Night Plague: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (13 page)

The sun was fast asleep, but he absently pulled down his sleeves. The rashes stung more than ever. Did they count as an injury? Were they what
was sapping away his energy so fast? Perhaps not paying them the proper notice had cost him in the end.

Heh.
A bitter snort escaped him. Last night's dream surely hadn't helped, either. It'd felt so vivid that he could still taste the tang on his tongue, warped into a craving - a gnawing hunger. It left his unused guts twisting in his stomach.

He wasn't a monster like that. And no matter what, he'd never become one.
He wouldn't allow it! He frowned, fingers curling into fists at his side as if ready to push someone away, indignant. But there was no one. Just him.

All of it had seemed so real.
And Sorrel... He flushed, white with shame and embarrassment. He didn't want her like that! Not the person who'd done this to him.

The things she'd said, too... Her arguments had sounded so much like her. So full of that same twisted logic she built herself up on.

And yet, it was only a dream. It'd all come from him. The cruel words written in Martin's and Merril's hand, the way Sorrel had touched him, the things she'd said, his horrible joy as he stalked the streets. It was all inside him somewhere, running loose while he slept.

The thought made him feel smaller, sicker.
Strange amongst himself.

This was nothing like that, he told himse
lf as he slipped away from traffic and into an alley. This was necessity, and nothing more. Maybe he
was
a coward, too afraid to accept the fate everyone shared, but for now, this was the only option he had.

He couldn’t take it anymore. What he was doing was terrible, but
to him, living with the fear that he may snap and hurt someone he loved was far worse. And, well…he didn’t want to die. Not now. From the curiosities going on around him to the excited uncertainty bristling in the prison walls, he felt like he was a part of something for the first time in years. Sure, it wasn’t all good, but as selfish as it was, he wasn’t ready to let go of it. He wanted to see it through. He wanted to be there when Cliff completed his research.

And so, he’d surrendered to his thirst and decided to hunt.

He was already a murderer, anyway, and even if he never killed again, he always would be. At least this way he could make sure the life he stole deserved that life less than the ones he was protecting. Heh; Sorrel was rubbing off on him.

Martin and Merril were already asleep, and he hadn’t wanted to alert Sorrel or any of the other prison folk. He wanted to get this done with and go home. He shook his head. To go home and sleep so that he could try to forget it all like the monster he was.

His limbs quivered with sick anticipation. Some terrible part of him was excited, and he hated himself for it. He let his alien body take over, giving in to what it wanted.

He could hardly think – he hardly allowed himself to think – but the way his l
egs moved seemed strange. He remembered Sorrel’s cat-like movements, and it almost felt like he was gliding across the sidewalk now, too. Not a ghost, but not quite an earthly creature. If he tried hard enough, he could probably make himself believe it was a dream.

He stayed low in the shadows, just a few miles out from where he’d killed before, but he found himself making his way to a slightly busier part of the city than he’d meant to. Loud techno music seeped through the walls of a nearby nightclub and assaulted his sensitive ears.

He was just about turn in the direction he’d come, when footsteps faded in from the other side of the building. He ducked down, clinging to the wall.

A man turned the corner into the alley and stumbled his way to the back of the
club. He wore rather lavish clothes, but his swaying limbs and glassy eyes were anything but elegant. He paused and looked around, as if making sure there was no one nearby.

Mason relaxed just a bit when the stranger seemed to conclude there wasn’t and turned to face the wall. His keen ears heard unzipping pants and the dribbling that followed
.

He wrinkled his nose at
the unappetizing stink of urine. Nasty drunks. But beggars couldn’t be choosers – he’d just been handed the perfect opportunity.

He emptied his mind, slunk forward, and sunk his teeth into the vein bulging on the man’s throat. A shriek ripped from heaving lungs, but the vampire silenced
it the same way he had before – an arm around a neck.

Blood, its metallic layers tinged with the hot tang of alcohol, spilled into his mouth. His tongue twitched, his throat contracting to swallow the warm fluid. Life and heat traveled from the stranger’s body to his, and he shivered in satisfaction, greedily sucking down as much as he could
, as any human thought died away to animal ecstasy.

At least, until another scream came from somewhere behind him.

His eyes snapped up to meet those of three other men. He stared, gaze as wide as the strangers’. The drunk collapsed limply beneath him. Blood dripped from his chin. For an instant, time seemed to still.

Then one of them yelled. Something loud and frantic, but the words never registered.

Shit.

The next few moments condensed into a single beat.

The men lunged, fists outstretched, and the vampire just barely jumped away.

He’d been witnessed. The realization finally started to take hold of his head. They were witnesses.

Fleetingly, he realized that he needed to kill them. He needed to get rid of them the same way Sorrel had gotten rid of him. He needed to blank out the eyes that’d found him and silence the tongues that could say what they’d seen.

Instead, he ran, leaping for the nearest banister almost instinctively. He pulled himself up with the inhuman strength he’d never quite understood
and clambered to the nightclub roof.

He could hear the men shouting,
cursing. There were more now, a crowd slowly gathering by the body and staring up at his silhouette. His heart was as still as ever, but in that instant, he swore it was slamming his ribs.

The world spun, melting away to nothing but the instinct to flee. He forced his
eyes away from his onlookers and ran in the direction he’d come. He clung to the center of the skyline, leaping from roof to roof with an almost dreamlike grace he’d never possessed before. One gunshot split the air, but blasted uselessly against the side of an old building. He was someone else. He was outside his body, watching a stranger flee from the safety of the sky. He moved – leaping, running, climbing. He moved until the shouts behind him died away. He never stopped to look back.

By the time he shoved his fron
t door open and locked it from inside, he was alone.

****

“Mayor’s Son Murdered.” That headline stretched across the top of the local Wheldon Weekly and wolfed down hits online.

Robin Moorn, the son of
Wheldon Hill mayor Addly Moorn, had been found dead late last evening behind a downtown nightclub. Several witnesses reported the incident to the police, claiming to have seen a pale-skinned, black-haired boy kneeling over Robin’s collapsed corpse before startling and fleeing to the roof like a wild animal. Two puncture marks marred the victim’s throat, and the majority of his blood had been drained from his body through unknown means.

The vampire gossips online ate the news up, and thanks to them, the murder of that small town mayor’s son was managing to make its way to the shadier corners of the world press. Perhaps because of the large group of witnesses, perhaps because of the victim’s status, or perhaps because of both, the incident wasn’t simply written to the obituary as another plague death. Not this time.

Mason had seen the story on the local news that morning, watching a reporter tout crime scene images – a few scant bloodstains with a tape outline – and interview the witnesses. He hadn’t wanted to, but morbid curiosity had overpowered dread.

“I know what I saw! That guy sunk his teeth right into Rob’s neck – there was blood all over his face! Christ…it was like something outta some horror movie.”

“The guy looked scrawny, see – we were gonna make him pay his dues, but he sprung right up to the roof like some kinda mutant! We gave chase, a’course, but we lost sight of the thing. Never did see it come down. It wasn’t human, I tell you!”

“I
ain’t never seen nobody move like that. The rumors are true – it was a vampire. It had to be. It drank Rob dry – those investigator folks said so, too. I know it sounds mad, but you wouldn’t think that if you’d been there!”

“I don’t… It… It had to be some kind of demon. It wasn’t human, that’s for sure.”

“It’s just like in Rocher! What if there are more of them here?”

The reporter ushered the hysterical group off after that, but there wasn’t any shortage of online doomsayers proclaiming that Wheldon Hill would become the next Rocher.

Mason picked up a pile of old textbooks sitting by his computer and hurled them at the wall.

How was he supposed to know that the generic drunk pissing behind the nightclub was the mayor’s son? How on earth could he have known? He should’ve killed the witnesses – as many as it took – just like Sorrel. He should’ve been more careful. He shouldn’t have wandered so close to downtown. He shouldn’t have let them see his face. He should’ve kept the man from screaming. He shouldn’t have gone without Sorrel. He shouldn’t have killed at all. What the hell had he done?

He dug his fingers into his clammy brow. This would just blow over, right? No one had gotten any pictures. Thank God, no one had gotten any pictures. There were tons of pale-skinned, black-haired young men in town, right? And it certainly wouldn’t affect the prison, right? …Right?

Shit.

He’d messed up, big time. That was an understatement.

His full belly only reminded him of what he’d done, feeding his dread and bringing bile to his throat.

Whether someone from the prison would come to punish him, whether the police
would come to take him away, or whether it was the rest of the vampires who paid the price for his folly, longing for the incident to simply disappear was nothing but wishful thinking.

He was supposed to be at school – Merril already was – but he had no doubt that the rumors flowing online would spread even thicker in the school hallways. He was a terrible liar. He didn’t trust himself to make it through the day without panicking and spilling his own guts on the floor.

In the end, he’d stayed home, Martin’s incessant yelling and pounding on the door be damned. Caring about something as simple as that was a leisure he didn’t have left. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the days when he hadn’t been a monster and when his mistakes hadn’t risked the lives of countless others like him. The memories wouldn’t come. His mind refused to play anything besides images of the carnage in Rocher.

His
eyes returned to the computer screen heralding what he didn’t want to believe. His throat constricted with each word he read – a snare trap wrapped around his neck. He shut off the monitor and slumped in his chair, face buried in his jeans.

…Shit.

Mason’s eyes swam, darted, and danced from one person to the next while the rest of his muscles froze. They were all watching him. He knew they were! The students in the cafeteria pretended to talk amongst themselves and ignore him as they always had, but it was nothing but a ruse to catch him off guard. They all knew what he was. They all knew what he’d done. He wasn’t going to make it home alive. They were going to chop off his head and raze the prison with it jutting from a battle spear, ripping Dale, Cliff and Sorrel limb from limb until there was nothing left of them.

“Mason!”

He jumped at Merril’s voice, nearly jolting off the cafeteria bench.

She leaned over the table, her expression equally cross and concerned. “Geez, what’s been wrong with you the last few days?”

He looked down, swallowing hard to
rein in his racing imagination. He was just being paranoid. No one suspected him: the quiet geek who was happy to sit in his room all day and leave the world alone. No one even thought about him enough to consider it. He was practically invisible. As long as he acted normal, as long as he acted like nothing was wrong, everything would stay that way.

In the few days since the murder, the rumors he’d heard online and on TV had indeed infected the school. His skin crawled every time mention of the mayor’s son left a student’s
mouth, but at the same time, being the only pale, black-haired boy absent from school would only make things worse if anyone took notice. He needed to act normal while his thirst was still sated – he wouldn’t be hunting again anytime soon.

“N-nothing.”
He sputtered, pausing to straighten out his voice. “It’s just, umm…pretty scary stuff, isn’t it?”

Merril tilted her head. “The rumors, you mean?”

He nodded, scratching the back of his neck. “It kind of makes you not want to leave the house, huh?” A liar. He was a terrible liar.

“Oh, is that it? Then you’re being a bit silly. Even if anything is out there, we’ll be fine so long as we don’t linger around alleyways at night. And that was never a good idea to begin with.”

If?
Was she actually considering the possibility of such a thing? She was smiling, leaving him unsure if she was serious or simply teasing.

He frowned. “You don’t really think there are monsters like that out there, do you?”

Her smile stayed, but it wasn’t the same jest she’d worn before. It was something smaller, weaker. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

A hush came between them, emphasized by the noise bustling about the lunch room.

“I-it’s just rumors, I’m sure.” He stared at the blank white counter. “This whole thing is ridiculous, but I guess it’s something to think about other than the plague. Maybe that’s it.” He forced a smile, himself. “You’re right. I’m just being stupid, like usual.”

Her grin widened in turn
and her soft lips pecked his forehead. “Of course I am! Nothing new there.”

For just a little while, it felt like everything really had returned to normal. As if it could all
be explained away so easily. Mason hoped those moments would never vanish.

****

The street was alive with noise as Mason and Merril made their way home. Shouting bodies crowded the church parking lot, their voices rising into a cacophony as each sought to be heard and in result, none was. It was a mess of flesh and sound.

Mason paused, just staring, but Merril kept moving.

“There’s someone tied up there!” She took off with a sharp, wide-eyed gasp, vanishing into the crowd before Mason had the chance to register what was happening.

Someone…was tied up?

He gulped before forcing himself to follow, something sinking in his stomach. “Merril, wait – !”

The sight in front of him dissolved his voice. A man stood
atop the church stairway, looking out at the gathered crowd through narrowed eyes. His green pupils sat deep in his skull and a fine black business suit belied the scene before him.

To his own surprise, Mason recognized him quickly. It was John Swalow, one of Wheldon Hill’s most successful businessmen. A software engineer, Swalow was the man
he'd once hoped to work for.

But that wasn’t what
held his attention. A young man sat stooped on his knees by Swalow’s side, his feet fastened together and his hands tied behind his back. A rag covered his mouth like an image from an old movie.

Mason forced himself to meet the captive’s wide, terrified eyes. Tears gl
eamed from freckled cheeks and red hair jutted out every which way. He recognized this man, too; Errol Hadler, one of the prison’s scouts.

He stepped back, jaw sinking like everything else
inside him.

He knew what this was about.

Several police officers stood by the stairs to protect Swalow from the onlookers. Some were horrified, outraged at what was taking place on the steps of their local house of worship. Others looked genuinely intrigued, curious.

“W-what is he doing with that kid?”

“Is that…is that Errol? The teacher’s boy? I thought he went missing three years ago.”

“Calm down, this is Swalow – he never does anything without reason!”

“There can be no reason for this – let the boy go!”

Swalow stepped forward, thematically sweeping out his arms before moving a finger over his lips. “Hush, now. How about you let me explain what’s going on. You see, I’ve discovered something that I simply must share with all of you.”

Voices still murmured – a few still shouted – but the crowd did quiet down. Whether they were obeying, or simply frightened, Mason wasn’t sure. It was fortunate that he no longer had to breathe – he couldn’t have forced air down his lungs if he’d tried.

Swalow hovered over Errol, grabbing
his shoulders and leaning near his face. Sweat shown on the vampire’s brow, slick in the fading afternoon sun. “I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors. Murders. Missing bodies. Drained blood.
Vampires
. It all sounds mad, doesn’t it?” A strange smile spread across the man’s thin lips. “I thought so, too, until I saw my dead daughter walking about our yard.”

Another set of murmurs spilled through the crowd. Mason
craned his neck, scanning the figures for the familiar one he was looking for with new urgency. He found Merril a few feet away, but a tall man stood beside her with thick palms balled into fists. Martin?

Mason blinked. He
wanted his legs to move, to carry him to his friend and brother, but Swalow’s voice left him immobile. The tone was smooth and soft, but loud enough to carry throughout the parking lot. It was a dangerous voice, he thought.

“She would come just a few nights each week at first. I actually believed I was dreaming. But then it became more than that. She visited almost every night, lingering in the garden she’d loved in life. But how could that be? The child I adored was dead – I’d seen her with my own eyes. Cold, still, empty. So, a ghost, I reasoned. If my beloved daughter was there, even if just in spirit, I wanted to be with her. And so one night I made to speak with the figure in my backyard. Alas, that creature wasn’t my dear daughter. It was solid, made of flesh, but pale and cold, with no heartbeat or
breath to give it rhythm. The animal in my daughter’s body attacked me, reaching for my throat. I saw the fangs then.”

Swalow undid the cloth with a flourish, grasping Errol’s jaw before he could
so much as cry for help. Traces of red clung to his chin and the corners of his mouth. The older man pulled back the younger’s lips and revealed the jagged teeth jutting from his jaw. “It was then that I realized the rumors were true. I couldn’t deny the evidence in front of my eyes, no matter how mad it seemed.”

The hushed murmurs erupted into startled gasps and shouts.

“Those teeth! Th-that’s…!”

“I knew it! I knew they were really out there! I’ve seen ‘
em, too!”

“That…has to be a costume, right? They sell fangs like that in stores.”

“Is that…real blood?”

Errol
twisted and struggled while Swalow ran his fingers beneath the boy’s bloodied chin almost playfully. “Oh, my poor daughter! Even in death, she was not allowed peace. Instead, her face was worn by this mockery reaching for my neck. What was I to do but reach for the shovel by our flowerbeds?” He straightened. “The creature before me was already a corpse, and no matter what I did, it wouldn’t fall. At least…until I severed the head from the body.”

Mason shuddered, eyes round and wide as he stared at the well-dressed, well-composed man preaching to the crowd.

It was impossible to slice someone’s head off with a shovel…it would have to be hacked off, the metal pounding the throat again and again until bone finally snapped.

He stepped back, legs moving even
while his mind froze.

“It was agonizing, but at last, the mockery had ended and my beloved child could rest in peace, free from the clutches of the demon that’d wrapped its fingers around her silent heart.”
Another smile. “But I began to wonder, then, was my poor daughter the only soul to suffer such a fate? The rumors I’d heard before, but always rejected, suggested otherwise. Then fate dealt me a hand that made my calling clear. From the window of my office yesterday evening, I witnessed the boy you see before you bite another man’s neck, all just days after the similar death of our poor mayor’s son.” He paced atop the stairway, his steps slow and deliberate. “I approached Mayor Moorn with what I'd seen, and we discussed the deaths of our children in great length. For the sake of his son and his city's safety, he has ordered our local law enforcement to collaborate with me, and now you can see this monster with your own eyes.”

“
No way. He saw the boy do it?”

“Murderer!
If his daughter was still walking, there’s no way she was dead!”

“That isn’t a monster, it’s just a boy! This…”

“Vampires? Seriously? This is a fucking joke!”

“
But…”

“Now
, now, I’m aware of how mad I must sound, so let me offer you a bit of proof.” Swalow pulled a handgun from beneath his vest and aimed it at Errol. A cold, messy gasp spread through the parking lot.

“D-don’t…! Someone, stop him!”

“But, if what he says is true…then…”

Swal
ow pulled the trigger and shot Errol in the stomach.

Screams split the gathering as loudly as the bullet. Mason’s body heaved, his feet nearly giving way beneath him. He heard
Merril's high-pitched shriek and saw her hands fly over her mouth.

But Errol didn’t fall. He didn’t bleed. He jerked at the impact, but remained on his knees, eyes stretched and
open.

Silence devoured the raucous crowd.

Swalow fired off more shots. One, two, three. The lungs, the ribs, the liver. Errol never collapsed, not bleeding.

“You see? The creature before you is already dead! It no longer carries blood of its own
, and its organs sit unused.” Swalow turned back to the crowd. “They aren’t mere rumors. They’re out there among us, endangering our living and making a mockery of our dead. Whatever the cause, we must purge our town of these demons that walk our streets, for the sake of ourselves, our lost, and those we do not wish to lose.” Another well-practiced smile. “Won’t you join me?”

There it was. All the fear boiling in Mason’s body climaxed into ice that
replaced the blood in his veins.

“Vampire!
He really is a vampire!”

“H-how…did
he… It can’t be!”

“This is insane! It has to be an act! It…it has to be…”

“He’s still alive! He isn’t human!”

“
Th-there’s not even any blood! There really isn’t!”

“I knew it! I won’t let my children share a city with the dead!”

“Vampires… They’re really…”

“It's just like in Rocher! It's really true!”

“Demons! That’s what they are! It’s just like Swalow says!”

The cries and shouts melted away, leaving him standing there alone in a blank, cold place. They were screwed. It was over. They knew. Everyone was screwed.

Swalow looked at the trembling vampire. “There is one way to return the dead to death – a simple one, really.” He raised the gun once more and rested the barrel against Errol’s forehead. Mason lurched, absent heart smashing into his ribs.

“No!” He screamed, but the gunshot ate his voice.

Errol collapsed, half of his head in tatters. His body sprawled on the ground at the gunman’s feet. It didn’t twitch – electricity had left it long ago – but the one eye it had left stared blankly at the gray afternoon sky.

The boy was dead, and this time, he wasn’t going to rise.

The crowd erupted into screams. Terror. Shock. Horror. And something else, too – a different kind of electricity.

“He killed him! He killed that boy!”