The House of Red & White
Red Hook Checkpoint – Brooklyn, NY
Two men who look like they would rather be doing anything else besides standing guard in the middle of a wintry December night take turns pacing back and forth in front of the now-gated entrance to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. They don't speak to one another – they'd long since run out of stuff to talk about. They need every ounce of energy they have left just to stay warm and awake until their relief arrives – the only sounds they make are the sighs as they yawn.
They don't even notice the figure approaching them for a good few minutes. But eventually one of the men, a short, stocky guy – who before all the shit came down drove a delivery truck and schlepped boxes all day – squints at the movement he finally sees.
"Looks like we got incoming," he says to his partner, who just yawns in response. Stocky guy stares at him for a minute and then smacks him in the shoulder to rouse him.
"Yo! I said, incoming!"
"What? Where?" Yawning guy replies, not even attempting to move from the Jersey barrier he's propped himself up against.
"Right there, you moron, wake the fuck up!" Stocky guy fires back, just as the silhouette passes under one of the massive work lights illuminating the street – revealing more information. Yawning guy rubs his dry, exhausted eyes and squints – then he chuckles.
"Oh, shit…yeah. Think I need glasses or somethin'."
"Or somethin'," Stocky guy repeats, taking the lead to approach the visitor, who he can now see much better – a person of average height, wearing a parka with the hood up and shouldering an overloaded backpack. After another few seconds, Stocky guy grins…it's a woman. He can just tell by the size, the walk. "Maybe our night's lookin' up," he says, as the hooded woman gets within thirty feet. Stocky guy puts on a more professional stance that he hopes makes him look macho, hands in the ready position on his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
"Sorry, ma'am, but citizens need to be off the street after curfew," he says – but the woman just keeps walking toward them, until she's within ten feet. Then she stops, putting her gloved hands up in the universal "don't shoot" gesture. The men exchange looks with each other and then eyeball her, suspiciously. Yawning guy trudges up to stand beside his partner.
"What're you doin' out here?" he asks the woman, whose face still remains hidden in the shadow of her parka's fur-rimmed hood.
"Sorry, I didn't know about the curfew," she replies in an easy-going voice that's as East Coast-sounding as their own, but with a slightly different intonation that only locals would notice – one that identifies her as an out-of-stater.
"Whaddaya mean? How could you not know? The hell you been hidin'?" Stocky guy asks.
"Well, I'm not from here. I came up from Philly," she says, and both men do a take at that.
"Serious? You walked all the way here from Philly?" Yawning guy asks with a chuckle, and she shrugs.
"No, not all the way. I had a horse for a while, but the goddamned vamps got to her just north of Trenton. Sucked her dry, poor girl."
"A horse," Stocky guy repeats, totally amused by her now. "The hell'd you find a fuckin' horse in Philly?"
"She was just standing there by a dead cop, god only knows how long she'd been there. What, you guys don't still use mounted Police?" she replies, and Stocky guy's amusement level drops.
"Of course we do…I mean, we did. But we're gettin' off the point. What're you doin' here now?"
"Well, obviously I need to get into Red Hook."
"Obviously. Why, though? What's so important it couldn't wait 'til tomorrow?"
"Why would I wait?"
"Well, 'cause –'cause it's safer," Stocky guy says, starting to feel like he's being played somehow. "Munchers are all over the place at night. Quite frankly anybody who'd go walkin' around by themselves after dark must be fuckin' insane."
"'Munchers?' That's an interesting name for them. Where'd you get that?"
"I dunno, I heard it from some other guy."
He can't see her chuckle in response, but he hears it, ever so softly. "I like that. But look, guys, I've been walking in the cold and sleeping in the bushes for almost a fucking month trying to get here. I'm sick and tired of it and I'd really just like to get to where I need to go, like now, so I can finally stop walking, y'know?" she says.
"Where the hell're you tryin' to get to?" Stocky guy asks.
"I'm trying to find my brother. He has a place on Richards Street. Please guys, just help me out, okay?" she replies.
"Sorry, hon, rules is rules. You're not gettin' anywhere tonight," Yawning guy says, and the parka's hood angles ever so slightly in his direction to let him know she's looking at him.
"Where am I supposed to go?"
"Not our problem. Our job's to keep the weirdos out, so turn around and find another bush to sleep in 'til the sun comes up," he says. The woman chuckles again, but it's an ironic one this time.
"So you would turn me away, knowing the kind of danger I'm in out here by myself."
"Hey, nobody told you to keep trekkin' after dark. And if you ain't got sense enough to get off the street at night, then you're gonna hafta take your chances. Now get outta here," Stocky guy warns, flexing his hands around their places on the rifle for emphasis.
A tense silence passes. Then the woman sighs, long and hard. "Fine. What do you want?" she asks.
"What're you talkin' about?" Stocky guy asks, and she takes slow steps toward him, dropping the parka's hood back to finally reveal her face. And it's not that she's supermodel-stunning – it's just that seeing her makes both men realize how much has changed in the short time since the outbreak began. Cute, ordinary women like her used to be everywhere all the time, their existence taken for granted. But not anymore – to them, she's a rare sight now, like a unicorn – and even more dreamlike with her super-saturated blue hair. And it's not a wig – it's dyed, long and flowy and well-maintained, shining under the harsh work lights.
"Funny how quickly we've gone from using Apple Pay to trading in sexual favors," she replies. "So what do you want? Will a blow job get me through the door or what?" she says, with a flat calm that contradicts the ridiculousness of the question. The two men just look at each other, not sure whether to take her seriously – but finally Yawning guy changes his stance on his rifle, aiming it at her.
"Think we've had enough o' your bullshit, Smurfette. Now get the fuck outta here before—" he starts – and then gasps, his breathing instantly cut off. His eyes widen in shock as he stares at the ordinary-pretty woman with the bright blue hair, who's now right in his face with one hand firmly grasping his crotch through his pants.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" she whispers. Stocky guy grabs her other arm to pull her off, but she suddenly turns and plants a solid kiss on his mouth. Then she breaks off both the kiss and the crotch-grab, giving both guys a seductive stare before walking past them into the guard shack. And like hypnotized rats following the pied piper, the guys follow her, sliding the door shut behind them.
Ten minutes later the door slides open again and the woman walks out, throwing her parka back on and putting the hood back up. She throws her heavy backpack over her shoulder as the gate slides open, slipping through as soon as there's enough room. She walks away quickly, but not too quickly.
Most importantly, she doesn't look back.
And she keeps up the pace until the checkpoint is far enough behind her that she can no longer see it. Then she ducks into the nearest doorway and drops her pack. She tears it open, scrambling through its contents until she finds what she's looking for – a travel-sized bottle of antiseptic mouthwash. She upends the bottle into her mouth and swishes the liquid around, stamping a foot down to combat the acidic burn that rips across her tongue and gums. Then after thirty seconds or so, she turns her head and spits, sending a spray of mouthwash flying – hoping it will expel not only the bacteria but also the humiliation she had to endure just to get through a gate.
She stays in the doorway for a while afterward, wiping tears from her eyes – some caused by the mouthwash sting, some from anger, some from guilt, some from just feeling like shit overall. She wipes her mouth over and over, and uses what little is left of the mouthwash to clean her hands. Then she chucks the bottle away and sinks down to the ground, hugging her backpack like a pillow or a teddy bear. She huddles in the doorway like the homeless person she is.
Before the vampire virus took over and turned the world upside down, she had a good life – a good job as a nurse at a prominent doctor's office, which made her good money, which afforded her a good condo and the ability to provide herself a good time when she felt the need. She went out to dinner several nights a week, went to concerts and parties, had lots of friends and no shortage of guys to sleep with if she felt the need for that, too.
Then the plane full of infected people landed at JFK airport and changed everything for everybody, everywhere. Within two weeks, hospitals in Philly started seeing their first cases of the strange, horrible and highly contagious disease that turned ordinary people into blood-sucking killers. By the time another week had passed there was mass looting, crime and panic to such an extreme degree that the City Council had to institute a curfew and curtail travel. The city itself seemed to catch the disease too, losing its color, its vibrancy – and suddenly everyone was living in an epic, post-apocalyptic movie.
Except it wasn't a movie.
And through it all, all she could think about was finding a way out of the city and getting to her brother – a brother she hadn't actually seen in over a year but always felt close to. She called him numerous times after the start of the outbreak but never got a hold of him – and then when everything fell apart, all of a sudden the smartphones that no one could live without before became almost totally useless. Almost.
She digs in her coat pocket to pull out her phone and wake it up, scrolling and swiping her way to the GPS mapping program. Luckily, the vampire virus couldn't get into space to infect and kill the thousands of satellites in orbit. Before now, she couldn't have cared less about tech-y gadgets – she used her phone of course, but wasn't glued to it like most of her friends. She didn't have fifteen different social media accounts. She didn't take selfies. She still liked to hand-write letters and read actual books and newspapers. But now, as she sits there in the filthy doorway, she was so glad her brother had shown her the error of her luddite ways. She zooms in on the area and connects the digital dots marking the route between her current spot and her brother's place on Richards Street – certainly a much shorter route now, but still at least a good hour's worth of walking.
Then a noise draws her eye away from the light of the screen to the dark street around her. She shuts off the phone and shoves it back in her pocket, pushing her back up against the door frame, listening. And it isn't long before she hears the telltale sounds of vampires – rough, ragged breathing and low growls like feral dogs on the prowl. Her imprudent use of the phone probably marked her. She curses to herself as the sounds get louder and closer – estimating a small group of three or four, though she can't be exactly sure until she breaks cover.
As quietly as possible, she reaches behind her head to slide her chosen weapon – a machete she nicked from a hardware store – out of the scabbard she wears on her back, underneath the parka. She stands up slowly, staying flush with the doorway until their rabid-dog-like sounds get loud enough that she knows they're right there. She closes her eyes for the few seconds it takes to take a couple of deep, deep breaths and let them out – psyching herself up to do something that she never, ever thought she would do in her life even once. But if she counts the three or four she's about to take on, her current count would be somewhere around ten.
She steps out from her meager cover and swings away – reminding herself to be strong enough to look them directly in their black eyes as she kills them, reminding herself to go for the fatal wounds to the head, the throat or chopping off the tentacle/stinger/disgustingly long tongue-thing to make sure they stay down. She lets out several primal screams to gain some power as she strikes, and she hears their animalistic screams and feels the resistance against the machete blade as it slices through them, sending their toxic white innards splattering everywhere.
Then the frightening noise dies along with the vampires, and the ordinary-pretty, blue-haired nurse from Philly stands looking over her kill – a group of three monsters, who just two months ago were probably perfectly nice people. But she keeps her grip tight on the machete handle, watching them for another moment to make sure they're dead before checking herself for any white worm-filled blood that might have gotten on her. She bends a little to wipe the machete blade off on one of the vampires' clothing. Then she grabs her backpack and takes off, in the general direction of Richards Street – and hopefully to safety.
Outside the Olympian Club, W. 54th St., Manhattan
Vasiliy Fet storms out of the building where his mentor and fellow Muncher-Hunter, Professor Abraham Setrakian, has holed himself up to pore over an ancient book called the Occido Lumen. The Professor was convinced that it held the solution to the world's problem – the vampires. In particular, how to destroy the one called "The Master" – a funny name considering that he wasn't unique – he was actually one of seven of the same detestable creatures. But The Master was apparently the only one with the extra-large ego and ambition to try and achieve world domination on his own.
And if the last few weeks were any indication, so far, The Master's plan was going pretty damned swimmingly. He set his sights on the greatest city in the world as his base of operations, sending a plane full of "infected" passengers to JFK – most of them dead, but not all. Four people survived to carry the plague into the population – and while The Master's human collaborators took him safely into hiding, the vampire disease spread like wildfire on a dry, windy day.
Fet sniffs from the cold in the air, readjusting his backpack as he jumps into the beat-to-hell delivery truck that had become his ride of late. He starts it up and drives away from the club, his eyes roving back and forth, each successive block bumming him out more and more, seeing what's become of his beloved home. Trash fires burning everywhere, abandoned cars – and no sign of life anywhere. No color. No luscious smell of pizza grease. No beautiful, bustling-city noise. Just the cold and the terrible silence that accompanies the dead. He shakes his head in disgust and sorrow, knowing more about the city's incredible history than most natives – and it kills him to see it looking the way it does now.
He turns a corner and speeds up, checking his watch – he still had plenty of time before he had to be back at the headquarters of the Safe Streets Initiative, the new program headed up by Councilwoman Justine Feraldo, his new hero…er…heroine. Her brave, ballsy and most importantly, effective tactics against the Munchers in her home base of Staten Island had turned her into Superwoman. Now the rest of New York looked to her to use the same strategy to clear the vampires out of Manhattan. She was under a tremendous amount of pressure politically, financially and personally, since the city wasn't getting any help from the federal government. The only aid that had come through was one team of Navy SEALS, who'd been deployed to New York to find The Master and take him out – and Feraldo had given Fet the huge responsibility and prestigious position of being the SEALS' liaison.
And if Fet did say so himself, she couldn't have picked a better guy to be their navigator, their spotter, their eyes and ears underground – where he'd spent years working as an exterminator. But as proud as he was of his status with Feraldo and the good work he and the SEALS had been doing day after day, and night after night, they still weren't any closer to discovering The Master's location. They cleared nest after nest, smoked hundreds of Munchers – more properly known as Strigoi – but still, no sign of The Master. Not since Setrakian had wounded The Master's original host body enough to make him switch to a new one – a Goth-metal singer called Bolivar.
So even though he had much to be proud of, when he stood in front of Professor Setrakian just now, Fet felt small, even though he was a pretty huge dude. Setrakian was so preoccupied with the stupid book that he barely heard anything he said and didn't seem to give two shits about how many Strigoi they'd killed. Fet didn't get the approval he craved from the man who, for better or worse, had become his father-figure – and as much as that pissed him off, what pissed him off even more was seeing the half-Muncher, half-human thing that called itself Quinlan, hanging out there with him like his new best buddy.
Fet grips and releases his hands on the steering wheel as he fumes, both shocked and unbelievably cheesed off that the Professor could be so blasé about it. In fact, if he didn't know better, Fet would say the old man even seemed to hold Quinlan in a higher regard than him, simply because the thing was supposedly two thousand years old and carried a sword with somebody's femur for a handle.
Big fuckin' deal…it's still a Muncher.
Aside from all of his personal feelings about the matter, Fet also had a gut feeling that having Quinlan in such close proximity to the book was going to come back and – ha, get it – bite them, big time. The Master went through a lot of trouble to keep the Lumen out of their hands – and even though Quinlan claimed to be unaffected by The Master's voodoo mind control, Fet was sure, absolutely, positively sure that Quinlan would fuck them all over the first chance he – it – got. So as he drives along, headed back toward the Safe Streets Initiative HQ where he is appreciated, Fet mulls it over – tries to come up with a plan to head the half-breed off at the pass.
It sure felt better than sulking about not being the Professor's favorite anymore.