A further excerpt from my novel.
Please remember that this excerpt is covered by international copyright and may not be reproduced in part or whole without the written permission of the author Damien Timms.
Enjoy and let me know what you think :) (Forgive the formatting errors - word and Blogger seem to not like each other)
Seated on one of the two couches were Garreth
McCleod and Sarah Roth. The vampire was
impeccably dressed in a royal blue, pin striped suit over a black shirt and
matching royal blue tie. He looked for
the world like a banker, although, most bankers weren’t so pale as to be almost
translucent. Smith could even see some
of the surface veins under his skin.
Plus, most bankers wore shoes. It
was an effect that leant a peculiar quality to the outfit. His hair was short and immaculately styled. Smith momentarily could not help but feel a
twinge of envy. His own bald scalp,
though currently in vogue, was not a style of his choosing.
The
witch was looking at him with a genuine smile on her face. And it was an extremely pretty face. She wore a simple dress of a natural fabric,
and a scarf of the same material was wound around her head. Though Smith knew her age to be forty-one,
her face was unlined and there was a youthful spark of mischievousness in her
eyes.
On
the opposite couch were Hamish Roth-McCleod and Melissa Benton. Intellectually, Smith knew that Hamish was
chronologically only five years old, but he had the appearance and build of a
young man in his mid twenties. His
features were almost Asian, with olive skin and eyes that were less rounded
than a Caucasians. He wore a tight white
t-shirt and army fatigues that had been cut off just below the knees. He was well muscled and yet he still retained
a very adolescent look. On his feet were
tan coloured sandals and his arms were decorated with numerous tattoos. He had short, spiky black hair and brown
eyes. His lips were full and pushed
forward slightly in a contemplative pout that made Smith just a little bit
nervous.
Melissa
Benton wore a simple outfit of jeans and a blue shirt. She was diminutive and had that physical
perfection that one often saw in people with a small build. Her auburn coloured hair hung loosely around
her shoulders and she had a pleasant face.
Seated
in an easy chair, perpendicular to the two couches was Marcos Theonakis. The young Greek man was stop-traffic handsome
and Smith could easily believe that this had been a man who had earned several
thousand dollars a day as a model. He,
like Benton, was simply dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops and yet, he
wore it so well one could be forgiven for thinking he was dressed to the
nines. He possessed the usual lithe and
lean body of a model, and he his blue-black hair was a mess of short curls.
The
only member of the group standing was Carol Holfensteim. She was dressed in a designer, two piece
beige suit of slacks and a waist length tailored jacket. She stood with her hands clasped behind her
back and she radiated an aristocratic air that filled the room. Her hair was styled in a short but feminine
hair cut, fairly short around the sides and back with some length on top. She wore a few modest, but clearly expensive
pieces of jewellery and she had designer label heels that only added to the
overall look. Her gaze dissected him
from startling silver eyes. She was
going to be one tough cookie.
“Good
Morning, everyone.” Director Thomas said
in greeting. “I’d like to introduce to
you Agent Robert Smith.”
Smith
nodded to the group.
“So,”
Hamish began in a cheeky tone, “You’re the new baby-sitter?”
Smith
was taken aback. “It’s my understanding
that I’m here to work with you on one mission.”
Director
Thomas stepped in as Hamish was about to reply.
“We can discuss the pertinent details of Mister Smiths’ stay with us
later. But right now, we have a plane to
catch.”
The
witch raised a hand. “One moment please,
Penelope.”
Director
Thomas nodded.
The
witch rose and approached Smith. She
walked with easy, casual grace. She had
a light, woody fragrance that smelt very good.
When they were about a foot apart she stopped and spoke.
“We
scare you.” She said quietly.
Smith
straightened his shoulders. “Not at
all.”
“Liar.” She reprimanded him gently with a smile.
Smith
gave in to his own curiosity. “How can
you tell I’m lying?”
“Answer
my question first. Are you scared?” Her tone was gentle but probing.
Smith
was getting lost in her eyes and scent.
They were kind eyes, and they held you to them with an intensity that
came from concern, not authority. He nodded. “Yes.
This is way out of my comfort zone.
You people should not exist.”
“And
yet we do.” She responded gently.
“And
that’s why I’m scared.” Smith
admitted. It was not something that he
would normally do, but he found himself unable to lie to this woman.
She
smiled. She waved her right hand slowly
over him, as if she was experiencing the contours of his skin but without
actually touching him. “I’m an
empath. But rather than the actual emotion
that you experience, I feel how it affects your bio-electric signature. We all have our own electro-magnetic field,
and it changes with our emotions. What
some call witchcraft I call advanced neurological sensitivity. I can feel the changes in your bio-electric
output and interpret them. It lets me
know what people are feeling.” She
continued to run her hand ‘over’ him.
“It’s what we all are after all; bits and pieces of matter held together
in an electro-magnetic field. We are all
alike.” As she finished, she placed her
hand on his shirt over his heart. “And I
like you.”
He
was startled by the amount of warmth that radiated from her hand, out and over
his chest. He shyly returned her smile
with a small one of his own. Campbell cleared his throat and they
all made their way to the lift and car back to the plane.
Upon
arriving back at Melbourne Airport, they stepped out of the limo and onto the
tarmac. It was a shockingly hot
day. In midsummer Melbourne could get up
to 45 degrees Celsius. Smith could tell
that it was easily in the mid thirties, and the reflective quality of the
tarmac amplified it. He felt a droplet
of sweat drip down the back of his head into his collar, and the heat blasted
through the soles of his shoes. He
glanced at the vampires’ bare feet and pointed.
“No
shoes?” He asked.
McCleod
replied with a voice that froze the air around him. “No need.”
Smith
could tell that he and the Vampire were not going to get on well. Once they were airborne, their attendant
re-appeared, this time with a well stocked tray. Smith took a closer look at the young woman
this time. Whilst she was immaculately
dressed and groomed, Smith recognised ex-military when he saw it. Giver her olive complexion and slight accent,
he was guessing Israeli, most likely ex-Mossad.
With that in mind, he decided not to flirt with her as he usually would
with a beautiful woman. A beautiful
woman who is ex-Mossad would be able to kill him ninety-three different ways
before she even bothered reaching for a weapon.
The attendant greeted each person by name,
dispensing drinks with aplomb and a smile that Smith found completely adorable.
“Organic fruit juice for you,
Miss Roth.”
“One
glass of bubbles for you, Baroness.”
“Long
Island Iced Tea, light on the ice, heavy on the booze.” She handed the large glass to the Hamish who
winked at her in return.
“Thanks
Darl.” He replied irreverently.
The
attendant merely waggled a finger at him in response.
In
response to his curious look, Hamish answered Smith. “Mega metabolism. My body processes it faster than the alcohol
can do anything.” Hamish held up the
glass. “Cheers!”
“I
suppose that solves the issue of drinking on the job.”
Hamish
winked in reply after taking a generous sip from his glass. “And our little jaunt gets us out of our
annual evaluations.”
“You’ll
complete those on your return Hamish.
Never fear.” Thomas corrected him
primly, to which he pouted in return.
The
attendant handed coffees to Thomas, Campbell and Benton.
She
gave the Greek lad a bottle of purified water.
Smith refrained from rolling his eyes. For lunch he half expected the ex-model to
consume exactly half a celery stick. She
handed the vampire a tall glass of something red, thick, and possessed of a
metallic odour. Smith could not help but
say something.
“Should
I ask?”
McCleod
looked to him boldly. “Up to you.” It sounded like a challenge.
Smith
accepted. “Blood?”
“Yes.” McCleod replied. “Bovine, in case you’re wondering.”
“No
victim today?” Smith challenged back.
“Not
this week.” McCleod’s eyes deadened,
becoming deep, red pools of infinity. “But
the week is still young.”
Smith
found the remark uncalled for to the say the least. “So how do you choose who gets the bite?”
McCleod
took a slow, long drink from the glass.
Smith perceived he was doing it intentionally to cause him no small
amount of discomfort.
“I’m
like Santa. I know who’s been naughty
and I know who’s been nice.” McCleod
replied in a tone devoid of inflection.
“So
who did you do last? What did they do to
deserve that kind of death?” Smith was
horrified by the man’s apparent lack of respect for life.
McCleod
put his half-empty drink down and replied through narrow eyes. “The last one was a nurse who thought it
amusing to torture the elderly patients in her care.”
Smith
was feeling himself get angry. “So you
didn’t think to just report her to the police?
Let the justice system deal with her?”
“I
am justice.” McCleod replied flatly. “And you should be thankful for that. Under
your system she may have gotten eight years in prison, ten if the judge was
in a bad mood. Under mine, she received
the sentence she deserved.”
Smith
found that he was unable to respond.
Truth be told, he was finding himself in full agreement with the
bloodsucking vigilante. He just wasn’t
going to give the smarmy bastard the satisfaction of hearing it.
Two
hours later they landed at the airstrip of the town of Williams in western
Queensland.
Williams
had been founded with the railway. It
sat exactly half way between the southern stock trade and the Port of Darwin
where beef, lamb and pork were sent on their way to the Asian Markets for
consumption. Its’ sole purpose was as a
rest stop for the trains and the people manning them. In time, the town had grown to include
several abattoirs and large stock yards.
With the influx of workers came families who required schools, a
hospital, stores and the usual conveniences of modern life. There had been exactly 1083 people there
until nine days previous. Now, there
were 1083 decomposing corpses and some six thousand decomposing cattle
carcasses. The stench was awful.
Though
his arm still ached, Smith was thankful for the inoculation that had been given
to him no less than four hours earlier.
Looking around at what he could only vaguely recognise as an airport,
there were probably a dozen bodies, all decomposing and bloated in the
afternoon sun. The witch walked past him
over to the bodies. She held a hand over
them and concentrated.
“There’s
nothing.” It was all that she said. It was enough.
During
the flight, they had each been given a part of the town to cover. With a gesture from Director Thomas, they all
dispersed.
Williams
was not particularly spread out, so it was not too difficult to cover the
distance on foot. Smith was glad he had
left his jacket on the plane. He removed
his tie, bundled it up and shoved it in his back pocket. He also loosened his collar and rolled up his
sleeves. He had been given the part of
town where their shopping strip was located.
It was approximately a dozen stores that consisted of a butcher, a
bakery, a supermarket, several supply stores, a dentist and two pubs. Bodies were everywhere. He was horrified to see children and infants
amongst the dead. He knew he shouldn’t
have been surprised at their presence, there were families here after all, but
it pained him none the less.
The
thing that surprised him the most was the absence of insects. Ordinarily, he would expect to see flies and
maggots happily feasting on the bodies, but there were none. He bent down and examined one corpse closely
to see any sign of bug activity, but there was none. It was a little hard to believe. As he stood, he suddenly realised that he had
not had to contend with any insect whatsoever since he had landed. Anyone who
had travelled in the outback knew that flies were a fact of life, and swatting
them away became almost a subconscious reflex.
Here, there were none. No
ants. No spiders he could see. Nothing.
It was all very wrong.
Hamish
strode through a residential neighbourhood.
Although he maintained a world-weary exterior, he was not above having
the same emotional response as others.
Here, unseen by his team mates, tears streamed down his face. He did not sob, that was something he had
never done, but he would ‘leak’ – as he put it – for the victims around
him. It was a macabre scene. It was as if people had dropped dead right in
the middle of what they had been doing nine days earlier. There was a woman underneath a clothes line,
with her laundry basket still half full.
Two children lay unmoving on a lawn with a ball next to one of
them. A man was half concealed under the
car he had been repairing. It was all a
bit too surreal. There was even a car
whose driver had simply slumped backward.
Hamish was able to tell that it had been moving at the time as it had
ended up half in a fence at an odd angle.
For some reason, he found that extremely disturbing.
He
walked over to the car and looked in.
Inside was what he assumed to be a husband and wife, or at least
girlfriend and boyfriend, slumped back in the front seats, festering in the
heat like the rest of the town. He
walked to the front of the car and with a deep breath, he bent down and grabbed
the bumper and lifted the front section clear of the ground. With minimal effort, he dragged the car to
the driveway and set it down. For some
reason, he felt it the right thing to do.
His good deed done, he turned and walked away to continue his lonely
trek.
Carol
Holfensteim did not like death. She had
experienced her fair share of it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Indeed, she found it most disconcerting. As with all her kind, death was something
that was an effect, and not a foregone conclusion. The only death she had ever known was when
the odd member of her pack had gone insane and had to be put down. It was regrettable, but immortality had its
responsibilities after all.
She
was walking through the stockyards. Her
enhanced senses picked up every little sound and smell. From the pop of bursting skin - the result of
decomposition and the gas that was its’ by-product - to the occasional rustle
of dust as it was disturbed by an errant breeze. She heard it all.
The
smell was something she was not appreciating, that, and her outfit. She wished she had have been given more
notice about the mission so she could have dressed appropriately. Dolce & Gabbana was gorgeous of course,
but it really wasn’t appropriate death-wear.
She stepped delicately around the carcasses. Having absolutely no understanding of what
she was supposed to be looking for, she simply took in everything for later
consideration and analysis. All the
fences were intact, all of the stock were accounted for, and the rail-tracks
themselves were in perfect condition. If
this had been a robbery, it was the worst one she had ever seen.
This
was getting her nowhere. With a small
grunt of dissatisfaction, she morphed into her hybrid form. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her
auditory and olfactory senses. In her
hybrid form they were many times more sensitive. She took several slow, measured breaths. Interestingly, she detected a faint sterile
odour, not unlike what one would encounter in a hospital. Knowing she was several kilometres from the
one and only hospital, she knew this was not correct.
Dropping
down onto all fours, she sniffed at the ground.
Her aristocratic sense of pride was thankful that there was no one
around to see her scrambling around on all fours, in Ferragamo heels no
less. Amongst the odours of cattle fur
and diesel, she found the scent trail.
It resembled anaesthetic. There
was a sickly-sweet but sharp tinge to it that stood out beyond all the other
scents. She followed it, occasionally
sweeping her nose back and forth to confirm direction. She was stunned when, eventually, she came to
the train platform and a single leather bag that sat apart from everything
else. She returned to her human form and
retrieved a walking stick that lay next to its previous owner. With it, she carefully opened the bag to see
six empty medical containers inside.
With a final sniff, she knew she had found the home of the anthrax.
Melissa
Benton fervently wished they could have been able to pair off, rather than have
to conduct a search on their own. She
was still very new to all of this and she had little in the way of professional
detachment. Walking through the school,
she tried not to look at the bodies of students who now lay where they had
fallen. Unfortunately, there was no
space that didn’t contain bodies; the
playground, hallways, class rooms, toilets all had children of various ages
slumped over. It was very
depressing. Thankfully, the school was
not particularly large so it didn’t take too long to search. She had walked onto the school oval when she
noticed something strange. Everything
else in the school was in perfect condition, and yet what appeared to be a
storage shed on the perimeter of the oval seemed scorched.
She
walked over to it and tried the doors.
They were locked. Noting the
presence of skylights, she crouched down and then leapt up onto the roof. As per usual, the skylights were not locked
shut. Why would they be? It wasn’t like there was someone around who
was supposed to be able to reach them.
She
propped up the skylight and dropped through and down to the floor below. She surveyed the room as she straightened
up. With the exception of some exercise
mats and athletic equipment, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. What was strange was the smell. There was an antiseptic quality to it. It reminded her of the crème they used at the
gymnastic halls when she scraped something on the beam. She was always scraping a knee or an elbow on
the balance beam. It was her worst
apparatus. You’d think that someone with
genetically enhanced agility would have no problem on a piece of wood only two
feet off the ground. Unfortunately,
reality had taught her never to assume anything.
She
looked around for a medical cabinet. She
found none. She pulled down a large gym
mat that had been leaning up against the anterior wall and was surprised to see
a door. There must have been a second
storage area. She tried the handle only
to find it locked. Not interested in
searching for the keys, she simply kicked the door in. It flew off the hinges and connected with a
bench on the other side. She was just
about to step through when something caught her solidly in the stomach with
sufficient force to launch her back through the main doors which were torn from
their hinges with a metallic groan. She
came to rest on top of one of the doors, gasping for breath and clutching at
her stomach. She looked up to see
something exit the shed in a blur and dart back across the oval and into the
bush nearby. With a grunt she got up to
follow it but stopped when she saw that her brand new jeans were torn almost
the whole way down the left leg. It had
taken her ages to find a pair that would actually fit. With a curse she sprinted off in pursuit. She had spent several hundred dollars on
those jeans and she was going to make someone pay.
Sarah
Roth walked through a semi-industrial area on the north side of town. She was not surprised by the amount and
diversity of equipment required to maintain the stockyards. She herself only had a hundred head of cattle
back on her Hunter Valley property and yet the amount of equipment required for
them seemed inversely proportioned to what she had determined their needs to
be.
Thankfully,
the area she had to search had few bodies, although, the few that were present
caused her pain. Sarah was a gentle
person with a kind and compassionate heart.
Furthermore, she knew people like these.
Her main residence was in an agricultural and stock breeding community
and she knew that even though the faces might have been different, the personalities
of the people would have been remarkably similar. Farmers were the same everywhere. They were a stressed lot who agonised over
the weather and their mortgages. Many
would attempt to repair their equipment first before calling in a real mechanic. A dollar saved was yet another dollar
available for the bank.
As
she continued her search, she began to feel something that she was positive
would not be there – life. A faint
prickling on her skin announced that there was something – or someone – alive
nearby. She hastened her pace. It was difficult to perceive a direction as
the signature was so faint. She had to
consciously moderate her own breathing.
She could not allow the excitement of the moment to overtake her,
resulting in her own emotions drowning out the life sign. Unfortunately, the towns’ electricity
sub-station was also putting out a significant amount of electro-magnetic
energy, and it was beginning to cloud her sense. But even with the ‘static’ of the
sub-station, she could clearly sense the bio-electric signature of a person.
Her
search took her into the administrative building for the sub-station. Even here, bodies sat, lay or slumped where
they had died. Some were slumped back in
their seats at their desks; others had fallen forward and were now slowly
decomposing into their keyboards. She
suppressed a shudder. She also felt a
building rage. She wanted to know who
had done this and she wanted to see them brought to justice – swiftly. The thought that a community so similar to
her own could be so mercilessly cut down was abhorrent. The signature was getting stronger the higher
she went in the building. Climbing the
internal staircase, she finally exited onto the roof of the six level
building.
The
roof was cluttered. Several water tanks
competed with large crates for space.
But she was triumphant. There was
a life sign, and it was somewhere here.
Closing her eyes, she took several calming breaths. The life sign was in front and off to the
left of her. She opened her eyes and
walked towards it. Something was amiss,
though. It was a life sign, but it was not the life sign she was
expecting. This was familiar, but not
human. As she rounded a large crate
marked ‘Feed’ she came face to face with a Lycan. Unfortunately, it was not just any
Lycan. This was one was covered in
pustules and seeping sores. Her skin was
falling off in large sheets and she reeked of gangrene. Sarah could also sense that the poor thing
had gone insane. Her neurological
signature was fluctuating uncontrollably and putting out an obscene amount of
energy, even for a Lycan. The creature
pivoted to face Sarah and shrieked like a Banshee.
Sarah
took several slow steps back whilst the being processed the shock and surprise
of seeing her there. The sick woman
looked this way and that, clearly confused and unsure of what to do. Sarah could feel waves of terror and anger
emanating from the ill Lycan.
Negotiation was clearly not going to work with the sick individual.
Before
she could do anything, the Lycan moved forward in a blur of motion, striking
Sarah and knocking her to the ground.
She cried out in pain and shock.
Her left forearm bled from a series of scratches the Lycan’s sharp,
claw-like nails had rent in her skin.
She quickly got herself back to her feet; she would tend to her wound
later. She gathered her strength and
reached out with her sense. Now that she
had experienced it close up, the Lycan was much easier to track, and it was
coming back for her.
She
was beginning her strike before she even saw the Lycan emerge from behind a
tank. Using her ability, she gathered up
the static electricity in the air surrounding her and struck out with a
concentrated burst of energy. The bolt
of electricity lanced out and struck the diseased Lycan as it sped towards
her. A scream of fury and pain rent the
air as the Lycan was thrown from her feet from the force of the bolt. The smell of singed skin and flesh quickly
filled the air and Sarah had to concentrate to fight down the urge to heave. She had been successful. The infected Lycan now lay on the
ground. She was barely conscious and
moaning in obvious pain, but she was clearly not going anywhere in a
hurry. Sarah had taken great care in
making certain that the bolt was strong enough to take her out of action for
several hours. She retrieved her phone
and sent a quick text message to Thomas informing the woman of her catch.
Looking
down at her arm, she noted that the scratches were not deep. Given the nominal strength of a Lycan was
many times that of a human, she was surprised.
She knew there was no danger of infection, thanks to the inoculation
provided by their Lycanthropic team mate.
Still, she would make certain the wound was properly cleaned and the
risk of infection dismissed.
Director
Thomas watched as her assistant, Campbell, knelt and took tissue samples from
several of the corpses. It was a
moderately gruesome task, but one that would hopefully provide some answers. What Thomas had difficulty believing was the
100% efficacy of the Loki itself. Even
the Black Plague had only killed about a third of its victims. The most overly engineered bio-weapon could
usually only manage 70%, so the fact that everyone had succumbed to this bug
was a serious cause for concern. Thomas
quickly dismissed the possibility of a genetic fallibility shared by everyone
in the town. That could happen in a
dozen people, but in a thousand it was highly improbable.
She
retrieved her PDA and called up the latest report from their medical
section. Whilst the data provided by
their agent in Williams had been helpful, it had been far from complete. There was an enormous amount of guesswork
going on and very little hard research.
She became disturbed by the repeated use of the phrase ‘incomplete data
acquired’ throughout the report. She
quickly typed out a message requesting a redoubling of efforts.
“Ma’am?” Campbell said.
Thomas
leant down and looked to what Campbell was pointing at. It was a patch of skin that had reacted in a
very different but very familiar fashion.
It was certainly different to all the other symptoms – pustules and
scarring and haemorrhaging – but familiar in that it resembled the skin of
their Lycanthropic associate. With a
skill that impressed Thomas, Campbell quickly removed the section of skin and
stored it in a sample container for later analysis. He handed it to her.
“Now,
why would this be showing up here?”
Thomas mused out loud.
Campbell
put away his tools and stood up.
“According to our records, there were no Lycans here.”
Thomas
frowned in disapproval as she peered over the top of the sample container. “We don’t know the whereabouts of every Lycan
in the country, Mr Campbell.”
Her
assistant dipped his head in apology.
“Of course, Ma’am, but with an agent on station, we should have known if
there was one here.”
Thomas
nodded slowly. He was right of
course. But it brought up an
uncomfortable possibility. Had the Pack
and the Haemocracy lost control? Were
rogue elements responsible for the attack?
“Why
here?” Campbell mused out loud.
Thomas
frowned. “What do you mean?”
Campbell
shrugged. “At the risk of sounding
insensitive, Ma’am, why target a backwater town that has no real
significance? The economic impact is
minimal and the loss of life is low on the terror scale.”
Thomas
shook her head slowly as she spoke. “The
tangible effects are not the only results achieved here.”
Campbell
looked confused. “Ma’am?”
Thomas
gestured at the surrounding bodies.
“This was a test site.” At his
still confused look she began to walk, gesturing for him to follow her. “Look around.
Cattle; domestic pets; people of various racial and genetic stock;
diversity of age and health; this was a perfect site to test an experimental
bio weapon.” She pointed to a tour bus
that now contained only remains. “I bet
we could go through this and have six or seven different racial profiles. And yet, all of them died. It’s unheard of.”
Campbell
now understood. “Genetic variance, in
combination with external factors like immunisations and childhood illnesses,
usually give at least a minority of people some protection.”
Thomas
nodded. “But they all died. The cattle first I think.”
Campbell’s
face became set. “It was the entry
vector.”
Thomas
smiled a grim little smirk. “That’s how
I’d infect a cattle town. I want a
forensic team up here to conduct a full investigation.”
Campbell
nodded. “Local authorities?” He asked.
Thomas
shook her head. “They’ve already been
dealt with. We have complete control.”
Campbell
nodded and set off to make the necessary arrangements.
Thomas
looked back over the corpses one more time before turning on her heel and
heading back to the relative comfort of their plane. She stopped as her phone buzzed. A text message from the witch informed her
that another Lycan had been caught. Her
theory had been proven at least half right.
She simply hoped that the other half would not similarly prove
prophetic.
Garreth
McCleod was feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
Death he could handle, but disease he could not. Of course, his Haemocratic biology could
easily defeat all but the most specific viruses and bacteria quite easily, but
he found that the presence of disease brought up too many memories. The down side to an immortal life was the
remembrance of those he had once knew who had died and how. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel
himself back in London during the Great Plague.
It was a part of his life he cared not to remember. It had been a time of starvation and sickness
for him. Somehow, the Plague had broken
through his vampire immune system and he had spent almost a month seriously
ill. During that time he could not
feast, and thus slowly starved to the point of death. It had only been the timely intervention of
one of his own kind that had saved him.
Now
as he walked around yet another small neighbourhood, he cast his gaze over the
bodies. In his eyes they were all
children, even the elderly. In his mind,
elderly was a term of mortality, and as such had no claim on him. He could never be called elderly, he was
ancient. For thousands of years he had
lived, wandering the earth as he saw fit.
His earliest memories were of a small village by an oasis in a
desert. It was the crudest of tents,
basically some animal skins strung between two trees. If he had to make a guess he would say it had
been over three thousand years before the Common Era. He remembers his first taste of blood coming
from a goat that the family kept. He
remembered ‘nursing’ from it often, and yet he did not remember it dying. It was most curious. His daydream was interrupted by a familiar
smell. It was the smell of another
Haemocrat.
According
to their intelligence, there were no Haemocrats within two thousand kilometres
of Williams. The scent was fresh. They had been through here only minutes
ago. Stepping up into a jog he followed
the scent to a two-storied house only a couple of streets over. All the windows and doors on the ground level
were locked. He could smell that the
Haemocrat was definitely inside.
Choosing a stealthy approach, he utilised his ability to adhere to
almost any surface and scaled the wall to a second level bedroom. He slipped through the open window and
paused. The only sound seemed to be a
muffled growling coming from the ground level.
He quietly padded down the hall to the top of the stairs. The sound was coming from the kitchen. Not trusting the wooden stairs, Garreth
jumped up onto the wall and slowly crawled his way down. Pausing near the arch that was the entrance
way to the kitchen, he gathered himself before slowly moving forward to look
inside. What he saw sickened him.
A
member of his kind, infected and sickly, was literally biting chunks out of a
body that had fallen in the kitchen and was devouring it. It was a ghastly scene. To think that a fellow Haemocrat had been
reduced to little more than a scavenger of meat turned his stomach. Ordinarily, a Haemocrat would be disgusted at
the thought of consuming meat. Their
sustenance, their reinvigoration, this was something that came from the
blood. Dropping down into the entrance
way, the ill Haemocrat took notice of him.
It did not run nor did it attack straight away. It squatted there, small pieces of flesh
dropping from its mouth, staring at Garreth uncertainly. Slowly, with obvious fervour, it put down the
arm it had been feasting on, and started to pad towards Garreth like a panther
would approaching a kill.
“Stop.” Garreth commanded in a voice that ordinarily
would have made even the tide pause.
And
pause the creature did, at least for a moment.
Then it began to again move forward. There was no rationality in its’ eyes. It didn’t even walk upright. It awkwardly crawled over on hands and feet
until it was only a metre from Garreth.
It then sat back in a kind of squat, and seemed to look him over. Garreth took a cautious step back. At the very least, he wanted a little more
room should the creature attempt anything.
And he was thankful he did.
Without
any forewarning, the creature leapt at him with its mouth open and incisors
extended. Blood and gore coated its face
and teeth. Garreth easily sidestepped it
and brought his elbow down hard on its spine.
The creature was sent sprawling on the floor and into a wall. Garreth clearly heard its skull crack. For a moment, it appeared dazed, and it
seemed unable to shake off the after effects of the blow. A healthy Haemocrat would have barely felt
the blow, but this diseased thing, although sick, was clearly without the usual
biological tricks possessed by a member of their kind. This was confusing to Garreth, but he put it
out of his mind for the moment.
With
a roar, the Haemocrat again attempted to attack Garreth, but this time it
simply tripped over itself and again went sprawling. It did not get up this time. Garreth waited to see if it would try again,
but it was clearly unable to do so.
Garreth
stepped up to it and squatted down to look it over. Whatever had infected this creature had
clearly affected its entire bio-chemistry.
Haemocrats were extremely difficult to make sick. Their hyper aggressive immune system would
usually neutralise any virus or bacteria within seconds of entering the
body. Smallpox; Malaria; HIV; Tuberulosis;
none of these were able to move past their internal defences. So how had this one been made sick? Garreth retrieved his phone and sent a text
message to Thomas advising her of a specimen.
Not wanting to soil his new suit, he dragged the body onto a small
trailer in the garage and began his walk back to the plane, dragging the little
red wagon behind him.
