AfterAge (6 page)

"
Yeah!
" she yelled, her pulse hammering with excitement. The wind snatched her voice and tossed it away. "We're rolling now!" The buildings at their right grew larger with each passing block, the flats and apartment buildings giving way to the encroaching condominium complexes and skyscrapers.

And the Vespa carried them toward the heart of the city.

REVELATION 2:13

I know . . . where thou dwellest

even in those days.

~ * ~

"Place is turning into a regular city, ain't it?" C.J. grinned crookedly at Buddy McDole as they stood again at the window overlooking Michigan Avenue. "Must be the warm weather bringing 'em out, like the birds." C.J. had been outside earlier, and for the first time this year he'd heard the sparrows twittering wildly, as though today was the last day such racket was possible—which could always be true. Each morning that he didn't wake up dead—literally—surprised him. Now this woman rode boldly along Michigan Avenue on a sick-sounding motor scooter. C.J. studied her, puzzled; either she had only one huge tit or there was something stuffed into the front of her jacket.

McDole, as usual, kept his thoughts to himself as he watched the scooter's exhaust send puffs of white into the air, something the older man hadn't seen in quite a while. Another survivor, he thought, warm weather bringing them out, like the boy had said. He guessed spring would reveal a lot of people they hadn't discovered, and more of the ones they had—like that fellow this morning. While he'd known the man stayed at Northwestern, C.J. had sent Tala, a whip-thin eleven-year-old who ran like a gazelle, to follow in case the guy changed his habits; thirty minutes later she'd returned and reported the man had taken his prisoner into the hospital through a rear entrance.

McDole was impressed and worried at the same time. Although folks often went out alone, they never hunted in groups of less than three because of the danger of getting mesmerized, yet this guy had found and captured a vampire alone. But why bring it back instead of kill it? McDole hadn't seen any weapons; it was purely amazing that someone would go vampire hunting with no protection. Maybe the man had survived so far by blind luck; if that was the case, he was in for a monumental surprise at nightfall.

He turned his attention back to the woman below. There was no way to follow without being seen or heard. A lone woman who had survived the winter
and
the vampires was special, all right. Their group was mostly tough outdoorsmen and a sprinkling of once-white collars with more than average common sense. Two of the seven women in the group were over fifty, elderly in this new and dangerous age. With the exception of Tala, the others were older than C.J.'s seventeen and had no interest in him. The lithe quickness of the woman on the scooter hinted she was quite young and no doubt C.J.'d picked up on that.

But right now it was past mid-afternoon and he had other things to worry about. One of the women, Evelyn, was pregnant, and coming close to her time. McDole could think of no good reason for a healthy-looking man to hide in a hospital unless he was a doctor, and it was time they found out.

"I want you to go out," McDole said.

The teen brightened and his eyes flicked toward the receding scooter. “After her?"

"To Northwestern. Take Calie with you." C.J. raised his eyebrows and McDole nodded. "Find the guy we saw this morning, find out if he's really a doctor and what he's doing with that vampire. Go with Calie's instincts as far as telling him about us."

"But what about that woman?"

"A doctor's more important right now. If she's made it this far on her own, she'll last one more night. You can look for her tomorrow."

"Shit. She'll be long gone by then." The boy folded his arms sullenly, then shrugged, his brief rebellion already faded. "Never catch her now, anyway. I'll go find Calie.”

~ * ~

The hair along his forearms prickled and McDole knew Calie was there before she spoke in his ear. “Hi, boss." Her breath smelled like Juicy Fruit.

He frowned at her greeting, but her grin never wavered and he finally smiled. Calie was odd, all right; he tended to think of her as a girl, but in reality she was over thirty and endowed with a strange sixth sense that could judge a person's trustworthiness inside of five minutes. Beneath short brown hair, her friendly, pixie-like face was the smiling equivalent of a professional poker player's, and she brushed her teeth more than anybody McDole had ever known—probably to counteract the constant chewing gum. The woman had the sweet, innocent eyes of a teenage receptionist, and it had been Calie, not him, who had formed the first tentative alliances that had developed into this small underground, offering comfort and drawing the shell-shocked and sometimes-unpredictable survivors like C.J. together one by one, searching out their hiding places in the early months with an instinct no night creature would ever possess. Her implacable calm and inexhaustible strength had buoyed them all through some of the darkest, most unimaginable times . . .

Yet she insisted on calling
him
boss.

C.J. waited by the stairwell door with a crossbow under his arm as Calie pulled on a heavy denim jacket. "What are we doing?" she asked.

"We've been watching a man living at Northwestern," McDole told her. "I figure he might be a doctor, something we really need with Evelyn's baby about to drop. I want you guys to get in there and talk to him, see what he's all about."

"No problem," she said. She glanced at C.J. as she zipped up and her eyes narrowed. "What else?"

"He took a vampire back to the hospital with him this morning," said McDole. "We want to know why."

"A vampire?" Calie said wonderingly. "That’s different."

"He may not realize what he's getting into. He might need help tonight—
if
he can be trusted."

"I'll find out," she said. Before McDole could reply, their footsteps echoed down the stairway. Calie's sixth sense would locate the man easily, but what if
he
didn't trust
them
? He might refuse their help, or even run.

McDole went back to the window and peered out. A few wispy clouds floated in from the west, but farther out he could see a heavier accumulation. The cloud cover would cause an early dusk and slip their friend at Northwestern into unexpected danger.

~ * ~

"This is where he goes in." C.J. indicated a locked metal door in an alley behind the hospital. "If we break it down, it'll leave him open to an attack tonight."

Calie looked around calmly. "We'll find another way, then. It's a big building; there's bound to be a side door that we can nail shut again."

"What about the windows?"

"Probably locked," she answered. "Come on."

They circled the building silently and after a few minutes Calie relaxed and let her attention wander as C.J. carefully searched. Eventually he picked up a stick and poked behind a dumpster. "Here," he said suddenly. Grunting, he rolled the dumpster aside to reveal a wire-covered window at ground level. He rattled the covering experimentally. "Ifs loose enough for me to get at the screws."

"I know," Calie said from behind him. Her eyes were big and soft and brown, like a placid doe's, and C.J. stared for a second then dragged his gaze away. His skin crawled a little, but it wasn't the nasty feeling he got when he found a bloodsucker; instead, it was the delicious sensation of having experienced something
magical
, like déjà vu. He pulled a screwdriver from one pocket and attacked the metal frame; the first few screws were awkward, then the work went faster. Behind the metal covering, the dusty window was still locked.

Calie nodded at C.J.'s worried glance. "Break it—there's no other way in. We'll board it up and reinstall the cover later. With the dumpster in place, it won't look any different." She held out her hand and C.J. realized she'd picked up a brick even before he'd gotten the last screws loose. "Use this."

C.J. took the brick and bounced it in his hand a few times, feeling like a vandal. He could feel her staring at him again and he tossed the brick through the window just to give her something else on which to focus her attention; the glass cracked and fell inward with a muted tinkling. He kicked the loose pieces away from the window's edge, then squatted and felt around the sill until he found the lock. A few careful maneuvers and they stood inside. They were in an accounting office, surrounded by rows of desks like those C.J. had once seen in the traffic court office when he'd gone to pay a speeding ticket. Thick dust shrouded the furniture and the dark computer screens, making everything, even the paper strewn at each station, a solid, dull gray. Each desk was a portrait of its vanished owner; the one closest to the window was army-neat but for the shards of glass that had left skittering impressions in the grime across its top. Across from it was another whose surface was lost in untidy documents and jumbled office supplies, in the middle of which perched a framed photograph showing a bride and groom. The smiling woman looked a little like Calie.

"Come on, C.J." She said the words softly, but he still jumped. "Let's go find our man."

"Okay," he whispered, then cleared his throat and tried for a normal voice. "Lead on." She stepped around him and he followed her to the door and into the hallway. Although they were in a first-level basement, it wasn't as dark as expected; faint light spilled onto the pale linoleum from doorways on each side down to a stairway at the far end. She turned left without hesitating, as though she knew exactly where to look.

C.J. figured she probably did.

Ten more minutes of mazelike corridors and stairs and Calie raised a finger to her lips, then pointed to a left-hand door in a dead-end hall. C.J. had tracked their course and they were in a nearly pitch-dark branch of the fourth floor; all the doors here were closed except the one Calie was indicating, and the only light from behind came from a window made of thick glass blocks in the stairwell. They could hear someone moving around, and C.J. was relieved to see that at least they would confront the man in a well-lit room. On the other hand, the guy had stupidly bottled himself into a potential trap.

He and Calie eased silently into the room. The guy's back was turned and he didn't hear them; C.J. was so surprised that the fellow had lived this long he let a reckless, caustic "
Knock, knock!
" pop from his mouth around a big, shit-ass grin.

The guy jerked and spun, eyes bulging with shock.

"Hi, Doc," Calie said matter-of-factly. Then her gaze dropped and she gasped.

The doctor had slashed his wrist.

REVELATION 13:4
And he worshiped the beast, saying

Who is able to make war with him?

~ * ~

"Chow time!" Howard Siebold bellowed. "Hot food today!" Pushing a battered grocery cart that canted to the left, he shuffled down the corridor at a little after eleven. It would've been a helluva lot easier just to toss them boxes of dry cereal at six A.M. and be done with it, but for some reason the dweebs wouldn't eat in the dark. Since the Mistress got pissed if they didn't get fed, Howard had to screw up the best part of his day by cooking, and now he paused by each small room and slopped an army-style helping of congealed, steaming rice into a large paper cup. He'd been feeling creative today and had tossed a couple of envelopes of beef flavoring into the pot; he thought it tasted pretty good and these worms were damned lucky to get a meal that had taken two cans of Sterno to cook. He filled another cup with heavily sugared grape Kool-Aid and dropped a handful of saltines atop the rice. He figured that ought to cover everything: calories, starch, and protein. The Kool-Aid even had vitamin C.

The woman he'd beaten this morning cringed when she saw him and cowered against the wall. Howard chuckled when he saw the nasty red welts from his belt stippling her skin, some already darkening to bruises. He liked to see them like that, spirit broken and bowing to him. Two years ago it had been him sniveling before people in command, asshole businessmen in leather chairs and corner offices

("
Howard, I generally avoid making suggestions regarding personal hygiene, but I'm afraid if you want to continue employment, it will be necessary for you to . . . shall we say, trim down. Unfortunately, you don't present the professional image we need to maintain
.”)

—handing down orders like they were God and sticking polished noses into his private life. And where were they now? Dead, if they were lucky; if not, they were probably undead and starving, and that suited Howard just fine. Better, in fact.

His smile faded as the woman at his feet ignored the food and curled into a ball. Her back was a mass of colors and he wondered if her contempt had goaded him too far. It wouldn't hurt if she didn't eat for a day or two—most didn't—but Rita . . .

He shrugged and pushed the cart on. It was done now and he wasn‘t going to worry about it. He hadn't hurt her permanently, and she wouldn't be breeding material for another couple of weeks anyway. Then a beating would be the least of her worries. Besides, the last door on the right guaranteed his favor for a while.

A few rooms down, the guy who had given him a hard time earlier was dozing on wadded blankets in the corner and Howard quietly put the food down and backed out; his frustration was vented, and he didn't bother with grudges. Howard pitied him; initiation was over and tonight the prisoner's life would become one built on two-week cycles. In four hours the man would provide two or three vampires with a small meal, and every week they would feed on him again . . .
for the rest of his life
.