The Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood (14 page)

Chapter Twenty Three

The prisoners stood in line for the morning head count.

Each roll call had two CCC guards assigned the duty of coming up with a matching head count.

“I got 165. What about you?”

“I think I got 165….”

“Jesus, Fonty, did you or did you not get 165?”

“You know I'm not even supposed to be out here. Polasky has a hangover and asked me to cover his shift.”

“Yeah, well, Polasky with a hangover can still count better than you.”

Brandon, the compound shift supervisor, stepped up to the two guards, Helske and Fontaine, to get their head count numbers.

“Guys, give me the count.”

“165,” answered Helske.

“Yeah, I also got 165,” affirmed Fontaine.

“165? Are you guys sure?”

Both guards nodded.

“Fuck me. Spector is going to freak,” Brandon mumbled to himself.

He then stepped away from his underlings to address the prisoners.

“Okay, I need your attention. Which one of you juice boxes is missing?”

When there wasn’t an immediate reply from the assembly, Brandon shouted out, “Whoever helps me, I will make sure to return the gesture…”

“Yo' momma.”

The words were loud enough for the three goons to hear, but too low for any of them to finger one particular prisoner.

“Who the hell said that?” shouted Brandon as he scrambled up and down the lines.

“Sir… I think Murphy is missing,” said Barrett.

Brandon immediately ran up to him. “And why do you think that?”

“Because he is usually standing with us, but now he’s not. Sir.”

The prisoners who heard Barrett’s answer smiled.

“Sir, I heard Murphy speaking about how he missed his momma.”

The shift supervisor brushed by Barrett to get in Juarez’s face, because the way Juarez enunciated the word “momma” left little doubt who had shouted out the insult earlier.

“Why don’t you say, ‘Yo’ momma,’ again, Juarez,” said Brandon.

“No… I couldn’t possibly top the way you just said it, sir,” answered Juarez.

Everyone around the guard and prisoner snickered.

“Okay, Juarez, what exactly did Murphy have to say?” asked Brandon.

“Hard to make out exactly, sir. He was doing most of his crying in the shower and it was hard to hear, you know, with the water going, and the soap in your ear.”

Fontaine turned to Helske and Fontaine.

“Find him. Now. And bring his sorry ass back for a whipping.”

The two guards had been searching in the barracks building for over twenty minutes, when Helske let out a yell.

Fontaine followed the voice down the hallway near the showers area. He discovered his shift partner standing just outside the supply closet with Murphy’s body hanging from the ceiling.

“Is he dead?”

“No, Fonty, he’s just sleeping in,” answered Helske.

“Hey, it's a fair question,” protested Helske. “Who the fuck knows anymore?”

Brandon was pacing back and forth behind the assembly. He glanced at his watch, and almost swallowed his tongue when he saw the time. He couldn’t put it off any longer, he needed to wake Spector and give him the bad news.

Then there was the sound of tapping on glass, and Brandon rushed over anxiously to see what Helske was motioning for him to see.

“Fuck me. Had to happen on my shift!” Brandon mumbled to himself. “Get him down from there,” Brandon shouted through the window at Helske.

Fontaine was the one up on the chair, trying to lift the body through the loop. Helske was standing a few feet away hoping his partner wouldn’t need his help.

“Sorry, this guy is kind of a load. I’m going to need a little intervention here.”

Helske sighed, wrapped his arms around the body’s legs and lifted him up.

The alligator clip, attached to the wires, closed around the metal rod, setting off a series of sparks, which then surged into a full-blown fireworks show in the closet.

The two goons violently shook as thousands of volts of electricity shot through their bodies.

Spector and Brandon entered the building and immediately saw smoke drifting down the shower hallway. They rushed to the supply closet and discovered that both of the early shift guards had joined the suicide victim, not only in death, but also in appearance, as all three corpses looked like meat left overnight on a flaming BBQ.

***

Helske's body was set down on the ground next to Fontaine.

Both bodies were just a few feet away; neither had yet been bagged because Spector wanted his entire security team to see the full glory of what had happened to them.

Matt couldn’t believe it, but Spector was totally playing into his plan. He was almost afraid that some of the other prisoners, already suspicious, would now believe he had struck a deal with the head of CCC security.

“Look at them. This could be any of you,” yelled Spector at his guards. “I will tell you one thing, it won’t be me.”

He grabbed the hair of one of his goons with such force that the guard lost his footing. Spector dragged him the rest of the way and stuck his nose into Fontaine’s burnt corpse as if he were training a misbehaving dog that had just shit on the living-room carpet.

“Smell that? That’s what stupidity smells like!”

The prisoners were intentionally milling about close to where the bodies had been laid, near the cadaver van.

Matt had rehearsed with the others two different distraction scenarios he had been taught by veteran Army Rangers on his first tour. But Spector was making all of those preparations redundant.

The goon who’d had his nose rubbed into the crispy corpse of his recently departed colleague was finally released by Spector, and he crawled back to the rest of the assembled guards.

But Spector wasn’t finished with his demonstration. With a menacing sneer, he withdrew a hunting knife from his belt and marched toward his team.

The first to break from the security assembly was the one Spector made a point to pursue. After chasing the guard down, Spector subdued him, then raked his blade across the skin of the goon’s arm.

While this was happening, both Helske and Fontaine were put in body bags by a pair of CCC guards. Dietz zipped the three body bags, then motioned for the guards to load them onto the cadaver van. After all three bags were loaded in the back, the guards moved to join the security assembly, but Spector’s angry voice stopped them in their tracks… just a few feet from the cadaver van

Matt, Tyra, and Juarez had no choice but to continue to wait to board the vehicle.

A heavy hand landed on Matt’s shoulder, causing him to wince. He was still healing from the beating he took from Spector.

“Oh, did that hurt. I’m really sorry about that,” said Barrett. “I guess I keep on forgetting what you've sacrificed for all of us.” He then bent down so he could whisper in Matt’s ear. “Want to know the truth...? I still think you're going to jackrabbit on us once you get beyond the main fence.”

He tilted his head away from Barrett’s warm breath on his skin. “I got your point the first time. You were wrong then. And you’re wrong now,” said Matt.

“I hope so,” said Barrett, using his big paw to squeeze Matt’s shoulder. “It'll save me from spending the rest of my life hunting you down...”

The second guard to break from the assembly was chased down next and dragged by the collar of his black jumpsuit across the compound. Spector then planted the goon right next to the guard he had sliced with his knife.

“There you go. Now start sucking…”

“Sir?!”

“You heard me, start sucking his blood!”

When they hesitated, Spector grabbed for his knife, but that’s all he needed to do, because the second goon suddenly leaped forward. He fastened his lips on the bleeding arm of his fellow guard and started sucking like his life depended on it.

The way Spector hovered over the pair watching, perhaps it did.

The whole spectacle had the two guards, standing near the cadaver van, terrified they would trigger Spector’s wrath. They sprinted over to join the rest of the assembled guards, even though the van’s doors were still wide open.

It was the opening the prisoners needed, and they formed a wall of seemingly interested observers while Matt, Tyra, and Juarez hopped into the van.

Matt specifically went for Murphy’s body bag. The last thing he wanted was for Tyra to be riding next to him.

Juarez unzipped Helske’s body bag, and the sight of the goon’s twisted, grisly body caused him to flinch.

“Oh, my god, that smells horrible. What the hell did this guy eat before he died?! I’m not doing this…”

Tyra had already unzipped her body bag when she realized Juarez was serious.

“We don’t have time to argue!”

“No one said anything about spooning with a dead guy,” whispered Juarez.

“You either get in the fucking bag now,” said Tyra, “or, I promise you, you’ll be getting a bag all to yourself when I get back.”

Juarez looked over at Matt.

“I’ll trade you for Murphy.”

Matt’s response was to zip up Murphy’s body bag around him.

Dr. Dietz shut the van doors, and the engine of the cadaver van started up.

Juarez did a quick air cross, then took a deep breath before climbing inside.

Spector was wrapping up his demonstration to his team of guards.

“If the prisoners start killing themselves, it will only be a matter of time before our overlords start looking for replacements for their blood supply.…”

The goon had stopped sucking on the other guard’s arm wound. Spector noticed, rushed up, and delivered a hard kick in the ass.

“You keep on sucking his blood until I tell you to stop…”

After the guard began sucking again, Spector resumed his speech.

“I’m not confident any of you truly understand our potential future. That’s why I took the time to show you.”

Spector moved to the guard sucking on the arm, and raised his head by grabbing onto the guard’s mullet. There was blood smeared all over his mouth like a toddler who had been eating his first strawberry-jam breakfast.

“This won’t be me. If you don’t want it to be you, then you’ll get your shit together, now!”

“Sir, did you call me over?” asked Doctor Dietz.

“Yes, one of my guards has sustained an injury that I need you to attend to…”

Dietz looked back just as the cadaver van started to pull out of the compound.

“Of course sir, I’ll address this at once…”

“No, take your time,” said Spector. “The way these fuckheads are doing their jobs, they’re all going to be dead anyway.”

Spector then stormed off.

Chapter Twenty Four

<incoming>messagevcnet>>

Greetings Fellow Shadows,

I wish I was writing to you with more upbeat news, but I am seated on the VC only at the grace of those of you who believe in my will, and continue to support me through these troubling times.

An unfortunate turn of events has forced me to announce that negotiations between the so-called “red wing” and “black wing” factions have broken off.

At this moment, I would characterize the possibility that the two wings will resume talks and reach a compromise as more than doubtful.

Indeed, I will characterize the situation by repeating a word that someone on one of the wing factions used during a heated argument in the middle of negotiations…

The word is “floating.”

I must admit I felt very offended, at hearing the word spoken aloud, not only because of the context, but also because the speaker who uttered the word did so as if he was perfectly entitled to not only use the word to support his argument, but that he should feel comfortable in allowing the word to leave his lips in such a casual manner.

Simply put, there are those amongst our kind who believe that because we all share a similar existence, we all have had a similar experience. And that is simply not true.

At the expense of offending those who need not defend their knowledge of what the word actually means, I will lay down a few details of background for those who cannot claim such experience.

There was a time when travel between the different regions meant weeks of isolation on board a ship, which often forced the hand of a shadow who wanted to simply survive.

Killing one crew member of the ship could be hidden. The draining of two crew members might have gone unnoticed if it was cleverly handled, but the loss of blood from three members of a ship’s crew would, without exception (I’m drawing on the personal experience of four transatlantic, oceanic journeys), trigger a full-scale witch hunt from rudder to anchor.

Anyone who even looked like they had red in their cheeks would be keelhauled or receive twenty lashes before being set adrift.

“Floating” is the word those of us with personal experience came to use to signify the beastly survival tactics one must employ when forced to utilize the blood from the other “passengers” of the ship, who would not be missed.

None of those experiences are looked back with any pride. But it is we “floaters,” living off of the blood of rats, who have enabled many of you to be reading this at all. Forgive me for coming off as “old school,” but unless you’ve actually had rat hair stuck between your teeth, I do not believe you are qualified to use the word in any context, no matter how much you claim your policies will alleviate suffering amongst our kind.

Stay Hidden, Stay Silent, Stay Sui Generis!

Very sincerely yours,

Hamil Deane

vc member - davanzati region

***

“We both wondered where you’ve been, Julian?”

“Wondered why? All you needed to do was look out the window. Are you saying neither one of you caught my performance?”

“Actually I watched every second,” answered Winston. “I grant you your ‘performance’ had a certain style, but I must temper my compliment with a concern that perhaps you’ve missed recent VC directives, especially those emphasizing the severe worldwide shortage of healthy blood donors.”

“So you don’t see the strategy in killing a few so that the others would be intimidated, thus guaranteeing long-term cooperation?”

“Julian, I’m afraid intimidation only guarantees, not cooperation, but the necessity of its chronic use as a strategy.”

“Very disappointing to hear,” said Julian. “Especially since I shot the entire assembly on video. I planned on playing back the deaths of the escapees on the monitors in the barracks’ building every night before the prisoners all went to sleep. So you would not agree that it would be effective in maintaining discipline?”

“Perhaps there would be a short-term cause and effect,” answered Winston. “But I don’t believe such a tactic would engender a healthy stress level amongst our blood supply.”

Ian was shocked by Julian’s reaction to Winston’s verbal chastisement. His blood brother seemed almost excited by Winston’s negative response.

“I predicted almost everything you would say,” said Julian. He pulled out a note from his coat and held it up for Winston and Ian to see.

True to his word, almost everything Winston had said was written verbatim on the paper.

“I was only off by one word, ‘perhaps,’ said Julian. “I would never have dreamt you would use the word ‘perhaps’ in criticizing my behavior. You know something, I believe, old man, that after 221 years, I’m beginning to wear you down.”

Winston laughed and then answered without hesitation or reservation.

“Yes, Jules… perhaps you are.”

The three then brushed aside tree branches leaning across the path before emerging on the other side of the hilltop. The sight of what lay in a gully below caused Ian to stop walking.

It was a huge, deep pit dug into the earth. There were huge flames jetting at least a hundred feet into the sky, creating a billowing cloud of orange and black smoke that rested like a crown above the pit.

“What the hell is this?” asked Ian.

“Pretty extraordinary isn’t it?” shouted Julian as he rushed up to the pit like an excited young child approaching a new playground. “One of the demolition teams at this site exposed some gas pipes. That’s when one of the factions in the VC decided to point their initial plans for the area in a different direction.”

Winston moved to the pit and looked down. The glow of the pit fire lit up and highlighted the distinct details of Winston’s face, in a way that Ian had never seen before. Despite his earlier words, it was a moment where Ian admitted to himself,
Now, my mentor, truly does look alive
.

“Sir, you’ve read the statistics generated by the VC,” said Julian. “Do you disagree with their findings?”

“No, Jules, one is a fool…”

“… to argue with VC statistics,” said Julian completing Winston’s sentence. “Old man, I will always respect how you were consistent in what you taught me and how you acted. I will also appreciate all the words you have passed on from those who existed before us. What did you used to say, ah, yes: ‘those who fail to rise above the mistakes of the past, are…”

“… simply animals behaving as predators or prey,” said Winston, completing Julian’s sentence. “C.Q. Yarbaro is who you are quoting. I actually know her.”

The words “predators or prey,” provoked Ian to awaken from the trance he had been in since he emerged from the woods. His eyes caught sight of something he noticed for the first time – the wooden stake, normally attached by a chain, was no longer around Julian’s neck.

“Where’s your needle?” asked Ian, while at the same time springing forward to step between Julian and Winston.

Julian kept his eyes fixed on Winston as he responded.

“Right here…”

The wood was from Easter Island. Or so Julian claimed. Taken from the last tree originally grown on the island.

Before Ian could stop him, another hand reached out. He looked over and discovered Winston holding onto him.

“It’s all right. We need to let your brother finish his presentation…”

Winston then turned his gaze toward Julian.

“Is this what you need to do?”

“No, sir,” said Julian, before he lunged forward, brushing past Ian as he shoved the wooden stake all the way through Winston’s heart.

“This is what I
want
to do…”

He nodded several times, as if his neck was now a spring attached to his head. Then Winston turned to look at Ian, but there was nothing left to his face but skin over bones.

Ian felt the hand gripping him suddenly release a moment before Winston leaped off the ground and took flight.

He flew about a dozen yards over the pit before his wings suddenly vanished.

Then Winston began to fall.

A chorus of cries erupted from below as Ian scrambled to the edge of the pit.

For the first time he saw what lay beneath the flames that stretched toward the sky.

There were the bodies of his kind, writhing in pain and screaming in agony. Thousands were stacked on top of each other, all finally dying the death that some had put off for years, others for centuries, and those special ones who were now embracing the day they often referred to as the “crow’s crooked beak.”

Through his tear-filled eyes, Ian saw there were those among the dead and dying who reached out their skeletal arms to welcome Winston as he landed amongst them.

“Careful, brother, you might fall,” Julian said, hoisting Ian by his neck and finally releasing him about a dozen yards away from the edge of the pit.

Ian swept his hand across his face, wiping away the tears before he looked up to lock eyes with Julian. He could not believe the first thing that was staring at him was the wooden stake with Winston’s blood dripping from it.

Julian saw Ian’s reaction, and immediately dropped the stake into the dirt.

“It’s not what it looks like. He stepped away, and I held on for some reason. Please, Ian, do not believe for a moment that I wanted the instrument of his death as some sort of souvenir…”

“What have you done...?” screamed Ian.

“What needed to be done, brother,” Julian calmly responded. “You’re too young to understand. That’s why I could not share with you what needed to be done.”

Ian stumbled to his feet, “Yes, you’re right; I don’t understand.”

The words were spoken with such passion that Ian stumbled… into Julian’s arms.

“But he understood! Didn’t you see his face? Our father understood!”

Ian pushed away from Julian and fell to the ground.

“Love!” he screamed into the night. “That’s what I saw. Love for the two he had turned…”

“No, what you saw was acceptance.”

Julian’s voice was flat and unemotional.

“But the sun will be rising soon, so we haven’t the time to debate the issue.”

He tried to walk off, but Ian shouted after him, “Why did you do this?”

Julian looked up to the night sky and screamed. “He promised me heaven… and he did not deliver.” Suddenly, Julian was standing at the edge of the pit. “What you witnessed tonight was my decision not to follow Winston into hell.”

Ian closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Julian was standing above him.

“I am promising you heaven. Or you could follow the source of our immortality as he discovers the contours of hell. What shall it be?”

Ian bowed his head.

“Good for you, brother; the acceptance of final death is something very few vampires rarely see in another, and yet you are wise enough to have seen it in Winston’s face.”

Ian looked up and saw that Julian had moved away again, speaking as if he was addressing some crowd that had gathered to hear his words.

“All I ask as we move forward is to understand the burden I shouldered in making this difficult decision. The VC purge has begun. Yes, decisions had to be made. And those in charge decided to go with ‘new blood’.”

He turned and held his hand out toward Ian.

“Come and let us bond in a way that we’ve never been able to bond before, building upon the death of a man who led to our rebirth, so that we may have a new relationship.”

Rising, Ian tried to make it seem as if he intended to grab Julian’s extended hand.

“My heart feels like it is beating with possibilities,” said Ian, as he pitched forward to grab the bloody stake.

Out of nowhere, one of Julian’s support team snatched the carved wood from the grass.

“Is this what you used on him?”

Ian looked around him and saw that the entire group had come to check things out.

“Drop it, Vadim – now, or I will use it on you,” shouted Julian.

Vadim carefully set the stake back into the dirt and backed off.

Julian was now standing just a few feet away from Ian, and yards away from the edge of the pit.

“Please, brother, do not let their presence sway your emotions. I ask that your loyalty be earned, because we share the same blood, and because it is the right thing to do, not because another choice has been closed off to you.”

Ian did not hesitate. Julian would only fixate on the hesitation, and who knows what his mind would do with such a thought rolling around in his brain every waking minute of every waking day for the next hundred years.