Sharon Kilzer

String glared at Zorch, looking angrier than Zorch had ever seen him. There was another man in String’s warehouse, tall, lean, pale with dark hair, but String was ignoring him firmly, so Zorch did, too.

“He’s ordered a roundup,” String said, clenching his teeth until a muscle twitched in his wrinkled brown jaw. He ran a hand over the curly white stubble on his bony scalp. “Because of you,” he added.

“Oh,” Zorch said. She sat down on the seat of a disassembled motor-scooter. That explained String’s anger. She picked up a spring from the floor and looked at it for a minute. It was the wrong size to use on the trains, but could maybe be tweaked. She set it back down carefully.

“Why didn’t you let Chop get you something?” String asked, as he walked over to a cupboard.

“He was still out with the train,” Zorch said, shrugging. “I’ve never had a problem before.”

“We were due for a roundup,” the unnamed man inserted. “It’s been months.”

“Thanks,” Zorch said, nodding. “String’s right, though. It’s still my fault.”

“It is your fault,” String agreed. “And that’s why you need to help us. We need you to be committed to the Underground. To getting people out of here.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Zorch said, standing up. So this was what it was about. Getting her driving the trains, working the tunnels, committing herself to funneling feedstock out of town. She’d be dead by the end of the year.

“Can’t, or won’t?” String asked, swinging around to face her and running angry hands down the front of his dirty gray sweatshirt.

“Won’t!” Zorch said, turning on her heel, getting ready to leave. “Everybody who works on the Underground dies! And fast!”

“You said it yourself!” String shouted at her back. “Everybody dies!”

Zorch bolted out of the warehouse and slammed the door behind her.

On the far side of the city, in a castle that used to be an office block, Vampire Overlord Wax was banging his hand on his desk. Everyone in the room was frozen in place, watching him. A human woman, who had been typing at a manual typewriter, stopped. She would probably die sooner if Overlord Wax remained angry. It was how her world worked.

“There was a renegade woman, and you let her get away!” Wax exclaimed.

“Yes.” It was one of the other Vampires, one of the helpers.

“You!” Overlord Wax pointed at the human woman. Her name was Frack-Frack. A long time ago, when she was a little girl, Frack-Frack’s family had called her something else. It didn’t matter. Now she typed for Vampire Overlord Wax, and soon, when he got hungry, or annoyed, he would eat her for lunch. What he called her wouldn’t change her fate.

“Yes, Lord Wax?” Frack-Frack responded, being careful not to sigh.

“Type up the order, now! All renegades in the city are to be rounded up immediately. There are to be no renegades!” Overlord Wax was so angry his face was turning an unsettling shade of deep purple, bordering on blue.

“Yes, my Lord,” Frack-Frack mumbled, removing the sheet she had been typing on and sliding a new piece of paper into the return. As always, she wondered what would happen when all of the human-made paper was used up, and there was nothing left for her to type on. Lunch, she imagined, again being careful not to sigh.

Zorch smoothed her hair, and looked down at the baggy smock she’d pulled out of a cupboard just for this trip to the daytime vegetable market. The market was controlled by the Overlords, and Zorch hated to risk it, but the run out of the city had depleted her supplies, and she needed to eat. She’d smudged some brown ink into the inside of her wrist, in the spot where her ‘stamp’ - the tattoo showing who she belonged to - should be. The smock sleeve covered half the smudge. She was tall, and thin, with waist-length black hair, dark eyes, and an oval face with a pointy chin. Just another meal, or maybe a breeder of meals, if you were an Overlord looking at a crowd of humans. The baggy smock hid her figure, and Zorch had braided her hair, trying to make herself blend in.

She bent her knees to make herself shorter, and kept her eyes down, working her way into the stalls. If she could just get some potatoes, and maybe some carrots, she could make it through a couple of days. Her stomach was growling, but that wasn’t uncommon. Everyone around Zorch was thin, with dark circles under their eyes. The more the Overlords bled you, the darker the circles got. Until one day you were meat, and nobody cared about your eyes any more, especially not you.

As Zorch slid a coupon across a dirty wooden board in payment for her potatoes, she heard an ominous grating noise. She looked up, and realized there were Vampires at the entrance to the market, locking them all in. They would check their stamps now, and Zorch would be found out.

Still bending her knees, Zorch clutched her bag of potatoes to her chest and started slipping through the crowd, toward the far exit. Deliberately, she turned her back to the Overlords, and flicked her long, black braid down into the back of her smock. Shuffling, she slipped past several families, trying to blend in.

Just as she reached the exit, Zorch looked up, and realized a pair of Vampires were getting ready to pull a grate across the exit. Desperate, she shoved, and slid out just past them. The nearest Overlord shouted, and a hand grasped at Zorch’s arm. Not turning, not giving them a full view of her face, Zorch pushed past several humans and started to run.

It only took Zorch a few minutes to find a passageway down into the warrens below the street, and to put some distance between herself and the market above. Hopefully, nobody had seen her face. When she got back to her cubby, she could hide the smock, hide herself, and escape further notice.

Zorch smoothed her hair, and looked down at the baggy smock she’d pulled out of a cupboard just for this trip to the daytime vegetable market. The market was controlled by the Overlords, and Zorch hated to risk it, but the run out of the city had depleted her supplies, and she needed to eat. She’d smudged some brown ink into the inside of her wrist, in the spot where her ‘stamp’ - the tattoo showing who she belonged to - should be. The smock sleeve covered half the smudge. She was tall, and thin, with waist-length black hair, dark eyes, and an oval face with a pointy chin. Just another meal, or maybe a breeder of meals, if you were an Overlord looking at a crowd of humans. The baggy smock hid her figure, and Zorch had braided her hair, trying to make herself blend in.

She bent her knees to make herself shorter, and kept her eyes down, working her way into the stalls. If she could just get some potatoes, and maybe some carrots, she could make it through a couple of days. Her stomach was growling, but that wasn’t uncommon. Everyone around Zorch was thin, with dark circles under their eyes. The more the Overlords bled you, the darker the circles got. Until one day you were meat, and nobody cared about your eyes any more, especially not you.

As Zorch slid a coupon across a dirty wooden board in payment for her potatoes, she heard an ominous grating noise. She looked up, and realized there were Vampires at the entrance to the market, locking them all in. They would check their stamps now, and Zorch would be found out.

Still bending her knees, Zorch clutched her bag of potatoes to her chest and started slipping through the crowd, toward the far exit. Deliberately, she turned her back to the Overlords, and flicked her long, black braid down into the back of her smock. Shuffling, she slipped past several families, trying to blend in.

Just as she reached the exit, Zorch looked up, and realized a pair of Vampires were getting ready to pull a grate across the exit. Desperate, she shoved, and slid out just past them. The nearest Overlord shouted, and a hand grasped at Zorch’s arm. Not turning, not giving them a full view of her face, Zorch pushed past several humans and started to run.

It only took Zorch a few minutes to find a passageway down into the warrens below the street, and to put some distance between herself and the market above. Hopefully, nobody had seen her face. When she got back to her cubby, she could hide the smock, hide herself, and escape further notice.

The timing had been desperately close. The refugee train was clunky, barely functional, and the electrical part Zorch had scavenged hadn’t been the train’s only issue. After Zorch slotted in her prize, String and Chop had circled the train like a pair of mad men, swearing and banging at things with their wrenches. Zorch had hunkered down and focused on the engine, her specialty. At twenty minutes to midnight, they’d managed to ease the train out of the sideyard and down the tracks, with Chop hustling off to clear all traces from the yard, and Zorch and String on the train.

By then, the people inside the train were fully freaked out - several had tried to bolt and run, and been wrestled to the floor of the train by their fellow passengers. They’d all been culled from their service posts, and selected for the farms. They’d be bled, then eaten, within a matter of days.  Getting caught escaping would hasten their deaths, though, and getting caught while attempting escape would endanger everyone.

The problem with the human/Vampire relationship really boiled down to where everyone fit into the food chain: Vampires were on top of humans. Humans had shifted from being in charge of the planet to being meat, and it wasn’t really a happy change.

Dawn found Zorch and String sitting on top of the moving train, hoping they were far enough outside the city to avoid capture. String was watching the countryside roll by, and swearing softly. Zorch was checking the generator leads where they fit in through the front engine cowling.

“What the hell are we doing?” Zorch asked. She looked over to where String was pounding his socket wrench gently on the roof of the train, venting his pent-up anxiety with the banging. “Everybody dies, no matter what we do.”

String looked over at her, watched her wiping her hands on her pants. “Everybody dies,” he agreed, still gently banging the wrench on the roof.  “The tricky bit is how you live.”

Author's Note: Please do use the comments section to leave suggestions. There will be a small gap before the next post, as I'm travelling for the next few weeks. All material is copyright Sharon Kilzer 2013, all rights reserved. Have a great week.