AfterAge (32 page)

. . . left.

When Deb had gone the day before, he had admired her confidence, her
trust
in what she'd believed the future held—though he wondered now how much of that trust had been an act. She had made him think that he could do more than just admire that certainty, that he could
believe
. Walking in the slowly warming air, Alex believed, all right. He had every faith in the world that in no time at all pain would fill the empty space that had once been his heart.

REVELATION 20:14

This is the second death.

~ * ~

I'm so cold
.

Who was this hard, oversized man sleeping beside her? Not Alex; though both men were dark, her lover was lean, with the sinewy build of a runner rather than weightlifter.

He must be one of the Red Things
.

There were Red Things in Deb's dreams now. The landscape of her mind welcomed them, sheltered them, hid them from her probing sleep-eyes. They flitted in a vast, shadowy chasm below a strip of brilliant, aqua-colored light, eternally separating her from the peace and warmth of the light itself. The stranger at her side tried to stop her as she reached for it, and she realized that he was doing her a kindness because the light would surely kill her. Still she wrenched free, ignoring his loss and sadness as she went to the light anyway.

Her fingers brushed it and a piece . . .
cracked
away, hung suspended in space for a moment, then hurtled toward her with frightening, inescapable speed.

REVELATION 10:6

And there should be time no longer.

~ * ~

"
Damn
it!"

Bill Perlman stopped just short of hurling the culture across the room. He sucked in a breath and held it, trying to still the thought that sang in his head on a continual, inescapable basis.

I'm not getting anywhere
.

There has to be some way to accelerate the mutation process
, he insisted mentally,
find the stimulation, the
catalyst
, more quickly
. His mind kept veering toward the people trapped in the Merchandise Mart. Suppose he did start the decomposition process again how would the vampires react? What if instinct propelled them into a feeding frenzy in the belief that their disease could be stalled or arrested by a massive intake of sustenance? Then those people would die and become vampires themselves, a useless and deadly transition. No, they had to be freed
first
. Turning back, he inserted another slide under the microscope, though he didn't need it to show what he already knew: the bacterium was dead, though it had been alive when he'd added the vampire flesh to the culture. By all the laws of science,
Clostridium
should have begun to feed immediately, as it had on the tiny slice of his own skin that had proved the culture was active. But once again nothing moved beneath the lens of his microscope. While Perlman could easily tell the dry, corky structure of the vampire cells from the global-shaped spheres of
Clostridium
, the quivering, twisting movement of only seconds ago had disappeared before he could even readjust the focus. Already the bacterium was forming the same woody, plantlike walls that apparently comprised the entire structure of the childbeast.

Perlman sat back and sighed. Even if he added blood, the vampire flesh absorbed it faster than he could get the slide into position. Nothing changed the view under the lens, and now even his subject was gone, since this morning he'd allowed the dangerous childbeast to be killed—a terrible thing to witness—and carried out into the sun. He told himself they were being merciful, though the boy's screams still rang in his mind and refuted his self-righteousness. Now he needed another subject but McDole was hedging, hinting that Perlman’s capture of the boy had been an amateur miracle. The doctor would've gone out alone again, but the bitter truth was that he thought the older man might be right. In the end, he had no subject.

And no progress, either.

REVELATION 8:11

And many were made bitter.

~ * ~

11:30 A.M.:

Hours and hours until the bloodsuckers came out.
And come out, they will
, Alex thought. He waved the bottle of Smimoff's, then toasted the unseen sleepers of the city

Come to Papa
.

He held up the vodka; only a fifth of the bottle was gone, not much considering that fourteen months ago he could've easily put away two six-packs. Two more inches of booze would make him pass out, but he wanted to do it right, so when he started feeling drunk, really
blasted
, he would guzzle the liquor like a cold lemonade at a company picnic. He shivered and took another swig, then made it two. He had to make sure he drank enough to keep him unconscious past dark. He didn't want to feel it when they got him.

A gust of wind hit the branches of the small trees surrounding his bench, making them shake as if in reproach.
Fuck it
, he thought.
Let's be honest. I'm sitting in front of my
house
and Deb knows where it is. I'm not waiting for some unknown bastard to come and bite me in the neck. I'm waiting for Deb to come and bite me in the neck
. He giggled. Love at First Bite
. . . do I look like George Hamilton?

Hell no. I don't even have a tan
.

"So," he said. His voice sounded loud and hollow as it floated across Daley Plaza. "Who did you think you were? Fucking Adam and Eve?" He regarded the plaza sourly and drank again. Sad little spots of moisture were all that remained of the freaky, one-day snow. "Shit. Like you were going to repopulate the world, asshole." Where
was
Deb? Was she a vampire? Or . . .
dead?
He couldn't decide which was worse, and it frustrated his muddled mind that there was a decision in there somewhere that he could have made instantly had he been sober. But not now Long black hair, ice-blue eyes. What color were her eyes now? Maybe they were . . .
red
.

He frowned at his bottle, wishing he had some o.j. He didn't want to get drunk as fast as it seemed to be happening, because quick wasn't necessarily
thorough
. Maybe he could do a better job if he had a mixer, which would mean he could drink
longer
, something that made perfect sense to him. A thought flared in his brain:
What if she didn't find him down here and something else did?
Time to go upstairs.

She won't be Deb anymore
, a vague voice in his head reminded him.

"Who said that?" Alex glanced around and stood, then laughed at how his eyesight was warping. "And so what if she isn't? Who the hell am
I
?" He gulped another mouthful of liquor as he staggered past the Picasso. Rage hit him as he made the corner closest to the door, and if he'd had two bottles, he would've hurled one at that ridiculous, looming statue.

"
I'll tell you who I AM!
" he screamed. He whirled haphazardly, the bottle flailing wildly and barely missing the metal doorframe as he fumbled through. "
I'm no-fucking-BODY, that's who!
" His voice choked off until it became a sob, then a gurgle.

"Nobody," he said again.

He slid down the cold frame, propping the glass door open with a booted foot.
Sure
, he toasted the open door with a numb wave,
I'll drink to that
. He turned his head with an effort and studied the Picasso statue swaying unsteadily across his vision. Wasn't it supposed to be a woman? Sober, he'd always thought it looked like an abstract horse; drunk, it didn't look like anything for which he could find a word.

Being drunk, he decided, was okay. He felt as if he'd been given a gigantic shot of Novocain, though certain parts of his body remained strangely sensitive. For instance, the muscles surrounding his mouth seemed to have frozen and words were becoming a real mess. He shrugged; without Deb, there was no one to talk to anyway. Other parts still felt normal, like his rump and his spine, which were freezing against the doorframe. And there was the shotgun he'd been dragging around since his visit to the Art Institute, digging into his side and making his ribs ache.
Don't need it anymore
, he realized;
don't
want
it
. He pushed it away with a nerveless hand, ignoring the clatter as it fell beside him. He scrunched up his face to see how much was numb as he inspected the Smirnoff's bottle; nearly half of its contents had disappeared. Had he really drank all that?

He swiveled his head to the right and tried to see into the building, but his eyes didn't want to work. Should he go up? He shook his head, the movement making him grin stupidly. Too much work, too many stairs. If he stayed down here, she could find him right away, though he should at least go
inside
so he wouldn't be an open appetizer.

But his muscles ignored his mental commands and his jerky efforts spilled him on his right side as he dragged himself not quite through, losing a helluva lot of booze in the process. He thought his foot might still be holding the door open, but did it really matter?

He squinted at the ceiling, wishing it were already dark. Wishing it were over.

I can't go on
, he thought sadly.
Not alone. I just can't
.

"I'm waiting," he said clearly.

He sobbed slightly.

Then passed out.

REVELATION 22:4

And they shall see his face. . . .

REVELATION 11:14

The second woe is past; and, behold,

the third woe cometh quickly.

~ * ~

"This is asinine," C.J. said impatiently. "What was Jo talking about, 'the key to the Mart'?"

"Well," Louise said, "she did say
him
. And she was always saying weird stuff about the Mart." She caught him peeking at her and blushed. They were retracing yesterday's route, headed for Daley Plaza as Jo had instructed. Almost all the snow was gone, the sidewalks nearly dry.

"Like what?" C.J. suddenly looked interested.

"She called it the 'Building of the Damned,'" Louise answered. "She never explained herself, but half the time I didn't know what she was talking about anyway."

C.J.'s face brightened. —‘Building of the Damned'—of course!" he exclaimed. "She's talking about the people on the third floor!"

Louise shoved her hands in her pockets. "What people?"

"There's probably twenty people being kept there as food by the vampires. We haven't figured a way to get them out yet."

Louise's mouth dropped and for an instant she forgot about Daley Plaza and Jo. "
Food
for the vampires? Oh, God, C.J.—that's
horrible
!"

"I know. But we're working on it." He scanned the sky out of habit as they came around the Daley Center, but it was a clear and beautiful blue. "That's why I was willing to make this trip, though we could be putting our time to better use. For one thing—"

Louise grabbed his sleeve. "Look!"

"What?" He followed her pointing finger, then sprinted to the slumped man wedged between one set of lobby doors. Not far from the guy's limp hand was a half-empty bottle of vodka that had rolled against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and tossed aside was a Winchester shotgun. Louise picked it up and tilted it over one shoulder.

"Stupid fool," C.J. hissed. He nudged the man's foot. "What the hell is he doing?"

"Hey, mister!" Louise said loudly. She shook the stranger's shoulder, but he only mumbled, his fingers clutching briefly at his missing liquor bottle.

His head lolled to one side and C.J. snorted. "Key to the Mart, my ass. This guy's so polluted he couldn't grope his way out of a can of Coke if somebody pulled the ring for him."

The drunken man's face, pale and framed by dark hair, was as calm and trusting as a sleeping baby's. Louise shook him again but got no response as C.J. kicked the bottle of Smirnoff's in disgust, watching it spin to the middle of the lobby and spew its contents onto the floor with a soft gurgling; the tang of alcohol immediately surrounded them. "Well?" she asked.

C.J. gave an exasperated sigh, then bent and pushed his hands under the man's arms. "We've either got to wake this joker up or carry him all the way to Water Tower. Help me stand him up." He grunted as they hoisted the unconscious man to his feet and struggled to hold him in place.

"What now?" Louise panted as she grappled with the man and the shotgun at the same time.

"We walk him," C.J. answered grimly. "Yell at him, slap him, find some water and douse him—whatever it takes."

She peered at the stranger's loose features, zonked out in blissful, oblivious dreams. "What do you suppose he'll say when he wakes up?"

In the strange, tinted glare cast by an old restaurant window they passed, C.J.'s face was greenish and cynical.

"He'll probably say we should've let him die."