After the Fall
Authors: A.J. Martinez
CONTENTS
The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen!
AFTER THE FALL
A.J. Martinez
After the Fall by A.J. Martinez
Edited by Renea Dauntes
Copyright © 2014 by A.J. Martinez
All rights reserved.
To my crazy kids.
You make my life worth living,
And I love you all.
Prologue
Dear reader,
At the risk of sending you running in search of another book, I decided to write a few words in the beginning. I must confess that as a kid, the first thing I did when I picked up a book was skip right through the prologue and introduction so I could get to the meat and bones. If you wish to do the same, I won’t think any less of you.
Much time and effort went into making this book. I have struggled to take several stories to conclusion only to find myself stalled on the side of the road, with my thumb out and looking for a ride back to the magical story place, or whatever you prefer to call it. This particular labor of sweat and tears originated in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was there that I began my fifth deployment to the Middle East, one of the most difficult of all my experiences in the military. This story took exactly 114 days to write the first rough draft, and far longer than I’d care to admit to revise and polish. Much joy, pain, frustration, and excitement went into these pages. It has been a wild ride and I must admit I was a little saddened to see it end.
With all the hoopla about the zombie apocalypse, I had not come across a book that covered a vampire’s role in the post-apocalyptic world, at least not to my satisfaction. In such a world, we would be returning to a Dark Age of sorts. Our advancements would be rolled back by decades or even centuries. Those that survived the undead might eventually fall prey to famine or disease. I believed a vampire would face similar troubles.
Mordecai’s voice started speaking to me as I wandered the dusty paths of Kandahar, the place I would call home for eight months. I could hear him narrating the story as clear as my own thoughts. The first three thousand words poured out of me in one sitting. That is the reason that this book is written in the 1
st
person, which was a challenge because I have written in first person all my life. These characters took on a life of their own as they wound their way through my storyline. They felt as real to me as the people I saw every day, and I hope they will feel the same way to you. Mordecai and his band had been good companions for the last few months, and saying goodbye was difficult. I can only hope that we will meet again in the future.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is not my first novel, but it is the first I have brought to completion. There is no doubt in my mind that many will follow. It will be my pleasure to bring you on a journey through the many worlds inside my head.
Alejandro J. Martinez
December 2013
Savannah, Georgia
PART I
The New World
Mordecai is the Name
My name is Mordecai. I am a Vampire, and this is my story. Throughout the ages, I have seen many wars and catastrophes. I have also seen the greatest advances of civilization leading to its end. My present location on the world is a mystery to me. I’m not even sure of the current date. Most Vampires (and people as well) stopped keeping track at some point or another. Staying alive was a bigger priority.
If I had to guess, I would say the present date is around December of 2084. It feels like December anyway, but not in the way it used to, with all the cheery people running around yelling “Merry Christmas!” There is nothing cheery about Christmas in this new world. The greatest gift you can have is another day to live.
As you can tell, I’ve tried to piece it together many times. There are so many conflicting accounts out there. Can you believe one guy actually told me it was June 11
th
of 2056? Well…he’s not saying it anymore. I ripped his throat open and drank him dry. You’re probably scowling as you read this, but I don’t care. A guy’s got to get his meals somehow.
I realize that some of this may not make sense to you. Maybe I should take it from the top. Once upon a time, this place was known as Earth. At the time of the Fall, it was home to eight billion people, 150 countries, over 200 languages, and so on and so forth. I was originally born in our Lord’s year 1742. In the year 1766, I died—and was reborn. From that point on, I couldn’t die. My body could fix itself faster than it broke down. What could be wrong with that? Nothing. It was
AWESOME
. The downside? I couldn’t go out in daylight for a long time, until I became something of an elder, which was around the time the world ended. Just my luck. If you cut my head off or burn me
completely
, I would not be able to come back. That stake in the heart trick? Won’t work. It will just make me very angry, which might be the very last thing you do.
If you’ve ever read anything on my kind, you probably noticed I left something out, but I saved it for last. For the record—not that it matters anymore—yes, we are blood drinkers. Somewhere along the way, I lost all ability to eat normal food and was forced to turn to blood. It didn’t work out too well for a certain back alley mugger that night. Franz Frédéric, I think was his name. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. Many more followed in Franz’s wake. I tried to restrict myself to the worst people in society—robbers, rapists, murderers,
lawyers
. I would have taken politicians, but they attract too much of the wrong kind of attention.
I feed upon the blood of the living and I will starve if I don’t get it. Starvation is the slowest, least effective, but most painful way to kill a vampire. We can go on a long time without blood, but it is the most agonizing death your limited mortal imagination could conceive. Sunlight kills, at least it does our youngest ones. Fire kills, and so does dismemberment, but they are merciful compared to starvation. Our bodies, unlike yours, fight to stay alive to the last cell. A human can be brought down by something as small as a blood clot in the brain. The rest of the body simply gives up. Not ours. A Vampire body will fight and regenerate even vital parts like the heart—and before you try to say I’m lying, I’ve seen it with my own undead eyes. Starvation will feel worse than the most devastating cancer. We will shrink until we’re a pile of dry bones, and I have had the misfortune of having seen that as well.
Having expounded on the agonies of starvation, I will go on to my next point. Our food supply is running dangerously low. Humans are growing scarcer by the day. Granted, it was their own fault, but I don’t see why we have to be punished. If it weren't for those damn
zombies
, we would still have a plentiful food supply.
Yes, you read that right. Many decades ago, civilization as we know it ended. They didn’t know what hit them. I don’t know exactly where it originated. I’ve heard China, the United States, Africa, Europe. It’s hard to pinpoint because it seemed to affect every major city almost at once. Some say it was a large-scale biological weapon attack, but I still can’t think of who would be stupid enough to do that, maybe North Korea? It would be like sitting in a pool of gasoline and lighting a match. Others say it was the Wrath of God. Whatever. Tell that to the faithful that died on their knees and came back as Satan’s recruiters.
There is yet another group that says it all started after a meteorite broke up over Earth’s orbit, scattering fragments all over Eurasia. Wormwood, they called it. You would think the virus, bacteria, or whatever the hell it is would be cooked off from the intense heat of reentry. Don’t ask me how a bunch of space rocks could cause 99% of the world’s population to become mindless eating machines. Oh, wait, that was already happening at the beginning of the century. It was called television and fast food.
Every crackpot out there has a theory. Some people called it the End of Times. Others called it Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Ragnarok, etc. I just call it the Big Suck, because life has sucked ever since. It sounds stupid, but if you’ve been scraping by for as long as I have, you would understand. We could go on talking about theories for another century, but even I’m not sure if I’ve got the time to spare. It’s gotten that bad. The only thing that matters anymore is staying alive. If you lose that, there’s nothing else. You’ll either wander the rest of your days in mindless hunger or be left to rot.
The scourge—or plague, if you prefer—has almost completely wiped out our food source. Less than one percent of the world’s original population remains. Old age and sickness wiped out most, if not all of the original survivors, finishing what the plague could not. The comforts and technological advances of the 21
st
century all but vanished after
The Fall
. What’s worse for us, the zombie undead blood is poisonous to us, much the same way eating spoiled food is bad for humans. Even feeding on one of the bitten will affect us. That’s what makes it so difficult to get our daily food. We’re competing with those things for our daily blood, and they’re winning the race.
The Bite
I was bitten once and let me tell you, it’s not something I care to repeat. I was out in the woods near one of the fortified settlements up north, hunting for whatever I could find, hoping for a late afternoon hunter but willing to settle for a nice, robust boar. Most animals aren’t very good, with pigs being the exception that proves the rule. You can survive on their blood, but just barely.
Going back to the story, I was perched on a tree waiting for a hunter to come. The sky was overcast and it was a fairly cool day. I was wearing my broad-brimmed hat and a handkerchief over my face to ward off the unpleasant burning feeling of the sun’s rays. Even as an older vampire—I don’t want to say Elder because it makes me feel old—the sun will affect you to some extent. With such low light conditions, I might have been able to stay there most of the day, but even a Vampire has to sleep. Even
they
sleep, although only God knows when, because I don’t.