Read Adrift 2: Sundown for Free Online Page A

like Dan, and have buried that particular truth along with all the others.”
    He focused on the horizon.
    They were travelling east at full speed, heading toward the sun that had not yet risen.
    “I wonder what else is a lie,” Herb continued softly. “According to the texts, the vampires were super-predators, and they killed us so relentlessly that we were at the point of extinction. That’s why they chose to stay underground, because the alternative was to feed themselves out of existence right along with us. They sleep in order to give their crops time to grow.”
    “And?”
    Herb flinched, so lost in his thoughts and the dark, rolling waves that for a moment he had forgotten that Jeremy was standing next to him.
    “And there were only three to feed. During the Great Fire, it was just two . It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
    He glanced at Jeremy. The older man’s expression was pitched somewhere between confusion and concern.
    “Wonder what?”
    “Whether they buried themselves out of our reach because they were killing too many of us…or because we were killing too many of them. ”
    For a long time, Jeremy said nothing, and the two men stared out at the dark horizon in silence. Herb thought he knew what the older man was thinking: exactly the same question that burned in his own mind.
    The texts—every scrap of information uncovered by the Order, right across the planet—all agreed on one thing: that the vampires would rise to punish a failed sacrifice. Entire civilizations had supposedly been wiped out as a result of their failure to satisfy the creatures’ demand for blood. What if that, too, was a lie? For all Herb knew, there were no other vampires in England. Maybe the entirety of the English nest had already been killed in the mid-Atlantic.
    “They’re going to come for you, you know.”
    Herb blinked, and switched his gaze to Jeremy.
    “The vampires? Yeah, I’ve heard all the prophesies of doom. Bloodlines that fail them are erased from history— ”
    “Not just the vampires. The rest of the Order. We were supposed to sail north and broadcast a fake distress signal, remember? The Oceanus will be discovered sooner rather than later, and that means that this boat is full of loose threads, Herb. You should know enough about what happens to loose threads in situations like this.”
    Herb shrugged.
    “We’re in the age of information now, Jeremy. It’s time the world knew everything.”
    “And a lot of people will die as a result.”
    “A lot of people have already died, and all because we believed these things were gods. But they’re not immortal. We can fight them, whether Dan Bellamy is a one-off or not. While they have been sleeping, the human race has spent centuries perfecting the art of killing. We have weapons these things can only dream of.”
    Jeremy’s shoulders slumped.
    “Guns and bombs and tanks. I doubt you are the first to consider such a course of action. But what good are those weapons if we have no idea where to point them? What effect can a man holding a gun have, when they can take his mind before he can pull the trigger?”
    Herb returned his gaze to the horizon.
    “I guess we’ll find out, one way or another. Assuming that there are any other vampires out there.”
    “And if you’re wrong about all of this?”
    “Then I’ll be wrong. It won’t be the first time.”
    “And you’re willing to gamble your life?”
    Herb shrugged.
    “I’m meant to be dead already, remember?”
    Jeremy sighed wearily, and began to make his way back toward the wheelhouse. After a few paces, he paused.
    “You know,” he said, “your father always said you were reckless. Never one to think things through.”
    “And now he’s dead,” Herb growled in a low, dangerous tone.
    Jeremy nodded.
    “For my part, I always thought you were both more alike than either of you ever realised.”
    Jeremy left the deck, leaving Herb alone with his racing thoughts.
    He checked his watch.