Fall of the Mortals (Book 1) Read Free

thrown in the mix together with nothing in common.
    “Hey Sadie. You want to play with my dolls after dinner?” asked Kim.
    Sadie smiled but stayed quiet.
    “Sadie, honey. Kim asked you if you want to play. Answer her, sweets,” said Betty.
    Sadie nodded her head. She didn’t answer. She was still frightened. Betty had a special soft spot for Sadie in her heart. She took her in like her own daughter. Sadie reminded her of herself when she was little. Betty came home from school one day to find that both her parents had overdosed on crack cocaine. She remembered being so badly affected by her parents’ tragic death she didn’t speak to anyone for a month either. When she was taken to the child shelter, the counselors were so nice to her. She had always wanted to return the favor to a child in need.
    “Can I get some more damn toast for this soup, woman?” blared Mr. Jones.
    Harold stared at Mr. Jones, trying hard to have patience.
    “Uh, please?” said Harold.
    Mr. Jones looked down and didn’t say anything. Harold hated that Mr. Jones didn’t try to show Betty more respect. It was as if his wife was his personal servant. He had to keep reminding himself Mr. Jones was mentally ill and couldn’t help it. Mr. Jones was a burden, despite his choice of words, his episodes of anger were becoming more frequent. Betty and Harold knew they didn’t have the medication for his erratic mood swings. They feared Mr. Jones would increase in flashbacks and lash out violently, especially at the children.
    Everyone finished their meal, and a look of dread came over everyone’s faces. They drew their attention to the windows. The sun was going down. They knew what that meant. Another reminder that the nightmare they lived in wasn’t over and that the flying army of creatures would be out soon, fanatically searching for blood.
    “Shaun. Yuri. Thai. It’s time,” said Harold.
    “Sure thing,” said Shaun. “Let’s go guys.”
    They got up from the table and hustled to the elevators. Each one of them had a roll of duct tape. Their job was to go to check the wooden blinds soaked in vampire repellant from levels sixty-eight to seventy-two and make sure they were intact and not pulled down by the vampires. This was a security measure to provide as much distance from them as possible.
    They checked level sixty. Thai noticed that one of the blinds lay on the floor. The three of them scurried to fix it.
    “We’re good,” said Thai. “Damn vampires must have knocked it down.”
    “Next floor,” said Shaun. “Let’s hurry.”
    Shaun and the others returned to level seventy-two hoping that everything was secured properly on the lower levels. Shaun turned and locked the set of double doors and then returned to an open area which was once used for cubicles and desks where everyone slept near each other on air mattresses. Everyone had a nervous look on their faces, pale and vacant as they watched the night fall out the windows. Harold held Betty tightly as they sat on the queen sized mattress on the floor. He had a pump shotgun next to him. He knew the buck shots wouldn’t kill any of them but it might buy them some time. Thai and Yuri also had small, loaded handguns with them. Mr. Jones gripped a wooden crucifix that he made. The sculpturing design was creative. The bottom end was sharpened to a fine, penetrable point. He had several of them in a box near where he lay. Tommy and Mercedes snuggled up with Betty and Harold underneath their blankets. They were scared as usual.
    Shaun turned off the lights and sat down with the others. He wrapped himself in a blanket too. The moonlight crept in through the narrow cracks of the blinds which were heavily guarded with the repellant. The sounds of masses of people yelling and howling were heard outside far below the seventy-second floor. Vampires were coming out of their dark places to search for fresh blood. The yelling grew louder from the lower levels until a large group of them