Not If You Were the Last Vampire on Earth (18 page)

Chapter 42

Him

I watched her melt into the thick greenery. And I gasped as my heart lurched out of my chest. As she took it with her.

Chapter 43

Her

The path off the edge of the river took a steep downward turn. I followed a light trail until it disappeared under the thick carpet of plants and roots. Then I pulled out the map. Squinting at it, I tried to make out the landmarks. Ike had drawn it in mere minutes but I was still impressed with his accuracy. My head cocked at a boulder “
shaped like a pineapple”
and a surprised “oh!” left my lips. The stacked rocks on top and the round tear-drop bottom did indeed resemble the tropical fruit. I passed by it mumbling the words to the Spongebob Squarepants theme song in my head.

The way down kept steepening until it was less hiking and more climbing.

I kept the map stuffed in my back pocket as I used my fingers to grip the face of the rock and hold me as the angles became sharper. I didn’t look down as I climbed. Ike had warned me that the river was the harder path to the colony but I didn’t trust myself with a long swim. I wasn’t a strong swimmer and if I could survive The Sweep and a group of vamps interested in mining my body, I wasn’t going to waste all that luck by drowning in the final act.

When at last a shaky leg touched bottom, I exhaled a tired sigh and turned to survey my surroundings. The trees were thinner here. A mist sprayed through the weave of tree trunks as the river next to me made a much faster, noisier, splashier descent down the rock face into the lake below.

My body was achy from the climb but I adjusted my sack and pressed on.

The path was much easier now. Well used. The tracks of many beat down the foliage so that I could clearly see the way to the colony.

I was close.

Not even five minutes on the trail and my foot snagged on a prickly vine, sending me stumbling and scraping thin lines into my ankles where I was tangled. I’d fallen into a blackberry patch. And turned the berries it held turned into a purple juice on my ass.

Two women emerged from behind the trees and stood over me to assess me. My breath caught in my throat. One of them was clearly Ike’s sister. I knew her immediately by her gray eyes and fiery hair and familiar thin mouth turned down in a serious expression.

I stood up and wiped bits of grass from my arms.

“Hi.”

That word was all I offered. My name froze in my throat. These two were still frowning at me and I didn’t wholly trust them.

The smaller of the two women, the one who looked about my age, pulled a gun from the back of her waistband, cocked it, and pressed it to my forehead in a motion so fluid it was obvious she’d done it before. Several times.

And from the look on her face, she’d killed before.

Several times.

I spoke quickly. “I’m not a vamp and I haven’t led anyone here. Ike sent me. Ike…army vamp Ike.” I wished for a last name now to add weight to the proof that I knew their relative.

The gun’s barrel released a slight amount of pressure from my skin but held steady.

“Ike?”

“Yes. I was in Houston when he came through with a bunch of vamps. They captured me but he pulled me aside and gave me directions to this place and the opportunity to run.”

The gun lowered but the woman still looked at me doubtfully.

Ike’s parting words suddenly struck me. “Oh! Um, he loves all things Elvis except for the song
Suspicious Minds
.”

The older woman shrugged and holstered her weapon.

“Okay, come on.”

I give a silent “thank you very much” to the King and follow her through the brush. The older woman stayed behind to continue the berry picking.

“I’m Marla,” the younger one, Ike’s sister, said crisply without turning around.

“Hey,” I responded. “So, wow. It’s been a while since I’ve seen another human.”

When she twisted around to glance at me, her face was grim and her lips were pressed together. “I have a feeling there aren’t many left. The last newcomer to join us was eight months ago and the one before him was six months.”

We rounded the bend and came to a clearing. It was like the scene out of some movie set in the wild west. Cabins like the one at the base of the mountain were erected around the area. Structures built by hammers and nails and hands. No architectural software or factory line pieces or construction trucks. I half expected to see men dressed in worn shirts and suspenders and women in long sleeve dresses and bonnets but the handful I saw moving around were dressed similarly to Marla in t-shirts and pants and sensible shoes.

She motioned for me to follow and we headed for the biggest cabin at the end of the row.

“Jack’s kind of like the leader here,” she said. “He was one of the original settlers. It was his idea to find an obscure lake so we’d have a source of water without risking exposure.”

She rapped on the door before turning back to me. “Ike is my brother. He and Jack were in the army together. This whole thing-” she gestures around the settlement. “This was their idea.”

A very, very large man opened the door just then. Not just Ike-large. Ike was tall. The head-scraping-door-frame tall. He had a lean body with coiled muscles on a large frame. No. This man was just large. Also tall, but with even larger bones and a gut that made his belt buckle work. How he found the calories to support his belly spoke volumes to me about the settlement’s success in provisions.

Marla jabbed a thumb in my direction as she addressed him. “Newbie. Ike found her. He used Elvis.”

The large man, Jack I’m assuming, chuckled.

“My favorite,” he said, stepping aside while gesturing for me to enter.

I did. I suddenly wished I had a sidearm with me. Not that these people seemed threatening. I always thought once I was among other humans again, I’d finally feel safe. But in fact, I felt just the opposite. I kept searching their faces for insincerity. And I was highly curious about what kind of pecking order they’ve established. How much freedom will I have in my decisions?

Rejoining society means my lone ranger days may be long gone.

“Welcome, welcome,” Jack greeted me, pulling out a chair. Hand crafted wood. These people learned well or there was a someone here who rocked A’s in shop class killing time.

I sat.

“So you had a run in with Ike, huh?” Jack had a twinkle in his eye. His mouth was curved up in a jolly grin. I relaxed my shoulders a bit.

“Run in is appropriate,” I answered. “I knew the vamp for all of fifteen minutes before he decided I was trustworthy and sent me here.”

“He doesn’t bullshit with drawn out decisions,” Jack agreed. “It’s his talent. Weeding the decent folk from the bad. Where do you come from?”

“I was in Houston. I didn’t even know there were other people. It had just been me for years. The place I was crashing was attacked by vamps. Ike was among them. When they turned their backs, he drew a map for me and had me take off in their truck.”

“You look healthy,” Jack noticed.

“I’ve done all right for myself.”

“What’s your specialty?”

“What?”

“How did you spend your days?”

“Oh.” I scrunched my eyebrows. Everyone here seemed so productive. Hand made furniture to use. Well built cabins. Meat on everybody’s bones. Would they kick me out if all I could contribute were painted portraits?

I remembered Alex’s face when he saw the one I did for his family and a pinch of hurt squeezed my chest. “I paint,” I declared. “That’s how I spent my days. Painting the ghosts of the people that once inhabited a home.”

Jack leaned back a bit. His eyes widened in surprise and his hand stroked the stubble on his chin. “That’s one I haven’t heard before. What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. And I’m not going to.”

I tested out my first lone ranger act to gauge his reaction but he merely nodded.

“Perhaps in time,” he said. “For now, we’ll call you Elvis.”

I learned there were one hundred and seventeen people in this small home grown colony. Ike and Jack kept moving a small herd of people from city to city anytime they caught wind of vamps in the area. Alex wasn’t kidding. People were getting eaten for breakfast. I shuddered as I heard the accounts and wondered how I’d been missed in Tucson. It’s true I pretty much became a recluse as the population dwindled down but I never witnessed anything like what they described. It seemed everybody here knew somebody who knew somebody that was taken out by a vamp.

“The virus did a number on everyone, vamps and humans,” Jack explained as we strolled through the compound. “I used to like vamps as much as the next liberal. I thought The Sweep was a barbaric idea and protested against Containment efforts. But we’re in a new world now and humans and vamps can no longer coexist. You can’t shut off survival. Eventually, every vamp turns. So in this post-apocalyptic world, vamps will wipe us out. Which is why we stay hidden.”

“Not every vamp would resort to that,” I countered, thinking of Alex.

Jack pinned me with a look. “Whoever you befriended out there would turn on you when their body started giving out. Reasoning shuts off and animalistic instincts take over. Ike won’t even cross the lake and he started this group. He wants to be sure he’s good and depleted of any energy before he tries to eat any of us. He put us between a lake and a rock face for a reason.”

There was nothing more on the argument and I didn’t see any reason to continue it. Jack and the others have witnessed horrible acts. I got it. I did too and not just from vamps. But I remembered Alex’s blood shot eyes and his shallow breathing and the gray tint to his skin.

I remembered his determination. The smell of my blood under his nose and the way he turned and cringed from it. I knew in my soul no matter how wasted away he became, he wouldn’t have taken it without my consent. Hell, he almost didn’t with my full blown blessing.

I bit my tongue and shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked around.

“So what can I do to help?” I asked.

Jack smiled and clapped a heavy hand on my upper arm. “That’s the spirit. But take the day to relax. Get to know a few folks. Marla will set you up in her cabin until you find a roommate or build one of your own.”

I nodded. “So, uh, thanks for taking me in.”

Jack nodded back. “We have to look out for our own now.”

The way he said that reminded me of my father. Whereas before that would have given me comfort, today standing under the warm sun in pioneer land with Jack smiling at me with welcome eyes, it ran cold through my bones. Despite everything I’d just been through with Vince and the vamp raiders, I still couldn’t agree with him. Even now, I was wondering who was looking out for Alex. Someone most certainly not “my own.”

I walked with Marla to one of the cabins on the right, situated back towards the front of the colony. “I might need help with, uh, the whole erecting my own cabin thing,” I told her as we passed by a group of children laughing and trying to nail each other with water balloons. I successfully dodged a watery missile aimed at a curly headed kid zipping behind us. 

Marla smiled. “Everyone does. Hugo’s the go-to guy. You and a few others will help, but he’ll take you through the process. You do collect the wood though and that takes a bit of time. But that’s what this place is for.”

We reached the cabin and she pushed open the door for me. It was neat. Small. A square sitting room made up the middle of the space with more of the wood furniture and it looked as though it branched off into three bedrooms.

“That’s mine,” Marla said, pointing to the room on the left. “I stay in this cabin full time. The other two rooms are for newcomers as they get adjusted.” She paused. “They’ve been empty for a while.”

I tentatively moved towards one of the two rooms and glanced back at her with permission in my face. She nodded and gestured her okay and I went the rest of the way in. I dropped my pack on the bed, looked around from where I stood, and decided it would do. It was nothing more than a bed and a side table but it was more luxurious than I would have expected for a group of people in the middle of nowhere looking like they’d been thrown back in time before Franklin flew his kite and made the world a more convenient place.

I did notice a k-cell generator and was informed when I asked that it was attached to the infirmary. “But we try not to use too much electricity and there are no vehicles,” Marla explained. “We want to be as under the radar as possible.”

My first day in the colony was a full one. I was too antsy to rest, so I went from cabin to cabin, poking my head into homes with open doors. It seemed everyone came with a talent and whatever it was, that’s what you did. I met a farmer, a chemist, a doctor, a mechanic (who tinkered with small engines here), a seamstress, a couple of former business professionals, and a minor leagues baseball player.

There was even someone here to repair shoes.

If your previous profession had no merit in this new society (I sat and chatted with a computer programmer-turned-alternative healer for a while) then you took up a role that played to your hobbies or interests or filled a colony need.