“Where’d you come from?”
“The south.”
“I heard that you were captured by a vampire and that your brother had you rescued and brought here.” He paused briefly but I didn’t respond instead studying the hill and the glinting curve of the river before it disappeared into the pine forests that covered the southern hillsides of the valley. A group of men were working down there felling trees and then rolling them over to one location near the river. “I can’t believe they didn’t drain you though. Never heard of a vampire who didn’t drain a human when it had the chance. Only your brother seems to be able to keep control of their hunger and even he only barely keeps a lid on it, if you catch my drift.” I didn’t but I didn’t say so. “They’ve got that vampire that captured you under lock and key. I guess they’re trying to get information out of it. That’s gotta feel good. A vampire getting what it deserves for a change. They’ll all get what they deserve soon if your brother gets his way.” He didn’t seem to be aware of the dissonance between his assertion and the entourage of vamps that were continually at my brother’s side.
“You’re a quiet one, but of course your brother is to, and you’re probably tired from catching up with your brother. I had a brother, but I don’t know what happened to him.” His voice and eyes went distant. “I imagine he’s dead but maybe not.” As quickly as he faded, he returned to his verbal assault.
“You won’t be mucking for long though. I’m sure your brother will have you doing something else quickly. Maybe he’ll throw you in here with me and the boys for a week or so to appease Dottie and to make it clear he doesn’t play favorites but then he’s probably going to want you helping him prepare for the war. I mean you’ve scouted the area; you’ve been living in their territory. With you and whatever he can get from that vamp we should be ready to attack soon. Maybe Dottie’s right, maybe I can get back in his good graces. Think you could put a good word in for me next time you talk to him.”
“Sure,” I said. As we approached the barn, which as we drew nearer didn’t look like any other barn I’d ever seen, the odor of rot and death grew stronger. I breathed through my mouth but by the time we stood outside the barn’s door I was gagging from the stench. It smelled of week-old corpses, stagnant mud, and musty air.
“You got a bandana?” He asked. When I shook my head, he scowled. “What’d you do to piss Dottie off? It’s not like her to not help out a new camp member.” He took his own bandana out of a pocket in his ripped windbreaker tied it around his face, so it draped over his nose and mouth. Then he pulled a knife from his belt and cut a large piece from his shirt leaving his pale stomach exposed. “This will have to do.” I took it and tied it around my face in the same way. It smelled of sweat and booze, but it lessened the impact of the stench emanating from the barn somewhat.
Unlike the farmhouse or any of the hovels that surrounded it in the village the barn sat on a concrete slab that was a little bit longer than the farmhouse. The corner beams were enormous logs that had been stripped of their bark and smoothed and sunk into the concrete. Between them the wall was lined with layers of sheet metal topped with beam of logs and in its center sat a huge sliding door locked with what seemed to be pieces of rebar shoved thorough metal eyes and then chained to wall and padlocked. The roof slanted in the same direction as the hill so that it made a triangle with the wide side open to the hill. We walked along the concrete around the building under the roof’s overhang. The walls muffled most of the sound, but I thought I could hear scratching and what sounded like groans from the inside of the barn. Several trenches ran out from under the wall and across the slab allowing a trickle of yellow liquid to dribble down the side of the concrete. The trenches were stained brown and yellow all the way up their sides and even out onto the surface of the slab. It was from the trenches that the stench emanated. I expected that he’d open the sliding door and that we’d be feeding, watering and possibly mucking the stalls of the cows or horses that were inside. Instead I followed him as he circled around the barn. Tucked along the back wall that faced the slope, a narrow ladder of metal rungs ascended the wall alongside an elevator that hung from a steel cable. I followed as he climbed the ladder surprisingly quickly considering the swerving way he veered from side to side and as I neared the tops the scratching and groans grew alongside the foul smell. The odors now smelled like rotting meat and feces. I thought I could make out a human undertone to the moans and images of the caged men, women and children huddled outside of the vampire city flooded into my mind. I shuddered and my full stomach roiled. I bit back the taste of bile and continued following worried about the barn’s inhabitants. How did the vampires around my brother’s camp remain fed? Were they allowed to hunt the countryside? Even if they had discovered some way of feeding off the humans without converting them, I doubted
