection of sunlight on the blade betrayed my presence, and the hounds began loping silently across the concrete lot toward me.
The undead abominations closed in on me fast. A flash of steel decapitated the lead dog, and a backhanded slash with a sidestep took out the second as it leapt for my throat. I nudged the bodies with my toe to make sure they were down for the count, then continued on, sword in hand.
Skirting the exterior of the main building, I made it around to the front, using burned out military vehicles and crumbling sandbag walls for cover as I crossed the lot to the parked transport truck. Checking the bui
lding to ensure I wasn’t being observed, I climbed into the back of the truck to see what they’d been loading up.
Inside were stacks of filing boxes, along with about a dozen computers and laptops sans monitors. With no way to fire up the computers, I began digging through the boxes. Each was loaded to the top with file after file, most of which were memos and reports on troop readiness and whatnot. It was typical military brass bullshit; every minute of an officer’s existence in a command unit was spent justifying their next promotion with reports and stats. I rifled through box after box, until something caught my eye.
I came across several files that were labeled “Pantex.” What the actual hell?
Looking through the folders, I soon realized exactly what the vamps were up to. Pantex was a facility outside of Amarillo that few people knew about. Its existence wasn’t top secret, but it was a sort of open secret that the U.S. government and military hadn’t made a big deal of before the War. The Pantex facility had once been operated by the Department of Energy and a private company called Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC.
I only knew about it because it was one of those places where a lot of high speed ex-military guys got cushy security jobs after they got out. A person might wonder why the Department of Energy and a private company would need to hire a bunch of ex-special ops soldiers to run security for their facility. They hired top-tier operators so they’d have the very best guarding the place, because Pantex existed for one purpose, and one purpose only.
That purpose was the dismantling of nuclear weapons and the long-term storage of weapons-grade plutonium. And if I had to take a stab at what the vamps were up to, I’d say they wanted to get their hands on all the plutonium that was in deep storage at Pantex, in order to blow another hole between our world and theirs.
The thing was, I needed to know for sure. And, that meant I needed more intel—human intel—in order to verify my suspicions. Since there weren’t any humans around, I’d have to do with the next best thing. Meaning, I intended to sneak inside that building to abduct a vampire while it rested in deep, blissful sleep.
Now, I didn’t really know the first thing about the physiology and sleep habits of higher vamps. But I had staked more than my share of nosferatu over the years, and many times I’d done it while they were sleeping. Nos-types went into an almost coma-like state during the day. And when they did, they were vulnerable.
In the past, when I happened across a vamp getting their beauty rest, I’d usually shoot them, stake them, or behead them—depending on my mood and what gear I had on me. But for this particular crazy scheme, I’d need to successfully capture and abduct a vamp within its lair, and then transport it away in broad daylight without killing the damned thing. I figured that once I got it back to the Pack, they’d help me torture and interrogate the thing, and that’s how we’d get our intel.
Or so I assumed. For all I knew, the ’thropes were just as clueless about higher vamps as I was. I doubted it, but it was possible. If that happened to be the case, I’d improvise. There had to be a way to get one of them to talk. If there was, I’d find it.
But first, I had to abduct one of the damned things. Which meant sneaking into the building, which was probably being guarded by the remainder of the deader dogs we’d chased there. Oh, and I couldn’t forget the witch—because she was probably in there, too.
Alright, no sweat. I can do this, I thought to myself as I snuck my way over to the front doors of the Reserve Center. I doubted that any of the vamps would be on watch now that the sun was up, but there were at least four more deader dogs running about. I had a feeling they’d be guarding the vamps while they slept, and possibly patrolling the halls inside the place. I’d need to be on my toes.
Katana in hand, I pulled on the glass entrance door. Locked. You have got to be freaking kidding me. I tried the others, all locked. Shit.
I backed up and looked around for a broken window, or some other means to get inside the place. After 9/11, all federal buildings had been built with blast-proof glass that was resistant to hurricane-force winds and, in some cases, small caliber rounds. Even though downtown Austin had taken a small nuclear missile right in the teeth at ground level when the bombs dropped, most of these windows were still intact. And the ones that weren’t were all on the upper floors.
Shit, shit, shit. I walked the perimeter of the place, trying access doors and fire exits, but all were locked. Surely there had to be another way in, via roof access or something. I walked around the building again, looking for some means of ingress. There.
Up on the third story, there was a window that looked like it’d been hit by large-caliber machine gunfire. It’d probably happened back when they were fighting off the initial swarm of deaders. The holes in the glass meant the window pane had been weakened, so chances were good I could kick it in… and hopefully not bring the rest of those deader dogs running.
I shimmied up a drain pipe to get on the second-floor roof, and that gave me access to the third-floor windows. A few well-placed kicks, and I was inside the building, in some sort of conference room or classroom. I waited for a minute or more, listening for any sign that I’d drawn unwanted attention, but it appeared I was in the clear. For now, anyway.
Blade in hand, I crept to the door and began exploring the place.
The Reserve Center building I was in was massive, three floors tall with two large wings housing offices, logistics centers, training rooms and classrooms, a mess hall, fitness facilities, and more. I spent at least an hour checking every room on every floor, but there was no sign of the vamps or their four-legged companions. Since there were windows in most of the rooms, there was also plenty of sunlight in the place. So, if there were vamps here, they’d have to be in a sublevel somewhere, hiding out from all these UV rays.
That meant I was going underground.
I found a doorway to a stairwell that led below ground level. The door had been left closed, but unlocked. Apparently, the vamps felt comfortable with their safety in these parts. If they were anything like Piotr was, it was hard to blame them for being cocky. That vamp had moved like a mongoose on speed, and he was strong as an ox. Besides that, few humans came through these parts outside of the odd punter gang or a scav crew… and they’d just be an easy meal for these bloodsuckers.
A glance inside the stairwell showed me it was almost completely void of light. My enhanced vision was good, but not that good, so I’d need some sort of secondary source of light—one that wouldn’t give me away to anything creeping around down there. I dug around inside my bag for my self-powered LED flashlight and spent a couple of minutes charging it with the crank. The noise sounded deafening in the silence of the building, but I’d already checked the floors above-ground and knew they were clear of enemies. Once the light was charged, I taped a red lens from a milspec flashlight I’d found over the lens of the LED flashlight.
Voila, instant tactical flashlight.
As any infantryman knew, red light was harder to see at a distance in the dark than white light. So, by taping the red lens over my light, I’d draw less attention to myself below—but I’d still have plenty of light to see by, at least as long as the charge lasted. It wouldn’t last long, so I’d have to be quick.
I headed down the stairs, into the sublevel of the Reserve Center. This was likely where the armory had been located, as well as where they would have stored sensitive documents and other restricted information. I exited the stairwell into a nondescript hallway that was littered with dead bodies, ones that had been there for years. Some had come to a violent end at the hands of deaders, while others had died of self-inflicted wounds.
I ignored the story the life-sized diorama told, because I’d seen it too many times over the last eight years to be distracted by such sights. Puzzling out exactly what had happened was a moot point, because it wasn’t going to bring the dead back to life. Instead, I was more concerned with what might be undead down here. I stood still as a statue by the stairw
ay exit, listening for the now familiar click-click-click of canine claws on tile.
Nothing.
As silent as the damned things were, I might stumble on them at any moment, keeping watch while their masters slept. That gave me pause, but I really wanted the intel that abducting one of these vamps might provide. I tightened my grip on my sword and trudged on down the hall, heart beating a steady cadence in my chest that betrayed the rush of adrenaline I felt. I stopped at each door I came to, listening for any sound or sign of movement before I looked inside.
Most of the doors were open, blocked by bodies or debris from the battle that had taken out the last survivors at this facility. I swept the floor, room by room. Empty. Empty. Empty. They were all empty, and I was just about to reconsider whether the vamps were here at all, when I opened an office door and my light swept across a familiar and heartbreaking sight.
Kara? She was lying on top of a desk, statuesque and as lovely as ever in repose. Her face was perfect, and more beautiful than I remembered. But she remained corpse-like and silent, perfectly still in the eerie rest that the undead required during daylight hours.
I tiptoed up to her, shining the light so I could clearly see her face, to make certain it was her. It was. My heart skipped a beat before it broke a little more, seeing her lying before me, exquisitely preserved in this preternatural state of undeath. She was more than perfect, actually. Vampirism had taken what beauty nature had given her and magnified it tenfold. I wondered if that was a side effect of the vyrus, and decided she must’ve been newly turned when I’d attempted to rescue her from Piotr and the Corridor Pack, back at the research campus.
I reached out to stroke her face, then paused, afraid that my touch would prove this all to be an illusion. Instead, I leaned over her, whispering in the lowest voice I could muster.