Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) (4 page)

“
We could
move, of course, but the sheer scope of that project is beyond our
capability. We just can’t move everyone in secret at this time. My
experiment was to see if we could scramble the Vampires’ senses if
they came too close to us. Nothing major, just enough to interfere
with their long range scans and prevent them from sensing us if
they flew overhead. It took quite some time to get the correct
frequency, but with Mister Smyth’s help,” he paused here, wanting
to tell the committee that, while they had sat on their arses and
ignored the danger these patrols posed to them all, Harris and his
team had risked their lives by carrying his bulky equipment across
the border and testing it on vampires, at great risk to themselves.
They had risked so much getting the equipment within range of live
subjects that they deserved to be honoured. He felt as if he was
betraying their courage in not extolling their involvement, but Pat
had insisted that any mention of Harris would only work against
them all at this time so he, reluctantly, had agreed to keep their
continued involvement a secret.

“
Once we
found the frequency I set up an overlapping field around the city
to hide us from the vampires. Of course, it wouldn’t stop them
physically seeing us if we were caught outside but, as you all
know, we have a number of ways of making sure that doesn’t happen.
It was their ability to sense heat and their amazing sense of smell
that I was targeting. Since it went in place, we have tracked quite
a number of vampires passing overhead searching, but none seemed to
have managed to detect us so far.”

“
Yes, I’m
sure that that’s all very interesting,” Phelps interrupted, tapping
his pen impatiently on the table in front of him, “but what
actually killed this particular vampire?”

Pat Smyth
snorted and leaned forward. “Don’t you realise what a breakthrough
this is?” he asked incredulously. “This device is the only reason
why we are still able to live here unmolested by the vampires. We
would all be dead right now, or scattered throughout the state, if
this amazing experiment wasn’t shielding us.”

Regan coughed
gently. “Yes, I’m sure that we are all grateful to Mr. Wilkins but
I think we are all interested to know if we can use this new
discovery more as a weapon. It’s one thing to hide behind this
shield but what if the vampires manage to see through it or we run
out of fuel to run it? I might remind you that the equipment is not
cheap to run in terms of fuel and the amount of people resources
that are required to keep it running. It does break down with
alarming frequency, as well.”

Wilkins blushed. He was well
aware that his project needed a lot more time to get it working
efficiently. He just didn’t have the right equipment to set it up
the way he wanted so the masts consumed far more resources than he
would have liked. Unless he was able to convince the committee
that, by spending more resources now that they would save resources
in the long term, it was very likely that they might very well cut
off all of his fuel supplies and leave them all completely
unprotected from aerial detection.

“
I’m not
certain what killed the creature,” Wilkins replied slowly, “but,
judging by the body, it seems that the vampire must have flown
through a point where the fields overlapped each other and thus
increased the strength of the waves bombarding it. I had no idea
that the fields would have such an effect. It has no effect on
humans so it must have something to do with their heightened
senses.”

“
Can you
develop a handheld version?” Regan leaned forward on his elbows and
fixed Wilkins with an intense stare.

“
Out of the
question, I’m afraid,” Wilkins answered and snapped his head toward
Phelps who had just thrown down his pen in disgust.

“
It’s not
practical, considering the power requirements,” Wilkins continued
despite the interruption, “the device would have to be far bigger
than anyone could manage alone. I’m not even sure if we could
recreate it if a force of them attacked the city. There are just
too many variables.”

“
So we’re
still stuck here hiding, waiting for the bastards to die out,”
Phelps sneered. “Oh, wait a minute, they’re not going to die out
anymore, are they? Ever since Harris sent Steele to tell them that
the serum was killing them and effectively saved the bastards so
they could tear the state apart looking for us. It’s only a matter
of time, you know, before they find us. Either your equipment will
break down or we’ll run out of the fuel to power it and then
they’ll descend on us like the wrath of God.”

Wilkins
looked over at Smyth and saw the small chemist shake his head
slightly. They could argue as much as they wanted that Harris had
acted the way he had to save millions of humans across the world
but none of that took away from the truth in Phelps’s words. The
vampires were still out there, and now that they knew that a
community of free humans existed they would continue to search
until they found them. Whether Harris had acted for the best or not
was immaterial at this point.

While there
had been far fewer search parties than they would have expected
after their presence was revealed by Steele, there were still
enough vampires crossing the skies to make them nervous, and all
that hid them was outdated equipment. Equipment that could stop
functioning at any moment and leave them naked and exposed. Harris
had done a lot of good but he had indeed stirred a major hornet’s
nest when he had set about turning the vampires at each others’
throats.

He had
rescued thousands, Wilkins and his family amongst them, but the
city was straining to cope with the increased numbers; food and
resources were already running far too low. On top of all their
other problems, they were in the grip of a severe winter with snow
drifts covering many of the smaller buildings in the old city.
Global warming was still a major threat to them as the planet
struggled to recover from decades of abuse.

If they ran
out of fuel, then, quite simply, they would not make it to spring.
All of their fuel was being used to heat the living areas, and even
this had recently been restricted to certain hours of the day. The
reaction he was getting each time he went to collect his ration for
the upkeep of the network was becoming more and more aggressive,
and all the time the stocks continued to decline alarmingly fast.
Hiding was one thing but survival was something else entirely. And
in the current situation, their continued survival looked very
doubtful, indeed.

Chapter 2

William Carter sighed as he
lowered himself into the chair. He had spent all day patrolling his
forces in and around Bertrand. Territorial lines had blurred
somewhat in the last three months. Ever since the humans had
successfully rescued thousands of prisoners under all of their
noses and managed to set the vampires against each other, things
had changed drastically.

In fact, to say things had
changed was an understatement. At least, within a four-state area
anyway. He had no idea what was happening further than that, and
really didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, life was good. He
had moved from being a lowly Captain in an army subservient to the
vampires to leader of all the thralls in two states.

He remembered the last few
months with more than a little pride as he kicked off his boots and
brought a cold beer to his lips. He had moved quickly the night the
humans had escaped. While the dawn was still breaking overhead - in
fact, he still couldn’t be sure if the dawn had been breaking at
all or whether it had been the fires on the horizon that had lit
his way but, regardless - he had gathered his forces in the dim
light and marched toward his destiny.

Falconi’s thralls had been in
disarray and many of them didn’t know whether their leader was
alive or dead. The last thing they had known was that a truce had
been declared between the two leaders and they had taken his orders
without question. He had driven immediately to Niles and had swept
through the town without mercy. All senior officers had been taken
and beheaded in front of everyone. No choices had been offered to
these men. He had spent years under their command and he knew them
for the petty, power-hungry bastards they were. He knew them too
well to think that they would not plot against him as soon as they
got the opportunity. His combined force had been too well armed and
far too large to resist and the city had fallen easily.

He also knew his fellow thralls
in the middle ranks, and he knew what scared them most. He had
delivered them from that fear. He had offered them freedom from the
vampires. None of the thralls in Niles knew anything about what had
occurred in Bertrand so he had brought a number of vampire corpses
to back up what he was saying. He had, of course, left out the part
the humans had played and had exaggerated somewhat his own role,
but the result had surpassed even his expectations.

The thralls in Niles were quick
to see that his forces included thralls in the uniforms of Von
Kruger’s army as well as their own, and they mistook this to mean
that he had defeated their neighbouring enemies as well as removed
the vampire yoke from their heads. He was immediately accepted as
their new commander and his forces had swelled even further.

From there he had quickly sent
scouts ahead to all the major towns and cities announcing what had
happened. Most of the thralls in these towns had woken that morning
to find that their vampire masters had disappeared. The thralls on
guard duty could only report that they had seen large numbers of
vampires pass overhead during the night toward the border so the
evidence worked for him.

Rumour and fear spread so fast
that, by the time word reached them of the new warlord in the North
who had defeated their vampire masters, his legend had grown so
much from each re-telling that many towns had already pledged their
allegiance to him long before his forces reached them. In many of
the towns he had seen a line of the town’s former thrall commanders
already beheaded and laid out as a guard of honour to the city’s
approach.

It had taken him four weeks in
all to subdue both states. But he hadn’t stopped there. He had sent
emissaries to all the neighbouring states informing them of what
had happened and how they too could shake off the vampire
oppression if they joined together. This, of course, was far
trickier to manage, as he could not afford to split his forces too
thinly in case these other states decided to move against him.

While there were still plenty of
vampires remaining within his own states, they were fewer in number
than before and were still focused on their own struggle for
dominance. He wasn’t overly worried about them at this time.
However, there were still far too many vampires in the neighbouring
states to let those thralls merely decide not to obey their
masters. He did hope, though, to plant a seed of what could be
achieved in the minds of these thralls. His main worry was that the
vampires in the neighbouring states would order their armies to
cross the border and subdue him before he was ready. Anything he
could do to delay such actions would work in his favour and if he
could start a revolution in those states then so much the
better.

He still had too much work to do
in his own territory to take advantage of the situation fully,
though. Von Kruger, the most senior vampire in the state, had not
been idle either while he had been busy building his own empire.
Von Kruger was old school and relied upon sheer power and fear to
subdue those around him. He still did not consider the thralls a
real threat and had spent his time confirming his control over
Wentworth’s surviving vampires and claiming the state as his
own.

To this end Von Kruger had
rallied his own forces from every corner of the state and invaded
Wentworth’s old territory. Reports had flooded into his command HQ
from every corner of the state of vicious battles between the
vampires but he had ordered his men to remain on the fringes and to
take no part in this war. The more blood shed by the vampires
amongst themselves the better it would be for him in the long run.
It was safer not to take sides and to let the vampires reduce their
numbers through attrition. These battles only took place during
darkness, of course, so a strange truce, where the vampires fought
at night and the thralls continued to extend their territory by
day, began to shape the future of the two states. In the end, Von
Kruger had emerged victorious among the vampires and now controlled
the two states completely.

Of course, in the time it had
taken Von Kruger to achieve dominion over the vampires he had
allowed Carter the time to gain full control of the thrall forces,
forces that were far more numerous than the vampires and could not
now be ignored. Von Kruger, fresh from his victory, had finally
taken the time to take stock of his territory and had come to
realise that his own vampire forces were far fewer than he had
realised.

His borders were under severe
threat from neighbouring states as those vampires were slowly
coming to terms with the knowledge that vampires were once again at
war with each other. They had held off attacking him themselves so
far only because they feared reprisal from the Council, but, with
the council’s continued inaction to Von Kruger’s campaign, many of
the neighbouring states were beginning to see this as a form of
unofficial approval and were already beginning to marshal their own
forces to take whatever advantages this new situation presented to
them.