Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (3 page)

Today would be the first step in their campaign.
Harris did not actually have the full blessing of the newly formed
government back at their base. He had tried many times to lay out
the plan about how they hoped that they would be able to siphon off
people and supplies from the neighboring territories while the
other cabals were otherwise engaged. But, now that they had more
people to cater for, they also had more representatives in the
fledgling government and agreements were few and hard-fought.
Harris had decided to present them with a fait accomplit and hoped
that the resulting fallout would not be too bad.

He was well aware that his own view was a blinkered
one; he was focused only on the task of saving lives while others
were just as focused on their own areas and commitments. He knew
that he too would have to change as their community grew, otherwise
there would be anarchy if everyone just went off and did what they
felt was right. But the serum’s effects were non-negotiable—they
just did not have the time for debate. If they did not act now then
there would be no point in acting later.

They had been lucky that Nero, the master who had
controlled their own area before Harris had beheaded him two months
ago, had been a particularly singular vampire. He had not made
contact with the other cabals for anything and expected the same in
return. He had been quite a senior vampire during the war, and many
had seen him as a direct threat to Von Richelieu himself. He had
only come to America to satisfy a particularly insatiable appetite
for carnage. He had already won large estates in the initial
battles in Europe but quickly grew bored as territory after
territory fell too easily. It was only in America that battles had
been fought that satisfied his blood lust—at least until the serum
had been used and the human defense had crumbled almost
overnight.

He was over four hundred years old but his ambitions
and bloodlust had been satiated by the war. At least, this had been
what he had informed the council when he had removed himself from
the committee and also from the resulting carnage as the vampires
fought over the spoils. It was understood by the thralls that
Harris questioned that Von Richelieu had let him go mainly because
his numerous attempts at removing him had failed. Nero had retained
enough respect from the younger vampires so that they turned their
greedy attentions toward easier and less established prey.

The surviving thralls had been most informative as to
the relations between the cabals. It seemed that the vampires had
pretty much kept to the old state lines when carving up their
territories after they had taken over. This was the easiest to
administer and control, except for some notable exceptions where
lines had been stretched to include certain advantages depending on
the level of strength and political weight each vampire master
could exert.

Cases in point were their own neighboring cabals. The
states, formerly known as Michigan and Indiana were now controlled
by the Von Kruger and Wentworth Cabals respectively and bordered
what had been Nero’s Cabal, in the old state of Ohio. It seemed
that there had been a long rivalry between these two states that
predated the vampires’ coming. At the centre of this rivalry was
the Dade Nuclear Power plant that was situated just over the border
in Michigan. Before the energy crisis this plant had powered all
the surrounding states and the plant drew its employees from both
sides of the state line. The plant had become a popular place to
work and had always been seen as a shared resource by both
states.

As the energy crisis of the last few years had
worsened, however, things began to sour between the two states.
Michigan had stopped supplying power to her neighboring states and
people had flocked to Michigan, leaving the other states,
especially Indiana, with poor resources and too few people to
manage what was left.

When the vampires had come, Von Kruger, a two hundred
year old vampire from Bonn, Germany, had used his seniority to
redraw the map to include the power plant in the newly drawn
Indiana state line. Wentworth, the former governor of Michigan, had
ranted for over a year before settling down to his fate.

The need for heating and power really only affected
the thralls, as the vampires were nocturnal, so he really couldn’t
argue too loudly. Von Kruger, as the elder vampire, could have
demanded Michigan, as it was more generously populated, but had
opted for the warmer state. Wentworth, with a much larger
population to feed upon had relented and an uneasy peace
reigned.

Neither vampire had given a second thought to the
thralls. Wentworth’s army, far bigger and better armed, began to
grumble and complain about the arrival of an early winter. They had
used up their entire stock of oil and fossil fuels last winter,
convinced that they would be able to obtain at least a small feed
from the power plant for the next year, but negotiations had broken
down and they had been left with nothing. Their barracks were cold,
their food was rapidly going bad without proper
refrigeration—though the cold weather alleviated this somewhat—and
the lack of power left them literally in the dark; they even had to
light large campfires each evening to patrol their territory. This
strain on their limited resources left the thralls irritable and
difficult to control.

Von Kruger’s thralls, on the other hand, had plenty
of power; in fact, they particularly enjoyed lighting their state
line to such an extent that the immediate area sharing the state
line with Michigan was lit up like daylight. Their barracks were
warm—however, their food levels were very low. They also had a
surplus of fuel as they had stockpiles that they had hoarded before
Von Kruger had annexed the nuclear plant which were not as critical
now. They delighted in offering these supplies at exorbitant prices
to their neighbors.

Ever since the vampires had taken over, the thralls
had lived off the huge food stocks that all the states had hoarded
during the energy crisis before the vampires had come. The thralls
did not see past their immediate needs and lusts and animals had
been left untended, fields remained unploughed and all the time the
stocks grew lower. Some of the more intelligent cabals had seen the
potential disaster and had set their human captives to work, but,
for most, it wasn’t until the stocks had become dangerously low
that they had even thought of food production. Recently there had
been a scramble to find humans who had knowledge of farming and
animal husbandry that would be able to coax food from a neglected
land, and a search had begun for any animals that may have survived
in the wild.

Indiana had a dangerously low human population. Von
Kruger had to curtail their feeding habits to the extent that his
vampires were complaining of being hungry. Many of the humans were
tapped for their blood too often already, and many were dying from
a combination of disease and exhaustion. A breakout of cholera last
year had taken nearly a third of their already low human
population.

Von Kruger had been one of the few vampires to see
the oncoming food shortages and had set his remaining human
population to work some months before. They had already tilled
fields and gathered a growing animal base to feed his thralls and
his dwindling human food supply. They had quite a surplus of food
now but a dangerously low population to maintain it.

This left an interesting balance of power between the
two cabals; Wentworth had an impressive army that could threaten
the whole area but had no power, fuel and little food to feed his
surplus of people while Von Kruger needed people badly to continue
to safeguard and produce the food surplus he had developed. He also
needed more humans to tend his power station or risk the plant
shutting down or even becoming dangerously critical from a lack of
careful attention.

It seemed to Harris that if left alone both parties
might come to an agreement that would cater to both their needs.
However, Harris judged that it would not take a lot to nudge both
parties along a more direct and physical confrontation and he and
his team planned to make sure that peace and cool heads did not win
out. The resultant fallout would be enough, he hoped, to allow the
humans the chance to add to their own dangerously low supplies and
growing requirements, and at the same time save as many people as
they could in the resulting confusion.

Once the vampires disappeared from view Harris rose
to his feet and brushed the powdered snow from his clothes. The ten
other figures hidden along the ledge struggled to their feet and
rearranged their equipment in silence. They all wore Gore-Tex
“Windstopper” fleeces and, although they were cold from lying on
the ground, they remained dry underneath. Breath plumed out from
all the figures and created a small fog that the early breeze
swirled around them, creating an almost mystical vista as they
stamped their feet and rolled their arms, trying to generate heat
back into their frozen joints.

Harris looked over the group. He had chosen this
group carefully. On one hand he needed the experience of the men
that had fought with him before; on the other, he could not strip
the camp of all of its best fighters, especially when they were
here without permission. To this end he had chosen Rodgers,
Warkowski and Steele. The others were all new to the group but very
capable, at least according to their own accounts.

John Tanner had been a police officer before the war.
At fifty-two he had a slight paunch that bulged over his trousers,
though his massive six-foot-three frame went a long way to
disguising this. His hair was thinning on top in a small circle
like a monk but he had retained a thick mane of hair on either side
of his head that had grown down to his shoulders and now curled at
the ends, giving him the appearance of an aging rock musician. His
face was heavily lined and Harris imagined that every line told a
story of the many cruel scenes he had witnessed in his years on the
force. His eyes seemed to hold a strange distant look that seemed
to confirm Harris’s suspicion but Tanner kept a cool head under
fire, knew how to take orders and carried them out to the letter.
He had been among the last batch weaned off the serum and had
nearly been missed in the confusion of moving to a new base and the
sheer numbers of new additions.

The survivors’ numbers had grown so large that many
of the jobs and positions had grown from individual placements to
whole departments of people looking after food, sanitation,
security and offensive operations. Most of the newly awakened were
still quite groggy when they were first interviewed and many found
themselves assigned to work details not necessarily appropriate
with their previous employments.

The sheer volume of people meant that it was easier
to assign people and then reassign those that didn’t fit at a later
stage; this had led to some hilarious postings, not least of which
had been Tanner’s own case. He had commented dryly that he was used
to wet nursing others during his interview and the interviewer had
taken him literally and he had promptly been assigned to the
nursery where his six-foot-three build and gravely voice had nearly
sent the young children into shock. Harris had happened to be
passing the nursery on his way to visit Sandra in the hospital when
he had heard the commotion and had gone to investigate. He had
snapped the police sergeant up on the spot for his growing
offensive operations department.

Dave Sherman was a different matter altogether. The
man was mean-looking, with a personality to match, but his
experience in the Marines for the last fifteen years made personal
feelings redundant, especially considering he had spent the last
five of those years in Special Forces. Sherman had a thin, almost
ferret-like face and had an abundance of body hair that seemed to
spill from his clothes at his neckline and around his hands. He had
obviously given up on the pointless exercise of shaving and he
sported a full, thick beard that served to soften his narrow
features somewhat. His hair was jet black but his beard, strangely,
was almost white and the contrast was quite startling. The man had
piercing blue eyes that shone almost fervently from the shadows of
his deep-set features, and he had a large, almost aquiline, nose
that was hard to avoid staring at when in conversation with
him.

Harris still hadn’t quite figured out what made the
man tick but Sherman knew his weapons and had passed on invaluable
training on how to move in a combat situation, assault a heavily
defended target and how to report information under fire. This last
was particularly invaluable as Harris and his men had previously
relied upon split second timing before with no ability to signal
other groups once a raid had begun and this left them vulnerable if
the plan changed in any way. Sherman had educated them in how to
make signals without electronic means and without arousing enemy
suspicions. There was still, however, something about the marine
that didn’t sit well with Harris, but he resolved to keep his
suspicions to himself unless he was given a reason to look more
closely.

Their team might not be able to take on the SAS but
they’d do for Harris. Scott Mitchell, Aidan Fleming and Carlos
Ortega had all been employed in the retail trade before the
vampires had come but had kept themselves fit. They had been put
through a rigorous training schedule over the last month and had
finally regained their former fitness after two years of inactivity
as food for the vampires. They had no previous experience in combat
but Harris needed young, fit men to fill the ranks, and these three
fit the bill.

The last new member was Deirdre (Dee) Ratigan. At
five-feet-six the rest of the group dwarfed her. Her small frame
was compact but well proportioned; a little too well proportioned
as far as Sandra was concerned, but the Barrett XM-109 rifle
strapped to her back spoke volumes about her abilities. The .50
caliber weapon was designed to give individual snipers the
firepower to take on light amour, Harris was looking forward to
seeing what the payload would do to the vampires; even they had to
have a body to attach their heads to. Harris didn’t understand the
tech-speak but knew enough to know that anything capable of
penetrating an inch and a half of amour plating should do the trick
nicely, even without the benefit of Pat Smyth’s magic coating on
the bullets.