City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) (6 page)

The last one was an obvious exaggeration. First, eight
million was the population of New York City
including all the boroughs, not just Manhattan.
Second, if there had been eight million vampires in Manhattan, there certainly wouldn’t be any
survivors. Unrealistic though the headline was, I liked the idea of a small
group of survivors fighting a city of vampires against all odds.

The papers included pictures of some of us, from
snapshots donated by our families. The articles also included some background
about us and described the conversations we’d had with our families over the
radio. That made me uncomfortable. Had reporters sat in while we spoke to our
families for the first time? Was the government feeding the stories to the
papers?

It seemed to me like the plague was something the
government would want to keep hushed up, but they’d probably figured we had
plenty of resources in Manhattan,
and it was only a matter of time before we found a way to contact the outside
world. The government might as well make the first move. I assumed they knew
about the hackers who had already been able to contact us via radio. We hoped
that the hackers would prevent the government from putting too much of a spin
on our situation.

Either way, we were celebrities. As much as it annoyed
me that we were being exploited by the media and possibly the government, I felt
better knowing that the outside world knew we were still alive and stuck in Manhattan. If nothing
else, maybe public sympathy could get us out of New York.

9

As planned, we saved the basement of my apartment building for last. It seemed
like the most logical place for vampires to hide, if they were going to hide in
my building at all.

After we finished going through and clearing out the
apartments, we waited another day before going into the basement so that we
were fresh and well rested. I had almost become used to breaking into
apartments and looking for vampires and bodies, careless even, but I knew that
the basement would not be routine. I had never been in the basement, but I
shuddered when I imagined the dark corners, hot water heater, the furnace, and
other basement items behind which vampires could hide.

It might sound silly, but I was also worried about the
cats. I’m a cat person, and before the plague, my building’s super kept cats in
the basement to kill bugs and rodents. Were the cats still down there? Were
their corpses down there? It made me uncomfortable to consider what had
happened to them. I didn’t know if vampires only drank human blood, or if they
drank the blood of other animals too.

If pre-vampire New
York hadn’t already made me desensitized to human
life, the events of the past month certainly had. Still, the thought of coming
across mangled cat bodies bothered me. For that reason, even though I wanted to
play tough again and volunteer to go first, I let Scott be the first one in. I
didn’t bring it up, but I was concerned that seeing the body of a cat might
distract me and put the whole group in danger. With that in mind, I did,
however, volunteer to go second.

Beth was gray in the face. I asked her if she wanted
to sit this one out. She didn’t say anything, but shook her head. James started
insisting she stay upstairs, but Beth kept shaking her head, she didn’t want to
let us down.

Paulo came up with the solution. “We really need
someone to stay upstairs. We don’t want the basement door to slam on us and God
forbid we get locked downstairs.” Beth blanched and Paulo continued. “Please
stay up here and watch the door so it doesn’t close. Anyway, if we get into
trouble we can shout and you’ll be close to the outside door so you can get
help.” Beth agreed, looking relieved.

The door to the basement was in the building foyer so
Beth would stay upstairs between the basement and the outside door. The door to
the basement was locked.

Maybe there wouldn’t be any vampires at all down there.
The lock on the basement door took Dwayne a little more time than usual. When
he was finished he patted Scott on the back, as he usually did when one of us
was about to lead the way into the unknown, and said, “Good luck, man.”

“Thanks,” Scott replied. He held his stake up and I
gave him plenty of space, not wanting to be elbowed in the face.

I felt as I had the first day we started clearing out
my building. In one sense, I hoped the locked door had kept out the vampires,
in another, I wanted to kill a few more.

It was mid-May by that time and the building was very
warm, but not yet hot. Scott’s skin was shiny, but not quite sweaty. I wondered
whether his sheen was on account of the warm weather or nerves.

Scott took a deep breath, let it out, and opened the
door. Three pairs of glowing eyes bounded up the stairs. Scott jumped back and
three skinny cats dashed out the door, through the foyer, and out into the
street.

Scott gasped. “Shit.”

I started to giggle. “Sorry, I should have warned you,
but I thought every building kept cats in the basement.”

“Yeah I know, I know, but don’t act like you weren’t a
little scared,” Scott replied.

“Whatever, let’s try that again.” I was happy to see
that there were at least three survivors from the basement.

The door was open now and sunlight was shining down
the staircase. The air coming up from the basement felt much cooler than the
air already circulating through the foyer. Fortunately, the staircase ran along
the wall so we only had to worry about things coming at us from one side and
the bottom of the stairs.

I handed Scott a flashlight. “You keep an eye on
what’s in front of you and I’ll watch the side,” I said.

We slowly made our way down the stairs. James was
behind me. When we were about halfway down I caught a body in my flashlight
beam. I stopped, nudged Scott, and pointed my light at the body.

It appeared to be female, and it appeared to be
breathing. I kept my flashlight on her as we continued to move down the stairs
while James, Paulo, and Seth followed, sweeping the basement with their own
lights.

The woman didn’t budge. 

We made it to the bottom of the stairs without
incident.

“Let me do it,” Seth whispered. I groaned inwardly. Of
course he wanted to kill a vampire, but he wanted this chance because it was
easy.

“You’re a fucking creeper,” James hissed. “You know
that right?”

“Shut up both of you,” Paulo whispered. “If he wants
to do it let him do it.”

James rolled his eyes. I shrugged. What did I care?
“Just make it quick,” Scott grumbled.

Seth grinned and walked from the back of the line to
the front. “Watch my back,” he said, in a very official tone.

I hoped this woman would wake up and grab him. He’d
probably piss himself.

Seth walked up to the woman lying on the concrete
floor. I could see her better now. Her skin was pale, with dark blue, almost
black veins in stark contrast to her paper-white skin. Her nails were long, and
her breathing was slow and raspy. 

Seth stuck his flashlight in his belt without turning
it off. The idiot stuck it so that the light shined upward casting an eerie
glow on his face. It reminded me of sitting with Mom and Daddy and Nina in a
dark room, passing the flashlight around telling ghost stories. It was a
ridiculous comparison. Back then, vampire stories were just stories, now they
were reality.

“Keep the light on her,” Seth said. His voice was
beginning to tremble.

“Fucking twit,” James hissed back at him while shining
his light directly at the woman’s chest. “Just get on with it.”

Seth raised his stake, and plunged it downward with a
grunt.

I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe he hesitated
for a moment just before the stake hit the woman, or maybe his grunt woke her
up. Either way, he didn’t make a clean kill.

The stake seemed to stop halfway in, and the woman
woke up shrieking.

“Jesus Christ!” James yelled.

Seth fell to his knees on top of the woman. She
grabbed his shoulders, still shrieking. Her eyes shone a bright yellow and the
blue black veins in her face stood out even more now that she was moving. Blood,
so dark it was nearly black, began to ooze from around the stake sticking in
her.

Seth was yelling bloody murder, his hands on the
stake, as the vampire struggled to lift her head, to bite at Seth’s hands or
wrists or any part of him that she could get her fangs on.

Scott was closest. He slammed his boot onto her throat
just before she got at Seth. Her shrieking turned into a gurgle, black blood
drooling from her mouth.

“Kill her if you’re going to kill her,” Scott shouted.

Seth grunted again and shoved the stake deeper into
the vampire. In a few seconds, the gurgling stopped.

Seth looked relieved. Scott looked like he was about
to stake Seth. I was worried about what other creatures might have been woken
up by the screaming and shrieking. I quickly regained my composure and shone my
flashlight around the basement.

I was too late. I had already been caught off guard.

My light caught the reflection of two yellow-green
eyes coming toward me from around a large cylinder: the building’s hot water
heater. It was another female with blond hair so light it looked white. She was
too quick and too close.

I dropped my flashlight and didn’t even have time to
raise my stake before she grabbed my left wrist in a grip so tight I expected
to hear it snap. I could feel her fingernails—if they could be called
fingernails, they were more like claws—digging into my skin. Then she grabbed
my hair with her other hand and jerked my head backward.

I stared into the blackness of the ceiling, angry at
Seth for being a stupid asshole and angry at myself for being so easily
distracted, so careless. What would my parents think when they found out I had
been killed after coming back to life for them again? It would have been better
if they never found out I had survived. God I was stupid. I could feel the
vampire’s cool breath on my neck, smelling like iron and death. When was she
going to end it already?

I braced myself for the bite, but it didn’t come.

All of a sudden I heard the vampire scream and felt
her death grip release me. I jerked my head forward and raised my arm for
whatever was to come next. I was still holding my stake. I saw the vampire with
a stake through her heart, and James behind her. The vampire crumpled to the
ground. 

“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate. James had just
saved my life.

“Don’t mention it.” I thought he was looking at me
strangely, but I had learned my lesson about allowing myself to become
distracted. I quickly knelt down and grabbed my flashlight. Out of the corner
of my eye I saw Scott dart into a dark corner. I heard a groan as I shone my
flashlight in his direction. Scott had staked another vampire so quickly it
hadn’t even had time to scream or fight back.

James and I moved around the hot water heater where I
found a male vampire wearing khakis and a plaid shirt scrunched up in a corner.
He looked like he might have been a nice nerdy guy in real life. Maybe he was
frightened of us and trying to hide, but I couldn’t feel pity after one of his
friends just tried to take my head off.

There was no time anyway. Once he realized he was
cornered he jumped up and lunged for me, but I was ready. Pushing him backward
as I struck, I felt the stake go clean through him and out the other side. The
stake hit the wall behind the vampire and the tip broke off.

I swung my backpack around and grabbed another stake,
thinking that we needed a better way to carry stakes for quicker access.

The basement was silent. I looked around.

James was standing to my right, ready to assist with
the vampire I had just killed. Paulo was over by the furnace with a dead
vampire. He must have killed it around the same time I had my scuffle with the
nerdy vampire behind the water heater. Scott was still in the corner with his
dead vampire, and Seth was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his back
against the wall.

“Looks like we each got one,” Scott said.

“Have we checked everywhere?” Paulo asked.

I shone my light around the basement and saw a utility
closet. I put my flashlight in my belt. “Keep your light on that closet,” I
said to James as I walked over.

He complied without comment, which I found a little
surprising. I had expected him to offer to go in my place. Not that it
mattered. I had almost been killed by one vampire and killed another vampire in
the span of about 5 minutes. In the state I was in, I wasn’t nervous or afraid.

The door was slightly ajar so I figured I might as
well do this right. I took a second stake out of my backpack so that I held one
in each hand. I kicked the door in and heard a yelp; the door must have hit one
of the vampires in the face. There were two males standing in the deep, narrow
closet, one behind the other.

The first was moving backward, clutching his face. The
second was staring at me, livid.

I staked the first and ripped my stake out. As he
crumpled to the ground the second reached for me with his nasty orange claws,
but I was faster, staking him right through the chest.

James rushed up behind me and shone the light in the
closet. There were no other vampires, just some mops and other cleaning
supplies.

“Did you see that?” I asked James. “One and then the
other, I didn’t even need the second stake.”

“Um, yeah.” James finally turned to look at me. He
looked more than a little freaked out.

After the two in the closet, we gave the basement
another thorough check and decided that we had gotten every vampire down there.

“Are you guys okay?” Beth shouted from the top of the
stairs. She sounded upset. I had completely forgotten about her. Surely she had
heard the screaming and shouting.

“We’re fine,” Paulo called up. “Could you toss down
some sheets or tarp or something so we can haul these guys up?”

“Feel free to invite everyone else to help,” James
shouted.

“Yeah, I don’t see why we have to do all the work,”
Seth grumbled.

We all ignored him. I felt it was his fault I had
almost been killed. I turned to the two bodies in front of me. I took out my
hatchet and began hacking their heads off...just in case. The others followed
suit.

After a few minutes, Dwayne, Lee, Tony, and a woman
named Kim came down the stairs with old sheets we had taken from other
apartments.