Finally, Kyle stepped up and reached in. He felt a cold, glass vial, and extracted it.
He held it up, examining it under the light of a street lamp.
Just as he remembered. Microbes of the bubonic plague swarmed in his hand, perfectly intact. He smiled slowly.
Now his war could begin.
*
Kyle wasted no time. Within hours, he was in Penn Station, ready to get to work. As he marched through the station, against the crowd, his temper flared. He walked right into hordes of people, at rush hour, all racing to get home to their pathetic little families and homes and husbands and wives. He felt his hatred well.
If there was anything he hated worse than a human, it was mobs of them, rushing to and fro in every direction as if their lives mattered even a bit, as if their mere 100 years on this earth held any consequence at all. Kyle had outlived and outlasted them all, generation after generation, for thousands of years. Even the more significant humans, like Caesar and Stalin and—his favorite, Hitler—had been practically forgotten within a few hundred years of their lifetime. They were something at the time, but nothing shortly afterwards. Their frenetic movements, their feelings of self-importance, rattled him to the core. He felt like killing every single one of them. And he would.
But not at this moment.
Kyle had important work to do. Truly important work. He was flanked by a small entourage of eight vampire thugs, and they all strutted through the crowd as quickly as possible. Each carried a backpack. And each backpack was packed with 300 vials of the plague. They would split into four teams, and each team, like the four Horsemen, would spread their death to each corner of the station. One team would cover the station itself, one the Path to Grand central, one the A, C, or E subway line, and one the 1 or the 9 train line. Kyle reserved the best location for himself alone: Amtrak. He smiled to think that his portion of the plague would spread farther and wider than any of the others. Just maybe he could take out other cities, too.
Kyle had other vampire minions hard at work, too, in subway stations all over the city, in Grand Central, and in Times Square.
Kyle nodded, and the teams immediately split up. He walked alone towards the Eighth Avenue entrance.
He descended the escalator, walked to the end of the platform, then kept walking, past the point where anyone was looking. He quickly jumped down onto the tracks. As he landed, rats parted ways. They could sense his presence. How ironic, Kyle thought. It was the rats who spread the plague to begin with. Now, they ran from it.
Kyle walked into the blackness, down the tunnel, sticking to the side of the rail. He kept walking, and finally came to the juncture where all the tracks met. He reached into his backpack and took out a vial, and held it up under an emergency light. He could barely contain his excitement. He set down the pack, reached in with both hands, and got to work.
After so many centuries of waiting, it was now only a matter of hours.
EIGHT
Sam couldn’t believe his luck. He was being shown around an awesome house by a gorgeous girl—a senior, no less—who seemed into him. She was hot. And really cool. And she had the entire place to herself.
It was like an angel from God had come down and dropped her into his lap. He still couldn’t believe it. It was just what he needed, and at just the right time. He was afraid that any second all of his luck would turn, and she’d ask him to leave. But she didn’t seem in any rush to ask him to go. In fact, she seemed like she wanted company. And she didn’t even care that he’d been in her barn. In fact, she seemed to have liked finding him there. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never had any luck in his life like this before.
As he walked around, he saw that her house was still basically empty. No food in the fridge, and not even that much furniture. There was just a random chair here and there, and a small couch. That made him feel good, cause he could help her. If she wanted. He could help her fix it up, move stuff, buy food, shovel, whatever she needed. Even if she just let him crash in her barn, that would be cool. And if she wanted him in the house, well, that would be awesome. More importantly, he really liked her. He was lonely. He realized it now. He really liked being around her.
“And this is the living room,” she said, as she walked him into the final room. It was really bare, no pictures on the wall, no rug on the floor—just a small loveseat in the middle.
“Sorry it’s still so empty,” she said. “I just got here. I didn’t want to bring any of my old stuff. I figured I’d just get a new start.”
Sam stood there, nodding. He was dying to ask her a whole bunch of questions. Like: where are you from? How did your parents die? Why did you come here?
But he didn’t want to be too pushy. So he just stood there, nodding, like an idiot.
He also felt kind of nervous. He was really attracted by her, more than he’d been by any girl in his life, and he didn’t really know what to say—and didn’t trust himself to say anything. He had a feeling that if he said anything, it would come out wrong.
“Want to sit?” she asked, as she walked around and sat in the loveseat.
Do I ever.
He tried not to show his excitement. He tried to walk as casually as he could, as he came over and sat beside her. It was a small loveseat, and his leg brushed up against her as he sat. He could smell her perfume, and he felt his blood race. It was getting hard to think clearly.
She tucked one leg under the other, and turned and faced him. She sat there, smiling, staring into his eyes, and he wondered for the millionth time if this was all a dream, if one of his friends was setting him up for a prank.
“So,” she said. “Tell me about you.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Are you from here?”
Sam thought how to answer that one. It wasn’t easy.
“No, not really. But I guess you could say I am, since I’ve lived here more than just about anywhere. We moved around a lot. My family. Well me, my sister, and my mom.”
“What about your dad?” she asked immediately.
Sam shrugged.
“He was never around. They said he moved out when I was young. I don’t really remember.”
“Haven’t you tried to track him down?”
Sam looked into her eyes, and wondered if she was able to read his mind.
“It’s funny you should ask,” he said, “because I actually have been trying. I’ve always wanted to know. But I never found anything. Until last week.”