Ch.11

John

We arrived fashionably late at the dance that evening. Murray said he didn't want to go saying he would feel awkward being the only one in the room without a date, again. The other 6 of us went on ahead to the former nightclub. Bentley looked more confident than I had ever seen him with the prototype exo-legs I built for him on the plane out of surplus equipment. Sly was shocked to see his old friend on his feet again, and as for Penelope, I'm sure she was just appreciating the opportunity to share a first dance with her reunited boyfriend. Sly, Bentley and I wore matching tuxedos and Sierra, Penelope and Carmelita wore matching long black leg-slit dresses. It was like we were a big group of friends on a triple date. Then it occurred to me that I had never been to a dance before just for fun. I never went to any school dances or proms. It was like I was living the life I never had.

Bentley and Penelope tried to do a soft tango at first but Bentley only lasted two songs before going to a nearby table. I couldn't blame him, he was probably still getting used to the legs. Sly and Carmelita naturally dominated the dance floor, moving with strong sweeping movements through the dim lights as though they were in an intense battle to the rhythm of the music. Me and Sierra on the other hand just tried to enjoy the night, trying to act like a normal couple. Whenever the DJ put a smooth jazz song on we swayed to the beat like we were dancing alone in our living room back in Idaho. I had to admit, despite the warm and fuzzy feeling I got while on the dance floor, I felt unmistakably out of place. And looking into Sierras eyes, I could tell she felt the same. We were out of our element. Being normal people in a normal setting of a normal nightclub was just so foreign to us. We had been to a nightclub before, but it was a lifetime ago, and we were on an assignment.

Suddenly Sierra pulled me out to a balcony beyond the rows of tables with a view of the river that ran along the side of the building. It was a nice view, only a few lights and reflections interrupted the perfect darkness.

"What's wrong?" I asked. She turned to me with a content look on her face, and I softly took her hands in mine

"Nothing, I just wanted to step away for a bit. It's just kind of overwhelming, you know?"

"I know how you feel. Like a fish out of water," we stood in silence for a moment, "are you enjoying yourself?"

"Oh, yes of course!" she pulled her hands away and brushed a hair from her face and squeezed her arms as she turned to face the water front. "It's just… ever since I was a little girl, I wondered what It would be like to dress up and go to a dance…"

"With a handsome gentleman," I interrupted jokingly. She suppressed a laugh and continued on.

"It's just strange after all this time, finally doing what I used to dream about every day. And now that it's happening I can't help but think about what life would be like if we were just, normal."

"Me too,"I hugged her from behind and gave her a soft kiss on the neck. She cocked her head to the side in acceptance and she kept talking.

"I can't wait for this whole operation to be over. Maybe then we can move away. Enjoy the world we worked so hard to make. Maybe then we can start a new life. Dig our own roots and have a family like how everyone does," she turned around wrapping her arms around my neck and looked into my eyes, " don't want to be on the run anymore John."

I was touched. In a way, it was exactly what I wanted. Settle down and start a new life. We could have neighbors and start a family, maybe even have some kids along the way. Normal people stuff. We could tell them the stories of our adventures, but I hope to god they don't follow in our footsteps. Everything was coming to an end and until now I had never really bothered to look beyond the immediate future. But now, that far off idea of leading a normal life suddenly seemed just within our grasp.

"Soon, Sierra, very soon," I pulled her in a little bit closer, just enough to close the gap between our lips. We just stood there, taking in the moment that may very well have been our last true feeling of peace.

We told the others that we were going to head home soon and began to gather ourselves but then a familiar song came on. The same song that was playing the last time we were at a dance. It felt like so long ago. (Reference: Operation 13)

"One more dance?" I held out my hand and she gently let hers fall into mine.

"I don't mind if I do."

I led her out onto the dancefloor and we swayed softly to the beat of the music. Just then I felt a slow rumble under our feet. It was almost unnoticeable at first but by the end of the song it started to shake the chandelier that was held above our heads.

"You feel that?" I said over the increasing noise of the shaking. She nodded. Just then I felt a vibrating from the phone in my pocket. I pulled on a wire concealed within the lining of my suit connected to an earphone and placed it in my ear. It was a warning message from Hector.

"Paris is under attack by vampires," I said calmly.

"Any ideas?" She sounded so calm, she knew what was about to happen.

"Remember Rome?"

"I wish I didn't," her hand reached down to a suppressed Glock 17 strapped to her leg hidden in the slit of her dress and I heard the clicking noise of the safety disengaging.

I chuckled softly."Yeah. Worst date ever," there were the chirping noises of vampires and the screams of unfortunate civilians outside. There was a banging on the door and the other guests in the club backed away from the door. We stayed where we were but we stopped dancing. We just stood on the dance floor facing the door ready for what laid beyond. I took out my own Glock 17 from a concealed holster in my jacket and Sierra took out hers and we aimed for the door. The pounding getting more intense and the rumbling getting louder. The music still played clearly on the speakers as though this was all part of the event and I nonchalantly held her by the waist. The door broke down and vampires began to try to storm the room while we silently stopped them before they could take a step.

Sly

Vampires were definitely not part of the night plan. I was actually thinking of taking everyone out to the pavilion behind the nightclub for dinner but those plans are obviously scrapped for the time being. Vampires just broke down the front door to the ballroom and for a minute I thought we were totally screwed because I didn't have my cane and Carmelita forgot to bring her shock pistol. We could have been in the fight of our lives if it hadn't been for John and Sierra. They nonchalantly pulled out suppressed pistols and started shooting the vampires as they entered without even leaving the dancefloor. Then when they finished off the small wave of vampires that broke the door down, they walked outside and started shooting more vampires in the streets as they ran every which way chasing civilians. We followed them out and made our way towards the safehouse. We met a worried Murray who boarded the door behind us.

"What is going on?" Murray exclaimed when the building was secured. Everyone looked at John and Sierra. They were ready for the vampires to come through the door before anyone knew what was happening.

"Hector sent me an emergency transmission while we were on the dancefloor," he began. "He cracked the encryption ahead of schedule and started analyzing the data. It turns out we were wrong about the number of vampires. There are apparently more than one billion vampires in the world under the control of the Fangs and the vast majority of them are hidden among the population as sleeper cells. One of the cells was activated in Paris turning a tenth of the population into vampires."

The room went silent. The base we almost died trying to destroy in Russia barely even meant anything. But with the vampire apocalypse starting there was only one question that remained.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

"Vampires that are still inactive are harmless until they get activated but when they do, there's no way to reverse the process. The only option we have is to kill them all," John explained solumnly. He turned away and started talking on his earpiece to Hector, likely giving orders.

So this was how the world was going to end? Not by a nation but by hoards of vampires controlled by psychopaths. Was there even anything that we could do? Everything that I imagined the future would be didn't like it would be possible anymore. The world had changed forever. John finished talking on the earpiece.

"Here's the plan, Paris has almost totally been overrun. The local police has been overwhelmed and are held up at Interpol headquarters a mile away. we need to make sure they're still alive for there to be any chance of saving Paris. Hector is bringing weapons with the cars but because of the number of civilians in the streets we would need to make the trip on foot." John was cut off by a vampire banginh at the door and he shot him through the glass window. "This might be it for Paris, keep that in mind. The vampires are moving fast and killing off the non-vampire population. If this keeps up, we might need to resort to extreme measures."

"How extreme are extreme measures?" Carmelita questioned. She had a tinge of fear in her voice.

"How extreme can measures get?"

It didn't take long for two cars to come around the corner and park on the sidewalk. Me and John quickly took the gun crates out and threw them inside. There were the same guns we used for the last mission but with 10 magazines instead of the 5 we had last time. Bentley and Penelope each took a pistol. As the cars zipped off and we changed out of our formal attire into our functional clothes, it felt more like we were going to war than doing a simple mission. The city we called our home had suddenly turned into a nightmarish ghost town overrun with patrolling vampires. By the time we stepped outside we could make out the faint glow of fires starting around the city. The streets were lined with rubble, debris and bodies of the fleeing population. It was like I was looking at the city through a sick filter of my worst nightmares. Nothing was recognizable anymore.

Carmelita

We cautiously made our way to the police station only to find we were too late. The front doors had been broken down and the bodies of my fellow officers and vampires alike littered the ground. As we sweeped through the building, finding one survivor after another and encountering wave after wave of lingering vampires. We finally made it to Chief Barkley's office to find that he and 7 other cops had managed to escape the onslaught of the attack. 11 survived the attack, of the hundreds that were stationed here, only 11 survived. I went over to him to ask him what happened. Ignoring the fact that I was with the imfamous Cooper Gang, he told me everything in excruciating detail. They were able to hold their own for a while after their barricades were destroyed but soon they ran out of ammo and were overrun.

"It's bad inspector," he explained as he emptied his filing cabinets and tossed the classified contents into a small trashcan fire, "The French government has collapsed and we have no possibility of backup from the neighboring countries. We're on our own."

"Chief," John walked over from across the room, " have there been any reports outside the city?"

"No, not even in the neighboring towns," he replied, "It's like Paris was specifically targeted."

John looked away as though connecting the dots. "We need to get out of here. Now."

We finished sweeping the building and left for the safe house again and then to my apartment, collecting the bare essentials and loading the into Murray's van. It was strange looking at my little apartment for the last time. All the sweet memories flowing through my head at once as I grabbed the most important things in sight and threw them in the back of the van. At this point there were no more people in the streets, only hordes of vampires. The seven of us and the 11 remaining officers escorted the van back to the C-17 which was now waiting for take-off on the airstrip. Upon boarding, John received another emergency transmission.

"We need to go right now! The UN has just declared Code Red on Paris!" he shouted across the cargo bay.

"What does that mean?" one of the officers yelled over the sound of the jet engines starting to increase thrust.

"Great Britain has been called on to launch an ICBM! They're going to nuke Paris!"

Without another word, all 18 of us scrambled aboard the plane and the C-17 started to roll down the runway and pick up speed. The cargo bay doors were only barely starting to close after we left the ground when there was a blinding flash of light turning the night into day. I looked back at the nearly closed door to see the bright light of the nuclear mushroom cloud slowly making its ascension to the sky. When the Door had just met the top of the cargo bay I knocked off my feet as the plane started to shake relentlessly to the shockwave.I was barely able to see Sly only a few feet from me and I reached out to hold his hand. He grabbed mine back and I squeezed my eyes shut as we held on for dear life with a white knuckle grip as the shaking continued for what felt like forever. Then suddenly it started to subside. Soon enough the only sound we could hear were the blaring alarms of the aircraft. I slowly opened my eyes and stood up. I stumbled over to the nearest window and looked back at the city I once called home. But all I could see was the mushroom cloud still rising above the cloud layer and below it was nothing more than a wasteland of broken concrete and twisted metal. Paris was gone.