Blue Bloods

Prologue

The amber glow of dusk was once a beautiful sight to me. But now, the ruined buildings cast shadows over what little is left of civilization. Sunset used to mean tranquility. Now it just means I’ve got a few minutes left to hide before something tries to kill me again.

I think it’s been roughly six months since the end of the world, I may have lost count for a while. About six months ago, the Raven, humanity’s pride and the first space vessel of its kind, returned from its asteroid mining mission. It was a beacon of scientific achievement. Now, its crash site is a chilling monument to humanity’s utter unpreparedness. 

The initial reports had been cryptic. A strange illness. A cough. A fever. Even a few deaths amongst the crew. Nothing that screamed ‘world-ending.’. But the truth, quickly buried under layers of official obfuscation and terrified silence, was far more monstrous. 

Dr. Aris Thorne, the lead astrobiologist on the Raven mission, had discovered alien bacteria among the bodies of the deceased. The symptoms of the infection seemed minor at first, coughing, progressing to a low fever, but quickly evolved into something more mysterious when the blood of the infected turned blue. Soon after this stage, we were told that the victims fell into full cardiac arrest.

Dr. Thorne and the remaining crew, driven by a desperate need to understand the disease before they all died or brought it back to Earth, became obsessed with finding a cure. One by one, they nearly all fell victim to the plague, all except Dr. Thorne.

Thorne’s transmissions became more and more frantic. Everyone thought he had simply gone mad from being alone in space, surrounded by infected bodies. Soon after that, we lost all contact with the Raven.

A few weeks later, the Raven was spotted heading back to Earth. Somehow, the doctor must have figured out how to pilot the ship to return home. The Raven tore across the sky like a meteorite, trailing fire. People stepped out of their houses just to stare. That was the last time I saw anyone look up with awe. A few of the top generals proposed the idea of shooting it out of the sky with missiles before it could make impact on the surface and cause too much damage, but others worried that the doctor could still be alive and that destroying the ship could release the bacteria into our air. Ultimately, they decided to evacuate the predicted crash site and set up a quarantine zone.

Luckily, the Raven crashed in the desert, not far from Phoenix, Arizona. The damage from the crash itself was minimal. A few days later, to the entire world’s surprise, a man claiming to be the doctor showed up in Phoenix in the middle of the night. He was completely uninjured, but naked and covered head to toe in soot.

Of course, no one believed him. There was no way he could’ve survived the crash, let alone snuck his way out of the quarantine zone and into the city from the desert, all while also being nude. Everyone believed it was probably just some random drug addict who saw the crash on the news, but then he proved it.

The doctor got hold of a camera (and thankfully some clothes) and live-streamed a video online explaining various details of the ship that were confidential to anyone not from the team involved. He also explained various topics of astrobiology to prove he had extensive knowledge of the subject, even if the government claimed that the details about the Raven were false. 

No one ever heard from the doctor again, but in the following weeks, all hell broke loose. People in Phoenix and the surrounding areas got sick. The military stepped in, rounding up the infected for quarantine and cutting off travel and communication to and from the state. As the quarantine zone continued to expand, panic spread like wildfire. The news coverage, initially cautious and restrained, became increasingly frantic. The government's assurances were hollow, failing to alleviate the growing sense of dread gripping the population. Videos and images emerged online, showcasing the ruthlessness of the military, as well as several grotesque, mutilated bodies in the streets, some with blue blood and some without.

People rushed to supermarkets, drug stores, really anywhere they could, stocking up on necessities like food and medicine. Fights broke out in the inner cities. Neighbors turned on each other over something as simple as a roll of toilet paper or a can of coffee. The caffeine withdrawals in the first couple of days were no joke.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, the wealthy elite, insulated from the chaos by their wealth and power, held certain hidden knowledge. For centuries, a secret society had been infiltrating all forms of government throughout the world. They knew why the doctor was the only survivor of the crash. They knew why the disease hadn’t affected the doctor in the same way. The doctor just so happened to be biologically different from the rest of the crew. The doctor was a vampire.

I didn’t believe it at first. Vampire? That sounded like conspiracy garbage, until I saw one of them myself weeks later. Most people didn’t believe in vampires before the crash. Of course, everyone had heard of them, but they were just an old myth used to frighten children on Halloween or create a topic for teenage drama shows. Almost no one knew the truth, that the old families, the old money, were rarely just human. They had been plotting with the rich and powerful for centuries to create better living conditions for themselves, things such as blood banks, tinted windows for homes and cars, as well as positions of power. Now, everyone knows that the threat of vampires is real, but this is worse than we ever could have imagined.

From what we understand now, the way that the disease affects vampires is much more mental than physical. Put simply, it drives them mad. It scrambles them. Turns them rabid, like freshly-turned monsters all over again. The effects seem to be only temporary, with deviations in the length of the symptoms depending on how much of the infected blood they’ve consumed. 

Over time, the bacteria evolved. Victims survived longer and with fewer noticeable symptoms, allowing the disease to spread even more effectively. It could also jump to animals, meaning that even if a vampire avoided human blood, they were still at risk.

The vampires got smarter, too, rounding up the humans who weren't infected yet into camps so they could be fed upon like livestock and regularly tested for symptoms. There was no easy way to test for it yet, so even people with other illnesses might’ve been killed off or exiled from the camps.

The plague spread east, eventually reaching my family in southern Michigan. By then, most of modern society had broken down. Travel and communication between countries had become impossible. From what I saw, there were a few small pockets of civilization here and there, but most were wiped out over time by feral vampires or raiders.

Before all this, I was just another office worker. Tried college. Didn’t stick. Took a job I didn’t hate. Dad taught us the basics (fire-starting, gun safety, jiu-jitsu, and more) and said a girl needed more than pepper spray these days. He and my younger brother did karate, but Dad always said jiu-jitsu made more sense for me; leverage over muscle.

I was pretty good, moving up a few ranks and even competing once or twice. I was always fairly physically active with sports in school and jiu-jitsu, so while I wasn't particularly well prepared for what happened, I'd say I had a better start than most. 

Dad was a little bit of an outdoorsman and prepper even before the disease, so we had some minor stockpiles. We quickly became worried that our neighbors might find out what we had and start asking for supplies, or worse, try to steal them.

He didn’t say a word while we loaded the truck. Not when Mom’s favorite coffee mug shattered, he just tightened the straps on the truck bed and said, “North.” We were trying to get away from the major cities. Of course, we could only get so far before we ran out of gas and had to start moving on foot. The three of us stuck together for as long as we could until we got separated running from raiders. The raiders are even worse than the vampires; at least the vampires, you only have to worry about at night. Gangs popped up all over the city, some even working with the vampires to round up survivors in exchange for a promise that they wouldn’t be fed upon themselves. Of course, everyone avoids the dark places where the feral ones may be lurking, waiting for their next meal. 

I had been alone for a couple of weeks, holding up in an empty convenience store, when one of the vampire sympathizer gangs found me. They dragged me around for a few days, gathering other survivors and tossing us into the backs of their cargo trucks as we made our way south. Eventually, we got to a part of what was left of Chicago. 

I tried to get away a couple of times, but they had guns and a decent number of guards keeping an eye on us at all times. Part of me also secretly hoped I might see my family again at the camp. Every night, just before dusk, I watched the gates. Every night, I listened for my brother’s or dad’s voice. And every night, I waited to see if the guards would bring them in… or if the ferals would get there first.

Chapter 1

We call the camp in Chicago the Red District. As far as we know, it's the biggest settlement left in the area. The nearby buildings were repurposed into housing or storage. The vampires had set up an electric fence and had human guards rotating in sniper nests all day and night. The guards also parade about the streets with their assault rifles, bullying anyone who steps out of line, or just as likely out of boredom. A handful of surveillance drones and security cameras are still functional, especially around where the vamps sleep.

The vamps set rules and laws for things like stealing, killing, attempting to leave, or refusing to work, most of which are punishable by execution. In some cases, they even flog criminals or tie them to posts with no food or water. They don’t really seem to care about humans hurting each other, so long as they still have enough blood to go around. They make us work the gardens and kitchens, but there’s still rarely enough food to go around. Not to mention, winter will be coming soon, so any surplus we might have had goes into storage. Of course, only the vamps and some of the highest-ranking guards are allowed to know how much stock we genuinely have at any given time.

Whoever was too old or sick to work without symptoms of the blue-blood disease was either banished from the so-called safe zone or taken to the vamps’ private chambers, never to be seen or heard from again. Occasionally, the young and healthy disappeared too, I suspect either to cleanse the palate of the vamps or perhaps even to be a new personal plaything for some of the raiders who were a little more sick in the head.

I had briefly talked to a few of the other farmers, but casual conversation wasn’t exactly encouraged. Any form of complaint was usually met with a swift strike from a boot or the butt end of a gun. Most people just focused on their work anyway and tried to ignore all the other bad shit.

Today was a special day for the vamps. They were finally ready to introduce the dogs they had been training to sniff out the disease to the guard patrols. From now on, we were to line up every evening at sunset so the dogs could walk by and smell us.

I suppose it was an improvement over being taken to the clinic at any time of day or night to be tested, but not for those infected. Now there was less opportunity to try and hide the symptoms and blend in. 

After some not-so-gentle prodding from a guard with the barrel of his gun, I got in line with the others. After a long day of weeding the farm plots, I wiped the sweat from my brow. There was a line on either side of the street, leaving the middle open. I recognized a few faces in the crowd, but again, they were little more than acquaintances. 

A small group of guards started walking between the lines, led by a big Belgian Malinois on a short leash. They slowly made their way down the street, the dog pausing a few times to sniff some worried-looking people before eventually moving on. They got to me, and the dog stopped. I held my breath as it sniffed up and down my tattered, dirt-stained pants. I silently prayed to whatever God may or may not still exist that the dog would move on, as it felt like time had ground to a halt. 

Finally, the dog moved on. One of the passing guards who was particularly flirty and dickish gave me a smirk. I just glared at him while imagining his head getting blown off.

I found my breath again, but it didn’t last. Further down the line, the dog had started growling at someone. The guards pointed their guns at him and asked him to step forward. I watched in horror as the young man reluctantly stepped out of line and into the street. He turned slightly, just enough for me to catch the tiny scar next to his eye, the one I accidentally gave him when we were kids and pushed him off the couch into the coffee table. My stomach flipped. It was him. The teen who was currently being pinpointed with gun sights was my own brother.