The thing lunged forwards to grab at him. It saw too late that he had move and before it could correct its balance Ben had thrust the knife upwards and using a the things own weight against it he pushed the knife up into its chest and through its heart.
He stepped away quickly to avoid being crushed by the falling weight as it hit the ground with an almighty bang.
“ENOUGH” said Nicholas. His voice shook the walls.
The other vamps-gone-wrong let go of his friends and stepped back. Ben turned away from the thing on the floor and looked at Nicholas. Now standing, he must have been twelve feet high.
Nicholas walked towards him, moving lightly despite his size. “WE DON’T NEED TO FIGHT”.
Ben turned to look at his friends but none of them had stepped forward to stand with him, like it or not he was now spokesperson for the group.
He saw himself pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back, loading his bow and firing it at where Nicholas’s heart should have been. But Nicholas was no ordinary vamp and a single arrow would barely scratch the surface.
“I ALWAYS LIKED YOU BEN,” he said. “YOU COULD JOIN ME.”
“You know I won’t,” he said, finding his voice at last.
“A PITTY BUT I WON’T FORCE YOU” he said making it very clear that if he chose to he could force him to if he wanted.
Gabriel, his mother, all those people working on the dam. He wondered if they had been forced.
Another figure walked towards them, a woman
(no a girl)
it took him a moment to recognise Kirsty, the girl who had been lost on the Back Field.
“It’s okay,” she said to Nicholas. “I can take it from here.”
Nicholas bowed his head and stepped away “AS YOU WISH M’AM” he said without taking his eyes from her.
Her voice was soft and calm
(human)
but he could tell at once she was one of them, a vamp, an Omega or whatever you wanted to call themselves. She glowed with the same dark energy that seemed to absorb all the light around her.
“Ben, Daniel, Kris,” she said. “And new friends too, welcome home.” She smiled and he could see her pin sharp fangs.
“What have you done to these people?” said Ben when really he meant, what have you done to my family.
“We have helped them understand that the human race is inferior. They want to join us now, they have seen the true path.”
“You’ve brainwashed them,” he said.
She shook her head slowly, sadly. “I’m sorry that you see it that way Ben. Perhaps in time you will understand.”
The hands grabbed him from behind. “I won’t.”
“Then you will be useful in other ways I’m sure,” she said and slid a shining pink tongue across her lips. She held his gaze for a moment and then nodded to whatever was behind him. “Take them away,” she said and once again he was lifted off his feet and carried out.
17
They were in the cell for less than an hour. It was damp and cold and pitch black, at the bottom of hundreds of stairs. Ben thought that it might be below the river itself but he had no way of knowing. There was nowhere to sit except the dirt floor. The door was the only substantial element of the room; it was made of the same heavy stone as the rest of the dam. He thought it would be easier to break through the wall.
They sat together in a loose circle but didn’t say very much. Less than twenty minutes after their arrival they looked towards the door. There were voices outside and heavy thuds. Ben stood up and walked to the door but was pulled back sharply by Daniel.
The door swung open and imbedded itself in the soft wall of the cell. He couldn’t see who was there but a mans voice said. “Come with me.”
They followed him out into the corridor where they had to climb over
(bodies)
things on the ground. The tunnel seemed to go on a lot further than it had when they had been taken to the cell and when they emerged they found themselves outside rather than in the dam.
The endless night continued to reign but it still took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they had he saw that the people who had rescued them were none other than old Groche’s grandsons; Peter and David. And they weren’t alone, there were other faces coming towards them, some familiar, some not.
The brothers led them towards the tree line and the others followed without saying a word. They emerged in the clearing where Ben had first seen the dam.
“What’s going on?” he said. The others, the ones he knew and the ones he didn’t, circled them, keeping close because there wasn’t much space.
“We’re the Resistance,” said Peter with evident pride.
“What happened here?” said Ben.
Combined with what Margaret had already told them they finally got the full picture of what had happened in the days since they had left:
It had started just four days ago. Which Ben and the others understood to be when they had killed The King. That morning Nicholas had gone walking in the Back Field as he had taken to doing in the week since they had gone. He gave no reason for these jaunts but some suspected he was meeting someone. In fact he hadn’t been meeting anyone but that morning he did.
Beneath the shade of the trees a girl came to him. He recognised her at once as the little girl who had been lost in the field some days before. But she had changed, she had a light now where before there had been darkness. They spoke together for a long time and she told him that The King was dead and that he had inherited the title along with something else. She explained how the vamps saw themselves as a human evolution and together they named themselves the Omega. She bit him, he changed and darkness fell across the land.
Peter explained what happened to the people, they were told that it was their destiny to become Omega but first they had to build the temple. That is what he called the dam. It was like a spell fell over the people and they followed him. Those that didn’t either escaped like they had or were punished, as Margaret had been.
“It’s because they’re tired of running,” said David, dismissing his brothers theory that the people were under a spell. “If we could speak to them we could make them understand.”
But Ben had see his mother and the way she had acted and he knew that Peter was right, they were under a spell and the only way to break it was to kill Kirsty. She had sired Nicholas, she was in charge.
They slept and they rested. They sent word back to the Robinson Crusoe and through the night weapons and supplies were ferried back to the Resistance camp. When Ben woke he was with Mary again.
She sat beside him, holding his hands in hers, sweet tears running down her cheeks. It took him a moment to understand that he wasn’t dreaming and that she was really there with him.
“Mary,” he said because nothing else came to mind. “The boys?”
She nodded. “They’re here too.”
He felt a wave of relief crash against rocks of hate for the people who had made him believe his family was gone. He reached for her and they held each other close.
Morning came and she brought him breakfast. They ate while still in their sleeping bags, side by side on the hard earth. They didn’t speak, there was nothing that needed to be said. They were together again, everything else was inconsequential.
They gathered in the field. The dark still hung above them but they were lit by dozens of lamps. More than a hundred of them had gathered. The weapons they had brought from the tower had been handed out. Ben stood beside Daniel, beside Peter and David.