Desolation: Chapters 21 & 22
Dominion of the Damned: Book One
In a world where zombies roam and vampires rule, how far will Hannah Jordan go to survive?
Desolation is the first book in my post-apocalyptic horror trilogy, Dominion of the Damned.
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Chapter Twenty-One
“What do you know about vampires?” Hannah looked up from the box of specimen slides Zach had asked her to sort, waiting for him to answer. She was starting to wonder if he’d even heard the question when he finally tore his eye away from the microscope and looked over at her.
“What do you want to know?”
“What kind of special powers do they have?”
He shrugged. “Enhanced strength, speed, hearing, smell. Nothing you haven’t seen for yourself. Oh, and night vision. Plus there’s the extremely slowed aging process. You know, in a perfect world, they’d have found a way to engineer out the whole blood addiction and sunlight allergy thing and market the virus as a fountain of youth. Without those drawbacks, it seems like being a vampire would kind of rock.”
“So, they can’t fly or change into mist, or bats, or anything like that.”
Zach laughed. “Ah, no.”
“What about mind control?”
He seemed to think about that one a moment. “I haven’t seen any evidence for it.”
“What kind of evidence would you look for?”
“I don’t know. Lost time? Sleepwalking, missing time, that sort of thing.”
Hannah frowned. She hadn’t experienced anything along those lines. “What about hypnotic suggestion? Like, forcing themselves into your thoughts. Or your dreams.”
“For what purpose?”
“Seduction, maybe? Or to make us think warmly toward them, open ourselves up to them?”
Zach swiveled his stool to fully face her, and seemed to study her. “Is this about the doc?”
Hannah tensed all over. She hoped he didn’t notice. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax. “It’s about vampires. And he is one.”
“But he’s not like the vampires you dealt with at that prison camp. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out by now.”
She sighed. “I know he seems kind and decent. But how much of that is just an act?”
“If it’s an act, it’s a hell of a good one. And what purpose would it serve?”
Hannah shrugged. “Lull us into a false sense of security? Get us to trust him?”
“But why? I mean, newsflash: the vampires are in charge. They don’t need to trick us. They can simply force us to obey.”
“But if we think they care, we’ll be more cooperative, less likely to rebel. We can still reproduce, but they can’t, not without winnowing their food supply. Sooner or later, we’re going to have the numbers for a revolution. It’s in their best interests to keep us compliant.”
Zach looked at her suspiciously. “Wait. Are you, like, one of those people who think the government shot JFK and staged 9/11?”
“No. Well,” she admitted, “my dad was. But I’m not talking about the government. I’m not even talking about people. Vampires are baby-eating, raping sons of bitches, and they need us to survive. And he’s a vampire.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Um, some of them tried to eat Noah, and one of them tried to rape me, so yes, I believe it.”
“I mean that the doc is anything like that,” Zach said.
She sighed. “No. Not really.” She stuffed a slide in the box a little harder than she should have. “I don’t know what to believe about him. I’m just saying, how can we know? I mean, how do we even know he hasn’t cast some kind of hypnotic spell over us or something?”
“What, like we’re all under his thrall?” Zach laughed. “You’ve seen too many Dracula movies.”
“Maybe. I just don’t see how it’s possible for there to be one good vampire out of the whole bunch.”
“But there’s not just one. You’ve met Carl, right? He’s a pretty nice guy, although he’s a little belligerent if you get him drunk. But all the vamps around here are decent people. That’s why the doc hired them. As for the how, it’s the doc’s theory of self-selection.”
“His what?”
“Okay. Say you have someone infected with the vampire virus, who just happens to be a total psychopath. They go looking for someone to keep them company, you think they’re gonna target some straight-laced church-goer? Of course not. They look for somebody they can have a good time with, who doesn’t have any moral hang-ups. So they turn another psychopath. And so on, and so on.” He paused. “Come to think of it, that also explains why most of them are so damn good looking.”
He shook his head as if to shake off the stray thought. “Anyway, every now and then a good person gets infected. It’s not like the movies. They don’t lose their souls or become demon-possessed. They’re still themselves. And since the vampires with morals are less likely to pass on the infection, the good guys are way outnumbered by the amoral baby-eating bastards.
“But the good guy vamps do exist. And the doc is one of them.” He sighed. “Anyway, the only thrall he has me under is the fact that he saved my ass from becoming shambler meat. And then he gave me a job to keep me out of the kind of place you just came from. It’s called gratitude.”
Hannah didn’t have an answer for that, so she went back to sorting slides in silence. Everything Zach said made sense. If she was being totally honest, she would have to ask herself, was it Alek she was afraid of? Or was it the undeniable feelings she was starting to have for him? If he wasn’t stirring something up in her on purpose, then it scared her to think that it was all her. That she could be attracted to someone so… so other than human.
What did that say about her? Especially when there was a perfectly wonderful human boy right there who wanted to be with her?
“What do you know about him?” she asked. “Where did he come from? If he’s such a good man, how did he end up getting turned?”
Zach looked startled by the sudden barrage of questions, as if he’d thought the conversation was over. He stared at her a moment, and then shrugged. “He doesn’t talk much about his past. I know he was a Holocaust survivor. I think that’s why he’s on such a crusade to shut down the internment camps. He takes them personally.
“As for how he got turned, you should probably ask him that.”
Hannah fidgeted with the slides. “I would, but that all seems too personal, somehow.”
“Maybe,” agreed Zach, “but somehow I don’t think he’d mind it all that much, coming from you.”
“Why is that?”
Zach turned on his stool and stared at her like she was an idiot. “Did you ever think that maybe the reason you think about him all the time is because you have the hots for him?”
Hannah nearly dropped her box of slides. “What?”
“I mean, he definitely has the hots for you.”
“What?” She stared at him in horror, but she wasn’t sure whether it was horror at what he was saying or the fact that he was actually saying it out loud. “He does not!”
Zach laughed and turned back to the microscope. “Oh, he does.”
Someone knocked on the door. Hannah was relieved for the interruption until she looked up to see Chris and a sudden wave of guilt seized her. He looked out of breath, as if he’d run the entire way there.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Mom sent me. It’s Noah—”
Hannah jumped up from her stool, guilt forgotten. “Is he okay?”
“He has a really high fever. Is the doc up yet?”
“No,” said Zach, “but it’s time to wake him. You two go on. I’ll go get Doc.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hannah ran out of the lab and kept running until she reached home. Chris stayed behind her the whole way. She followed the sound of Noah’s crying to the bathroom, where she found Paula trying to soothe him while holding a wet washcloth to his head. The bathroom felt muggy, even with the window open. Condensation covered the mirror.
“He’s having a hard time breathing,” she explained. “I thought some steam might help unclog him, but his fever’s too high for that. We didn’t have any baby medicine at the store, so I sent Chris to fetch the doc.” She looked over Hannah’s shoulder at Chris. “You were just supposed to get him. You weren’t supposed to scare her half to death.”
“He wasn’t up yet,” said Chris. “Besides, she works there. How was I supposed to do one without the other?”
Hannah took Noah from Paula. He was burning up. “It’s okay Boo. Sissy’s got you.” She shook her head. “He’s never been sick before. I don’t know what to do.”
“Keep that washcloth cold and keep rubbing him down with it,” said Paula. “Hopefully the doc’ll have some Tylenol in his little black bag. That would help.”
As if on cue, Hannah heard the front door open and close. A moment later Alek appeared in the bathroom doorway, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and thrown on yesterday’s clothes. He shouldered his way past Paula and Chris while Zach looked in from the hallway.
“What’s wrong with him?” Hannah’s voice grew thick as she fought hard to keep from adding her tears to Noah’s.
Alek put a hand on Noah’s forehead and then set his bag on the counter. He opened it and took out an ear thermometer.
“Did you get him vaccinated today?”
Hannah sniffed and nodded.
“It’s probably just a side effect, then. Although it could be an allergic reaction.” He took Noah’s temperature and frowned at the reading. “We need to get his fever down. Do you have ice?”
“There’s some in the freezer.”
“I’ll get it,” said Paula, who had moved out into the hallway with Zach and Chris. She told her son, “You go home and get all the ice we have.”
Alek moved to the tub and turned on the cold faucet. “Bring him here.”
Noah shrieked as they immersed him in the cold water. Hannah tried to soothe him while they added more ice. Leaning over the side of the tub, she supported his head while Alek retrieved a stethoscope and then listened to Noah’s chest.
“His lungs are clear. That’s a good sign.” He turned back to his bag and took out a clear plastic bottle filled with purple liquid and a dropper. He filled the dropper and handed it to Hannah. “Cold medicine and fever reducer,” he explained. “See if you can get him to swallow it.”
It was a struggle, and they had to refill the dropper a few times as purple syrup dribbled uselessly down Noah’s chin and over his cheeks. But they finally got it in him. Alek used a suction bulb to clear his nose and then checked his temperature.
“He’s still feverish, but he’s out of danger. You can take him out of there now.”
Hannah blew out a big sigh of relief as she drew Noah out of the water and wrapped him in a towel. His shrieking cries had subsided to fussy whimpers and the occasional wail. “Thank you,” she said as they followed Alek out of the bathroom.
“It’s only my job,” he said, dismissing her gratitude.
“But I wouldn’t have known what to do for him. He was so hot. Could he have died? If we didn’t bring his fever down in time?”
He paused in the hallway and pursed his lips, apparently deciding what to tell her.
“The truth,” she insisted.
Slowly, Alek nodded. “Yes. Or he could have suffered permanent brain damage, or developed a seizure disorder.”
Hannah shuddered and hugged Noah close. “All that from a shot?”
“Side effects are rare, and it’s even rarer for them to be this severe. It was more likely an allergic reaction. Although it could also be because his immune system simply hasn’t had a proper chance to build itself up. The good news is he should be stronger after this.” He leaned closer and took hold of her elbow to give it a reassuring squeeze. “He’s safe. None of those things happened. He’ll be okay.”
“Thanks to you.” As her gaze locked onto his, she remembered the conversation she’d been having with Zach before all of this started. Particularly the last part, what he’d been telling her before Chris interrupted them. Her cheeks grew hot. She buried her face in Noah’s towel.
“Hey,” Zach called to them from the living room. “Is there anything you need me to do?”
“No,” Alek told him. “The crisis has passed. I think now it’s simply a matter of getting him to sleep.”
Hannah looked around and realized it was only the four of them. “Where are Chris and Paula?”
“They went home. Paula said they’d be in the way, but I’m supposed to go get them if you need them. Chris wanted to stay, but his mom practically dragged him out.”
Hannah nodded.
“You can go, too,” said Alek. “I’ll stay, in case he has any more complications.” He turned to Hannah. “If that’s all right with you.”
Again she nodded, with no hesitation. She realized how much she really trusted him, deep in her gut. She also realized how much she really didn’t know about taking care of a sick baby. She needed help, and it comforted her to have a doctor standing by.
“All right.” Zach headed for the door. “Good luck. Let me know how it goes.” He let himself out.
Hannah turned to Alek. “What do we do now?”
“Make sure he can breathe and try to get him to sleep.”
Alek suggested that she prop the baby up to help him breathe, so Hannah settled him in his stroller. She rolled it back and forth, hoping that the motion would lull him to sleep.
“Why don’t we go for a walk?” asked Alek. “Perhaps that will help calm him.”
Hannah didn’t like the idea of taking him out so late, but at that point she’d try almost anything. “Let me get my gun.”
“You don’t need it,” said Alek. “You have me.”
She stopped and looked at him. He seemed unaware that she was watching as he hefted the stroller effortlessly and carried it to the door. Hannah remembered the barn, the way he had torn through all of those zombies with his bare hands.
She remembered being carried to the barn, held gently in arms that felt like they could just as easily crush her.
You have me, he’d said, and she realized she believed him. They had him, and he had their backs. She still didn’t totally understand it, but she was starting to accept it.
Instead of getting her gun, she went to get the door.
“I wish my mom was here,” she said once they were out on the street. “She’d know how to do this.”
Alek looked over at her. “You’re doing a great job.”
“You’re doing a great job. If you weren’t here I’d have no idea what to do.” A thought occurred to her, and she looked up at him. “Did you have any kids?”
He flinched and looked at the ground. She instantly regretted the question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I said you could ask me anything.” He looked at her and smiled, but it didn’t make him look any less sad. “No. I was never a father.” He looked up at the sky. “But I was going to be, once.”
Putting it all together, Hannah said, “She was pregnant. Your wife, I mean.”
“Six months and two weeks, when they took her.”
“The Nazis?”
He nodded. Neither of them said anything for a while. Noah’s fussing filled the silence. Finally, Hannah said, “I’m sorry.”
He waved a hand, as if to wave away his pain. “It was a long time ago. Ancient history.”
“But it still hurts.” She sighed. “The hurt never completely goes away, does it?”
“No. It doesn’t.” He looked at her again. “I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you otherwise.”
“At least you tell me the truth. Most people tell comforting lies.”
“Most people don’t deal well with the truth. But you, you’re made of stronger stuff.”
“I wish I felt as strong as everyone keeps telling me I am.”
“You survived. That takes a lot of strength. So does deciding to raise and protect your brother.”
“What else could I do?”
“Give up. That’s what I did.” His mouth twisted into a wry half-smile. “That’s why I’m a vampire.”
They walked in silence for a moment before Hannah asked, “What did you want to be?”
“A good husband. A good father. And a good doctor.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground. “But that was all taken from me.”
“Not all of it,” said Hannah. “You’re still a good doctor.”
Alek turned his head to look at her in surprise. When he smiled, it had a bashfulness to it that tugged at her heart. “Thanks.”
They fell into silence as they turned the corner onto School Street. A moment later the school playground came into view.
“I’ve never had big aspirations,” Hannah confessed. “All the other kids in my little town, they couldn’t wait to get away. They were going to move to New York, or LA, and they were going to be actors or writers or politicians or whatever.”
She shrugged. “But I didn’t want to leave. It was my home, you know? I always planned to go back there after I finished nursing school. I just wanted to graduate and get a good job at a hospital, or maybe at a private practice. All I wanted was to help people feel better and make a decent living at it. Maybe meet a nice doctor and get married, and then be a mom.”
She glanced over at him, suddenly self-conscious, afraid she’d said too much. But he seemed to be listening, so she went on. “I always dreamed of a big house out in the country to raise kids in.” She smiled. “I used to daydream about stupid, mundane stuff, like homeschooling and baking brownies and sewing Halloween costumes every year.”
“That sounds like a perfectly lovely dream.”
She nodded and wiped her nose. “And now it’s all gone.”
“Well . . . you did meet a doctor, at least.”
She smiled in spite of herself, but said nothing. She briefly imagined herself in that big house with Alek and Noah, but quickly banished the thought.
Of course it would figure that the only handsome doctor in her life would turn out to be one of the monsters.
Except, he really wasn’t, was he? Hannah still didn’t know what to think, or what to feel. His inhumanity still made her uneasy, even as she grew to trust him more with each passing moment. What he was… it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right.
So what did it say about her that she was so drawn to him?
Suddenly, Alek stopped walking. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Listen.”
Hannah strained her ears, but she couldn’t hear anything. The nights here tended to be eerily silent, and this was no exception.
Then it dawned on her. “He stopped crying.”
“He’s asleep. Let’s get him home. You should get some sleep too, while you’ve got the chance. I’ll stay and watch him.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, I have a feeling you’ll be able to sleep better if I’m there, in case he has any more complications.”
He was right. Even as recently as last night, Hannah would never have been able to sleep while a vampire watched over Noah. But whatever Alek’s ulterior motive might be, whether he influenced her thinking or not, there was one thing she knew with absolute certainty, deep in her gut.
He would protect them.
And if Noah’s fever rose again, or if he had trouble breathing, Alek would know what to do.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s take him home.”
Hannah slept on the sofa despite Alek urging her to go to bed. She left Noah to sleep in his stroller. Alek camped out in the easy chair where he could keep an eye on the boy. But it was Hannah he found himself watching more often than not. She looked so young as she slept, her face free of the load she carried, and so innocent without the weariness and apprehension in her eyes. When she rolled onto her side and a lock of hair fell across her face, it took every ounce of his willpower not to reach over and smooth it back from her brow.
He needed a distraction. He looked around for something to read, but if she had any books, they were still packed in one of the boxes stacked at the other end of the room. He wasn’t about to dig through them without permission. With a sigh, he hauled himself out of the chair, its cushions so deep they threatened to swallow him. He checked to make sure the baby was still breathing freely, and then went out to the porch, leaving the door open behind him so he could hear if Noah ran into trouble.
Leaning against a post and staring out at the night, his fingers itched to hold a cigarette. It had been a lifetime since he’d last smoked one. The cravings had mostly died along with his humanity. But it had been a comforting habit, even more so in a time when nobody knew it could be a deadly one. Sometimes he still missed it.
He still missed so many things.
One of those things was simply being a doctor. Over the last several decades, he had mainly been a researcher, a scientist chasing that elusive cure. It wasn’t exactly easy to run a practice when you were confined to the night, although he had occasionally found work in emergency rooms and overnight clinics, and he’d managed to stay current on modern medicine.
But since the outbreak he’d been all scientist all the time. Of course he was available if his camp residents needed a doctor, but there was never anything so severe that Zach couldn’t handle it during daylight hours. Noah’s illness was the first he’d actually been called upon to treat. It felt good to be able to simply help. He’d missed that.
He had loved his former life as a simple village doctor—the life that had been stolen by the Nazis when they took his wife and force him into service as their field medic. He could still picture the faces of every single fallen “enemy” soldier they had refused to allow him to treat.
One face in particular still haunted him, that of a woman. A civilian. Debris from a mortar shell had torn through her torso, leaving her bleeding out from the stomach. An awful way to die. He had knelt down to try to stop the bleeding when the butt of a rifle struck his jaw and knocked him to the ground. “You’re not here to help that trash,” the German soldier had said. “She’ll go on the pile and be burned with the rest.”
“But she’s still alive. I can help her. At least let me ease her pain!”
The soldier turned the rifle around and Alek found himself staring down the business end. “You have more important work. Come with me.”
He reached out and squeezed the woman’s hand as he climbed shakily to his feet, a small gesture of comfort that he wasn’t even sure she’d be conscious of. He got a jab in the ribs for his efforts. “Come!” the soldier repeated, and herded him into a medical tent that had been erected in the center of the village.
The patients were all German soldiers and officers—not one cot was given to the civilians they’d just butchered. “Here,” barked the soldier, and led him to a bed holding a man in an officer’s uniform… or what was left of one. There didn’t seem to be much left of the officer, either. “Save him.”
“I don’t know if I can,” said Alek as he surveyed the damage. “His chances don’t look good.”
“You will make them good,” said the soldier, “if you want any hope of ever seeing your wife again.”
Alek closed his eyes. “Forgive me, Irina,” he prayed, and then he got to work.
He had saved the officer, although he hadn’t saved the man’s arm. Small revenge. Not long after that, an English battalion defeated his unit, and took him captive before realizing he’d been forced into service. By the time they processed him and released him, it was already far too late for Irina.
He had given up medicine by the time Esme found him. Of course, by that point he had given up on everything. And after his transformation, for a while it was the furthest thing from his mind.
He remembered the day it all changed, when he knew he was and would always be a doctor. He and Esme were on the prowl, strolling the streets of Berlin. Hunting. They stepped onto a busy street just in time to see a boy get struck by a car. Alek didn’t think, simply acted, and managed to keep the boy stable until help arrived. It was the first innocent life he’d saved since before his village was invaded.
Esme laughed when he tried to tell her how good it had felt, that he knew deep down that saving lives was still his purpose. “A vampire doctor,” she’d said, cackling. “Don’t be absurd. Your purpose is to kill. Your purpose is vengeance. Don’t ever forget that, my sweet Alek.”
The nails on Alek’s itchy hand dug painfully into his palm. He forced himself to unclench, and pushed away bitter thoughts of his past.
Inside, the baby started to cough. He was already there, unbuckling the straps that held him upright in the stroller, by the time Hannah sat up. “Is he okay?” she asked.
“He’s fine. It’s time for his medicine. I’ve got it. You go back to sleep.”
“I don’t think I can.” She pushed back the coverlet and stood up. “I’ll get it.” She disappeared down the hallway, and then reappeared a moment later with the medicine. Alek held the baby while she administered a dose. He started to cry. “Aw, c’mere.” She gathered the child into her arms.
Alek stood back and watched as she bounced him and did her best to sooth him until his angry cries subsided into hiccups and sniffles. “Will he be okay?” she asked.
“He’ll be fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing. This should run its course in a day or two. If it doesn’t, I’ll need to see him again.” He smiled as she nuzzled her brother. “You’re really good with him.”
Hannah gave him a sleepy smile. Her hair was tangled and disheveled, and sleep still clung to her eyes. But she was beautiful. Alek caught himself imagining what it would be like to wake up to this sight every day and cut off that fruitless line of thought.
Hannah’s smile morphed into a thoughtful frown. “What time is it?”
Alek checked his watch. “Just after six.”
“You should go,” she said. “The sun’ll be up soon. You don’t want to get stuck here all day again.”
“I’ve been stuck worse places, believe me. Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?”
“You said he was out of danger.”
“He is. Just remember to give him his medicine every four hours. That should keep his fever down.”
Hannah nodded. “Thanks.”
Alek returned her nod, and turned for the front door. She grabbed his hand, and he froze. Slowly, he looked down at his hand caught in hers, and then at her face, full of earnestness and gratitude. “I mean it,” she said. “Thank you.”
He looked back down at their hands. Gently, carefully, afraid of breaking the tenuous connection between them, he stroked his thumb over her fingers. He felt her go very still, but she didn’t pull away, nor did she back up when he moved closer—close enough to share her breath. Still slowly, as if reaching for a deer that might dart into the woods at any second, he brought his other hand to her cheek. She gasped at his touch, but she held still, allowing his caress. He could hear her heart pounding, her blood rushing through her veins. Her mouth went slack, and her bottom lip, so full and luscious, begged to be tasted. The scent of her made him bold, made him hungry for something other than blood, something he hadn’t allowed himself to taste in a lifetime. As his thumb traced her lips, she let out a soft sigh, and as her eyes locked on his, he saw his own hunger reflected back at him. He leaned closer, closing the small gap between them.
Hannah went stiff. “The sun,” she said. She sounded desperate, afraid. “It’s coming.” She started to tremble.
“Damn the sun,” he wanted to tell her. He wanted to taste that bottom lip, to pick her up and carry her to her room and taste all of her, to soak up her warmth and feel her heart beating against his chest, to stay with her forever and make sure she never again knew what it was like to feel alone and afraid.
Instead, he redirected his unspent kiss and placed it on her forehead. Without another word, he walked out into the remains of the night. She didn’t try to stop him.
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