Eventually the long metal door to our left rolled up and two vampires in fatigues stepped out giving my captor a quick wave and walked slowly down a truck sized ramp that ran down into the yard. The group of humans rolled and railed against their cage at the approach of the two vampires, even those that had fallen to the ground found the strength to get up and beat vainly against the fence. Some began to climb the fence only to be knocked back to the ground with blood streaming down their faces by guards wielding the butts of their rifles along the platform across the fence. They crouched at the bottom of the fence clutching their noses eyes fearfully locked on the two vampires who had entered the mud. Others tried to dig underneath the fence tearing at the ground with their hands like dogs, while some shook the fence so hard that blood flew from their hands unnoticed as the fence ripped their flesh. Their shrieks intensified until my body shook. My eyes grew blurry and my stomach clenched and then without realizing it I was on my knees, coolness from the mud seeping through my jeans as my stomach ejected its meager contents. I continued heaving even after the only thing that continued to come up was a thin trickle of yellow bile that burnt my throat and left my mouth with a rancid coating. I saw everything through a red wave that pulsated with each wretch, but through it I could make out the two vampires that were approaching the humans, and I their screeching over my wheezing crowding out all other sound. My captor stood at my side as inert as a statue, a slight smirk on his face as he looked down at me. The group of captive humans split like an egg around the two vamps, running to either side of them leaving behind those who were dazed or petrified beyond movement, but the vamps ignored the motionless humans instead tossing a red rope over the head of a man sprinting away. They jerked him to the ground with a sharp tug. I remained on my knees, my stomach forgotten, my entire body forgotten. The man scrambled to his feet, his hands going to the rope around his neck, trying to loosen it, his face reddening, but the vampire held it tight. His stomach tightened and his ribs bulged as he pulled against the rope as if they only stuck to a sack being inflated with air. He jerked with his arms, thrust with his legs, and thrashed about with his neck, but with each struggle the rope tightened further around his neck, squeezing so that his Adam’s apple bulged overtop the rough fibers, and a red raw ring of flesh peeked out from underneath. The rope had constricted so much that he could not have screamed had he wanted to, but when his eyes met mine only dull voids stared back, empty of even fear. His thin chest swelled and collapsed with each quick breath. His eyes were red lined and encircled with thick black rings. His ratty hair hung down over his shoulders in greasy strands clumped together with a crust of dried mud. He wore nothing but a ragged pair of denim shorts shot through with holes and threatening to come unraveled from the innumerable threads and strings that dangled from their bottoms. His knees jutted into the air just like the ragged corners of sagging doorways in homes I’d slept in whose roofs had halfway collapsed. As I looked into his dark eyes his emptiness deflated me and I stood beside my own bile watching as if behind glass with my own captor, and those of the humans who could bear not to avert their eyes, as he was dragged step by step, struggling against the rope, up the concrete ramp and into the building. Once the vampires had disappeared back into the building, the crowd of humans returned to its original corner and crouched down in a loose cluster chatting unintelligibly as they pointedly ignored the ambassador and I, except for the children who stared, slack jawed, with void faces until someone grabbed them and brought them into the group. My captor coughing loudly and spitting a wad of phlegm into the pen broke the intense silence that had fallen in the wake of the prisoners’ wails. He’d looped his fingers into his belt loops and grinned at me. “He didn’t fight too much. That takes all the fun out of it really, but most of them don’t fight that much, some do though. Then you have to drag them into the blood bank kicking and screaming.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve got a lot of fight in you, but you’re a wild and we can’t even train these feeders to go peacefully.” He started for a door into the building motioning for me to follow. “I’m glad I don’t have to do any rope duty though. It’s too tempting. Half the vamps who work the rope end up dead. The last one turned two and drained four before the General had him tossed into the river chained to a concrete
