The Dracula Index - Vampire Epoch//01

7 - Mell

Bryne always wanted to be a Scavenger. I had my heart set on being a Trader, working with the inventory the Scavers brought back and supplying goods to the encampment from the Inventory Post. For years we talked about what life after Commencement Day would be like. After being gone for months at a time, Bryne would come back to me and we would engage one another physically. Roz once heard it called "making love". We all heard the story of the Breeder and Bearer who loved one another. They sired Felicity and Masen, whose Commencement Day was ten years ago when he was pinned a Watchman. That couple had to sever their emotional connection after Felicity was born, and were forced to breed with others or face exile. It's a sad reality, if you think about it too much. Breeders and Bearers are chosen every Commencement cycle, based on a few criteria. They must have good looks, strength, and agility, but none of these is as important as intelligence. If you show signs of high intellect, it is almost guaranteed that you will be chosen to carry on the population. Apparently, we can only get smarter as an encampment through breeding.

Bryne and I discovered at age seven, during our fourth year of schooling, that we would very likely be chosen as Breeders and Bearers. It is the best life-job, in some ways. They get the first choice of scavenged items, the best cuts of meat in Mess Hall. They live in the finest bunkhouses, with few roof leaks and comfortable beds. They wear the cleanest linen, as if their bunktrunks held nothing else but fine-whites. They are the highest respected members of the encampment, just under the Elders. But even with the perks, it is not an ideal life. Any girl who finishes school with a yellow pin realizes that she will be forced to mate with every Breeder for as long as it takes. Sometimes even after the pregnancy is finalized, if she is smart enough not to complain. Bearers often move to the life-job of Guardian when they reach the age of never-birth. Guardians are necessary. They watch over the elderly and the young. I knew I wouldn't be pinned to Guardian. Or Bearer. Everything Bryne and I had done since the age of seven was to display that our talents would be best used in the life-jobs we most wanted to be pinned. That wasn't what happened, but I don't really care about me right now. I'm thinking about poor Edie. She's still in Hospital House. I'll get to that next.

At that moment in the classroom, I began to feel guilty. More than likely, I knew that Edie would be taking the position that I was born to be pinned. They wouldn't have chosen me or Bryne for Breeder and Bearer. We made them all think we were unintelligent when Bryne is really the smartest of our class. Maybe the whole encampment.

I smiled back at Bryne and raised my hand.

"Go on, Mell. What's your question?"

"What's it like out there?" I asked. "Some of us will be chosen as Scavengers, so are we allowed to tell each other what we saw out there?"

"First, let me say no...though many have. Silence is one of the key pillars of the law. And you're right, Mell. One of you will be chosen to be a Scaver. Perhaps two of you. It may seem like an easy job because they often get breaks of service to do nothing around camp, but I can assure you that a Scavenger has the most dangerous job. It is highly likely that they will face the infected once they leave the encampment. And, from what I've heard, the environment outside is...unpredictable. The land may seem safe when it isn't. The people you encounter cannot ever be trusted. If they are in the wasteland, they are either an exile, a Waster, a traveling Scavenger, or one of the infected. And we have witnessed the Scavers who return from long stretches of service beyond our walls. It is apparent that they do not sleep. At least, not much. From what I've gathered, the infected prefer the night to the day, which means that it is difficult for Scavers to find time for rest. This also means the daytime is the best opportunity they have to move from one place to another. One of the individuals I attended school with was chosen to be a Scaver. He has since been lost. But he told me in confidence that our people once built large structures that touched the clouds, and traveled along wide, stone-like paths using strange equipment that ran independently. He even saw an object that had wings like a bird, meaning that our ancestors may have even been able to fly."

For the next few minutes, we all imagined ourselves as birds, riding a man-made flying contraption and coasting through the clouds with wind rushing through our hair.

"Why must we fear the birds?"

"What do you mean, Felicity?"

"We must draw the cross on our chest now when the birds pass into the camp."

"I am not sure. Elder Priest knows what we need to fear, and so we trust him and have faith that his orders are the righteous ones."