could get close enough to the squad George pushed me away. Staring me down in an attempt to make sure I knew I wasn't welcome. They hadn't ever liked me much in this squad, working together for two years and I thought it'd get better. I noticed a soldier poking his head over the lip while taking aim with an MP18.
“Everyone drop!” I dived to my face while the others continued on.
“For the last time, we don't-” Machine gun fire sprayed over my head for a few seconds before he had dropped down to reload. I popped up to my feet to continue pushing up. But stopped when I saw George crouched over a fallen squad-mate, we were the only ones left.
“Get up George, we've got to clear this out!” He looked up me snarling, his buzz cut hair splattered with blood and rain.
“Shut your mouth and stop ordering me around!” his words were paced and venomous as he stood, pushing me to the ground and looking out toward the trench, grenade in his hand. “I'm going to kill every last one of you Krout scum!” He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the trench before looking down at me. “And then I'm coming back to get you.” His voice dripping with contempt as he turned heel and, brandishing a knife, charged the trench. I was hot on his tail after I scrambled to my feet.
“Wait!” He jumped into the smoking pit, “Georg-!” I was cut short by a single gunshot. I picked up my pace, looking over the lip to see the writer crawling out from under the mass of George, blood and burning meat strewn around the trench.
This man's entire squad had just been killed, just like mine and, like me, he was now alone. I dropped down next to the writer and waited for a moment, juggling around a myriad of thoughts before deciding that he didn't need to die.
That he was redeemable.
That maybe I was too.
Marcus
The next day started with the clicks of shoes hitting hard concrete and the indistinguishable speech of a hundred voices speaking at once.
The smell of fresh coffee and pancakes invaded my nostrils as I rolled over on my hard floor to see Kate sitting and smiling at me. She was wearing a pair of jeans which I’m pretty sure were mine and a large black shirt with ‘GEEK’ printed in bold white letters, that one I was sure I owned.
She had two coffees in a cardboard tray beside her and a plate of steaming pancakes on her lap. “You were asleep so I ducked out for a minute, grabbed us some breakfast.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I was still trying to come to terms with last night.
I should explain why she’s reacting this way; vampires have very strong emotions and seeing as we live for, well, so far it seems forever. We fall in love very easy with other vampires, as it’s so rare to run into others like us. Unfortunately you get a bit emotionally… deficient over time. I really didn’t know how I felt about her yet. Anyway, moving on.
I smiled back as I shuffled into a seated position, “Thank you, how’d you sleep?”
She shrugged, “Not too bad, after a few hours I jumped into your bed though, I borrowed some clothes. Is that a problem?”
I kissed her gently, “Not at all.” I reached down and grabbed one of the coffees. Feeling the warm sensation as the heat passed through the Styrofoam cup and into my palm, the rich smell seemingly setting root in my brain. Kate was sipping hers politely with both hands wrapped around her cup when she stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. “Oh! I almost forgot, Marcus wants to meet you, show you some… stuff, I don’t know he just said for me to tell you to meet him in the cafeteria around two… p.m., not a.m.”
I finished my coffee, “Who is Marcus?” I moved into a cross legged position.
“He’s the head of engineering and weapons, vehicle and tech development. He’s a nice enough guy, talks a bit fast though and I’m pretty sure most of it's not English. It’s more like some language that he invented in his spare time.”
I started on one of the pancakes, it was by far the best pancake I had ever had. It was soft yet had this slightly crispy exterior. Sweet, yet not so sweet I couldn’t add maple syrup to it. “What time is it now?”
She shrugged, “11:30… ish, you remember where the cafeteria is?”
I struggled to remember anything before knocking on Kate’s door. “Um, yeah, sort of…”
Kate giggled, “That’s a no then. Once you’ve cleaned up I’ll take you there, the others will be out and about soon.”
My body was quickly adapting to waking up during daylight hours, but I was still confused as to why we did, “Why do we wake up during the day here?”
Kate finished wiping the remains of her pancake off her face. “Well, we don’t really, I mean, normally we sleep during the day, but when we don’t have to go outside for a while we try and spend time with the other guys, the mortal ones. It kind of maintains the peace if they know we aren’t going to kill them in their sleep.”
“Ah, right.” I stood and helped Kate to her feet, only just really realising I was still in the same clothes as the night before. “I’m just going to have a shower, make yourself at home.” I said with a smile, she smiled back as I walked toward the bathroom.
There sat the tiled room, where it always had. The small sink and one person shower encased in a rectangular box of glazed glass in the far corner. I quickly and clumsily stripped off and slid into the shower. Turning on the hot water as fast as I could, feeling it hit my tender flesh. I leaned on the glass wall and watched the blood from last night pool and swirl down the drain around my feet. It felt magnificent to finally wash up, I enjoyed the feeling of my hair as the conditioner left it, the soft and silky quality of it.
Once I was confident I was clean I almost skipped out of the shower. I grabbed a towel from underneath the sink and proceeded to dry off while I watched myself in the mirror. My clean cut curls matting on my forehead, my brown eyes staring back at me. Realising this was the first time I’d seen myself in almost a week felt odd.
I’d grown a mess of stubble which I quickly rid myself of with my razor. I had a fresh scar on my forehead and cheek. I was well aware they would clear up before the day’s end. But the fact they were there at all and that I hadn’t seen the initial wound was slightly unnerving.
My hair combed back, my face cleanly shaven and a towel wrapped around my midsection. I felt as if a massive weight had been lifted off of me as I stepped out of the door and into my room. The sight I was greeted with was Kate sitting cross legged on my bed reading a comic of mine. “You’re a bit of a nerd aren’t you?” She said with a giggle.
I shrugged and smiled, “Well yeah, you spend a few years without companionship you take up a few hobbies.” I started getting dressed.
A black long sleeve button up shirt with a black tie, a pair of jeans and black canvas shoes. I started rolling up my sleeves, “So, could you tell me more about Marcus?”
Kate continued to read the comic, “Well, he’s been here since the beginning back in the seventies, he's mostly human, but he had an encounter that he doesn't talk much about. His aging rate is somewhat slow. He was originally a computer engineer for the NSA, living in the US for the better part of his life. But he’s natively Irish, although it rarely comes out, unless it’s Saint Patrick's Day, or if he’s absolutely sloshed any other time of the year. He’s always been into new tech and blowing stuff up, so he is really quite useful around here.” I looked over at the digital clock and saw the numbers click over to 12:17. An hour and forty three minutes to kill.
“Can I meet Mink’s squad today before Marcus, just for a bit?” Kate appeared to be mulling it over.
“Yeah I suppose, they’ll probably be in the cafeteria around twelve thirty, one o’clock, they’re pretty cool, fun enough. You want to head up there now?”
“Yes please.” I was looking forward to it.
She climbed off the bed. “Is it alright if we head over to my place? Just so I can get changed.” I nodded and soon after we were walking through her door.
“Oh, Kate, just quickly, what should I do about my door-knob
?” We stepped into her lounge-room and she gestured for me to take a seat on her couch.
“Don’t worry, I called maintenance this morning, they said they’ll fix it in a few hours.” She disappeared into her room. “The guys in maintenance are relaxed around here, don’t ask questions, just fix stuff.” I started drumming a little tune on my knee with my fingers, a few minutes later she emerged still wearing my jeans but a tight tie-dye shirt in place of my baggy one. She’d also donned black boots and her hair was tied back in a ponytail loosely. She smelled of cherries and mint as opposed to smelling like my apartment-house thing.
I stood and walked over to her, “Lead the way.” She walked toward the door and I followed. We walked most of the way to the cafeteria without saying anything, just occasionally smiling at each other.
“Where’d you two run off to last night?” I spun around to see Wolfgang a few feet behind us jogging. Slowing down to a walk once he was next to me and we continued toward the cafeteria.
Kate shrugged, “Thought I’d show him how to get to town, then we made our way back to his place.”
I would have sprayed my drink if I’d had one; Wolf looked at me and smiled, “You lucky duck, she never seemed to get attached to anyone around here.” I was desperately trying to see if behind ‘you lucky duck’ hid ‘I’m going to separate your flesh from your bones’. But