Page 38 of Marked for Execution
“Eliseo! Did you bring…ah, there she is.” His smile was malicious when we reached the bottom of the steps, and I pushed Sili further behind me.
“What did you need?”
“I remember her now. Yes, she came here a few years back. I thought she left, since I didn’t see her again. Where were you hiding her, Eliseo?” He came around his table full of weird chemicals in different shaped vials and tools, trying to look behind me. His apron was on again, wet with who knew what. His dark elbow-length leather gloves needed to stay away fromSili.
“You said you needed me to look for something? What was it?” Trying to redirect him failed. He stared at her with a dark hunger. “Doc!”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Like that, huh?” His eyes went fromSilito me and back again. “I got you. Alright.” He snapped his goggles down over his eyes and turned to head toward one of his tunnels.
Turning to look at Fitri, she shrugged and followed behind crazy Otis, who brought us to another, larger room. Bottles of various sizes lined the wall on rickety wooden shelving that had seen better days. Otis read the labels, bent over as he pushed things around. Most of the bottles were dirty and clouded, concealing the contents inside.
The subtle sound of chains rattling floated to my ears, but I didn't see anything. Moans and other noises came through the walls, and my hand went behind me to bringSilicloser. There was a different chemical smell in the tunnel in comparison to his main room. I couldn’t put my finger on it but it was something I had come across before, outside of the community. I had never come this far, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end with the darkness I felt lurking here.
Crazy Otis didn’t even act like he heard anything, still rummaging around his collection. He tilted his head toward one of the labels and I noticed red welts on his neck that look like claw marks.
“They say bloodsuckers from Clan Corrus can clone. Did you know that? Imagine an army of them growing exponentially, just from mere cloning,” he rambled, his arms waving around to demonstrate.
That was horrifying news. Humans had created townships and groups among themselves in order to survive. No matter how big our community grew, we were still vastly outnumbered by what was out there. An army of clones would wipe out towns in an instant—or turn them into blood farms. The image of humans taken for slavery as mere cattle made me grind my teeth together.
The single bulb flickered, and I heard metal on metal again. The walls down here were made from concrete, the walls rough as stone.
“I happened to have some of their blood on hand,” he giggled like a lunatic. “Trying to figure out what exactly makes them able to divide themselves as such. Is this nature, or is this nurture? Have they changed their own genetics, or have the years made them this way? This is why I need so many blood samples, you see.” He turned to look at Fitri, who grabbed the back of my pants like a safety net. Crazy Otis pointed his gloved finger at her behind me. “I remember something about you. It’s finally coming back to me. Yes…that’s right.”
A loud crash echoed through the far end of the tunnel toward the darkness, but Crazy Otis just continued to leer at Fitri.
“Why the hell are we here, Doc? You wanted to give us a history lesson? I thought you said you needed us to find something,” I gritted out, agitated at how much attention he paid to her.What the hell was going on down here?
He cackled, his goggles glinting against the small, uncovered lightbulb. “Yes, well. There are rumors that one of the human towns has something I need to further my research.” He rubbed his hands together comically, but there was nothing funny about how serious he was right now.This guy was out of his damn mind.“Decayed wings from one of the bloodsuckers.”
“They fucking have wings?” I was astonished at this news.What the hell? I’ve never seen one.
“Not all of them, no. Only a select few. I’m still not sure which clan they are from, but I intend to find out, you see.” Otis crossed his arms and blood smeared on his exposed skin, stealing my focus for a minute.
“You want us to go in search for a dead body? How the hell is this going to go over with everyone in the town? Sounds like a fucking wild goose chase.”
Little was known about how the whole world went to shit. Vampires appeared out of nowhere, breaking into four major clans. Their names were whispered in fear among humans as our kind began to dwindle more the more their numbers grew. Those who lived behind community gates like Ashborne lived in false safety unlike those who lived day to day outside of a gated wall, facing the reality of the unknown like my team and I, scavenging among the desolation and rubble of lives left behind by those who lived before us.
Thoughts of my previous community came to mind. Blood and destruction were what waited for me. Destroyed by a group from Clan Disaris, nothing was left behind but a massacre of dead human bodies littering the ground—my late wife’s among them.
Otis got toe to toe with me, his head level with my nose. He smelled of blood and other chemicals that burned my nostrils. “That’s the fascinating part. There is no body, only the remnants of decayed wings. So, they say. The more I can gather, the more I can figure out how these creatures came to be and how to fight them. The cure isso close. Soon enough we’ll be able to eradicate them from the whole world.”
His smile turned menacing, his hunger for bloodshed easily written on his face.
“What the hell am I looking for? What is it supposed to look like?” I gritted out, pissed at his lack of personal space.
“Eliseo, I’m sure your men will figure it out when you get there. But I must warn you…” He walked off and rummaged through a dirty box that could fit three dead bodies in it. He pulled out something with a long tube and tossed it to me. Catching it, I turned it in my hands and investigated.
A gas mask. “What the fuck do I need this for?”
“You and your men best take precaution. My research has brought me to the theory that the bloodsuckers were not born but made. Changed.”
Fitri’s grip on the hem of my pants tightened. This was some disturbing shit. “Explain it to me like a normal person Doc.”
He walked over with a few more masks and smiled with yellow tinted teeth. “There’s something in the air, my friend. Something in the air. I’m not positive yet, but in the meantime, wear these. Who knows what kind of stuff comes off decayed wings? If my assumption is correct, vampires as we know it originated from an airborne virus.”
“How is that possible? I’ve seen them bite and turn humans myself.”
Shoving the rest of the masks at my chest, I grabbed them before they fell. Fitri’s little hand took a few and returned to hide behind me.