Trail of Tears
Authors: Derek Gunn
Tags: #end of the world, #horror, #post apocalyptic, #vampire, #pulp adventure, #adventure, #military, #apocalypse, #war
A PERMUTED PRESS book
Published at Smashwords
ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-2-499
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-2-505
Vampire Apocalypse: Trail of Tears
copyright ©
2013
by Derek Gunn
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Dean Samed, Conzpiracy Digital Arts
This
book
is
a
work
of
fiction
.
People
,
places
,
events
,
and
situations
are
the
product
of
the
author’s
imagination
.
Any
resemblance
to
actual
persons
,
living
or
dead
,
or
historical
events
,
is
purely
coincidental
.
No
part
of
this
book
may
be
reproduced
,
stored
in
a
retrieval
system
,
or
transmitted
by
any
means
without
the
written
permission
of
the
author
and
publisher
.
Table of Contents
To Aidan and Joan Gunn –
May they both rest easy.
To Alice,
without whom none of this would be possible.
Chapter 1
Rain hammered down and water scurried
through the ruins like miniature rivers growing darker. It sluiced
through the dirt, groping blindly through the wasteland. Drops of
water hit the ground so hard that they split into smaller droplets
before joining the torrents. Above, the clouds roiled like an
unsettled sea. The ruins of the once great city bore nature’s anger
with stoic indifference.
The figures slipped through the darkness,
their heavy boots strangely muted as they tramped through the
ruins. There were seven in all and each figure wore heavy, black
combat fatigues and bore ash on their flesh. The ash had run with
the rain and their faces looked grey rather than black, as if they
had been dead for some time. These figures, however, were not dead.
They were not even undead. They were something worse.
They moved like liquid shadows despite the
heavy weaponry they carried. They moved fast and yet no sound of
scraped fabric or jostled weapons announced their coming. The rain
slammed into them but none seemed to notice.
Ahead, the sound of music and the occasional
squeal of laughter carried in the wind. A sudden rumble of thunder
filled the night, shattering the silence and forcing the figures to
stop and wait for it to fade. The leader listened hard until he
could again hear the music in the distance and then motioned for
the others to follow.
Harry Sinclair considered briefly reporting
their discovery but then rejected it. Carter would no doubt rant at
him for breaking protocol but once he presented the rebels’ heads
to him he was confident he would be forgiven. In fact, his standing
should benefit nicely with a job well done. These rebels had been a
thorn in Carter’s side for so long he was sure to be well rewarded.
Sinclair led only one of many such patrols in this area. Carter was
pretty sure that the rebels were somewhere in this direction but
was careful to search under the radar until he had proof. The
situation with the vampires was fluid and dangerous.
After the mad slaughter of the last few
weeks among the creatures the vampires were beginning to reign in
their blood lust and wiser heads were beginning to emerge. Carter’s
own position was tenuous at best, he had managed to unite the
thralls but his continued supremacy was based on the fear of the
number of thralls he could control. There was a whole sea of
thralls under him that eyed his position with envy and the
continued survival of the rebels weakened him. He had sent these
patrols out with his best men in the hope that he could find and
then eliminate the humans.
Once they were dealt with he could turn his
full attention to the vampires crowding his borders. Of course, if
Sinclair were to deal with the humans on his own he would show the
other thrall commanders just how a proper commander can handle the
situation and if Carter were to look less than supreme then that
would be unfortunate, for him anyway. Sinclair smiled as he
motioned for his men to spread out. This would be easy. After all,
what could go wrong? From the sounds of things the community
members were having a party. It would be a slaughter.
* * *
Father Jonathon Reilly watched the bodies
moving on the makeshift dance floor and he smiled as people caught
his eye. When they urged him to join them, he shook his head and
pointed at his stomach and they nodded and returned to their
dancing. His injuries had healed remarkably well but he wasn’t in
the mood to join the revellers and using his frailty, while a
little dishonest, was the path of least resistance.
His smile was fixed to his face but it did
not reach his eyes. The image of Jack Pearson’s lifeless body was
still burned in his memory and he looked at every smiling face in
the community with a distrust that sickened him. He was meant to be
their spiritual leader. He was the one who was meant to teach them
forgiveness. But he couldn’t forgive the person who had killed Jack
so callously and had destroyed the community’s only protection from
discovery.
Adam Wilkins was still trying to fix the
broken radio mast but it was slow going and all the time they were
visible to any vampires who might pass overhead. He found his eyes
constantly glancing upwards as if a silent winged death was already
swooping towards them. But all he could see was the driving rain
and the roiling clouds. The council had decided not to tell the
rest of the community about their vulnerability for now. Why worry
them? They had enough to worry about living in such a troubled
world. Vampires, thralls, severe weather changes, and now they had
the threat of a nuclear cloud which may or may not come their way.
Were they truly alone in this world? Was everyone else a brainless
source of food for the vampires, a source that was being poisoned
by the very concoction that made them docile? What a world it had
become.
The celebration was taking place under a
large canvass roof that they had strung up between two of the
buildings that made up the living quarters. They had had to move
outside as there were now too many people to fit in any of the
areas they inhabited. And yet they had lost so many. The faces of
those who had died skipped through his mind. He tried so hard to
balance their growing numbers against those that survived but the
scales were ineluctably drawing to a point where the negatives
would outweigh the positives. How many more would die?
His thoughts were interrupted as a hand
touched his elbow and he turned to see Sandra Harrington offer him
a glass of clear liquid. If the vampires didn’t kill them then
surely Jonathon Price’s alcohol would. Price, like Pat Smith, had
been a chemist before the vampires had come. However, his talents
did not lend themselves to research. Show him a compound or a
formula and he could replicate it but creating something new was
beyond him. He did come with a formula for whiskey though and, to
most of the community, that put him above Pat in the popularity
stakes. He had quickly become the main distributor of alcohol after
the bottled branded goods had been used up. Many people tried to
make all kinds of hooch, beer and anything else that would nullify
the pain or depression of their lives, but none were more popular
than Price’s strange concoction. It kicked like a mule but warmed
the stomach like nothing he had ever tried. He took the proffered
glass and smiled. Sandra nodded but didn’t smile. She held his gaze
for another minute then looked out at the rain.