Everyone Dies in the End #1

Nathan

1

Upstairs, something moved.

Nathan and Ramzke crouched in the leaky basement, the house as dark as a gun barrel. Outside there was no moon, no stars—thick, smoke-laced clouds obscured them, and no lights. There hadn’t been any lights in months.

Not since the missiles.

Upstairs something went bump. Bump in the night. Nathan snickered at the thought. Usually his kind were bumping in the night, and the humans were hiding.

Ramzke hissed, drawing Nathan’s eyes to him. The darkness mattered not. He could see his partner’s face as well as if it was illuminated, and the face wasn’t happy.

“Nyt, Qyet!” He spoke in the old tongue. Speech wasn’t necessary, but Ramzke was angry, his crimson eyes flicking to the woman crumpled on the trash-littered floor beside him and back to Nathan. {We must get her to him.}

Again the thump. Heavy boots striding across the floor above them. In Nathan’s head, Ramzke spoke. {Go!} Nathan stood, eager to obey his elder’s orders, eager for blood.

The stairs leading from the farm house basement were wood, and badly in need of repair. The first step creaked, and Nathan paused. Not that he felt fear; fear was but a dim memory from his mortal life, his mortal life as the son of a tobacco farmer--a life that had ended in the arms of a slightly-too-alluring dark-haired stranger. A stranger he now knew as Marika. He wasn’t afraid, but Nathan was cautious by nature. All of his kind were cautious by nature. Living 400 years in the shadow of a race that would exterminate you on sight, taught caution. Caution despite power.

He glanced over his shoulder. Below, Ramzke’s eyes glared back, and beside him lay the girl, eyes wide, gag tight, trussed hands and feet. An emotion, perhaps sympathy, flitted by. It was gone as quickly as it had arrived. Sympathy wasn’t a useful emotion.

His pause brought no sounds of discovery and he continued up the narrow stairs, one hand tracing the damp concrete of the adjoining wall. The noises above spoke.

“This will do for tonight. Let’s grab some shut eye.” Men they were, at least two, unless, of course, the voice was speaking to himself. Not uncommon in these crazy times.

The door was in front of him now. Well painted, freshly painted, the farm’s owners taking pride in even the back of a door that led to a musty basement. A grossly misplaced pride, Nathan knew. Possessions of the mortal world were transitory at best, deceiving at worst, but even the mortals knew that now. Without a sound he turned the shiny metal door knob, without a whisper he swung the door open, without hesitation he stepped through.

And stared into the gaping muzzle of a gun.

It was a rifle, he guessed. One of those combat models the soldiers used. He wasn’t an expert on weapons, but understood the man behind the rifle wore a helmet, and hence was a soldier. The weapon was no more than an arm’s length from his face, certainly close enough to blow his head, and immortality, right into hell. The barrel was steady, the finger tensed on the trigger, a simple brain command from obliterating him. Nathan smiled.

The soldier had done everything right, everything except one thing. He had looked into Nathan’s eyes, a vampire’s eyes, and now he could do nothing.

Nathan stepped into the room, gently pushing the barrel down. He smiled, “I hoped I would find something to eat up here.”

Cold metal pressed against Nathan’s temple, and a voice spoke. “You can eat this.” The retort of the second soldier’s shotgun filled the small kitchen.

2

Nathan lay on the floor; the tiles slickened with his dark blood, the last glimmer of existence flitting from his body. A final spark drifted through his shattered brain, creasing his shredded face with a smile. It makes no difference if you’re immortal or man. In the end, everyone dies.




Drawing courtesy of Gregory Proch.