haze half dozing and wakeful dreaming of Mary when I heard footsteps outside of the shack. Immediately I snapped awake, my heart racing and my breath catching in my throat as I strained my ears. All my instincts were screaming at me to quietly get up, to make my way to the door and then bolt and my mind was howling at me with terror that the door was the sole exit and that the footsteps were converging on it. I willed the footsteps to keep on walking while I tried to talk myself down and remind myself that I was surrounded by hundreds of people and the camp’s vampires. Those footsteps could have been anyone’s, a sleepwalker or someone who simply felt the urge to walk through the night but still I shuddered especially when I thought of the free rein my brother gave his vampire companions. My bunkmate rolled over onto his side snorting and the steps came to a halt just outside our walls. I could see the shadows in the holes in the chink of the walls. Whispers I couldn’t make out came from the shadows outside. I lay frozen in the bed, my breath caught pretending to be asleep until the steps moved on and then I sat up wishing for a gun. The shadows moved to the doorway, pulled back the hide covering and suddenly a stocky silhouette with a round head appeared in the seemingly origin less light of the night. The shadow stood utterly still framed in the doorway as the snores of my bunkmate filled the room, and then he extended one thick arm and crooked a finger at me. My panic subsided somewhat though I still imagined that it could be a trap to lure me to an unnoticed death or to having my new clothing stolen. Before I had moved the beckoning man lifted his finger to his mouth and pointed at my bunkmate then he slid out of sight allowing the flap to rustle closed behind him. I stepped quietly out of bed immediately missing the warmth of the blankets and followed with slow sure steps. As the hide fell closed behind me, I looked to the left and the right through the cold clear air. It was early morning, about two hours till the first rays of dawn would come peeking into the valley but compared to the darkness of the hut I’d been sleeping in the night seemed brightly lit. The man stood beside a hut two doors down from my own. I walked towards him and he stepped out into the lane walking ahead of me, leading me through the warren of little alleys. I stifled a yawn as I walked growing impatient as he continued his twisting path looking left and right at each intersection as if he needed to decide his way and keeping close to the walls of the hovels. The moon had set but the stars lent enough light so that I could clearly see that I was following one of the preacher’s burly sons. Though he looked dumb and hulking he moved lithely enough as we traversed a route through the village that I would never be able to recreate. Eventually the huts grew even shoddier, no more than boxes of tacked together plywood topped with a sheet or two of metal crowding a path no wider than two men walking abreast. The preacher’s son disappeared from my view as we neared where the path spilled out onto a pasture that fell away to the river but stepped away from the final building as I stepped onto the pasture.
“Walk with me,” he said in a deep quiet voice and he walked at my shoulder as we followed the broader path down towards the river.
“My father sent me to talk with you. He says that as of, yet you are still a man and all men can be saved, not that they will be but that they can be.” He looked at me with disgust with his beady dark eyes set deeply in his large round head before it relaxed a bit. It was as if his father had just whispered into his ear and he was begrudgingly following his father’s command.
“I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” I asked. The two sons looked so similar I’d wondered if they were twins.
“I’m Jonathon,” he replied annoyed. We walked steadily away from the village. The night was chill, but the walking combined with the clothing Mary had given me kept me warm. “My father wants you to know that it would be best for you to tell your brother what he wants to hear.”
“What do you mean? What does my brother want to hear?”
He pressed his lips together as if he were processing. “Your brother wants to go to war with the General, that’s why he had you interrogate the Made, but he’s not a fool. You came North with the Made and you have access to the Made. It will be best for you if you keep him convinced that he should attack soon.”
“So, you want me to lie to my own brother,” I snapped louder than I intended.
“Not lie. My father would never encourage anyone to lie. He simply wants you to only to avoid discouraging your brother. He’s eager to fight. Tell him the vampires are lazy. Tell him that they hate the cold. Tell him that they are unorganized. He’ll eat all of that up.”
“And what if I don’t?”
He shrugged. “I was simply instructed to tell you that it was in your best interest to encourage your brother to go to war.” We looked out across the river shimmering in the starlight. The water would meet up with the Mississippi and then it would pass by the General. Perhaps vampires were already traveling northward on its waters en route to crush the camp. Would they be as surprised as
