Bret stared at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "You're not who I thought you were."
"I've never been who you thought I was."
Bret released a snort of laughter. "Very true."
"We should go," Darnell interjected.
I glanced up at the setting sun and nodded my agreement. Most of the others from the group we had left the tunnels with had moved inside the gated compound, but others, like Arlene, were still wary and remained sleeping outside of the gates at night. Arlene was now standing by the group that had been gathered within the gates to make the journey. Her head tilted toward us as we approached but she didn't speak and the firm set of her mouth told me she still wasn't pleased with our decision.
"Are you sure there is no way they can trace you back to this location?" she inquired.
"We wouldn't be going if there was," Jessica assured her as she slid a knife into her belt and took the other knife that Leo offered her. I recognized the look in Leo's eyes and had to force myself not to glance back toward where I'd left Bethany. I wouldn't be able to see her from here anyway and looking back was something I wasn't going to do.
"That doesn't mean they couldn't find us at any time," Rosemary told her.
Rosemary stepped forward and handed another knife to Betty, a small brunette girl with a compact body that would have been better suited for a twelve year old boy. She was quick though and far more agile than what I'd expected upon first seeing her. She slipped the knife into the holder at her side and turned toward Art, the man hovering anxiously beside her. I turned away from their goodbye and stepped beside Jessica as Leo turned away.
Craig, a large man with hair even darker than mine and skin nearly as dark, bent low to kiss the small blond woman, Jodie, standing at his side. Craig appeared to be nearly thirty and I assumed Jodie was about the same age, but her small stature made her appear much younger. Steve, a small Mediterranean looking Tintagelian was hugging Leighann as they exchanged their goodbyes.
Jessica handed me a large plastic bag. "You'll need it later." I took it from her and shoved it into my back pocket. "Does Bethany know?"
"Know what?"
"That we most likely won't be coming back."
"She knows. Does Leo?"
Jessica's eyes traveled to the young man gathered with the others. "He does."
The first splash of color began to streak across the sky as the sun started to set. The filling station that Jessica had shown us on our test run three days ago was almost a hundred miles away. It would take us less than an hour to make it there but I was eager to get this over with. I remained immobile though as I hid my impatience and waited for the others to say their goodbyes.
The last streaks of pink were fading from the sky when we finally made our way into the woods. It was freeing to run again, to move, to do something other than think because all of my thoughts only brought me back to one realization. I'd just left behind the only person I'd ever loved.
If I thought too much I would go back to her. I didn't fear death; it was simply a fact that it would happen one day and it wasn't something that I thought about often. The imminent threat of death didn't make me want to turn back, but even now I could feel the pull of Bethany trying to lure me into returning to where I belonged. I could sense it in the others too as they didn't slow, but there seemed to be a heavier weight upon them as their shoulders slouched and their mouths became more pinched with every step they took.
It was refreshing to feel the wind whipping past me as I concentrated on avoiding the obstacles in my way. My heart raced as we rounded the top of a hill and the filling station came into view. Unlike the encampment we had just left behind there were no humans here but only a simple train station looking platform that was a good ten feet off the ground. The tangy smell of blood wafted up from the valley the station was nestled in below.
I'd seen it before but even so I felt the hunger within me stirring to life. It wasn't a part of myself I was proud of, but I wasn't ashamed of it either. It was who I was, a predator, one that ranked even higher on the food chain than the humans that had mistakenly thought themselves at the top of it.
I slid over top of the hill and behind an outcropping of rocks. Settling behind a large boulder I rested my hands on it as I rose to look into the valley. Jessica's shoulder pressed against mine as she stood up beside me. From our vantage point we could see some of our kind walking a patrol around the ten foot high fence surrounding a few acres of the land below us. Actual buildings had been erected; they weren't hastily assembled shacks but rather they were elaborate creations with roofs that wouldn't leak and floors that weren't dirt.
"Are you going to tell me how we get on the ship now?" I asked.
She'd kept her secret to herself until now, but I didn't doubt she had a way onto the ship just as I didn't believe she would betray me. I'd seen her love for Leo and I knew that what was driving her to get on that ship was the same thing that was driving me.
"It's not fun, even for our kind," she answered.
I didn't like the sound of those words but I'd never expected this to be fun. She gave me a secretive smile and nodded to the left. Creeping out from behind the boulder we carefully made our way through the woods and around to the side of the platform. Jessica put her hand up to halt us. I knelt down as I surveyed the fence and the land sprawling out beneath us.
The ground shook as a Seeker full of blood approached the platform on its spiderlike legs. From its lower midsection a single, its main spindly tentacle slid out like a worm from the earth and into a metal tube. Like a person pumping gas, the blood pumped out of the creature and into the waiting canisters that would be transported back to the ship.
As the blood left the Seeker, it began to dwindle from the size of a school bus to that of a midsize sedan. The tentacle retreated from the pipe on top of the canister and pulled back within the creature that had returned to its natural opalescent hue now that it was empty. The three silver canisters that had been filled moved forward on a long conveyer belt that aligned it behind four other full canisters set out on the platform.
"That's how we get on," Jessica whispered in my ear.
"In the containers?" Cory blurted.
"Yes. They'll keep filling them until morning when one of the smaller ships will arrive to pick them up," Jessica explained.
"How do we know they'll go to the main ship?" Steve inquired.
"All the blood supplies originally go to the main ship. It's decided where else they go from there," Jess explained.