Something of the Night (4 page)

Chapter Six

Daniel Harper crashed through the undergrowth in
pursuit of the vampire. He ducked under wilted foliage, jumped over exposed
roots and kept up the chase. As he tracked the vampire, he felt cruel branches
whip his face, hands and legs. Ignoring the occasional cut, he closed in on the
undead fugitive.

He broke through rotten
undergrowth to find himself within a small hollow. The clearing was empty. His
head tilted as he strained to hear the sounds of flight. He heard only the beat
of his heart. Quickly, he circled around the clearing, looking for any breaks
in its boundary. He found none so quickly returned to his point of origin.

He stood, sucking in air,
waiting for his breath to return. His heart steadied. He felt a rhythmic beat
of pain throb at the side of his face. Reaching up, he found a deep laceration
to one of his cheeks. His hand dropped away and blood dripped from his fingers.
He heard the snap of twigs, followed by a laboured breath, coming from behind.
Daniel held his position, thinking his brother was about to catch up. He continued
to watch the dark bush ahead. Yet, unexpectedly, Elliot Harper appeared
directly in front. He broke through the dense foliage and stopped on the
opposite side of the trees.

“What the …?” Daniel
breathed.

“Daniel,
LOOK
OUT!”
Elliot warned.

The younger brother spun
around. He had a moment to see a demented face leer towards him. A second later
he was hit with bone-crunching force that sent him through the air. He landed
heavily on his back and the air exploded from his lungs. The world became suddenly
darker. In the next instant something that was infinitely darker than the
shadows fell upon him.

Bloodied fangs snapped at
Daniel’s face. He threw his arms out in front of him to block the vampire’s
attack. In a blurred frenzy of fangs, Thomas struck out, aiming for the young
brother’s throat. Daniel folded his arm inwards and lashed out, catching his
assailant across the chin. White fragments of enamel flew from the vampire’s
mouth. Daniel drew his arm back and hit out again. Thomas read the assault. The
vampire’s huge fist caught the arm in its powerful grip. Daniel’s other arm
flashed towards him and again his powerful grip held the attack at bay.

Trapped by the vampire’s vice-like
hold, Daniel was pressed to the ground with his arms held apart. He struggled
to free himself and watched in terror as the mouth above opened impossibly wide
to reveal razor-sharp fangs. He looked into this bloody maw and saw an empty
cavity. The vampire lowered his fangs. Blood sprayed out of this amputated
flesh. Daniel choked as the fountain of blood found its way into the back of
his throat. A savage roar escaped from the mutilated vampire. Thomas drew even
closer, then opened his jaws wider yet.

“ELLIOT …!” Daniel cried,
coughing and spluttering.

“HEY – FUCKER!”

Thomas twisted his vile
physiognomy upwards. A dark, circular object blocked out the field of view to
his right eye. He had a second of semi-blindness, followed by a nanosecond of
incredible enlightenment.

Elliot jammed the gun against
the vampire’s eye. He squeezed the trigger. And in doing so he sent the hateful
abomination to a darker place.

“Are you okay?” Elliot asked
his brother.

Daniel crawled from under the
body, pulling himself clear.

“Are you okay?” the older
brother asked again.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Daniel replied,
shakily.

Seeing the blood that covered
his younger brother’s face, Elliot asked anxiously, “Did he bite you?”

“What?”

“Did you get bitten?”

“I … I don’t think so,”
Daniel said, and ran his hands over his bare skin.

“Let me see,” Elliot said.

“I’m fine!” Daniel snapped.

“Let me see,” the older
brother ordered.

Daniel expelled a weary sigh.
“Okay, whatever.”

“All this blood - none of it’s
yours?” Elliot asked.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you’re all right,”
Elliot said. “Wipe that shit off your face.”

Daniel drew his hand into the
sleeve of his patchwork jacket and used its cuff to wipe away at the layer of
blood that stained his face. He spat out a mouthful of bitter bile then dropped
his hand to his side.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Beautiful,” Elliot spat
back. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Daniel’s pale but angelic
face grinned back at him.

“Let’s go,” Elliot said. He
turned away from the corpse at his feet. It took just three or four strides
before the forest swallowed him whole.

Daniel took one last look at
the disfigured vampire, and then followed his brother. It was only later, once
back in the underground cavern, when he realised that the trip back through the
forest had somehow seemed much brighter.

Chapter Seven

Scuffed, military boots – which had walked a thousand
miles - thudded heavily. The lean vampire warrior strode purposefully across
the open hallway. He was dressed in a dark uniform, covered in a layer of dust.
Four daggers had been crudely stitched onto the shoulder of his uniform,
indicating his high rank. As he drew closer to the centre of the chamber, his
eyes darted nervously from the face of a small boy, to the figure sitting
purposefully on a dais.

The little boy, who was
perched on the lip of the platform, looked up and smiled.

The vampire tensed.

The young brow furrowed. The
boy appeared confused by the vampire’s unease. He smiled again as if the first
had gone unnoticed.

Finally, the vampire
acknowledged the greeting with a weak grin. The little boy’s eyes sparkled, and
he clapped his hands excitedly, forcing the figure on the dais to look up from
the maps laid out before him.

“Brother Isaac,” the figure
greeted the newcomer.

The vampire soldier dropped
to one knee. “Master Ezekiel,” he said, with his head bowed.

“What news do you bring?”
asked Ezekiel, leader of the undead.

Isaac stood. “We found
another camp, about fifty miles or so south of here.”

“And?”

“And I believe we’re close.”

“How close?”

“Very.”

The previous night, Isaac had
discovered the weak embers of a campfire. Scattered about the glowing ash had
been a half-dozen or so bodies - all vampires. None wore any clan insignia, so
were probably mere scavengers. Not unusual in itself, but one of the slain
undead had shown signs of something strange, something that was deeply worrying
to Isaac.

He had found a headless body,
nothing too unusual in that. However the condition of the wound had been very
unusual. The damage to the flesh had not come from a blade or the powerful
destruction of a high calibre firearm either, but appeared to be the result of
some kind of explosion - an internal explosion. Isaac was accustomed to the
sight of mutilation, but this strange wound had worried him. The flesh around
the bloodied stump had not been ripped or cut, but rather cauterized.

Isaac had seen this type of
wound before, once or twice, and he knew only one type of weapon could have
created such an injury.

Light.

UV light to be precise.

“I found the same wounds as
before,” Isaac said.

“Are you sure?” Ezekiel
asked.

“Yes, master, I’m sure.”

The vampire leader nodded.
“Good work, Brother Isaac.” Ezekiel spread his arms across the table before
dropping his head over the maps. Directly to the side of the maps lay a large
handgun. As always, the safety was off. He sat silent for a few minutes. “This
changes nothing,” he announced, deciding their strategy would continue as
planned.

“But Master, we must be-”

A raised hand cut short
Isaac’s warning.

“Isaac, we will proceed as
planned. One little … incident will not slow us down. We’re too close.”

The vampire warrior bowed
respectfully. “Yes, master. We are very close to our ultimate triumph. But we
must not underestimate our adversary’s strength. Although they are weak in
numbers, they still pose a considerable threat. If they were to develop this
technique, then our plans could be endangered.
We,
as a race would be
endangered.”

“We proceed as planned,” the
leader repeated, for the final time. The stern look that followed silenced any
argument.

Isaac nodded. “As you wish.”
He bowed, then quickly strode away from the dais and disappeared out of the
chamber.

Once the warrior had gone,
Ezekiel reached out, taking the firearm. He looked at the weapon as if it could
offer some sort of guidance. He sighed; the only thing the gun was good for was
tearing flesh and bone. With a flick of his dark thumb, he clicked the safety
on. Then his eyes dropped to the child at the edge of the platform.

Ezekiel smiled, a brief flash
of ivory and menace. The vampire ran his hand over his own scalp in a
comforting motion. He felt what was left of his hair. Not a lot. His entire
scalp was a smooth black dome of skin, with just a hint of white hair at the
back and sides. He had small shell-like ears, and the frames of wire-rimmed
spectacles wrapped themselves around them, giving him the look of a scholar.
Standing at just five foot eight inches, he was considerably shorter than most.
He had broad shoulders, and his arms looked as if they’d been ripped from a
wrestler then pinned onto his lean torso. Powerful hands were attached to slim
wrists and, although his fingers were thick and calloused, they hid a hidden
grace and dexterity.

He positioned a finger and
thumb underneath the lenses of his spectacles, and massaged the tiredness from
his eyes.

His hand dropped to his side and
he found the child before him. “Good boy,” he said, and placed one of his large
hands on the boy’s head. He patted gently and the child’s eyes drooped heavily
as he swooned under the man’s affection. A colossal yawn escaped from the
child’s mouth.

Ezekiel smiled wistfully. The
innocence of a child, he thought. How sad that it only lasted for the most
fleeting of moments. Once, even he had been an innocent child, playing in the
afternoon sun. That had been a long, long time ago. And now those days of innocence
were just a vague memory, so faint they hardly seemed real.

Sometimes he wondered what
the sun would feel like as it graced his bare skin. Would he have a moment of
pure pleasure before its deadly UV rays began to scorch the flesh? Possibly. He
knew that eventually the Earth would heal itself, and in doing so the sun would
return to this land, forcing him and his race to hide like cowards in the
resultant shadows. Already he had begun to differentiate between day and night,
as the sky above lightened with each passing of the sun.

Soon the skies would clear, destroying
the perpetual night, and then they would be forced into exile.

Ezekiel looked at the boy and
found him almost asleep. Carefully, he picked him up. Held him in his powerful
arms. The vampire sat, cradling the boy. Eyelashes fluttered as the child fell
into a fitful sleep. Looking at the boy’s handsome face, Ezekiel caught a brief
flash of dazzling eyes, flint grey with slivers of bright blue and green. Then,
finally, the weight of tiredness pulled the boy into its lulling arms and his
face relaxed as he slept.

The vampire leaned forwards
to pick up the firearm. He clicked the safety off, then let his eyes rest on
the open archway to the chamber.

These were troubling times.
There were enemies close at hand as well as those who hid within the bowels of
the Earth. But soon Ezekiel would conquer all, and then he and his brethren
would thrive in the eternal torrent of blood that he was about to bequeath upon
this world.

***

Isaac entered the flickering light of the campfire.
Three cloaked figures moved nearer, close enough so curious ears could not
hear.

“What news?” one dark shape
asked.

Isaac turned to the speaker.
His fangs glinted malevolently as he spoke. “Ezekiel does not waver. He keeps to
the original plan.”

Another vampire drew near.
“What about the camp – and the body found there? You warned him of that, yes?”

“Yes,” Isaac confirmed. “But
our master does not think it is a sufficient threat to warrant a delay.”

“Then he is a fool,” the first
speaker spat.

“Quiet!” Isaac hissed. The
vampire lieutenant looked around with nervous eyes.

The flames they stood around
were a single flicker of light, caught within the inferno of a hundred
different burning campfires. Flames sputtered, sounding like the snap of a
thousand bullwhips. The sky above had taken on a lighter hue, imitating day,
covering the undead beneath in a glare of artificial sunlight. Thousands of
tents covered the field in which they stood in a seamless canvas blanket that
stretched for miles in all directions.

Huge vehicles were parked
awkwardly, or abandoned, their fuel tanks bled dry. Like gigantic tamed beasts,
eighteen-wheeler trucks, decorated with machinegun turrets, spikes and other
indescribably inhumane objects sat silent, waiting for their masters’ return.
Other vehicles were dotted around the camp and, in the flicker of light, front
grills appeared to snap and snarl at the legs of those who stood around them.
Now, with the lack of gasoline, most of the undead army had been forced to
travel on foot; thousands of worn-down boots marching towards the extinction of
Man.

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. He
scanned the immediate vicinity, but found all those around them preoccupied
with the preparations of battle. Most of the soldiers were either resting or
checking firearms, and oblivious to those around them.

“Do not fear, my brothers, I
have taken steps towards accomplishing
our
plan,” Isaac said.

“You mean the assassin?”
asked one of the vampires.

Isaac’s thin face grinned
with dangerous intent. “Yes, our slayer is very close to infiltrating the
humans’ lair.”

“You know this for sure?” the
vampire quizzed.

“Trust me, Brother Jeremiah,
we will not fail.”

Jeremiah tilted his head
upwards. He looked up at the illuminated sky above. A thick cloud of dust
churned violently from east to west.

“The price of failure will be
immeasurable,” he remarked, dropping his eyes back to Isaac’s face.

“Then we’d better pray our
plan works,” the lieutenant said. “Or we’ll be seeing out our days in the glare
of humanity.”