Night Plague: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (17 page)

That he had lost Merril...

Mason spat at the sidewalk, rage crawling over his icy limbs and flushing his face. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. They'd –

He shuddered, head still spinning. Thoughts and feelings slipped through it like a si
eve, breaking off into messy chunks and broken shards. The whole world pulsed. His insides pulsed. Beneath the anger lay a thicker layer of fear, and it wasn't so eager to let him go. It tickled his skin with cold, bony fingers, leaving him shivering and staring down at the carnage.

She'd almost killed him. If Sorrel hadn't showed up, he'd be dead right now. Deep in a death from which no one could rise.

"Hey," a familiar voice chimed, "you okay?"

Mason
didn't answer right away. It took a while for his mind to catch up to his eyes and his ears. Everything slowly came into focus and replayed with detached, dream-like clarity. Forget them. Forget what they'd done. He’d killed again, twice. Merril had seen him for what he was.

And she'd fled.

He looked back at Sorrel, the ice and the heat melting away to something deeper and sadder. At least
she'd
still waited for him. At least she'd... At least she'd come. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, searching for words and finding none.

She
shot him a small smirk. “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”

“Mm.”
He nodded, unable to manage more than that. His voice shook as much as the rest of him.

Sorrel frowned, reaching out and
putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, like her fingers were made of fire, then hung his head, ashamed. He couldn't quite manage to meet her eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay now." She assured. "
Alex has plenty of bark, but not a lot of bite. She relies on her ‘people’ to get their teeth dirty.”

He stared at the cement. “But, I thought…”

She closed her eyes. “I did, too.”

Another silence.

“I agree with Alex – if we are the seed that will inherit society, we better start planting our harvest. But I couldn’t just let her kill my first riser, could I?” She smiled. “This isn’t what I wanted to be a part of.”

So, Sorrel really… She really did think like Alex.
The difference between them was that Sorrel cherished the lives of her kin in a way Alex didn't. When it came to humans, though...

She read his face, frowning. “It isn’t so cruel! Within four years, everyone who isn’t one of us will die. We’re
doing them a favor by giving them the highest chance possible to rise, and securing our own safety on top of it. We need the biggest population possible and the fewest threats. Humans have nothing left, anyway. No future. We aren’t stealing much.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how short it is! Merril…!” He inhaled and released a breath. “My life is over, but hers isn’t. She still has a life tha
t she wants to live. That’s why, I…!”

She sighed. “You may not be
a traitor, but you are a child. If you believe your own words – she’s alive, you’re dead – then you should have nothing more to do with her, right? Let her fight for and live her own life.”

"And how is she supposed to do that with monsters like them around?" He shouted, losing control of his
lungs. “We were trying to get out of here, but she took off when Alex…” He forced himself to look at Sorrel. “Please, help me find her. She won’t stand a chance if that bitch goes after her. And I wouldn’t stand a chance alone, either.”

She stared at him a while, then groaned and shook her head.
“Fucking hypocrite.” She smiled just slightly. A strange smile – solemn but warm.

He simply stared
back, waiting.

“Tell you what.” She decided. “I’ll help you find this precious pet of yours if you agree to come back to the prison with me afterwards.”

“Eh?” He blinked.

She smirked. “Dale will take us back, I’m sure. Hell, he’ll probably take in the human, as long as she’s with you. But Alex is right
about one thing – we can’t let you wander about alone, hand in hand with a human, after what happened last week.”

H
e said nothing, chewing his lip so hard it likely would've bled had his veins still flowed.

“So how about it?”
She stepped closer. “You get a proper future, she gets to keep whatever she has left.”

“Fine.” His silent heart dropped into his stomach as he signed his life away.

****

Mason blazed the sidewalk while Sorrel chased his footsteps. It was starting to rain, their shoes sloshing with each pound against the pavement.

“Do you know where we’
re going?” She called, flicking wet hair from her eyes.

“I have a pretty good idea where she might be.” He did. There was one place that Merril treasure
d more than anywhere else. Though she lived now with him and Martin, there were times when she still went there.

He ran for the small tan house that hovered over the crest of the hill.
Merril’s childhood home. The place where she’d lived with her mother and father before the plague stole them away.

He clambered
over the locked gate nearly without stopping. The garden had been well-tended once – Merril's mother had loved flowers – but what remained was little more than a mess of overgrown weeds and grass. Only the brick pathway leading to the porch was still clear, testifying to the familiar feet occasionally treading across it.

The door
wasn't locked, and this time there was no barricade. It pushed away easily, revealing the remains of a living room. All the curtains were drawn, casting the house in dim, dusky shadows. The whole place smelled of dust, specs shimmering in the anemic glow as if they told of magic instead of decay.

Sorrel stopped
as she stepped inside. “Are you sure this is it? All the lights are off.”

He smiled slightly, in spite of himself. “Merril likes the dark.”

She didn’t say anything more, fingers tightening around her handgun. He found his eyes watching the weapon as the safety clicked, and she seemed to hear his unspoken question.

“It was my father’s.” She grinned. “I stopped by his house during the mess today. He wasn’t
there. Didn’t look like he had been for a while. Maybe the plague finally got him.”

He froze, looking over his shoulder at the girl lingering in the doorway. “Sorrel…”

She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. It…” She bit her lip. “It doesn’t matter to me, either way. I wasn’t there to see him; I was there for this.” She patted the gun and painted a smile over her lips. “Sure came in handy, didn’t it?”

He nodded, falling silent as he looked about Merril’s old house.
It was the first time he’d visited in years. The clock still ticked, but trailed behind by several hours. The stink of mold wafted from the kitchen. A thin layer of grime coated the shelves and the picture frames hanging on the wall. An image of a young couple holding a baby was the only one with clear glass. Merril’s parents. They stared down at him from above the table where his family had often shared dinner. He swallowed.

Merril wasn’
t one for household chores. Her frequent illness had gotten her out of it growing up. He wasn’t sure how often she really visited her childhood home anymore – but it looked as lonely as it had the day the man and woman hanging on the wall had died.

His eyes wandered about
the rest of the pictures. The Seige’s had always been big on archiving everything, as if they thought it would matter at the end of the world. Somehow, those pictures still hanging there made the place seem all the sadder. Corpses of memories.

His eyes paused on
a photo of his and her parents – of all of them, him, Martin, and Merril – huddled together at Willowood Park, on a picnic blanket too small for so many. He remembered that picture. It was from Merril’s eighth birthday.

“It’s even smaller than my father’s place.” Sorrel’s voice broke his reverie.

He managed another nod. The house
was
tiny – just a basic living room and kitchen with one bath and two cramped beds. It’d been filled to bursting when her family had invited his over, always lively and loud.

Now, however
, it seemed entirely empty. Had he been wrong? Was Merril there at all? He fought the urge to call out. Noise would only make it worse. So would nostalgia.

Sorrel
blinked, eyes unsure as they searched the lifeless house. “Hey, where –”

A sharp, shattering crash interrupted her be
fore she could finish. It was another sound he knew all too well – a shattering window. And it’d come from Merril’s old room. A high-pitched shriek followed seconds later.

“Merril!”
His legs kicked dust off the carpet and carried him to the bedroom. It was unlocked, just like the front door, and he shoved inside to see the opening scene of a certain murder last month rewound and paused at the prologue. Alex hovered over Merril’s shaking body, pressed tight against her bedframe with eyes wide in shock.

Alex. It was none other than Alex herself who’d come to finish what she’d started in the most cowardly way possible. She wouldn’t face them once they held a little grit and a gun, but she
would
face a frail, frightened human. She would take revenge.

Mason
lunged forward, losing control of both his head and his body. His knife groped for Alex’s neck, but she moved faster than he did, ducking down. He caught air, stumbling. He’d moved too quickly and now he couldn’t recover – not fast enough.

He saw her pull out the dagger – a wretched kitchen knife plucked from her back pocket – before it plunged into his stomach.

He screamed. The world spun, dipping and swinging in shades of gray and red. Cold fire shot up his spine, blazing from the hole in his belly and washing over the rest of his body like a fogbank. Merril screamed, too, but he hardly heard her.

All it took was the smallest shove and he was on the floor
. He clutched his stomach and gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to look at the damage while he struggled to get up. It was almost impossible when the world wouldn’t stop moving.

Still…he was alive.
No blood gushed from his gut. Had he been human, it might’ve been the end. But he wasn’t. He gasped for the artificial comfort of air, fighting to find the senses buried beneath the pain.

Sorrel d
ashed to his side, but her eyes stayed on Alex. She watched the knife with an animal’s gaze, hunting for an opening.

“I’ve had it with this human
.” Alex proclaimed with another of her grim smiles. “At least let me get rid of her before I worry about what to do with you two mischief makers.” Her gaze drifted to the boy on the floor, hovering there until he managed to mirror her hostile glare. She sneered. “I’ll be watching your reaction – remember, this
will
be graded.”

She was going to…!

A surge of panic tightened Mason's muscles and blocked out the pain. Still, his shaking limbs refused to cooperate. He tried again, going to war with his own arms and legs. If he ever needed his body to work, it was now!

But Sorrel moved before he did. She leapt for Alex from behind,
arms outstretched for her skull.

Alex spun and
kicked upwards, as if she'd expected the attack all along. Her knee crashed into Sorrel's stomach, leaving her gagging and stumbling for the floor. Leaving her vulnerable. Alex slammed her against the wall and swung the knife.

It pierced right through Sorrel's throat
and out the other end, tracing the route the fire iron had traveled nearly a month ago. Its unforgiving edge dug into the wood behind her and held her there like a nail. She kicked and clawed, but couldn’t pull free. She shrieked and cursed, but metal garbled her voice.

Mason
gawked with wide eyes. It was a scene from a horror film. All he managed was a wordless stutter from his place on the floor.

Alex shot him another gla
re - one smug with victory - before turning back to Merril. The girl trembled like a cornered mouse, staring up with eyes so big they threatened to absorb the rest of her skull. Urine pooled on the carpet beneath her.

The vamp just smiled.
“Nasty, pathetic little things, humans are. It seems I’ve lost my knife for the moment, but no matter - let's do this the old fashioned way. Even you deserve the best chance possible, like anyone else.”

“No!” Merril flattened herself against th
e bed. She screamed something that might have one been words, but was now nothing more than an animal wail. "Stop!
Stop
!"

Mason summoned just enough strength to
lunge forward and grab Alex’s ankle. She jerked, nearly tumbling atop the cowering girl, but pushed off the bed frame with her palms. She whirled to face him with a face flushed in anger, boot raised over his head.

…Would she be strong enough to kill him that way?