They open up the laptop for the President and leave him in the room, as requested. He has tried to neaten up his suit as well as he can but the facilities in the bunker are rudimentary and the hundred years of disuse has cultivated a tenacious breed of grime in the bunker’s murky innards.
He waits, staring at the unmoving screen for what feels like hours, when it has only been moments. His skin prickles with beads of sweat. His agitated nerves jog his leg on the spot. He looks at the platinum watch on his wrist. Perhaps she won’t answer the call.
At exactly midnight, the call is joined by one other. Vampires are exceedingly punctual, he should have learned that by now. Her face appears in the window at the centre of the screen, her pale features luminous against the black background.
She neither moves nor speaks.
‘Greetings, your, uh, Excellency,’ he begins. ‘I, the President of the United States of America, here by welcome you to this most, uh, unique meeting in our history. I hope we can both leave this call tonight with a resolution to this conflict that will be beneficial for both our species.’
The filaments in the bunker’s lights rattle and flicker, as the explosions above ground continue, miles above the President’s head. He continues, quite used to the sound by now. ‘I wanted to begin by saying that our people are not so unalike, and there is actually much to be gained by- hello?’ He stares at the unmoving vampire. ‘Your Excellency? Are you there?’
This far down, the connection is patchy at the best of times. And these are not the best of times. ‘Can you here me?’
He thinks about going to find one of the technicians, when the cold voice of the vampire crackles down the line. ‘I can hear you, human.’
‘Oh good,’ he adjusts himself, wishing that the connection had died, so he could get out of talking to this monster for another day. ‘As I was saying, I believe that there is much to be learned from one another, and much to be gained without resorting to the senseless bloodshed that has plagued our planet these last years. Both sides have incurred terrible losses and I think you will agree that it is high time that this war comes to an end.’
He awaits a response. ‘Don’t… don’t you agree?’
The vampire says nothing for a long time and then, simply, says ‘No.’
‘N- no?’ the President stammers.
The vampire speaks without any hint of victory in her tone, ‘You humans are beaten. Your armies are scattered. Peons slaughtered. Cities razed. You flee into the wet caverns of the earth to await your deaths. This is not a war, human. This is your extinction. You have only to decide how you will meet it.’
‘I- I hardly see how this is conducive to… I mean to say,’ the President stumbles over his thoughts. What does he mean to say? ‘We are- I am saying that we can surrender, yes? We can discuss how we might surrender. You want that, right?’
The vampire says nothing.
‘Well, of course we will have to draw up terms. You and your people need to, uh, feed? Right? So maybe we can discuss how we can arrange that. Who you might, uh, feed upon and who you might leave alone.’ They have menials down here, don’t they? The caterers and cleaners can go first, then the scientists and engineers. Whoever. Doesn’t matter. So long as it isn’t him.
‘You all belong to us, human,’ says the vampire. ‘Do not presume to tell us who we can, and who we cannot, feed upon.’
His mind races. ‘Oh, no, your Excellency, I would never presume anything. I mean to say that, well, of course your… stock, of humans must be uh, managed. You will need leaders, yes? To control them? People you can rely on? I mean, simply speaking from experience, it might be best to spare the humans who are already trusted to lead. Yes?’
The vampire is still and silent for a long time.
‘Can you-’ starts the President.
‘Yes, I can still hear you, human.’ The vampire twists her face in a leer that might be an attempt at a smile. ‘Tell me, before we scorched your world and fed upon your beasts, you kept cattle, did you not?’
The President nods, ‘Yes, your excellency.’
‘And tell me, human, did you ever feel the need to make one of the cattle a king?’
The President gulps. He opens his mouth to reply but the vampire cuts in.
‘You don’t debate with your food, human, and neither do we.’
The line goes dead. The President sits, staring at the black screen. A cold sensation runs through his veins. Terror.
The Vice President pokes her head through the door. ‘How’d the call go?’
Paddy Dobson
10th August 2022