Chapter 58

December Twenty-fifth 8:15 a.m. EST 7:15 a.m. local time

It seemed to Mark that he had only just fallen asleep when he was rudely awakened by a ragged cheer. Yawning and stretching, he sat up and then joined in the celebration himself. Dawn had come. With the thick layer of steel gray clouds, it only amounted to a slight brightening of the horizon, but it was still the most beautiful sunrise that Mark had ever seen.

He gently pushed Valerie and Junior together to share warmth and tucked the edges of a Xerox machine dust cover around them as a makeshift blanket. After making sure that one of the wounded knew to look after them, he joined the parade of refugees to the ground floor. On the way, he stopped by the snack shop and grabbed a five hour energy shot and a Red Bull. He had the feeling he would be needing all the help he could get.

The air outside smelled of wet ash, smoke, blood and death, but even that couldn't quell the small crowd's joy at simply being alive. After a flurry of hugs, handshakes and high fives, they stood for a moment to stare at the sky, reveling in something that they had taken for granted for their entire lives.

Diane walked up to stand beside him, carrying a Red Bull of her own. "G'morning, old man. Sleep well?"

"It was a glorious twenty minutes in dreamland, so I can't complain. How're you doing this fine morning, kiddo?"

"I'm exhausted, sore and I think the tips of my fingers might just fall off from the bow string cuts, but, other than that, I'm just friggin' peachy. What's on today's agenda for our merry band of vampire slayers?"

Mark sighed. "There's so much to do, and I don't have enough caffeine in my system yet to kick start the ol' noggin'." He nodded in the direction of the Prayer Tower, which was barely visible to the north. "The first thing I would like to do is see to the people we left behind. I can't stand the thought of just leaving them lying there. After that, we need to see if we can get some other people rounded up to start taking care of the living."

He sighed again. "We also need to do something about the vamps in - oh, what in the hell was the name of that building? - uh, the BOK Tower or whatever, and find the radio station that poor bastard from last night mentioned."

He turned to look at her and added softly, "If you have friends or family you need to check on, I think everyone will understand."

She shook her head slightly. "I'm not from here. I go to UCLA and couldn't afford the plane ticket home to Ohio for the holidays. So I rode the bus here with my best friend and roommate to spend Christmas and New Year with her family. Nice people. The best. Ferals got them shortly before I met up with all of you. I was in the bathroom when I heard the front door break in. Then all I could hear was my friend and her parents screaming. I ... I cracked the door and looked out ... then I slipped out the bathroom window and ran."

He clasped her shoulder lightly. "I'm sorry to hear that. About your friends, I mean. There was nothing you could have done to save them, but you know that already."

She averted her eyes and reached up to wipe away a tear. "Thanks." Straightening her shoulders, she said in a stronger voice, "Well, the sooner we get started, the better chance we have of finishing before nightfall."

With a nod, he started to walk north. The others fell into step beside him as he passed them. Eighty-First Street remained clogged with cars, some riddled with bullets, others still running where they had been left abandoned when the first of the ferals had come.

In the grim light of day, Oral Roberts University looked more like a war zone than an American college campus. The fires in the athletic building and main chapel had guttered out, but the Learning Center and a large dormitory were still engulfed in flames. The entire campus was littered with the bodies of vampires and the people they had slain. The vamps of both types smouldered in the faint morning light, but didn't erupt in flames as did the 'living' ones in Mark's experience.

They lacked the tools, time and manpower to do a proper burial. After a brief discussion at the base of the tower, they decided to settle for cremation. There were, after all, simply too many bodies in the city for the coroners - assuming that any still lived - to handle, and no one could stand the thought of leaving the fallen for the carrion eaters. Silently, they formed a line up the stairs and began to pass the bodies of friends, spouses, children and strangers down to the ground floor.

They had barely begun when the drone of barely muffled engines came from outside. Excusing himself, Mark stepped out to see a variety of motorcycles, dirtbikes and ATV's coming across the campus grounds from the south. To his great relief, a uniformed policeman was on each. Spotting him, they converged rapidly on his position, staring wild eyed at the carnage.

"You can't imagine how glad I am to see you gentlemen," Mark said when they came to a stop.

Engines were cut off and helmets removed. One of them stepped forward. "Uh, hi. I'm Sergeant Farrell from the Okmulgee police department. The others are from Henryetta, Okemah, Muskogee ... well, a lot of the towns to the south. We're looking for Lieutenant Kimmel."

"You found him."

The man took a deep breath. His eyes flitting over burning buildings and bodies, he started to speak a few times only to choke to a stop. Finally, he settled for a simple, "What happened here?"

Mark gave them the full story, showing them the bodies of the vamps and using a stick to push back crisp, blackened lips to show their fangs. In the face of such proof, natural doubt and disbelief quickly gave way.

"Vampires," Sergeant Farrell said flatly as he rubbed his temple. "Why didn't you tell us this last night?"

"Would you have believed me, or would you have dismissed me as some wacko and sent your people here?"

The sergeant nodded, conceding the point. "What would have happened if we had come here or gone to Oklahoma City last night?"

"I'm not completely certain, but I would guess that they planned to either kill you or turn you into more vampires."

The sergeant swallowed hard and nodded again. "What now?"

"Do you have any way to contact your home towns?"

"Yeah, we brought a decent radio on that ATV over there," Sergeant Farrell replied, pointing toward one of the vehicles.

"Call them. Tell them what they're up against and that the vamps can be killed with sunlight or wooden stakes through the heart. I don't know if the vamps have spread out from the cities, but it would be best to search the towns to be sure. Get civilians to check on their neighbors and report broken doors or windows or even a simple lack of response. If bodies are found, drag them out into the sun. They're rather explosive, so use precautions. You said you got a call from Oklahoma City, too?"

"Yep, just a few minutes after we received the transmissions from you and Tulsa P.D."

"Did anyone respond?"

Sergeant Farrell nodded grimly. "It took a while to relay the message around the city, because each dispatcher had to convince the next that they shouldn't respond to the distress calls. By the time the message got to places like Weatherford and Hobart, to the west of Oklahoma City, officers had already been sent and couldn't be raised on their radios. This morning, we couldn't get hold of Weatherford, but Hobart dispatch told us that their officers never returned or reported in."

"I take it phones and power are down outside the city, too?"

"Yep. Although it's nothing like what we've seen since we entered Tulsa. Our utility poles and such are still standing, but a lot of the mobile phone towers, phone company exchanges and quite a few substations were sabotaged. Meg, our dispatcher, was talking to the manager of the local American Electric Power Company office, and he said that he and the other nearby offices sent out every person they could get a hold of when the first substation went down, but never heard from them again.

"Main roads are a mess, too. From what we've been able to put together from witness statements, single cars went down Interstates 40, 44 and 35 at around two in the morning and just shot up everything they could. We have wrecked cars and trucks everywhere and, down on 35, there's a big tanker rig on fire."

"Has there been any attempt to contact the military?"

"After the exchange on the radio last night, we tried to contact Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City to report a major terrorist attack and get help. There was no response." His voice became so quiet that Mark had to strain to hear the rest. "There are more than twenty-six thousand people on that base.

"This morning, we did get through to the commander of Fort Sill, an Army basic training and artillery school base to the south. He told us that he would like to help, but that a number of soldiers who had gone AWOL from the artillery school during weekend passes over the past month had shown up at the front gate early yesterday evening. They overwhelmed the MP's who were escorting them to a holding facility, and then got a hold of a couple crates of white phosphorus grenades. They set one off in the engine compartments of every big truck and piece of heavy equipment on the base."

"Aren't those just for making smoke?"

"That's what I thought, but apparently they burn really hot. Hot enough to melt away anything nearby made of plastic or rubber, like the wiring, fuel lines and the battery.

"They also put grenades in the armories, cooking off ammunition and artillery shells and making one hell of a mess. They then slashed tires and shot up personal vehicles in the base's parking lots. They didn't directly attack the barracks, but the General said he still lost nearly a fourth of his people.

"Basically, the General told us that he would be happy to provide manpower if it would help, but his men were mostly raw recruits, and we'd have to come get them."

"Did he say how they got rid of the ones doing the damage?"

"He said they didn't, that the attack just ended an hour or so before dawn."

"You might want to have your dispatcher get back in touch with him and pass along the same message that is going out to the towns. Is anyone trying to clear the roads so we can get some of those soldiers here and to Oklahoma City? Raw recruits or not, having men in uniform in the streets will do a lot to reassure people."

"Every wrecker that could be pressed into service is on the job, but it's going to take a long time. Not only are there a lot of disabled vehicles, but many are murder scenes. Pictures have to be taken, reports written up ... well, you know the drill."

Mark shook his head. "There aren't going to be any trials. From here on out, the simple fact that someone is a vampire will be enough to warrant summary execution. It would probably be a good idea to convince your chiefs to dispose of procedure. We need those roads and we need them soon."

While Mark had been talking, the other survivors had finished passing the bodies down from the tower and were now collecting outside to ferry them to the raging fire in the dormitory.

He offered his hand to the sergeant. "I need to get back to work. Good luck."

The other man took his hand gingerly. "Uh, lieutenant? What ... what should we do?"