Chapter 1
In a dark cocoon, something restrained my arms and legs. I heard an erratic ticking like my heart and mind were wired as if I was a living time bomb.
Tick. Tock. Pause. Tick tick tick tock pause.
The pauses held me in suspense, but dreamy paralysis gripped me.
Tick. Tock tock tick tick. Splat.
The ticking became wet. Something dripped on my tent. I struggled and felt that the restraint was just my sleeping bag. I was vaguely aware that I was half asleep. My mind was shot through with visions of the battle from last night. In my dreams, I relived the advance of the thousands of undead and saw them fall beneath the lightning swords of me and my new tribe as we held the line. But it wasn’t a dream. It actually occurred just hours before. I realized this as my mind sank back into the black dreamscape. I dreamt of slain zombies hanging like macabre ornaments from the trees above, dripping their infectious ochre on my tent as their dead eyes stared into space.
My eyes instantly blinked open, my mind wide awoke as I shot to a sitting position. I reached for my sword. The hilt felt comfortable in my grip. It was a short sword, called a wakizashi in Japanese. It looked like a katana’s kid brother. The wak was about two feet long instead of three. The smaller length almost got me killed last night when I faced the vampires. I vowed to get a hold of a more formidable weapon today.
After feeling the relief of the sword in my hand, I looked to the gaps in the tent. I expected to see the red light of dawn slipping inside like the reaching edges of a pool of spilled blood, but it was still night. I guessed it was nearing dawnlight from the light stirrings of the camp.
I listened further and realized the drops falling like drum beats on my thread bare tarp tent were simply fresh water from the heavy nightly dew, not blood and ochre. From the cold in the tent, I was surprised that the dew was not frozen into frost.
Just two days ago, I had sat in comfort outside the quarantine zone. I had asked for this assignment into the Forbidden Zone, and my friend, Tommy, obliged. Now life behind the fences was less about filming a documentary and more about staying alive. Now I relied on a band of survivors to protect me even though they didn’t fully trust me, and for good reason. I had lied to them by omission rather than open dishonesty. In my defense, I didn’t fully understand what was going on.
I was the one who had triggered the zombie attack last night when I accidentally discharged a handgun during training. Later, I was credited with being the first person to slay one of the vampires, Abigail, when she was merely unconscious at my feet.
Outside the tent, I heard a few men discussing the plans for today in deep steady voices. I couldn’t hear the exact words, just the low serious tones. I recognized Bryan’s voice, he was the second in command of this camp of about fifty or so survivors and head warchief in times of panic.
So many people continually came and went that I could never get a full count. Even if I could get a count, I didn’t want to get caught counting the members. Although I felt like I was accepted into the tribe after last night’s battle, paranoia gnawed at my gut. Deep inside I was certain that some here still thought I was a spy. If someone thought they could confirm that suspicion even on the weakest evidence, I had no doubt that I would be instantly executed.
I didn’t recognize the other voices outside my tent. Critter, the trapper and woodsman among woodsmen, was probably in the conversation, but he rarely spoke and usually it was to issue sharp commands or grunts of agreement or dissent.
Since I couldn’t hear the words of the conversation, my mind drifted back to that woman, the vampiress who occupied my thoughts. A woman who may not even be human. Abigail. Did she want me to live, or did she want me dead or undead? I had only glimpsed her briefly in person and exchanged a handful of spoken words. I felt like I knew her all my life, yet she felt like my greatest enigma, and I had no idea why, other than she seemed to actually visit me in my dreams.
Needing to face the day, I unzipped the sleeping bag and firmly pushed away its warm cover, as well at the wool blanket I had over me. I grudgingly stood, slightly bent over, under the low hanging tarp roof. My hair was instantly damp when it touched the dew drenched roof. I tried to ignore the biting cold in the tent. I didn’t want to get caught sleeping in late for fear of getting made fun of like the day before.
I had slept in my clothes from the night before. They were clean and warm when I put them on after the battle. It was wise to sleep fully clothed, because the warrior lifestyle could see you awakened to a literal fight for your life at any moment, and you did not want to get caught outside in a battle, undressed in freezing weather.
I grabbed my recording equipment to continue my documentary on life in the Forbidden Zone, slid the sword in its scabbard into my belt, and stepped out of the tent. I forced myself to stand straight against muscles sore from combat. I had to present myself as formidable to my new tribe where any suggestion of weakness was scorned. I soon forgot about my appearance as I took in the sights around the camp. It was a visual assault on my soul.
A few fires lit the camp at zero dark thirty, and I could see the dark shapes of survivors moving about their business. Just beyond the circle of tarp hovels, bodies of the undead lay everywhere twisted together in a profane embrace of bloody pale grey arms, legs, and torsos. Enough were cleared from the immediate center of camp to let the younger children play somewhat safely near the communal fire, but, “My God,” I half swore and half prayed.
Most bodies were still. I could see one zombie who’s torso was cut off beneath the neck, leaving one arm reaching and the jaws snapping for anything to devour. Hundreds of entangled limbs still moved in unnatural spasms enmasse giving a feeling of a mirage. Occasionally a monstrous groan or scream from one of them wracked my body. There was just enough human pain in the cries to touch both my compassion and terror.
I instinctively looked up to the hills above for any potential enemies, human or undead. Nothing but the bare hibernating vegetation and stoney landscape of the Appalachian Mountains met my eyes under the poor light of a sliver of the moon. Two drones buzzed around filming us. I wondered if Tommy or anyone that I knew was watching me at present. Footage from the quarantined area was top entertainment in the Safe Zones.
I stopped by Shelley’s tarp teepee as I could see a glow of a small fire and saw the silhouette of her movements projected on the canvas wall. She was the camp’s medicine woman. I knocked on the tarp and asked, “How’s Peter?”
“Come in,” she said in a sweet grandmotherly voice that disguised a spirit strong as steel. I opened the flap and ducked in and regretted it. Peter had fractured his leg just beneath his knee in the battle last night. I had seen the fibula bone poking through his skin. Now it was set and wrapped in bloody bandages, but his pain ravaged face touched my soul. Tylenol and whiskey were the only pain killers in the camp.
“Other than dying, I guess I am OK,” Peter said with a forced laugh. He instantly grimaced as the laughter shook his body causing agony from his shattered wound.
“Anything that I can do?” I asked.
“Wave a magic wand over my broken leg?” Peter asked.
I pretended to wave a wand. It didn’t help, but a smile did break his grimace.
Shelley said, “You and Bryan are going into one of the towns to get Peter some antibiotics.”
“No rush,” Peter said, still trying to appear immune to his own suffering.
“Baloney.” Shelley said firmly. “Peter needs antibiotics and hopefully some decent pain killers within twenty four hours.”
As my eyes adjusted to the dismally lighted tent, I could see it wasn’t just blood but yellow pus that stained the bandages. I caught a faint scent of it and almost heaved. It was odd. The smell of the dead zombies was atrocious, but the milder smell of Peter’s wound stirred me more. I knew that there was suffering behind that stench.
I quickly excused myself, “I’ll go find Bryan, then.”
They bade me goodbye. As I stepped out of the tent, I heard the greeting, “Good morning, Eric.”
“Good morning, Bryan,” I tried to sound respectful to the second in command of the tribe. Second in command was a loose term in this herd of cats. The camp was really run by a set of rules and protocols that everyone agreed with and were punished brutally over when broken. No one was above the set rules.
Bryan carried a sword and a handgun at his waist and a rifle of the AR-15 variation strapped to his back this morning. Firearms were ubiquitous but tended to be used only as a last resort due to the scarcity of bullets, but more importantly, a gunshot attracted the zombie hordes. My accidental discharge yesterday resulted in the battle last night.
“Where is your sword?” he asked.
“Here,” I replied as I patted the hilt. “Why? Are we expecting an attack?” I asked.
“That’s a stupid question. We always are. It’s your job as a man to carry a sword at all times.”
“Isn’t that a bit patriarchal?” I joked.
Bryan didn’t have a sense of humor this morning nor did he care for the PC climate of more civilized times, unless of course his wife was around to cast the eye upon him. His moods were as prone to change as the southern Appalachian weather. Today, he was stormy.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he shot at me.
“I was joking.”
He smiled and said, “I know. Go get breakfast.”
“You got it,” I said and turned to go to the fire.
There were many honorable qualities about Bryan that I admired. However, I disliked his enjoyment at making me squirm. As well as getting a more formidable sword today, I was determined to do something about his mistreatment of me.
The sun started to break the horizon, and I couldn’t help but wonder about Abigail. Was she hiding from the sun in some deep dank dungeon, cave or tomb with her loathsome kind?
* * *
Douglas Bircher swept through the dark woods on his run to escape from the Caverns of the Vampires. The black shadows of the hooded vamps flitted all around him in the chase. His blood pounded in his ears like the war drums of a pursuing tribe. His chest felt like it would implode as he couldn’t take in any more air to fill his need for oxygen, but he would rather die of exhaustion than to face those things again. He had no idea how long he had run from that terrible cave of crystal, but at this point, it was purely base instinct that propelled him, driven by the howling bloodlust of those things.
Collapsing of exhaustion probably wasn’t too far away. He would stumble as fast as he could for about twenty-five to fifty yards on clumsy, numbed feet that barely obeyed his brain and then would sprawl on his face from a root, or rock in his path. Obstacles were almost impossible to avoid in the nighttime woods anyway, but in his present state, the trip hazards seemed to seek him out. Sometimes an obstacle wasn’t needed. It was pure fatigue that sprawled him on several occasions.
He not only wanted to save himself; he had to warn others back in his village. With those two desires, he pressed on.
During his run in the sheer panic through the dark forest, he had quickly lost contact with the other two surviving soldiers. After exiting through the quartz doorway they blindly plunged downhill. They couldn’t see each other in the night and could barely see the many tree branches with which they often collided.
Once his initial panic calmed, and he realized he lost his comrades, he had rested where he had fallen over a root, but almost immediately he had heard the screams of one of his fellows far in the distance and howls of triumph of those vampire things crazed by their bloody capture. It was a scream he never expected a hardened soldier to ever make. It started out as a high pitched shrill of terror and lowered to a groan so deep as to emit from the most profound pit of hell as the man was drained and devoured. The terror voiced in that man’s final moments had driven Douglas onward again. He would rather run to death, only hearing the crunch of the leaves beneath his combat boots than hear the screams of a comrade murdered again.
On one of his final sprawls, he lay in a panting heap, thinking it was finally safe to rest, or maybe it wasn’t safe, but his body just refused to move. However, he forced himself to hold his labored breath so he could hear the surrounding forest.
What he heard sent him into a headlong panicked run again. The sound of a predator’s feet crunching leaves, whispered above his thundering pulse and heavy gasping breaths. The footfalls were slightly muffled like that of a great cat that could stalk at a full run. He bounded to his feet with new energy and launched through the woods.
He felt a sense of hope as a red line was breaking on the mountainous eastern horizon. He wasn’t sure if it was truth or lore about vampires’ lives being confined to the night, but he had faith that the light of the sun would be his savior. It was a bit of a metaphor from his days in Sunday school as a kid. He fell again, stood up, started sprinting, and then after a time slowed to a light sustainable jog.
He kept catching the glimpse of a blackened shape, a figure of a person in the vampiric hooded cloak, who either trailed him, or came up on the side of Douglas as if corralling him in a certain direction. Whoever it was kept their distance, just enough to keep him moving but not close enough to catch him. He felt as if a great tiger was playing with him, savoring a playful hunt before the meal.
He pushed on and caught his foot on a root, twisted his ankle and sprawled one last time. He looked up in terror as he lay at the feet of a black cloaked, hooded thing. The figure in black raised a finger to its face where its lips would be. He could not see the face, only the blackened maw of the hood, but he recognized the universal signal for silence. He still thought it best to scream, but he found himself compelled to obey.
The figure moved its hood back as if to ready its mouth to eat as it squatted and leaned into him. He was about to scream, but he saw the face.
It was Abigail, the vampiress, who had warned him to run. The one who broke the spell and allowed the escape. He wondered if she was just a sadist who prefered a chase before killing. Maybe she wanted his blood only for herself. He could still see the hunger of bloodlust in her eyes, but he could see something else that may have been compassion. He wasn’t sure which drive was in command of her at this moment.
“I think you are safe,” she said in a soothing voice. The smile on her red lips almost hypnotized him. Aloud, her voice had the same sound as the psychic voice in his head. “Catch your breath. You are under my protection, but be cautious because I am under no one’s protection,” she finished with a hint of irony in her mysterious smile.
He sat up, but cowered slightly as he sized her up. She had an M-16 strapped on her back and an ornate sword in the scabbard on her hip, but no weapon in her hand. She was well aware of his distrust, but she seemed to have the confidence that she could handle him without the weapons if he tried something. That actually terrified him more than if she was locked and loaded for a war against him.
She said, “Morning is dawning and that is your time, not ours, but you mustn’t go back to your village. The Specter controls those who lead it, as you already know and they will kill you, but before they kill you, they will get you to betray me.”
Douglas started to protest, “I thank you, I would never betray you.”
“They have ways that you can’t imagine. You must understand my predicament. It would be better for me and make my life much easier if I simply killed you.”
He recoiled slightly.
“Don’t worry, I have fed already. You are safe from my desires, for now.”
A rustle of leaves startled him, and he saw a squirrel bound by and she cast it a glance. Douglas saw it freeze like he and his three fellow soldiers had been frozen by a psychic command. The animal hung rigidly, its claws biting deep into the bark of a great white oak tree at her shoulder level.
Douglas protested, “I need to go back to my town and warn—”
“No,” Abigail growled fiercely. She drew her sword and Douglas found himself frozen in place, at her mercy again. She slashed her sword and it swung at his neck. He cringed, but it passed him by and decapitated the squirrel still clinging from the tree.
She picked up the body and turned away as she sucked the blood from the neck and then tossed the bloodless squirrel to him.
She squatted at eye level as she told him, “Eat this later. You’ll need food, but cook this well before eating. You will be safe from catching anything I have.”
“I could become a vampire if I ate it raw?” he asked. The craving for immortality burned in his eyes.
She saw this desire and slapped him hard across the face. She replied sharply with disgust at his desire, “Do not confuse arrogance for immortality. Besides, most people who are infected by vampires do not turn, but rather die of insanity.”
“Why are you helping me?” he asked, rubbing his reddened cheek.
She didn’t answer but gave him a handgun with a few loaded magazines. Going weaponless in the Forbidden Zone was a death sentence. “If you need to shoot a vampire, aim for the heart or head, preferably one shot to each target. We’re very resilient. Just don’t try to shoot me, please.”
“You got it and thanks. Hey–” he started to say.
She stood up from her squatting crouch and said, “I must go.”
“What are you?” he asked. Later he thought it was an odd question, but in the moment it was all he could think.
She squinted, irritated by the early dawnlight, put up her hood, and donned very dark sunglasses as the sun now just peeked over the ridgeline behind her.
“Who are you?” he persisted.
She turned and walked away replying over her shoulder, “I am not a monster.”