The Rising - Chapter 72: Return To Blackchapel

It was late afternoon when Dave made it back to the Cliffside Hotel. He was tired and confused, having spent the whole day chasing people around the city and the countryside, achieving what felt like absolutely nothing. Sneaking around the corridors with steps as light as he could manage, he got back to his room without running into the concierge and sat down in his chair by the window.

After seeing Tom and Skinner disappearing into the darkness of the mountains, he decided to check in with Agent Simpson. He took out his phone and saw that he still had no missed calls from his superiors who were supposedly looking for him.

‘Dave, how are you doing?’ she said as soon as she answered his call.

‘Okay I guess. Feels like I’ve been chasing my tail all day.’

‘Have you seen Tom and Skinner?’

‘Yes. I’ve just seen them. They were being driven into the mountains. I lost them as they took a turning onto what looked like private land. I’m back at Blackchapel now.’

‘Okay. Wait there for now.’

‘Have you picked up everything you were looking for?’

‘Not yet. We’ve got two more stops to make but we have met someone.’

‘Who?’

‘I’d better not give you too many details over the phone. I’m confident we’ll be able to recover everything we need. Just stay there and keep an eye out for Tom and Skinner. I’ll give you a call when we’ve got everything.’

They said their goodbyes and Dave was alone again. To hell with this, he thought as he got to his feet, I’m not sitting here looking out of the window all day.

Dave suspected that wherever Tom and Skinner were being taken, they would be there for a long time. After all, it was bad news for them to spend too long outside during daylight hours. He felt sure he wouldn’t see them again until sunset. This gave him plenty of time to kill so he decided to explore his new surroundings.

More specifically the bar next to the hotel.

He managed to avoid the concierge on his way out of the hotel and found himself faced with a wall of rain that refused to stop. Careful not to slip on the wooden steps at the front of the hotel as he ran from the front door and across the car park to the bar, he flung the door open and stepped inside, shaking the rain from his clothes.

The bar was as dead as the rest of the tiny town. It was a sports bar with a large plasma TV hanging on the wall that would usually show football games but with no sports events worth watching, it was tuned to a twenty-four hour news channel. Thankfully, some B-list celebrity had been caught driving under the influence so the reporters had lost interest in Dave and his friends for now.

Dave cast his eyes around the dimly lit room. It was empty apart from the barman, who was leaning on the bar watching the news. Another man returned from the bathroom and perched on a stool, addressing Dave in his chirpy voice that was really beginning to become annoying.

‘Hello sir,’ the concierge said, ‘Fancy seeing you in here. Did you have a good rest? How was your lunch?’

‘Fine thanks,’ Dave replied and approached the bar.

‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ the barman said, ‘Do you work at the mall?’

‘No, but I’m starting to think everyone in this town does.’

The barman looked at the concierge. ‘You’re not too far from the truth. You want a beer?’

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The Rising - Chapter 71: Training Begins

Skinner shut the door behind me. I knew he wouldn’t slam the door on me but the stone walls of the dome-shaped hall magnified the sound ten-fold. Everyone stopped what they were doing to turn round and look at me.

One man was standing on the ground, looking up at the rest of the men and women as they moved gracefully from one wall to the other and stopped where they landed. He approached me and shouted at the others. ‘Get back to work! We only have a few hours.’

We shook hands. He was just under six feet tall and clad in black combat gear, with a face as pale as any vampire’s. He was one of the friendlier creatures of the night I had met in my life as a vampire, a life I hoped would be mercifully short.

‘Welcome. My name is Peter. I take it you’re here to join this group of misfits?’

‘I guess so.’ As soon as I replied, I could tell he was reading into the tone of my voice.

‘You’re a rebirth, right?’

‘It’s that obvious, is it? Yes, just this morning.’

‘Well, you seem to be taking it well. Some rebirths can go a bit crazy on their first day. What’s your name?’

‘Tom.’

‘Okay, Tom. How do you feel about being a vampire?’

‘Beats being dead, right?’

Peter erupted with laughter.

‘Exactly. That’s the best attitude to have, Tom. I’ll start you off easy with these guys but be warned: they’re coiled tightly and ready to pounce. You see, there was an attack on the humans yesterday and they weren’t allowed to go. Neither was I. They didn’t want to send everyone out for the attack, so now we’re all looking forward to tonight’s operation.’

‘What’s happening tonight?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know. All I know is it’s big. Bigger than last night. And if Roxy sent you down here then she wants us to get you involved.’

I looked at Peter blankly like I didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘Of course, you don’t know what happened last night,’ he said. I was grateful he hadn’t mastered the art of reading my mind. ‘We launched an attack on the humans at one of their military outposts. There were hundreds of them and only a handful of vampires. We almost wiped them all out but only Roxy got back here alive.’

Propaganda obviously isn’t exclusively the domain of the human species, I thought.

‘You’re so lucky to be joining us now, at the beginning of the Rising.’

‘Sounds exciting.’

My heart felt like it jumped into my throat. Our small band thought we were doing something important, like we could make a difference. Jane and the doctor were trailing round the city picking up bits and pieces and they thought that meeting with Doctor Forrest would give them a chance of coming up with a permanent cure. But I realised the truth.

We haven’t got a chance.

How long would it take the doctor to finish his work on the cure? Weeks? Months? I had no idea what the hell this guy was talking about but something told me the Rising wouldn’t stop and wait for our set of amateurs to catch up. I hadn’t known any of them for a decent length of time. For all I knew, they had no hope of finding the first set of documents, never mind everything else we had to do.

‘So what do you need me to do?’ I asked.

‘We haven’t got long,’ Peter said, ‘We’ll need to get you through some of the basics. I haven’t been told much but what I do know is that the mission will be fairly simple. No weapons, no direct combat. If there is a problem, the only ability we will need is to fly away.’

‘Okay. Sounds pretty cryptic to me.’

‘I know, but missions this critical cannot be revealed until just moments before they begin. With a bit of luck we’ll be able to feed tonight.’

With that comment, the feeling of belonging that had been growing inside me during our conversation left me alone with this bloodsucker. He may have been charismatic, but he still stood for everything I didn’t want to become.

‘Have you flown yet?’ he asked.

‘Well, I fell half way to the floor when Roxy’s friend threw me down the big hole outside.’

He laughed again. ‘That’s a good start. Falling halfway is better than hitting the floor. When you’re done here you’ll be doing loop-the-loops.’

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The Rising - Chapter 70: 'Before Sunrise Tomorrow'

Doctor Owen answered the call from the withheld number.

‘Doctor Owen, isn’t it?’ asked the female voice on the other end.

‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Roxanne Maria di Santo Ramirez. But you can call me Roxy for short.’

‘What do you want?’

‘If my intelligence is correct, you are currently running around the city picking up scraps that you’ve left behind and you’re planning to run away into the night with Doctor Forrest and complete your plans of saving the world.’

Doctor Owen said nothing.

‘From your silence, I take it my intelligence is correct. Unfortunately I must throw a spanner into the works. You see, Doctor Forrest had the mistaken notion that he would be able to escape from us. And if that wasn’t audacious enough, he thought he could run off with your wife as well.’

‘What have you done with them? If you’ve hurt her…’

‘Calm down, Doc, they’re both fine. However, I need you to do something for me to secure their safety.’

‘What’s that?’

‘When you have all of the samples and documents, you must bring them to me and I will exchange them for your wife and the doctor. Okay?’

‘Let me speak to my wife.’

‘I thought you might ask to speak to her so I’ve got her right here.’

‘Andrew, don’t believe her. I haven’t…’ Emily said, her voice filled with fear and panic.

‘That’s enough,’ said Roxy, ‘So what do you say, Doc? The samples for both of them. Seems like a fair swap to me.’

‘Okay,’ he sighed, ‘When and where?’

‘Before sunrise tomorrow. I will call you to tell you where to meet us.’

Roxy hung up. Doctor Owen rubbed his eyes with his hands and let out a roar of frustration. Taking deep breaths, he calmed himself down and explained the situation to Jane and Becky. They all looked at each other across the table with one thing on their minds.

There’s nothing we can do.

‘Are you sure you can trust Doctor Forrest?’ Becky asked.

‘Of course,’ Doctor Owen said, ‘We’ve worked together for a very long time.’

Doctor Owen had a spark of inspiration. Roxy hadn’t let him speak to the doctor. Was she bluffing? He took out his mobile phone and called Doctor Forrest’s number. After a few rings, there was an answer.

‘Don’t waste any time, Doc,’ Roxy said and hung up.

‘Shit!’ Doctor Owen exclaimed.

‘Look,’ Becky said, ‘All we can do is carry on what you were doing. We finish picking up the samples and work out a way to get your wife and the doctor back without doing the swap.’

‘How are we going to do that?’ Jane said, ‘There’s only three of us and we haven’t got any weapons.’

‘Well, that’s not strictly true,’ Becky said.

Becky got up and walked into the next room, coming back with a large black case in her arms. She threw it onto the table and opened it up. Before Jane and the doctor, an arsenal of pistols and silver blades made their jaws drop. It was clear that Becky was a one-woman army. She had an array of weapons that would make Rambo jealous and from what they had seen of her in action so far; she knew exactly how to use them.

‘Okay,’ said Becky, ‘I’ve got an idea.’

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The Rising - Chapter 69: Walking In The Dark

We left the entrance hall and made our way down a corridor lit only by burning torches mounted on the walls. The ceiling was a lot lower than in the entrance hall but a draft blowing towards us made it feel colder. We stopped at a door on our right.

‘Skinner, take our new brother on ahead to the training room,’ Roxy said, ‘then come back and meet me. Marcus will want to speak to both of us.’

Skinner started to walk away but Roxy stopped him.

‘The box, leave it here.’

He set the box down on the stone floor and led me down the corridor, further and further into the darkness. We passed many doors. I tried to listen out for goings-on inside but couldn’t hear a thing apart from our loud footsteps and the occasional drip of water through the walls.

‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Skinner replied, ‘I spent my first few months as a vampire here. I expect they want to put you through the same training they gave me.’

‘What kind of training?’

‘Different things really. Not just combat. I learned the best ways to remain inconspicuous in the human world, the best ways to operate in daylight, that kind of thing. I’d say you’ve almost got the hang of flying already.’ He smiled.

‘I thought that son of a bitch was trying to kill me. I bet he does that to everyone.’

‘You’re probably right. But I do know that if you hadn’t stopped falling, you wouldn’t have been the first new vampire to spend their first few weeks here in the recovery room.’

I was still finding it difficult to comprehend the fact that falling down a massive chasm and hitting the jagged stone floor wouldn’t kill me. Okay, it would take a long time for my body to heal but eventually it would heal and I would be back to normal. I wondered if the vampires I attacked at the outpost had fully recovered yet. Either way, I wasn’t interested in seeing them ever again.

‘It doesn’t sound like I’ll be training for long though,’ I said, ‘What did she mean when she said I’ll be needed at midnight?’

‘They must be planning an attack. I’ll do what I can to find out what’s going to happen. There must be some way of getting a message out to Jane and the doctor from in here.’

‘And Dave. I saw his car in the town we passed through just before we got here.’

‘Is that what all the throwing up was about?’

‘Yes. I had to be sure it was him.’

We continued walking down the seemingly endless corridor, further into the heart of the lair.

‘Can you read their minds? That’s what the guy who picked us up was doing, wasn’t it?’

‘No, Tom. It’s very difficult to control. Some have the gift but most haven’t. I’ve never managed to develop that ability. Have you noticed any voices or images popping into your head?’

‘One or two,’ I said, without offering any further detail.

‘It’s very difficult to harness the power and focus it all on the mind of one person. Only very old and experienced vampires have a complete grasp of it. Even then, they also have to block their mind out from being read by other people.’

I crossed reading the minds of other vampires off my personal to-do list. I wasn’t planning on remaining a vampire long enough to learn how to do the difficult stuff, although something told me we’d be hanging around the lair a lot longer than we’d planned to stay at the outpost.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘We’re going to have to get out of here and get back to Jane and the doc. We can’t stay here forever.’

‘I know. Once they’ve gathered all the samples together and met with Doctor Forrest, they’ll have to disappear. We might not be able to find them if we can’t get out of here soon.’

We reached the door at the end of the corridor. ‘You’ve got other things to worry about right now,’ Skinner said.

‘Like what?’

Skinner flung the door open to reveal a huge hall carved out of the rock. A small number of vampires, maybe ten, were dotted around. Some were sparring with wooden replica swords, some flying from one side of the hall to the other. I stood in the doorway and stared up at the vampires above me as they moved through the air in formation.

‘Like meeting your new classmates. See you later, Tom.’

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The Rising - Chapter 68: Meeting Roxy

As the tall wooden doors closed behind us, a loud bang of wood hitting stone echoed off the cold bare walls of the entrance hall to the vampires’ lair.

The hall was huge. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high and shrouded in darkness. The only light came from the flaming wooden torches that hung at regular intervals on the walls along the full length of the hall. A massive fireplace in the middle of the opposite wall roared and crackled and warmed the hall against the cold stone walls. I struggled to imagine how long ago this lair had been carved out of the rock and how many generations of human life had passed while vampires lived down here.

Jackson handed the box of syringes to the woman in combat gear.

‘Excellent,’ she said, ‘He will be pleased. Thank you for your work today, Jackson. You are excused. Get some rest. I’ll deal with these two.’

Jackson nodded and walked away, leaving me and Skinner faced with the baddest looking woman I had ever seen. Dressed all in black, with a pistol on one side of her belt and a knife on the other, I wondered what manner of weapons were held in the multitude of pockets on her pants and vest.

‘Welcome home,’ she said to Skinner, completely ignoring me.

‘Thank you, Roxy,’ he replied, ‘I thought I might never see this place again.’

‘You have been away from here for a long time but I must press on with the matters at hand. What happened at the regional headquarters?’

‘It all went according to plan. The bodies from Hartley House were smuggled into the base. They turned and escaped. Almost everyone at the base was killed but they managed to kill all our brothers and sisters before I could get away with the doctor. He escaped with an agent from the World Health Organisation.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you got away. How?’

‘I fought my way out.’

‘How did you do that?’ I could tell Roxy didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

‘While everyone else was preoccupied with the attack, I got a chance to get away and I took it. I couldn’t get the doctor but I did leave a message for The Brotherhood.’

‘What was that?’

Skinner bent down and opened the metal case at his feet. Roxy looked surprised when she saw the face staring back up at her from the case. I suspected she wasn’t lost for words very often.

‘That’s Commander North,’ she said with an air of respect for our achievement in her voice.

Skinner nodded.

‘Impressive,’ she said, ‘I will take you to Marcus. He will want to meet the man who killed such a senior member of The Brotherhood. This will be an excellent addition to his collection.’

She turned to me but kept talking to Skinner. ‘And what about him?’

‘I had no choice. I turned him after my escape. My hunger was uncontrollable.’

Roxy smiled. ‘So you’ve got a taste for live flesh now? This is certainly a day for surprises. Take him down to the training room. At midnight we will need as many of our brothers and sisters as we can pull together.’

‘Why is that?’ Skinner asked.

‘You’ll see. Follow me,’ she said and led us down the hall into the darkness ahead.

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The Rising - Chapter 67: Smokescreen

Jane got out of her chair and paced backward and forward on the wooden floor, her footsteps amplified by the bare walls. ‘I can’t believe what you’re saying, but I know who you are. I used to work in the Black Ops support team before I joined the emergency response unit. I was the one who took over from Will on the night you went dark.’

Becky raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? What happened to him? I tried to track him down but found nothing. Was he killed?’

‘No. I believe he was moved downstairs.’

‘Figures. I bet those bastards never let him leave.’

‘Why did you leave the World Health Organisation?’ Doctor Owen asked.

‘I discovered proof of the plan to balance the populations. My life was in danger so I went dark. Since then, I’ve travelled all over the world looking for evidence to back up my theory.’

‘What did you discover?’

Becky got up and opened a kitchen drawer. She took something out of the drawer and placed it on the table in front of Doctor Owen. It was a pre-packaged ‘Virex’ syringe.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, picking it up and examining the yellow contents of the syringe.

‘I thought it might be familiar to you,’ Becky said.

Doctor Owen couldn’t believe what he was holding in his hand. ‘There’s no way this can be the same treatment I’ve been working on. We only just made the breakthrough a few days ago.’

‘Your research was a smokescreen. As long as you were developing the primary and secondary treatments, everyone at your level would assume you were the only person who could find the cure. It was designed to divert attention from the facts.’

‘That the treatment had already been developed?’

‘Correct.’

‘But my treatment is imperfect. It works for less than twenty-four hours.’

‘No, that’s exactly why it’s perfect. In the minds of everyone concerned, it was never supposed to be a permanent cure. No one ever wanted to wipe out the virus. They wanted ongoing treatment. There’s no money in a one-shot cure.’

‘You mean this is all about money?’ Jane asked, raising her voice in anger and frustration.

‘Not really, but it’s a logical side effect of producing a pharmaceutical treatment on this scale. It is the motivation of some people at the top of the World Health Organisation but the sole driver behind the Rising is the treaty. It is written that the destiny of the two species is to co-exist.’

‘What’s going to happen?’ Jane asked.

‘The plans for the Rising are based on the vampires quickly and deliberately increasing their numbers. They will reveal themselves to the general public as allies of the powers-that-be, who want us all to exist in harmony. This will be backed up by The Brotherhood, who will provide military support under the pretence of protecting the lives of the general public.’

‘What? So The Brotherhood are complicit as well?’

‘Only the general and a few other key people. They had no choice, though. The treaty was signed at a time when vampires stood on the verge of overthrowing the human race. In an attempt at self-preservation, the humans agreed to population balancing and co-existence once a treatment had been developed.’

‘But that was fifty years ago,’ Jane said, ‘Things change in such a long period of time. Surely they can’t hold us to a treaty that was signed so long ago?’

‘That may be true if we were dealing with humans. Politicians tend to forget their policies, re-prioritise, retire or die. However, the same vampires that signed the treaty are still around today and their priorities haven’t changed. They’ve been waiting for this day. In the lifetime of some vampires, fifty years is nothing.’

Doctor Owen thought to himself for a moment and rubbed his face with his hands in frustration.

‘So all that crap we took from the base is useless, isn’t it? There’s no point working on a cure if there’s already one out there and the Rising is expected to begin any day now.’

‘There’s always the chance that a permanent cure will be found,’ Becky said in an upbeat tone.

‘But don’t hold your breath?’ Doctor Owen said, finishing her sentence for her.

‘But what about Doctor Forrest?’ Jane said.

‘You’re right,’ the doctor said, ‘He’s our only chance. If we meet with him, we can use the samples and documents we’ve got to finish the work on the primary treatment. Maybe the poison is the only answer. I never thought I’d hear myself say that.’

‘What do you mean?’ Becky asked.

Before Doctor Owen could answer, his phone rang.

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The Rising - Chapter 66: Revelations

Becky Clarkson had gone on ahead so Jane and Doctor Owen were left to find their own way to Abbey Tower.

The address Becky had given them could be found in one of the less desirable areas of the city, outside the centre but not far enough away from the hustle and bustle to be considered suburbia. Jane stopped the car next to a concrete park where children that should have been in school were playing football.

‘What should we do about the samples in the back?’ Doctor Owen asked as he got out of the car. He looked at the bullet holes in the bodywork and wondered how much of their treasure had survived the attack.

‘Just leave it locked away for now,’ Jane said, ‘We’ll find out what she wants and come back for everything. It would look pretty suspicious walking into a place like this with armfuls of medical equipment.’

They approached Abbey Tower. It was a twenty-storey apartment block, run-down and imposing, but Jane suspected it didn’t look much worse now than it did the day it was built. Smashed windows peppered the high walls and many of them that weren’t smashed had nationalist flags hanging outside. Graffiti adorned every free patch of wall space at the entrance as far up the building as the artists could reach, telling any would-be invaders that they wouldn’t be welcome, although why anyone would want to invade this place was anyone’s guess.

The door to the entrance hall was locked, with a keypad on the wall next to it. Jane entered the apartment number Becky had given them and hit the ‘call’ button. A few seconds later, a mechanical buzz told them the door was open and they ventured inside.

Jane hit the button to call the elevator, trying not to inhale too much of the rank stench of urine that hung in the air. The elevator arrived and took them up to the eleventh floor. As the doors opened and the aroma of an unmaintained building that housed hundreds of people hit them in the face, Jane and the doctor looked at each other.

What the hell are we doing here?

They found apartment one-one-two but before Jane could knock on the door, Becky had opened it from the inside. ‘Get in, quick,’ she said and they followed her order.

‘Sorry for the rather unpleasant surroundings,’ Becky said, ‘I’ve been out of work for two years. You need to make the savings last, you know?’

She took them through the barely furnished apartment, the cleanliness of which was a stark contrast to the rest of the building, and sat them down at the kitchen table. The kettle was already boiling and she offered her visitors a cup of coffee, which they both accepted.

Becky sat down at the table and took a sip. ‘You must forgive me for our dramatic introduction,’ she began, ‘but I know the capabilities of The Brotherhood. I also know what they are protecting and the lengths they will go to stop anyone interfering with their plans.’

‘You mean the primary treatment?’ Jane asked knowingly.

‘No. Forget what you think you know. Development of the treatment to rid the world of vampires may appear to be the main motivation of The Brotherhood but that is far from the truth. In fact, it is the exact opposite.

‘The primary treatment is an unofficial project launched by the leader of The Brotherhood, General Graham. On the record he goes along with his orders from the World Health Organisation but off the record he was actively sponsoring the work Doctor Forrest and Doctor Owen were doing.’

‘Why was it off the record?’ Doctor Owen asked, ‘Everything we’ve seen from The Brotherhood has indicated that the primary treatment was their only priority.’

‘That’s because it’s the only work they’ve been doing off their own backs. Without overseeing your research, their only role would have been to act as the military arm of the World Health Organisation. General Graham knew he couldn’t stand by and take no action. He had to do everything he could to develop a weapon to use against the vampires.’

‘Why did all of this have to go on under the radar?’ Jane asked.

‘Simple. Because of the treaty.’

‘But the treaty just lays down the rules between vampires and humans and restricts their actions. It defines the rules which the communities have to live by.’

‘That’s what you’re meant to think and to a point, it does. But what you don’t know, and only a few key people know this, is that it lays down the plans for ongoing co-existence of the communities. This includes a schedule for balancing out the population levels.’

‘No no no,’ Jane said, shaking her head, ‘You’re talking about the Rising, aren’t you?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But that’s just a myth, a conspiracy theory.’

‘No, Agent Simpson. It’s a fact. Everything I’ve seen and heard over the last two years tells me it’s due to start soon, and it’s going to start here.’

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