“Be ready to take us back to Vortex #6,” Aahz whispered to Tanda.
“Oh, I’ve been ready for days,” she said.
The last person moved past us, leaving the town empty and every door standing wide open. I had no idea what we should do. I took the canister out of my pouch and downed the last of the second glass of carrot juice, just to be ready for whatever was coming.
Aahz motioned that we should follow them, so, moving slowly about thirty steps behind the last person, we followed the line of people out into the countryside, along the very same road we had planned on traveling.
The farther out we got, the more I expected to see the cows waiting for us, watching the zombie townspeople now. But there were no cows to be seen.
But there were a lot of naked people, yawning and stretching scattered around the fields, as if they were just waking up from a long nap.
The townspeople kept doing the zombie march as the naked people in the fields moved toward them. The first naked guy to reach the line near us grabbed an old man in a nightshirt, tipped back the old guy’s head, and bit into his neck.
“Vampires,” Tanda whispered.
Behind us the full moon was easing up over the edge of the hill, shining light on the feast as more and more vampires picked a meal and bit in. So this was what the round-up was all about? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The cows were vampires, and their feeding stock was the people. No wonder all the people in all the towns all ate vegetables and were afraid of the night. The people who lived in the towns were nothing more than cattle, being fattened for slaughter every month.