Everything Sucks Short #1 Underground (2 page)

"And that is what you seek?" Asked the woman.
"Shelter?"

Hector nodded.

"How far have you come to find it?"

"I was born and raised on Spain, ma'am."

"Call me Idris--and that's a long hike for
shelter, boy. Was there no community where you lived?"

Hector shook his head mournfully. "Few. And
no one had a place to hide, ma--Idris. They keep away from each
other where I come from. The possibility of being found out is . .
. well, we're afraid of just
being Vampires
. That's the
world, I guess." He sighed, trying to chase away his sadness. "I
made a guess maybe community could be found here. So I came."

Idris smiled. "Well you're no fool, I'll give
you that much. We do have shelter. About 60 miles beyond the holy
seat is Orvieto. Beneath it is a whole underground city. It's been
my roost for some time."

"How many others?" Hector queried.

Idris sighed. "Numbers vary. In the hundreds
now, but we have sometimes been as few as thirty. Any Vampire
willing to get a little dirty is welcome to stay; wait out this
madness."

Hector scoffed. "As if it will ever end."

"This is a phase of extremes. More widespread
than most, and may spread further still, but extremes die down
eventually. If we stay cautious, and keep the right company, we
will emerge unscathed."

Dietary needs aside, Hector disliked
violence; but circumstances compelled him to accept the shelter of
Papal goodwill in the name of self interest. Endless hiding and
fleeing from so many towns had exhausted his will, his sense of
hope. So he accepted the outstretched hand of the Underground.

A year later he regretted this single
decision more than any other. He didn't mind the crowd. He didn't
mind the smell. He didn't even mind the Cardinals making frequent
use of the tunnels, or that any substantial amount of fresh blood
only came when a truly aggressive
purge
was launched.
Dissidents tossed to them by the dozen. Down the chutes they were
thrown, rites of excommunication performed above them as they fell.
The brutality of the latter did bother him, but even with shelter
one wanted to avoid discovery. Caution ruled the world, so they
rarely got more than a few warm meals in a decade. Ugly as it was,
a city-wide cleansing (slaughter) usually meant they'd eat well for
a few days.

No, what bothered him was the never ending
river of blood spilled by the Vatican and detractors alike. Even
those committed to weakening the unyielding supremacy of the
Church; though motivated by a desire to end the ruthless
prosecution of even minor sins, acted with a brutality equal to
even the most paranoid, power-mongering Cardinals. His kind seemed
completely hobbled by the state of things; helpless babies unable
to use their own teeth. 

This undeclared, many-headed war was like a
giant boulder careening down an infinite hill. Mindless, but fatal
to those in its path. The Living (and Vampires, for that matter)
seemed determined, or at least willing, to bear this circumstance
all the way to The Rapture.

Hector couldn't stomach the wait.

He wracked his brain for a way change things.
The world at large was still dangerously inhospitable. What he
needed was a way to destroy both the Vatican, and the most ruthless
of the dissenters. They all had to go, or the world would never
find peace. He wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't do it alone.
Solitary crusaders singlehandedly defeating every sort of injustice
only existed in myth and legend. They were bedtime stories, not
guiding lights.

He needed to raise an army, but he had
learned not to look to the Underground sheep for anything but
slavish obedience. A city of such powerful predators, yet every one
of them stood neutered, nearly paralyzed; their strength atrophied
by centuries of relying on the Holy Teat. The great irony (as only
Hector seemed to realize) being the Holy Teat was responsible for
the parade of persecution which had driven them underground in the
first place.

Knowing his immediate peers would be useless,
Hector began to sneak out. He trained himself to tolerate sunlight
for
hours
. As far as he knew this was unheard of. Learning
to bear the scorch of sunlight for any length of time was a decades
long task for most Vampires; but he was driven. Sunlight was only a
minor obstacle in the way of a larger goal.

He watched for men and women who showed
strength, who defended themselves or others when needed. He turned
them, and kept them hidden in a long-forgotten nook of the
Underground he'd discovered while searching for a convenient place
to sneak out. He kept them fed well enough to be coherent, but too
weak to leave. He explained everything he could, answered
questions, assuaged worries. His goal was to establish a trust. He
needed their trust to make them understand; to make them ready for
war. A war to end all wars. Once the Underground Vampires realized
rebellion was possible, saw it with their own eyes, he believed
most of them would find their teeth again, and join the cause.

He overestimated his peers. Hector and his
creations staged the first strike against their so-called
'protectors' right there in the Underground where the rest could
witness it. Five dissenters and five Cardinals. All were dragged in
through different tunnels, all killed in the central gathering room
while the Underground Vampires looked on, too shocked and confused
to involve themselves.

Then
she
fought her way through the
crowd.

Idris.

She approached, predator features in full
display, and launched herself snarling and screaming toward
Hector's young army. He had over 40 soldiers stashed all about
Orvieto, but had only called on twelve for what should have been a
bloody, awesome re-awakening of independent spirit.

He knew Idris was a ferocious fighter, but
her talent for lighting quick carnage surprised even him. All but
two of his creations lay dead at his feet within minutes. Most of
the other Vampires either fled the room, or huddled together,
stunned by the act of naked defiance.

"What have you done?" Idris demanded, not
even bothering to wring the blood from her clothes. "Thoughtless
child! Three of these people were close, personal friends of the
Pope himself! I don't recognize the rest, but I assume they were
affluent, yes?"

"Or prominent." Hector's jaw clenched,
stubborn. "We mean to begin a great change. I have more than these!
Don't you understand?" He asked, indicating the slain Vampires
heaped between them. The demonstration was turning against him. He
felt his insides boil with desperation, and pitched headlong into
pleading, unable to stop himself. "We are Vampires!" He yelled to
the shocked crowd, though his stare stayed riveted on Idris. "The
Living could never
hope
to match our speed, our strength, or
senses. with large enough numbers we could flush the
world
clean of zealots! All of them!"

Everyone knew to pay attention when Idris got
worked up; if for no other reason than to witness the sheer
spectacle. So when Hector turned to face the crowd, he found
himself the focus of a packed room. He went on without missing a
beat. "Imagine it! All of you! Imagine a better world for
yourselves! Imagine us not living like rats!" He waved a hand
around the damp stone and gloom of their so-called haven. "Imagine
us and
the Living
freed from the ruthless soldiers of false
righteousness! We do have choices beyond this . . . hole." He
kicked at the dull dust beneath his feet to emphasize his point.
Damn the Underground.

He didn't even see Idris's attack. She hit
him full-force, knocked him over seemingly without effort. Then she
leapt on top of him, pinning him to the ground as she crouched on
his chest, grinning like a rabid cannibal. "Listen carefully,
boy
, because repetition bores me, and I kill things when I'm
bored."

Hector opened his mouth to speak, but Idris
threw her head back in roar loud enough to shake dirt free of the
ceiling.

As dust drifted down in an opaque cloud,
Idris hunched low over her captive and continued. "You have brought
us the kind of trouble that could finish us all! Whenever the whim
takes them, the Cardinals could seal us in to desiccate, or burn
out the whole of our Underground! This is our only shelter, foolish
child! What idiocy possessed you?"

"We can change--" the rest of his rebuttal
was lost when Idris picked him up and drove him into the hard
ground with enough force to rattle his bones. Applause echoed
through the chamber. It was the moment Hector gave up hope, and
said a silent goodbye to his dream.

"You cannot revolutionize
The Living
you spectacular imbecile!" She shrieked, the last of her patience
spent. "They're Living! They will always find a reason for more
slaughter; one glorious cause after another! You cannot! Stop!
Them!" Her words were punctuated by unrestrained blows to the face.
"Our only option is to take what cover we can until
this
fervor
dies down!" She moved her face closer to his, looming
over him, as inescapable as the dark of a moonless night. "And it
will pass, child. If you were older you would know that." She
pulled him violently to his feet.

He steadied himself, and noticed the faces
surrounding him were all Predator-drawn. Every one of them. Despite
his youth, he knew what it meant. Before he could speak to defend
himself, Idris's voice rang out, piercing and firm. A hammer of
absolute determination. Hector's withering heart broke to know what
an ally she could have been.

"No!" She shouted, her hands held up as if to
punctuate the command. "No. I suggest he live, and be thrown to the
world above ground. Let him learn the terrible truth."

Hector bore the rest of the Dark Ages
wandering. He searched for someplace solid to plant his feet, but
found nothing. He soon realized the idea of
home
was only a
foolish daydream.

He also learned Living People had short
memories. No matter how brutal the war, any commitment to peace
would be forgotten the moment another national rage was provoked,
or blatantly created by the greedy and ambitious. Great nations
willingly destroyed themselves again and again in pursuit of a
mended ego, or moral supremacy.

When the world finally regained some
semblance of sanity, he began to see Vampires test the waters of
clandestine citizenship once again. So Hector dipped a toe in, and
quickly decided neither society fit him. Not Vampires. Not the
Living. His urge to revolutionize, or attempt to change anything
about the world had been beaten out of him.

He distracted himself from the gaping chasm
of eternity with play. Play was fun, meaningless. Play ate up time,
satisfied the urge for company, and strictly avoided seriousness.
Play was his stock and trade for centuries. Then one night, he
wandered down the alley behind the Doghouse.

Of all places to run into his evictor. A
dinky theater in an almost microscopic Montana town. He decided to
be optimistic and throw one last punch. It landed beautifully; sent
her spinning. Eight hundred years to get in one good punch. He
stepped back as he wiped the trickle of blood from his nose.

He and Idris stared at one another for what
felt like an hour. A minute or two, probably.

"You're absolved," Hector said with a
dismissive wave. "I have learned not to care. I let it all go.
Every idea or great movement becomes a tool for manipulators and
despots eventually, just like you said, so I don't bother anymore.
I travel, and I play. When I care too much I move."

Iris frowned. "I don't think I said
that."

"Close enough." Hector felt his cell phone
vibrate. Text message. He checked it and let out a long groan. He
looked at his disheveled nemesis, who seemed surprised to see him
with a cell phone. He shrugged. "Yeah. It's a handy gadget. Anyway,
I'd love to catch up, but I gotta go. Bud, my
idiot
friend
tried to walk home drunk, seems to have gotten lost and sprained
his ankle. I gotta go get him."

"Where is he?" Asked Iris.

Hector read the text, imitating Bud's drunk
voice just for the hell of it. "Uh, thrrrrrrrs a big taaaaaash can
'nd cats 'n grass. Whatever. I'll find him and get him home. Nice
seeing you. We'll get coffee sometime. My treat."

Iris frowned. "I kicked your ass. Twice."

"Meh." Hector shrugged at her and walked
away.

He never got around to that coffee with
Idris. (or sex, Hector hadn't ruled it out just because of their
fight, what's a little violence between old acquaintances after
all?) A week after their alley encounter, Owen and Lauren broke up
in an emotional maelstrom of dumbassery. No one in their group
escaped the fallout, but the worst of it landed on Chloe. Surviving
the ordeal required her to employ the diplomacy skills of a court
appointed mediator. Navigating a simple conversation with either of
them could get tricky. So he turned her and asked if she'd like to
leave town with him. Her parents weren't what you'd call
'involved.' She was convinced he'd dosed her with some funky new
drug and laughed about it almost all the way to Wyoming, noting
that the fact she was laughing, unafraid, and freakishly aware of
'stuff' was proof Hector had slipped her something just for the
hell if it. It was the single greatest feat of Vampirism denial
Hector had ever heard. Adorable. He enjoyed Newbies. They were
always so much fun.

*********************************

Copyright 2013 R. Smith

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