Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3)

Vampire Apocalypse:

Fallout

Derek Gunn

Published by Permuted Press at
Smashwords.

Copyright 2010 Derek Gunn

www.PermutedPress.com

Prologue

“I’m telling you,” the boy piped
excitedly, “you just have to see this.”

He glanced back every few
seconds as if to make sure that his audience was still with him and
his inattention to his own footsteps caused him to slip and stumble
repeatedly over the uneven ground.

“This better be worth it,
Wilkins,” a boy, taller than the others, said with as much menace
as his fifteen years could manage. The lead boy gulped and slipped
again as his attention was distracted. The larger boy laughed.
“Watch where you’re going, Wilkins, or you’re likely to break
something and then we’ll never see this amazing discovery of
yours.”

“
Yeah,”
laughed another boy, “like you were so busy before,
Seager
.” This boy was
smaller than the larger boy but did not seem in the least
intimidated by this. “Remind me,” he continued despite the scowl
directed at him by Seager, “does fondling women’s underwear make
you blind or do you have to actually take your dick out for
that?”

There was a smattering of
laughter from the others in the group, though most did not want to
be seen to be laughing and looked away in case they were caught.
Seager lunged forward with a growl of anger but the other boy
easily sidestepped and Seager’s roundhouse punch swept past without
making contact.

“I’m going to kill you, Ricks.
When I get my hands on you …”

“Will you two stop it?” Everyone
stopped at the sharp tone and Emma Logan glared at the two boys in
front of her. Inside she longed to burst out laughing, Rick’s
comment had been particularly funny, but she knew that if these two
started at each other again then there was likely to be trouble.
The two boys were like flint and stone and the resulting sparks
were inevitable.

“
Honestly,”
she continued, “I’d swear you were both ten years old. Ricks,” she
kept her face severe but it wasn’t easy as she watched his sheepish
grin. “You know damn well that Robert was taking in the laundry for
his mother.”

Emma looked
sternly at Ricks, using all her self control to remain serious. He
was also fifteen, of average height and athletic rather than
muscular. His wiry frame was well defined from his work in the
fields and muscles in his arms rippled when he moved. His brown
hair flopped into his eyes, giving him the appearance of a cute
animal peering out through a cage. He was a good looking boy who
smiled easily but he delighted in mischief. Emma found it hard to
be angry with him for too long, his smile was so damn infectious,
and his eyes were like two dark pools that pulled her in and made
her lose track of time.

“He sure looked like he was
enjoying it way too much,” Ricks insisted and jumped out of the way
of another swipe from Seager.

Emma shook
herself from her thoughts. “One of these days,” she warned him,
“you won’t be as quick and he’ll land one of those on you and knock
you into next week. And as for you,” she turned her attention
toward Seager who suddenly stopped grinning. “Stop bullying poor
Danny. He’s likely to break an ankle if he doesn’t watch where he’s
going and we’ll be in enough trouble as it is if we’re caught out
here without having any serious injuries to content with as
well.”

Seager nodded
and flushed. Emma Logan was well aware that Peter Seager fancied
her. Girls just sensed those things. He was good looking but was
just too physical for her liking. He was a typical jock. Bigger
than the other boys from an early age and he was used to getting
his own way by using that size, in many cases unintentionally - but
not always. He was nice enough when you got him on his own but
impossible when there were others around that that he felt the need
to impress. Logan, for her part, had become the calming influence
between them. Neither boy was capable of leading their small group;
they were far too caught up with looking good and scoring points
off each other to worry about the smaller details like how their
actions affected the others in the group. And they couldn’t make a
decision to save their lives. There were nine of them in the group,
but most of the others were sheep, happy to be led and watch the
fireworks that sparked anytime the two boys got
together.

It wasn’t
that they hated each other. Ricks just found it too easy to bait
Seager, especially when Seager was trying so hard to use his size
to intimidate the others. Seager also had the makings of a bully
and this didn’t sit well with Conor Ricks, or herself for that
matter. Seager wasn’t a bully quite yet but he was certainly at
least half way there, and Ricks delighted in eroding his tough-guy
image whenever he could.

Emma liked
both boys, though, despite their problems. She was fifteen as well,
with just as many raging hormones as the boys had to contend with,
and she was the only girl of their age around, so it limited their
options considerably. But she was used to taking charge. Before the
vampires had come her father had left just after she was born and
her mother had become addicted to booze. A string of bad male
friends had left her mother with two more children and Emma with
two brothers to look after. She had been forced to take charge then
and again now. Boys were just so basic, she thought in frustration.
They either wanted to fight or see you naked - there just didn’t
seem to be any third option that she was aware of. She was well
used to keeping order. It was just a pity that someone couldn’t
look after her for a change.

She had come
out of the serum’s effects to a world very different to the one she
had known two years previously. There had been no sign of her
mother or her two brothers and the sudden loneliness had felt like
a terrible weight that she still had difficulty coping with. People
were kind but everyone was far too busy to take care of her so she
had to pick herself up and make her own way in this new world.
Although she had hated having to have to look after her brothers
and having to pick up her mother after she had been abandoned yet
again, she longed for their company and eagerly examined the faces
of all newcomers any time Harris and his team came back with more
refugees. The thought that her mother and brothers might be dead
was too terrible to bear so she had convinced herself that they
were still alive.

She had grown
more and more insular as the patrols began to bring in fewer and
fewer survivors, until, finally, her mother and her brothers had
been brought in, bedraggled and near death from starvation. She had
been so happy when they had been rescued. Her life seemed to take
on new meaning and she took it as a sign that things would get
better from then on, despite their precarious position in this new
world. Now that they were together they could be a proper family.
Unfortunately, though, once they recovered, her life descended back
into the same monotony that she had lived with before the vampires
had come.

Her mother
was still an addict. Even with the time she had spent under the
influence of the serum and off alcohol she had slid right back into
addiction as soon as she had been rescued. Alcohol was rare enough
these days, though her mother still seemed to manage to find a
bottle with alarming frequency. Emma suspected that she had a
number of male friends who kept her supplied for special favours
but she tried hard to see the good in her mother whenever she
could.

Her life had
been destined to grow more depressing until Father Reilly had taken
her aside. He had seen how things were for her and had seen how
much responsibility had been thrust onto her young shoulders. He
couldn’t do very much about her mother, though he had promised to
pray for her. However, he had been able to do something for Emma.
He had introduced her to the other teenagers in the community. At
first she had insisted that she did not have time with all her
responsibilities, but Reilly had insisted. He had arranged for her
younger brothers to be sent to the community school and had
insisted that she take time out every day to be with others her own
age. She realised now that that had been just what she had
needed.

When she had
met the ‘children’,
as the adults
referred to them, she had remained quiet at first; delighting in
the ability to lose herself in anonymity within a larger group and
let others make the decisions. The two boys seemed to have nearly
equal support among the group and decisions were hard to come by.
Seager would suggest something and Ricks would argue against it as
a matter of course. This would generally continue until Seager lost
his temper and lashed out at Ricks, who generally danced safely
around the other boy until they both got bored and argued about
something else. While it was fun in the beginning she had
eventually lost patience. She had managed to remain quiet for
nearly a whole week, enjoying the attentions of both of the boys,
but, eventually, she had been forced to step in and separate Seager
and Ricks.

They would
never get anything done otherwise and she wasn’t one for just
hanging around and arguing. She was a do-er. That had been the
beginning of it. It hadn’t taken long before everyone in the group,
including Seager and Ricks, looked to her for guidance and to make
the final decision when there was no consensus, which was in most
cases. Some things just never changed, she realised. There was
something within her, a quality that others gravitated toward, that
impelled her to lead. Eventually she decided not to fight against
it and accepted her role and, if the truth be known, she now
revelled in it. For the first time, others looked to her out of
respect rather than circumstance.

She still had
two brothers who conspired as often as they could to make her home
life busy but now she also had the ‘Wolverines.’ The name had not
been her idea but she had to admit that it did give their little
group an identity that was all theirs. Up till now she had always
been someone’s daughter or sister. For a time she had also been a
prisoner of the vampires, but she remembered little of that. She
shuddered as she thought of the vampires and how tenuous their
existence was, even here in their little community. That was why
she put up with the crap in the group. At least it was real and she
had choices. The others in the group genuinely listened to
her.

They had
members as young as thirteen and even one as old as seventeen,
though Jack Pearson was a little soft, ‘touched’ as they used to
call them in the old world. He wasn’t handicapped, just a little
slow. He adored her and never stood less than a few feet away from
her. It wasn’t sexual by any means, not that she had any experience
with boys in that way, of course. The vampires had come when she
was still twelve and had effectively stunted her formative teen
years. Though she had seen enough men around her mother to tell the
difference between friendship and lust. Jack wasn’t quite as tall
as Seager but his shoulders were far more developed than any of the
others so he appeared bigger, and was certainly stronger than any
of the others. He also had a quiet confidence about him that
ensured the others afforded him a measure of respect and ensured
they never made fun of the fact that he was simple.

There wasn’t
really much to do in the community and they spent most of their
days wandering through the community’s territory, at least those
areas which were considered safe. Her brothers were in school but
there were no teachers for her age group. Initially, when they had
been originally inducted into the community, the adults had told
them that they had to attend classes anyway, but there were no
adults qualified to teach them and their classes had turned out to
be a string of adult ‘babysitters’ who merely sat in a room with
them. After a few weeks of that they had simply stopped going.
There had been a few rumblings about punishment but she had offered
a compromise and, to everyone’s delight, it had been accepted. She
had offered the committee their services for chores around the
community that the adults either did not have the time or the
inclination to do themselves. This would mean that they would be
contributing to the community rather than being merely a drain on
scarce resources and the adults had happily accepted.