Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror (28 page)

A thin, shrill cry, another flurry of resistance, and finally, I felt the creature droop. Refusing to believe this was not a ruse, I held on, pressing my clenched fists into the flames, until I felt nothing but numbness.

The flames died. The demon did not move.

Cautiously, I opened one hand, still pressing down with the flat of my palm. No movement but the sliding of my hand against greasy soot where the demon had been. I opened the other, in the same fashion, scarcely believing my eyes.

A smear of oily green against the dying embers on top of the stone altar was all that was left of it.

I’d killed it. I stepped back, made a reverence, and only then felt the pain that had been blotted out by my concerted efforts. My eyes stung from smoke, my hands looked like ground meat, and I was infernally tired. My head ached, from clenching my teeth in concentration and from Da’s drink and his blow to my head.

Then I didn’t hurt. The numbness I’d felt returned, flooding my body, and for one excruciating moment, I thought I’d somehow caught fire. I looked down, and the charred and shredded flesh of my hands fell away, showing new, pink flesh beneath. I undid the
bandage on my hand, and the roughness of my torn wool dress against the new skin was the only discomfort I felt.

I understood. In defeating something so unclean, I’d received a measure of grace.

I heard the Stone Harbor church bell tolling the hour. Could it really be only noon? I ran from there, not caring that I was in bloody rags, not caring who saw me going about without a cap, my hair untied and streaming behind me. There was a strength to the pale winter sun that I’d missed, and I laughed aloud to feel its warmth.

Spring was finally here. Spring was here, the demon was dead, and there was light in the world again.

I tripped across new, deep furrows: someone, in a fit of optimism or desperation or drunkenness, had begun to plow early. As I stumbled, still laughing, the fresh, honest scent of the earth filled my lungs, and as I reached the other side of the field, the ground began to climb. I knew I was at the edge of Farmington, and Stone Harbor was not two miles away. Another rise, cross the beck, and I’d be there. I had my small store of funds and I could sell my labor for a term or two, and be no worse off than I had been in the village. Captain Thrupp had told me there was a need for workers, and I believed him to be an honest man.

As I started up the second rise, I began to breathe heavily. Thinking on all that had occurred in the past few days, it only made sense to be weary. The liveliness that follows extended effort wore away, and my pace slowed. But I could see the steeples of Stone Harbor now, and my heart was light.

I’d won. I’d survived.

I slowed further as I reached the stream. It was wider and deeper than I ever remembered seeing, and I paused at this last boundary between my old life and my new. I was sweating now, and itched all over, alternately shivering and feverish. Just cross the stream, and an easy walk to town, and I would be safe.

The stream was swollen from the winter snows beginning to melt up in the mountains. The water rushed and roared, such a monstrous racket for a small stream. But it seemed no longer a minor obstacle to be traversed by wading or going from smooth stone to stone. I felt myself shrink before it, almost, afraid to risk crossing when I was exhausted and feeling sickly. Drowning, being swept away, and a memory of the spilled holy water made me frightened.

One last step,
I told myself.
That’s all. Put a foot, a hand, in the water, and you’ll see it’s nothing,
an unfamiliar voice deep inside me said faintly.
Do that, and you’ll find the courage to cross. All will be well.

The sun beat down as if at midsummer, and my head seemed filled with the roiling chaos of the current, until I could not think clearly. Fear welled in me, and I was as stone.

The brutal sun overhead, the confusion of the river that threatened to drown me even as I stayed on the shore. I was filled with terror, unable to move. The other side of the stream seemed an ocean away, the tumultuous waves as high as the bell tower.

That thought calmed me. The distant bell tower. That brought peace; I felt my head clear. The wind shifted, carrying the sound of Stone Harbor’s tolling bell—had I really spent two hours here, by that roaring torrent, amazed? The sound grated on my ears; there must have been a crack in those lovely bells I had loved so much, for they now seemed hateful and shrill. Doom-laden.

The wind picked up, and I caught again the scent of the tilled earth behind me. Perhaps I didn’t need to leave after all. Everything I’d feared in Farmington was gone now. I had a house, I had my housewifely skills.

I could feed myself as well in the village as in some far-off town. I knew how to work, I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I’d never be afraid again.

A kind of mellowing happiness settled over me as I turned away from the consuming flood of the stream. My fatigue and illness lifted. I’d made the right decision.

I trudged, wearily, happily, and decisively, back up to Da’s house—my house, now. I kept going, until I crossed the field and found myself at the mound. I began to climb it. The intensity of the sun—when had the first month of spring ever been so hot?—was like the flames on the altar. I crawled under the flat rock, smelling the dampness and feeling the cold of the ground soothe me. I settled myself comfortably, curling around until I was a snug little ball.

Maybe just a nap, then I’d search for food. And then, who knows? Perhaps I’d find my way across that stream, when it was frozen over, and visit Stone Harbor after all. Plenty to eat there, too.

As I settled into my slumber, away from the hateful sun, I heard Jenn singing to me. She was happy, I could tell, because we were together again, just as we’d been promised.

Besides, this was my village. No one else belonged here. There can be only one queen.

A
fter decades of movies and TV shows and books filled with creatures by turns terrifying and tempting, it was a guarantee that the real vampires could never live up to the hype. We knew that. Yet we were still disappointed.

When the first stories hit the news—always from some distant place we’d never visited or planned to visit—the jokes followed. Late-night comedy routines, YouTube videos, Internet memes . . . people had a blast mocking the reality of vampires. The most popular costume that Halloween? Showing up dressed as yourself and saying “Look, I’m a vampire.” Ha-ha.

Then cases emerged in the US, and people stopped laughing.

While vampirism was no longer comedy fodder, people were still disillusioned. They just found new ways to express it. Some started petitions claiming the term
vampire
made a mockery of a serious medical condition. Others started petitions claiming it made a mockery of long-standing folklore. There was actually a bill before Congress to legislate a change of terminology.

Then the initial mass outbreak erupted, and no one cared what they called it anymore.

I
first heard about the vampires in a college lecture hall. I couldn’t tell you which course it was—the news made too little of an impression for me to retain the surrounding circumstances. I know only that I was in class, listening to a professor, when the guy beside me said, “Hey, did you see this?” and passed me his iPhone. I was going to ignore him. I’d been doing that all term—he kept sitting beside me and making comments and expecting me to be impressed, when all I wanted to say was, “How about trying to talk to me
outside
of class?” But that might have been an invitation I’d regret. So I usually ignored him, but this time, he’d shoved his phone in front of me and before I could turn away, I saw the headline.

The headline read
REAL-LIFE VAMPIRES IN VENEZUELA.
The article went on to say that there had been five incidents in which people had woken to find themselves covered in blood . . . and everyone else in the house dead and bloodless.

“Vampires,” the guy whispered. “Can you believe it? I’d have thought they’d have been scarier.”

“Slaughtering your entire family isn’t scary enough for you?”

He shifted in his seat. “You know what I mean.”

“It’s not vampires,” I said. “It’s drugs. Like those bath salts.”

I shoved the phone at him and turned my attention back to the professor.

T
wo years later, I was still living in a college dorm, despite having been due to graduate the year before. No one had graduated that term, because that’s when the outbreak struck our campus. Classes were suspended and students were quarantined. The lockdown stretched for days. Then weeks. Then months. The protests started peacefully enough, but soon we realized we were being held prisoner and fought
back. The military fought back harder. The scene played out across the nation, not just in schools, but in every community where people had been “asked” not to leave for months on end. Martial law was declared across the country. The outbreaks continued to spread.

Given what was happening in the rest of the world, soon even the college’s staunchest believers in democracy and free will realized we had it good. We were safe, living in separate quarters equipped with alarms and dead bolts so we could sleep securely. Otherwise, we were free to mingle, with all our food and entertainment supplied as we waited for the government to find a cure.

One morning I awoke to the sound of my best friend, Katie, banging on my door, shouting that the answer was finally here. I dressed as quickly as I could and joined her in the hall.

“A cure?” I said.

Her face fell. “No,” she said, and I regretted asking. I’d known Katie since my sophomore year, and she bore little resemblance to the girl she’d been. I used to envy her, with her amazing family and amazing boyfriend back home. It’d been a year since she’d seen them. Three months since she’d heard from them, as the authorities cut off communications with her quarantined hometown. She’d lost thirty pounds, her sweet nature reduced to little more than anxiety and nerves, unable to grieve, not daring to hope.

“Not a cure,” she said. “But the next best thing. A method of detection. We can be tested. And then we can leave.”

A
method of detection. Wonderful news for an optimist. I am not an optimist. I heard that and all I could think was,
What if we test positive?
At the assembly, I was the annoying one in the front row badgering the presenters with exactly that question. “What will happen if we have the marker?”

That’s what it was—a genetic marker. Which didn’t answer the question of transmission. Two years since the first outbreak, and no
one knew what actually caused vampirism. It seemed to be something inside us that just “activated.” Of course, people blamed the government. It was in the vaccinations or the water or the genetically modified food. What was the trigger? No one knew, and frankly, it seemed like no one cared.

Those who had the marker would be subjected to continued quarantine while scientists searched for a cure. The rest of us would be free to go. Well, free to go someplace that wasn’t quarantined.

The next day, the military lined us up outside the cafeteria. There were still people who worried that the second they got a positive result, the nearest guy in fatigues would pull out his semiautomatic. Bullshit, of course. The semiautomatic would make noise. If they planned to kill us, they’d do it much more discreetly.

To allay concerns, the testing would be communal. As open as they could make it. I had to give them props for that.

They took a DNA sample and analyzed it on the spot. That instant analysis wouldn’t have been possible a couple of years ago, but when you’re facing a vampire plague, all the best minds work day and night to develop the tools to fight it, whether they want to or not.

My results took eight seconds. I counted. Then they handed me a blue slip of paper. I looked down the line at everyone who’d been tested before me. Green papers, red, yellow, purple, white, and black. They didn’t dare use a binary system here. So we got our papers and we sat and we waited.

When Katie came over clutching a green slip of paper, she looked at mine and said, “Oh,” and looked around, mentally tabulating colors.

“They say the rate is fifteen percent,” I said. “There are seven colors. That means an equal number for each so we don’t panic.”

Once everyone was tested, they divided us into our color groups. Then we were laser-tattooed on our wrists.

I got a small yellow circle. When I craned my neck to look at the group beside us—the reds—they were getting the same. So were the blacks to my left. I exhaled in relief and looked around for Katie.

A woman announced, “If you have a yellow circle, you are clear and you may—”

That’s when the screaming started. From the green group. I caught sight of Katie, standing there, staring in horror at the black star on her wrist. I raced over. A soldier tried to stop me, but I pushed past him, saying, “I’m with her.”

A woman in uniform stepped into my path. “She’s—”

“I know,” I said. “I’m staying with her.”

I
t wasn’t a particularly noble sacrifice. That circle on my wrist meant I could leave at any time. Katie could not. I had nowhere to go anyway. My family . . . well, let’s just say that when I got accepted to college, I walked out and never looked back and don’t regret it. I won’t explain further. I don’t think I need to.

I would stay with Katie because she needed me and because I could and because—let me be frank—it was the smart thing to do. I’d heard what the world was like beyond our campus. I was staying where there was food and shelter and safety and a friend.

Assemblies and a parade of officials and psychologists followed, all reassuring the others that their black star was not a death sentence. Not everyone who had the marker “turned.” Those who did were now being transported to a secure facility, where they’d continue to await a cure.