Turned

within their confines for which I was grateful.  He hurtled around a curve as we descended the hill and I grasped the handle over the door as I slid across my seat, before the turn ended and we entered a long flat expanse of road surrounded by empty neighborhoods.  The vampire metropolis was to our backs, their farms to our west and my brother far to the north but as the jeep blazed down the empty highway the acute pain of my stomach’s clenching precluded all other thought.  I glanced at Abdul, but his concentration seemed to be on the road, though I couldn’t see his eyes through his dark wrap-around sunglasses.  I opened the flap on the olive-green pack that he’d given me as I held it between my feet and began to pull out its contents.  There was nothing but cans of food and a can opener, no weapons, no socks, no coat, and no shoes. Not even a spoon or fork. There were large cans of tomatoes, cans of beans, a can of chili, and some cans of fruit cocktail.  I pulled out a can of pinto beans and opened it.  Abdul wrinkled his nose as soon as I’d pulled the top off and said, “I can’t believe this is what I have to put up with.”  Ignoring him I tilted my head back and began swallowing the beans in large gulps.   “We’ll be lucky if we make it out of there before the first snow,” he scowled shaking his head and then slowed as he turned off the main highway onto a smaller road that descended through a decayed industrial park.  Long buildings, with abandoned trucks and tractors in their parking lots lined the roadway broken with clusters of rusting tanks as large as any building and flat square gray gravel lots.  The few weeds that had grown up in this area were covered with a fine gray grit.  There were cranes ahead of us, their rusted hooks hanging unmoving in the sun, and behind them the wide dark expanse of the Mississippi framed the entire scene without even a ripple disturbing its smooth surface.

We pulled up beside a motorcycle in front of a dock that extended out into the river from a sandy bank.  A vampire stood at the entrance to the dock, leaning with his forearms on the railing as he smoked a cigarette.  He wore a long canvas trench coat and jeans pulled down over his boots despite the heat and he stood up straight grinning at the ambassador as he approached having ordered me to remain in the jeep. His dark eyes were squinted beneath his dark coarse hair, thin in the front but thinner in the back.  He had flat square face that seemed to merge into his neck with little transition and a rough pock marked nose.  His fangs were of medium length and he was shorter but broader than Abdul.  They greeted each other with a handshake and then he walked down the pier as   the ambassador returned to the jeep and pulled a pack and a rifle from behind his seat.  “Everything’s ready,” he said, and I followed him out across the black water, the cans in my pack clinking with each step that I took.  Tied alongside the dock a small gray boat sat high rolling slightly as the water slapped against the dock’s wooden piles.  Its bow angled sharply into the black water Arabella painted in crisp black letters just under the deck, and a black railing ran along its sides from the open space in the front, around the cabin, and alongside another open space in the back.  The ambassador clipped an orange vest around his chest as the other vampire who was already onboard and similarly clad took our packs and we hopped in.  He avoided looking at me as I sat on one of the benches in the back area and looked out across the river towards the high rises to our south and the birds dipping across the water.

“The sun’s killing me, sir,” he told Abdul even though his lazy grin never subsided.

“Well, let’s not sit here then, Bart” the ambassador said and began cutting the ropes that tied the boat to the dock.  Bart dashed to the front of the boat and slashed the ropes from the other end.  As the last rope was cut, he pushed us away from the dock with a paddle and as he entered the cabin we began to drift slowly way from the bank and down river.  The engine started and then deepened as he shifted into gear and as the boat started forward a small flag unfurled from a short metal pole at one back corner of the boat.  The red, white, and blue had faded and it was tattered and worn but it was unmistakably the American flag.  Abdul cursed and yelled into the cabin. “Bart, take down this flag immediately.”

Bart came out of the cabin, the boat still gliding northward down the center of the wide expanse of dark water, his grin broadening.  “General’s orders, sir.”

“I’m well aware of the General’s standing order but as I am the ranking officer of this mission you will follow my orders and I want this relic put away.  Unless you care to be swimming with the fishes.”

Bart looked uncertainly at the water flowing by and then said, “Yes, sir.”   He pulled the flag down from its staff, balled it up, lifted one of the benches and threw it into a basin beneath the seats.  Then he returned to the cabin and the ambassador sat down with his rifle across his knees at the end of the boat the both of us looking backwards at the city we’d left as he calmly pulled a pouch full of tobacco from his pocket and began rolling a cigarette.  He pulled his collar up around his neck as he lit it and the