Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (Book 1) (21 page)

“Traitor.” Harris turned as gave
Sandra a full, beaming smile. “I was just going.”

He suddenly felt very tired from
his exertions and hobbled slowly toward the door. Sandra
Harrington’s rigid pose softened somewhat as she saw how pale he
had become and she moved to help him. She took his arm and allowed
him to lean against her.

“What am I going to do with
you?” she sighed.

Sarah Warkowski sat by her
husband’s bedside in silence. In contrast to her outer calm, her
mind raced with all that had happened in the last twenty-four
hours. It was like she had been suddenly thrust into a raging
hurricane in a small dinghy.

She felt completely out of her
depth.

Her existence for the last two
years had been ordered; hell, but ordered. Fully aware of her
predicament, but completely incapable of any but the most basic
movements, she had become almost comfortable in her routine. She
shuddered and felt sick when she thought of her weekly visits to
donate blood, to receive her serum, the constant harassment from
the thralls and, worst of all, their frequent nightly visits.

She pushed those thoughts away
and looked down at her husband. When he had burst into their
apartment she hadn’t recognised him. He had looked more demonic
than human with blood spattered everywhere and she feared that Jill
and herself would be killed. The worst part of the effect of the
drugs was not being able to help or protect her daughter and, at
the moment when Philip crashed through the door, every fibre in her
body strained against the drugs to protect her.

The relief she had felt when she
had finally recognised the blood-soaked figure was like a physical
blow. He had come back to them, against all odds he had come back.
She had felt the tears roll down her cheeks as he had gathered them
up in his massive arms.

She looked down at her husband’s
sleeping form and the tears again rolled down her face again. She
still couldn’t move to wipe them away, but she could make it
difficult for others to move her by planting her feet firmly on the
ground. She could feel the difference already and knew it wouldn’t
be long before she could take her husband and daughter in her arms
and hug them for the first time in two years.

They had told her that Philip
might not survive, that his body had been very badly damaged by the
blast. But as long as he breathed there was hope. The signal that
ran across the monitor screen beeped every time it spiked and
testified that he was still alive. The sound reverberated around
the empty ward while she sat.

And waited.

And hoped.

“How’s that?” Sandra Harrington
asked when she poked the man’s side.

“Feels a bit better,” Jack
Walton replied.

“That’s strange; I could have
sworn that those ribs were broken yesterday when you came in. We
don’t have x-rays, but the discoloration and bruising were
consistent with that. You were with Reiss” team weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How was it? What are vampires
like up close?”

“Petrifying.”

Sandra shrugged at the lack of
response from her patient. Oh well, he’s probably still shaken from
the assault, she thought. He had come in with Reiss” team, covered
in blood and with bad bruising to his side. The blood must have
been someone else’s because Sandra could not find any wounds on his
body. The bruising on his side, however, had been very bad and she
had bandaged him up to support his ribs. This morning, though, the
bruising was nearly gone and his side wasn’t that sore to touch.
She shook her head in amazement.

“Well if that bruising is gone
by tomorrow we’ll let you out,” she said and straightened his bed
covers. She gave him a quick smile and moved off to check on her
next patient.

“Nurse.”

She turned. “Yes?”

“Could you turn down the lights
in here?”

“Of course, any particular
reason?” she queried.

“I’m sensitive to light.”

Chapter 21

“These are trying times.”

The words, though not
particularly loud, filled the auditorium and demanded the attention
of all present. Father Matthew Reilly stood on a raised platform at
the head of an audience that included every member of the
community, except for the few who still remained in the infirmary.
Sandra Harrington looked around the gathering with concern. The
mood was sombre, almost maudlin.

She thought back to the initial
joy of the team’s return and how it had quickly disappeared when
the full cost of the assault had become obvious. Members of the
community had rushed out to welcome the teams, herself among them,
when the trucks had pulled up outside the facility. Everyone smiled
and joked at their safe return. Without exception the welcoming
committee stopped in shock at the team’s bloodied and
dirt-encrusted appearance. Men and women limped and hobbled from
the trucks, and many had to be carried or supported by others.
Silence suddenly descended and the welcoming committee just stared,
unsure what to do.

She had heard her father curse
as he pushed his way through the crowd. “For God’s sake don’t just
stand there, help them!” he thundered. He lifted one of the
survivors into his arms and strode back through the crowd.

The spell seemed to break then
and people rushed forward to help. Vince Crockett organised some
teams to help the injured and others to unload the supplies. His
fierce countenance and authoritative bearing ensured absolute
obedience.

The hours that followed had been
a blur of activity. She worked relentlessly with her team to check
all the injured. They still did not have a doctor, but cuts were
cleaned, broken limbs set and more serious injuries were handled to
the best of their caring, but limited, abilities.

For the first hour she had
constantly looked to the door of the infirmary, searching the faces
of the injured and hoping to see Harris. She moved from patient to
patient, working efficiently, and held back her emotions while each
patient related their particular account of the hell they had been
through. The sheer scale and horror of their stories shocked her.
Her own fears that Harris might be dead threatened to overwhelm her
but she forced herself to move from patient to patient smiling
reassuringly all the time. In fact, it wasn’t until she saw Scott
Anderson push his way through the crowds with the limp and battered
body of Peter Harris in his arms that she felt the tears run down
her face.

There had been so much blood she
hadn’t known where to start. She gestured to Scott Anderson to
place him on a nearby bed and immediately checked for a pulse. She
remembered the feeling of relief when she had felt a weak but
steady rhythm. She glanced over his body and gently checked for
broken bones. She paid particular attention to his face and the
colour of his lips. Internal bleeding had been her greatest fear,
but the tint of his features was a good indicator that a sufficient
level of blood continued to flow through his body. Satisfied that
he was stable, she dried her tears with the back of her hand and
set about cleaning away the blood and grime. In all that time she
never once took a moment to allow her grief or her relief to
surface and it wasn’t until she was satisfied that she had done all
she could that she finally succumbed to her exhaustion and slept
solidly for the next day.

Over the last few days Sandra
had noticed the community’s deep shock in the aftermath of the
assault, so much so that she had brought it up at the last
committee meeting. She was seriously worried that the low moral
would succeed where the vampires had failed and tear the community
apart. To this end she had requested, and been granted, a public
forum to try to allay fears, bolster moral and, more importantly,
allow people to say goodbye to those who had died. She hoped that
this would rekindle the sense of community they had lost and give
people the strength to move on from this tragedy.

“Times of exceptional hardship
and suffering.” She shook herself from her reverie and listened to
Father Reilly continue. “But also of exceptional deeds and
sacrifice. We gather here today in honour of all the men and women
who took part in the assault, but especially for the seventeen whom
we now mourn.”

Father Reilly paused and Sandra
could see him look out over the audience.

“They died, yes, but let us not
forget why they died. They died so our children could live, so our
families could eat and so we could survive. They also died
free.”

He spoke the last words loudly,
and Sandra jumped when Reilly slapped his open hand on the podium
to emphasise the point.

“It is right that we grieve. We
have all lost family members or friends. We all grieve for those we
have become separated from and have no idea of their fates, but we
must become stronger in our resolve, in our faith, if we are to
take any comfort or meaning from their sacrifice. Do not dishonour
their memory or their achievement. Do not give up. I ask you all
now to join me in a prayer and the sacrament of the mass. Our
Father who art in…”

The words of the prayer were
familiar to everyone, and Sandra heard a low murmuring as some
people tentatively joined in. Although not a practising Catholic
herself, the words to the prayer were so deeply rooted in her that
they sparked memories of happier times. The ritual of the mass gave
her comfort and she could see people around her turn to those
beside them, shake hands and hug.

Her eyes welled up in the
emotion of the prayer. The atmosphere shifted. The feeling of
belonging and community spirit they had enjoyed before began to
return, and the volume of the recitation increased as everyone
joined in the prayer. By the end of the mass tears rolled down
every face she could see and the volume of the final response was
deafening. Together, as a community, they finished the mass with
one simple word. A word which had been used for centuries, a word
of power, a word which embodied their right to survive, to mourn
their dead and to continue on with an unshakeable resolve.

“Amen!”

“Okay, people. Let’s settle down
and get to it,” Dan Harrington boomed. All eyes looked to him.
Conversations finished and people coughed and straightened chairs
while they settled down for the meeting. This committee meeting had
been called as soon after the mass as was feasible. It had taken a
further two days to ensure the full committee could attend, and by
that stage the community was already beginning to come to terms
with the tragedy.

“First of all, I’d like to thank
Father Reilly for his service.” People grunted and nodded heads in
agreement. “His words struck a cord in all of us and the mood in
the facility has improved immeasurably.” Reilly merely nodded from
his seat as if uncomfortable with all the attention. “Peter,” he
continued and nodded to Harris, “I appreciate you being here also,
considering your condition.”

Harrington looked over at the
young man and grimaced.

My God, the older man thought,
he looks dreadful.

Harris” face was deathly pale;
in fact, the only colour visible at all in his pasty visage was
from the cuts and bruises that dotted his features. Bandages
covered his body; some of them stained red from the wounds beneath
that still continued to seep.

Harrington hadn’t realised that
Harris was that bad. Sandra had argued bitterly against his
attending this meeting, but he had pressed hard because he needed
the input of all the members. They had argued and she had called
him a bully. She still glared at him from her position beside her
patient. Harrington suddenly regretted his insistence and found
that he could not meet her steely gaze.

He had always had a brusque
manner, he knew that. The qualities that made him a successful
entrepreneur in his previous life were the very ones that had torn
his family apart and driven his wife away. She had finally had
enough of the business trips, broken promises and constant mood
swings. He realised too late that, while he was magnanimous when
deals went well, he had been argumentative and bloody-minded when
things didn’t go his way.

He had lived for his work and
didn’t notice how this affected his family until; finally, Pamela
had packed, taken their daughter and left over ten years ago. He
sighed regretfully as he remembered how he had thrown himself
further into his work instead of rushing after them. He had built a
huge empire and only realised how lonely he was when he sat at the
top with no one to share it with.

He had contacted Pamela out of
the blue just over two years ago before the crisis had changed all
their lives. He had been surprised that she had actually been happy
to hear from him. Over the previous few years the only contact had
been through solicitors. He had always been too busy. He had always
ensured that they enjoyed a generous allowance and had felt that
this covered any commitments that he owed them. It wasn’t until he
had achieved everything that he had wanted that he discovered that
he had lost the only things that really mattered.

Slowly, he had begun the process
of bridge building. At first this was regular contact by phone as
he tried to introduce himself back into their lives. Gaining the
trust of his wife again after so long was another battle altogether
and one which he was making less headway with but, Sandra did seem
keen to discover just who her father was. Of course, she was no
longer the little girl he remembered; she was now a grown woman and
who had developed an independent streak that was instantly
recognisable to him.

And then the war had begun. At
first it was something that seemed far away and wouldn’t affect
them directly, so he had requested some time with Sandra to get to
know her again. Pamela had been happy to comply and suddenly this
twenty-five year old stranger appeared on his doorstep. The war
quickly spiralled out of control after that and travel became
impossible. Sandra had stayed with him a little longer than
planned.