Station Hope (Book 1): Humanities Last Stand by Thomas Bach

move. Spencer, go search him, James put your cross hairs on his head, blow it off if he moves.”
    Spencer moved forward, he searched the stranger finding nothing, absolutely nothing on him. I looked over at Ivy, I could see she was as confused as I was over this odd stranger. She shrugged her shoulders and we moved forward, still at high alert. This stranger seemed so odd, so filthy and without a single item in his pockets. This area seemed like it contained a lot of items a person could scavenge, why hadn't he found new clothes or food or anything. He seemed more like an animal then a human. He was timid and scared but not of us. His eyes constantly darted around, ready to run at the first sign of trouble.
    “Who are you? Where did you come from?” I asked.
    He glanced at me for only a second then continued scanning.” I’m David Scott and I come from a settlement that was just outside of Chicago.”
    So many questions were popping up in my brain but I wanted to keep it simple and take it slow. “Why are you here, are others with you?”
    He stopped scanning and looked directly at me, I could see the tears starting to form in his bloodshot eyes. “I'm alone, their all gone now.” Tears began to roll down his cheeks, leaving clean streaks.
    “Who's gone, where did they go?”
    “My family, my friends.” He paused, a distant look filled his eyes, “everyone is gone.” His chin sank into his chest as he began to weep. He was a beat and broken man. At that moment I decided he was no threat to us, we were going to help this poor man.
    “Come on over here and sit on the truck, we have food and water. Eat something and get yourself together, I want to hear more about what happened to you.”
    The stranger made his way to the tail gate and sat down, still crying. Ivy retrieved a bag of food and a container of water from the cab of the truck and handed it to him. He engulfed the sandwich, it was obvious he hadn't eaten in some time. A few sips of water and he regained some composer. We all gathered around him, we were too curious about his story to worry about the stuff in the store right now.
    “So what's your story David?” Ivy's soft voice asked.
    David looked at us, but not really seeing any of us, as he contemplated where to begin.
    “ They attacked us almost a month ago now, so many, so fast, they overwhelmed us.”
    James interrupted him and asked, “How many of you were there and how many of them?”
    “We had a settlement just outside Chicago, we were doing well for ourselves. The attacks had slowed down and we all thought the end of those vampire creatures was near. We had food, water, security, at least we thought. We were building new roads, schools, houses. We were reclaiming some of the city, some of the past.” His voice began to quiver and the tears returned. “Then they started attacking our outer defense wall. Only a small group at first. I thought it might be one last desperate attack but then they just kept coming. The attack started at dusk, we held them off until almost midnight. That's when our defensive wall fell and they swept through the settlement killing everyone they found. We had an escape plan but once they breached the wall they moved so fast, they were worked up into a feeding frenzy, they killed so many.”
    “How many of them were there, and how many of you?” I asked. I had to know, I had to know what we might be in for.
    A short pause and David continued. “There were over 3,000 of us. Just over 200 got out.”
    Ivy gasped and covered her mouth. James and Spencer were as shocked as I was.
    “And how many of them attacked you?” I continued.
    “It's hard to tell, at first it was just the slugs.”
    “Slugs, what's that?” I asked.
    “Slugs are the worker vampires, they are the ones in rags and stink. You know, the low life vampires, we call them the slugs.”
    “Until a few days ago that's the only kind we knew of. In their last attack we killed a few that were in