Survival – The Fall of Post #17

‘Survival’
By Jonathon Wise

They say it began outside of Boulder. That’s where they found the first body. No one knew what it was at first. How could they? Hollywood had convinced us that Vampires were supposed to look just like the rest of us. By the time they figured it out… it was too late. The battle for survival of the species had begun.

Hikers were the first to be infected. They came back from their weekend outings and no one was the wiser. Again, Hollywood had done the human race a grave injustice. The infected didn’t grow fangs. It took months for them to lose their pigmentation and even longer for them to grow sensitive to sunlight. They didn’t have superhuman strength and they were just as mortal as the rest of us. The one thing the movies did get right – was their thirst for blood. But even that took time.

Just as shocking as the realization that vampires had evolved alongside humans was the way the first battle was fought. There weren’t any stakes or crosses. Both sides used guns. Boulder was littered with the bodies of our military as well as the infected. At least it was during the daylight of that first day. When night fell, the vampires came.
Most people have trouble remembering the time when they didn’t fear the night. Back before our nightmares became real, back to the blissful ignorance of seven years ago.

‘The Fall of Post #17’
Chapter 1

“Everyone stay alert!” Frank commanded as the train pulled to a stop. This wasn’t his first cleanup mission and he had no intention of it becoming his last. The dead silence on the other side of the railcar’s armor could only mean one thing – there had been an attack. Frank motioned for his men to take position as he entered the code on the door’s keypad. Then he stepped back and readied his MK mini-gun with the other five marines. He flicked off the safety and after a quick check that everyone was ready; he reached over and hit the ‘accept’ key. For a brief second, no one breathed as the one-inch hardened steel deadbolts pulled free of the door. After they cleared, there was a burst of compressed air that rocked everyone back on their heels, and then the pneumatic door rammed back into the void in the car’s wall.

Frank’s shoulders dropped as the tension escaped in one forceful blow. Only fading daylight and a gentle breeze waited for them on the other side. He stepped over to the door as the telescoping ramp extended out from under the railcar. They were a good fifty meters from the stockade, but that was still close enough to see the bodies. They were scattered on both sides of the open gate. Some were post personnel and some were croppers. That’s what farmers and guards called the infected. Frank looked at the sun and then at his watch. “Corporal Davidson.”

The marine at the opposite end of the line in front of the door stepped up and presented arms. “Sir!”

“You know the game plan. Secure the train and secure the post perimeter. Find out what happened to the perimeter defenses and for God’s sake – get the tower guns operational. ”

“Sir, yes Sir Sergeant Harcore!” A moment later the twelve marines who made up Alpha squad sprinted down the ramp in two-by-two formation.

“Corporal Riley”

The marine in charge of Bravo squad stepped up. “Sir!”

“Search for survivors among the post personnel. Shoot any who test positive. I want all the dead in the meat wagon and ready to rock inside of an hour. You got that Corporal!”

“That include the fields, Sir?”

“No,” Frank said as he grabbed the Corporal’s shoulder, “you never go into the fields after an attack.”

“Sir, yes Sir Sergeant Harcore!”

“And I better have a report on how the perimeter was breached in ten. You got that Corporal?”

“Sir, yes Sir!”

Frank stepped back as Corporal Riley led his men out to search the dead. With the second squad deployed, Frank keyed the mike on his headpiece. “Lieutenant Walters Sir!”

Lieutenant Jeffry Walters keyed back from the armored command car located behind the second of the two diesel locomotive engines. “Yes Sergeant.”

“First two squads are deployed Sir. Our perimeter is being secured and the dead are being loaded up. Charlie squad is deploying to the safe cage in the barracks.”

“Visual is still clear. There’s a lot of clutter on infrared, but it looks like there’s some movement in the fields. You’ve got twenty minutes. I want to be underway well before it gets dark.”

“Sir, yes Sir Lieutenant Walters!” With that Frank led the last squad of marines off the train.
Frank wasn’t a natural born country boy. He grew up in Chicago. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the serenity of open farmland. Even now, with the twenty-foot tall stockade fence around the compound and the corner towers with their M240 armaments, it was the graceful blowing of the waist high wheat in the late August afternoon that he focused on first.

“Everything okay Sarg?”

Frank turned and looked at the PFC who spurned official protocol by addressing him in a non-military fashion. “Hey Tommy.” Frank started walking with him. “Just thinking about how good it was before all this shit came down.”
“Yeah… all this open space… sure would have been nice. The view definitely beats the hell out of staring at a wall.”
The resentment Frank felt was spelled out across his face. Before the war started, a man could raise his family in open country like this. And he could do it without fear. Now they were reduced to living behind great walls in the few cities still controlled by humans. That realization fueled his sense of satisfaction as they stepped over and around the bodies of fallen croppers. Then they came up to the first post guard. The man was sprawled out on his back, lying across a deep rut in the dirt. Frank looked at the pistol still held firmly in the man’s hand and then he glanced at the stockade gate a mere ten meters away. Did the man’s sacrifice accomplish anything? Frank pushed the thought out of his mind so that he could focus on the condition of the body.

A first timer wouldn’t have been able to tell, might not have even thought about it. But this wasn’t Frank’s first run. It was his seventh. He didn’t need chicken scratches to keep count. Making a meat run to an outpost isn’t something you ever forget. And in those seven runs, Frank had learned two things. First was that the infected appeared to have a working chain of command. Their movements through the grain belt were methodical. The second thing he learned was how to tell when a kill had been bled out. There was a subtle difference between a man being stabbed in the throat and left for dead, and a man being stabbed in the throat and then sucked dry. It was a subtle difference that could mean life or death for a rescue platoon. If a post had been bled dry then it was unlikely that vampires would attack, but if there were still fresh blood… The guard lying at Frank’s feet hadn’t been bled out yet.

A marine drew his pistol and shot a downed post guard in the head. Another shot rang out a moment later, but Frank didn’t even twitch. There was no need to. Pistol fire was only used on post personnel. Whenever someone was recruited to serve on a post, whether as a guard or a farmer, a small chip was implanted under the skin on their right shoulder. If a post came under attack, the chip ID was downloaded into the firing mechanism of each marine’s mini-gun before they left the city. It was a simple but effective safety measure. With a 200 round pack strapped to your back, you could mow down a lot ground without thinking about it. The chip kept you from shooting a post civilian with anything other than your pistol.

Frank stopped in the middle of the open gate and looked at the bodies in the ‘dead man’s span’. The DMS was a mined, ten-meter span between parallel barbed fence lines. There weren’t any holes. Frank keyed his headset as he walked inside the stockade. “Jack.”

Corporal Davidson responded, “Yeah Frank.”

“What’d you find out on the defenses?”

“We can’t get the tower guns operational.”

“They go through any rounds?”

“No sir. Not a one.”

“What about the DMS?”

“Locked out. I entered the override code assigned to this post but everything is still dead as a doornail. Camp has emergency power but that’s it.”

Frank stopped and stared across the wheat swaying in the wind outside the fence. This post managed over 8000 acres, but right now it was only the small patches moving against the wind that he cared about. He quickly keyed his headset again. “Spot for me Jack.”

Jack’s command went out to Alpha squad and seconds later reports began to come in from the towers and the perimeter. “I’ve got movement at our 7:00.”

“Small arms movement at 12 and 3.”

“Fuck!” Frank swore as he keyed up again. “Lieutenant Walters Sir!”

“Yes Sergeant.”

“What are you showing on the scopes?”

“Still nothing on visual. And only a few small numbers on heat. What is it Sergeant?”

“Something doesn’t feel right about this Sir. Perimeter defenses appear to have been disabled.”

Another gunshot rang out from inside the stockade. This time it spun Frank around in time to see the marine holster his pistol. He turned a complete circle and looked at his men. Bravo squad was scattered everywhere as they carted fresh bodies back to the meat wagon. Half of Alpha squad was trying to figure out why the post’s defenses would come back online. “Sir, are you positive in your read?”

The Lieutenant’s voice came back over Frank’s headset. “Small numbers. Can’t be more than a couple dozen hostiles Sergeant. But I trust your gut. Double time-it and let’s clear out.”

Frank looked at the men in the towers. The towers weren’t fortified. They weren’t designed to be manned. He keyed the open channel. “Listen up men. Safeties off. Alpha squad – pullback and establish a line of fortification between the stockade and the train. Bravo squad – cease retrieval operations. I want intercept points manned at our 7, 12 and 3. Stay alert men. Double time-it!”

Frank turned and addressed his own squad. Without speaking he ordered PFC Mike Ryan and three other men to sweep the eastern barrack. Tommy was charged likewise with the western barrack. That left the center barrack and the safe cage for Frank’s group. “Sweep it fast. I want all accounted for in five back here on this spot.”

Frank led the charge of his men as they sprinted across the 5-acre compound to the center barrack some fifty meters away. He hurdled over the body of a cropper and was about to jump over one of the fallen farmers when something about the middle-aged man looked wrong. Frank pulled up and stopped his men with a gesture of his hand.
“What is it Sarg?”

Frank looked at the bullet wound in the man’s thigh and then at the defensive wounds on his arms. Some were inflicted with a knife, but the majority looked like gouges from a cropper’s bite. “Private.”

“Sarg.”

“You ever see an infected try to eat someone before?”

The Private starred at the gouges in the farmer’s hands, arms and shoulders. “No Sarg, unless they’d just been turned I was told the infected couldn’t digest meat.”

Something about it wasn’t right. But whatever it was – it would have to wait. They broke away from the body and continued on in a full sprint toward the barrack. Frank slid to a stop on the dirt in front of the steel safety door of the barrack and quickly entered the override code. The other three marines readied their weapons as Frank hit the enter key. They waited for the deadbolts to disengage, and then Frank counted it down on his hand. One, he stepped in front of the door. Two, he shifted his weight over his rear foot. Three, he kicked the door open and immediately stepped to the side to give his marines a clear line of fire.

Nothing. There were holes punched through the corridor walls, and the cement floor was marred with long streaks of dry blood. But there weren’t any hostiles waiting for them.

“Sergeant Harcore!” It was Lieutenant Walters.

“Sir!”

“We’re beginning to pick up thermal imaging of vast numbers.”

“What are your—“ a woman’s scream from farther inside cut Frank off. “Hold on Sir… we have survivors”

“We don’t have time to search Sergeant. Pull your men back”

Frank ignored the Lieutenant’s directive and waved the other three marines forward. They secured the corridor and then proceeded to the main living hall. Furniture was overturned, the television kicked in and several of the lights broken. The only thing missing were the bodies. The farmers and guards had followed procedure. Following the first wave of attack, all casualties are to be removed from compound barracks and placed offsite in an area of confinement. Husbands, wives, daughters or sons, it didn’t matter. No one who tested positive was to be allowed in the barracks. This federal directive went for wounded as well as the dead. Survivors had done what they were told to do and then closed the steel safety door.

“Sergeant!” It was the Lieutenant. “I’m picking up a vast buildup of hostiles flanking our position… a second wave. Pull your men back immediately!”

Frank motioned for his men to check the kitchen and storage area. The newly turned are still able to eat solid food for a while and have been found scouring kitchens. The marines moved in stealthy fashion, quiet and deliberate. Radio silence was the standing order in close-quarter searches, but something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just what the Lieutenant said, and it wasn’t just the peculiar happenings with the post defenses. Frank kept thinking about the farmer outside with the gouges bitten all over his body.

“Bravo squad.”

“Sarg.”

“Pull back from intercept points and reinforce Alpha squad’s position.” Without any post defenses, the train was their only lifeline out of there.

“Sure thing Sarg.”

Frank keyed the two PFCs in charge of searching the other barracks. “Tommy, Mike, clear your searches and set up a position outside the center barrack. Find cover and await order.”

“Sergeant!”

“Lieutenant… we’re capable of withstanding such an assault.” But as soon as the words left Frank’s lips, it hit him. The farmer. The flesh had been ripped from his shoulder.

“Movement coming at us!” It was Corporal Davidson of Alpha squad.

The infected weren’t eating – they were searching.

“Fallback!” Frank yelled at the three marines searching the kitchen and food storage.

“Help us!” a woman’s scream fired up from the back of the barrack.

While it was still lingering in the air, a man’s scream joined in. “We’re back here… in the safe cage!”

Frank’s men ran back into the living hall, this time without any concern for being quiet.
Frank stopped them as he keyed his mike. “Alpha squad. Lay a line of suppressing fire in the crops.”

Less than three seconds later, Corporal Davidson’s rattle voice broke the soft static. “Sarg!” The pop-pops of pistol fire started to sound outside the barrack. “Mini-guns won’t fire!”

Frank closed his eyes in a split second of anguish. “Fuck,” he swore with a stiff chin. With all their advanced weapons and training, he and his men had been out maneuvered by a bunch of infected civilians. The first wave that Lieutenant Walters saw on infrared was relatively small. That’s because they were the ones wearing the chips from the farmers and the guards. The chips they tore out with their teeth.

Automatic fire filled the air and it wasn’t from a mini-gun.

Frank hit the open channel. “Sidearms!” He barely got it off before he heard automatic fire discharged in a long, sweeping fashion. It had the familiar sound of an MK, but there was no way that it was fired by one of his men. A marine is trained to squeeze off shots. That meant croppers were picking up the guns of his fallen men.

“Back here! Don’t leave us!”

Frank closed his mind to the gut-wrenching screams coming from the back of the barrack. His first responsibility was to his men. “Fall back to the train!” Frank and his men charged out into the heat of the setting sun and were immediately greeted by hostile fire. The rest of Charlie squad had taken cover behind some jeeps in the middle of the compound and were exchanging fire with croppers who had converged on the stockades main gate. Frank and his men dove behind a stack of bodies piled a few feet from the barrack.

He peered around their cover and saw that two of Tommy’s men were down. Then he looked at the main gate. More and more croppers kept coming. “Lieutenant!” Frank listened to his headset but heard only soft static. As the men on the ground next to him opened fire, he keyed the mike again. “Lieutenant! Lieutenant Walters Sir!” Still no answer. “Tommy!”

“Yeah Sarg,” Tommy gasped as he fired another shot.

“How are you and Mike on rounds?”

“Can’t speak for Mike or his men, but I’m down to three clips and I took those off of Tim and Rick.

Frank bobbed up again to assess the resistance at the main gate. That’s when he spotted a cropper running up with one of the squad’s 200 round packs strapped to his back. This time he didn’t bother with the mike. Frank yelled into the air, “Pull back! Back inside the main barrack.” Tommy turned and their eyes met in a brief second of understanding. Then the metallic whine of belt-fed rounds discharging filled the air. Rounds sprayed across the jeep. The tires blew and it was as if Tommy suddenly leapt backwards. The jeep’s gas tank exploded about the same time the PFC hit the ground.

Mike’s men continued to fire from the other jeep. But pistols were no match for a 200 round mini-gun.
Frank rolled onto his back and looked at the steel safety door behind them. It wouldn’t stand up to that kind of firepower either, but there was nowhere else to go. He slapped Travis on the back, but the marine hunkered down to his right didn’t move. Frank flipped to the left as J.C. and Chris fired at the gate. “Back inside.” Then he started squeezing off cover fire as the two Privates jumped and ran for the door.

“Go!” Chris yelled and then he and J.C. laid down cover fire as Frank jumped up and ran in past them. As soon as he cleared they slammed the door shut and punched the locking mechanism.

The series of deadbolts engaged as Frank huffed, “Get away from the door.”

“Help! Back here!”

Frank glanced over his shoulder at the hallway leading to the back of the barrack. “Take position behind whatever cover you can find in the living hall. I’m going to check out what we have in the cage.”

Chris and J.C. shot past Frank and a second later he heard the heavy thump of a refrigerator hitting the floor on its side. He glanced back at the steel safety door and then trotted down the hall to the cage. The safe cage was essentially a fortified jail cell. Bars were beefier than a regular cell, the welds stronger and everything was anchored in reinforced concrete. They were built large enough to house all the civilians assigned to the post, and stocked with enough food and supplies to last a week.

Frank stepped into the room at the end of the hall and stopped dead in his tracks. The screams and pleas for help were heard by his peripheral conscious, but he was too stunned by the visual damage of the battered cage to respond. Bars were pushed in, welds were torn and chunks of broken cement lay all over the floor. He never imagined that a vampire could have such destructive force. Like all marines, he’d seen footage of a vampire attack. But unless you were doing battle on the front, most were lucky enough to never have something like this shoved down their throat. In Frank’s previous six missions he’d only seen croppers, the infected – never an actual vampire.

“Mister!” Frank turned his focus to the man reaching for him through the bars. “You’ve gotta help us,” he pleaded.
Frank looked at the man. By all indication he was one of the farmers. Then he looked at the other six adults standing with a small girl at the rear of the cage. “Yeah…”

After a moment of hesitation, Frank stepped into the middle of the room and pulled a test kit from his thigh pocket. He dropped it to the floor and then kicked it over to the edge of the cage. Less than a minute later everyone was holding a test strip with a fresh drop of blood on it. All were negative. Frank stepped up to the gate.

“We didn’t know the code,” the man sighed.

“Changes each day,” Frank said as he entered the numbers on the dented metal face of the keypad. “Safety feature in case one of you gets turned.” Frank heard the catch release but the two hardened steel rods flanking the lock didn’t retract. One went down into the cement floor, the other went up through an eight-inch steel I-beam at the top of the cage. “Who locked you in?”

The man’s shoulders dropped as relief finally found a home. “Mr. Tucker… he’s the… he was the commander of the compound. He locked us in yesterday after the first attack.”

Frank interrupted the man as he yelled at Chris and J.C. to come front and center. Then he told the man to go on.
“He locked us in right before nightfall as he and few of the other guards carted the dead off to the equipment barn. Two vampires came later. They were about to bust through…” the man’s voice drifted off as he studied the damage done to the cage. “Then for some reason they just left.”

Frank glanced at the little girl who was clutched in the arms of one of the women along the wall. Her face was pale and emotionless, and her eyes were locked in a lifeless blank stare.

Chris and J.C. ran up. Frank turned to them and asked, “Anything to report?”

“No Sarg. There’s still some gunfire in the distance, but nothing close, no hits on the door.”

Frank nodded his appreciation for the good graces of God and then said, “Help me with these pins.” Frank and the man in the cage pulled down on the rod set in the I-beam while Chris and J.C. wrapped their hands around the one set in the floor and grunted with all their might. The pins were wedged in good from the force of the blows to the gate, but they weren’t insurmountable. The high pitch scrape of metal against metal filled the room as both pins slowed moved and then finally released.

The gate popped open and the man standing inside grabbed Frank by the shoulders. “Thank you… thank you.”

Frank felt a sense of shame as he said, “Don’t thank me yet.” He knew the futility of their situation. He pulled away from the man and walked Chris and J.C. back over to the hallway. After a lingering stare at the steel safety door, Frank asked, “How many rounds?”

“Clip and a half… and a full pack if we can use it,” Chris answered in reference to his pistol and mini-gun. J.C. simply indicated the same.

“Take your positions back in the living hall and keep guard on the door. I don’t know what they’re waiting for… but we need to be ready when they decide to come through.”

Chris and J.C. followed orders as Frank turned back to the man. “What’s your name?”

“Seth Crothers.”

“You were saying that two vampires left…”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“If you guys were locked in here, who locked the safety door out front?”

“Mr. Tucker came back in this morning and cleared out the rest of the bodies. Said he and few others held up in the barn last night. The croppers must have come back this morning and got him.”

Frank was listening as he stared at the young girl again. Her expression hadn’t changed since he first saw her. “What about her?” he asked with a dip of his head.

The woman protecting her blinked several times before gasping with a shaky voice, “What do you think… those God awful creatures… they almost got in here.”

“That’s Sara Landy,” Seth said. “The girl was out in the main yard with her mother and father when they attacked…” he paused and lowered his eyes before finishing with, “Sara grabbed her and ran in here.” Then he asked, “When are we going to leave?”

Frank glanced at the floor as he keyed his mike. “Lieutenant Walters Sir.” There was no response.

Just as he was about to give up, a low, steady voice came back over his headpiece. “You can’t hide.” It wasn’t the Lieutenant.

Frank turned his back to Seth and the others. “Me and my men will go willingly if you let these civilians go.”

“Go… no go,” the man at the other end said without any variation in tone. “They will come for you tonight.”

A chill ran up Frank’s back. Then before he could say another word, a coarse static fill his headpiece. They had taken out the antenna on the train.

“How about it mister… we’re all in a big hurry to get the hell out of here.”

Frank turned back around to Seth. “We’re going be staying here for a while.” He looked at the little girl and the rest of them. “We’re going to have to stay another night.”

The young girl started to shriek. It was a primal fear that required no movement of tongue or mouth, only the deep-rooted gasp of air up her throat.

Sara crouched beside her as Frank stepped into the cage and tried to console them both with what he knew to be a lie. “They probably won’t even come back here.” He ran his fingers through the girl’s knotted, blond hair. “And me and my men will be right here with you.”

By the time night fell everyone was in the cage. There was always a possibility that it could hold up to another attack. In any case, it was the best option they had. There was food, water and handheld incandescent lights incase the emergency power went. Frank and his men managed to pound the steel rods that secured the gate back into the cement floor and overhead I-beam.

About an hour before that, he peered through one of the bullet holes in the corrugated exterior wall and saw hundreds of croppers standing in the main yard. Every one of them was staring at the barrack. They weren’t doing anything to get in. They simply stared and swayed, like someone teetering on the brink of fatigue. But Frank knew that wasn’t the case. Somehow he felt, that contrary to what it may have looked liked, the croppers were swaying on purpose. There was something spiritual about it. And in a sense there was, they were waiting for the great ones to show themselves.
At about half past nine, Frank heard the chaotic uproar outside that announced the arrival of the vampires.

The young girl started shrieking immediately as Sara and one of the men erupted in an uncontrolled mixture of blabber and sob. Seth clutched Frank’s shoulder and whimpered, “What are we going to do!”

“We’re going to fight as long as we can,” Frank said with a stiff jaw. “If the vampires come in… we’re ready.” He patted the ammunition pack strapped to his back. “Each round is tipped with silver. They’re anemic you know. You pump enough rounds in them and they’ll bleed to death just like the rest of us.”

The soft murmur of a chant could be heard outside among the croppers. It grew steadily over the course of half a minute until an all out cheer erupted, punctuated by the sound of everyone stomping the ground. Then a sudden, deafening thud seemed to shove the entire barrack back a few inches. It was like a locomotive had slammed into the door.

“Dear God!” one of the farmers screamed as the entire metal structure cried out in pain.

Dust filtered down from the ceiling as Frank squeezed the grip on his MK46 mini-gun. Then the last drop of spit dried in his mouth as he heard the chant outside start up again. He tried to get in a quick swallow as he stared down the dark hallway, but it was too late. The thud and subsequent impact against the barrack was less the second time as the deadbolts tore out, and the badly dented steel door went sailing into the living hall.

Frank flexed his fingers as he waited with the barrel of his mini-gun pointed at the torchlight coming in through the front of the barrack. At first it looked like the floor was moving. Then the silhouette of a lumbering figure slowly rose to its feet. That’s when he saw the eyes – almost glowing, like the eyes of a cat in the dark.

“Open fire!”

Frank pulled the trigger. Click. Chris and J.C. did the same. Click. Click.
“Pistols!” Frank yelled as he drew his sidearm. At the first flash, the creature dropped back down to all fours and charged the cage. The first impact pushed the bars in a foot and sent Frank and his men tumbling backwards. Frank landed on his ass, but he never stopped firing. The chaotic discharge of gunfire created a strobe effect in the dimly lit room that made the vampire’s movement appear disjointed. Through the visual distortion of rapid flashes, Frank saw his rounds hit their mark. One struck the vampire in the head. One hit it in the chest. Another in the shoulder…
The vampire backed up to the edge of the hallway and then scraped up the cement as it lunged forward again at full speed. The cement floor cracked where the steel rod secured the gate, as the vampire’s shoulder split the gap between two bars and opened them up far enough for a normal size man to crawl through.

Panic started to overtake Frank’s mind as he watched small red spots pop all over the creature’s head, chest and front legs. Empty clips were discarded and fresh ones slapped in as all three marines tried to hold off a force that wouldn’t be denied. When the flashes finally stopped, so did the barrage of gunfire that was drowning out the screams of the farmers cowering against the rear of the cage behind them.

Frank jumped up to his feet and stood there panting and trembling as the creature rose up before him. While the screams and crying continued behind him, Frank drew the empty pistol back behind his head and readied it there to strike. “Come on you motherfucker!”

Except for the scattered red blisters of gunshot wounds, the creature was covered from top to bottom with a short, dusty matting of black hair – much like that of a bat. From a great distance it wouldn’t have been too far fetched to mistake it for some freak offshoot of a gorilla. Its chest was easily three times the span of its waste. The bone structure of its hands and feet, though larger than a man’s, appeared similar with opposable thumbs. Only the claws stood out. Hands and feet alike were fitted with thick, one to two inch curved claws – claws evolved for the sole purpose of securing prey.

It was only when you looked at its face, that you understood it wasn’t an offshoot of a gorilla. The scientists were right. It was an evolutionary offshoot of man. You could see it in the setting of the eyes, the sharp bridge of the nose, the shape of the ears. But it was the vampire’s mouth that ended the resemblance. It was smaller than you’d expect on a seven-foot creature, and it protruded outward.

The creature suddenly threw both arms toward the ceiling and pushed its chest out as it reared back and screamed. The unnerving sound that bellowed out wasn’t what Frank expected to hear. It was a shallow, low pitch scream that came out in three distinct bursts followed by guttural ‘ka-junk’ sound. A second later a similar sound echoed in from the main yard, and when the vampire turned its head, Frank saw its teeth. There was no bottom row, only a pliable flap of skin. The top row consisted of two sets, of four or five claw like fangs, tightly grouped on each side of its mouth.
The vampire turned and looked over the three marines before coming back to Frank. It was like it could tell that Frank was in command. Then the tip of its tongue slipped out between the two sets of fangs and flicked the air like it was sensing Frank’s fear.

Frank quickly stepped back as another male vampire walked into the room. The second, who was slightly larger than the first, swaggered through the doorway and motioned for the other vampire to leave. Frank whispered to Chris and J.C. to hold firm, and for the others to stay still. Then he forced a hard swallow and asked, “Can you understand me?”

The vampire’s iridescent, yellow eyes remained firmly fixed on him. Frank was about to try again, when the vampire stepped forward and grabbed the one-inch thick steel bars where the cage had been split. It held one bar close to its chest and then the high-pitched cry of metal bending filled the barracks as the creature began to push the other bar out from its body. The top weld snapped and the bar gave.

Frank gasped and jumped back with the others. Screams instantly filled the cage, marines and farmers alike. Only two remained silent. Frank kneeled next to the girl as the vampire stepped through the opening. Her face was trembling and her body shaking as tears trickled silently down her pale cheeks. In the end, she was too scared to even shriek.
Frank pulled her over and clutched her to his chest. At the last second he whispered, “Close your eyes.”