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
It is with a great sense of accomplishment that I offer this completion of the short story for you. I've decided to call it Noah of the Ark War. Thank you so much for taking the time to read it, I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it and I can't wait to release my first book so that I can really get this ball rolling!
Happy Tuesday everyone, Peace Love and Humanity!
Shanti Elena
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