"We're not ready!" Dan Harrington shouted. He slapped his hand on the table to emphasize the point.
"We'll never be ready at this rate," answered Harris. He rose from his chair and glared into Harrington's eyes. "We lost Powell today and damn near four others at the clinic. Once they examine Powell you can be sure those bloodsuckers will figure out how we're getting around the serum's effect." Harris sat back down wearily. "If we wait any longer, it'll be too late."
He looked around at the other members of the committee. Twelve people, seven men and five women, sat around a small table that occupied at least half the storeroom they used for their meetings. The group met once a week in an abandoned warehouse by the waterfront. The intention of these meetings was ostensibly to discuss survival strategies, though Harris was beginning to realise that the meetings had more to do with lonely, scared people wanting to be with others than any grand plan.
The room was murky; the only light they could afford was a cloaked lantern in the centre of the table whose pale light valiantly kept the darkness at bay. The stale, cloying smell of fish and diesel oil hung heavily in the air.
Harris returned his gaze to Harrington. The stress of the last few weeks was beginning to show. Harris took the time to really look at him and, for the first time, noticed that the other man had lost quite a bit of weight. This once virulent, powerful man, the former CEO of a major corporation, seemed now to be shrinking. His shirt hung loosely on a frame that had once bulged with hard muscle. His steel grey hair, worn in a severe crew cut, had already begun to turn pure white. Harris could see the frustration in Harrington's face, and he worried about the older man's pasty complexion. Harrington had always been a tower of strength for their motley band of survivors, but the stress of such a responsibility was evident.
Tyrone Johnson sat at Harrington's right hand, as always. Johnson was thirty-five, mostly bald, and fervently loyal to Harrington. He was already half out of his seat, his face flushed with anger, when Harrington put a calming hand on his shoulder and motioned him to relax. Johnson was a likable man whose quick wit was one of the few things that relieved the terrible pressure they all felt. He stood six foot three and was well muscled. Harris got on well with Johnson but his loyalty was unquestionably to Dan Harrington. He too was obviously worried about Harrington's health and, with nowhere else for his frustration to go, he tended to react physically to anything or anybody who threatened the older man.
Harris didn't know all the details but Harrington had known Johnson before the vampires had come. Harrington had seemingly given the man the benefit of the doubt when he had come out of prison when no one else would. Harrington had returned the man's pride by offering his trust and he had never had cause to regret it.
Lucy Irving, a matronly woman of indeterminable age, sat beside Johnson. She was terribly pale and, positioned so close to Johnson's massive dark figure; she seemed uncommonly ashen and frail. She was neither though, Harris knew. Lucy Irving had vast, hidden resources of inner strength and had a brain that was, by no means, dulled with age. Harris could see her shift her gaze between the two antagonists as if she were at a tennis match. Her hand lay poised over a half-filled page of the meeting's minutes, pen at the ready. It's funny, he thought, no matter how circumstances changed people still tended to gravitate to similar job roles in life.
Scott and Bill Anderson came next in line. The twins shared the same easygoing attitude, a fact reflected in how they carried themselves and dressed. Their fresh faces, blue eyes and blond hair belied their sharp minds--until they spoke, that is. Then it became evident there was more to them than was evident at first.
To Harrington's left sat John Kelly, a wiry, un-likable man who could cause adverse emotions in a complete stranger within minutes of their first meeting without even trying. Kelly was an enigma to Harris. It was impossible to engage the man in conversation and when you did manage to he had an un-nerving tendency to look past you when he talked. Harris couldn't find it in him to trust anyone who couldn't look him in the eyes. Kelly was argumentative; he seemed to relish taking the opposing side in an argument, in fact in any argument, even if he had argued previously on the other side. But, despite all that, he pulled his weight as his actions on yesterday's raid had proved so Harris tried his best to overlook his other failings.
Next to him sat Sandra Harrington, strong-minded, independent and the daughter of "The Boss," as she referred to her father. Sandra Harrington wore her hair tied tightly in a bun, though her long locks seemed to have a mind of their own and constantly tried to free themselves. Even now Harris could see a few errant strands that had fallen down and now framed her pert, almost elfish features. She had green eyes which seemed to spark with fire like flint over stone when she was angry but also seemed to be able to turn to soft pools that Harris constantly found himself lost in when he spoke to her.
These weekly meetings were not the best forum to talk with her the way he wanted to and most of their relationship so far had been lingering glances over this table with the heady smell of fuel and stale fish in the air. Not ideal by any means. There seemed to be something between them but they had never had the time to let it develop. They were always surrounded by others. Sometimes they managed to walk along the docks for a few moments before they had to return to their zombie-like existence but even then they had to keep an eye out for the vampires and their stolen moments were usually spent looking more at the sky than at each other. It was difficult to move a relationship forward when you never got to talk to each other. Harris wished for an opportunity to talk to her properly, to walk with her in the sunshine ...
"He's right, you know." John Pritchard's response suddenly interrupted Harris" thoughts and he flushed in embarrassment as he hoped that no-one had noticed his inattention. "In light of today's debacle we have to assume they know about the arm padding. By the next Injection Day they'll either have caught us all or we'll be on the run. Either way we'll be dead inside a month. Personally, I'd prefer to take a few out with me rather than end up as dinner."
A chorus of murmurs swept through the people gathered at the table.
"I agree with you, John," Harrington answered. The group leader wore a pained expression and his eyes were tired. He brought his calloused hand to his face and massaged his temple. He looked around the table and sighed. "But it's not that simple. We're not talking about a small hit and run attack here and there. We'd have to take on the vampires at night and we've never done that before. Those bastards are fucking lethal at night."
Harrington paused as he let his words sink in. He was well used to controlling conflicting personalities around a table, he had spent his life doing it and it really didn't matter whether it was a war council or an executive meeting. The decisions made here, however, would be the difference between living and dying though and it was his responsibility to steer them all along the correct path. He spent another moment scanning the faces in front of him, making each of them feel that he was speaking to them alone and then he continued.
"The thralls herded up most of you after the plague hit, but some of us held out for a few days in a police station outside of town. We managed to hold the thralls off for two days and felt pretty cocky until one of the vampires arrived."
Harrington paused again, glancing around the table for emphasis, and then continued.
"It took five minutes for that bastard to demolish the building and take out twenty armed people. They move at awesome speeds and can lift a man with one hand. They can turn your mind inside out if you look at them, and these things are useless against them." He threw an automatic pistol on the table and the weapon's thud on the wood made everyone jump. "We can't go head-to-head with them. They're too strong."
Harrington had directed his last words, and his stare, at Harris. The younger man tried to hold the look, but then averted his eyes to glance around the table. He could see that Harrington had hit home and he was losing this fight once again. He knew that most of the people around this table saw him as impotent, and these arguments had become something of a regular occurrence. He continually pushed for more raids, more risk, while Harrington would let him say his piece and then knock him down with the same arguments.
Harris had gained support with the younger committee members, but Harrington was very persuasive and had, up till now, always won. This time, though, Harris firmly believed that there wasn't going to be another meeting unless they did something drastic.
Harris made a decision and rose to his full height, steeled himself and began to speak. "I know how powerful these bastards are," Harris looked down at the table to avoid looking at anyone. He longed to tell them of his own experiences before the vampires had taken him. He had kept his past to himself when he had first been rescued from the serum, he still didn't understand why he had been spared when all the others had been slaughtered. If he didn't understand it how could he possibly explain it to others? So he had decided to keep it to himself until he could sort it out for himself. He had invented a story that he had been in Chicago when the water had been contaminated by the serum and had seen no action at all.
As the weeks became months he found it harder and harder to admit his failure in protecting those in his charge to his new friends. He had convinced himself that his previous failures would only erode what little trust he had built up with this group and when he finally realised that this was not the case he had left it too late. To tell them now would only lead them to mistrust him for keeping such a secret. The subterfuge was eating away at him each time he met these people and he knew that much of his own frustration was fuelled by his own guilt for hiding such an important part of his life. He still spent many nights going over and over what had happened before. He desperately searched for something he had achieved that had made what had happened worthwhile, but his failure to ... He shook himself from his maudlin thoughts, this wasn't the time. He took a deep breath and continued.
"I also know we may have little chance of success, but two hundred people are about to be slaughtered tomorrow night. This will be in direct retaliation for our raid yesterday and I just can't accept that."
"They will be killed anyway," Harrington interrupted. "You can't risk our entire group, and possibly the last of this planet's free people, on a matter of morality."
"Free?" Harris repeated sarcastically. "You don't call this existence free, do you? We're no freer than those other poor, drugged sods." He paused and looked around the table, meeting each person's eyes in turn. "In fact, we're worse off. We have the ability to do something about it and we're just sitting here. Maybe we should forget the patches and save the bastards the trouble of looking for us."
He looked over at Sandra and received a small smile and a wink in return.
"Tomorrow night," he continued taking heart from her support, "we have a chance to make a difference. My plan calls for surprise. Yes, we might fail, but think what success might mean. We total only twenty-four in number, and that took us six months to achieve. After tomorrow we could have two hundred more."
"With that number we can all leave the city and set up in the cave," John Pritchard added with a nod of encouragement to Harris. A low appreciative murmur rippled though those present and Harris felt his blood racing as he felt the mood shifting in his favour. He took a breath to continue but Harrington interrupted and the moment was lost.
"We have discussed that till we're blue in the face," Harrington replied wearily. "We can't survive out there. If we leave the city the vampires will know who we are and search till they find us. At least here we're anonymous."
"Not for much longer. How are we going to bypass the injections now? The only reason Sandra, John, Bill or myself are here now is because the thralls were too busy kicking the shit out of Powell to notice us."
Harrington suddenly looked down at the table as Harris'ss words hit home. This was the first time Harris had ever succeeded in making Harrington back down. Okay, reminding him that his own daughter was in that group this morning was a low blow, but there wasn't time to debate morality anymore. He could even see Tyrone Johnson thinking about how close the serum check had been.
"Dan, we have no choice." Harris lowered his voice as he leaned over the table. "If we win tomorrow, then we can really begin to hurt them."
"And if we fail?" Harrington asked with a raised eyebrow.
"If we fail," Harris repeated, "then at least we'll take as many of those fuckers with us as we can."
For a moment the two men stared at each other and it seemed that everyone held their breaths. Neither gave way and the moment stretched uncomfortably. Everyone at the table had been through Hell in the last few years. Everyone at the table had a vote but there was no doubting that Harrington and Harris had the strongest personalities or that their opinions carried the most weight. Both also fervently believed they were right and both men were prepared to put their lives on the line for what they thought was best.
Unfortunately, neither man had been trained for this type of situation and they could only draw on their own experiences and beliefs. Their decisions, however, also put the lives of others on that same line and, while a bad decision in the boardroom might lead to job losses or a downturn in the success of a company, the wrong decision here would lead to lives being lost, and that wasn't always something that was easy to live with.
Harrington continued to run through the various options in his head. He knew that everything would change now that the thralls had caught Powell. Their backs were to the wall. They had been an annoyance up to now. The thralls had tolerated them, barely, when they had stolen supplies but killing vampires had moved them up to their highest priority.
It had been mainly his decision to shift their emphasis from stealing to killing and he didn't regret it. Being free of the serum had its own responsibility and they couldn't just sit back and let others suffer while they hid. He hadn't expected such an extreme reaction from the vampires though. If they were to survive now they would have to leave the comfort of their compact group and move to the next level. Harris was right about that much, though whether he was reaching too far too soon had yet to be seen. Slowly, a sad smile appeared on Harrington's face and he looked up into Harris'ss expectant face.
"I hope you're right."