Vigil (5 page)

Chapter Eleven

Fallon Corp. Research Facility

Perimeter

Samson was staring at a screen when Marie arrived.

‘What’s happening, Sam?’

‘Some shit,’ he answered.

Jean Peroux, tapping commands into the central hub, waved her over.

‘There,’ he said. On screen one of the three remaining turrets came out of the ground. Marie watched it swivel, once, twice, as Jean ran a diagnostic on it.

The camera shot on screen rolled back.

‘Incoming?’ she said.

‘Yeah. It’s something, alright.’

‘Would someone shut that fucking thing off?’

Jean checked the status of all three turrets before he deactivated the alarm.

The ringing in Marie’s ears persisted.

Alain March and his wife Suzanne came into the hub at a run. Their faces were stony but Marie thought she detected a hint of fear, too.

Jean turned and smiled tightly at them. ‘Good. All here,’ he said.

‘At last, we can hear ourselves speak. Thirteen minutes ago, twenty-five since nightfall, we picked up three beats on the proximity monitor. We have analysed them and they’re human. I’m bringing up the heat sensors now.’

Marie turned her eyes to the wall monitor. There was a moment when the screens were blank. Dead before anything had begun, she thought, but then she saw them. Three survivors.

‘God damn,’ she said.

‘God damn is right,’ said Samson. He had a joint behind his ear. It was his little way of celebrating a kill. He’d save it until this was over. Marie wondered if he’d get to light it tonight. She
kind of hope he did, kind of hoped not. The night felt wrong.

‘Pan in with the infrared, Jean. I want to see their heat signatures.’ Their faces loomed closer. They were just standing there, looking around. Why didn’t they run? They were sitting ducks.

‘This is fucked,’ said Samson.

Marie could only nod.

They all knew it as well as she did. The scenario was wrong.

Jean voiced the thought.

‘They should be running. Or hiding. They’re just standing there.’

‘Everyone watch your stations. I’m going to do a perimeter sweep. Stay alert.’

Marie kept her eyes on her monitors. They covered 360°, the complete view around entrance four. There was a dead spot behind a partly destroyed warehouse complex, but the scanners covered that with heat resonance imaging. The only way a vampire could get past the monitors was to approach covered in tin foil from head to foot, moving at a pace of less than a foot per second. The system was extremely sensitive. Marie still felt uneasy. Was there something that the designers of the complex had overlooked, some design fault?

Visibility wasn’t the issue. The city was a
largely a barren wasteland. The raging fires that had followed the bombings wiped much of the remaining outskirts of the city bare. There were few places for vampires to hide.

It was difficult to concentrate on the screens while her mind was racing t
hrough all the possibilities. She just hoped she wasn’t missing something.

‘Nothing,’ said Jean. ‘Anyone getting anything?’

Each replied nothing. Not one of their voices was sure, though. It wasn’t just nerves. The survivors were developing different senses. They could feel something wrong.

Everyone had faced vampires in the flesh. After a while, working topside among the ruins, running scavenger hunts and taking samples, you could feel eyes on you. Even during the day, when it was safest, they could feel the prickling, the hairs rising on the back of their necks. Even Jean, who hadn’t seen a vampire since he had lost his left leg below the knee, could sense it.

Marie was the first to voice their fears.

‘It’s a trap.’

‘They could just be afraid,’ said Suzanne.

‘If they were afraid, they would run. Look. Look at the height of the one in the middle. It’s a girl. She’s been born into this world. She knows to run. She knows to hide. It’s wrong. I say we keep the doors closed. I don’t think we should risk sending a team topside to get them.’

Alain shook his head. ‘We can’t just leave them there. If a vampire hasn’t smelled them yet it won’t be long. We haven’t got time to argue. Jean, order a team topside. If we leave them there it would be the same as murder. I’d rather we shoot them dead now than leave it to that.’

‘That’s got my vote,’ said Samson. ‘Shoot them dead now. Why risk our necks?’

‘Sam! Do not be an arsehole.’

‘Fuck you, Suzanne. You know it makes sense. This is wrong. They could be infected.’

‘Bullshit. They’re not infected. They’re human. The heat signature is wrong for the infected and you know it. You can see just as well as the rest of us.’

‘What if they’re grunts? Newly infected? We wouldn’t know.’

Suzanne spun to face Sam. ‘Then we isolate them, same as we always do!’

‘Alright,’ said Jean. ‘Everyone keep calm.’

‘Jean. It’s a trap,’ said Marie. ‘Think about it.’

‘What are you thinking, Marie?’

‘Vampires could be watching. They don’t know where the entrances are. They could be watching and waiting for us to show them.’

‘Well, where are they?’

‘They could be anywhere. The scanners can only cover so much ground. If they were out of range…’

‘And how would they know what the range is? No, I don’t think so.’

‘Jean,’ Marie said softly. Shouting would do no good. ‘Listen to me. Tom thinks they are evolving. Becoming smarter.’

‘Tom’s losing his mind, Marie. I know you care for him, but don’t let him drag you down, too. He’s already got people talking and it won’t help. We need hard facts. We can’t risk lives on his hunches.’

‘I’m not talking about risking anyone’s life. I’m talking about protecting them. If we take these people in at night the vampires will know. They are working together, Jean. That’s a fact.’

‘It’s true,’ said Samson, reluctantly. ‘We saw it today. Much as it pains me to say it, the old fool is right. I wouldn’t put it past them to set a trap. They know they can’t get to us down here, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know we’re here.’

‘We can’t leave them out there,’ said Jean, but he didn’t sound certain.

‘We can, Jean,’ said Marie carefully. ‘We have to. We never open a gate at night. We know better. The risks aren’t worth it. We can protect the people from here. If they just stay where they are, we can cover them. But we can’t open the gate in the dark. It’s just too risky. I don’t trust this at all.’

Jean rubbed a rough hand over his eyes. ‘We could be killing them.’

Samson shrugged. ‘You want facts? Hard facts? Three people out there, people we can protect, maybe. Over two hundred in here. If we open that gate and we’re not fast enough, we could be letting in a whole heap of trouble. Kill them, leave them there, I don’t care. But don’t let them in. Marie’s right. It stinks. They’re bait.’

Alain sighed heavily, but he nodded. ‘I hate it, but I agree. I think they’re bait.’

Suzanne shook her head. ‘Alain…’

‘Sorry, Suze, but I don’t think we should risk it.’

Suzanne kept her face calm, but she was trembling. ‘I do not care what you all say. We cannot leave them there. It is murder. Murder. Simple.’

Jean held up a hand. ‘I’ve heard enough. Keep your eyes on the monitors. We’re going to do what we can from here. We’re not going to open the gates. We’ll shoot anything that moves. On sight, if it’s a vampire or a cannibal, even if it’s a god damn deer, shoot it. We have one priority tonight, and that’s to keep those people alive.’

Jean picked up the intercom.

‘Tell Kappa his team’s on standby.’

Marie put everything else aside in her mind. Tom was forgotten.

She puffed out her breath and stretched her back straight again. She’d been hunched but the tension left her.

Jean, as always, took the hub. He would run the operation, until the sun rose.

Alain took northern turret, Suzanne watching over his shoulder.

Sam took eastern turret, Marie controlled the west.

Sam and Marie had the most ground to cover as south had been unprotected since the fourth turret had malfunctioned.

Marie wasn’t worried. She was hunting. Sam had her back.

This, she could do.

*

Chapter Twelve

Perimeter

Fallon Corp.

The little girl stood where she’d been told to stand. Her name was Nicole. She didn’t move. Her father held her hand. His hand shook but hers was steady. She’d been born into this world and understood much that he did not. He was fifty-five. She was twelve.

She had grown up in a small village many miles from Paris, hiding during the night and hunting during the day. She was too young to hunt vampires. She hunted small rodents. She was quick and could get places the adults could not.

Nicole spoke French and English well. Her mother had taught her during the long nights, in whispered conversations while Gerard and Mikael and her father had guarded over them. It was the only life she had known, until men from the hills came and told them they could protect them. That had been when she was ten. The men from the hills had all died when she was eleven. Gerard and Mikael, too. Now she was here. Her birthday had passed forgotten, but she didn’t mind. Her father had other things to worry about.

Like how they were going to remain alive until day break.

She looked around but she could not see anything. She could not see
them
. She knew they were there. She could feel them.

They were different to the others. There were many of them, but they weren’t like the new vampires, or the old ones. None of those were as old as her father, but they were old enough to be smart.

They had destroyed the men from the hills with ease. The men from the hills had died because they had underestimated the vampires. It was a word she had learned from her mother. She had often told her she must not underestimate vampires, or people, to survive in this world.

The men from the hills had guns. Guns worked well enough, if you could shoot a vampire in the head, or shoot it enough so it couldn’t heal before you shot it in the head.

The men from the hills made assumptions. They had all made assumptions. One big one, really. That the vampires weren’t smart enough to use weapons.

They were wrong, so they died.

Once, their little group of fighters had survived. They had killed many vampires, and they had survived.

But this new group were different. They spoke many languages. They worked together. They had a leader. The one with dark eyes. He had a hawk’s nose. His arm
s were the most striking thing about him. They were pale, almost pure white. He walked during the day. It was a simple trick. He’d taught them the trick. The moon didn’t bother him. The sun, maybe a little, but not enough to stop him.

They obeyed him. He was more dangerous than all of them put together.

It was the one with the pale hands that taught them how to drain their blood without turning people or killing them.

Hundreds of miles away, other survivors were fed and watered and tied down and drained of their blood through needles that went into jars. The vampire-kin didn’t have to hunt. Instead, they farmed.

Nicole was the lucky one. She was taken here in a van, blindfolded, driven through the night. They had been told to stand here for as long as it took. Nothing more, nothing less.

But she was a smart girl. She knew this would be her only chance to live. If she ran, though, they would catch her in minutes. They were so fast. They wouldn’t kill her. They would take her back and poke her with needles and feed on her blood while her mind turned inside to get away from the horror.

She saw it in her father’s eyes when she looked at him. That was why she didn’t mind that he had forgotten her birthday. She understood why his hand shook.

Samantha’s hand didn’t shake at all. She just stood dumb. Nicole wanted to take her hand, but Samantha frightened her. Her eyes were dead. They just stared. She just went where the vampires pointed her. Nicole had been forced to take her hand to make her stop walking and stand where they were told.

She didn’t want to end up like Samantha. She thought Samantha was already kind of dead. Dead inside.

It made her shiver. She looked around again. Looked at the turret. She could just make it out. It turned, occasionally. They had turrets like this above the farm.

She was a smart girl. She understood why she was here.

She didn’t know if anyone could hear her, but she spoke, anyway, because she remembered the way the vampires had destroyed her friends. She remembered how her mother had died. She made an assumption, but she thought it was a pretty good one.

*