The Day the Sun Turned Red - chapter 4

We all freeze. The voice is coming from the entrance. We all turn around.

Standing in the doorway, the man from this morning, the man from the bus stop, the one who talked to me, the one who made me his bitch, the one who owns me, the one who will make me more than I am now and who will take me as his sexual **** for all eternity, my master is here for me!

Everything around me slows down. One of the kids, Emile, I think he's called, runs towards the door. My master grabs him by the neck; he thrust his fist through his rib cage.

My master enters the room; he extends a hand in my direction. I have to go to my Master, I don't have a choice but, even if I had the choice, I would willingly give myself to him.

I start walking in his direction when Mark coming from behind my Master rams a computer screen through his head. Is my Master hurt? I wonder and I'm sad and I want to cry. And...

Cheryl has slapped me. I think I've never been slapped this hard. I look at her. I look at the scene. The monster is starting to stand. We have to get the fuck out of here. I grab Kathy's arms and all six of us rush for the door. We all get through except for one girl, Sarah. She screams, but we know that she's lost.

"Erin, sweet **** of mine, I haven't forgotten about you, I'll have this one on us and then I'll catch up. I promise." He hisses through his fangs as we run off in the hallways.

We rush out of the school. In the schoolyard we stop to catch our breath. I look up. One of the windows of our classroom is open.

Sarah is bending over the edge, half-naked. The monster is pulling her long blonde hair back. Her neck is covered in blood, the red liquid is pouring down the white façade. Judging by her screams of pleasure, Kathy was right; they do **** their victims before bleeding them.

He looks at me smiling. I can sense him trying to take over me again but this time I'm ready.

"Fuck off," I shout.

He seems to be pulled backwards by the **** of my will.

"Let's get the hell out of here," I tell the others.

Cheryl, Mark, Kathy and ... Wait where is the last girl?

She's going back into school.

"I have to get my little brother," she says when I try to stop her.

She enters the school and disappears. I sincerely hope she finds her brother and that they manage to find a safe place. We turn around and run. The streets are empty; we can see silhouettes at the windows in the buildings around us, terrified men and women hoping for the best hiding from the monsters. The Red Sun is over us, threatening.

"Where to now?" I ask, "Kathy, your place is just a few blocks away right?"

An hour later we're at Kathy's place. She lives in a penthouse near central park. Her father is loaded but I guess that doesn't mean anything anymore. Kathy, Mark and Cheryl have managed to talk to their parents, stranded at their respective work. My dad is unreachable. I fear the worst.

On TV, we have a pre recorded message ordering the population to stay at home. We have seen a couple of military choppers flying over the city. At some point we heard an explosion. But nothing more out of the ordinary, nothing more except maybe for the silence and the Red Sun. I'm sitting in a large chair, rocking my body to the tune of a song only I can hear.

The night falls and with it the reddish tint covering all things disappears. The sun out of the sky brings back a feeling of normality to the world.

Around ten, the looping message goes off the air and for thirteen minutes we get only static. Finally an image comes back. It's the vice president. He's in the oval office. There are bullet holes in the walls and part of the window on his left side has been blown away.

"My fellow Americans, first of all I want to extend my most sincere condolences to all of you who have lost a loved one in the course of this tragic day. This day will be marked with sorrow for the rest of our history as we have lost many in our battle against those terrible creatures. We have faced today the most terrible threat our young country has ever faced, I dare to say that we have faced the worst threat any empire in the world has ever faced, but we, as a nation have prevailed."

I can't stop myself from looking at the screen, I'm not really listening to the speech, what has me captivated are the twin bite marks on the side of the man's neck, the terrible paleness of his skin and the exuberant fangs we all get to see when he speaks.

"Tonight, as newly instated president I lift the martial law and order all troops back to their bases. Tonight, I lift the curfew for all the country. And to all of you who haven't yet been granted the privilege I have been bestowed upon today, be assured that we will find you, we will **** you and we will make you one of us."

He laughs as the static comes back. If we were catatonic before, now we are plain comatose. We have lost. The clamor that rises through the city is not human.

The door to the flat opens. Kathy is going out.

"Wait," I say, "we have to stick together, we have to fight, we have to..."

As the words go through my lips. I realize that everything is lost. She doesn't even look back. I know where she's going and part of me wants to join her. Join them.

But then I see Mark and Cheryl. My two friends, the best friends a girl can ever have, two humans, two survivors and I know we have lost a battle but we haven't lost the war.