Enslaved To The Vampire Zombie-Hunter (Pandemic Monsters Book 1) Read online

  ENSLAVED

  to the

  VAMPIRE

  ZOMBIE-HUNTER

  by Veronica Sommers

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Veronica Sommers

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.

  First Edition: April 2020

  Playlist

  "Welcome to the Black Parade" -My Chemical Romance-

  "Alone Together" -Fall Out Boy-

  "Mercy" -Shawn Mendes-

  "Warning" -Day6-

  "Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby" -Cigarettes After Sex-

  "Check Yes Juliet (Run Baby Run)" -We the Kings-

  "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us" -Starship-

  1

  Finley

  The slave collar shifts as I walk, its iron edge a bruising weight against my collarbones.

  "Stand here," the woman beside me whispers. "Not so close to the others—that's better. Keep three feet of distance between you and the person in front of you. When they call your name, stand on your mark. You'll see it—a white X taped to the platform. Understand?"

  "Yes."

  She looks at me, her eyes weary and sympathetic. "Everything will be fine."

  "Of course it will." My reply, automatic and hollow, doesn't fool her. She pats my chained hands and walks to the next person in the row, a chubby thirty-something guy who probably rode out his twenties video gaming in his parents' basement, before the Gorging. Before the zombie virus gobbled up huge sections of the world's population. Before the vampires stepped in to stop the carnage and save humanity from extinction.

  The vampires came into the light, metaphorically speaking, about fifty years ago, right before the United States split into three countries. The first generation of vampires resulted from a botched experiment on terminal cancer patients. There was some initial panic, a couple of minor uprisings, and then humans learned to coexist with the vampires—a good thing, because they are the only ones who can effectively fight the zombies.

  The vampires protect us, and to do that, they need blood. Not synthetic blood, not bags of donated blood—they need fresh, hot, pumping blood, straight from the vein, or their own hearts stop working.

  People like me—those with clean, healthy blood—are prized by the vampires. In some zones, we have special rights and protections. Unfortunately for me, I'm at the lawless edge of the world, near the battlefront, where desperation has superseded civilization—where humans who can't pay their debts or make a living have very few choices for survival.

  I made a few stupid mistakes. Pissed off a couple powerful people. And now I'm here, being sold on the black market like a freaking piece of meat.

  My only comfort is that I'm valuable as a blood-bag, so I'll likely be treated well. At least I'll have good food, a safe place to stay, to sleep. Sleep. The word itself sounds delicious. I can't remember the last time I slept soundly for more than a couple hours at a time.

  I glance down—at my hands, locked into manacles that attach to the metal collar around my neck—at my body, bare except for a scant pair of panties and a thin, scratchy bra. My straggly mop of hair—the color my mom used to call "dishwater blond"—reaches just past my shoulders, not long enough to provide me any coverage. The collar's edge jabs the underside of my chin painfully, so I look up again.

  The near-nudity is all part of the slave market's point-of-purchase display—though how my poky ribs, shrunken stomach, and small breasts are supposed to allure anyone, I don't know. I guess some men will drool over anything with the right apertures, no matter how famished she may look.

  Most vampires don't have much of a sex drive. There are exceptions, but I'm hoping I end up with an owner whose libido is as dead as the zombie hordes milling along the Blue City barricades. Then I won't have to worry about rape, either. I'll be safe and fed and rested. Maybe even happy, if anyone who is owned by another person can ever be happy.

  And then there's the possibility that I'll be too skinny to serve as a blood-bag or a sex slave, and I'll just be tossed into some dark factory full of hissing steam and rusted metal, forced to work until the machinery chops off some essential body part or I drop dead from exhaustion.

  "Three, two, one, walk!" shouts the auction master from the stage.

  The woman in front of me moves ahead, and I follow, head down, focused on keeping the right amount of distance between us. I refuse to look to my right, where the buyers have congregated in what used to be a church sanctuary. All thirty-eight of us parade across the stage, through the door on its far side, and back around until we're standing in our original spots again. Now that the buyers have gotten a look at the available merchandise, the sales can begin.

  The auction master begins to call names. "Henderson, Mary!"

  The woman at the front of the line sucks in a sharp breath and walks forward to the white X taped to the stained crimson carpet. The pounding of my heart reverberates through my throat, through my ears; I swallow against it and try to breathe more deeply and regularly. I need to calm down.

  Calm down.

  It's what my boyfriend Heath used to tell me back before the Gorging, whenever the stress of my job as a third-grade teacher caught up to me and I started freaking out. Calm down, he'd say. I can't listen to you until you calm down. And I'd clench my fists and grit my teeth until they ached, forcing down the blazing panic that threatened to spew out of me. I felt like telling him, I can't calm down until you listen. But I never said those words. I just learned to shove my emotion deep, deep down, where it soured and curdled in my stomach.

  And then the Gorging happened.

  I remember Heath's partially eaten body sprawled in the hall of our building, his head twitching toward me, jaws snapping—too damaged to be mobile. I ended him myself, partly out of mercy and maybe also because I hated him as much as I loved him.

  "Mars, Finley!"

  The sharp shout snaps me back to the present, to the slave market. To the smell of raw metal and sweaty bodies and despair.

  A long moment—and then I realize the announcer called for me. It's my turn.

  Move, stupid feet. Walk.

  I'm on the platform now, facing a mass of faces, all colors, all kinds. Many wear animal masks or hats pulled down low over their faces. Not everyone wants to be known as a black market buyer, especially not for the slave auction. Slavery is still frowned upon, but when it comes to blood sources and front-line labor, the government tends to look the other way rather than interfering. After all, the military is one of the biggest buyers of slaves—blood-bags for their vampire soldiers. It's a shameful truth that everyone pretends not to realize, because it's too horrible to acknowledge that after this continent once ripped itself apart over slavery, we've allowed it to creep into our society again. Not based on skin color this time—but does that really make it any better?

  The auctioneer looks up from his perusal of my papers. "This product is being sold by the Shardan Collective. She's a privately acquired unit with a clean identity register. O negative blood
type. Certified physical inspection papers, double-assured blood tests. Approved for military use. High-quality blood source, right here." He taps my iron collar with a thick forefinger. "We'll start the bidding at five thousand."

  As the audience members begin to bid, I try not to look at them. If I look, I'll start picking out who I want to buy me and who I really don't want as an owner; and with my luck, I'll be sold to the worst piece of scum in the teeming mass. So I look up instead, at the once-white ceiling of the church, now sickly yellow, splotched with brown water stains. Under the stench of metal and bodies sifts the faint sourness of mildew. I'll bet these ceilings are full of mold, maybe even the really hazardous kind—

  "Sold!" says the auctioneer. I don't know how much I sold for, and I don't care. An attendant seizes my wrist and hustles me off the platform, along a hallway to another room, where the slaves sold before me are standing.

  We're encouraged to use the toilet, to drink some water, to have a snack from a basket of packaged crackers. It's an odd contrast—shackling and collaring us, then offering us free snacks and water as if we were attendees at a conference. I want to laugh at the screwiness of it all, but I'm afraid if I do, the laugh will quickly turn to hysteria. I'd rather not be sobbing and screaming when my new owner comes to pick me up. Not a good first impression, if I want to be well-treated.

  Five other slaves are picked up before me, and then a man in a full-face jackal mask strides in, consults briefly with the attendants, and walks over to me.

  "Get these off her," he says, jangling the chains.

  "Are you sure? They're complimentary," says an attendant.

  "Complimentary chains? Oh, now I really want them." His voice oozes with sarcasm, but the attendant hesitates, unsure.

  "Off. Now." My new owner speaks like a man who is used to being obeyed. Like a military leader, maybe. His stiff posture fits that theory. Still, it's too soon to be sure.

  Once the chains are off, I massage my wrists and touch the raw spots on my collarbones, wincing at the pain.

  My owner sweeps a thin trench coat around me, the camel-colored kind with shoulder flaps and big buttons. He whips a quick knot into the belt to hold the coat in place over my underwear. "Come on."

  I follow him outside, across the parking lot towards a massive vehicle—an army truck studded with spikes, designed for barreling through crowds of zombies.

  So it's the military then. But am I to be a slave to multiple soldiers or just this man? For humans or vampires?

  I could make a break for it right now—sprint across the parking lot and charge into that alley at the far edge. But if I do, I'll be right back where I started—scrounging in garbage bins for food, bartering anything I have just to stay alive and unmolested. And it won't be long before the Shardan Collective finds me again. I'll just be captured and resold to someone else.

  Freedom sounds delightful and noble and all, but in this world, safety and security trumps freedom any day. I'm better off sticking with my new owner until I find out what's in store for me.

  He jerks open the driver's side door of the vehicle and motions for me to climb in. I scramble up, sliding all the way over against the opposite door, as far from him as I can get. He seems civil enough, but I've been burned too many times over the past couple of years. I can't overcome my cautionary instinct.

  The inside of the vehicle smells strongly of cleaning fluid—bleach, mostly. There are blurry pale spots on the seat upholstery and the floor, where some powerful agent was employed, probably to eliminate bloodstains.

  My owner settles into the driver's seat and closes the door. "You didn't try to run."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I figured that wherever you're taking me can't be as bad as what I'm leaving behind."

  He chuckles, pulling off his jackal mask. His dark face is lined and weary, his close-cropped hair sprinkled with gray. His upper lip doesn't bulge like those of most vampires, but he could still be one.

  "You're wondering if I'm a vampire."

  I nod, swallowing.

  He drags up the edge of his top lip. "No fangs. All human." He starts the truck's engine. "But don't breathe a sigh of relief yet. I bought you for a vampire."

  2

  Finley

  Last night I was too jittery to sleep, since I was chained to a cot in a room with thirty-odd strangers awaiting the slave market. So it's no surprise that I fall deeply, darkly asleep on the drive to my new owner's place.

  He wakes me with a rap of knuckles on my temple. "Knock, knock. Time to wake up."

  I rub my eyes and squint ahead. The building we're approaching looks like a military installation—some sort of barracks, maybe, combined with a warehouse and garage space. Five stories of dull yellow brick and narrow windows. In the distance beyond it, across fields of brown grass, rises the Blue City Barricade, a mottled structure of brick, stone, concrete blocks, and sheets of metal.

  "Welcome to Deathcastle," says my driver.

  I stare at him, wide-eyed, and he laughs. "It used to be called Station 15. But that's boring, right? Sounds like a firehouse. I named it Deathcastle, and it caught on. Now the other stations along the wall have badass names, too—like Slaygate and Bastion. It's the apocalypse, right? What's the use of living if you can't be cool?"

  There's a twitch at my mouth, involuntary, and I catch myself. I almost smiled at him.

  "Ah, there's life left in you!" he says. "I thought you'd had your soul sucked out, but it seems your sense of humor is still intact. That's promising. Your vampire could use someone with a sense of humor in his life." His own smile fades, replaced with concern, and his eyes grow distant. Whoever my new owner is, this man is worried about him.

  The truck jolts over a ridge and halts at a checkpoint.

  My driver rolls down the window. "Hey, Kevin."

  "Captain Markham! Go on through, sir."

  My driver sighs, shaking his head. "No, Kevin. Protocol. How many times do I have to tell you? Ask for ID, even if you recognize the person."

  "Oh, right." The young red-haired guard squares his shoulders. "ID please."

  My driver, the captain, holds out an identity card, and the guard nods. "Proceed."

  As we roll forward, the captain sighs again. "Kevin is like the fillet blade in a knife block—the one you never use, but you keep around in case you need it. I keep trying him in different roles—he's just no good at any of them." He glanced over at me. "You, what are you good at?"

  "I—I thought I was going to be a blood source."

  "Yes, but you'll have another job as well. Everyone pulls their weight around here. So what can you do?"

  I'm a teacher. I bite back the words. My degree, my experience—they're useless in this new world, especially here at the front lines, where so few children survive.

  "Go on. You can tell me. What did you do before?"

  "I was a teacher. But I know you don't need one of those," I add rapidly. "I also have construction experience."

  He raises his eyebrows. "Construction?"

  "My parents used to flip houses. I grew up helping out with those renovation jobs. So yeah, I know my way around the insides of walls."

  "We might have a use for you then. This building is old, and we're growing out of the habitable part. We need to start working on the upper floors, making them suitable for use."

  I nod, ambition twitching and reviving in my soul. I thought I was past caring what anyone thought of me. But for some reason I want to prove myself to this man who bought me. He has been kind so far—treated me like an equal, when in reality he's a military captain with years of experience, and I'm just a schoolteacher turned street crawler.

  The massive truck bumps across a split in the pavement and grinds to a halt. When the captain jumps out, I climb down too.

  "All right, Finley—it's Finley, yeah?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm turning you over to Robbins. She'll do your orientation and prep, give you your work as
signment. You just tell her what you told me, 'bout how you're good with walls and construction stuff. And give her these—your papers from the market."

  "Okay."

  "She's through that door." He points. "Should be in her office, third door on the left. Tell her I bought you for Atlan."

  Atlan. My new owner. The name tugs at something in my memory, but I don't have time to ferret it out now. I know I've seen images of the Blue City vampire warriors on TV, but I never paid much attention to their names or faces.

  "Will I see you around, Captain?" I try to sound casual, but there's an undertone of desperation I can't hide. I've learned to cling fiercely to the fragile connections I'm able to form, no matter how slight or fleeting they may seem. In this world, even the most cursory acquaintance could save your life. And I can't seem to walk away from the Captain, not until I know that I'll see him again.

  He smiles. "I'll be around within the hour to take you to your room. But don't worry, Miss Mars—no one's gonna hurt you here. This place is safe. We got rules, and those that don't keep 'em get their asses kicked out."

  I want to believe him, I do. But I've seen it before—leaders who think they have it all under control, think they have everyone in lockstep—while their followers do unspeakable things in the dark.

  When Captain Markham walks away across the lot, I edge toward the door he indicated. Its hinges shriek as I open it, and I make a mental note to fix that if I can get my hands on some tools and WD-40.

  The hallway beyond is cool and dark, faintly stale, but not mildewy like the church where the slave market was held. A swath of pale light washes the concrete floor from the third doorway on the left.

  I inch into the lighted doorway, scanning the room as I've learned to do, taking in all the key points of entry and exit, the possible weapons, light sources, hiding places. There are two foggy windows and a row of fluorescent lights—a big desk, a couple of tables and cabinets, a heavy lamp. There's also a weapons rack on the wall, with a machete, a katana, a couple of big hunting knives, and a bo staff.