Rancho Blasto

Scavengers

CJ Cupp

Part 2

We moved quietly along a boulevard littered with cars, trash, and bones.  I hope we don’t run into any zoms.  We were headed to a safe house that was close by.  Just a mile or two away from the house were we met this stranger.  As I followed him, I kept asking myself questions.  There were many.  He has promised answers.  Maybe I don’t want to hear them.

We had left the house just in time.  As we turned the first corner, I heard the moaning.  A wad of about 15 zoms were heading our way.  No doubt they heard all the noise and wanted to join the party.  They will be disappointed; the stranger left a hell of a mess.

We managed to avoid the wad of zoms easy enough.  It’s not too difficult when they are charging in for food like these were, they get a kind of tunnel vision.  Just stay calm, sit still, and let them pass.  While their cloudy eyes must make good vision impossible, they can sure see movement.  It reminded me of hunting geese sometimes.

Usually zoms can smell you if they are close enough.  Brian and I wear scent cover to minimize the chance of being winded.  We had discovered that zoms can’t pick you up well if you spray yourself with pine scented air freshener.  I always keep a can in my pack.

We arrived at almost 11:00 PM without encountering anymore zoms.   The safe house is easy to notice, we had earlier spray painted the word “safe” on the front.  Located in a small stucco strip mall, in better times it was a jewelry store.  Now, the steel security grate installed by the owner to prevent theft, made this a fortified outpost.  Many safe houses had supplies stashed inside, but most importantly, each had an exit.

Having an exit is the most important feature of a safe house.  If you can’t get out, you starve.  The jewelry store had the exit via the roof.  Once on the roof, you move across to the opposite end of the strip mall.  There, a ladder was fastened in place that allowed a person to climb down onto a tall retaining wall that surrounded the strip mall.  Any zoms cornering you in the jewelry store would be prevented from following when you got on the other side of the retaining wall.  That is the theory anyway.

The security grate was locked with a bolt and nut to prevent zoms from getting inside.  Pretty simple, but it works.  No need to carry a key.  I kept lookout while Brian removed the bolt, and opened it enough for us to get inside.  I went in first, the carbine at my shoulder, followed by the stranger, and Brian.

Once inside, Brian pulled the grate shut and locked it with the bolt and nut.  He retrieved a flashlight from his belt, came up from behind me and held it over my head throwing a small beam of light across the store. We then started a sweep of the store.  You never know if there is a zom inside.

The stranger had been silent on our way here, now he spoke, “Do not worry, there are no infected here”.

“Shut up,” I said sharply.  I always make sure.  I can never take chances.

As we quietly swept the store, my mind was still on the stranger.  How did he know for sure that there we no zoms in here?  This man was sure a mystery.  On the way here the guy never looked tense.  It was like he was out for a stroll.  I pointed to the roof access ladder, and Brian headed up first.  I followed the stranger.

When we were all on the roof, I could feel a nice cool breeze coming off the ocean.  I used to enjoy these nights.  Brian fastened the access door shut, and we then had a look around to see that we had no company.  Once we confirmed we were alone, I directed the stranger to a place out of view from the street, and motioned him to sit down.  Brian stayed within ear shot while keeping watch, careful to stay low and out of sight.  It was time for answers.

“OK man, let’s have it,” I said.

“Where shall I begin?” The stranger asked.

“How were you able to do all the things we saw at the house?”  I demanded.

“Well,” he said, “You may not like the answer.”

“Try me.”  I had my carbine pointed in his direction.

Then the stranger said it, plain and simple, “I am a vampire of course.”

“Don’t bullshit me!”  I started to shout the words, but caught myself half way through it.  Zoms can hear real well.

Brian looked over toward us.  I could see he was as startled at the comment as I was.  We have had to come to grips with a lot over the last five years.  I wouldn’t have believed in zombies either, but they were sure real.  At least the disease that caused the zombies had a scientific explanation.  Vampires were fairy tales.

“I assure you, I am what I claim to be.”  He said it softly. “Please put your weapon down, I mean you no harm.”

I relaxed a little.  Don’t know why, but I didn’t seem to think he was a threat.  Not this second anyway so I lowered my carbine.

The stranger then said with a grin, “My name is Evan, what is yours?”

Hesitantly, I answered, “I’m Carl, and that is my son, Brian.”

Evan, as he called himself, turned toward Brian and raised his hand to acknowledge him.  Brian just said “hi” and gave a little wave back.

I told Evan that I didn’t believe in vampires.  I suppose it didn’t really matter what I believed, this was no ordinary man.  I had witnessed what he had done; he was definitely not human.  Not knowing what else to say, I asked him to prove he was a vampire.  How do you do that anyway?

At my request, the stranger seemed to think about it for a moment.  Then he smiled, stood up, and took off his jacket, folded it, and laid it neatly down.  He then sat back down, and held out his hand to me.

“Shake.” He said.

I looked over at Brian.  He was watching closely and had his revolver now pointing toward Evan.  Good boy.  I reached out taking Evan’s hand.  It was cold, but firm.  He began tightened his grip, as if testing me.  I looked him in the eyes, and did the same.  My hand was beginning to hurt.

I squeezed as hard as I could, but his eyes showed no sign of backing down.  I thought he was going to break my fingers.  Then, remarkably, his hand seemed to dissolve!  I broke my gaze into Evan’s eyes and looked down at my hand.  It was empty and had collapsed into a fist.  His hand was gone!  Within a second, his hand reappeared just above mine!

I didn’t know what to say.  I tried to shake blood back into my hand.  I looked up and Evan had a slight smile on his face.  What the hell is this guy?

“Dad, what happened?” Brian asked.  I didn’t answer.  I just looked at Evan.

“Nice trick is it not?”  He said.  “Since I am neither dead, nor alive, I have the ability to make myself intangible.”

“Dad, hey Dad!”  Brian was getting impatient.

“It’s OK Brian.”  My answer didn’t sound reassuring.  I was looking right at Evan.  “Now,” I asked him, “what the fuck was that?”

Evan told me that unlike the movies, vampires cannot change into bats, or other creatures.  Vampires, he said, do have the ability to change their density, or as he put it, tangibility.  He claimed he could change from solid to smoke.  He could do this in part, or with all of his body, and to varying degrees.  This can allow him to pass through shallow objects like windows and doors.  And as we had witnessed, he can appear to fly.

Evan said that he cannot change the tangibility of anything other than his own body.  For example, he explained that if he attempts to leap too far, too quickly, his clothes would fall to the ground as his density reached near zero.  His explanation for being naked when he attacked the zombies was that he didn’t want to ruin his clothes.

“No shit?”  I couldn’t think of anything better to say.  “I always thought it was stupid that the clothes changed with the vampires in the movies.”

“I think so myself.”  Evan said it with a degree of pride.  I thought it made him sound like an ass.

For his slight build, Evan says he is quite strong.  No doubt, I had a sample of that when he grasped my hand.  He amply demonstrated it tonight when he tore the zoms to pieces with his bare hands, but I still couldn’t believe he was a vampire.  He was something though.  I was just not sure what, or why he had helped us.

Brian was listening closely to everything that was being said.  I had to remind him to keep watch.

“Brian, you pay attention to the street,” I said.

Brian was firm in his response, “I want to hear what this guy is saying.  I can still watch the street.”

Evan then interrupted, “Do not worry Carl, none of the infected are close by.”

I looked at Evan, and demanded, “How the hell do you know that?”

Evan said simply, “I have my ways.”

I was a little irritated at his comment.  I looked back toward my son, and without a word, pointed to my right eye, then to the street.  This reminded him to keep one eye and ear on the street.  I am always cautious.

It is clear that Evan possessed unnatural abilities, it was also clear he was enjoying our little conversation.  I said, “Look, Evan, I need some answers here.  Can you get to the fucking point?”  He nodded his head and continued.

Evan told me he was older than he looked, and that there were others.  What did that mean?  More trouble was all I could think of.

As Evan told it, vampires have lived hidden from us for a long time.  They only come out when they need to feed.  This is usually once a month.  They do feed on humans, but it is usually done so that authorities would not notice.  He claimed this was their way.  They sounded more like vultures than vampire bats.  This part of his story made me think that he feared us.

Evan said that in recent times, he has fed on the criminal underclass.  He found that he could sustain himself on the violent gang wars that often ignited in the inner cities.  He would simply watch, and wait for his opportunity.  That usually meant a young man being gunned down on a dark street.

Evan would follow the gang members as they went out at night.  He would listen to them plot their killings and be ready for the chance to feed.  Once a victim was gunned down, he would rush in, and feed on the gushing blood from the wound.  Like a goddamn crow I thought.

“You are a sick bastard,” I said.

Evan shrugged off the insult, but before he could go on, he stood up and looked down toward the street.  “Carl, we have visitors.”

Brian and I turned toward the street, looking hard for movement.  “Nothing,” I said it to myself.  I turned to Evan.  “What did you see?”

“I do not see them Carl,” he said, “I can smell them, the wind is right.”

I looked up wind from our position.  It took a couple more minutes, but then, two, followed by half a dozen zoms came staggering down the road.  Four were dressed in matching mariachi outfits.  The sight made me smile a little.   We kept still while they passed.  It took longer than I wanted, but they never came toward the jewelry store.

After the zoms were well out of ear shot, I asked Evan how he could pick up scent like that.  He told me he could smell the stench they put off.  Not the scent of decaying flesh, but the scent of the disease.  To him it was strong.   He claimed he could even smell it on the newly infected, and that to him, both smelled the same.  I knew that the military had started training dogs to do that, but the dogs were never good enough to pick up on all of the newly infected.

“Ok Evan”, I said, “I don’t know about all the vampire shit, but one thing is for sure, you are something different.  What do you want?”

“I want to help you and Brian.”  Evan said it, but I didn’t believe a word of it.

I was getting irritated again, so I said to him, “I think maybe you need us.”

Now Evan looked startled by my comment.  He exhaled and said, “Yes, I want to survive.”

“We all want that Evan”, I said.

Evan’s mood seemed to change.  He told me that the disease threatened his existence.  He could not feed upon the infected, and that if the human race died off, so would he and the other vampires.

“There are more like you?”  I asked.

Before he could answer, Brian asked him, “Couldn’t you feed on rats?”

“I have tried.”  Evan said.  “They cannot sustain me for long, and regardless, the infected have reduced all animal populations to the point that finding a rat is rare.”

It was true, the zoms killed everything.  They didn’t leave much for us to eat anymore either.  Any animals the zoms caught died quickly when bitten.  Only the birds were left in any numbers.  They were too hard for zoms to catch.  The birds gave me hope.

“I thought you fed on humans.”  I said.  “Why haven’t you attacked us?”  I hated bring that up.  This guy was fast and I didn’t know if Brian and I could kill him before he did us in.

“I do feed on humans.”  Evan said it looking right at me.  It chilled me a little.  “Right now, I am sustained.  But if I am to survive long term, the human race must survive.  I can help.”

I looked at Evan and said, “You want to help us, so you can feed on us?”  “Sorry, but we’ve got that deal with the zoms.”

“True,” Evan said, “but I am sincere in my offer.”

Evan gave me his word he would not feed on us.  What is that worth?  He could be real helpful.  He could also be dangerous.

“Dad, you’re not gonna make a deal with Count Chocula are you?”

Evan let out a little laugh and said, “Your son has an irreverent sense of humor!”

“Yeah,” I said.  “He’s a smart ass alright.  Get’s it from his momma.”

We all laughed a little at that, and I then asked, “By the way, what kind of name is Evan for a fucking vampire anyway?”

Part 3 – Soon