After the Fall (8 page)

At this point, the whole town had assembled at this gate. I could hear their whispers. The new arrivals wondered what was happening. Those who were already there were glad to tell them.

“We were nearly overrun…he killed them all…our Savior.”

There was a clamor that gradually built up into chanting of hymns. I had enough. All I wanted to do now was dig a hole and bury myself deep underground. Running away was out of the question, as I could hear the horde outside. Providence, it seemed, was not on my side tonight. The crowd collapsed upon us and the people filed through hoping for the chance to touch me for a blessing.

“People!” I shouted. “I appreciate your gratitude, but it is a bit overwhelming.”

“That’s enough for now. Give him some space,” said Alaric, pushing the crowd back. We headed back to his house with a few of his most trusted walking close by.

As soon as the door closed, I said to him, “A word with you,
alone
?”

He nodded and sent his retinue away with a wave of his hand. All left except for Rhiannon, who remained at my side.

“Will you please excuse us, my dear? You shouldn’t trouble yourself with this. It’s been an eventful night. Just go to bed and I will be there soon.”

She gave him a sigh of resignation and nodded. They kissed good night, or rather, he kissed
her
and she tolerated it. I followed him to the parlor, but someone tugged at my sleeve. I jerked my arm and looked to find her staring back at me, as if expecting a good night kiss from me.

“Good night,” she said with a wily smile and blew a kiss at me.

Alaric waited for me in the parlor with his hands clasped in front of him. I was relieved to see the fervor had gone out of his face and thought he was perhaps acting for the people. He gave me that hearty smile that filled my heart with guilt.

“You have saved us all. The debt we owe you can never be repaid,” he said.

“I am no angel, nor a saint. What I did was out of necessity, not the selfless act of sacrifice you would bestow upon me.”

“Whatever your reasons, you have saved us. The more you deny it, the more they will want to believe. Yours is a light that cannot be hidden under a bushel.”

“I am not the agent of good you believe me to be, and I can prove it to you.”

“You may say whatever you want, but it will not shake my faith in you. From the moment I saw you, I knew there was something remarkable about you.”

“I am a creature of the night…”

“So are many others who would prefer the dark of night.”

“…Doomed to live forever, feeding on the blood of the living.”

“That’s ludicrous. Why do you feel the need to lie, to hide your light under a bushel?”

“It is no lie. Look!” I bared my fangs and tried to show him my most frightening face, one that had paralyzed many a victim into submission. He seemed shocked at first, but it was quickly replaced with curiosity.

“Can I…may I touch them?” he asked. I let him. He pressed his index finger against the tip of my right fang and recoiled. “Those are quite sharp.”

“Do you see now?”

“Indeed. Very unusual teeth, but it does not mean they are a mark of evil. I now understand how you were able to leave those marks on my wife’s neck.”

“These are how I feed. I bit down on your wife’s neck and drank her blood. It is my only source of sustenance.”

He laughed right in my face. “My friend, you are the kindest, bravest, strongest man I have ever seen, and you tell great stories!”

I let out a guttural growl unique to our kind. “It is no story. I must feed on the living or slowly starve to death.”

Alaric staggered back and felt for his seat, where he collapsed. I had won. I had finally convinced him that I was genuine. What had I done?

“This is most unusual. I don’t know what to say.”

“You need not say anything. I will leave soon and cease being a burden on you.”

His nostrils flared and he snorted like an angry bull. “My
burden
, as you call it, is the only way I can hope to repay you.”

“Consider your debt repaid. I will never trouble you again.”

“What will it take to change your mind?” He was insistent and would not be satisfied until he got me to say yes.

“When I was alive, before the Fall, the world was full of people. There were many bad ones, and I feasted on their blood. After the Fall, people became scarce, and good people scarcer still. There are too many good people here. I cannot allow myself to hurt them. All I can allow myself to take is a small amount.”

“So if we were to give you a small amount from everyone, you would never suffer from hunger and be able to protect us. It seems we can help one another. This must surely be a sign from the heavens.”

Those words were sweet music to my ears. It would be like taking up residence inside the Cornucopia itself, needing only to protect it in exchange. This would take some long consideration. One cannot make this decision lightly.

“Very well, I shall stay,” I said at once.

“You will not regret it.” We shook hands on it.

Oh, I very much doubt that.
“I only have one condition to ask of you. I hope it is not too much, but it is rather important to me.”

“Name your terms. I can’t think of anything that would be too much.”

“You are kind.
Far
too kind. There may be others like me that might still walk the world. Ask them the same thing and they would prey upon your kindness, exploit it to their maximum advantage.”

“That may be true, but I know that is not you. The Lord has sent you into our midst. You saved my son and we cared for you. Now that you’ve saved us all, no kindness seems great enough. State your terms.”

“I want to sleep in the room where I first slept.”

“You mean the quarantine cell?”

“Yes, that one, and I want all the keys. No one must enter, and I mean
no one
—unless I allow them to do so.”

He appeared a bit disappointed. “And that is all?”

I looked at the ground. This was the difficult thing to ask. Taking was one thing, but asking made me feel like a beggar. To ask was to give power to the prey. We were supposed to be the ones in power, the ones in control, not the other way around. It felt as if I were breaking a cardinal rule, but the world was a much different place now. Neither Vampire nor human ruled the landscape. The world belonged to the dead now, and we were merely leasing the right to live our lives, renting by the day and sometimes by the hour. This is why I felt the need to acquiesce, to capitulate to the humans. My willingness to break the rules was why I lived while many starved and died.

Alaric’s boy walked through the door looking a bedraggled mess. His cheeks were covered in fine scratches and spatters of blood. He was covered from his boots up to his hair in thick mud as if he had been rolling with the pigs for a few hours.

“Matthias, there you are! I’ve had all my guards looking for you. You had us worried for your safety.”

“Here I am, father,” he replied wearily. “No need to worry.”

“Where have you been? You look dreadful.”

“Nowhere important. I’m very tired.”

“Are you hungry? I haven’t seen you all day. You must be famished.”

“I’m fine, father. I’d rather go to bed.”

The sounds of the voices moved upstairs now, but I could still hear them.

“Son, stop a moment. We’ve barely spoken for some time. Tell me what troubles you.”

“I’m just tired. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“No, we’ll talk
now
. Tell me what is causing you such pain.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Tell me. I am telling you as your Father. Speak now.”

“You really want to know what’s troubling me? What keeps me up at night and takes up every waking moment?” he asked. Matthias’ volume rose in great leaps. “Just look that way. On your bed—the same bed you shared with my mother. When it wasn’t even cold, you took a girl barely older than me as your wife. You wanted to know what was troubling me? It’s her—it’s you. You disgust me, both of you.”

I heard footsteps and a door slamming, marking the end of the conversation for now. Alaric’s heavy feet came back downstairs. By the time he arrived, I had retired to my new chambers. He sighed. I knew he was hoping to find me still here, to use me as his counsel and kind ear, but I refused to do it. This whole thing had gone too far and I was already too far entangled. I would honor the deal for now. As soon as this village was rendered safe and I had strength enough, I would leave. The open field would be my four walls and the sky my ceiling. There would be no need to involve myself with these people and become embroiled in their complicated lives. I was resolved to be free. There was only the matter of whether I had strength enough to go forward and leave all this behind.

Locked away in my room, I sat on the bed with only my thoughts and memories. They made terrible companions. Before long I was pacing the room. After an hour, I was ready to rip the door off the hinges. Instead of doing that, I made a neat bundle under the sheets to make it look like I was sleeping under there and locked the door on my way out.

Since I was now the appointed guardian of this town, I thought I might as well use my waking hours to hunt the enemy that was assembled just outside these walls, clamoring for the chance to enter and devour all those who lived within.

The moon was almost full tonight, casting its pale light upon the town. It may as well have been daylight for me, minus the unpleasant side effects. I stood atop the roof and surveyed the sleeping town. The sounds of the undead made their way from the walls and reached my ears. These people should count themselves lucky not to have my hearing, or they would never sleep.

Down below, there was a sound of someone stirring. I heard a woman sigh softly while a man filled the night air with guttural snores. I bolted, bounding from rooftop to rooftop before she decided to get up and look out the window.

The wind carried the night air up and over the walls, but it was not cool and refreshing. This breeze was damp and reeked of the stench of the undead just beyond. The mixture of moans, groans, and grunts constituted the elements of a sinister symphony. I saw the pained, constipated expressions on the guards’ faces and I pitied them. There was a long night ahead of them.

I felt curious at the moment, and not in any particular hurry to get underway with my particular task. Something was bothering me about what happened earlier. I remembered how solid the door was from the day I first walked through it. When I closed them, the two halves were still sound and only had superficial damage. I leaned over the edge and looked at it. Even now it held the lot of them without the slightest sign of faltering. There was something else there. It looked like someone had smeared blood all around the gate. On the ground I could see the chewed up remains of animal bones. I might have believed that the horde had brought the bones here, as unlikely as that was, but they had not taken the time to paint the walls in blood. 

“Excuse me,” I said to one of the guards.

“Our Savior,” replied the guard while taking a knee.

“No, please stand. I just want to know how to get inside the walls.”

“Right this way.” He pulled up a wooden trapdoor and motioned me to go into the hole. Not knowing what was inside, I decided to go ahead and trust him.

I descended down into a corridor and took in my surroundings. The inner side was lined with doors as far as I could see, until the hallway curved out of sight. I began to open doors and saw makeshift beds and plain furniture. These were bedroom chambers. Every fourth room was a storage room filled to capacity. The wall was actually a fortress of its own. This town was prepared for a long, bitter siege.

At the end of the hallway I found a staircase. I went down to the first floor and saw the other side of the chamber I had entered when I first arrived. It was empty this time, except for a few bolts scattered about on the floor. I looked at the window slots and saw my handiwork piled high on the ground. Some of the limbs were twitching from postmortem spasms.

To my left was a large crank wheel that controlled the opening and closing motion of the door. The handle below slid back and forth to engage the locks as desired. I left it alone and returned my attention to the wheel. The chain was broken, either through lack of maintenance or bad quality. I realized it was neither. This was twenty-first century chain, well greased and in good condition. I could not see how it had broken until I pulled it up and saw the section where it had been cut. The metal shavings scattered about confirmed this. Someone had sabotaged the door, but for what reason?

Outside the window, I heard a strained wheezing sound. There was a man, or what used to be one, standing there and trying to look inside. It was dark both in here and the room, so I was virtually invisible to him. There were two bolts buried in his head. I remembered having placed one of them earlier. This one should be dead twice over and yet here he stood, looking blindly in my direction. I wondered at the strange phenomenon for a moment. Once my moment of reflection was over, I reached down for a bolt and rammed it in his open mouth, all the way to the spine, and down he went for the third time. I had a feeling I had not seen the last of him. This would explain why the world simply could not get rid of these undead. Some continued to rise as long as there was something left of them.