Z Day +12

  JAMES

  “That’s nuts!” Richard said, having listened to the plan.

  “Wait, we’re going to take over a vampire’s lair?” Mark asked.

  “Don’t sound so dramatic,” I chided Mark. “It’s a small estate, one that Shae has intimate knowledge of. I’ve talked with her and discovered some massive holes in their security we can exploit.”

  Shae nodded. We’d spent the rest of the night coming up with the plan. We’d also explored the possibility of just going to the compound and asking to stay. Shae didn’t feel it was a good option for the collected group’s survival.

  “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but if we do this right, we’ll have an honest-to-God fortress where we can hold out indefinitely!” I said.

  “But what about the vampires themselves?” Becca asked.

  We’d pulled everyone off guard duty for this meeting.

  “That’s the beauty of the plan; it doesn’t call for us to engage them for the most part. The real issue is going to be getting this diversion going,” I said.

  Everyone was gathered around the dining room table, looking down at the makeshift sand table Shae and I had set up.

  “Say this works,” Miria said, “and we take the place. Then what?”

  “Then we start planning long-term,” I said.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Long term?” Richard asked.

  “Yes. With basic necessities taken care of, we can look at what to do next, not just trying to survive day to day. Trying to find lost family and friends, that sort of thing,” I said.

  “I still don’t like it. We’re not soldiers,” Miria said flatly.

  “You know what a soldier is?” I started. “A soldier is a normal person with training and a purpose. Besides, it’s a simple plan that calls for minimal risk. Simple plans are the best because there’s not much that can go wrong. It’s not the movies, nothing’s gonna go wrong anyway.”

  “Argh! I can’t believe you just said that,” Mark said. “James, every time you ever said that in gaming, what happened to your plan?”

  “Uh…” I started.

  “It went wrong; that’s what happened. Mr. Murphy came up and kicked you in the junk, and now you just went and did it again!” Mark said.

  “That was a game, Mark; this is real life. I’ve successfully pulled missions like this off in the past,” I said.

  “You’ve attacked a vampire fortress before?” Mark smirked.

  “Actually, yes,” I nodded.

  The statement stopped everyone.

  “Really?” Mark asked.

  “Yes, the last one was in the sandbox. It’s classified, but so much for that anymore,” I said. “They sent us in to take a guy out who was running operations against us. It was a simple plan, and it worked,” I stated flatly.

  They all seemed to take this in.

  “Now, you all know we can’t stay here indefinitely; we need a more secure place to work from. If we can get this place, we can start trying to find out what’s happening in the world,” I stressed.

  After a bit more discussion, the meeting broke up. The group didn’t like the idea. However, the possibility of reuniting with family somewhere safe appealed to them greatly.

  Shae caught up to me outside.

  “Is that true, what you said about attacking a fortress?” she asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah, it’s true,” I said.

  “What didn’t you tell them?”

  “That we lost 30 men in the process,” I said. “But the bad guy knew we were coming and chose to fight to the death instead of giving up.”

  She looked at me. “It’ll work, it’s a good plan.”

  Nodding, “I just hope we can pull it off without the casualties.” I frowned. I was confident the plan would work; I had to be; otherwise, none of the others would buy into it. But it didn’t stop that little voice in the back of my head from chattering away at me. It was the same voice I heard every time I ran an operation, and it never had anything encouraging to say.

  “We will,” she said, patting me on the shoulder.