Our mother had always told us that the hardest time of her life had been when we were growing up, when we were young and helpless, and that she’d aged five years for every one that had passed during that time. Still she laughed about it later and often quipped, “what do I care what I look like. There aren’t any magazine models to compare myself to. I could be the hottest woman in the world for all I know. And it’s not like I’m trying to date.” That always made her laugh uncontrollably, snorting and doubling over, while we sat staring at her grinning, amused but unable to fathom her joke. Even though she laughed she still claimed those years were worse than losing her father as a little girl to the Iraq war, and worse than losing her mother during the long years of hunts when the vampires had first come back from across the sea and began to purge the world of humans. Food was even harder to come by during those years then it was now, there had been riots, fires burning unchecked, and no one able to bury the dead, but she’d survived the roving patrols of vamps that killed or turned all that fell into their hands, and yet that had been easier than the desperate hiding, and fleeing, that she’d done with my brother strapped to her back and me running alongside. It had been worse because she’d had to care for us, protect us, and her greatest fear had been that we’d be turned. “If my boys were turned,” she’d say and then just trail off into a solemn silence. She never wanted another child. She couldn’t see the point of bringing them into an undead world. She’d sworn off men for as long as I could remember, although she had enjoyed flirting with them, even though it raised my brother’s hackles.
Benjamin had always pouted whenever we shared a camp with anyone else. When he was young he would always point to each man in the camp in turn and ask our mother if he was our father as she shook her head soberly, but he quickly grew out of that habit, replacing it with a quick disgusted glance at their features. He sat by their fires sharpening his knife and watching with scorn as our mother laughed with them, or treated their wounds, bristling if any man flirted with her. He’d sulk by the fire, or he’d stalk away into the forest muttering to himself, then he’d silently join us again once we’d left the others. He couldn’t even be bothered to make any kind of chit chat with anyone; male or female, he had only ever spoken to me and our mother for as far back as I could remember. He’d often scout ahead and then convince us to change routes with lies of vamps or richer scavenging simply to avoid a group of humans, shrugging off my mother’s anger whenever she found out that she’d been deceived. To him, humans were dirty, slow, and loud, all dangerous traits. When we parted ways after my mother’s death, I figured he’d get as far from men as possible and I’d never see him again, and yet now the vampires claimed he was leading an entire town.
As I paced the length of the ship, listening to the frogs on the banks, and watching the bats flit overhead as they feasted on the plentiful mosquitoes and gnats and other pests that hovered over the slow water, Abdul rolled cigarette after cigarette, deftly twisting them one after another with scarcely a glance at the task, and then smoked them furiously. He exhaled in angry gusts, not blowing the delicate rings that would fade away from us quickly as the boat rushed northward or savoring the smoke by letting it slowly trickle from his mouth as he normally did. He cursed and flicked a butt into the river and the smoke died off. I approached him hoping to learn more of my brother. He did not turn towards me, though the boat thudded hollowly under my steps, but instead continued staring downriver, his body as motionless as a moss-draped statue in some desolate town square. I tapped his shoulder and he spun around so quickly that I jumped back. “What is it?” he hissed, his narrowed eyes yellow in the morning light and glaring at me. He kept his trembling hands interwoven in front of him. A pulse throbbed visibly in his neck. Saliva ran down his chin unnoticed from his bared fangs. He stood with a snap and pushed me down in one quick motion. I fell onto my hands, jarring my wrists against the deck. Standing over me he wrung his hands together; his skin all but drained of its color and pulled taut like a corpse’s. The wind blew back his greasy black hair. “I’m hungry,” he said quietly, his clear eyes focused on me. I pushed myself backwards with my feet and hands, scuttling away like a crab, but he followed. “I haven’t fed in days.” All I could watch was his tongue running along his lips slowly as I lay petrified, my world shrunk down to his pale visage against a background of gray clouds. His eyes were locked on my throat and my heart beating there like a wounded animal thrashing on the ground. “So empty. I am collapsing inward,” he gasped, though he never wavered as the boat rocked in the water. He laid his hands on his stomach as if he were a pregnant woman and stared at me, shaking for a brief moment, his jaw tautening, and then commanded, “Get out of my sight.” I scrambled to my feet, slipping, and banging one knee as I got up, and then ran to the front of the boat, crying with fear, afraid he was following
