Chapter One
"I will get home," I said aloud as I dangled hundreds of feet above the roaring waves. I stared down at the surf as it broke against the rocks at a distance that seemed like miles. I tried again to clear my mind and focus on my need, but my hands were losing their grip on the rock I hung from and I knew that any moment I'd have to let go. To buy myself more time I swung my legs forward against the cliff wall to give my hands some relief. In doing so, however, I realized that I hadn't shoved my phone deep enough into my pocket. Panic began to settle in as I quickly tried to shift my hips to anchor the phone. This proved the exact wrong thing to do as I watched the phone tip over the pocket and begin its somersaulted decent. In agony I watched it hit the cliff wall, catch a fissure, and ride that fissure like a kid on a slide around the cliff face and out of sight. Every curse word I remembered spewed from my mouth before I took a breath and let go of the rock.
The fall lasted longer than one might think, but the drop was farther than most humans could survive. When finally I entered the waves feet first I had come to a decision regarding my phone. I had to find it. There was no way around that fact, and until I did find it I couldn't take a single anxiety free breath. The phone was my most precious possession in this place. And I had a sinking feeling as I rose to the surface that it had somehow ended up on the vampire side of the island.
A roaring hovercraft banked low as it passed the verdant treetops. I shielded my eyes from the glare of the early afternoon sun as I watched it glide to the HQ roof and slowly descend. My boots on gravel could be heard again as its engine switched off. Damn those things were loud. I crossed from gravel path to grass the color of emeralds and lifted a hand in greeting to the woman who waved at me from the pilot's seat. I passed into the shade and entered the side door of the building that represented all things law and order on the island. The hall I strode down was dark and smelled like the earth that constituted as the floor. Thousands of feet had compressed it down so that it was as hard as the tile I remembered from what seemed a lifetime ago. "Ten lifetimes," I muttered grimly to myself as I pushed open the door to the equipment room.
"Sir."
I looked over to my left as I pulled my shirt over my head. A kid no more than eighteen stood at fierce attention, his boot clutched in his right hand. I sighed.
"Don't call me that." It was an old routine, a song and dance I was emphatically sick of.
"Sorry. Noah. Sir."
"At ease, soldier. Christ, pull your damn pants up."
He blushed and bent to yank up his white, flowing pants. I went to my cubby and yanked out the brown uniform. I zipped into the tight stiff leather pants and matching jerkin. The stuff was heavy, thick, and hot as hell in this heat. But it was standard issue. Tough, really tough to bite through. Over this lovely ensemble went my gun holster, my knife belt, my wrist sheaths with six inch blades on each forearm, and my Uzi on its leather strap. The Uzi, when in place, settled down my spine. I pulled on my Guinness baseball cap, frayed and faded as it was. Had to have something from home. The pocket on my belt where the phone should've been felt like a gaping wound. When I glanced over to where the kid had been I saw he'd fled.
"Good man," I said. It came out as a growl. I glanced into the cracked mirror and paused. I needed to shave again. I ran a hand over the stubble and realized I'd forgotten the gloves. I hated the gloves. I hated the whole world at the moment.
There were forty civilians on duty at all times, day and night. We worked in shifts--twelve on, twelve off. There should've been more, but until we'd gathered more leather to make our armor we had to make due. Enemy activity had fallen off by a great degree, but the reprieve wouldn't last. I felt that in my gut. The kid I'd exchanged the brief greeting with in the equipment room was the youngest soldier. Lazar was his name, I remembered. I'd trained him a few times in hand to hand. He had promise, but he'd never been truly tested. Of the eighty soldiers in our sector, twenty-five were women. The tribal leaders had balked at that, but in my experience women could be as tough as men. And what they lacked in strength they made up for in tenacity. I ran into Shebida, one of the veterans of the Ark War as I made my way to the front doors.
"Hey G," she said with a tired grin.
I gave her a warning glare and she held up her gloved hands. "Noah. Whatever."
"Find anything?" I demanded.
She ran her eyes up and down my leather clad form. "No activity. They're keeping to the treaty. Noah, they've kept to the treaty for nine months now. Maybe it's time we--"
"No."
She shook her head, her short red curls unmoving from the sweat that glued them to her temples and nape. Her brown eyes rolled. "Fine. You're the boss."
"Shebida, can you come here a minute?" One of the nurses beckoned from the hospice wing doors.
Shebida gave me a small frown before turning on her booted heel and following the woman. I continued out the front doors and fitted my wraparound sunglasses over my eyes. The dimness of the lenses didn't detract from the bright humidity that greeted me. Birds of every species called to each other, the drone of insects a muted undercurrent. The jungle rose on every side of the large clearing. I went up to a decrepit jeep and pushed the ignition switch as I yanked the door shut after me. It protested on rusty hinges. I grabbed a water canteen and took a long drink. Then I drove toward the perimeter with a long-suffering sigh.
"Boatload of civilians just arrived from the mainland."
The low voice drew me from my reverie and I looked over at the short man who'd spoken. It was midnight. I had an hour left of my shift. I stretched my neck and looked back across the perimeter.
"How many?"
"Thirty-three. Mostly families."
"Their condition?"
"Fair. A few wounded but they'll survive."
"Any dead with them?"
He spat on the soft soil. "Two."
"Burned?"
"Already taken care of. Carlson arranged for more huts, should go up tomorrow. He, ah, wants to see you."
I bared my teeth. "Doesn't he always?"
The short man, Louis, laughed. "Yes."
A noise had us both shifting, weapons in hand. My night vision caught the shadow of a doe as it sniffed the soil at the edge of the perimeter. Louis aimed but I lay a hand on his arm.
"It's a female," I said under my breath. He nodded and lowered the barrel. The doe, wisely, turned and leapt back into the greenery it had come from.
Louis sighed. "First deer spotted in a month and it's a damn girl. We need more skins."
"I know."
We went back to staring across the half mile of churned soil. I leaned back onto the wooded fence that was the barricade. It was twelve feet high with one inch spaces between the slats. At three-hundred foot intervals metal gates allowed us to cross to this side. The metal, precious commodity that it was, was the best idea I'd had in awhile. The enemy couldn't break through it. I'd wanted the entire barricade to be metal but there just wasn't enough. A thought occurred to me.
"Did they bring anything of use with them?" I asked.
"Tribute?" Louis furrowed his brow. "Some weaponry. A few chickens." He grinned. "Some comely females."
"Nothing else?"
He slanted me a look. "Better than females, you mean?"
"We don't need more females. There's too much breeding as it is. Another few years and we'll run out of resources."
He scratched his head. "What about those scouting missions?"
"To the mainland?"
He nodded.
"Too risky yet. They..." I pointed to the east "know the treaty doesn't extend that far. We'd be slaughtered."
He was quiet for a time. When he spoke, it was in a hushed baritone. "You could help them. Like you helped us."
"Louis, the mainlanders are--"
"Like we were before you came," he interrupted. "Stupid, illiterate. Bands of primitive idiots who shit where they eat. Right?"
I grimaced at the words. I'd spoken pretty much the same thing to these people--my people--six years before. Six god-forsaken years.
"I can't," I finally said. "There's too many."
"But with all of us united--"
"They'd still have the advantage. Look Louis, drop it. We focus on the island. Got it?"
"Yes sir," he muttered.
The last thing I needed was more people to educate. More inflated bastards to take down. The island community worked. It had its problems, its more troublesome factions, but for the most part the laws were followed. I no longer had to police the civilians.
"You going to bed soon?" Louis asked me as I checked my watch. It was time to go.
"Yeah. Sure." I patted him once on the shoulder and he watched me walk away.
"Gotta sleep sometime, Noah," he called quietly.
The moonlight played tricks on the eyes as shifting shadows jumped from the corners of my vision. I'd shrugged out of the leather and donned my off-duty clothes. My ancient jeans fit me like a second skin and my white t-shirt stretched across my chest. It had fit better six years before, but I'd put on a few pounds of muscle since then. I kept only the revolver, tucked in the back of my jeans. I'd been walking for two hours, and knew by the smell of woodsmoke that I was close. I broke through the shrubs and paused, hands in the air. Before me a stream-fed lagoon glistened in the moonlight and Frank stood as if waiting for me. Who was I kidding? He'd heard me miles ago.
"Welcome Graham Tanner," he said softly in his accented English.
"Frank." I walked slowly toward him, gauging his mood. He seemed resigned tonight. "How are things?"
He turned and walked toward the cave. I followed him, knowing the small talk was done. A large dog greeted me at the mouth of the cave, its tail thumping. I scratched its ears as I passed. The cave was lit by firelight and candlelight, and a more comfortable cave I'd yet to see. Faded tapestries lined the walls, ancient rugs the floor. In the rear a four-poster bed with all the trimmings beckoned invitingly. There were shelves lined with books, cabinets full of treasures, and two chairs you could sink into around the fire. Frank's home was the most sophisticated this side of the island. He'd told me the other side liked their comforts as well.
The man sat in his favorite chair and I sat across from him. I resisted the temptation to lean back. I was exhausted but couldn't afford to sleep.
"You've lost something."
I took a deep breath. "How can you tell?"
His leathery face creased in what I'd come to realize was a smile. "I would tell you that I am clairvoyant, but you would not believe me. Instead I will tell you this. Every two minutes you usually touch your left pocket like a talisman. You have been with me for six minutes now and I have not witnessed this. Either you have learned to restrain yourself since I have last seen you or..."
I let the observation hang for a moment. Then I closed my eyes.
"I think it's on the other side of the island." I heard the scrape of a match and opened my eyes to see him lighting a pipe. "I need to get it back."
"Do you?"
"Yes. You know I do."
"No." He puffed a few times. "I know nothing of the sort. Neither do you. It has been six years Graham Tanner. Do not you think it would have happened by now if it was to happen at all?"
I leaned forward. "It brought me here, Frank. It can take me back home."
"That is your belief."
"Frank, coming to this place in this time was pretty fuckin' hard to believe. Encountering the inhabitants of the island was hard to believe. Getting home, when compared to that, should be a cakewalk."
"Hmm. How long did you hang for this day?"
"Four hours before I dropped my-"
"You lost it while meditating?" His voice was sharper than it had been.
"Yeah."
"Well. That is most interesting. And it fell to the other side."
"Yes."
He stood abruptly and so quickly I blinked. I kept forgetting that this old man wasn't what old men should be. In a moment's time he'd gone to a desk and returned with a folded paper. He handed it to me.
I raised my eyebrows and carefully unfolded the brittle paper. There was only one sentence written in faded ink.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. I refolded the paper and handed it back to him.
"Y'know Frank, I went to Sunday school for years. This isn't new to me."
He sat back down. "I too went to Sunday school Graham Tanner. This statement is not to do with your god."
"Oh yeah? Explain that to me, Frank. Because 'Lord' means God here."
"Every religion, every faith has this same statement. The fact that you lost your phone while meditating proves this. It is a catalyst. Change is coming."
"Fate. More fate talk. Frank-"
"You were brought here for a reason Graham Tanner. You found me for a reason."
"Sure. I saved those poor bastards down there."
He shook his head. "More. For those few lives you would not be here. My people fear you. Do you know why?"
"I know how to kill them."
"No. You cannot be killed."
His statement, so calm and sure, froze me to my marrow. "Everyone can be killed. I bleed just like the next guy."
"Yet you heal faster than any human I've seen. Your arm was broken three years ago, yes? How long did it take to heal?"
I stared at him. I didn't answer.
"You were shot in the thigh by a misfired gun. You were walking hours later with no pain."
"Frank, I know that the journey here changed me. I'm stronger, faster, I can take more damage. I'm-"
"Like us."
"No. I'm human."
"As I was human. Once."
I stood and paced to the wall. "Is this why you chose to train me, Frank? Why you helped me save those people?"
"I chose to aid you because I've become disgusted with my own kind. But yes, training you I would not have done had I not seen the otherness within you." He smoothed his wool jacket sleeves. Wool in this heat.
I shook my head. "I can't handle this right now." I went to stand before him. I folded my arms over my abdomen and bowed low. "Master, will you please help me retrieve what is lost?"
He stared at my bowed head. "You wish me to retrieve it for you."
"Yes."
"That I will not do. You must retrieve it yourself."
"I'll die."
"If that is your wish, of course."
"Damnit Frank, I can't do this alone!"
"I am afraid, Graham Tanner, that you are more alone than you know. Now kneel and recite."
It was seven in the morning by the time I fell into my grass-filled bed. Even the noise of the village coming to life couldn't have kept me awake. I tumbled down into dreams that I'd hoped my exhaustion would keep at bay.
There was fire. There was always fire. It licked the walls, the floor. I blinked my eyes and through the haze of smoke I saw her sitting in her favorite chair. She stared into the mirror of her vanity set and seemed completely oblivious to the fact the house was burning down around her.
"I have to go, Graham," she told me in her lovely voice. Her long black hair was up in a knot at the nape of her neck and she wore an elegant red gown. Her deep brown eyes, slanted at the corners, met mine in the mirror.
"I know you do, honey. But the boys-"
"Why can't you pick them up again?" She affixed diamonds in her ears.
"I've got a job tonight."
She turned her head left and right, checking the dangle of the earrings. I strode forward and placed my hands-black from the soot- on her thin shoulders.
"You look so beautiful," I said warmly.
She smiled. "And you look like you need to sleep. Tell you what. I'll have Mama pick them up." She turned and raised her face to me. I kissed her gently. "Take a night off, Graham. Come with me."
"You know I can't. Next week I'll request a vacation. We'll go somewhere fantastic."
"Next week is the launch," she said with a frown.
"The following week then."
Her eyes reflected the fire all around us. I couldn't read them. I dimly heard a crash behind me as part of the wall collapsed.
"I'm going to be late," she said as she stood. I followed her to the bedroom doorway. I heard the creak of the floorboards beneath us.
"I love you," I told her as fire began to lick at the hem of her gown.
"You too, baby," she said before going up in flames.
Chapter Two
The name of the island had been lost in the past, and I wasn't even sure what landmass it had been. I wasn't even sure where it was, geographically speaking. I'd surmised that it was somewhere off the coast of South America by the star constellations. But in reality it could have been anywhere. Global warming and time made for changes even Frank hadn't been able to explain.
Frank. His real name was Francois. The French that had been his birth language was still evident in his accent. I'd stumbled across him a day after my arrival on the island. He'd been what I'd found after I'd awoken in the village with no memory of how I'd gotten there. I'd panicked, running past the shocked inhabitants and into the jungle. I'd wandered for hours, thirst leading me to the shallow lagoon of fresh water. Like an animal I'd plunged my entire head into the cool water, and after I'd drank my fill I'd lifted my head and seen him. His looks were deceiving. I'd judged him to be a man in his late sixties. He wore a wool suit and his hair was close-cropped and gray. He reminded me of a history professor. It took me a moment to realize he wore no shoes and that his eyes were not normal. The pupils-that's what had caught my attention. Embedded in the dark gray irises they were slitted like a cat's. Or a snake's. He seemed to be studying me with intense curiosity, and from five feet away I studied him with wariness. Finally I spoke.
"Aren't you hot in that suit? It's got to be a hundred degrees out here."
Quickly, silently, he squatted down and placed his palms on his knees.
"Limber for an old guy," I'd observed.
He'd smiled.
"Uh, I think I'm lost. Maybe I've been kidnapped. I sure as hell don't know where I am. Do you...speak English?"
"Not all who wander are lost," he quoted.
I remembered the quote but not who'd first coined it. "Yeah, well, I didn't wander. I really am lost."
"Yes. You are definitely not from around here," he agreed. "What is your name?"
"Graham."
"I am Francois."
"Nice to meet you. You wouldn't happen to have a phone or something? Or an outlet I could borrow? Mine's dead." I patted my cell phone where it was clipped to my belt.
He tilted his head to the side. "Where do you come from Graham...?"
"Tanner. I'm from San Francisco."
"San Francisco." He rolled the syllables on his tongue as if in reverence. Suddenly he stood. "Come with me, out of the sun."
I squinted up into the sky. We were in the sun. Good thing I never burned.
Fate. Was that really what had brought me here? I sat on the bench outside my hut and sipped on my one-cup-per-day of coffee as I gazed around the village. It was one of ten on our side of the island. Each village had around three hundred people with the numbers growing each year. Already in this year-if one went by the seasons it was late spring-we'd received three boatloads of mainlanders. A total of eighty-two civilians. Mostly illiterate, dirty, and speaking the garbled English that had first greeted me six years before. When I'd arrived there had been two-thousand or so islanders. I sipped the coffee again. The smell more than the caffeine worked to wake me up. I was heartily glad that there were others that now took on the tasks of educating and civilizing the newcomers. I didn't want the duty. I'd never wanted to be a teacher or leader. In the real world I'd followed orders. Point and shoot. I'd also had bulletproof vests and night scopes and trained backup. Decent weapons as well. And more than one cup of coffee.
This village was cleverly named First Village. Second Village was a half hour walk to the north. Third and Fourth lay to the east, the rest to the south. HQ was the farthest point inland, a mile from the perimeter. We were all closer to the coast, with Third and Fourth being right on the beach. They were the ones who took in the new arrivals and so had the most supplies and provisions. First, my village, was the oldest. The original. And the leader of our village, Carlson, was walking toward me as I finished the last of my coffee.
"Noah," he greeted me with a smile as he shaded his eyes with his hand. "How are you this day?"
"Tired, Carlson." I stood and shook his offered hand.
"Did you sleep unwell?" He followed me into my hut and I motioned him to sit on a stool. His big body dwarfed it, his flowing white shirt and pants making his dark skin more pronounced. Carlson always smelled like some sort of musk. I knew it was from the incense he burned. Mixed with his sweat it gave off a surprisingly pleasant odor. I just smelled like sweat.
"I slept well." I rinsed out the cup in my water barrel and laid it on a shelf. I turned to Carlson. "I heard you wanted to speak to me. The answer will probably be no, though."
He stared at me for a moment, his dark eyes penetrating. "Do you already know what it is I ask, then?"
"No. But I'm assuming it's about leadership duties. Or scouting missions. Or taking civilians off of border patrol. Any of those three?"
He leaned forward, the stool creaking with his shifting weight. There was a reason that he was the leader. He'd beaten every man but me for the title. "You have already refused to be leader. You have already refused to allow scouts to go to the mainland. The third has not been discussed."
"But I knew it was coming. Shebida, Louis, now you. Just because we haven't had any incidences-"
"In nine months," he interrupted.
"-does not mean we should drop our guard. They're planning something, waiting for us to make a mistake."
"How do you know this?"
"It's what I would do."
"And you think like them?"
I took a deep breath, let it out. "I don't know how they think. I do know they're smart. Word of our freedom has spread. Others may decide to fight back. Having us free is a liability, a weakness, to them."
"You believe they will attack us? When?"
"I don't know when. But eventually they will wipe us out. I honestly don't understand why they haven't yet."
"They do not like to die."
I almost laughed. "No one likes to die, Carlson. That's not a good enough reason. Something is keeping them at bay."
"Well, the treaty should be the reason."
"And history has shown that treaties are broken as soon as someone gets tired of them." I sat down on my bed. "We need more soldiers, Carlson. Not less."
"We also need more farmers, more hunters, more builders. Noah, we need to, as you say, make a civilization. We are trying, but we need more help."
"You get me more soldiers, I can shorten the shifts to free up more workers."
"We need leather."
I shook my head. "Not if they stay behind the wall. We make holes that guns and arrows can fit through. I've been thinking about this for awhile. We also build watchtowers that are tall enough to see across the perimeter. We'll have advance warning-"
"Noah. The people look to you as their savior, but many are beginning to doubt."
"Then have the doubters heal the newcomers. They need fear, Carlson. The war is over but the danger is always there."
Carlson stood. "There is a tribal meeting in a week's time, Noah. We will hear you then, but I warn you that you may not like what we decide. I am sorry, but we must take care of each other. The others, the enemy, have left us alone. Perhaps if you argue well we can come to a..." He faltered on the word.
"Compromise," I said bitterly.
"Yes. Compromise. I will go now."
He shook my hand again and I let him walk away.
"You wanted them to think for themselves. Why then are you angry?"
I continued pacing in front of Frank's cave, my rant fresh in the air between us.
"Because they're wrong. Because they're playing into the enemy's hands." I stopped and stared at my mentor. My friend. "Aren't they?"
Frank set aside the bow he'd been stringing and sighed. "I have not been privy to the politics of my kind for many years, Graham Tanner."
I squatted before him. "But you know how they think. You can guess."
"I could, but it would only be assumption. I chose isolation because I did not want to guess or assume."
"You don't want to get involved, you mean."
His strange gray eyes twinkled. "No more than you do. Yet those people are yours. You created them, molded them into what they are today. In doing so you feel responsible for them."
His unspoken words were evident. "To save them I must lead them. That's what you're saying."
"That is what you just said. Not I."
"Frank, I get tired of your evasions." I stood and stared out over the sun-dappled lagoon, to the waterfall that fell in a quiet rush farther up the hill. I thought of home. My wife and children. Long dead in this place, this time.
"Whatever decision you make, you are not to blame for what occurs Graham."
The gentleness of his voice, the dropping of my last name, had me squeezing my eyes shut. I didn't need gentleness. I needed him to tell me what to do. To take the burden off my shoulders.
"I have to go. My shift starts soon."
"Come back tonight. There is something I need to show you."
"Fine. I'll see you at three."
I left the way I'd come and cut west toward the HQ building. Halfway there I spotted a wild boar at the same time he saw me.
"Sorry buddy," I said as I aimed my gun. "Wrong place, wrong time."
The pig and I had something in common.
I was late. The boar had been heavy and the going had been slow. I handed the carcass off to a passing group of men and rushed inside. I poured water over my head to wash the sweat and blood away and quickly donned my armor. By the time I'd driven to the perimeter Samuel, the civilian I relieved, was agitated. I told him of the boar and his uneasiness fled, replaced by a grin. He reported that there again had been no activity and then went on his way.
I began my shifts by walking my zone. It was a half mile of the perimeter, a five foot space between the wall and the churned soil. No one set foot on the soil. Anyone who did usually didn't last long enough to get back to safe ground. If these people remembered mines, I'd tell them that was what this was. A mine field. But nothing of metal and explosive lay beneath the dirt. Just as deadly, though.
When I'd first arrived in this place, the churned soil had been in patches scattered across the island. After the initial shock had passed at what came out of the soil I'd designed a strategy to use the traps to our benefit. We'd only lost three civilians in the attempt, and what resulted had saved countless others. It had also given us the first advantage in the war.
We called it the Ark War. Well, they'd called it that, the enemy. The name had stuck. Because the Bible was no longer around except as a book in Frank's collection, the civilians didn't get the joke. It had lasted almost two years, though perhaps war wasn't the correct term. A series of skirmishes, pitched battles. They'd attack, we'd fight back. When we got the guns working the tide had turned. We'd attacked, and they'd died. Death was something that human beings, though they tried not to think on it, knew was coming. Inevitably. But the enemy-they'd lost that acceptance. So when it had come to them in greater numbers than they could stand, they'd called for the treaty. The enemy knew me as Noah, just as most of the civilians did. Noah and his Ark, saving mankind from extinction.
I think in some ways it amused them. I amused them. Not the death, but the challenge it represented. I knew they could crush us if they really wanted to. We'd resist, some of them would perish, but their numbers were so much larger. So it was that as long as I entertained them they'd let us be. Almost five years of this might be getting old for them. And if I was gone, would they proceed with the extermination?
Frank either didn't know or wouldn't discuss it with me. The fact the he indulged me as much as he did continued to baffle me. It was as if was waiting for me to do something. Or waiting for something to be done to me.
After two hours or so of pacing, I leaned back against the wall and took a long pull from my canteen. The water was warm and tangy from the metal but it refreshed me nonetheless. Then I stared out over the sun-beaten earth and thought of how I'd lied to Frank.
The hurtle through time and space hadn't made me stronger, faster, or more agile. I'd always been that way. I'd learned over the years to hide it, to pretend that I was a normal guy. The only time it had come up, that anyone had asked questions, was the fire.
I heard a noise to my right. I squinted and saw through the shimmering heat the small figure of the guard speaking with someone else. He waved me toward him. I straightened, took another sweep from left to right with my eyes, and trotted over to the two figures.
"Noah, this guy wants to join us," he explained as I approached.
I perused the recruit. He was a tall, lanky civilian with matted blond hair that tangled to his shoulders. His clothes were loose on him, the white tunic and pants billowing in the breeze. He flashed me a grin of white teeth. Obviously his tribe was advanced enough to care about dental hygiene.
"You want to join, you have to train," I told the newcomer. "You speak to the leaders."
"Leaders busy," he grunted. "You who talk to, says them." He waved a hand toward HQ.
"They are wrong," I told him patiently. "You shouldn't be here. It's dangerous."
"I face danger," he said proudly, thumping his chest with a fist. "I protect."
"Yeah? How about you let us do our job and go..."
I was cut off by a low swear from the guard. I turned and saw and then I ran.
She'd somehow gotten through the gate. No time to wonder how. She was elderly, carried a toddler in her arms. The kid was pointing at the far off trees and laughing. She'd made it to the edge of the revenant field before I could shout. And she ignored the shout. Kept going. I pumped my legs faster, brought my Uzi forward. She walked casually but ate up ground. Five feet. Ten feet. The ground behind her had started to ripple, like water disturbed by stones. I kept screaming and while she didn't seem to notice the kid did. He noticed the ground, too. His agitation finally got her attention. She stopped, looked over her shoulder as the first white hands shot from the earth. Then she panicked.
I reached them just as she took off. Not back to safety, but farther into the churned dirt. The first revenants had gotten halfway out of their holes, their dead eyes and white flesh streaked with dirt. I sprayed them with bullets as I ran backward after the woman. I didn't wait to see if they fell, but turned and ran hell-bent toward the fleeing grandmother. I jumped and dodged the hands that pulled at the soil and finally got a hold of the woman. I yanked her around and she fought me. I grasped her shoulders and shook her. Her eyes rolled and she clutched the child tighter. He yelled and squirmed, then turned to me.
"Gram can't hear," he babbled at me.
I stared at him, into his blue eyes. He pointed behind me. I blinked and turned. Shuffling toward us was a goddamned army of revenants. I looked past the dead things and saw a group of my soldiers standing at the edge of the field. I shouted at them to stay the fuck there. I unstrapped my Uzi and tried to hand it to the grandmother. She shook her head, pushing it away.
"You have to!" I shouted at her. The little boy was crying now, and the revenants were inching closer. The grandmother set the child down. She took the Uzi. I quickly showed her how to pull the trigger and aim. Then I turned to the revenants.
They'd formed a loose semicircle around us, blocking us from the safety of solid ground. I advanced with my knives.
"Tell her not to move," I barked at the child. "And tell her not to aim that thing at me."
My first knife took an arm off, my second plunged into a throat. The next minutes passed in a blurry of knife blades and sprays of viscous blood. I heard the machine gun going off in random bursts and the moans of the dying revenants. I tasted acrid, rotten blood. The sun tried to blind me as I carried out my grim task. Finally I spun, looking for more flesh to cut, more dead eyes to stare into. It was quiet. The soldiers stared at me, open-mouthed, from a great distance. Somehow we'd moved across the field. I swerved and looked to the grandmother. Revenant bodies lay around her, bloated and white in the sun. She held the gun loosely by her side, panting. Of the little boy there was no sign. And two feet away was the vampire side of the island. Chills went down my spine as I watched a child vampire, appearing no older than ten, step from the foliage with a huge grin on his pale ageless face. Clutched under one arm was the little boy.
"Do you dare to break treaty Noah?" he taunted. "This one did." He surveyed the path of dead revenants leading across the perimeter. His smile faded a fraction. Hundreds of white bodies. Hundreds.
"He's only a child," I told him warily. The grandmother was openly weeping, trying to shove my gun at me. I ignored her, not daring to take my eyes off of the vampire.
"Then come and get this child," the child vampire told me evenly. "Come and get him, Noah of the Ark."
I realized dimly that the grandmother was shaking my arm frantically, and I turned to her. Before I could register even surprise, the world went black.
Chapter Three
The antiseptic smell woke me, the smell that always reminded me of hospitals. My eyes were heavy and when I finally got them open I shut them again with a curse. It was bright as hell. I tried to lift my hand to my face but my arm wouldn't budge. I risked opening my eyes again and glanced around. I was strapped to a gurney in a white room. Tubes led from my arms to a bag of blood that was a quarter full. Were they giving me blood? But no, my blood was dripping into the bag. They were taking my blood. Of course. But I hadn't thought they'd do it so humanely.
I tested the bonds. They were tight, metal. No Velcro for me. My legs were shackled in a similar manner. Resigned, I lay back against the gurney and waited.
The metal door sweeping open pulled me from my reverie. The woman with the clipboard and the white suit would have been pretty except for the alienness about her. She moved too fast, her face was too ageless. Her eyes, bright blue, were just like Frank's.
"I see you're awake, Noah," she said in clipped tones. She checked her clipboard, then glanced at the bag of my blood. "Almost done. Then we'll move you to a more comfortable location."
I cleared my throat. I wasn't sure what to say. "You...aren't going to drain me?" I finally got out.
She smiled. "Heaven's no, Noah. We wouldn't be that wasteful. And the boss wouldn't like it."
The boss. They had a boss? Well, it made sense that there would be a leader of sorts. The name on the Treaty had been simply the letter H.
"If you aren't going to kill me, then what am I doing here? Why take me? And what about the boy and the old lady?"
She tsked at me. "They are alive, though how long that will last depends on you I believe. Now, no more questions. Your blood pressure is going up and that could affect the process."
After checking a few more things: my temperature, my blood pressure, my heart rate, she left the room.
I was confounded. They didn't want to kill me yet they were taking my blood? The lives of the civilians depended on me? To what purpose? What did these creatures want with me?
When the bag was mostly full she returned and deftly removed the needle from my arm. She took my blood away almost reverently, stuck a needle in my arm that brought a warmth coiling through my veins. She closed the door behind her. I tested the bonds again. They hadn't loosened in the slightest. I didn't let panic overwhelm me. Whatever she'd given me began to take effect, and I drifted off before I could make any plans.
A gruff voice jolted me awake, either that or the drugs they'd given me had worn off. I'd never had much luck with sedatives. I glanced to my right and instead of the "nurse" of earlier two males leaned against the wall staring down at me.
They were of an age, if vampires could be defined by that. They'd probably been in their twenties when they'd turned. The one on the left had a scruffy beard and dark curly hair. He wore jeans and boots with a loose black shirt which his arms were crossed over. His body was heavily built, and the glare he was sending me should have maimed. His companion was shorter, slighter, clean-shaven. His hair was lighter but also curled. His expression was curious, almost eager. His clothing was more clean-cut, his hands in his pockets. I returned their scrutiny blandly. I badly wanted to lick my dry, cracked lips but I refrained. Best not to show any more weakness than I already was. Couldn't sink much lower than being strapped virtually naked to a table.
The gruff voice spoke again. It came not from the angry dark vamp, but the curious light vamp. "Amazing. Simply amazing. See how he stares at us? He does not know."
His companion grunted. "Why would he? And why should we care?" He broke my gaze and looked to the other. "We're wasting our time here, Felix."
"I think if he just knew..."
"She forbade it."
Felix sighed and sent me one more long look as he exited with the angry male. That look. Those eyes, so alien and yet...I had a son named Felix.
There was no point in fighting the wave of exhaustion that engulfed me then. Not yet. Instead I let my mind drift, and I thought of the fire.
The fire.
I'd smelled it before I'd seen it. The bedroom hadn't been burning around us as we'd talked of casual things, as in my nightmare. I'd pulled into the driveway after taking the boys to their grandparent's house. I'd smelled it, and I'd pulled out my phone as I'd sprinted to the door. The phone was new, a Christmas gift, and my thumb fumbled over the three numbers as I burst through the front door. Smoke greeted ne, heat embraced me, it's source the kitchen. I plowed through the smoke, screaming her name. I coughed at the foot of the stairs, rambling off the address, the urgency, before pocketing the phone and taking the stairs two at a time. Her name, repeated, and a hoarse answering cry that assailed my ears from the direction of the bedroom.
"Graham! Help me!"
By God I would. Eyes half blind, throat seizing, I found her. Heat blasted through the floor, melting my shoes. I lifted her, and she wrapped her arms around me. We were safe, together.
It was the hall floor that caved in below my feet, the hall floor that we fell through, into flame and smoke.
I couldn't know what I'd looked like, carrying her burned body out of the flaming building that had once been our home. They got it on tape, they'd showed me. But even I could hardly believe it. And I'd been there. Her body was red, angry, charred in places. Her long, gorgeous hair was gone. Her clothes, my clothes, were burned ruins, flaking away as I moved inexorably toward the ambulance. They took her from me, put her on a stretcher, wanted me to get on another one. Wanted to separate us. I fought them, pleaded with them, and they gave up and let me follow the ambulance in my car.
The next hours were terrible, terrifying. I let them examine me, let them show me the footage as they threw questions at me. My wife was near death, burned over 70% of her body. I was unscathed. I couldn't answer their questions. I only pleaded with them to save her.
And finally I slept in the waiting room, in my old jeans and t-shirt that I'd pulled from my trunk, my ball cap pulled over my eyes. And I awoke in a jungle hundreds of years and the devil only knew how many miles from that hospital.
Unscathed. Fireproof. Super-human. They wanted my blood. To drink? What had the nurse said? Something about not wasting it? And the two vampire males. One with my son's name. My younger son. My older son had his mother's dark hair, was built thicker, like me. Nicko. Nick for short. They'd been 8 and 10 when the fire happened. When I'd vanished. They'd been safe with their grandparents. What had happened to them when I'd disappeared? They would have felt so abandoned. I couldn't even think about their mother, too much pain. Had I saved her? Had she pulled through?
My head spun, my breath came in gasps. Something was trying to worm into my brain. Something dangerous. I let the nurse give me more drugs to calm me and said nothing, turning my head away. Had to think of the now. Had to learn what the enemy was planning. Had to escape.
I was no longer tied. I opened my gritty eyes and felt the cool sea breeze on my face. It came from the open balcony across from me. My leathers had been restored, my boots sat beside the bed. My weapons were nowhere to be seen but that wasn't surprising. I noted the pitcher glistening with condensation across the room. A strong enough lure to get me moving. I felt weak as a kitten, staggering drunkenly across the room to the life-giving water. I downed the entire pitcher and still thirsted. But I felt steadier and took better stock of my surroundings. The balcony was high enough that even I probably wouldn't survive the jump to the rocks below. I could perhaps scale the side of the building, but I wouldn't have the information I needed. The door was locked, barred, from the outside. So I'd wait. I hoped they remembered that humans needed food. I was starving. I had no idea how long they'd had me strapped to that table, how many times they'd put me under, how much blood they'd taken. I did have one piece of knowledge to work with. They definitely wanted me alive. They'd take pains to keep me that way. Therefore I had some leverage, a bargaining chip if need be.
When the bolt finally slid, I was standing at the balcony staring out at the endless waves. I heard the door open and let my body tense, though I didn't turn around. The door closed with a click, and I felt the presence of "other". I hadn't had many experiences with this feeling, besides Frank. And a smell tickled my nostrils. Wood and pipe smoke. When he said my name, I did turn. In shock and anger. He repeated it.
"Graham Tanner, do not be alarmed."
Goddamn Frank stood across the white room from me, his posture wary.
I spat the first thing that came to mind. "Mother fucking liar! Rat bastard back-stabbing son of a bitch!"
He sighed, though he only did this for my benefit. Fucking vamps didn't need to fucking breathe.
"Graham, sit down." He gestured to a chair beside me on the balcony.
"You lied to me."
"No, I did not. Please sit. I only have a few minutes with you until..."
"Until what, Frank? They kill me? They finish draining me? You said you hated these fuckers-"
"I never said that. I said I'd become disgusted with them. SIT DOWN." Gone was the pleading old man, in his place the powerful monster.
I sat.
He joined me in the opposing chair. He rubbed the bridge of his nose before looking me straight in the eyes. "What have they told you?" he asked.
I glared at him. "Nothing. They stole my blood and drugged me. That's it."
"I was informed that the brothers visited you. They told you nothing?"
Brothers. My heart rate picked up, my depleted blood struggling to feed my organs. "No," I croaked out.
Frank looked worried again. "You need to feed," he stated.
"Goddamn right I do." My voice sounded almost level. "Your minutes are ticking, Frank."
"Yes. I'm here to warn you, Graham Tanner. I have told you the truth in our meetings, but not the whole truth. You must be prepared. You are strong, but they have weakened you by taking your blood."
"Why?" I interrupted. "Why do they want my blood? And no more half-truths Frank."
"They need your blood. Their supply has run out. They harvested from you when you arrived in this time and you escaped them. They have been trying to get me to lure you to them since then. I have refused. I believe we should go back to the old ways, before..." He paused. I waited. I couldn't quite get enough air.
"You know of the Project Genesis, Graham Tanner?" he finally asked. Slowly, carefully.
The meager blood in my body-enough to keep me alive but not enough for this-drained from my head.
I awoke to Frank's face hovering above mine, and the smell of food. He pulled back and shoved a plate at me as I sat up in the chair. "Eat," he ordered.
Chicken. A rare steak. Potatoes. I looked at him askance.
"They keep food for their supply," he told me.
I knew what he meant. The poor bastards they fed on. I ate it anyway, knowing I had to keep my strength. I washed it down with thick milk. When I was done, I set the plate down and settled back in the chair. Twilight brought with it the buzzing of insects, the call of birds, the crashing of waves.
I began.
"Genesis was the project my wife was working on. She was a medical doctor, but more she was a scientist. She was striving to make the world a better place, to eradicate disease." I watched Frank nod and wondered about his precious minutes. "How long do we have?"
"I talked them into a few more minutes," he said with a half-smile.
"So anyway, it was pretty much done before she...when she..."
"Almost burned to death," Frank supplied.
"How do you know?" I demanded. "How could you possibly know about any of this?"
"Project Genesis only existed because your wife was studying
you Graham Tanner.
Your blood made it possible."
"No." I shook my head to emphasize this, and felt a tremor start in my cheek. "Impossible."
"Why? She had in her hands a perfect human. Never ill, quick healing, invincible. Or very nearly so." He leaned forward. "Just like us."
I stood and went to the railing. No. She wouldn't have done that. Not without my consent. Not without my knowledge. She loved me.
A memory, foggy and distant, wriggled out of my subconscious. A prick on the arm. Awakening. Seeing her lovely face over mine. "
Go back to sleep, my love," she intoned softly. And I had.
Trust.
I whirled on Frank. "Why are you here?"
"As I told you. The brothers came to me this morning. They told me they had you, and asked if I might help them convince you to help them. I agreed. I lied to them, Graham Tanner. I do not want them to succeed. If they do, then mankind is truly lost. And we will squander the Earth and destroy ourselves."
"I don't understand, Frank." I paced to the chair, then back. "What does Project Genesis and my wife have to do with anything? What-"
The door to the room opened. Frank sprang to his feet and flourished a bow so quickly I hardly saw him move. I turned to the door, and saw. The food had revived me, but God help me, I would rather have faced oblivion again than what stood before me.
"Hello Graham," she said, uncertain and beautiful beyond compare and looking at me from alien eyes.
Helen. My wife.
I roared.
Powerful arms enfolded me from behind, like bands of steel. I fought them as emotion ran through me like molten lava. My mind slowly receded to a cold, dark place that only those who truly know what it means to want to cause death understand. And with the recession came calm. My body stilled, my mouth clamped shut. I don't know what my eyes looked like, but she did. And she--it--took a step back.
"I advised you to wait, my liege." Frank's voice filled my right ear as he spoke. "I have not prepared him thoroughly."
She blinked those slitted brown eyes at me, then focused on my captor. "You have had ample time, Francois. I'm still not completely sure of your loyalty in this matter, and wished to see for myself what you've been discussing with dear Graham."
Her voice was bored, her accent barely a trace anymore, the animation and life seemingly sucked out of it. She was Helen's body, but I couldn't detect any of my wife's life in her. I had a flashback, briefly, of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a B movie from my past. So accurate they'd been. So horribly accurate.
"He has been informed of Project Genesis," Frank said carefully, keeping his tight hold on me.
"All of it?" she asked.
"Not all," Frank began.
"Then I shall finish. Release him."
"My liege-"
I interrupted, my voice seeming to come from far away. "I believe I understand what Frank was trying to tell me now, Helen." He name burned like acid on my tongue. Her eyes came back to mine. I repressed a shudder. "Your Project Genesis made it--all of this--possible. All of the monsters...you created them."
She frowned. "No Graham, they existed before. I only improved them."
"And how did I get here?" I sounded so casual. Like we were having a discussion over coffee. Yet still Frank's arms bound me. He was not fooled.
She took a step closer, her eyes bright, a smile on her cold face. "It was a miraculous invention that the Japanese started and we perfected. One use only, and we chose it for you. We'd cloned your blood but somewhere along the line the formula was lost. So we needed to start again. And here you are!"
No way home. Not that there was a home to go to anymore. My phone had simply been that, a phone. Not a mystical portal maker. A regular fucking phone that lay somewhere that didn't matter in the slightest.
"Why?" I demanded, some of the fury coming back to me. She knew to what I referred, and she retreated that step she'd taken.
"Graham, you must understand. They offered me life. Eternal life, no pain, no more pain! You can't possibly fathom how much pain my puny husk of a body endured! And you, without so much as a scratch!"
Her words, meant to cause guilt, hit nothing but the air between us. Tomorrow, next week perhaps, I'd let them in and taste her pain. But not now.
"And so you sacrificed humanity, an entire species, for your pain, your life."
She blinked again, reptilian gaze perturbed. She hadn't expected this. She'd expected the man who'd loved her to understand. Had we known each other so little?
She recovered with a sweep of her elegant hand. "Humanity was on its way out anyway, as well you know. We'd become slaves to technology, to war, to corrupt governments. I did this world a favor. And now I'm a ruler of the greatest race on Earth."
I felt Frank shift slightly. She noticed it as well.
"Francois believes differently," she sneered. "He misses lurking in the shadows, feeding in stealth, living in fear."
"I believe in balance," Frank responded. "My liege."
She shook her head and I noticed her shorter hair, her unblemished skin that had an almost ethereal glow, her sandaled feet and flowing dress designed after ancient Greece. She no longer had any humanity in her, yet she was still lovely. Cold loveliness. Like marble, untouchable and dangerous.
"I know your beliefs," she continued, "which is why I disagreed with the brothers that we needed you. Graham is a smart man, he'll see reason."
Again, the mention of the brothers caused my gut to clench, my head to pound. I wasn't sure if I truly wanted to know, wasn't sure if I could handle what I feared. But I said it aloud anyway.
"The brothers are our sons, aren't they Helen? My children."
Frank whispered something. A curse, a blessing, something. Her answer came slowly but clearly. And my reaction was intense and immediate. I broke free of Frank's hold and threw myself not at the startled, lovely monster before me but over the balcony behind me. The rocks rushed at me and I prayed for the end they would bring.
I'd known pain. Not to the extent that Helen and countless others had faced, but I'd still taken a bullet or two and broken a few bones. It wasn't the rocks' fault that a wave hit them at the moment I did, that instead of a full end-all impact I endured the crushing sensation of bones breaking and then water churning. I surfaced after some time, my mind automatically scanning my body for injuries. Both arms functioning, save my left wrist. My leg was useless, my right spasming wildly but operational. Back whole, couple of ribs unhappy. Blood in my eyes but probably just a surface gash to the head. I sighed, causing my ribs to protest wildly. Why couldn't I just die from a--I turned and scanned the fortress that was receding as the tide pulled me farther out--hundred foot drop? Which window had I leapt from? No way to tell really, and it really didn't matter.
I had some decisions to make. This nightmare I'd awoken to six years before had finally reached its climax. There were still unanswered questions, but I had so many more answers that I didn't want. The fact that my beloved wife had not only used my blood, my DNA, to create a super-race of vampires that had taken over the planet but had also turned our boys into monsters--fucking blood-sucking monsters!--weighed heavily. As did Frank's words.
Their supply has run out. They need your blood. Or, as he intimated, and my wife seemed to confirm, the vampires would revert back to nightwalkers. Their immunity to the sun would vanish.
So. I, Noah of the Ark, had to decide what to do with this information. In the meantime I had to make the big decision: live to fight, or die. Right here, right now, I could die. Inhale all of the deathly seawater available to me. It'd probably take a while, but even I, surely, couldn't live without oxygen indefinitely.
I floated farther out to sea, and thought of my main motivation, my main focus. I thought of the little boy and the grandmother, on their way to becoming livestock. I thought of all the battles, all the hard work and toil that had led me to this day and these revelations. All this time I'd believed that my motivation and focus had been getting home. To my family.
Surprise, you schmuck, your family has been here the whole goddamn time.
Reality and hard truths. In reality, my focus has been saving these pitiful humans. Teaching them, training them, working with them, arguing with them, and occasionally laughing with them. If these people were my true mission, I had to get to them. I had to organize an offensive. I had to take out that goddamned lab where they kept my blood. And then I had to...
No. That decision would come later. Now I had to decide something entirely different. Life it was, for now. Ultimately that would have to change, one way or another. But until then I had work to do. I squinted toward the island and began the slow swim around it. Frank would be so fucking proud of me, I'd finally faced up to my destiny. It had nothing to do with my phone, nothing to do with myself.
It had everything to do with my fellow humans. We would be victorious or we'd die trying. I was finally going to lead my people.
The End of the Ark War and of Noah of the Ark
Eons ago, they say a flood covered the Earth and a single man became the hope of humanity. His name was Noah.
The second Noah, whose real name was Graham Tanner, became the second single hope of humanity. He was the grandfather of the super-vampires, but he was an unwilling and unknowing donor. In bringing him to this time, my people made a terrible mistake. They underestimated him. They believed that he was as power-hungry, greedy, and devoid of morals as they had become. He showed them the true power of the human spirit, the one that they had forgotten over the past centuries while they infested the planet.
Their second mistake was informing him of all of this, and in so doing giving him the key to their end. Not only did he successfully destroy what little of his blood they had remaining, but he also, as his final act of selflessness, took his own life. I was there. I watched as he put one gun to his temple, another to his heart. I heard his voice pleading with me to finish it when he was done, and I saw his eyes as he pulled both triggers. They were determined, pleading, and infinitely sad. Not even he could have survived the damage he inflicted, nor the fire that burned him to ashes that he'd requested. As his body burned and disintegrated, so did all of my people's hopes and dreams. Within a few years our numbers have been decimated. Within a few more we will once again return to our proper place. And I rejoice.
The humans have begun to reclaim their world, and I stand back and watch it all from the shadows. Where I belong.
Wherever Graham has gone, I hope that he knows that he deserves all the praise these humans give to him. I was honored to know this man, honored to help him, and someday I hope that another like him will return to save humankind again. I hope to be here to see it.
Francois "Frank" Tanner, Great-Great Grandfather of Graham "Noah" Tanner
