Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout (Book 3) by Derek Gunn

killing prisoners en
masse Harris seemed to grow more frantic and bold, trying to save
as many as he could. While she could understand that he wanted to
save others, and while it was commendable, he also had a duty
toward those he had already saved. Time was running out and Harris
seemed to be growing more desperate. Their last ambush was a
perfect example.
    While she agreed that it was
essential that they stop the patrol from reporting back, it might
have been better to have taken more time to plan and hit the patrol
on their way back rather than executing a poorly planned and
hurried ambush. While they had not lost anyone this time, they had
been too close to being overrun and either killed or captured for
her liking. The thralls were no longer the pushovers they had been.
Something had changed, and they would have to adapt or die.
    Her mind swirled with these
troubled thoughts as she drew nearer the house. Her stomach
squirmed as she noted the dark stains still covering the walls
where blood had splattered during that mad, violent attack. At
first she had thought that the stains were still growing, seeping
further through the shattered walls like a cancer spreading
ineluctably inch by inch, corrupting everything it touched, but she
shook the feeling away. Vampires might be real, but a ruined,
haunted house was just too much. Her legs almost buckled as the
small group approached their new home. She really wasn’t ready to
face the desiccated corpses of her friends.
    She felt guilty that she had
forgotten them once they had found their new home. They should have
come back here and given them the respect they had earned through
their sacrifice. Suddenly she felt unworthy. She was about to turn
back when Harris moved to the side and motioned for her to enter.
The rest of the group looked at her expectantly and she looked at
the door with more than a little trepidation. For a moment the
doorway seemed to become pitch black, as if there was nothing past
the threshold except a dark, cold void. She began to turn back,
already forming an excuse in her mind, when the sun suddenly popped
out from behind a cloud and the door transformed back into merely a
door.
    She could see the interior now
and, while it was still mostly cast in shadow, it appeared
perfectly normal. She saw a number of dark patches on the floor
where the waning sun could not reach and she imagined the terrible
toll that the passage of time would have wrought on the bodies.
Flashes of desiccated faces, pulled into horrible masks of terror
by their violent deaths swam through her mind. She imagined their
accusing stares, forever frozen in death, for leaving them to rot,
forgotten and abandoned despite their grand sacrifice so that
others could survive. Was it even safe to enter this building?
Wouldn’t disease be rampant?
    She shuddered as she imagined
what horrors the rats would have inflicted on the rotting corpses
but she forced her feet over the threshold despite her fear. These
people deserved to be buried with honour and she resolved to do
that much, at least. No matter how belatedly. She was still not
certain she could actually live here again but she would make that
decision after she had paid her respects to the dead. Having made
the decision, and feeling a little better about herself, she
entered the room.
    Her eyes slowly grew accustomed
to the gloom and she saw the closest mound on the floor in more
detail. Where she expected to see an arm or a leg she noted that
the mound was merely a rumpled piece of carpet. Another mound to
her left was far too angular to be a body and she finally made out
the sharp corners of a broken desk. The damage in the room was
shocking but something was missing…something…and then she had it.
Emotion flooded through her and she was almost overcome with the
strength of her feelings towards Harris.
    Even with all that had been
happening over the last few months - with the constant patrols and
internal squabbling, he had