Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (20 page)

“You have taken your chances
well, human.”

The
compliment was grudgingly given but the use of the word ‘human’ was
calculated to let Carter know that there was a pecking order to
this meeting. It did, however, bode well that he had begun the
meeting somewhat positively. Carter, however, was not prepared to
start off on the wrong foot.

“
I am not
human, anymore than you are, vampire,” he spat the words out with a
little more vehemence than he had intended, and he cursed himself
for letting Von Kruger get to him.

“You are closer to human than
vampire,” Von Kruger began with a fire in his eyes that had Carter
almost ready to flee back down the knoll. The only thing that kept
him in place was the sure knowledge that he would not get two paces
before the vampire tore him apart.
Had he gone too far?
He
stood terrified as he watched the vampire fight the anger that
threatened to engulf him. It was almost as if there were two
personalities at war with each other. But which would come out on
top?

“
But,”
the
vampire finally managed a word and
with it came an easing of the muscles in his face as he regained
control. “We are not here to trade insults, thrall. We have a
problem.”

“
The humans.”
Carter nodded.

“
Indeed.” Von
Kruger looked over Carter and he got the distinct impression he was
still deciding whether he should continue talking or merely feed.
“There are few ways they can evade our powers. I have determined
that they must be hiding underground and have compiled a list of
the most practical sites…”

“You are assuming that they are
within the area you are searching.”

Von Kruger
looked as though he had been slapped and again Carter could only
watch as the vampire struggled against his nature once
again.

“Where else could they be?” he
shouted as spittle flew from his mouth and sprayed Carter. Carter
forced himself to remain calm and merely wiped his face casually.
“I believe they are hiding outside our territory,” he stressed the
word ‘our’, “and cross the border when they want to attack or steal
humans or resources.”

Von Kruger
looked at him incredulously for a moment, and then suddenly burst
out laughing. It was so unexpected that Carter felt himself growing
red with embarrassment and anger. “And I thought you were an
adversary worthy of my respect. It seems I was mistaken. Nero
controls the closest territory to us and even I would think twice
about operating in his dominion, let alone a pathetic band of
humans. It seems I was wrong about you, human.” He spat the word
and loomed over Carter alarmingly. Carter could hear the grinding
of bone and splitting of flesh as the vampire began to
change.

Carter stood
his ground and forced himself to look the vampire in the eyes. He
could see the madness there and he despaired. There could be no
truce with such a creature. He was far too unstable.

“
You are
pathetic,” Von Kruger continued as his body grew to tower over him,
but Carter remained firm despite the fear that gripped him. This
moment would define his position for the future - assuming of
course that Von Kruger did not lose himself to his bestial side
entirely.

“
We are done
here,” Von Kruger continued as his body slowly began to return to
normal with a crunching of bone that grated on Carter’s nerves. “I
will allow you to live for now in accordance to the truce that we
speak under. But, mark my words, human.” Von Kruger looked him in
the eye and all signs of the madness were gone. Somehow that made
the vampire more frightening. “Once I have found the humans buried
and huddled in their cement graves I will seek you out and you
shall know true terror before I finally let you die.”

Carter felt
the familiar fear that vampires used to petrify their prey suffuse
through him, but he fought against it. He had killed vampires, and
their parlour tricks no longer held him in thrall to them. He
stared back defiantly and was pleased to see uncertainty in the
vampire’s eyes. He took strength from this and forced his voice to
remain calm as he replied.

“
You may
control the night, vampire, but I control the day, and you will
learn to fear each dawn as you wake to see your numbers dwindling
until, finally, there is only you remaining. And then I will come
for you personally.” Without waiting for a response Carter forced
himself to turn and walk away. He imagined all kinds of responses,
impotent anger, shouted curses or being dragged to the ground and
mauled. He forced himself to keep walking on nervous legs, tense
and ready for an attack, until, finally, he heard a violent
rustling and the wash of air that signified that the vampire had
taken to the air.

Well that didn’t exactly work
out as planned
, he thought as he finally allowed himself to
drop to his knees and throw up on the dark carpet of grass. It was
some time before he found the strength to rise and return to his
men.

Chapter 13

“How many?”

Philip
Warkowski ignored the speaker as he swept the structure
systematically with his telescopic sight, pausing for a moment on
each thrall before moving on to the n
ext.
When he reached twenty five he sighed and laid down his
rifle.

“
Too fucking
many,” he sighed as he turned to face Harris and the others.
“There’s a lot more guards in that facility than I would have
expected. I mean, it’s not as if it’s on the border with any other
states.”

“
Maybe the
tension between the vampires and the thralls is worse than we
thought,” Sandra Harrington suggested and Warkowski pursed his
lips.

“
It’s
possible, I suppose. There are more than are needed to guard the
facility against a normal attack, but there aren’t really enough of
them to fight off a concerted attack by vampires. I don’t
know.”

The group had spent the last two
days travelling here, avoiding the highways and keeping to the back
roads wherever possible. Over the last few months they had noticed
that the thralls tended to travel on the path of least resistance.
There had been a concerted effort in the last year to clear the
highways of debris and any burnt out husks that dated back to the
war.

The thralls
now had a clear run throughout the states on highways that allowed
them to travel quickly when needed. The benefit of this, as far as
Harris and his group were concerned, was that the thralls never
bothered to venture off the highways anymore. Of course, these
scenic routes passed through towns, some of which were deserted and
some of which were still being used as holding pens for humans, so
it was not easy for the rebels to use these roads. However, they
had been able to travel by truck more than half the distance to the
plant before they were forced to abandon their vehicle and continue
on foot.

The nuclear
plant occupied a huge area. Ricks told them that it sat on over 650
acres of land, but hearing it and seeing it were very different.
Harris was amazed that the plant itself was so big. He wasn’t sure
what he had expected but it certainly wasn’t something of this
size. From where they watched, Harris could see the edge of the
nearby city of Bridgman which still flourished, mainly because they
had control of the power for the whole county. The city occupied an
area approximately twice the size of the plant and was only three
miles away from where they were.

He could see three pens in the
distance and, as he brought his binoculars to his eyes to examine
them, he could see humans shuffling vacantly within the prisons. He
wondered again why the prisoners were still being given the serum.
Didn’t the vampires know the danger?
He paused in his sweep
of the area for a moment as he realised that maybe that was it. Von
Richelieu hadn’t told the other vampires of the danger the serum
posed. But why? Was there friction between the vampires? That would
be an interesting development that he might be able to use in the
future. For now, though, there was work to be done, and he shook
himself from his thoughts as he refocused on the job at hand.

Harris wasn’t
sure what he expected from the plant itself but this certainly
wasn’t it. The plant was surrounded on three sides by lush
forest
, and it looked out over Lake
Michigan on its fourth side. Access to the plant was via a road
which ran parallel to the water for over a mile, and the views were
spectacular. He hadn’t really expected such a plant to be so
beautiful or for it to fit into the landscape so well. A huge,
grassed and well-kept area surrounded the plant, providing an
ordered and controlled space before the wild and chaotic majesty of
the forest took over. The flowers were a little ragged now that
no-one cared for them and they had overgrown their designated
areas. The grass was more of a meadow than the neat, landscaped
area it had once been, but he could imagine what it would have
looked like before the war, and he was impressed.

The front of
the plant was dominated by a huge, perfectly normal office block
which did not look threatening or out of place, despite its size.
In fact, Harris wondered how such a powerful and potentially
dangerous structure could be made to look so innocuous. The
backdrop to the plant was incredible, though, as it looked out over
a well-kept beach front. The rumble of the waves as they rolled up
onto the beach in front of the plant reached him from where he was
observing the plant. It all seemed so normal, except for the
thralls walking the perimeter, of course.

The plant
contained two nuclear reactors according to Ricks, but Harris never
would have known what they were if he hadn’t been told. They didn’t
spew toxic smoke into the air, they didn’t have huge ‘DANGER’ signs
with skulls on them as he had expected. Behind the office block,
two huge structures, like large breasts, thrust upwards and
dominated the building despite their innocuousness. There was
something powerful about them, something that announced their
importance, and their majesty made him shiver when he considered
how dangerous they had now become in this new world.

There was a small pen just
behind the reactors that contained around twenty or so humans, all
of whom stared vacantly as they shuffled aimlessly within the
confines of their prison. Harris wondered why this pen was here at
all when there were far larger enclosures only a few miles away,
and he felt his anger begin to boil as he realised it was probably
there for the convenience of visiting vampires.
God
, he
thought bitterly.
Is this what the human race has become? Merely
a fast food stop on the way to the nearest city.

He turned to
the others, his anger still flushing his cheeks as he regarded
those he had brought. Ricks was with them, of course. The
boy
- young man, he corrected himself -
was the only one with any knowledge of nuclear waste and he was
essential to their planning. April sat beside him. There had been
no point in trying to dissuade her, and they needed the numbers if
he was honest. April had become very focused since Sherman had
attacked her and Von Richelieu had sent Steele back to them as a
vampire. She had lost her innocence and, as far as Harris could
tell, her ability to smile. It had been her sixteenth birthday last
week but, despite the effort of the small group to mark the event,
she had not joined in with the celebrations.

Harris was
worried about her. He had hoped that having Ricks around - he was
around the same age after all - would have had a positive effect,
but, while they got on well and always seemed to be together, he
didn’t sense any joy in her at all. Ricks was trying his best to
learn sign, and his hands were constantly moving as he practised,
but no one really had the time to teach him so his progress was
slow. In fact, very few of them had a very large vocabulary in
sign, so April was increasingly being left out of conversations.
She could lip read incredibly well, but couldn’t put her views and
ideas across if no one understood what she was saying. He would
have to make a special effort to involve her more or risk isolating
her further. There was just so much to do and so little
time.

Warkowski was
there, of course. He was the only one left from the original group,
except for himself and Sandra, and Harris couldn’t help but see the
others in his mind when he looked at the big man. Warkowski had
grown more sombre in the last few months; in fact, the only time he
smiled now was when he was with his family. They had been left
behind at the Cave as this was a strike and withdraw mission which
did not have room for non-combatants.

As he thought about it now, he
realised that there was nothing for these people to look forward to
really, just more danger and death as they continued to risk their
lives relentlessly day after day. They were all capable, of course,
or they would not be here, but, Harris realised suddenly, they also
needed a goal. Rescue mission after rescue mission did not give
them something to strive for and he could see now that everyone in
this small group was close to breaking.
How could I have missed
it?
He had been so caught up with trying to save others that he
hadn’t seen that those who had already been saved needed more than
he had given them.

His cheeks
flushed deeper as he realised suddenly what each of these people
had given up in following him when he had been banished. Some of
them had even left their families behind, thinking they’d be safer
with the community
. Their forced
separation was beginning to hurt them though, more than they had
expected. Joshua Perkins, one of those who had joined after Ricks
had come forward, had left his mother behind in the community and
Carlos Mendez had left his younger brother.