What Happens in the Darkness (9 page)

Janelle sat on the curb and planted her face in her palms, leaning forward, exhaling deeply. It was remarkable, watching everyone. Hopeful people, gathering in small groups just to be with one another. Dirty faces, torn clothing—everyone the same now. Rubbing hands over trashcan fires, children playing tag, ducking the rubble, tripping over ruined shoes, dodging smashed baby carriages and overturned fruit stands. It felt surreal.

Watching Matt break the candy in half for the boys reminded her of her own dad. It was the sort of thing he might do when settling fights between Janelle and her brothers.

“What’s on your mind, kid?” Matt asked. “Family?”

Janelle nodded, tears falling.

“Hang in there,” he said gently, and left her alone.

Glancing uptown, toward Harlem, she stared at the wreckage that had been her life. Shells of buildings. Ruined lives. Nothing left of her former existence.

*** 

Matt and Sandy brought Janelle down to the vault of what had been the Citibank building. Debris had been cleared, the floor swept and cleaned, and they showed her the exits. The place looked livable. Almost.

“We dug out the tunnels,” Matt said. “Too many people were getting buried alive. These vaults are pretty much indestructible, but if you get trapped in one, it becomes your grave. Keep that in mind, kid. If there’s ever another bomb, don’t hide inside the vault.” He looked sad, Janelle thought. As if he was remembering something. “It’s best to stay in this outer room. That vault is only for emergencies.”

Janelle cocked her head. “Isn’t everything an emergency?”

Matt smiled. “If that door closes, you’ll never get out.”

“But no one will ever get in, either. Right?”

Matt stared at her. “You’re not getting this. If you get trapped in there, you’ll die.”

Janelle shook her head. “No, I’m getting this. If I close that door, no one can get in. I’d rather die that way than get captured.”

He did a double-take. “You’ve given this a lot of thought?”

She shrugged. “I guess.” Janelle clasped her hand in his. “Why bother hiding down here if you can’t use the vault?”

“It’s like you said—our decision. There’s no way out, but there’s no way in. But the bottom line is, the whole area, including this outer room, is reinforced. It’s definitely safer down here.”

He suddenly seemed sad again, so she changed the subject. “Oh. So how do you cook?”

He cheered up. “Outside mostly. We can boil water and stuff down here, but we do the major cooking outside, in areas that we set up. Too dangerous down here. Besides, it might attract the rats. Of course on the surface we have to watch out for soldiers. But we have watchers set up to keep an eye out for them.”

Janelle nodded, taking it all in, studying the shelter.

“Come on, kid, let’s find Sandy. I think she’s finding you a cot.” * “You remember Lana.” Martin indicated the woman standing in the shadows, her face obscured by darkness.

“Of course,” Jeff said, surprised by his wording, since he met with Lana many times. “We’ve spoken before.”

“Not by my choice,”
Lana snapped, stepping into view.

Jeff’s cheeks reddened. What was it with their dramatic entrances? Why couldn’t she just sit down and behave like a normal person?

“We’ve never really had a chance to have a lengthy conversation,” he said, trying to break the ice.

She ran her fingers through her short, slicked-back chestnut hair. “No we haven’t. Although many times you saw me running around like some captured animal in my cage, hunting down my dinner.” She glared at him. “Martin has asked that we leave you alone, and we do as he asks. That’s the only reason—”

Although she didn’t finish the thought, Jeff got the message. “Then I’m grateful to Martin.”

“You should be.” She walked away, ignoring Jeff’s extended hand. She said over her shoulder, “If it were up to me, I’d rip out your goddamned throat.”

“Lana.”
Martin shook his head, sighed.

He took Jeff’s elbow and directed him out of the cell. “We’ll be bringing home
company
later. All I ask is that you leave us alone. And I want that cell door and the bars removed.”

Jeff hesitated. “I’ll take care of it.”

“See that you do.”

Jeff ignored Martin’s power play. “How many are you bringing back?”

“Don’t know yet. That depends on what we find out there. We need to search densely populated areas.”

“You won’t find
dense
any more. But you’ll have the most luck in Albany, which is close. Then there’s always New York City.”

Martin smiled. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Big Apple.”

“That’s not funny.”

Martin raised his eyebrows. “Lighten up, Jeff. It gets worse.”

“Lighten up?” It had struck Jeff odd through the years that his vampires didn’t act like … well,
vampires
. They were educated by the
New York Times
, the
New Yorker
,
TIME
magazine, the
Atlantic Monthly
. They enjoyed satellite TV and had read thousands upon thousands of books. They enjoyed stimulating conversation. It wasn’t difficult getting used to their vernacular because he had been hearing it his entire life. They sounded like everyone else, for the most part.

Jeff spread a map across his desk. “New York. In all its former glory. Here’s Albany …” His fingers trailed along the map. “And New York City. About 250 miles south of here.”

Martin bent over the desk and studied the map by candlelight.

“How long will it take you to get there? Will you fly?”

“Fly?”

“You know.” Jeff flapped his arms like wings.

“Do I look like a carrier pigeon to you?”

“No, but I thought—you know,
bats
.”

“In all the years you’ve known me, have you ever seen me turn into a bat?”

Jeff cleared his throat.

“Ridiculous,” Martin muttered, shaking his head, snatching the map off the desk. His black boots clacked across the tiles as he headed back toward the cell.

Jeff followed, listening as Martin explained his plan to the others, who had finally come out from the caves. He caught Patrick, the youngest-looking of the vampires, glaring from across the room. His lip curled in a sneer, he mouthed the words
you’re mine
to Jeff, and then bared his fangs. Startled, Jeff looked at Martin, who seemed oblivious, and Jeff again wondered whether releasing them had been such a good idea.

Also flanking Martin were Lana, Rebecca, Dagan, and twin brothers Tim and Luke. Jeff didn’t know them well—other than Martin—they tended to stay in the background, but he knew them well enough. He was fond of most of them but remained wary of Patrick and Lana. He wondered just how loyal they would remain to Martin, whether they would obey his order not to harm Jeff.

“Listen,” Martin said. “This shouldn’t take too long. We move rather quickly—” Then he looked at Jeff. “Even if we don’t
fly
.”

The vampires laughed, even though they hadn’t been in on the joke.

“An hour or so to get there, I think. I’m rusty, and I have to presume we all are. Any questions? Are you all ready?”

They cheered their readiness.

The scent of bloodlust hung thick in the air. Jeff could see it in their eyes, a crazed hunger, their desire to devour and control. He’d seen it before, when he’d fed them. It was terrifying to see it now, without the metal bars to separate them and protect him.

The idea that Martin had told them not to touch Jeff was still unsettling. If Lana and Patrick had been trying to frighten him, they’d succeeded. They looked pissed, Patrick in particular.

Now the seven were gone. Disappeared, like leaves scattering on a sudden rush of wind.

And they were headed toward Manhattan.

Chapter 6 

Janelle curled up on the cot and pulled the blanket up to her nose. It smelled musty, and like stale cigarette smoke, but it reminded her of her aunt Martha’s house in South Carolina, and she found it comforting.

The kerosene lamplight was soft, the flames flickering, reflecting the movement of the people walking around in the vault. Considering the dozens of people in the room it was relatively quiet. They were apparently trying to be considerate of the sleeping children.

Janelle wondered what time it was. Just a week ago she’d been arguing with her mom about bedtime, always pleading for just ten more minutes. There was always a book to finish reading or a movie to finish watching. Her mom wouldn’t give in on school nights, and Janelle had a sharp nine o’clock bedtime.

Now it was probably way past that. Matt and Sandy hadn’t even brought her to the bank vault until after ten, and that had to have been at least an hour or more ago.

Settling back into the pillow she closed her eyes, the soothing tones of the surrounding conversations lulling her into a light sleep.

Janelle felt someone sit at the edge of her cot.

“Are you comfortable, baby?”

She half-opened her eyes and smiled. “What time is it?”

Sandy gently moved the hair out of the girl’s eyes. “It’s almost eleven thirty. You must be exhausted. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

Janelle yawned, as if for emphasis. She snuggled into the mattress a bit more and closed her eyes. As she drifted back into a light sleep she felt Sandy leaving her side.

A crash upstairs startled her, and she bolted up, clutching her blanket in her fists, her heart pounding. She thought they were being bombed again, and she opened her mouth to scream but only managed a squeak.

At the bottom of the short staircase, the door leading to the vault was kept closed and locked in a sad attempt at a sense of security.

Dozens of pairs of eyes stared at that closed door now, and between faint cries and moans and coughs, Janelle heard people mutter “Russians!” or “Iraqis!” or “goddamn mutts,” the term given to any number of the enemy who might be from virtually anywhere in the world. So many countries had united to form the superpower attempting to seize the United States that it was impossible to know which of the enemy might be banging around above them.

Several people rushed the door, but no one opened it.

A blond guy wearing a neon-green Bazinga! T-shirt said in a loud whisper, “Maybe it’s not them! Maybe it’s other survivors, looking to get in.”

A woman pulled her young daughter against her breast and said, “That was no knock, that was a crash!”

People nodded and whispered yeses.

“I’m going up,” the guy in the neon shirt said. “We can’t keep hiding like this. I won’t be a coward.”

“Don’t open that door,” Matt said, but he stayed where he was.

Several people yelled no, but no one tried to stop him as he approached the door.

He put his head against it and shrugged. “Maybe something fell. Or it’s a stray dog or something,” he stage-whispered. “I don’t hear …”

He unbolted the door and quickly pulled it open, jumping back when it slammed against the wall.

With a gun drawn and held high near his chest, he slowly stepped into the outer room.

No one spoke. They barely breathed.

Footsteps? The sounds of footfalls in the corridor … then a scuffling noise, a crash, a muffled grunt.

Something flew back into the room.

It bounced on the ledge where neon guy had been standing, hit the banister like a poorly passed basketball, and tumbled into the gap the crowd quickly provided.

Neon-guy’s head rocked on the floor until finally coming to rest against the baseboard. It stared at the wall like a punished child.

Utter silence filled the room. Janelle gasped, not quite grasping what she had just seen.

One scream started a chain reaction. People started to run, in circles, into walls, into one another, scrambling toward secret exits now blocked by people unable to realize they needed to pull the doors in toward themselves.

Janelle dropped to the floor and climbed beneath the cot, panting into her fingers splayed across her mouth, peering through squinting eyes, afraid to look but terrified not to.

Sandy and Matt ran around the room, as panicked as the rest.

Suddenly they appeared, seven strangers now filling the doorway, scanning the room.

The stranger with yellow hair moved first, grabbing Sandy as she ran screaming past. She kicked and punched him, but he seemed unaffected. “Get
off
me!” she shrieked, clawing at his face and eyes, her forearms attempting to block his attack. But he pulled her arms down, seemingly unaffected. The expression on his face remained until he lowered his face toward her neck. Then a look of anger overcame him—his eyes blazed with fury, and he sneered. He opened his mouth wide and bit her throat. Her head went flying back, and her arms shot straight out, stiff. She screamed once but it was quick, as if he bit the sound right out of her. When he came back up his face was covered in her blood. He flicked his head to the side, and with a gruff
argh!
sound, he flung away the chunk of her throat embedded in his teeth.

Gunshots filled the room, but either the victims were really bad shots or the strangers were really lucky.

A bullet found the head of the female stranger wearing a fluffy blue sweater. It entered her forehead and exited above her ear, a spray of blood coating the wall beside her, but the woman barely reacted. Her head jerked for a second, but the impact didn’t even knock her off her feet. She reached out for the gunman and grabbed hold of his arm, pulling at his wrist until she took the gun away from him—hand and all. He fell to his knees and screeched, tucking his stump under his armpit, leaning forward until his head practically touched the floor. She lifted him by his scalp, ripping away a chunk of it. He threw his head back and squealed, blood pouring down his face, blinding him. He lifted his stump into the air as if a sacrifice, his mouth open wide, great sobs shaking his body. She kicked him over on his side and drank from the hairy, bloody chunk of his scalp like it was a chalice.