City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) (5 page)

Kitchen, nothing.

There was one door that was closed. I assumed it was
the bedroom. If someone had abandoned this apartment, would he have taken the
trouble to close the bedroom door?

I felt the adrenaline rushing back. I didn’t stop to
discuss what I was about to do with anyone.

I walked up to the door and flung it open.

There he was, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The
box spring and some closet doors had been pushed up against the window. Even
with the door now open, letting in some light, the room remained extremely
dark.

I heard his raspy breathing from the doorway. It was
shallow and hoarse, as if he was struggling to breathe.

I was transfixed by the sight of him, and by the
unnerving sound of his breathing. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I had my stake
in my left hand and reached behind me with my right and touched Scott.

I whispered as softly as I could, “Watch the closets.”
He didn’t respond, but he squeezed my hand and I knew that he’d heard.

I walked purposefully over to the vampire. I put one
foot on the mattress so that I stood over him and raised my stake with both
hands. He looked so peaceful lying there with his rattling breathing—like a
dying man at peace with his own death. He reminded me of a surfer with his
tousled blond hair.

I hesitated. Was he definitely a vampire? I couldn’t
see any bite marks on him.

Suddenly, his eyes popped open. They were yellow, and
shone by the light coming through the doorway. All of my doubts fled. He was
definitely a vampire.

We stared at each other for a moment, neither of us
moving. I heard someone take a step toward me, then I plunged the stake into
the vampire’s chest.

It only took an instant. It went in smoothly. I felt
it go all the way through and pierce the mattress.

The vampire let out a hoarse scream and tried to raise
his arms, but I was already kneeling on his chest. Then it was over.

The light went out of his eyes and his head rolled to
the side. I felt his body go limp underneath me. A dark spot began to form
around the stake.

Scott turned on his flashlight and went straight for
the two closets. They were empty except for an assortment of clothing and
shoes. Then he turned the flashlight on me.

“Jesus H. Christ,” I heard James say from the doorway.

I didn’t say anything. I stood up, pulled my hatchet
out of my tool belt, and set to work cutting the vampire’s head off. Compared
to the mess I’d made cutting Stella’s head off, my freshly sharpened hatchet
made for much cleaner chopping. When I finished, I set the vampire’s head on the
mattress next to his right arm. Only when I was done did I walk to the doorway
where I saw that everyone was staring at me.

Everyone by the doorway moved aside.

Because vampire blood is thicker and slower to flow,
it doesn’t splatter like human blood, but I still got some on my shirt and
right thigh. At least I was wearing all black.

Bloody hatchet still in hand, I walked through the
crowd at the doorway and said quietly, “Someone else please get rid of him.”
Then, I walked out of the apartment.

8

Clearing out the apartments took longer than anticipated. Dwayne had to pick
the locks and then we had to move in, slowly checking every corner of every
closet, under and behind furniture, inside cabinets, and anywhere else a
vampire might hide. Once we were satisfied, we collected anything that looked
useful and some of our group stayed behind to board up the apartment while the
others moved on to the next apartment.

We were only able to get through about five or six
apartments per day, but fortunately my building was small, having a total of
about forty apartments. Besides the surfer vampire that I killed on the first
day, we only found two more. Scott killed one and James the other.

We tried to get through the apartments quickly. Almost
every time we showed up at Bryant Park, one or two more people were missing. We
wanted to clear out my building and board it up so we would have a safe place
to watch out for each other.

When we came to the apartment next door to mine, where
Beth and I had heard my neighbor’s fatal struggle with the vampire, we found
pretty much what I had expected. There was evidence of a violent fight. The
entire place was torn apart. Lamps, picture frames, even furniture and the
television had been broken. The woman must have been a fighter. Maybe if Beth
and I had come over to help her out...

But I couldn’t start thinking about that now.

Scott found the woman’s body in the kitchen. She was
middle-aged with auburn hair. There was dried blood everywhere, but that wasn’t
the worst part. Her head had been crudely cut off, probably with the giant
kitchen knife lying next to her. This was the first time I had seen anything
like it.

“Why in God’s name...” James began.

“It can’t be,” Scott said. I suspected he was thinking
the same thing I was.

“Can’t be what?” James asked.

“Vampire birth control,” I whispered.

“Excuse me,” James squeaked. “Vampire what?”

“Vampire birth control…population control.” I couldn’t
take my eyes off the decapitated body and the head with the tangled hair matted
with dried blood. “We heard the whole thing.” I looked at Beth. Her eyes were
downcast. “We heard the fight, but we didn’t come over. It was bad. She fought
back, but we didn’t know how many there were at the time. I think there was
only one. It walked right by our broken window.”

“Do you know when she was killed?” Scott asked.

“She wasn’t killed until things started getting quiet,
about a week ago. Food would have been scarce by then.”

“I’m sorry, food would have been scarce?” Beth finally
spoke.

Scott shook his head. “So they’re that smart? They
have the presence of mind to keep their population under control so they don’t
have to share resources?”

I nodded. James looked like he was starting to
understand. He looked horrified. “Let me get this straight. Are you saying a
vampire chased this woman down in her own apartment, killed her, drank her
blood, and then cut her head off so she couldn’t come back as another mouth to
feed?”

I nodded.

Beth looked from the woman, to her head, to the knife
in disbelief. “Maybe someone else came in and she was starting to turn so they
cut her head off. The knife doesn’t even have blood on it.”

“There’s some blood on the handle,” I pointed out. “He
probably licked the blade clean afterward. Didn’t you ever lick the spoon after
your mom made cake batter?”

“Nice, really nice, Ailis, compare this woman to cake
batter,” James said. For once, he wasn’t cracking the jokes. This new discovery
must have really gotten to him.

I felt a little guilty until I saw Scott was trying
not to smile at my tasteless joke. “Seriously,” he said, straightening his
features, “this changes the situation a bit. Assuming vampires did this, then
they’re smarter than we, or at least I, thought, and that makes them more
dangerous.”

I nodded. “It was so strange though. After he
finished, he walked out into the hallway, then back into the apartment to take
the fire escape. He walked right by our open window. He was sniffing around so
much I thought for sure he knew we were there, but he didn’t come after us.”

“So I guess that makes them a little less human,”
Scott smiled wryly. “They only kill when they’re hungry and not just for the
hell of it.”

“That’s exactly what I thought at the time,” I said.
“That’s what made me think it was a vampire and not a looter. A looter would
have come right in.”

James sighed. “Let’s just get her out of here and see
if there’s anything worth salvaging. Then we can board this place up, I don’t
think anyone is going to want this apartment.” And we did just that.

During the week and a half it took us to clear out the
apartments, we all settled into a routine. We took care of three apartments in
the morning, gathered for lunch at Bryant Park, where we waited for news and
supply drops from the outside world, and spent the afternoon taking care of one
more apartment. At least the days were getting longer.

We even had time for some fun. In the span of just a
few blocks, Park Avenue housed Ferrari,
Maserati, Audi, and Mercedes showrooms. We took our pick.

At first, some of us raced each other up and down the
Avenues, but after trying it once or twice I decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
I had survived a vampire plague that had killed over a million people. I wasn’t
keen on getting myself killed in a car accident.

We communicated daily with the outside world during
our lunches at Bryant Park. Paulo was usually in charge of the radio. A few
times someone hacked the frequency and we were able to talk to people outside
of the government. These conversations only lasted a few minutes. A few days after
our initial contact with the outside, while we were still clearing out the
apartment building, the man on the radio informed us that he had a surprise for
us.

There was a pause and then a woman’s voice came on. My
heart jumped into my throat when I heard it.

“Ailis?” It was my mother.

“Ailis Laurent?”

In an instant I was clutching the radio. “Yes Mom, I’m
here.”

“Oh my God.” I heard her crying. “How can it be you? I
thought you were dead. This whole time. Are you okay? Are you sick? Are you
hurt? Are you eating? Are you safe?” She bombarded me with questions.

“Yes, I’m okay, nothing’s wrong with me.” I couldn’t
hold back the tears. “They drop off food and equipment for us every day. How
are you and Daddy? The virus never spread outside the city?”

“No, no, everyone out here is fine, but we’ve been so
upset for the past three weeks, we even planned a memorial...” She sounded as
if she was breaking down and I could hear another voice comforting her.

“Daddy is that you? Are you both okay?”

“We’re fine, we’re fine. It’s good to hear from you,”
he said gruffly. I knew my dad, he was trying his best not to get emotional.

“How’s Nina?” My younger sister was studying abroad in
London. I
wondered if she had come home during the crisis.

“She’s fine,” my dad said. “She’s volunteering at a
hospital a few days every week. She thinks she might want to be a nurse or a
doctor now. She’s coming home for a visit soon. They haven’t been letting
people travel in or out of the country since this thing started. They’re going
to lift the travel ban soon, though.”

There was silence and then my mother seemed to collect
herself. “You don’t know how we felt when we got the phone call. You’ve come
back to life and you aren’t even hurt. Of all the people in Manhattan only a handful of survivors and
you’re one of them? I’ve prayed so hard, but I never thought it could be. I
can’t wait until you come home.”

“Me neither, Mom, they say they’ll get us out of here
soon...”

“Now excuse me,” the radio man came on again. “I’m
sorry, I don’t want to interrupt, but we have other anxious family members here
who want to speak to their loved ones.”

The others around me started to crowd toward the
radio, murmuring, “Who? Who?”

I could still hear my mother in the background, “When
is she coming home? When are you getting her out of there?”

“As soon as it’s safe,” the radio man answered.
“They’ll all be out soon.”

“Listen asshole,” I was crying by now, but trying to
pretend as if I weren’t. “You know it’s safe to come get us and no one has the
virus. You get us out of here right now!” Hearing my mother’s voice had made me
desperate. “I don’t want any of this ‘one week’ or ‘two weeks’ or ‘whenever
it’s safe.’ People have families.”

“Yes, yes,” he responded, sounding anxious. “Of course
we are going to get you out of there as soon as possible, but right now we have
a Ms. Angela Dawson here who wants to speak to her son so please say your
goodbyes and you’ll be able to talk again soon.”

Dwayne leapt toward the radio, but I wouldn’t hand it
over. “
Damnit
, what the hell is wrong with you
people? Put us in quarantine, I don’t care just get us out of here!”

“Dwayne? Dwayne are you there?”

Dwayne’s mother was on the radio and Dwayne was
pulling it away from me. I knew there was no sense in shouting any more. “I
love you Mom and Daddy!” I said into the radio as Dwayne pulled it out of my
hands. I thought I heard them say they loved me too, but Dwayne and his mother
were already starting to talk.

I turned away from the crowd around the radio and
started to walk away. Scott looked at me. He looked torn between following me
and waiting by the radio, but I waved him away. I didn’t want him to miss
whoever was on the other end waiting to speak to him, and mostly I wanted to be
alone.

“Don’t go too far,” he called out.

What I really wanted to do was walk over to the docks
on the Hudson, find myself a boat, and head over
to New Jersey.
I would dare them to shoot me. Then again, they just might, and after hearing
my parents’ voices I couldn’t do that to them. I’d just risen from the dead in
their minds. I couldn’t make them bury me all over again.

To prevent myself from doing anything irrational or
wandering carelessly about the city on my own, I walked to a corner of the park
that had been cleared of dead bodies, sat under a tree, and cried. Of course I
had missed my family and wondered how they were. Of course I had wanted to go
home before that moment, but hearing my parents’ voices made me so homesick I
thought I would become physically ill. Up until that point it hadn’t even
occurred to me to ask where the radio broadcasts had been coming from. Were
they in Washington, D.C.,
or were they right across the river in New
Jersey?

I don’t know how long I sat there collecting myself,
but after some time Beth came over and sat next to me. Her eyes were red and
her face was splotchy. She had spoken to her parents too. I wasn’t sure what to
say.

“Is your family okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Just like your parents, they’d
given me up for dead.” Beth paused. “The man on the radio said our families
would be allowed to send us things.”

“What are they going to send you?”

“I couldn’t think of anything to ask for.” Beth smiled
weakly. “I wanted everything and nothing all at once. I just want to go home.”
She looked like she was about to cry again. I wanted to change the subject, but
couldn’t think of another topic, so we sat in silence.

After a few minutes the guys came over, followed by
Leila. For once she didn’t seem like her usual optimistic self. Scott and James
looked somber. Scott had talked with his brother and James had talked with his
parents. Paulo had no family on the outside to talk to, but had stayed to
operate the radio until everyone had finished talking.

“Dwayne could have given me another five seconds to
say goodbye,” I grumbled.

“I know, but he’s a good guy, he was just overwhelmed
at the chance to talk to his mom again,” Scott said. “Weren’t you?”

“Yeah I know, of course I was,” I sighed. “I wish I
could have told her I wanted one of those French chocolate pies she makes and
maybe a picture of the whole family. I can’t believe I don’t even have one with
me here. I guess most of my pictures are on my laptop and the battery is dead
now.”

Scott smiled. “Well one, why don’t you ask for a new
laptop battery, and two, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to talk to your mom
again, or at least send her messages.”

I knew he was probably right so I let it go and
decided I wouldn’t hold it against Dwayne.

Two days later, before I could even send my mother a
message, I received a package with the supply drop. Inside, packed with cold
packs to keep it cool, was a homemade chocolate pie and a picture of my family
at the beach.

She included a card with a picture of a sad cat,
saying that she missed me very much and that my grandmothers were preparing
gifts of homemade fudge and sugar cookies. It turned out I hadn’t needed to
tell my family what I wanted. They already knew.

The same delivery also included several newspapers,
all of which bore similar headlines such as, “New Yorkers Survive Plague of the
Century,” and, “Can the Last New Yorkers Be Saved?” and my personal favorite, “
Manhattanites
Fight for Their Lives Against City of 8
Million Vampires.”