Crisis Chapter Three Waking Nightmares and the Fight to Come
Jade’s mistakes bring back unpleasant memories of her first hunt. Guilt threatens to swallow her, and a new mission does little to help
Catch up with Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2
Jade was woken abruptly by the doorbell. She turned to look at the time, forgetting about the sorry state of her ribs and immediately doubled over in pain. As she lay there trying to catch her breath, the events of the night before crept back. Jade realized who would be waiting on the other side of the front door.
She cursed loudly and slowly lifted herself into a sitting and finally standing position. Grabbing her dressing gown, she moved slowly towards the door, checking the side window to ensure it was safe. The sun was still visible above the skyline but only as the dying embers of a long-left fire. Jade opened the door, moving back to stay in the shadows while the visitor entered.
“You look like shit,” he exclaimed as he slowly walked into the front room, eyes growing accustomed to the darkness in which Jade preferred to live.
“Thanks, Barret. Now I feel even worse than I did before.”
Barret made himself comfortable on the sofa while Jade collected the bounty from the previous night’s encounter. She would keep the credits, they were untraceable, but he would need to be careful with the rest. Passing the bundle over, Jade noted his eagerness to explore the find.
Silence pervaded the room as he held up the watch, turning it over to look for distinguishing marks or engravings. Such markings were rare as it was a skill that had little use, but they still happened. Occasionally, those higher up the order had a piece left over from the time before. They were real finds worth loads, but they also brought much trouble if the authorities caught you with them.
Next, he opened the wallet and fingered through the cards. Money no longer existed. The authorities paid citizens in credits stored on a card. Deductions for things like energy rations were automatic. Anything citizens had left after official deductions could be extracted.
As Jade watched him, she realized something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked hesitantly.
“He was one of the sensible ones, there’s no pin number in here, and the ID card isn’t here either. It will make extracting the credits more difficult.”
“Shit.” Jade threw her head back against the sofa. “How could I be so stupid.” Memories of her first kill and the mess she had left came streaming back. It had taken her weeks rather than days to recover. Jade had been so scared and dazed she had forgotten to check the victim’s pockets. She had forgotten to check the victim at all. The victim was conscious the whole way through and had seen everything. Jade’s lack of action put every hunter at risk that night, and she could still see the fear in the victim’s eyes as her mentor slit her throat to protect their identity and future.
Barret’s voice dragged Jade from her nightmare-like remembrances. “It’s not that bad. I’ll get something for the watch. I’ll dump the cards in the river as I pass it. That way, they can’t be traced back to either of us if the victim gets them frozen and reissued.”
His tone was as friendly as ever. Jade wondered whether there was a genuine friendship between them or whether he acted that way because he knew that if angered enough, she could rip his throat out without a second thought.
Jade snapped back to the present as she heard her name called, “Jade, seriously, when did you last eat?” Not waiting for an answer, he rolled up his sleeve, exposing the veins she had fed on maybe a hundred times before.
The small puncture marks closed quickly as she extracted her fangs. Jade left Barret to rest on the sofa. He would suffer no ill effects and would disappear into the night within a few hours. Jade and others like her had survived this way for longer than most could remember.
While he slept, Jade quietly dressed and prepared a basic meal. Although the blood had sated her thirst, her body also needed more traditional nutrition. As she sat down to eat, Jade thought about the early days when food of any type was scarce, and the idea of a cooked meal was a dream.
Jade’s mentor taught her everything she knew about herself and how to survive, just as hers had taught her. The painful memories of their last hunt came flooding back, still as fresh as ever, even after such a long time.
Moving about after dark was a dangerous occupation. There was little information on their dangerous prey in those days, power was sketchy at best, and the curfew was still in place. They had tracked the target from its hiding place and followed it to its intended victim’s home. Home was a loose term. The building lacked the most basic essentials; heating, lighting, windows, and even the front door were missing. It was a miracle that the occupants had survived the winter.
Jade and her mentor waited until it had gone inside. The timing was always the tricky part. They entered with weapons poised, staying out of reach of its senses. It attacked as they entered the room used as the main sleeping area. Jade’s mentor, the stronger of the two of them, went for its throat with the cheese wire while she grabbed and checked the victim.
It wasn’t until they were close that they realized that something was wrong. The intended victim was already dead and left crouched in the corner. Instead of the victim, the makeshift bed contained another beast. They were too close to run away. The first one turned and grabbed the mentor by her throat. Jade didn’t have time to react before the one on the bed leapt up and flew at her.
Its attack was off enough that the full force missed Jade, its sharp blade instead catching and cutting through her arm. She screamed in pain and turned on the thing stake at the ready. It rushed back at her, but this time Jade was prepared. Using her training, she readied herself, and when it got close enough, she caught it round the bottom half of its leg with her foot and pulled. The surprise and its speed pulled it down to the ground. Jade quickly straddled it and rammed the stake deep into its heart before it could recover. She didn’t stop until she felt the familiar crack of the stake passing through the ribs at the back.
Jade knew her mentor was in trouble, but she had to make the body safe before she went to her aid. Jade’s axe was out of reach, so she grasped the thing’s knife and drew it continuously across its throat until she had exposed the vertebra. Putting all her effort behind the blade, she dug between the bones into the discs and severed the nerves connecting the brain to the body, the only way to ensure it stayed dead.
Jade saw her mentor and the other beast fall to the floor as she rose to her feet. Jade’s fear swelled as she neared the two bodies. She bent closer to where hermentor lay, hoping that she was just dazed or unconscious. The steady flow of blood told Jade it was a vain hope. Turning her head to one side, Jade saw the gaping wound on her neck, veins, muscles, and nerves torn apart as the thing had tried to rip out her throat, desperately trying to get free.
The thing was not yet dead, only immobilized by the stake. Jade’s mentor had managed to disable the thing, forcing the stake through its heart, but she had paid a heavy price. Jade forced herself to be still and search for signs of more of them. She heard nothing; the only sources of old rotten blood came from the two who had challenged them. If there were no more present to remove the stake and let the monstrosity go free, she was safe for the moment.
Jade lost all track of time sitting by her mentor’s body, her blood seeping into Jade’s clothes and under her hands. As Jade regained her senses, she realized she had to act. The house contained at least four bodies, and as she stood and steadied herself, she made out at least two more body shapes.
How had they missed them? How had they not smelt the stench of death that was now so pungent? It would not be light for a few hours yet, and Jade did not have the strength or the will to drag the bodies outside to wait for sunrise. Her only other option was fire, which would prove almost as difficult.
A shrill noise broke into her daydreams and dragged Jade back to the present. As it drilled through her skull, she realized it was a high-priority message warning on the computer. It only made that noise when such a message came through from the consortium.
She moved as quickly as her still aching limbs would allow and flicked on the screen. Typing in the access code, she sat down unsteady from my waking dream. Waiting for the message to unscramble did nothing to calm her nerves. The message set them even further on edge and knotted her stomach until she could taste the meal she’d just eaten again. Jade forced herself to breathe deeply until the sick feeling began to subside, and then she reread the message.
New threat, urgent action required. Four known kills already; fresh one tonight City feeder old east end grid A2 No assistance available
As she read and reread the message, her old fears returned. Jade hadn’t set foot in the city for many years. Most of the bloodsuckers hunted in the new settlements outside the city, preying on those who were better feed and healthier. The old city was just that, old. It had been ransacked and looted to destruction in the early days. It became inhabited by those overlooked in the initial emergence, the old, the poor, and those from institutions and prisons that no longer existed.
Those that still lived there did so because they had no choice. They are of no viable use to the state and, therefore, had no ID or credits. They lived without power, begging for scraps or working in the underground markets for a fraction of the credits earned by others. They were a new underclass, ignored and forgotten in the bright new future. But that wasn’t what raised so much fear in Jade. It was the thought of returning to that quarter, where she once existed and fed, back to where she last saw her mother alive.