Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (28 page)

His mind raced but he remained
surprisingly calm. He had seen the contrail of the rocket a moment
before the shell had hit the wreck and he knew that if his attacker
had wanted him dead then he would be. He slowly stood up and exited
the jeep as he searched the surrounding landscape for some idea of
the size of the force he was facing. The road was surrounded on his
right by a sheer cliff face that slowly rolled down in the distance
to the level of the road just before the first of the buildings of
the small city in the distance began. On his left stretched a wide
expanse of long grass which had grown pale under the sun’s
relentless glare. It looked almost like a sea of wheat but didn’t
have the golden richness he would have expected from that crop. It
was, however, an ideal place to hide a large force.

His eyes
strayed to the cliff on his right, taking note of the many places
where he would deploy his own forces if he had planned an ambush
here. The crest was almost a hundred yards straight up and provided
an ideal position for snipers. He couldn’t have picked a better
place for an ambush himself and, strangely, he sighed with relief.
He had wondered why he had been allowed so far into this territory
without any form of resistance. Now he knew it was because he was
being lured to this very point. It seemed that his fears had been
for nothing, after all. Nero was obviously still in
control.

Now all he had to do was
convince his opposite number not to kill him and it would have been
a worthwhile trip.

Tanya Syn counted the last few
steps of the guard and then turned to Josh Harris with a smile
lighting her whole face. “See, I told you.” She raised an eyebrow
and wagged her finger.

“
All right,”
Harris conceded, “but that only tells us when, not how.”

“
I know,”
Tanya shrugged, “but at least we know there’s a gap we can use. Now
all we need to do is figure out a way of getting out there during
the changeover. Of course,” she paused as she turned back toward
the square “if we could create enough of a diversion we might
just…”

“Oh no,” Josh interrupted
immediately. “We’ve talked about this. There is no way in hell we
can get to that other pen, find your kids and get back to the exit
point in the time we have.” He paused as she looked away but he put
a hand on her shoulder and gently, but firmly, turned her to look
at him.

“Tanya, the only way we can help
them is to get free first and then help them from outside.”

“
But
…”

“
There are no
‘buts’, Tanya. I don’t know how much the vampires are telling the
thralls about us being off the serum. They are still very sloppy
when they take us to and from the bleeding huts but they are not
stupid. We’ll only get one chance at this and I will not stay here
and let these fuckers bleed me dry any longer than I have
to.”

He paused as
he stared hard at Tanya. “Make no mistake, Tanya. You are an
intelligent woman and would be a great asset to have in taking the
war to them, but I will not come back for you or risk anybody else
if you decide to throw away your freedom.”

“But they’re only children
…”

“Tanya,” Harris interrupted.
“There isn’t enough time. You can’t help them if they pump you full
of serum again.”

Tanya looked
at the man in front of her, wanting to hate him but knowing that he
was right. But she couldn’t look at this objectively. Her children
were being abused a few hundred yards from her and she ached to
help them. There had to be a way. If she did escape, the thralls
might take their outrage out on those prisoners that were left. She
had nightmares of seeing her children executed while she watched
from afar. She had run the numbers again and again and knew that
there just wasn’t the time to get over there, find them and get
back before the thralls reacted to the escape. She knew that, but,
by her reckoning, she only needed another few minutes to make it
almost viable and that was just too close not to at least attempt
it.

She had hoped
that the others would try to find that extra time. After all, she
had identified the gap that they could use to get everyone out. But
they all agreed with Josh. Of course, it wasn’t their children
under threat so it was easier for them to be objective. There had
been a spark of sorts between Harris and herself from the start and
she had played on that to try and get him to help. She wasn’t proud
of herself for that but her children were in danger and she would
do anything to hold them again. Josh had listened, in fairness, but
when the numbers didn’t add up he had closed the door on any
further discussion.

“Do we understand each other?”
he pressed her.

“
Oh we
understand each other, all right,” Tanya replied coldly and then
turned away and began to count the timing of the guards yet
again.

There must be a way.

Chapter 18

Josh Harris watched helplessly
as the guards made their way back toward the gate, pushing their
charges ahead of them. It was ‘bleeding time’ and they had chosen
the standard fourteen humans. It was still dark but dawn wouldn’t
be long in coming. They always took their charges just before dawn
and around sunset. The vampires liked to feed on fresh blood before
they slept and as they woke, it seemed. This time, however, Tanya
was one of the fourteen and the lascivious grins on the guards’
faces had left Harris no doubt as to their intentions once the
bleeding had been completed.

Josh knew
that this had been the plan all along
,
but he was still uncomfortable with it. None of them really knew
what was likely to happen. The guards had been abusing the females,
and indeed some of the males, for years, but the serum had made all
of their memories fuzzy. They just didn’t know what was likely to
happen. Would each thrall take one woman each or would they be
attacked by the whole barracks? Two of the women in the current
batch were part of the plan, but they had failed to get any males
in the group, despite placing those who were in on the plan in
prominent places.

It was down
to blind luck where the men were concerned. The women were able to
stand a certain way that attracted the thralls immediately. They
had kept the numbers within their group small enough. The last
thing they wanted was to let their plan be generally known. They
still had no idea why they had been weaned off the serum and
someone in the pens, or maybe more than one of them, could be
agents put in place by the thralls for some reason.

They had
chosen their people carefully, either by previous knowledge of that
person or, in Tanya’s case, by their obvious flare for planning an
escape. They had planned it as well as they could but he was still
not happy. Once the prisoners were taken out of this prison they
were on their own. His heart thudded in his chest as he watched the
small group being led towards the bleeding hut. As the last of them
disappeared inside he was left alone. Even in a prison surrounded
by hundreds of others, it was still amazing how alone you could
feel.

He looked up
at the sky. Thick grey clouds roiled toward the city and he
shivered. Even the weather seemed to have changed in sympathy with
his mood. It looked like snow, which could be both a blessing and a
curse. If they did manage to get out, the snow would dampen the
vampire’s ability to track them, but if the coming storm was severe
enough, it might just kill them all from exposure and save the
vampires the trouble.

Jesus, he thought. Snow in
California. What has happened to this world?

The door closed behind them and
Tanya stared at the cubicles in front of her. This was the first
time she had been chosen since she had come off the effects of the
serum and the stark reality of the bleeding machinery suddenly hit
her like a slap.

We’re less than livestock to
them.
Already the thralls were pushing the others toward the
cubicles and attaching tubes ending in sharp pins to their arms or
legs or wherever they weren’t already too many scabs.

The coldness
of the equipment and the starkness of the room made her shiver. A
sudden horror washed over as she imagined her children being taken
to these very same cubicles
. She felt her
heart beat faster as her anger grew. She had a sudden, mad desire
to lash out at the thrall next to her, but she knew that it would
be pointless. Such a creature wouldn’t even feel her blows. She
would have to wait and bide her time. Later, when the thralls had
completed their chores, they would want to take their rewards on
the women in this group. And when they did Tanya would have her
chance to make sure they got everything they deserved. She felt a
push in her back and she allowed herself to be directed into one of
the cubicles. She didn’t even feel the numerous pin pricks as the
equipment was hooked up. Instead, she let her anger seethe through
her. She would be weak after giving blood, but the fire in her
belly and the hatred in her heart would sustain her.

For the sake of her children she
hoped it would be enough.

Emma Logan walked down the
corridor, keeping careful track of her quarry. She walked just far
enough not to be too obvious but closer than before so she would
not lose Patricia Lohan this time. She could see the woman’s
severely cut hair bobbing among the light traffic of people just in
front of her, but she forced herself not to be complacent. Since
yesterday’s debacle she had followed one member of the committee
after another and, what had originally appeared to be a great
adventure had turned out to be an incredibly boring chore. But she
could not afford to lose sight of Lohan.

Father Reilly
would never trust her again if she failed
a second time. Besides, the boys would be so disappointed
in her if she screwed up again. She needed their friendship and
respect more than she had realised. When she had lost Lohan
yesterday they hadn’t blamed her, but the look of disappointment in
their faces had been more than she could bear.

It was
approaching nine in the morning, though you would never know it in
the catacombs of enclosed corridors that had been built between the
buildings that made up their main living area.

The city was
unrecognisable from what it had been before the vampires had come.
They did have a number of areas which were situated outside, but
these were used for the production of food and were carefully
hidden from aerial view. For everything else, they lived under
cover. They could not risk being seen as they moved from building
to building so they had knocked through walls where the buildings
were beside each other and had devised a series of tunnels and
enclosed walkways to join up those that were further apart. In some
cases the sewer system had been used when the distance had been too
far to build a walkway. Danny had christened these tunnels
“stinkways” as a heavy smell still lingered even though no waste
had passed through them in quite some time and the brick had been
steam-cleaned numerous times.

Logan missed being out in the
air and feeling the cool early morning breeze on her face, but she
knew that it was impossible to hide so many people any other way.
Would it always be like this?
She sighed as the hopelessness
washed over her.

She shook
herself from her thoughts as they began to approach the area where
she h
ad lost Lohan yesterday and moved a
little closer. The number of people around her began to increase as
members of the community ran errands or made their way to their
assigned roles before the change of shift.

The city was
planned around three main hubs that connected all the buildings
that the community used. It was impossible to connect to one
central hub as there were far too many people, so they had tried to
ensure that everyone connected to a main artery. To do this they
had planned three large communal areas; designated Harrington Plaza
- in honour of Dan Harrington who had started the community,
Liberty Plaza and Freedom plaza. All were connected to each other
through large walkways. Each hub would have the same facilities,
schools, food markets and work areas.

The original
plan was that they would be identical so that no one would feel of
a lesser class than anyone else. Each of these hubs then had
smaller tunnels stretching throughout the city where people lived
and worked.

As with
everything, though, those who lived closest to the hubs seemed to
feel that they were of a higher class than others who lived further
away. Added to this was the fact that the southern hub, designated
Liberty, could only be connected to the other two through the sewer
system as it was just too far to construct anything large enough to
accommodate the number of people who needed to use it. This led to
the inhabitants of this hub, and anyone connected to it, to be
referred to as ‘shitkickers’ and nothing the community had done had
been able to change this unfortunate labelling.

As they
approached Harrington Plaza, Emma was forced to move to within a
few feet of Lohan as bodies pressed around her. Lohan worked just
off the main hub and she would continue on this tunnel for another
thirty…

Lohan turned
a sharp left
and disappeared from the
stream of people. Emma gasped as the woman suddenly disappeared
down a side walkway that was barely visible among the throng of
people. In fact, if she had not been almost in touching distance to
the woman she would have passed by oblivious to it and lost her
again. Emma’s heart began to beat faster as she forced her way
through the throng of people and finally pushed through into the
empty space of the small corridor.