Dominant Species (12 page)

Outside the church, Jake stared into the distance without seeing. Behind him he heard Max, still bragging and laughing as he walked with the others towards the old church hall that had long been their general meeting hall. As the laughter died away, Jake heard the soft sound of footsteps. He looked round.

‘Hey Megan’ he managed as
she joined him, sitting close. She laid her head gently on his shoulder, ‘How are you doing? He asked, then shook his head, ‘Stupid question, I’m sorry.’

‘
Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.’ For a moment Jake could only hear the sound of her breathing.

‘I promised Trent I’d keep him safe.’

She looked up and put her finger to his lips. For a few seconds she said nothing and all he could feel was the soft tickle of her breath on his neck.

‘
Jake. I’m only going to say this once more; understand? It wasn’t your fault. We all know the risks, especially my Father.’

Jake closed his eyes as if
by doing so it would take away the pain that he felt.

‘So many dead,
’ he said, ‘including your Father, I just can’t believe it.’ He looked down at Megan as he fought back the need to scream and the silent tears that so wanted to roll down his face. ‘He was a good, decent man.’ He paused, thinking, ‘you know, after Nathan and Trent saved us and we found out about our parents, Max didn’t talk to me for weeks. One night, Nathan found me alone in the church yard and asked me why I was crying.’

Megan looked up
again, could see the pain etched on Jake’s face.

‘When I told him that
I was upset because Max had accused me of killing our parents, he sat down and looked me in the eye and told me that I wasn’t to blame and that one day Max would understand that too. I asked him how long before he’d forgive me, and he just said it will happen when the time is right. I told him I thought it was already too late.’

He glanced down
, staring at her beautiful face and felt his breath rush from him, as if suddenly realising for the first time how achingly beautiful she actually was. As soon as the thought hit him he tried to thrust it far from his mind.

Clearing his throat he
continued, ‘Your Father just smiled at me and said; if the time’s right how can it ever be too late…’ Jake risked another glance at Megan, felt his head swim. ‘… And the weird thing is… I’m still waiting, still trusting in what he said. That was the power of the man, I suppose,’

‘He thought a great deal of you too, Jake.’ Megan’s voice was soft and
gentle and Jake saw the silent tears as they rolled down her pretty face. Megan hesitated before she asked the next question, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand.

‘Jake? What has Max started?’

Jake shook his head, looked down at Megan and again his breath caught in his throat as she tilted her head towards him slightly, searching his face. Then she gently cupped his chin in her hands and their eyes locked. Slowly, Megan pressed her lips to Jake’s. Jake could feel the soft warmth of her lips and looked deep into her eyes, and then returned her kiss, hard. He felt lost, he felt it should feel wrong, but it didn’t. Instead it felt both completely right and the only thing that mattered in the world.

Suddenly he pulled back,
he looked distraught. At first Megan thought she had made a mistake, then she realised he was looking over her shoulder, his eyes widened. She turned to look and saw the angry, flickering flames in the distance, coming from the direction of the Brooklyn naval yard.

‘What
is it?’ she asked, concern flooding her face. Then realisation dawned, ‘Oh no’ she whispered.

In
the old naval yard, fires from the derelict buildings roared high into the air to dance with the screams that came from within. Zidtool stood next to a horse drawn cart that had been piled high with lengths of wood. Some pieces over fifteen feet long, others seven or eight. He watched impassively as people ran in all directions, until they were smashed to the ground by the half-lings. He glanced to his right at two vampires who were dragging a man by his legs towards him. All around figures scattered into the shadows, desperate to escape as the flames grew higher and higher, many finding an alternative to eth flames that was even worse.

As the vampire
s drew closer to Zidtool he dipped his head to look down at the man who had been dragged to him at his request. It was Eddy, his face covered in fear. Zidtool nodded once and Eddy was dragged unceremoniously to his feet.

‘
So I hear you are the one in charge here. Is that so?’

Eddy didn’t reply, which didn’t seem to faze Zidtool at all.

‘Whatever.’ He shrugged. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Eddy.’

‘Okay Eddy,’ Zidtool whispered, his voice high but with an icy cold edge, ‘listen very carefully. You have one chance, and once chance only. Do you understand?’ He didn’t wait for a response, expecting not to get one anyway. ‘Eddy, where are the other humans, the...’ A scream died in the distance with its owner. Zidtool raised an eyebrow, ‘...where are the resistance who helped you?’ he finished.

Eddy, his eyes wide, shook his head.

‘I don’t know, honestly I…’

‘Oh well,’
Zidtool shrugged and walked away. Behind him, Eddy’s scream cut through the night, as the two vampires ripped him in two.

Zidtool approached the entrance to the main building where Eddy and his community
had lived. Only one gate now remained, half hanging from the high wall. Zidtool roared, pulling the gate from its hinges he hurled it across the courtyard, before he shouted a command in his high, coarse voice that carried into the night.

‘
Hear me and hear me well. If you value your lives you will tell me what I want to know, and tell me now… You have five minutes, if you don’t…’

The remaining statement was never finished as two men charged at him from one side. In a blur Zidtool slashe
d one of them across their face with his thin, silver blade. The other was stopped in his tracks as Zidtool’s hand exploded through his back.

Silhouetted against the burning building, Zidtool carefully wiped his arm as the figure fell lifeless to the floor
as three half-lings converged on the fallen bodies.

Inside the general meeting hall
of the resistance the sound of laughter and cheering seeped out through the sandbags that failed to completely dampen the sound, and bled into the cold night air.

Max stood, waving a bottle of beer in the air.

‘… And then: Bam!’ He jerked the bottle round quickly, sending liquid flying across the room. Suddenly in his peripheral vision he noticed a figure standing silently in the doorway. It was his brother. Max slowed, thinking that something about his brother seemed different.

‘Beer bro?’ He asked cautiously and held the bottle aloft. The general chatter subsided as others
also saw that there was something clearly wrong. Jake crossed the floor, his eyes never leaving his brother’s face. Behind him, standing in the doorway stood Megan, tears streaked her face.

Max sensed the danger but reacted too late as Jake punched him hard in the face. Max
crashed through a chair and hit the ground hard.

‘That was for Nathan and all the others that weren’t so lucky.’ Jake’s words were
icy cold as he turned his back on Max who was wiping blood from his lip, his head swimming in pain. Jake faced the rest of the room.

‘I
need a dozen men, fully armed.’ No one moved. In the corner, behind Jake, Lano stooped for a piece of the broken chair. ‘I said we need a dozen men. The vampires have attacked the Naval Yard at Vinegar Hill. It’s on fire.’

Max wiped blood from his lip and stared at the red liquid on his fingers. Looking up at Jake he began to climb to his feet. Twenty pairs of eyes watched, unable to look away.

Jake turned to his brother. ‘Stay down,’ he said simply.

Ignoring him, Max stood. Again he wiped
a trail of blood from his lip, glanced to Lano. It happened at once, Max swung the bottle as Jake ducked; his counter punch hit Max in the ribs, then in one fluid motion Jake span as Lano swung the broken chair leg. Jake palmed it away, hitting Lano with a vicious combination that dropped him like a stone. As he turned back he was hit by Max from the side.

Both brothers crashed into the far wall as people scrambled to get out of the
ir way.

‘Stop it! Stop it, now,’ s
creamed Megan.

Max threw another punch, which Jake took on his arm. A hard right caught Max in the body, just before a vicious left spun Max’s head round. Blood flew from Max’s mouth as he
hit the wall and slumped to the floor, unconscious. Jake looked down at his brother. ‘Should’ve stayed down,’ he said.

Then he
turned to look at the faces in the room and spoke calmly as if the last sixty seconds had never happened.

‘
… I said a dozen men, fully armed, out front in five minutes.’ He stepped over his brother’s tangled body and walked out the door.

In the factory
, Zidtool watched the fire burn brightly, lost somewhere in the flickering flames. Light danced in his empty eyes, bodies littered the floor. Zidtool stepped over a charred corpse and stood in the middle of the floor, turning to another vampire that stood close by.

‘T
imes up, they’ve had their chance. Kill them all.’

Outside the meeting hall at least a dozen men stood
hesitantly in line, facing Jake who surveyed them like some old fashioned Drill Sergeant.

‘We’ll take the disused railway tunnels
as per usual, but the last two miles will be out in the open. Make sure you have sufficient ammo.’

Behind
him, Megan was finishing a hurried conversation with one of the watchmen. She jogged over to Jake, stood close, her back to the other men.

‘There
are some survivors coming in from the South.’

‘How many,
’ questioned Jake.

Megan hesitated,

‘No more than ten, fifteen at the most.’

Jake looked toward
his new recruits then back at Megan.

‘Do you know how many there
used to be in total?’

Megan look
ed down, shook her head.

‘Over ninety.’

He heard a slight noise and looked up. Slumped in the shadows of the doorway he could see his brother watching. Ignoring him Jake turned his attention back to the men.

‘We
have to be really careful, but we need to check for survivors, salvage anything we can. Understood?’

A dozen or so heads nodded uncertainly. Jake cast a look
back at the doorway as Max slid silently back inside.

‘Then let
’s go.’

On East
Ninety Second Street, Drameer pushed open the door to his apartment. Pausing in the doorway he closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the sound of Kathryn’s breathing as she laid asleep inside. Slowly he entered the apartment, walked across the living room and through the open doorway to their bedroom. He crossed to the bed and sat silently on its edge. He stared at Kathryn’s beauty and gently moved a lock of hair from her face with a slender finger. There was no other sound than that of her breathing softly. With a sigh Drameer walked to the window and turned a faded chair so that it was facing outwards. He sat silently. In the distance he could see the fire as it burned high into the sky. He watched in silence, amazed at how far you could see across the city now that most of the skyscrapers had been levelled to the ground in the War and slowly shook his head.

A dozen men moved quietly on foot,
led by Jake, clearly in charge. Megan was close behind him. Although he hadn’t wanted her to come, deep down he was glad she hadn’t taken no for an answer. They’d moved through the underground tunnels quickly and quietly and were now out in the open. Jake knew the risks they were taking, but owed it to Eddy and the others to try and help. He secretly cursed his brother not knowing what he had started, wishing he’d been able to convince him of the madness in his plan. They moved cautiously, stopping at every intersection where Jake would carefully check around the next corner, seeing if it was all clear.

They had moved like this for just over the past hour and were finally nearing the old Navel Yard
. The streets around the Williamsburg Bridge had been badly levelled during the war and there was now little cover remaining. The group crossed the open ground feeling vulnerable and with their hearts in their mouths. But they made it without incident.

Finally
, as they closed on the old Naval Yard, Jake noted that the fires had diminished, but the smell of the fire, together with something far worse, hung pungent in the air. He closed on the last corner and looked round carefully, not knowing what to expect. The sight that met his eyes pinned him to the spot. The remains of the factory had been burnt to the ground. All around walls had been smashed and the resulting debris still glowed orange against the dark night sky. Every so often the embers would flare as the breeze delivered additional oxygen. Dead, tortured, bodies were scattered everywhere.  Jake staggered forward in a daze. Behind him the men watched, uncertain what to do as he crossed the street.