Night Plague: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (20 page)

“Mason, let’s go!”

His brother’s voice brought him back to reality. He dropped the half-dead man beneath him and leapt for the banister. A third corpse lay below, fang marks seeping red. Martin must’ve taken care of that one.

They fled across the rooftops like ghosts returning to the sky.
Footsteps pounded the pavement below, but Mason never stopped to see if the humans were following.

The only thing they could do was run, clinging to the center
of the skyline. He’d made it home that way once, and he could do it again. He let himself believe it was all a strange dream – an existence where his body moved perfectly and his limbs never missed – as he leapt from building to building across the city’s low horizon.

Chapter Fourteen: Towards the Sun

“I’m sorry, Merril.” Martin’s voice was unusually soft.

Merril refused to meet his eyes. She stared at the floor, the rise and fall of her chest ragged. No one said anything.

The three of them had made it safely to the prison. Martin had ended up there unwittingly, and according to him, it was the last time he’d step foot inside. He wanted to say goodbye to Merril. He wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to apologize. Then he wanted to leave.

Mason gritted his teeth.

His brother had told his old friend everything. What he was. For how long. She hadn’t said a word.

“Merril…you can’t stay here. Survivors are gathering in the center of the city
. You’ll be safe there. You have to go.” Martin narrowed his gaze. “This isn’t any place for a living human girl. There will be more violence. It won’t end. Not for another four years.”

Mason’s neck
bristled with anger. Martin was coercing her to leave. To leave him.

“No!” He shook his head. “I’ll keep her safe! We’re not going to fight anymore. And everyone here…everyone left knows how to control their hunger. She’ll be fine!”

Martin said nothing for a while. Sorrel just watched, standing silently in the corner of the cell with those curious eyes of hers.

“You still haven’t realized yet, Mason. Hope is in short supply nowadays. We can find it, we can cling to whatever traces are left, but we can’t make our own when it isn’t there.” His brother’s eyes were steady, solemn. “She wouldn’t survive. Not among the dead. That’s the simple fact of the matter. You don’t want that, do you?”

Mason sputtered a wordless, frustrated whimper. It was all he could do to keep his voice from rising. Martin couldn’t take her away. He couldn’t! His brother and his best friend couldn’t just…

Merril finally looked up. “Can’t I make my own decisions anymore?”

The two men fell silent.

“What does survival even mean, now? And how long would it last? Another four years at best? I’d rather live one
more happy year than four more sad ones.” Her nails dug into her sheets. “But, I don’t know what that would be anymore. After all…” she closed her eyes, “my family is dead.”

Cold fingers squeezed Mason’s chest, injecting it with ice
that replaced the blood in his veins. He tried not to let the hurt reach his face. “You’re wrong! We’re…we’re still here! We’re still alive!”

Were they? Their hearts were quiet, their lungs didn’t crave air, and their bodies didn’t grow or change. Yet
, they were still there, watching the days melt away to nights. They were still in sync with time. Debating over the definition of a word seemed like a waste of time. It wouldn’t change anything. In whatever way, they were there.

Merril
’s eyes were wet when she opened them and met his for the first time in a while. “You’ve killed too, haven’t you?” Sudden recognition flashed across her face. “Was it you who killed the mayor’s son?”

He stammered, unable to hold her gaze
.

Her lids drooped. “Then you aren’t Mason anymore.” They fell over her irises, water seeping
loose and dampening her cheeks. “He’s gone.” There was something impossibly sad in her voice, something small, frail.

It was grief.

“No!” He leaned forward and put his hands on her shoulders before he could stop himself. “I –”

“Don’t touch me!” She shrieked, pulling away. “Your hands are so cold.”

He stared, eyes blank. Something burned behind them. “But I’m…still here. I…”

A scream ripped through the hallway below. It was distant, but so shrill it climbed up the stairs and reverberated off the walls. Quiet. A tense hush crawled
through the prison like electricity. Every hair on his body stood on end.

Footsteps followed, pounding across the floor. It was the watchmen – just two of the three.
“Humans!” One of them shouted, voice booming through the building. “There’s a whole squadron at the gate. They’re breaking through! We locked it and fled, but Hector, he…”

“He’s dead!” The other screamed. “They shot him! They’ve got guns!”

The words spilled emptily through Mason’s mind, passing through one ear and out the other with no footprint. Merril, Martin, and Sorrel gazed through the door with equally vacant faces.

Sorrel was the first to move, dashing from the cell. Martin looked back at Merril before following. “Wait here.”

Mason straightened. His brother’s order may have been meant for him, too, but either way, he was going with the others. He passed Merril a forced smile. “We’ll be back in a bit.” He locked the door on the way out.

The small group made its way downstairs. They weren’t the only ones. The moans of creaking doors cluttered the air as bodies emerged and gathered in the hallway. Even the doctors peeked from the corridor that led to their lab. No one got too close, clinging to the outskirts like animals greeting unfamiliar guests.

The man from the watch gasped down a deep breath. “It’s the police! The old police force from Wheldon! We heard them talking. The mayor lent that lunatic Swalow the entire department! Bastard's hungry for revenge.”

“The…police?”
Sorrel swallowed. She clenched her teeth, eyes set determinedly into her skull. Mason wasn’t sure whether he was looking at fear or resolve on her face, but somehow, he felt nothing. It was just another strange nightmare.

The female guard piped up, equally unsteady. “They were talking about research. The mayor wants some of us alive to study – to try to save their own
skins. Idiots! We’re already dead.”

Research?
So it was just as he’d once asked Cliff.

Something shifted in the male guard’s gaze, sharpening from terror to anger as he searched the room. “They followed someone here – Hector saw a group of vamps run this way earlier this morning!”

Mason swallowed before he could stop himself.

Had there…still been someone tailing them when they’d reached the prison?

“That doesn’t matter now!” Dale barked, cutting in for the first time. He pushed his way to the center of the room. “How many are there?”

The two guards exchanged a glance.
“About forty.”

Sharp inhales filled the chamber that was generally devoid of breath.

Forty humans. Even if they released the captives, there were less than half that many vampires left in the prison.

“They’re armed!
Guns and goddamned torches!” The watchman stomped towards his leader, words quivering as his rage gave way to fear. “They’re coming to kill us, Dale! It’s revenge for what happened in the city. We have to run!”

Dale closed his eyes, hands balling into fists. “Then we will.”

“No!”

Mason jumped, his gaze swinging after the unexpected shout. It’d come from Cliff.

“We can’t leave! There’s no way we could move all our research! Not like this! If we lose the project…” The doctor's voice rose, tight in his throat. “If we lose the synthetic blood project, we lose everything!” Mercy nodded silently, staring at the floor.

For a while, Dale said nothing. No one did.

The leader heaved a long, shaky sigh. “Then I’ll leave it up to each of you.” His eyes scanned the prison. “Flee and secure your next four years, or stay and fight for more!”

Nothing.
No one spoke.

Martin’s chin touched Mason’s ear. “Get yourself and Merril out of here.”

This time, he didn’t argue. He took off, limbs shaking as they carried him clumsily up the stairs. This really did have to be a nightmare.

“If you’re going to leave, do it now!” Dale’s voice filled the building. “If you’re going to stay, ready yourselves! Don’t just stand –”

Those were Dale’s last words. A bullet broke the air, roaring.

It went straight through his head, shattering the back of his skull and emerging from his forehead. He fell, face flat against the grimy concrete. An earsplitting silence took the gunshot’s place.

For that moment in time, Mason forgot all about Merril. He stared over the balcony, eyes wide and white.

Dale was dead.

And
they
were at the doorway.

The corridor came alive in screams and shouts. Panic climbed the walls like maggots and
circled like a fly, buzzing from person to person and setting them on fire. Mason swore he could feel the heat. It was hot, blazing, and yet there were no flames. And it was so, so cold.

“Mason!”

He jumped, his name cutting through the noise. Merril!

He yanked himself from the railing and dashed for her cell.
Gunshots. Raised voices. Wet thuds. Metal hitting bone. He forced himself not to look down. There was only one thing that mattered.

Merril stood by her cell door, fingers clenched around the bars. She craned her neck to see outside, but her legs shook, frozen in place.

She’d called for him. Some small part of her, somewhere, didn’t believe he was gone. A flicker of relief flittered through her green gaze as she caught sight of him.

His anxious hands fumbled with the door she’d left locked. “Come on, we’re getting out of here!”

She looked up at him, quivering. “W-what’s –”

“Don’t worry about it!” He gritted his teeth and held out a hand. “We aren’t hanging around.”

She hesitated a final moment, searching his eyes. She took his hand and wrapped her fingers around the back of his palm. Whatever she was looking for in his gaze, she seemed to find it.

Mason smiled, before another gunshot wiped it from his face. They transferred their nerves to their legs and made for the stairs.

Only a single exit led outside. The eastern route beckoned further into the prison, towards the chapel. He dared a glance at the main hall and immediately looked away. Bodies. He didn’t allow himself time to recognize them, but he saw bodies. They couldn’t risk the chaos – they’d have to take the interior exit and hope for another way out.

The human and the vampire swept down the stairs and whirled into the doorway directly below them. It was open, but they didn’t have time for caution. They just kept running.

They stopped only to pull open every door they passed. Each time they prayed they’d see the horizon waiting for them on the other side, and each time, they saw nothing but more gray walls. Storage rooms, an old office, nothing. Mason cursed under his breath – he should’ve scoped out the exits earlier.

There had to be one near the chapel, right? There had to be! They swung open the arched door guarding the church
.

Only to be
greeted by the barrel of a gun. Three humans waited inside – officers looking for stragglers, and now they’d found two.

Mason acted on instinct, yanking himself and Merril to the floor before a bullet burst over their heads. Merril shrieked. “Human! I’m human!
Stop!”

The officer in front raised his handgun for another shot. Mason wrapped his arms around Merril’s shoulders and frantically fought with his legs. They flailed clumsily beneath him, suddenly not quite working.

A second bullet filled the chapel with noise.

The human collapsed to the floor with a wet, red splash. Mason’s eyes jolted up to see Martin hovering above him with Dale’s old weapon in hand. It was his brother who’d fired the shot. He inhaled in relief, opening his mouth to speak, but he didn’t have time to finish.

Another officer peered from behind a pew; the barrel of his gun propped against the bench and trained for Mason’s head. Martin pulled the trigger faster and sent the man to the tile.

The final human never raised his firearm. He charged forward, white knuckles wrapped around a dagger.

A female figure met him before Martin’s weapon could, pouncing with feline grace and sinking her teeth into his neck. He fell with a half-finished scream before his killer knelt to feed.

All three humans were dead.

“Sorrel!” Mason staggered to his feet alongside a shaky Merril.

Sorrel looked up at the sound of his voice, crimson dripping from the corners of her mouth. Merril’s nose curled in disgust and Sorrel couldn’t resist flashing
a grin with scarlet-streaked teeth. The vampire chuckled at the human’s whimper.

“Is there an exit this way? There has to be, right?” Mason got right to the point. Escape was the only thing that mattered, and Sorrel had lived in the
prison far longer than he had. If anyone knew, it would be her.

She nodded, and he
smiled in relief. “There’s a way out down the right hall, just up ahead. You can get out around the back that way.”

“Perfect!” Mason snatched Merril’s hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

He started running, beside his childhood friend and brother. But when he reached their turn, he stopped. Something was wrong. He looked back.

Sorrel wasn’t coming. She lingered at the chapel doorway, eyes watching not the exit, but the main hall.