Somehow through my fear, I felt the warmth of a firsty's body heat as someone came to stand at my side. A calming sensation trickled over me instantly.
It was my grandmother.
"Young man," her soft voice said steadily, as though calling him out of a trance.
The superior snapped his attention in her direction, above and beside me. He was taken aback by being addressed either as 'young' or 'man' or both. My grandmother and her old habits. Thank goodness for them! She was silent while he studied her, giving him time to come to his senses. His fangs retracted, and he rose from the floor slowly - even slow by firsty terms. He seemed to recognize something in her. Perhaps he was a new superior and Gramma was technically his elder. He shook away those morbid thoughts again.
"Forgive me, ma'am," he said kindly.
If I had been shocked before, I was in complete awe now. I knew the superiors had a strange respect for my grandma, but I had no idea even a new superior would follow their suit without a nudge.
"It's quite alright, young man." She patted his shoulder, like a gentle old lady as herself would. "I will be sure to remind Harper to dress appropriately next time."
She was making this out to be exactly what it was: my fault. It was wise on her part. Had she tried to defend me blindly, claiming it was just his vicious tendencies making themselves known, someone may be offended. Never offend a superior. It may be the last thing you ever do. She knew how to play her cards, my grandma. I rushed to clean the mess on the floor.
"Be careful." My mother warned me before kissing my cheek and promising to see me at diner.
I accepted another kiss on the cheek from my father, who showed my grandmother the same affection as if to say, "Thank you." Then my brother and I got on either side of my little grandma again. For a small woman she had a large impact on those around her. I realized.
"Sorry," I mumbled to the new guard.
I kept my head bowed down low as we passed, trying not to make any eye contact and risk riling him up again. Skip didn't say a word until we got back to the safety of our living quarters and we'd settled grandma back into her rickety old rocking chair.
"Stupid superior douche." He complained.
I didn't know where he'd heard such language. I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open. At least he was smart enough to hold it in until we were alone.
"Nonsense. He was only being what he was, and we must never forget what they are. No harm was done," Gramma told him and then to me, "Though you're lucky I was there, dear. Do be more careful."
"I will Gran," I promised.
"Good. I want you to live to be as old as I am." She smiled in a way only she could, warming my heart.
---------
Gramma told me our family is from the south- at least, she lived in the south when she was free. I suppose it used to be called Mississippi, now it's mostly abandoned except for the hybrids. We'd seen some of it on the programs that came on, but Gramma never watched them long. She was like me: it was sickening to her. She spared some time to tell us that is where she was born and raised, it's where her grandparents and her parents were buried in the ground, and it was where she once thought she would be buried. Here, they burned everyone, so they didn't turn into deaders after they died.
I'd wondered once if my great grandparents or my great-great grandparents had turned into deaders and clawed out of their graves, but I learned that couldn't happen. When the epidemic hit, it only effected the freshest corpses. They had been long dead - too long dead, my father had assured me. My grandfather had to be burned with the other firsties that died at the compound, so he hadn't turned deader either, to my relief. I don't think I could handle it, if one of my loved ones or ancestors was a deader.
The dead, almost-white eyes of the deaders haunted me. They were worst of all to see on the programs. When they wondered upon the compound, they weren't very easy to see. The horrible stench of rot was enough to make you shut the windows and back away. Yet, on the programs, they were displayed in three dimension, Gramma calls them holograms. She says televisions used to be flat, if anyone can believe that.
Deaders weren't pretty like the superiors, or even firsty-looking like hybrids (until they changed). All deaders looked scary. Some may be missing teeth, eyes, limbs, digits, or any combination of those. They were at various states of decay. The only good thing about a deader is: when the brain rots completely, the deader dies. That is why the older corpses didn't rise with the plague.
A fresh deader was the most horrific. They still had thick blood, and even saliva dripping from their blood-stained teeth sometimes. Their eyes weren't completely white yet, but they were blank. Deaders were blind as bats, but they could smell like hounds. Even better, I would wager. They depended on scent and sound. They never got tired; never slept. Even superiors had to sleep during the day. Hybrids had to sleep as much as firsties. Deaders just kept going and going, until they were killed, or until they finished rotting away.
I used to have nightmares about the deaders. In my dreams they would join together and find a way into the compound, overthrow the superior guards with their great numbers, and come for us firsties. We had no weapons there, unless I counted peeling knives and grandma's knitting needles. We didn't even have guns, hammers, or crowbars, like I'd heard of in some of my books. We didn't need anything for protection, because the superiors were our protection. All we had to do was be good, hang around, and get bled every so often. If the deaders got in, if they managed to kill the guards, if they broke through our thick metal doors, then too bad for us, I guess. I could only stab so many deaders in the eye with grandma's knitting needles before they'd start to overcome me.
However, we'd been lucky to not get many hordes of deaders our way. Since they went primarily on scent, they might have been attracted from time to time because there were so many humans living in the compound, but there were also superiors inside. No deader ever gave a hoot about eating a superior. They'd fight them if they crossed their path, because they posed an obstacle (they had one track minds, not very good problem solvers), but they would never feast on a superior. They craved our tender firsty flesh even more ravenously than the superiors craved our blood.
I craved freedom, but it was only a dream. I spent most of my time reading books that were written in the old days with firsties, humans with strange jobs like working in places called restaurants or super markets - places where my grandma told me they used to actually buy firsty food with stuff called money. Jobs like taxi drivers that used to take the money to drive firsties from one place to another instead of just walking. Back then, before the epidemic, firsties used to live good simple lives. They didn't have to be bleeders or breeders. Of course the random superior was still around, and if one was unlucky enough, they'd be drained by one, but the chances were rare then.
It was the epidemic that caused the superiors to multiply. When dead firsties started getting up, walking around, and killing other firsties, superiors felt it in their interest to raise their numbers. It boiled down to survival. A large group of deaders could kill a superior, but two superiors - or even three - could wipe out a whole mess of deaders before a firsty could blink a lash.
Superiors began to make comrades to live in safer groups. In turn, they drank their fill of more firsties. The dead firsties would wake up as deaders that killed more firsties. Pretty soon, firsties were becoming fewer and fewer, until the superiors designed a plan and built the compounds.
Many firsties, like my grandmother, welcomed the protection. You couldn't do much better in these times than to have protection from vagabond superiors and from the deaders in exchange for a bit of blood. Other firsties were hunted, captured, and imprisoned. Those firsties were put in special compounds with higher security, because they were considered escape risks. I can't imagine where they thought they would escape to. There was no escape. If the world had been like it used to be in my books, or in grandma's memory, I might have considered it, but nothing was like that anymore. As much as I hated to admit it, it wasn't safe out there. A firsty had less than a ten percent chance of survival outside the compounds.
If only the superiors could kill all of the deaders for good...but no. It wasn't possible. Any time a firsty died there was a new deader, and one deader could make ten in almost no time flat. Then each of those ten deaders could make ten more deaders...it goes on and on.
Still, I hated the superiors. Behind every set of superior eyes lurked evil. They hated us, too. They would kill us all if they didn't fear running out of fresh blood. Each time a firsty passed one, it was still a risk. They were vicious, ruthless creatures, but their long term survival held them at bay. I cringed to think of how they would be if firsties were plentiful; if the deaders weren't competing for us.
•••
The dinner buzzer sounded at four in the morning, as always. Since superiors were active at night, firsties had to be active at night. They didn't trust us to wonder around the compounds during the day when they were at rest.
Did they die during the day, or did they just hull up somewhere, hiding from the sun? I didn't know, but I did know we would never see a superior if the sun was awake.
"Are you going down, Gramma?" I asked my grandma. I admit, I was still shaken by what happened earlier that day.
"I'm not feeling up to it, I'm afraid," she answered to my dismay. "But go, dear. He will not hurt you. He will remember to mind his manners," she promised, and for some reason, I believed her.
It didn't suppress my nervousness, though, as I slipped a jacket over my bare arms, and zipped it up all the way so that my neck wasn't fully open.
Once I was sure I was completely uninviting, I timidly followed my brother out of our living quarters. I felt like a rat in a snake tank, but I knew if I skipped diner, I would be hungry until breakfast, and have to face him in the morning anyway. Our cabinets were near to empty, and with grandma not being able to travel among the compound in her fragile old age - and us not being able to bring food from the dining hall to her - she depended on our living quarter's food supply. It was Friday, and food wasn't delivered until Sundays, so I suffered the dining hall and another probable meeting with the new guard for the sake of Gramma.
As I anticipated, he was there, standing just inside the doorway of the large room- the better to watch over the firsties. His shaggy, messy mane framed his too pretty face. His strong, square jaw-line might have looked handsome, but I could only think about the strength it would aid him should he use it to clamp his teeth on my throat. He just stood, glaring around the room lazily with his ice-blue eyes. They always stood so proudly, not easily, like us. Superiors were completely vertical, whereas a firsty may slouch slightly after standing as long as the guards had to. Their energy never waned the way that ours did, at least not throughout the night.
Mister Lazy Stare's attention locked on me as soon as I came into view, his entire demeanor seeming to perk.
You don't know fear until a superior gives you too much notice. It was almost heart-stopping, but I held my head high, trying to imitate the way they walked, with pride and confidence. Turning tail and running was what my instinct was telling me, but at the same time, it was the worst thing I could do. Its not a good idea to show a superior too much fear. They expect you to be afraid. They fed on the fear as much as they needed our blood. Too much was liable to send him into a frenzy. If he came after me, no-one could stop him; I doubted even the other superiors could catch him before he ripped my neck open, then there would be no saving me...unless they changed me. I winced at the thought before I caught myself. He was still staring. I hope he didn't read too much into my expression.
I took a seat on the solid metal chair across from my brother, beside my mother, at a likewise metal table, and tried to ignore the superior. Could they smell fear, the way lions could? I had read books about felines. They were often times more likeness to felines than firsties. The way they seemed to stalk instead of walk, their gracefulness, their viciousness, the look in their eyes...could I assume other mannerisms based on the similarities? Would my confident front be useless, since inside I was terrified? I wasn't sure it was something I could hide with just a proud chin. He could decide to pounce any time.
It was going to be a grueling meal.