The Last Human (Vampires Rule # 1) (5 page)

The setting sun is in its final stages, immersing the
darkening sky in vibrant orange and pink, and bringing the day to a
close and a star
t to a new
night for the city.

As I expected, the
school is deserted at this time of day, and the only movement is
the schools sign, creaking and shuddering as the wind brushes
against it.

We saunter through the open front gate and through
the reception door. The unlocked gate and doors suggest that the
caretaker is up and about, either lurking in the corridors or
probably in his office. In the lunch hall, when he forces his
presence upon us, he sits alone in a corner, eating dead pigeons,
feathers and all, licking the blood cleanly from the bones. Even
most of the Vampires find his
behavior disgusting, but the care taker never seems to mind,
hissing and growling with joy as he devours the flesh.

I
amble towards
my geography class, the light bulbs twinkle to life as we past
them, lighting the corridors and chasing away the
darkness.

My geography class is empty, and I sigh with
relief
and take my normal seat
at the back, slumping into my chair and placing my backpack on the
floor beside me. Elis and Maxwell take up positions against the
back wall behind my chair, and fold their arms across their chests,
their gazes locked on the door.

I
pull my school
books out, wondering what kind of rumors might be circulating
regarding yesterday’s events, and what kind of reception is in
store for me from the Vampires. No doubt a section of them will be
saddened that I somehow survived.

The door open
s,
and I look up as Fruz enters. His black hair, slapped with gel, is
spiked up. He glances around with his wide cookie brown eyes and
grins when he sees me. His eyes hover over to Elis and Maxwell and
an uneasy look flashes across them. Never the less, he ambles to
the desk next to me, throws his backpack down, and jumps into the
chair.

“
The whole school knows,” he says, leaning his
chair in
my direction, his
face amused.

I shrug my shoulders as though it’s insignificant,
though inwardly my stomach is swirling with anxiety. I get enough
attention as it is. But this will just bring me back to the
center of attention like a celebrity
who has hit the headlines again.

“
What were you thinking in picking history
anyway, that class is full of low lives,” Fruz continues, rocking
his chair back and ripping one side of his bag clean open when the
zip gets stuck. He takes out his textbooks and drops them on his
desk and stares at them as though he can’t be bot
hered with them.

He has a point regarding my history class. Even
though Lexus is the undisputed ruler, there are still factions
a
mongst the Vampires. The
Articos are split into three main groups. Even though Lexus rules
over all three, some groups are more loyal to him than others. My
history class is littered with those who have parents that never
agreed with Lexus’s decision to adopt me. But the only reason I
chose the subject was because Lexus has always laid a great
emphasis on it: “We can learn from our mistakes by examining the
past,” he has said on many occasions. He used to spend hours
teaching me in his office or outside in the yard of the Manor
whenever he had the time.

“
It’s not that bad,” I say with a thoughtful
expression. The downside is t
hat they just want to eat me.

Fruz makes a face. He leans his chair in my direction
and sniffs. “They said you smelled like a chicken burger”- he
inhales sharply -
“you smell
normal now. Normal as in you’d still taste great.” He grins, and
glances around the empty class as if expecting to see others
laughing at his joke. The smile slips from his face when he notices
the Artico Destroyers staring at him, and he quickly straightens
himself up and busies himself with a textbook, suddenly interested
in the black and white text.

The door swings open and I glance up as other
Vampires glide in,
expressions
motionless, moving gracefully into the room. A few stares are shot
my way, but then averted as they see the Destroyers behind me. Some
smirk but look away just as fast, not wanting to draw attention
from my body guards, but Elis’s and Maxwell’s gazes follow them to
their seats, their sly gestures not missed by the experienced
duo.

Mr.
Duke walks
in with his suitcase in one hand. He marches behind his desk and
sits down. He stares at the crack in the ceiling like he always
does when he’s waiting for late arrivals to turn up.

The door bangs open, and all heads turn, as Nathan’s
huge frame edges through it. He looks straight at me and frowns. He
glides over and takes the s
eat
to my right.

“
I heard what happened
,” he says, his voice rumbling.

“
Yeah, well, these things happen,” I say,
l
ike such incidents were
normal.

Nathan nods, his large jaw moving as he clenches
it
. “Davilon was saying you
crapped your pants when they walked in on you in the men’s
toilets,” he says, looking at me intently.

“
What?”

Nathan nods as if I just confirmed something. “Yeah,
I knew he was talking out his arse. Want me to sort him out?” he
cracks his knuckles. The noise attracts the attention of
t
he whole class, who glance
back.

“
Nah, he’s
not worth it,” I whisper. I might as well have shouted it out
since every ear probably heard it, and several Vampires smile at my
comment.

Davilon is one of the popular Vampires in the school.
His father is an influential figure, and was one of the first to
protest when Lexus announced me as his adopted son, though that
protest was retracted when Lexus had threatened him. Davilon is
similar to his father
in many
ways, arrogant, prideful, amongst other things.

All heads turn to the door as Albert strides in, with
badminton case flung over one shoulder; he shoots us a wave before
taki
ng his usual seat at the
front.

All of a sudden, everyone in the room goes still. I
look around wondering what’s going on and I quickly glance at my
finger thinking the worse, but to my relief, the
banda
ge is still securely in
place.

All eyes tu
rn
towards the door. I look around at the motionless faces, before
turning my own attention to the door, trying to figure out what I’m
missing.

The door opens, and a Vampire, that I have never seen
before walks in. And behind
him are two Artico Destroyers.

The Vampire is wearing a white jacket with black
shades covering his eyes. His dark brown hair falls across his
forehead in waves, resting against his creamy skin. He tightens his
grip on his bag, which is slung over one of his shoulders, and nods
once at
Mr. Duke, who in turn,
inclines his head in greeting, and motions at an empty seat at the
front. The Vampire pulls the chair out from under the desk and sits
down, hanging his bag over the back of the chair. The Artico
Destroyers close the door and stand inside it, ignoring the glances
which dart from them to the new Vampire. One of the Destroyers is
short and stocky, and his thick arms hang by his side. The taller
of the two, has tendrils of dreadlocks falling across his
shoulders. Both of them are wearing shades.

The Vampires in the class exchange curious glances.
Fruz veers to one side, to get a better look at the new guy, who
has his back to us. He frowns, shrugs and slumps back into his
chair. Nathan is frowning as though he is trying to figure
something out. He taps the tip of his pen against his dark pink
lips as if it would help. He too shrugs, and begins to
doodle on the edge of his
desk.

Mr.
Duke rises
from his seat. He doesn’t introduce the new guy or tells him to
take his sun glasses off. When I first arrived at this school, he
introduced me to everyone like a freak show. He also explained, in
my presence, that I was untouchable and that if anyone so as if
laid a finger on me, he had paused and pointed at my then Artico
Guards, finishing the silent message: You’ll be ripped to
shreds.

Mr.
Duke glides
to the whiteboard and turns to the class. “You will get your test
paper results in a few days,” he says, stretching out the words
with his French accent. “Until then, turn to page sixty seven,
sedimentary rocks.”

According to Lexus,
Vampires have been around for thousands of years, living in the
shadows and darkness of the night, hidden from the world to which
they were nothing more but a myth told in stories, mere folklore
and legends passed down by story tellers.

Lexus said, that two
thousand years ago, a mutation resulted in a human turning
into a Vampire, and since then, other Vampires were created
throughout time, by the simple process of a Vampire biting a human,
and armies and societies were raised as a result.

Or a Vampire can be
born to Vampire parents and at a certain age the offspring stops
aging. It varies from Vampire to Vampire at what age the individual
will stay at. It could be twenty or thirty or even sixty.

Once bitten by a Vampire, the changes were
several-fold, as the transformat
ion took place.

First, you developed a thirst for human blood, though
animal blood was sufficient and satisfied and ebbed the craving,
but many preferred human blood and its rich taste and scent. You
could eat human food too, but too long without blood and you’d go
crazy with hunger, turning into a mindless vicious mutt intent on
killing and devo
uring anything
it could grasp.

Your skin turned very sensitive to sunlight, so
sensitive that it could burn when exposed to the sun. But as you
turned older, and the more powerful you got, your skin became
resistant to the sun’s rays. Lexus said the sun’s rays just prickle
his skin as opposed to the days when
his skin would sizzle and burn.

You got stronger. You got faster. Your reflexes
improved. Your vision improved. Hardly anything could kill you.
Your healing is accelerated. Lexus demonstrated this to me once. He
took a kitchen knife and in one quick fluid movement, he sliced his
palm. I screamed and shouted at him, telling him I believed him and
there
was no need of a
demonstration. I couldn’t stand the sight of blood and it made my
stomach twist. But several seconds later, the skin had healed,
leaving a faint pink scar where the cut had been, new skin already
formed. Several minutes later that was gone too, and the skin was
smooth as it was before with no sign of it ever being
damaged.

I asked him more
about the mutation. Where did it come from? How did it happen? Was
there a cure to reverse a Vampire back into human form? He said he
doesn’t know where the mutation came from or how it developed,
though he searches for clues and has been doing so for
centuries.

Lexus said he was turned by the original Vampire, the
one who had contracted the mutation. He said the original Vampire
bit him, and informed him he would be a part of an army whose
purpose would be to enslave mankind. As for the mutation, the
original Vampire claimed ignorance of its roots, stating he had no
knowledge of the mutation itself and his transformation erased the
memory of his previous life, leaving him in the dark. But he was
sure that he was the only Vamp
ire in existence, the original.

Lexus said when he had awoken the next day, he felt
different and the changes happened slowly at first. The thirst for
blood, the sensitivity to the sun, the increase in
strength; speed, agility, sight.
Until finally, he was fully turned into what he is
today.

I asked him about his human life, but he refused to
tell me anything about his past, aside from the fact he had to let
go of it, for every ones safety. He had to move on.
The world moves on, so did
he.

Lexus said the original Vampire turned many others
after him, increasing the number of his army to thousands. As for
him, he never agreed with the original Vampire and never intended
to wage war against mankind, so he waited for an opportunity to
present itself, and
when it
did, he would kill him.

But one day, the original Vampire disappeared,
disbanding them all. They never found any trace of him, and
the Vampire army he had created
scattered, and formed their own groups and societies, and followed
different paths in life.

I asked him
, why
aren’t there any humans left? He told me that during times gone by
humans used to populate the earth in their billions, creating
thousands of cities and conquering the vast lands. But then, they
erased themselves from the face of the earth through wars, nuclear
war fare, and by using biological weapons against one another. He
said radioactivity killed most of them. But he pointed an arm to
the east and said human populations may still reside there,
survivors of the ever lost earth.