TW: gore, abrasive language.

There were seven of us. That was all that was left. As far as we inew, at least.

We had taken shelter in a brick walled office building. It was probably built back in the 60s or 70s. Not very much in the way of windows. Sucked to work there, but now it meant we could pile junk up in a hallway and cut off an entire entry point. Easy to fortify.

There were a few women, my friend Monty, and a couple dudes. Two of them wore polo shirts, the typical blue collar white males. One was an older man dressed like a hobo, long beard and torn up sport jacket. And me, Wallace. Wally. Most of us were sitting in shock. We had gotten back from a food run. Nobody died and we easily outran the straglers, but the state of the city had put us into a really bad headspace. We were kind of sitting around, not talking, staring. The old hobo was asleep facing the wall.

I wasn't even really shocked when they came. The national guard and the state troopers fell so quickly, none of us had heard from the feds- the world was so twisted after the undead began rising out of the earth and feeding on us all, well. I think I was beyond being shocked.

There was a man outside. Just standing out in the parking lot against the rear entrance. I thought he was a zombie at first. I went to the window, a story above him, and looked down. The sun was setting behind him and he looked up slowly. Then he lifted a hand and beckoned me.

I went down to the door.

The glass was broken out, making it easy to speak. The stranger came to the door. He was oddly motionless, like no part of his body was able to move until he thought about it. It was robotic in a way. His eyes caught the last rays of light, and they reflected like a cat's eyes, but amber. He had no fat in his face or neck, and his clothes were dingy brown.

"May I come in?"

"Hell no. Are you bitten?"

His head moved oddly, turned slightly.

"No. Not in the way you think. I was bitten over seventy years ago."

I wanted to think he was psychotic. The guy was 40 at the oldest. He might have been younger if he was a tweaker. Not 70.

"Listen we haven't got time for your bullshit. We aren't playing and we don't welcome crazies. Get the fuck out of here before you get shot, or some goobers wander through and catch you standing in the open."

The man turned and began to walk away. I stayed to watch him. My heart was thudding for some reason. The man stopped. I felt my blood pressure spike. He turned 90 degrees and walked off.

Just one more bizarre day in the post apocalypse.

My whole body recoiled reflexively as a zombie slammed into the wall near the door. I tasted battery sharpness on my tongue. "Fuckin goober!" But the man was back, his hands on the neck of the zombie. He drug it to the door. It wasn't trying to turn around and bite him, it just kept lostlessly trying to crawl away, like a captured insect.

"I am not a man. I do not enjoy drawn out interactions. I am a kindred. A vampire."

I watched and he put his hand on the back of the zombies head, then closed his fist. Fingers dug through bone like it was a pastry. He scooped out the back of it's head.

I turned, started running up the stairs. He yelled behind me. "Tell your friends I want to come to an arrangement."

I talked to everyone else. We went down ther together, with crosses made out of scrap and weapons. The thing stared at us in that inhuman way, amused by the religion bit. It told us it needed a herd. Feeding stock. Not only that, but there were a dozen others in it's group. They would protect us, feed us - all we had to do was let them in.

It only took a little math to figure out that seven of us wouldn't bleed every night to feed a dozen monsters. Not for long. We told it no. And like psychos everywhere, that is when the switch flips.

I had assumed the vampire couldn't come in without an invite. As I discovered later, there are all sorts of weird religions in their society, and this guy had a proscription against violating someone's hearth. Hunger, though, forced his hand. He bent the metal door in enough to stick his head through and swore to come back with his friends, and fucking kill us all after raping us unconscious.

So that is why we're currently sharpening everything wooden we can find. The old man is still sleeping in the corner, being unhelpful.

There's a bang at the door. We barricaded it more than we ever had. Goobers couldn't get through. I'm not too shocked when I go down the hall towards the door and see the second floor hallway is already crowded. Humanoid figures loiter, their eyes occasionally glinting amber. Staring.

Monty comes out of the toilet, between us. "Oh fu-"

One of the other guys in the group grabs me as Monty disappears behind all the bodies, too fast for me to have made it three steps, much less save him. I see his arms fly, separated from his body.

I'm drug back into the conference room we sleep in, sobbing.

I hear a bang at the conference room door.

"Where's the old man?" One of the women says.

There's another bang, but it's not at the door. It's somewhere further down, like a wall. A scream. That.. sick popping, ripping sound that I've only just been introduced to after Monty.. It goes on for a bit, then it goes quiet.

The anxiety is too much, and I open the door.

The hallway is a gore fest. The carpet isn't visible under all the blood. It smells like shit and copper and something else that makes me ill, like raw chicken. I can't place it. And the parts are everywhere. Everywhere.

The old man is there at the far end of the hall, He's holding one of the vampires up by the arm. I watch him grab the poor bastards' head, and slowly pull it out like it was some giant tick sitting on his shoulders, a little flopping spinal cord hanging from it's stump. Then he lifts it up to his face. He opens his mouth and bites into it, and his teeth go through bone like frosting on a cake.

I see his eyes shine amber, as he looks over at me.