Eternal Darkness - Book One ✔

Chapter Fifteen

Standing in a place called Walmart with a grinning vampire and a huge banner in front of you that showed a large faded, yellow smiley face could seem kind of comical, but not to me. 

I raised an eyebrow and looked skeptically at Sam who apparently couldn't quite fathom that I didn't find his revelation funny. Did this Walmart place used to be humorous back in the day? I'd never heard of this place before in my life.

I took a step forward, stretching my arms out, using them as a balance as I nearly tripped over something that could only be described as a square metal box with a lid and numbers, and when I bent down to inspect it further, I saw It had two small handles; the top one could be turned both left and right, but the one below could only be turned left until a certain point, then it got stuck. I frowned at it and left it in its place, standing back up I quickly located Sam who had started walking away from me and towards the other end of the store.
I made my way through the maze of mess to where he had decided to stop, standing with his back to me. I stopped behind him and noticed we were in a section with a lot of old and dusty furniture.

"So, what exactly is this Walmart?" I asked, kicking a small round and half deflated ball that I knew was called a soccer ball. It awkwardly rolled a couple of feet away before hitting an overturned table and coming to a standstill.

Sam turned to me. "It was a place where people came to buy everything from food to clothes, to furniture."

"Food?" For the first time since entering this building I looked closely around, trying to spot anything that might resemble something that could be eaten. "Is there still some here?" I asked with a small hope entangled within my voice.

"I doubt there's any left. Shax made sure to clean out all the food storage buildings he could find so humans had no choice but to either leave the city and get by on their own, or work for him in return for food to survive. Most chose the latter, thinking it was a way to live longer." Sam huffed. His voice was bitter and I looked up at him, for the first time since meeting him at the hotel room, seeing a guy who appeared disgusted with what his race was doing to the human population.

"What kind of work did they do for him?" I asked, though a small voice in my head told me I already knew the answer.

"Daytime labor and blood donations," he said with a grim face, emphasizing the word donations as to show it wasn't as much a donation as it was a demand.

"Humans gave blood in exchange for a small ration of food, which would only last them a few days, if they were lucky, and then they'd have to come back to their assigned vampire and let them feed from them to get more." Sam's voice was hushed and I realized with regret that he must have gone through the same thing, feeding from a human so they could get food themselves. He did not seem overly joyous about it at all.

"Food for food." His voice had turned dark and sarcastic. How clever of Shax to know just how to operate to keep people in this city. If you weren't a good gatherer or hunter, you were practically screwed if you were on your own out there, like I had been.
Thankfully, I had had two guys who seemed to know just about anywhere people could have stored food, or else I might not have made it this far in life. We had been so dependent on each other, and now? If I made it through this would I be alone? Or would I stick with Sam and Nox and either leave this city or do whatever they had planned after taking out Shax? I could just picture it in my mind: two vampires and a witch. If that wasn't odd coupling then I didn't know what was. I was bound for quite a trip.

***

"Focus Emily!" Sam's voice boomed behind me as I had yet again failed to hit one of the large pieces of furniture in front of me with my energy bolts. Instead I had aimed too low and left a smoking hole in the floor. I gave a cry of frustration and shook my tingling hands. Why couldn't I aim properly? It really shouldn't be that hard to just point and aim, but I guess it was.