Night Plague: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (19 page)

Mason heaved a last sigh. Talking with Sorrel always left him with a bit of a headache.

****

Mason patted Molly on the head
one last time before leaving his house. Sorrel hadn’t wanted to come inside, so she waited for him by the porch. That was just as well, considering what she’d done before inside those walls. Sometimes, he swore homes held grudges – she wasn’t welcome there.

He locked the door. Martin and Merril both had their own keys
as well, should they need to come alone. “Mol's limping around, but I think she’s okay. I left plenty of food for her and Tilly, but they seem awfully lonely. I might have to take the dog with me and bring the cat to Merril one of these days. She’d like that, too.”

Sorrel sighed. “She’s all you think about, isn’t she?”

Mason tilted his head. “Huh?”

“Nothing.”
She smiled. “It’s cute that you care so much about all your little pets. For a self-proclaimed recluse, you aren’t all that cold.”

He breathed an exasperated sigh. “If I seem warm, it’s only because I’m standing next to an ice queen.” He still didn’t understand how she could smile and joke so easily.

“I prefer to call myself adaptable.” Another grin.

He resisted the urge to bite
the bait. “There wasn’t any sign of Martin.” He turned his phone on and off once more. No messages. No calls. He tucked it back into his pocket.

Thank God
, breathing hadn’t been a requirement. Between the animal’s messes and the decaying corpse still splayed across the floor, the house was downright rancid. No one else had been there. The note on the counter waited in stillness.

His older brother still hadn’t come home.

Sorrel looked at him a while, reading the worry on his face. "I wonder..." She murmured, so quietly that Mason wasn't sure she'd meant him to hear. Eventually, she seemed to come to some decision and nodded to herself in confirmation.

"Come on."
She snatched his right wrist before he could ask her what she was up to now. “Let’s try the alleyway on the way back. The one where you saw me.”

He blinked, hearing the
shift in her voice. “Why? Why would he be there of all places?”

She shrugged, staring at the grass.
“Just a feeling.”

****

Mason froze as he turned the corner.

A man stood in the alley. His back was towards them, but his buzz-cut crown and faded leather jacket were too familiar to fool Mason. The fear of never seeing his brother again dissolved into
the same prickling irritation he felt almost daily. Martin. They'd found him, right where Sorrel had said they might. The rush of relief made it hard to stay still.

He tensed, ready to surge forward like a cop on a criminal, but Sorrel held out an arm to stop him with a hissed shush. He blinked at her, and she answered with a whisper. "Wait."

Martin was still on the move, creeping around the next turn into a deeper vein of the alley. They followed, Mason mirroring Sorrel's silent lead. When they turned the corner, they were no longer the only ones there. A man dug through a nearby dumpster, uttering curses and complaints, oblivious to all three of them.

Something was strange
. Martin kept slipping forward, slowly and deliberately. He moved quietly – careful – but with a peculiar sense of power. Mason's eyes followed the back of his brother's head...towards the back of the other man's.

The scene
was familiar. Cold fingers of unease crawled up his spine, waiting. He realized what was going to happen only an instant before it did.

Martin lunged for the back of
the stranger's skull and slammed it against the dumpster. The victim never got the chance to scream before it was over, falling limp atop the trash. Lingering echoes of metal on flesh shook the alley as Martin sunk his teeth into his victim’s neck. His throat bobbed up and down. A thin, red trickle crept down his chin.

Mason swore that same small spill of blood was dribbling down
the nape of his own neck. The chill spread from his hands and feet and silenced his lungs. He should’ve been shocked, but instead, he was numb. He almost laughed.

Martin
was a vampire. After all the work he’d gone through to hide it and all those sleepless worries of discovery, he and his brother were the same. At least he knew now what Martin had been up to all those nights he’d left them alone.

He st
epped forward before Sorrel could interject, staring down his brother’s back with eyes like stone. “Martin.”

Martin
startled, his kill collapsing to the cement with a wet thud. Blood dribbled from his gaping mouth. “…Mason?”

Mason's hands clenched into fists, so tight they would've drawn blood
, had it been there to spill. “How long?” He heard something change in his own voice – something loud, angry – as he mirrored the words that Merril had pierced him with.

His brother straightened, waiting a few beats before answering. He wiped his chin with the sleeve of his tartan shirt.
“About a year. Much longer than you.”

Mason was quiet.

Martin laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t think I didn’t know!” He shook his head. “I could smell you that night when we came back from the clinic – dead. Lots of blood. I never did anything; I thought you’d rise. I knew you’d rise. You’re too stubborn not to.” A bitter smirk. “I knew before I ever knocked on your door.”

Mason was quiet.

“You, though…” Martin passed him a strange grin. “You never had any idea, did you? The plague took me while I was on the way home from work one night, and when I came back in the morning, it was just another late night out to you. I'd say I'm the better actor.”

“How could you?”
He accused like a stubborn child. "How could you just...?" It was nearly as hard to talk as the morning he’d risen. He stopped and forced open his tense lungs. “Why didn’t you say anything? I was terrified! I had no one! If you’d… If you’d just –”

Martin laughed. “Well, now, did I just hear my little brother say he wanted me around? That’s a first.”

Mason shook his head. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because my job is to protect you and Merril.
I didn’t want you to become the monster I am.” He stretched out his arms, like he were displaying the body splayed on the ground in all its empty glory. “Do you remember that boy you found lying in his yard? You almost caught me then. You would have if I hadn’t heard Molly and her incessant noise.”

The boy in…

Mason gaped, pupils stretching with the weight of his brother's words.

Sorrel
came up beside him, but her face didn’t share the same horror. “So it was you, then?” Her eyes burned into Martin’s. “I thought so.”

“Do you see why I didn’t tell you?” Martin curled his lips into a stoic line. “Do
you know how many people I’ve killed? Far more than I needed to. I crave, you see. I kill when I don’t thirst.”

Mason tried to control his tongue. “Kill?”

The murder he’d blamed Sorrel for. The bitten boy. The rumors of rouges. Were they all his brother’s doing? Memories flashed through his head, replaying with cold, still clarity.

The
way Martin had gone missing so frequently. The way he'd returned late from errands and work. The way he'd fidgeted with his sleeves. His harsher attitude. Now that Mason thought about it, he hadn’t actually seen his brother eat for a
long
while, either. Cook, sure, but not eat. The meals had all been for Merril, he realized. And his disappearances had been for blood.

Mason's useless insides sunk lower in his gut.
He should’ve suspected it sooner.

This time, Martin nodded. “That’s right. I kill. I kill when there’s no need. Why? Because of the way it feels. Because of the way it tastes.”

Mason just stared. “I thought you were stronger than that.”

No, Martin had always been weak. His brother had poisoned his adolescence with alcohol
, and was as quick as ever to rely on his fists. So, why did he feel so disappointed? Had he actually thought his brother had changed?

Martin found his
gaze and fixed him with the flicker of a smile. "I guess, somewhere deep down, you really did believe in me, huh? It makes me wish I met your expectations." Another shake of his head. "I'm not strong. I'm not
human
. I’m just an animal. And I didn’t want that for you.”

Mason
held the stare for a while. Their brown eyes looked so much alike. "Why?" He returned to that same useless word, like a child trying to understand death.

“
Because you
are
strong.” Martin's eyes narrowed into serious slits. “You were always the strong one. I wanted to protect you, but I knew the one thing I could never protect you from, was me. Was
this.
I thought that perhaps I could protect you from the truth instead.”

Mason's Adam’s apple bobbed, but his tongue couldn’t find any words to say.
He turned to Sorrel to stop his eyes from burning. “Did you know?”

“I knew he’d gone rogue. Dale told me about him – a
new riser who’d refused to stay at the prison a while back. That’s why he let you go, you know. You lived with another vamp, so he wasn’t too worried about humans finding out. Your guardian already knew.” Her gaze narrowed as she moved it to Martin. “I was never sure who it was committing the murders, but I had my suspicions.”

“
How could I have stayed in the prison?” Martin ignored her, watching his brother. “I couldn’t leave you and Merril alone. Looking out for you is the one thing I thought I could do right.”

There was a silence. Martin
waited – for an answer, a response, anything – but Mason said nothing.

Something shifted in Martin’s eyes when he gave up. “I got tangled up in the riots, though, and when I realized you were gone, I didn’t bother going home.”

“Why didn’t you at least come to the prison? Did you look for us at all?” Mason demanded, nails leaving lines in his palms. Why were his eyes wet?

Martin heaved a slow, long sigh. “Listen, Mason. We aren’t the same. You aren’t the monster I am. I didn’t want this to happen, but things have changed now.” Something
cold flickered behind brown irises. “We can’t be a family anymore.”

Mason’s body went cold
, as if he'd noticed the chill of death for the first time.

“The riots were a replay of Rocher, and it’s only going to keep repeating. Merril needs to be somewhere safe, with other humans. You need to be with vampires who can find as much peace as possible. I don’t belong in either of those places – I can’t belong there.” Martin leveled his voice. “We have to go our separate ways, all three of us.” He smiled with solemn lips. “If I want to keep you
safe, this is the only way I have left now.”

…Separate…ways?

“You’re wrong!” Mason’s head shook on a shivering neck. “We are family! We’ve always been family! We can’t just…!” His vision wavered, swimming with something sharp. “We wouldn’t have anything left!”

“Hope. You’d have hope.” Martin
's smile never flickered. “What's left of it, at least.”

“But –”

“If we stay together, Merril will die.” His brother stopped him before he could finish. “Soon. You’ll follow either her fate or mine. If she finds somewhere safe, then at least she can keep the years she has left. And you'll have a chance to keep going.”

“I don’t want that kind of future!” He yelled, face red. His tight lungs
strangled the air he needed to speak.

"I'm sorry." Martin looked away. "I didn't want it to end up like this, but if I'm not strong enough to fight myself, I don't know what ever made me think I was strong enough to fight the tide. Guess I failed you again."

Mason just glowered, his mind so full of words and shouts that his mouth found none.

“Hey! What’s going on back here?”

The voice wasn't one they recognized. All three vampires froze, jolting around. A group of nine strangers stood there, gawking. Some looked bewildered, some looked frightened. Nine sets of eyes flew from them to the body on the ground.

Mason went numb with terrible déjà vu.

“That man…he’s…!”

“N-no way…!”

“Vampires! They’re vampires!”

"Demons!"

It was happening again.

“Run!” Sorrel shrieked, a fear he’d never heard before in her voice. “There are too many of them for us to take!” She was already
ascending the nearest banister.

A couple of men charged before the other two vamp
s could react, hammers in their hands. Were the city people armed now? “Wretch!” The human’s eyes bulged out of his skull.

Mason ducked to the side, letting the burly man tumble over him before leaping up and sinking his fangs into the stranger’s neck. He started drinking before he could stop himself, the
wet tang spilling into his mouth and begging him for more.