“So, one of you could carry this right?” he asked, and the vampires nodded. I approached slowly. Around me hung ranks of camouflage uniforms and behind my brother there were rows of rifles sitting on their butts and leaning against one another. “Good, good,” my brother said. “We can definitely use those. Let me see whatever else you’ve discovered in a few minutes.” The two vampires moved off into the barn and my brother dusted his hands off on his pants as he looked at me. “Trying to report what you’ve seen here back to your masters?” I didn’t answer. I looked around at the stacked boxes, piles of knives, shovels, backpacks, and guns fading away into the darkness of the huge barn. “It soon won’t matter anyways.” He looked at me with eyes that were slightly red, probably irritated from the dust, and squinted in a slightly clever way as if he knew something that I didn’t. “We’ve got almost everything we need. Weapons, food, vampires, and thralls.” He grew distracted and scowled in thought. “Do they use thralls as we do?” he asked vehemently. I shook my head. “I thought not. All the vampires say they do not, but who’s to say if they haven’t started, or if the vampires aren’t lying. They say they find it distasteful. Oh well.” He grinned. “I don’t.”
“In some ways vampires hold on to the old world more than we do. I guess because they remember it better. Well it will be their undoing, just like it was our mother’s undoing.”
His tirade lapsed and he looked at me shaking his head and rubbing his smooth chin between his thumb and his forefinger. “Eli, Eli, Eli.” He said. “You’re a big headache for me, right when I don’t need it. I told you not to leave and yet you tried to. Well you’ve found out that you can’t leave so don’t try it again. You won’t like the consequences.” He turned away from me and pulled a gun from the rack, hoisted it to his shoulder and pantomimed firing. He grunted and dropped the gun back amongst its peers. There were deep wrinkles spreading out from eyes that dropped in purple bags.
“I can trust so few people, man or vampire,” he said softly as if to himself and then louder. “You smell like a thrall.” He laughed. “As much as I’d love to keep you in that stench I can’t afford to. I couldn’t be seen playing favorites, but mucking is so despised I can ‘t afford to keep you up there with that washed up drunk.”
He got quieter for a second, shaking his head and squatting down beside a pile of vests which he rubbed between his fingers as he looked at me. “Damn its Eli, why’d you have to show up with a vampire? An army vampire too. If it were just a loner than maybe, we could have worked it out. I’ve kept my eyes peeled for you; you know.” He looked at me with eyes bright in the dim light and he looked briefly younger than he had since we’d been reunited. I could remember him looking up to me like that when we were growing up after a time of relative peace and safety, playing in a field or a brook. His face had been dirty then and now it was clean and smooth.
“I followed you for a while.” I said, “But I got off the trail.” That seemed to anger him.
“Well I’m glad you didn’t catch up. I would have killed you.” There was silence for a while. A couple of gunshots echoed to the north and my brother perked up. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now and I’m once again between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully putting you straight away into mucking will convince everyone that I’m not favoring you too much, but if I keep you there, they’ll think that we’re at odds. There’s too much politics and plotting around this camp. Those cowards may be laying low now biding their time, waiting until they can catch me in their machinations, but if they see a strong ally then they’ll come crawling out of the woodwork and make no mistake, if we’re seen to be competing than you’ll be a strong ally.”
“Don’t look so surprised brother. Our name carries a lot of weight now. Maybe you wouldn’t want it but that may or may not matter. So, no more mucking for you.” He fell silent staring off down the long aisle of the building.
“What’s with all of these vampires?” I asked him and he glared at me.
“You should know. You walked in here with one.” Abdul again. The vampire who’d kept me alive and kept me on a leash for the entire northward journey. My brother stood bristling. The tall door at the entrance creaked and then a block of searing light burst into what looked like a barn from the outside but was
