The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution (18 page)

A flashlight clicked on, illuminating Joyce beside the bed, looking at the empty floor where Malcolm had fallen, her Taser poised to shock.

"He must be under the bed!" shouted Jeff. "Back up!" The flashlight he held blinded Bertrand for a moment. "Shit, he's bleeding."

Joyce rushed onto the bed and pressed her hand against Bertrand's neck. "Grab St. Mike. I don't want him licking her blood."

But the dog held back from Destiny, a low growl coming from its throat.

The flashlight moved over near the dog, proving Jeff had complied.

Silence after the chaos, except for a slurping and sucking sound.

Jeff's flashlight illuminated Destiny's naked body, clasped in Malcolm's arms, the bloody knife in his hands and his lips locked to her neck—drinking her blood.

"Stop that!" shouted Jeff, aiming a handgun.

Malcolm looked up, blood coating his face and chest, his eyes bright in the light of the flashlight, his expression euphoric—totally high. "You shot her. I'm just making sure she doesn't go to waste."

He returned to his feeding, leaving Bertrand and Jeff and Joyce looking at one another in helpless horror. Finally Joyce leaned over the edge of the bed and zapped him with the Taser, again making him convulse and fall off Destiny's body.

"He said stop that, you perverted scum."

Joyce kept pressure on Bertrand's wound while Jeff prompted Malcolm, with the aid of a huge revolver, to unlock the handcuffs. Jeff restrained Malcolm on the bed while Joyce helped Bertrand down to the kitchen.

"Can you hold your neck?" Joyce asked after they had reached the kitchen.

Bertrand pressed his hand to the cut, and that touch informed him that—despite the pain—it wasn't deep. His heart rate slowed. "It's okay, I think. There are candles and matches on top of the fridge. The first-aid kit is in the top right cupboard."

Joyce turned on the kitchen tap and let it run while she lit a fat candle and set it in the middle of the table. In short order she'd bandaged Bertrand's cut, got them beers from the fridge and put out a bowl of water for St. Mike. Jeff came to join them, taking a seat opposite them in the booth.

"She's way dead." He twisted open his beer. "And it wasn't my shot that killed her. I hit her low down and to the left, about here." Jeff pressed into his torso on the left just above his belt. "I mean, if untreated that would've killed her 'cause I'm sure she lost some muscle and intestine, but Malcolm opened her neck right at the jugular and she bled out in less than a minute." He took a long drink.

Bertrand wrapped both hands around his bottle and squeezed to hide the trembling. That had been so close. He had given himself up for dead and was having trouble controlling the thrill of being alive. The beer tasted so good! "How did you guys know they were coming after me?"

"Loose lips," said Jeff. "Malcolm had just come in when Destiny called his line. I took the call, because I didn't know he was just climbing the stairs after a power failure, but something about her voice made me suspicious. She sounded guilty—excited, I don't know. Just not her. I hung around and listened to Malcolm's end of the conversation, and it wasn't hard to tell he had murder in mind, and I sure as hell wasn't going to call the cops after today."

He paused for a sip of his beer. "But Malcolm messed up. He wrote down an address on a company pad, and after he left I did that rub-a-pencil-over-the-next-sheet-of-paper thing." He mimicked turning a pencil close to horizontal and rubbing it over paper. "It didn't work as well as I had hoped, but I saw your street name."

"He left a message on my landline when the power failed," said Joyce. "I just couldn't get here any faster because I was out buying groceries, what I could find anyway. I hurried this way as soon as I got the message."

"I saw her running up the street with St. Mike on my way here," said Jeff. "So I picked her up and I drove as fast as I could. Your buddies had left the front door wide open in their rush to kill you."

"Why was that crazy bitch naked?" Joyce's tone was an accusation.

"Honey trap." Bertrand's ears burned with the memory of the sex he had hoped to have with Destiny in the bunker. His thoughts didn't make him guilty, did they? It wasn't like he and Joyce had made any kind of connection, and their only date had been to Goth Knights.

"And you fell for it?" Joyce's tone was angry now.

"I did not! You see me with any clothes off? Fuck, I still had my backpack on. No." He took a sip of his beer, the embarrassment replaced with defensive anger. "She came around with this sob story about Malcolm being a sex perv and said she wanted to spend the night with me 'cause she was afraid. I said fine, but not here because the cops are looking for me over the hacking."

"Yeah," Jeff said. "What about that?"

"Let him finish."

Bertrand nodded to Joyce and carried on. "She said she had to get some stuff and promised to get back before dark, but it was full night, way after sunset. At the time, I just thought she was clueless, but I guess she was stalling for Malcolm."

"She was naked," prompted Joyce.

"When she got here she just ran up to use the washroom—another delay tactic—and then she capped that off with the ultimate delay. I go up to find out what's taking so goddamn long and there she is, stretched out on my parents' bed."

"Creepy," said Jeff.

"Totally killed the mood for me. Not that I was in the mood." Bertrand glanced over to see how Joyce was taking the tale. "I wanted to get out pronto and told her to get dressed or I'd leave her here. That's when Malcolm hit me. He said they were sent by the boss to kill me, that I was fodder."

"We should get out of here." Joyce started to push against Bertrand to get him to slide out of the booth, but Jeff held up his beer.

"Wait, wait, kids. If this is the same boss as Goth Knights, we've got a bit of time. He's assuming that Malcolm's chowing down right now. Besides, we've got us a prisoner upstairs, and I think it's time to ask him a few choice questions. But Bert, your hack. What got them all stirred up like that bee hive my cousin once poked with a stick?"

Bertrand told them about the crime stats.

"Holy crap," said Jeff. "Well maybe that explains why the grocery stores are running out of food—no one left to stock the shelves or drive the trucks."

"Or buy the food. No wonder I haven't been fighting lineups." Joyce shoved against Bertrand with more determination this time. "We've got to talk to this guy. I've gotta know what these creeps are, whether they're really vampires."

Bertrand held up one finger to beg her patience. "Wait, wait. Here's what I know. They drink blood all right, but they're not like movie vampires. They aren't afraid of crosses and religion and stuff. They don't turn into bats and shit, and you sure as hell don't need a wooden stake to kill them."

He told them about the teens at St. Mike's.

"Dude, you're right in the thick of all this, aren't you?" Jeff stood now.

"We all are." Bertrand stood and Joyce grabbed the candle and led the way upstairs. St. Mike stood to go with them, his nails clacking on the kitchen tile floor, but Joyce put the lead on him and looped it on the rail at the bottom of the stairs. The dog whined once, then sat in resignation.

"Well, well." Malcolm still looked buzzed. "The murderers return to the scene of the crime."

"You killed her." Jeff stood at the end of the bed, arms crossed in judgment. "Not me. I could've taken her to a hospital and they could've saved her, even with a gut shot like that. You cut her throat."

"You wouldn't want to take her to a hospital at night." Malcolm twisted briefly against the handcuffs. "They'd take her in all right, but later they'd tell you she'd died on the operating table. We own the hospitals too."

"Who the hell is we?" Bertrand kept is eyes on Malcolm's face, refusing to let them wander over to Destiny's naked and twisted figure, still crumpled in the corner near the window.

"I don't feel like talking."

"What happens when the sun rises?"

Silence.

"Okay." Bertrand looked first at Joyce and then at Jeff. "We can go now. I know a good place to spend the rest of the—"

"No! Wait! You can't leave me here. I have to be in the basement before dawn, in a room with no windows or the windows painted black."

"Why?" asked Bertrand. "We'll move you to the basement before dawn if you spill your guts. Why can't you go out in the sunlight?"

"'Cause the bugs'll die. There's a wavelength in full spectrum light that kills them."

Bertrand had so many questions he didn't know where to start. While he was still deciding, Joyce took over the inquisition. "What are bugs?" she asked.

"You guys really don't know?" Malcolm looked to each of them in turn. "Wow, you all seemed so with it that I thought you'd already found out."

"The bugs, buddy," said Joyce. "What are they?"

"They're what make us brids—you know—hybrids. Symbiots. Fuck, you guys don't know anything. That's what this is all about. I got them from that Goth chick I told you about. Do you remember I talked about her, how she tied me down to a bed, pretty much like you've got me now only with no clothes."

"Spare us your sex life," said Joyce. "What about the bugs."

"Oh, biology was never my strongest subject, but they're single-cell sized organisms and they're just so great. They heal whatever ails you, can even stitch together cuts and stuff."

Bertrand struggled to understand. "So they're like an infection?"

"Yes and no. I mean an infection kills you doesn't it? Or makes you sick like with the flu or something? But these things make you better."

"How did you get these bugs?" asked Joyce.

"Like I said, the Goth chick gave them to me. She cut her own wrist—not deep you understand—and put it to my mouth. I drank it because I just thought it was some totally weird Goth foreplay. I was naked after all. But then she gets up and says, 'have a nice ride' and leaves. Can you believe that? She left me alone and tied up, and that's definitely against the rules. She even ignored my safe word."

"How totally tragic." Jeff's sarcasm was lost on Malcolm, who still rambled like a man on coke, unable to stop his tongue and totally engrossed in himself.

"Yes, I thought it was until the change hit me. The bugs take over your stomach first, and to keep you from panicking or doing anything crazy, they secrete some drug that is just so much better than anything I've ever taken. It's just totally, sparklingly
yum
!"

"So she didn't drink your blood?" asked Joyce.

"No, no, no. They need the Night Brigade and she had a quota to keep. Everyone is supposed to evolve at least one person a night. I was hers for that night. I mean it took a full day for the change to finish, and I got really sick for a while because I was hungry and I tried to eat, but the bugs throw it back up. They want hemoglobin or whatever it is in the blood. You have to drink blood, and they pass on the nourishment to you, and best of all, they reward you with another hit of that drug. Oh my God, it's good."

It bothered Bertrand that Malcolm dared to name God. "But you're killing people when you drink their blood."

"I do feel badly about that, but if I'm not doing it, then someone else will. I mean, there are thousands of us brids in Chicago. It's not my fault if I'm evolved and regular people aren't."

"You're not evolved!" said Bertrand. "You're frigging parasites. You're totally dependant on us. You aren't better. You're sick."

"I'm just peachy right now. But don't worry, we won't always have to kill to feed. We just have to get you guys organized and start you donating blood. I mean, we've had the technology to preserve blood in a drinkable form for years, but the boss didn't know about it until recently. Now that he knows it, we can change the order of things. I can tell you guys don't want to evolve, and you won't have to. You'll just have to get used to donating blood every month. It'll be like being drafted."

"My grandparents marched against the draft even though they were too old for it." Bertrand resisted the urge to strike Malcolm. It was cowardly to hit a helpless man.

Joyce—perhaps sensing Bertrand's rage, stepped closer to Malcolm. "Who is this boss?"

"He calls himself Vlad the Scourge but everyone knows he's Vlad the Impaler—not like the phony Count Dracula and all, but the real Prince Vlad who fought—like—the Turks or somebody way back in the dark ages."

"Bullshit," said Jeff, but his doubt showed in his frown.

"No really—like, I hear you guys met him so you know. Isn't he just totally
old
, and I don't mean like gray-haired old. I mean he doesn't talk like us or act like us and he's just so freaking ancient somehow. The bugs keep you alive if you have them long enough. They can repair your organs, pretty major cuts and eventually they even replace all the cells in your heart. It's like they all link together and become your heart, and they reproduce really fast. Vlad's probably all bugs by now, except maybe his skin and tongue and eyes, anything that sees a lot of light."

"If the bugs die in sunlight," Bertrand said, "then why don't you just go out in the day and purge yourself of them right away."

"Cause I don't feel like dying of a massive stroke." Malcolm looked from Joyce to Bertrand. "Don't you guys get it? There're millions of them in your blood, your organs, everywhere in your body. If they die, they come loose and totally clog up your veins and arteries. No more blood to the brain and massive stroke. Oh, and if you've had them a long time they've replaced the cells in—like—every organ of your body. Your heart, liver, stomach, they'd all just fall apart if the cells died. I mean, literally just crumble right inside you. Instant death."

Jeff broke the silence that followed Malcolm's tale. "I'd walk outside at first light or I'd eat my Ruger."

"Some people do that." Malcolm was totally unaware of the horror he had generated. "They can't handle having to drink and all. Vlad says it's because they weren't well chosen, that we have to find people who have a will to survive even if it means killing other people."