After the Fall (24 page)

We were riding out to our patrolling area, back to the place where they’d found and nearly killed me. Rayna, who was at the wheel, had been in a foul mood all evening. She was driving fast and carelessly.

“Do you really have to go so fast? These things are not the most stable.” I said. She shot me a glare and continued to drive. Although the other two men seemed to agree, they did not say a word.

“Off we go on another night of hunting, to build a greater future for our glorious city.”

“Don’t start with that again, Jeb.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do, Ray?”

“You could shut up and do what you’re supposed to do.”

“We go out night after night, risking our hides, and for what? So they can sit in their offices, looking down from on high with their smug faces?”

“Jeb, we get taken care of. We’re living better than we’d ever be out there. If you ask me, it’s a pretty good deal.”

“Eh, why do I bother? You’re one of them now. They invited you into the fold. I suppose soon you’ll stop going out, too.”

“I went to that dinner because they asked me to bring nancy-boy over here.”

“Will you stop calling me that?” I said.

“Not until you show us something,” she replied. “You’re the same as them, Eurotrash Vampires. I could never stand any of you.”

The rest of the drive went in awkward silence. It took over an hour to get to the borderlands, which was a testament to how wide they had expanded their territory.

The gate was remote control operated. Solar cells charged the batteries during the day that powered the gate motors at night. We dismounted at the gate and walked into the wilderness from where I had emerged.

“Okay, let’s go this way,” said Rayna. “I got a feeling.”

Her feeling turned out to be dead on. There was about a half dozen of them. They seemed to be dead at first look. It had been some time since any of them had seen a meal, and it was starting to take its toll. We walked up to one of them and it lunged forward. It tried to seize Jeb. Even in its weakened state, it still managed to take him off balance and drive him back to the ground. The thing pounced on him, jaws snapping toward his face. Rayna drove her knife into its skull and it fell.

“Can you get this thing off me?” said Jeb.

“What’s the matter, can’t take a little action?” she taunted.

I smiled as I looked on the two of them taking jabs at each other. It must have been a normal thing for this group.

“Look out!” she screamed. “Behind you!”

I turned my head back and saw the group approaching me, but I could sense they had no interest in me. They walked right past and headed for the others, gently shoving me out of their way like someone passing you at a subway. I waited until they got just past me and drove my fists right into the back of their skulls, making a loud crunching sound. The two undead collapsed to the ground.

“What the…” whispered Rayna. I shrugged.

That’s when it started. Their moans seemed to come from every direction. We were surrounded. They made a ring around us and began to tighten. My three companions seemed worried, but an eerie sense of calm had come over me.

“This is way more than we bargained for,” said Jeb.

Dan, who had remained quiet until now, began to stammer incoherently. He started to back away, right into  the line. I seized the knife right off his belt and started to stab our attackers one after the other before taking a big leap to get behind their ranks.

“Come on, over here!” I yelled. Some of the undead on my side started to walk in my direction.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” asked Rayna. The three of them jumped out of the circle and went after my so-called attackers. There was a glint of terror in Rayna’s eyes as she saw them come right up to me. I just stood there as they passed me, bumping me in the shoulder ever so gently. Her expression turned to bewilderment before she went back to cutting down zombies.

The group was quite large. It was actually a small-scale horde. They just kept coming, and we kept taking them down. It took a while to take all of them. At the end, we stood around, breathing like we’d just run a marathon. I walked up to a few of them and started beheading them.

“What are you doing?” asked Rayna.

“We have to burn them after this. They’ll come back if we don’t.”

“What are you talking about?” They all laughed as if I had just told a good joke.

“The dead—they rise up after you kill them. I killed one three times and it just kept coming back.”

“Maybe you didn’t do the job right the first time,” said Rayna.

“I drove an arrow right into his eye and he fell. He was back up and walking a few hours later!

“You’re out of your mind,” said Jeb. “They can’t come back. Once you destroy the brain, they stay dead.”

“Okay, that’s enough nonsense. What do you say we go out and do our patrol. We’ll come back over here. If what he says is true, our friends should be up and walking by then.”

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t really have a choice.

We went about our patrol, roaming the land for hours. The rest of the night was quite uneventful. We found one feeding on something that looked like an opossum and took it down.

“Okay, it’s gonna be light out in a couple hours. We better get back.”

When we walked up to the small copse where we first started, I was hoping that our attackers would be up and walking, ready to redeem me in the eyes of my companions.

“Looks like you were wrong, Mordy,” said Rayna.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, I think I see one twitching,” said Jeb. “Nope, still dead.” They all shared a laugh at my expense.

“Fine, laugh it up, but I know what I saw.”

“Okay, whatever,” she said, then grew serious. “I guess you’re not so bad after all. Maybe Euro-boys really can throw down.”

“I never had any doubt.”

“All right, let’s get going. We don’t want to be caught out here in daylight.”

Our job was complete. Another pack of the living dead had met their end at our hands. Much to my surprise, not a single one of them rose. My companions teased me about it while Rayna chewed me out for wasting valuable time. Daylight would be approaching soon, she said. I listened with all the patience a father might give his distressed child. It had been a long time since I had dealt with any young ones. I had forgotten what it felt like to fear sunlight. The sun and I were still not best friends, but getting caught at dawn no longer meant a death sentence for me. Not so much for these three.

We got back in the car and got back on the road. She drove as fast as she did out there, motivated by fear this time. All of them were tense. I just sat back and waited. My sunglasses were still in my pocket. It would have been nice to have my hat, but there was no use crying over it.

All the worrying ended up being for naught. We got back with time to spare. It was still a good half hour until the sun made its appearance over the horizon. By then, we had gone back to our respective living places. Good thing it was approaching winter. The middle of summer would have been a different story. Rayna walked through the door and threw the keys in a dish by the door, then cast off her coat to the couch. Seeing the mood she was in, I decided to leave her alone.

“So you’re just gonna stand there? We almost got caught in daylight and you have nothing to say?”

Well, I tried.

“What’s there to say? We got back in time, well before dawn.”

“If it wasn’t for all your playing around, we would have been back long ago.”

“I’m telling you that where I come from, they rise.”

“That’s a bunch of bull. The dead don’t rise after you get them in the head. They stay dead.”

“Believe what you want. I know what I saw.”

“Whatever.” She gave me a dismissive wave. “Why do they just walk right by you without trying to bite you?”

I assumed it had something to do with my being bitten and surviving, but I wasn’t about to show my hand at this card game.

“I don’t know. They used to and one day they just stopped. I could be slashing at them and they don’t even care.”

For a moment, she almost looked impressed. And then she just turned around and went upstairs.

“You probably just got lucky or something. Or maybe they don’t think you’re worth eating.”

She shut her bedroom door before I could reply. It was getting light in the apartment. Her steel blinds closed and I was left in the dim glow of the electric lights. I decided to wash up and go to sleep. There was no guessing what crazy things would be coming my way tonight. It would be prudent for me to be well rested.

Nightfall seemed to come far too quickly. The days were getting shorter and that meant longer nights. I groaned my way off the couch and ambled around the house, trying to wake up.

Rayna got up and got her breakfast. Cold blood again. I knew it was far better than starving, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. It would have been nice to taste fresh, warm blood once again. She took her bags out of the refrigerator and walked back to up to the room without saying another word.

“Good morning to you, too.”

There was a knock at the door a little while later. When I answered, I saw Lucretius waiting at the door. His stance was everything I expected it to be: tall, stiff, painfully correct. I could definitely picture him going to boarding school as a young lad, or at the country club as a young nobleman.

“May I come in?” he asked. I showed him the way in. He seated himself in the armchair across from the couch, crossing his legs while he played with his cane.

“To what do we owe this visit?”

“I was just curious to see how you were doing. It was fortunate I happened to be passing by. By the way, how is Rayna doing?”

I rolled my eyes in the direction of her bedroom. “She’s…being Rayna, I suppose.”

“Yes, I must say she can be quite willful at times.”

“She’s a handful, that one.”

“More than you know. Would you be good enough to call her down for me, if you please?”

“No need. I’m headed down,” she said. I’m sure she must have been listening up there the whole time. “Is this a social call, or do you want something?”

Lucretius shot me a look, as if saying, “
see what I have to suffer?”
Then he turned to her. “It’s a bit of both. I was curious to see how last night went.”

“It went. We almost got caught in daylight, but we got back safe.” She walked down the stairs as she spoke and sat down on the opposite side of the couch.

“You had no complications, I trust?”

She glared at me for an instant. “No, we were good. Ol’ Mordy here can handle himself.” I closed my eyes and let out a sigh.

“That’s good news. I’m glad you could help us. We sure need it.”

“We have it handled, Luke. We didn’t need any more help.”

“Really? Jeb seemed to think you were in a bit of a jam last night.”

Fire flashed through her eyes. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“I’m sure of that. You’re one of our best, Rayna. I knew I could count on you.”

“Could I speak to you for a moment?” she said to Lucretius.

“Sure. Excuse us for a moment, Mordecai.”

I nodded and watched them go through the door and into the game room. They spoke quietly at first, but the conversation quickly soured.

Lucretius walked out of the room and said, “There is no room for discussion. You will do as I say, Rayna.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes, but Lucretius did not care. He had won. Lucretius looked at me and changed his expression at once.

“Ah, Mordecai. How would you like to join us for dinner once again?

“I would like that,” I said with a smirk as I looked at Rayna.

“That’s the spirit.” He turned slightly in Rayna’s direction. “At least someone here is reasonable enough. So, we will see you tomorrow night, let’s say an hour after sunset?”

“That will work for me.”

“Well, then. I must go now, but I look forward to seeing
the both of you
tomorrow.”

Dinner Party

For all its comforts and security, the spell this place had cast over me was wearing off. My mind kept taking me back to the place where my life had briefly regained its meaning. Existence became something more than surviving day to day. I was shown all the beauty that the world had to offer and it was taken from me just as quickly. Her body rested in a tomb, but her memory lived on in my heart.

We went through another day of patrolling the perimeter. I wished I could say I was busy from dusk till dawn, but I wasn’t. In fact, we only saw one marauder that night, a wolf we were content to leave alone. I hated nights like this. The quiet lent itself too much to thought, and my thoughts led to Rhiannon. That night, I longed to run, to keep running until I found Jericho again. I did not know whether it had fallen to the dead or if it was still standing, proud and strong as it once had been. In my mind, I saw Alaric kneeling over her tomb, weeping over his loss. My sorrow for him only compounded my own.